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2020 election

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2 hours ago, necrovore said:

Tucker Carlson wants to see the evidence, too.

And I was glad to see it.

Still, there comes a point when continuing to ask for evidence, as though the matter is wholly unsettled, is itself questionable. Trump's lawyers have brought case after case in multiple states before multiple judges, and the judges have asked them for evidence -- for the merits of their many claims. Trump's lawyers have failed to provide it, time after time. The judges have thrown out their suits, and yet their claims (in public, in the media) don't fade -- they intensify, grow more grotesque and outlandish.

At some point here (which we are well past, imo), the rational conclusion becomes: Trump, Giuliani and others are making these things up. Insisting with every fresh charge that, "well, let's wait to see the evidence first," as though we've learned nothing from our past experiences, as though there is no connection between the earlier claims and these fresh ones, starts to seem less like epistemic virtue and more like credulity, or worse.

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Much has been said about our "cultural institutions" and whether we can trust them.

I don't think placing complete trust in any person or institution is a good idea, generally.

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Because of both right and left, I'm reluctant to trust someone merely because they are in a position of authority. I want to see their evidence.

I understand and agree, but we can't be so granular in our attention to every specific charge that we fail to recognize the broader perspective or trends. We cannot lose sight of the forest.

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I just don't see what the point would be of creating doubt, if they don't have the evidence to maintain it. Without evidence the doubt will collapse.

Fair enough. I don't think Trump is a very rational human being, and so his motives are sometimes opaque to me as well. I've heard it speculated that, by continuing to fight, he is inspiring further financial donations to his various funds. Also that there is perhaps some personal, petty motive at play (taking revenge against political rivals or something). Personally, I think that it's as simple as this: he intends to continue to be President no matter what, including the fact of having lost the election.

Further, and as far as not having the evidence to back up his claims is concerned, remember that Trump's audience, to a large extent, are people who are used to believing in things without evidence. They are also people who have been trained to believe that the only trustworthy, credible source of information is... Donald Trump.

1 hour ago, EC said:

So, to be explicit, you believe Trump is attempting a coup. I actually wish this were true to keep Biden and the evil Left out of power, but the truth is Trump doesn't have the balls to actually do this. Therefore it, sadly, won't happen. 

To be as explicit and truthful as possible, I don't know. I think it's possible that he's attempting a coup (that would certainly be the substance of it, if his several various legal ploys and claims were all acted upon; I think he would happily be the beneficiary of a coup, were it available). I also think he's chaotic and mercurial and unprincipled and ignorant and perhaps doesn't even realize what he's intending or pushing us towards.

Edited by DonAthos
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6 hours ago, necrovore said:

Much has been said about our "cultural institutions" and whether we can trust them.

Since your post was in response to me generally, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by saying it's hard to trust different cultural institutions. You are preaching to the choir. We aren't random people here. Either that, or it sounds like you believe it's a pretty new idea about distrusting the media and various cultural institutions. As if this is some new realization in the past 10 years.

6 hours ago, necrovore said:

Much has been said about our "cultural institutions" and whether we can trust them. They used to be more trustworthy, but they have been taken over by the left. This was not a sudden thing, either; it has been going on for long enough that Ayn Rand was aware of it.

You do realize that this is a leftist theory, except replace "the left" with 'liberals". Noam Chomsky called and wants his theory back. And he's probably not the first person to come up with that. 

===

6 hours ago, necrovore said:

I just don't see what the point would be of creating doubt, if they don't have the evidence to maintain it. Without evidence the doubt will collapse.

 

6 hours ago, necrovore said:

When institutions stop making reference to reality, and start making reference to leftist theories instead, they lose their credibility, except with people on the left who believe those theories.

You answered it yourself. We can fix it to say "start making reference to right wing QAnon or deep state theories". The only evidence they need is the "evidence" that the election might be fraudulent, the possibility, the sliver of doubt. Which I think you have started to fall for. 

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On 11/19/2020 at 6:51 PM, Eiuol said:

Yup. Failure to succeed, ultimately not effective enough. 

Meaning that effective leaders are good at persuasion. Winning an election is about persuading a populace. 

