Trump

[Buffy]

I am simply using logic and reason that is all.

...while blissfully ignoring 98% of the available data.

 

Segregation is how people want to solve the violence in the Middle East, liberals are all for segregation there, they complain about Jews building settlements in the West Bank. \

Actually dear, the Israeli settlements are the equivalent of building gated communities. Palestinians are not allowed in unless they have specific business there, which they never do. I guess being right next to Palestinians on the other side of a Trump-like 12-foot wall constitutes an "integrated neighborhood."

 

I am fine living with black Americans if they are patriotic and loyal to the country, if they are not, instead of them sticking around causing trouble, or plotting a revolution to carve out their own territory for black liberation, I would suggest they find their own country in Africa. I am not much into unnecessary Revolution and violence in our nuclear age. I want a peaceful planet.

"Patriotic and loyal" defined by your own willful ignorance of what they say, and guided by your general objection to the First Amendment.

 

Why do you hate the Constitution so, dear? Putin would love you though, and he's happy to have his friends move to the beautiful Crimean peninsula. You should move there: they all think like you do.

 

 

Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia, to work and eat in Russia, should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Sharia Law, then we advise them to go to those places where that's the state law, :phones:

Buffy

[TomKalbfus]

...while blissfully ignoring 98% of the available data.

 

 

Actually dear, the Israeli settlements are the equivalent of building gated communities. Palestinians are not allowed in unless they have specific business there, which they never do. I guess being right next to Palestinians on the other side of a Trump-like 12-foot wall constitutes an "integrated neighborhood."

 

 

"Patriotic and loyal" defined by your own willful ignorance of what they say, and guided by your general objection to the First Amendment.

 

Why do you hate the Constitution so, dear? Putin would love you though, and he's happy to have his friends move to the beautiful Crimean peninsula. You should move there: they all think like you do.

 

 

Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia, to work and eat in Russia, should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Sharia Law, then we advise them to go to those places where that's the state law, :phones:

Buffy

There is the fact that Palestinians kill innocent civilians deliberately in pursuing their political goals, maybe that's why Jews build gated communities. I have no objection to the First Amendment, but the First Amendment only limits what the government can do. The NFL is not the government and the First Amendment does not apply to NFL employees such as the players. The NFL and team owners can fire their employees for whatever reason they like, they just choose not to punish those players and are thus interpreted as supporting them in their unpatriotic display. The First Amendment gives me the right to complain about their behavior, it does not give the government the right to arrest them, but their employees can and should fire them for that. If the government does not get involved, then the First Amendment doesn't apply in that case, as it limits only what the Government can do.

 

Let me give you another example. Ever hear of the Mafia's "Code of Silence?" Does that violate the First Amendment if the Mafia enforces it?

[Buffy]

There is the fact that Palestinians kill innocent civilians deliberately in pursuing their political goals, maybe that's why Jews build gated communities.

So you're saying all Palestinians kill innocent civilians deliberately? Maybe we should just round them up and kill them all. I mean, if every last one of them is a homicidal maniac, why not?

 

Sounds like you're completely unaware that the settlements are being built on land that every country in the world except Israel has agreed belongs to the the Palestinians. In spite of our own "special relationship" with them, even the US agrees with this.

 

I have no objection to the First Amendment....

Sure ya do! This isn't about *enforcing* it, it's about *respecting* it. It's also about you having an abstract notion about what expressing dissent is: As the t-shirt I posted earlier expresses--and as we've seen endlessly in US History--the problem that minorities have with their grievances is being heard.

 

NFL players have chosen the opening of games to kneel precisely because it will get people's attention. They're not yelling and screaming. They're not breaking anything. They're silently making a point, and they're making themselves fully available in the press to explain what they're protesting.

 

But not only are "y'all mad," you insist on plugging your ears to ensure that you don't listen to them, you're screaming at the top of your lungs a fantasy interpretation of what they're saying and insisting that it's the only thing that matters.

 

That's selfish at the very least, but what it really shows is that you have no respect whatsoever for your fellow man.

 

Sounds like you think there's nothing wrong with that, but seriously, how's that workin' for ya?

 

 

 

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live, :phones:

Buffy

[TomKalbfus]

So you're saying all Palestinians kill innocent civilians deliberately? Maybe we should just round them up and kill them all. I mean, if every last one of them is a homicidal maniac, why not?

