For those who defend Trump

[havok579257]

18 hours ago, Peace said:

That isn't what president Obama said, but no worries.

Do you have Cerebro or some other mind reading device? I can't speak for all black people, but I can tell you that there is at least one named Peace who does not think in such a simplistic manner.

So because the president implies something and doesn't explicitly say something he can't be held acountable for what he implies?

 

Maybe you don't think in such a simplistic manner but it is absurd to think no one would think in such a simplistic manner.  Just like I doubt you would consider violence against police officers because of what is going on but yet some people do.  

23 minutes ago, <3 PopeFrancis said:

Wow!

I don't like it, but with faith this will not fly eg. The pipeline "issue" could not have been put at bay without faith in God.  It would not have happened.

There is a window of opportunity in which we make a difference while Trump is figuring the ropes of the Office of Presidency by fighting for keeping our rights.

The point is there would not have been this window with Hitlery

what rights do we have currently that you think trump is going to remove from us?

2 hours ago, Peace said:

The data below is from the Officer Down Memorial Page:

http://www.odmp.org/

Non-Accidental Officer Gunfire Deaths by year, under George Bush & Barack Obama

George Bush:

2001: 65

2002: 57

2003: 49

2004: 56

2005: 54

2006: 51

2007: 67

2008: 41

TOTAL: 440

Barack Obama

2009: 47

2010: 59

2011: 68

2012: 48

2013: 31

2014: 48

2015: 39

2016 (YTD): 60

2016 (Projected): 65 *

TOTAL: 405

* To obtain this number I projected the year to date figure to the end of the year by multiplying 60 by 12/11.

i guess i don't understand what this has to do with Obama's comments and implication that police officers killed people because they were black before any investigation was completed? So because less people have died under his presidency than Bush's, that some how makes his implications ok?

[<3 PopeFrancis]

On 11/30/2016 at 9:32 AM, Anomaly said:

Papist, 

Is it possible that the voter ID laws, while sounding reasonable on one hand (providing security to process), could also be about voting demographics?   Certain demographics find it difficult to also obtain additional identification documents or vote in a small window of time?

Although not intentionally racist (who cares who votes for you as long as they aren't voting for the other guy), but effectively racist?   For example, gerrymandering done by both parties?  It's political gamesmanship.  The obvious fact is that minority's tend to vote Democratic.   Any effort to reduce potential Democrat votes can be seen as racist in effect, if not intent.  

Intention is hard to defend against another's perception of observed effect.   Most people are not really open minded, and it's very hard to give the "enemy" the benefit of the doubt in their intention. 

[As an aside, I strongly support voter ID laws "if" combined with extended voting periods, like two weeks.   I am dubious of mail-in or future on-line voting.  We have to confidence in accessible and secure voting.]

ran out of props.  prop.

 

2 hours ago, havok579257 said:

what rights do we have currently that you think trump is going to remove from us?

Not getting into that Politics has worn me out Happy the election is over.

[Socrates]

On 12/1/2016 at 0:03 AM, Peace said:

Congratulations.

Thank you.

On 12/1/2016 at 4:16 PM, CatherineM said:

It's been my experience here that lack of ID has more to do with poverty than skin colour. I've paid for over a dozen ID's for kids in the last year or so. We require an ID to vote here. It hasn't ended society so far. 

North Carolina was issuing voter IDs for free, so cost/poverty wasn't really an issue, at least in NC.

As for people living a long distance from the DMV or wherever, if anything that would seem to affect white people more, who are more likely to live in remote rural areas.

[Socrates]

While it's true that Obama has not actually called for anybody to kill cops, he has repeatedly lied and used rhetoric falsely implying that police across our country tend to disproportionately target blacks for killing, when all the available facts indicate otherwise.  http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437691/barack-obamas-police-violence-rhetoric-harmful

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437775/our-leaders-have-opted-sympathy-instead-action

But on the topic of discussing the alleged racism of the GOP, Keith Ellison, a member of the vehemently racist and anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, is a serious contender for chair of the DNC.  One can only imagine the uproar if someone with an equivalent background were being considered for the RNC chair.  Or is racism okay, so long as the racist is black, or the racism is against whites/Jews?

Edited December 7, 2016 by Socrates

[Peace]

11 hours ago, havok579257 said:

So because the president implies something and doesn't explicitly say something he can't be held acountable for what he implies?