 

"Winning an election is about" being perceived by the populace as the right man/woman for the job. For good or bad. So it all comes down to what standards - moral, philosophical, and other - most of the people hold. You continue to stick with this authoritarian and skeptical position - i.e., a single individual, the president, is responsible for changing people's personal ethics and philosophies. Otherwise he's a failure. One can't lead where the majority won't follow.

Edited by whYNOT
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About this purported election fraud by some/many Democrat election officials - or planned by the DNC. I have not the slightest doubt that if they could have they would have. Even if they didn't. One has had to have followed countless remarks by Leftists during the Trump term, all along the lines of "whatever it takes!" (To get rid of Trump). Then you better know their character, the nature of the beast. Crash the economy, take him out...etc. Said publicly to much approval. You've got to realize that these people believe they are and were absolutely morally right. They heroically had to stop the rise of "a Hitler", I've regularly heard locally and abroad, and other such garbage.

Edited by whYNOT
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On 11/19/2020 at 6:51 PM, Eiuol said:

 

Don't say things like this when you told me before that you had opportunity to move to the US and chose not to. I really recommend living here before you go on talking about what people in the US want or are afraid of. You have news reports, that's about it. 

Always your (skeptical) drift is to dismiss my input for not being myself an American. Tantamount to stating one has to taste all the oceans to discover the sea is salty. I'm pretty good at understanding people's fears, motives and premises, and the ideological Leftist is identical here to yours there, with a few local variables. As I've told you my sources are many, over five decades, including from individual Americans I'm in contact with. And is the USA as concept -and- individual, daily, reality understood fully by many Americans themselves? But I avoid the simplistic mistake of thinking I really know the country. The more I have learned the less I know, it feels. The nation, main philosophies, culture(s) and all its concrete manifestations is a huge abstraction to take in, somewhat more than other places. But freedom, sovereign individualism and how and why they surrendered, I have a good idea of. Given up for what?

Safety - and now seen and heard everywhere: "Love and kindness". That sort of "love", indiscriminate, non-specific and selfless, is the undoing of kindness and any benevolence. (O'ists know).

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6 hours ago, whYNOT said:

You continue to stick with this authoritarian and skeptical position - i.e., a single individual, the president, is responsible for changing people's personal ethics and philosophies. Otherwise he's a failure. One can't lead where the majority won't follow.

It's very simple. Effective leaders are good at persuading. Effective leaders of the US are good at persuading the majority to follow, to believe that your policies are the right ones. I have no idea how you got this idea that I think the leader needs to make people change their personal ethics and philosophy. Not to mention I have the personal ethics you are talking about anyway, and I was never persuaded he was worth listening to. 

5 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Always your (skeptical) drift is to dismiss my input for not being myself an American.

No, I'm criticizing you for talking about how you think American culture is while being ignorant about American culture. I met I didn't really say it in good faith (the irony of you saying that other people are afraid of freedom but then you had the opportunity to go to the US but chose not to, as if you were afraid of freedom), but my point is that you are making too strong a claim about how Americans are. You need to live here, or any country, before you even suggest that half the populace is afraid of freedom. Yes, you can get some big picture ideas, but still be pretty wrong about most people.

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So the DNC/ Biden persuaded a majority of voters to view their policies as good ? A majority of American voters back the Democrat Party platform?

Biden as a leader articulated a cohesive enough argument to persuade a majority? The campaign had no advantage or assistance to their efforts in formulating the presentation and dissemination  of their policies that Trump’s campaign did not enjoy to the same extent?

The main media and social media platforms acted independently and covered the candidates in equitable fashion. Seeing or pointing out bias in treatment to the respective campaigns is fringe thinking ? 

Or is the argument that media plays a negligible role in affecting public opinion?

Covid coverage, riot coverage none of it was slanted and or had little effect? 

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2 hours ago, tadmjones said:

So the DNC/ Biden persuaded a majority of voters to view their policies as good ? A majority of American voters back the Democrat Party platform?

Not good, just better. I mean, of course the media is used as a machinery to convince, but Trump does exactly the same thing. And in the end, more people preferred Biden. And yes, some of that means he used the media better than Trump. Nothing more than that.

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Not good, just better. I mean, of course the media is used as a machinery to convince, but Trump does exactly the same thing. And in the end, more people preferred Biden. And yes, some of that means he used the media better than Trump. Nothing more than that.