 

Sounds like you're completely unaware that the settlements are being built on land that every country in the world except Israel has agreed belongs to the the Palestinians. In spite of our own "special relationship" with them, even the US agrees with this.

 

The truth is not decided by a majority, right is right and wrong is wrong and is not the subject of a vote. The US agreed with it under Barack Obama, a bigoted President who hates Jews, he is probably the most anti-Semitic President we've ever had, and I would even throw in the one president of the Confederate States into that category, Jefferson Davis! Barack Obama was more anti-Semitic than Jefferson Davis!

 

Sure ya do! This isn't about *enforcing* it, it's about *respecting* it. It's also about you having an abstract notion about what expressing dissent is: As the t-shirt I posted earlier expresses--and as we've seen endlessly in US History--the problem that minorities have with their grievances is being heard.

 

If you were the owner of a restaurant, would you "respect" the First Amendment by not firing one of you waiters who was telling your customers to "F- Off!"? It is his freedom of speech that allows him to curse at your customers to his hearts content, and by doing so, he is hurting your business, would you allow him to continue to do that because you respect his freedom of speech, or would you fire him?

 

I would fire such a person!

 

The right to freedom of speech is not a right to be heard, you can't mandate that a person must have an audience whenever he speaks! The football players who are disrespecting the flag are hurting the business of the NFL, people are not attending the games because they are offended! Don't you get it?

 

NFL players have chosen the opening of games to kneel precisely because it will get people's attention. They're not yelling and screaming. They're not breaking anything. They're silently making a point, and they're making themselves fully available in the press to explain what they're protesting.

 

Just as in the example of a waiter that you hire using his place of employment and your restaurant to express his true feelings about some of your customers and driving them away at your expense! Tell me why such a person should not be fired for sabotaging your business? Are the football players more important than the fans? I guess you don't want patriotic Americans attending American football games, just skeptical liberals that hate America but still like American football, that is a much smaller audience of course, but if the football team owners don't like to make money, it is their choice! We fans are making our opinion known to them, so if they want us to continue to buy tickets and watch the games on television, they know what to do t correct the situation. Football players don't own the stadium, so they don't get to say or do whatever they want if it hurts their employer's business without consequences, the fans are telling the owners that their are consequences, they are booing when the players sit down for the anthem, and seats are empty because of it, and their are not enough America-hating liberals to fill them.

But not only are "y'all mad," you insist on plugging your ears to ensure that you don't listen to them, you're screaming at the top of your lungs a fantasy interpretation of what they're saying and insisting that it's the only thing that matters.

 

That's selfish at the very least, but what it really shows is that you have no respect whatsoever for your fellow man.

 

Sounds like you think there's nothing wrong with that, but seriously, how's that workin' for ya?

 

if they need to explain in words what they are doing when they so demonstrate, they are not demonstrating very effectively, if they appear to be disrespecting the flag and they have to explain that they don't mean any disrespect to the flag when they do that, then they need to d something else to get their message across. Most people interpret what they are doing as disrespect to the flag, because that I what it look like. Maybe they can d something to protest racial injustice without appearing to disrespect the American flag, just a suggestion!

[Buffy]

The truth is not decided by a majority, right is right and wrong is wrong and is not the subject of a vote.

Sounds like you're pretty sure you're the only one who has a franchise on the truth.

 

The US agreed with it under Barack Obama, a bigoted President who hates Jews, he is probably the most anti-Semitic President we've ever had, and I would even throw in the one president of the Confederate States into that category, Jefferson Davis! Barack Obama was more anti-Semitic than Jefferson Davis!

"Not agreeing with Netanyahu" is not equivalent to "hating Jews."

 

By your standards half of all Israelis and the vast majority of Jews in the US are anti-Semitic.

 

The US has always agreed with the right of the Palestinian people to have a state, and has always pushed Israel to accept it. Netanyahu is the only Israeli PM to ever consistently push to end the various agreements that say so, and so far he has not actually moved to fully annex the West Bank and Gaza.

 

Not only do you not know any of this, you probably don't care.

 

 

The rest of your post is completely unresponsive to my counter arguments, so since you're obviously avoiding reading it, here again is what an actual military veteran thinks about your unpatriotic obsession:

 

I’ve seen a lot of posts over the last 24 hours regarding “respecting the flag” and what that means…and how athletes who use their public forum to voice dissent are somehow “unpatriotic”. I want to offer a different opinion.

