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geo

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Re: Trump Watch

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Harry Marks wrote:So the question is, under what protocols could we celebrate together safely? . . . So it is up to the leadership to find ways to allow these things safely. Sadly, the Divider-in-Chief doesn't care about finding anything except finding a confrontation to jump into.
There's absolutely no reason for Trump to weigh in on this topic. As you say, he only seeks to make himself the center of attention, and the media usually complies by reporting every tweet and every knee-jerk comment.

The decision—how and when—to go back to public worship is decided by each states and by each denomination. Hopefully the decision is informed by science and prioritizes the safety of church-goers. Trump is literally the last person anyone should take advice from.
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Re: Trump Watch

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There's absolutely no reason for Trump to weigh in on this topic.
There is no law that exists which prevents him from doing so. NONE. The president also is granted freedom of expression.


This is you being unhappy personally abut it and that is all.


It is preposterous for you to say a president of the united states should stay silent about an institution of our country that has played a significant role in its history - whether you want to admit that or not. Absolutely preposterous.
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Harry Marks
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Re: Trump Watch

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ant wrote:The point is to start by allowing them the freedom to worship, after that, each should responsibly find methods to return to safe congregated services.
It is not his place to allow them that freedom and then tell them how they should go about worshiping in this new world of ours.
No, I disagree with that. There are limits to how people can go about exercising their freedom of religion. If, for example, they deny women the right to own property, or insist on spreading ebola through unsanitary burial rites, then the state needs to step in. Religion is not a free ticket to do terrible things to other people. I just think the re-opening has gone far enough that churches should be allowed if they can find safe processes.
ant wrote:I think your claim that you are "sympathetic" to their position is overshadowed by some need to play to the Trump Derangement crowd that lives for hyper criticism of his every move and word.
It is psychologically important for you to jump on the bandwagon and be accepted by its occupants. I have a good mind of what that reason is.
I doubt you understand. I am steeped in the views of economists, who tend to hold that free markets are excellent at organizing and motivating economic activity -- unless what one person does to make money has serious side effects on others. Then the law has an important role in stepping in to manage the incentives involved. We tend to be a libertarian crowd - if people want to handle poisonous snakes as part of their worship, that is their lookout. But if they think it is necessary to turn the poisonous snakes loose on others, well, then, their freedom of religion stops where endangerment of others starts.
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
Thanks for the good advice. Always helpful, but I don't think it is apropos here.
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Re: Trump Watch

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I doubt you understand
Not necessarily.
I doubt you understand what's really going on under the surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conf ... xperiments
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Harry Marks
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It's pretty difficult to respond to a claim of "just conforming". If you agree with people, you can be accused.

If you think I am wrong, state your case.
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Re: Trump Watch

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This is, largely, preaching to the choir. Nor can I say, incredibly, that with the murder allegation against Joe Scarborough, Trump has reached a new low. He has no bottom. No doubt his defenders will protest, "He didn't accuse Scarborough of murder. This is another instance of Trump Derangement Syndrome!" But he might as well have made an outright accusation; the effect on Scarborough and the family of the dead assistant is the same. And what kind of willful avoidance does it take not to ask yourself, what kind of person would say these things? "A cruel, sick, disgusting person"? Mika Brzezinski gets it about right.

No president in our history has been worse. It can't be happening that we have this man as our leader.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
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Re: Trump Watch

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DWill wrote:Trump has reached a new low. . . .
Even a FoxNews pundit thinks this President has reached a new low. He must have come down with "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Brit Hume wrote:"30K retweets for this discredited tale, based on a three-year-old post from some wing-ding website," Mr Hume tweeted. "This is why even his critics should want DJT to play a lot of golf, because when he does, he's not tweeting c**p like this."
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-scarboroug ... on-1506329
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Harry Marks
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Re: Trump Watch

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DWill wrote: Nor can I say, incredibly, that with the murder allegation against Joe Scarborough, Trump has reached a new low. He has no bottom
:cry: :no: :weep: :crying:
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Re: Trump Watch

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Now people in the MSM are saying Trump accused Scarborough of murder to distract from the 100,000 milestone. From what I have seen of narcissists, this would be entirely in character.

So does that make the crime less bad, or worse? Do we make allowances for "mixed motives" as Dershowitz argued in the Ukraine impeachment hearings? If there is some iota of public policy rationale, (and re-election seems to be an acceptable one if you buy the Dershowitz line) does that little bit of end justify a massive violation by means? Or does the use of a "fig leaf" of rationale amount to a poisonous cynicism that drags everyone down and needs to be met by particular vigilance?

I tend to say, "both". That we can't rule out balancing tests, but neither can we ignore norm-busting, limit-pushing degradation of the public sphere. The Roy Cohns and Joe McCarthys and Dick Nixons and Elijah Muhammeds and Huey Longs of any culture need to be held at arm's length because buying into their behavior distorts and weakens the people who back them.

I tend to put a lot of faith in the private conversations by which people in authority juggle the various principles at stake. Those conversations can end up endorsing power and its ways, but they do make some room for private conscience and the sensitivity people have to right and wrong. I have seen it at work in Washington - someone putting in a private word, something for others to think about, without trying to "litigate" the issue with arguments that everyone recognizes have a self-serving side.

You can imagine the private conversations among the Republicans around the subject of the Trump Administration. The Devin Nunes "we will lose all this" argument, and the McConnell "don't give an inch" approach, are being tested by the degree of cynicism in the White House. Some never-Trump Republicans are creating super-PACs to oppose Trump, such as the Lincoln Project (featuring George Conway) and its ability to raise $1.4 million by putting an ad on Fox that triggered Trumpian temper.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/maga ... ogin=email [paywall after a certain number of stories in a month]

Their party leader has been impeached by a House representing the majority of Americans. And does he soften his approach in response? You must be thinking of the other Donald Trump, the one who understands checks and balances and doesn't fire IG's who irritate him by doing their job. So maybe gerrymandering and voter suppression will buy them some time? But in the meantime, they look worse and worse.

But they all have some conscience - even the narcissist in the Big House has some conscience - and they all know that they could end up like Jeff Sessions or Joe Scarborough for exercising that conscience. Neither Trump nor Murdoch/Ailes nor Rush Limbaugh created such a system, but Dear Leader has scratched and bit and caterwauled to make it as unforgiving as possible, and he regularly recruits worthless sycophants and ruthlessly jesuitical Macchiavellis to staff it out. We can all marvel at the crazy guy in "Cape Fear" who scares us with his sheer determination to extract every pound of flesh he can claim, but would you really want one leading your country?
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Re: Trump Watch

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I have noticed that Trump routinely and constantly makes major gaffes, but the very constancy of his gaffeness seems to lead to an "Oh that's just our Don" attitude.

For example his "Badge of Honor" gaffe about the US Covid mortality rate was incredibly stupid and cruel, but I never saw media calling it a gaffe.

By contrast, Biden makes a tiny joke and the gaffometer goes off the deep end.
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