I’m saying it is beyond obvious that the “media” colluded with Biden’s campaign to provide the most favorable coverage possible , including stifling information harmful to the campaign and Biden personally, while simultaneously attacking Trump.

Odd that Trump’s impeachment wasn’t a talking point . One would think impeachment would cast doubt on a president’s credibility.

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20 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

I’m saying it is beyond obvious that the “media” colluded with Biden’s campaign to provide the most favorable coverage possible

I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me. Yeah, this is how politics has worked in the US since the beginning. I used the word machinery to convey that I don't think the media is honorable and that the candidates aren't usually either. 

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7 hours ago, Eiuol said:

It's very simple. Effective leaders are good at persuading. Effective leaders of the US are good at persuading the majority to follow, to believe that your policies are the right ones. I have no idea how you got this idea that I think the leader needs to make people change their personal ethics and philosophy. Not to mention I have the personal ethics you are talking about anyway, and I was never persuaded he was worth listening to. 

 

Waiting to be persuaded, is the agnostic's excuse for inaction and fence-sitting. Use your own mind, look and see. How do you fail to see that it's the majority of individuals and their dominant ethics/philosophy, their virtues and evasions and feelings and failings, fears and hopes, which determine political outcomes? Some president may do all the good he can do, but if not recognized as "good", say, by people who desire the unearned through a sacrificial morality, or want their fears allayed by an authority figure - he's not going to persuade one person.

Ethics: "A code of values to guide man's choices and actions".

A "choice" in a rational individual's life, is which political dispensation and candidate is best that one should support? in a given context (and by one's hierarchy of values) by the standard of value, man's life. E.g. more freedom, more recognition of individualism, a free-er economy, fewer inessential military interventions, and so on.

Said before, today look at a leader's actions - above words, mannerisms, style ... etc., etc.

"Effective leaders of the USA" - and I think of Kennedy, Reagan, Obama - have been fine and articulate orators.

May be that's the trouble, over time, globally cultivating a modernist culture of noble words over substance, and words divorced from actions. Trump's base obviously saw his actions and understood his meaning and purpose, inarticulate as he was mostly.

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Not good, just better. I mean, of course the media is used as a machinery to convince, but Trump does exactly the same thing. And in the end, more people preferred Biden. And yes, some of that means he used the media better than Trump. Nothing more than that.

Did Biden use the media or did the media use Biden? Why is it okay for the Leftist media to install a puppet/dictator?

The man's first plan is to rejoin The Paris Accord. How can any true Objectivist support this? I don't believe the majority of people here or in ARI are actual Objectivists anymore after the support of a left-wing extremist candidate.

Edited by EC
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3 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Not good, just better. I mean, of course the media is used as a machinery to convince, but Trump does exactly the same thing. And in the end, more people preferred Biden. And yes, some of that means he used the media better than Trump. Nothing more than that.

Visible and heard to any viewer of all the main media for four years, completely wrong. The exact opposite.

The media "used" Trump (and Biden) to their ideological-ethical goals. Trump had little or zero chance to "use" them to his benefit. Obviously- whoever came against him would be the media's darling. Geez, you are blind to the toxic, prejudiced media.

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55 minutes ago, EC said:

 

The man's first plan is to rejoin The Paris Accord. How can any true Objectivist support this? I don't believe the majority of people here or in ARI are actual Objectivists anymore after the support of a left-wing extremist candidate.

Yes, and the "Iran Nuclear Deal" looks likely to be back. Return to appeasement of the country which is the largest supplier and supporter of war and occupation in the M.E. Would anyone trust them with nuclear 'power'?

Remember the Syria war and al-Assad's mega-civilian deaths?

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic are close strategic allies, and Iran has provided significant support for the Syrian government in the Syrian Civil War, including logistical, technical and financial support, as well as training and some combat troops.

 

 

Edited by whYNOT
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55 minutes ago, whYNOT said:

Trump had little or zero chance to "use" them to his benefit.

By your own words then, Trump was ineffective at stopping them. He was effective last time. But I think it's naïve to think that Trump didn't manipulate the media as well. He just used a different strategy. The strategy was not enough to convince the majority that he was preferable. 

1 hour ago, EC said:

Did Biden use the media or did the media use Biden? 

It goes both ways. 

Edited by Eiuol
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10 hours ago, EC said:

 How can any true Objectivist support this? I don't believe the majority of people here or in ARI are actual Objectivists anymore after the support of a left-wing extremist candidate.