My father is buried at the foot of the flagpole in Golden Gate National Cemetery. He landed at Normandy, fought at the Battle of the Bulge and liberated Nazi camps in Germany. His enemy was fascism. I served as a Green Beret in the early 1970s (pretty sure you all know what that entails). Our enemy at the time was communism. My son is currently a serving officer in the Army, who on his dress blues wears the Bronze Star he was awarded during a year-long tour in Afghanistan. His enemy is and was the Taliban and the threat of terrorism.

Three generations of my family, serving the USA, in harms’ way. Three vastly different enemies, but enemies who shared one common trait. ALL of them stifle free speech. All of them bully, degrade and terrorize those who hold opposing views and who peacefully express them. All of them are intolerant and demand “loyalty” to the leader.

I can tell you, speaking for three generations of my family, it is PRECISELY for men like Kaepernick, and his right to peacefully protest injustice, that we were willing to serve. There is NOTHING more respectful of our country than living up to its ideals. There is nothing more patriotic than to say “I’m concerned with injustice, and will use my position to try and address it.”

Want to know what’s unpatriotic? Using your white privilege to avoid serving, citing “bone spurs in the heel” while playing varsity tennis at college while others went. Want to know what is antithetical to American values? Using the most powerful pulpit in the land to incite violence – against ANYONE. Want to define disgraceful behavior? Denigrating a man like Senator John McCain’s service and heroism while you sat home.

Want to respect the American flag? Then respect the ideals for which it stands. Bullying language and calling peaceful protesters “sons of bitches” who should be fired aren’t among them.

 

You're a mighty small man Tom.

 

 

We can’t always expect great things from great men; but we must always expect little things from little men, :phones:

Buffy

[TomKalbfus]

The US has always agreed with the right of the Palestinian people to have a state, and has always pushed Israel to accept it. Netanyahu is the only Israeli PM to ever consistently push to end the various agreements that say so, and so far he has not actually moved to fully annex the West Bank and Gaza.​

 

Which state do you want to give them? California? if the Russians want to give them a state, they've got plenty of territory to give them, so why don't they? they always want to give them someone else's territory that they don't possess, same goes for you. Do you own Israel? Is Israel your to give to whomever you want? Do you want to live in a peaceful world or do you want to encourage violence by giving people the impression that you will support them if they try to change borders and take land by force? All the Palestinians are doing right now is murdering people, sometimes children! Does that make you support them more or less? the Israelis have theirs, other people have a lot more land than they do. What about Egypt, one time there was a suggestion that the Egyptians give the Palestinians the Sinai peninsula, that in itself has a lot more territory than Israel proper, so why didn't the Palestinians go for it? Do you really believe this "flying horse" legend over the Dome of the Rock?

[Buffy]

they always want to give them someone else's territory that they don't possess, same goes for you. Do you own Israel? Is Israel your to give to whomever you want?

Ah, yes, I forget you believe that Israel was never Palestine and that there's no such thing as a Palestinian. Sad.

 

As I've said, not even the Israelis agree with you on this. Not even the conservative ones. If you're not willing to understand anything about reality, there's no point in discussing this with you.

 

 

It is pointless to try to make an illusion real, :phones:

Buffy

[Deepwater6]

Could this term get anymore bizarre and or surreal?  With his war on the media it's hard to disseminate what is true and what is false these days. Maybe a combination of both, who knows? With the staff (supposedly)? questioning his mental health, it becomes unnerving considering what the presidential capacity can allow someone in office to do.

 

Is there a test like a cat-scan for doctors so they can zero in or definitely determine the existence of dementia or Alzheimer's for a patient?   

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/politics/president-donald-trump-mental-fitness/index.html

 

 

 

[Maine farmer]

Could this term get anymore bizarre and or surreal?  With his war on the media it's hard to disseminate what is true and what is false these days. Maybe a combination of both, who knows? With the staff (supposedly)? questioning his mental health, it becomes unnerving considering what the presidential capacity can allow someone in office to do.

 

Is there a test like a cat-scan for doctors so they can zero in or definitely determine the existence of dementia or Alzheimer's for a patient?   

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/politics/president-donald-trump-mental-fitness/index.html

Have you ever watched a science fiction program or movie where there were people traveling to parallel universes?  It feels like we are living in some alternate reality.

 

Yet with all that is going on, my day to day life is much the same, so long as I don't pay attention to the news.

[exchemist]

Have you ever watched a science fiction program or movie where there were people traveling to parallel universes?  It feels like we are living in some alternate reality.