The president can be accountable for what he implies. But I believe that he did not imply what you stated.

I do not believe that either of us can prove or disprove what was implied by his remarks, so I propose that we agree to disagree concerning this.

11 hours ago, havok579257 said:

Maybe you don't think in such a simplistic manner but it is absurd to think no one would think in such a simplistic manner. Just like I doubt you would consider violence against police officers because of what is going on but yet some people do.  

I did not say that no one thinks in that manner. Plenty of people on the planet Earth think all sorts of things. My next door neighbor thinks that he is the Easter bunny. That does not make it reasonable for him to do so. Charles Manson may listen to a Beatles song and decide to start killing people, but does Paul McCartney have blood on his hand for the murders?

As another example, Donald Trump and other politicians have recently spent a lot of time speaking about problems associated with illegal immigration, and stressing the need to better enforce our borders. These are legitimate topics. If someone listens to these comments and then assaults a person of Mexican descent, are Donald Trump and those politicians to blame for it?  Most people would say no, because the issues are legitimate topics of discussion, and no sane person would listen to their comments on the topic and thereby be motivated to commit violence.

So the question concerning President Obama's comments is whether they are comments that would motivate a sane person to commit violence against a police officer. I do not believe that they are.

Apparently you and some others believe otherwise. I do not see a point in debating it further. I don't think we will reach any consensus on this point, so I propose that we also agree to disagree here.

11 hours ago, havok579257 said:

i guess i don't understand what this has to do with Obama's comments and implication that police officers killed people because they were black before any investigation was completed? So because less people have died under his presidency than Bush's, that some how makes his implications ok?

Well again. I do not believe that he implied what you believe he implied.

I posted the data for the following reason:

Most people have agreed that President Obama has not stated anything specifically that should incite a person to violence. The argument has turned to largely subjective interpretations of what was implied by his words and subjective beliefs about how people would perceive his words and be motivated to act upon them. I do not think there is much more room for fruitful discussion here because of the subjective nature of the inquiry.

It was asserted in this thread that there is a causal relationship between president Obama's words and actions during his administration, and violent acts that have been committed against police officers.  In particular, it was asserted that president Obama has blood on his hands for killings of police officers, and that his words and actions have motivated people to kill police officers.

On the other hand, nobody would assert that former President Bush was anti-police in his words or actions, during his administration.  So all other factors being held equal, if president Obama's words and actions have motivated more people to take violent actions against police officers, over the course of two adjacent 8 year periods one would expect to see some statistical increase in violence against police officers during his presidential term.

But the data indicates exactly the opposite. Violence against police officers has decreased during president Obama's presidency.

I do not particularly believe that there is any causal relationship between president Obama's words and actions and violence committed against police officers, but for anyone who believes that there is a causal relationship between Obama's words and violence committed against police officers, as has been asserted in this thread, it would seem that they should be thanking president Obama for his words and actions, which have resulted in roughly a 10% decrease in violence against police officers during his presidency.

Yet somehow I doubt that such gratitude will be forthcoming in this thread.

Carry on.

 

[Quasar]

The argument isn't that more cops are dying, it's that due to Obama's actions, cops are being killed who otherwise would be alive.  There isn't a base level of murdered cops that is acceptable, and below which we attribute no fault.  These aren't stock options we're talking about here.

If a faulty aviation practice causes a plane crash, we don't say that the plane crash is acceptable because it the rate of crashes was so low that year.  We certainly don't thank the pilot.  If a man walks into his office and opens fire, we don't exonerate him since we've had so few mass killings that year.  And, we don't thank him for not killing more people.

[Peace]

30 minutes ago, Quasar said:

The argument isn't that more cops are dying, it's that due to Obama's actions, cops are being killed who otherwise would be alive.

Certainly. But you have no proof to back this argument. That is your problem.

[Quasar]

24 minutes ago, Peace said:

Certainly. But you have no proof to back this argument. That is your problem.

I thought Anomaly explained it quite well.  Very often, proof in the real world comes down to a combination of deductive reasoning, circumstantial evidence, and a viable mechanism of action (since we all know that correlation alone doesn't equal causation).

Edited December 10, 2016 by Quasar

[Anomaly]

17 hours ago, Peace said:

Certainly. But you have no proof to back this argument. That is your problem.