For causes best known to themselves, ARI has come down on the wrong side of history. It has appeared for the last years more Left-libertarian than the representative of Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

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9 hours ago, Eiuol said:

 

By your own words then, Trump was ineffective at stopping them. He was effective last time. But I think it's naïve to think that Trump didn't manipulate the media as well. He just used a different strategy. The strategy was not enough to convince the majority that he was preferable.

My endless fascination with that curious combination of gullibility and cynicism, heard at large and even among O'ists...

How about this scene: The Press has lied, deceived and groomed the 'news' towards its agenda of a continuing Obama legacy and the ends of directing the control of power to the self-righteous Left through dividing the nation. I.e.. Divide and rule. (Quote: It's your minds they want);

while President Trump, appearances, erraticisms and his tactical deceptions to the contrary, has been the honest man, one who didn't try to "manipulate the media". (if there'd been any but a few who would have responded). Honest individuals presume upon others' good faith and equal honesty, they don't try to manipulate perceptions of reality in their favor.

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5 hours ago, whYNOT said:

while President Trump, appearances, erraticisms and his tactical deceptions to the contrary, has been the honest man, one who didn't try to "manipulate the media".

Which I think is naïve to believe (tactical deception of the media is manipulation anyway and all I meant). That's not an argument on my part. Do you forget though that Trump has very strong allies in the media in general (Fox sometimes, and Breitbart although it is not really mainstream)? And that Trump is really good at making bad press into good press? 

But I still don't know why it's so hard to acknowledge that whatever you think of Trump, he was ineffective at stopping his opponents. You can argue that he was effective at other things, but certainly not effective at winning...

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I do like tactical deceptions, more to the point .

How long has it been , since a billion dollars is just a billion dollars, seriously 10 yrs ?

Biden's peacocking at the CFR about having the juice to withhold the billion from Ukraine.. " ..and son of bitch he got fired..." was an example of how endemic the corruption and pilfering of the US really is , no ?

The right sees it as an excuse to voice an uproar against Biden's personal corruption but with no equal uproar about an aid package like that for Ukraine, and that was a billion in what 2015 or 14 ? How many packages are doled out like that every year to how many entities?

Yeah Trump didn't convince enough of the electorate to win a second term, that's what got him.

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15 hours ago, merjet said:

Huh? Trump has been honest? Now that's hyperbole.

At one level it's apparent he hasn't contained his reactions and emotions (inferring his "value-judgments"). We read his Tweets seeing - exactly - what he thought/felt at that very moment, about anyone and any issue. Not passing this off as his "honesty", mind you, but it's been in stark contrast to the career politico who picks his words, arranges his facial expressions and hedges with double-speak forever aware of his mass image, telling the public practiced lies they want to hear.  I found Trump's off the cuff impulsiveness a refreshing departure even if I cringed a little, knowing how his words would be used against him.

But much further: Trump made his intentions clear immediately, four years ago: make America great again. (Not a popular notion to US cynics overseas, or there; a tamed and 'ordinary' US suits their ideology and aims).

Build that wall. Cut those regulations. Bring the troops home. End that one-sided (sacrificial), trade, or environmental or defense deal. America will never be Socialist...

There is more to list.

The point being he said it, meant it, stuck to his goals and as much as he could do, followed the words through. Despite surely knowing they'd cause him immense unpopularity and lost votes. I'd call that a measure of integrity. By his lights, agree or not with the principles and policies, what he did was always for Americans and the USA, highlighting the pride in being American and individualist. How is that bad? He has - over all - been a blast of raw energy and candor in a stale and conformist, ultra-politically-correct, time - ruled by the elite class. One reason Trump the maverick deplorable was so hated by them.

I won't this time go into the sheer, conniving dishonesty, by contrast, of his foes and ("fake")media who'd willingly hurt the nation and fellow countrymen to get him gone. They made remarks and suggestions bordering on treason that were approved of by many. By design or not (I believe there was) he exposed the premises of his enemies.

Edited by whYNOT
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13 hours ago, tadmjones said:

I do like tactical deceptions, more to the point .

Is it moral to deceive the immoral, those clearly out to get you and more to the point, what you hold dear?

I think so.  The alternative is self-sacrifice to sacrificers. 

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