 

Yet with all that is going on, my day to day life is much the same, so long as I don't pay attention to the news.

This feeling will get even worse if Oprah Winfrey becomes the next Democrat president! Let's hope all that was just showbiz people demonstrating their usual self-absorption and hysteria. But then.... Trump is a showbiz person.........Yikes!

[Deepwater6]

I don't know Oprah's political stance on issues, but I'm going out on a limb and say she is slightly to the left. She would need someone a little more conservative to appeal to a broader base. How about Oprah and sheriff Arpaio as her running mate??? That would finally make it easier to get rid of that pesky title of "US Government" and we can just go with "Barnum Bailey Circus act.

 

Does anyone know what criteria must be met before the world deems America great again? 

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sheriff-joe-arpaio-running-senate-arizona/story?id=52235432

[Buffy]

... She would need someone a little more conservative to appeal to a broader base. How about Oprah and sheriff Arpaio as her running mate???

Somehow I don't see how having a guy who just admitted to running a concentration camp would bring in more than a handful of votes, but what do I know?

 

 

Does anyone know what criteria must be met before the world deems America great again?

As my ex-father-in-law likes to say, "it takes ten 'atta boys' to make up for one 'dumb ****.'"

 

He's a smart guy. Unlike some other guys who babble about "smart."

 

 

I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that! :phones:

Buffy

[exchemist]

I don't know Oprah's political stance on issues, but I'm going out on a limb and say she is slightly to the left. She would need someone a little more conservative to appeal to a broader base. How about Oprah and sheriff Arpaio as her running mate??? That would finally make it easier to get rid of that pesky title of "US Government" and we can just go with "Barnum Bailey Circus act.

 

Does anyone know what criteria must be met before the world deems America great again? 

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sheriff-joe-arpaio-running-senate-arizona/story?id=52235432

Well I think they need to kill off this residual white supremacist stuff. Trump's whole appeal is a coded message that he would undo everything that that nigger-in-the-White-House tried to do. Every single policy is motivated by overturning his predecessors' handiwork. Thankfully, most of it has failed. The number of Trump's followers is quite shocking.  

[Maine farmer]

This feeling will get even worse if Oprah Winfrey becomes the next Democrat president! Let's hope all that was just showbiz people demonstrating their usual self-absorption and hysteria. But then.... Trump is a showbiz person.........Yikes!

While I am sick as can be of our celebrity culture, Oprah Winfrey did build her fortune from a starting point of nothing, and she has been open with all of her struggles in life.  In many ways she does personify the American Dream.  She should at least be accorded the proper respect for that.

 

Still, whoever is in charge in Washington D.C., our lives never get easier.  I've never been one to pin my hopes on a president, or any other public official.  The best we can hope for is that they don't totally screw everything up.

[exchemist]

While I am sick as can be of our celebrity culture, Oprah Winfrey did build her fortune from a starting point of nothing, and she has been open with all of her struggles in life.  In many ways she does personify the American Dream.  She should at least be accorded the proper respect for that.

 

Still, whoever is in charge in Washington D.C., our lives never get easier.  I've never been one to pin my hopes on a president, or any other public official.  The best we can hope for is that they don't totally screw everything up.

Fair enough, showbiz isn't always a total disaster. Reagan seemed able to pick good people to do the work for him: he was just the communicator.  But then he had experience, as governor of California.  

 

Seems to me that after Trump the country should be crying out for a professional politician who can show some statesmanship. 

[Maine farmer]

Fair enough, showbiz isn't always a total disaster. Reagan seemed able to pick good people to do the work for him: he was just the communicator.  But then he had experience, as governor of California.  

 

Seems to me that after Trump the country should be crying out for a professional politician who can show some statesmanship. 

Reagan was a rarity in that even those who opposed him politically liked him personally.  He knew how to win people over.

[exchemist]

Reagan was a rarity in that even those who opposed him politically liked him personally.  He knew how to win people over.

We used to refer to him as President Ray-Gun, because of the Star Wars programme. But you're right, he had a disarming charm and the gift of simplicity.

 

Seriously, it is an important part of democratic leadership to be able to communicate with the people you have been elected to serve. Clinton was good at that, too (Bill, I mean, not his wooden and shapeshifting wife). And Kennedy. And FDR.  Churchill was good at it too - in wartime only. And so in her odd way was Thatcher: even though people disliked her, they got her point.

 

But you have to be able to assemble and run a competent team as well.   

Edited January 10, 2018 by exchemist