As you have no proof that Obamas words and initially assigning blame to racist police actions BEFORE a fair and thorough investigation has not been an inducement for the recent assassinations of police officers, such as what happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge.  You would need yearly statistics showing a decrease in revenge motivated killing of police.   

The issue of citizens being killed by police is also complicated.  There are a number of reasons, (other than police intentionally intending to hunt and kill black men)  including potential racial bias in the number of police stops,  elevated stress and fear by both police and citizens heightening confrontation, the failure to convict and punish police shootings such as Walter Scott's murder.  

Fearmongering by politicians and media that equivocate Walter Scott with Micheal Brown is counterproductive and destructive.  

By all means, call out the idiocy of the white supremacists.  99.9% of American white folk would aggree that they're idiots.  But that does not translate into them having to defend a vote for Trump instead of condemning the idiocy of the fringe few.   To be fair, Obama did back away from and tempered what he said and currently says about the police shootings.  Ultimately, sane people are responsible for their own actions and can't blame words of a politician or Imam or activist or media opinionist for their actions.  

[Peace]

10 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

As you have no proof that Obamas words and initially assigning blame to racist police actions BEFORE a fair and thorough investigation has not been an inducement for the recent assassinations of police officers, such as what happened in Dallas and Baton Rouge.  You would need yearly statistics showing a decrease in revenge motivated killing of police.

I also do not have any proof that the Easter Bunny didn't induce those crimes. By your logic it would seemingly be acceptable for Quasar to assert that the Easter Bunny is responsible.

10 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

 The issue of citizens being killed by police is also complicated.  There are a number of reasons, (other than police intentionally intending to hunt and kill black men)  including potential racial bias in the number of police stops,  elevated stress and fear by both police and citizens heightening confrontation, the failure to convict and punish police shootings such as Walter Scott's murder.  

Fearmongering by politicians and media that equivocate Walter Scott with Micheal Brown is counterproductive and destructive.  

By all means, call out the idiocy of the white supremacists.  99.9% of American white folk would aggree that they're idiots.  But that does not translate into them having to defend a vote for Trump instead of condemning the idiocy of the fringe few.   To be fair, Obama did back away from and tempered what he said and currently says about the police shootings.  Ultimately, sane people are responsible for their own actions and can't blame words of a politician or Imam or activist or media opinionist for their actions.  

OK. Does this have anything to do with what I wrote, or are these comments just intended for our general education?

[Quasar]

8 hours ago, Peace said:

I also do not have any proof that the Easter Bunny didn't induce those crimes. By your logic it would seemingly be acceptable for Quasar to assert that the Easter Bunny is responsible.

Did you put forth a rigorous argument that I missed for the causal link between Trump's comments and his supporter's punch?  Seems you are unable to hold yourself to the same standard as your opponents.

[Peace]

2 hours ago, Quasar said:

Did you put forth a rigorous argument that I missed for the causal link between Trump's comments and his supporter's punch?  Seems you are unable to hold yourself to the same standard as your opponents.

OK. You want consistency. When President Obama says "I wish I could punch those police officers in the face. In the good old days you would have to carry them out on a stretcher" I will gladly concede you the argument that the statement is likely to motivate people to punch police officers in the face.

Good night.

[little2add]

'First wave' of Trump-inspired lawsuits lead to panic among abortion advocates

http://www.catholic.org/news/hf/family/story.php?id=72447 

Interesting fact: 

One hundred years ago (October 16, 1916) the first family planning and birth control clinic opened at 46 Amboy Street in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.  

 

[Seven77]

 I think that people who voted for Trump "because he is pro-life" should also make sure that other members of the population such as undocumented students and young people who came here as babies are also protected under law...  I would even argue that they have a moral obligation to do so.

[Anomaly]

10 hours ago, Seven77 said:

 I think that people who voted for Trump "because he is pro-life" should also make sure that other members of the population such as undocumented students and young people who came here as babies are also protected under law...  I would even argue that they have a moral obligation to do so.

How about fixing immigration laws  and procedures so people can come here legally and safely, with some sort of background check, so they can be  legally, and warmly welcomed into our society?  Also, how about enabling and supporting these people so they can fix the problems in their own communities so they don't have to abandon family, friends, and communities?  It's not a simple problem or solution.