QuickTidal, on 11 November 2016 - 07:46 PM, said:
D, on 11 November 2016 - 07:01 PM, said:
QuickTidal, on 11 November 2016 - 05:50 PM, said:
D, on 11 November 2016 - 05:34 PM, said:
There's also lots of misinformation from the left about Trump.
There is? I'm pretty sure most of the things he's been accused of... he's done, on camera or on audio.
Let's face facts, the left didn't really need to invent shit about him, and I'll argue that they mostly didn't. Unless you can point me otherwise?
I dunno, how many times did the left proclaim that "Trump said Mexicans are rapists", as an example?
Again, this is all stuff that he actually said. It's documented. When speaking about Mexicans in the United States (AKA immigrants from there)...he said they are criminals and rapists. Those words left his mouth.
http://www.huffingto...4b0c818f618904b
No. No he didn't. And its hilarious you linked a Huffington Post listicle to support it.
Here's a politifact article on it for you instead.
There is a HUGE difference between saying "some of the people who come into the U.S. from Mexico are rapists" versus saying "all Mexicans are rapists". It's not even a question of larger context, there's no way to reasonably interpret what he said in that oh-so-famous rally speech as "all Mexicans are rapists".
And yet, the media, pundits, and even the freaking Democrat VP nominee decided to deliberately misinterpret it that way and continuously try to bash his campaign with the notion that he said all mexicans are rapists.
If I said "some Canadians who play lacrosse don't like poutine, but I assume some do", then apparently I said "all Canadians dislike poutine".
@Grief, yeah no none of that was really addressed at your arguments. Anyways, the thing is *obviously* people "on the left" who are against xenophobia, are feminist, are pro-gay-rights, are in favour of the separation of church and state, yadda yadda.. well of course we are going to think compromising into voting for a xenophobic/misogynist/demagogic candidate is worse than compromising for a neoliberal/hyperestablishmentarian candidate.
But I refuse to simply decide that because I have more leftist values (by U.S. standards) that the way I weight *my* values in compromising between candidates is somehow more legitimate or more universally correct and should be applied as a universal moral to how everyone else weights their values and makes a compromise.
If compromising into voting for a misogynist xenophobe is "too far"... well then can't someone say compromising for a cronied, wall-street-owned candidate is "too far" as well?
By principle, you wouldn't want to "endorse" either candidate, and since there is no viable 3rd candidate you just... what? Don't vote and hope they both decide to resign for no reason?
Without major electoral reform, I just don't see what possible good comes out of the "you shouldn't vote for any candidate with major character flaws because then you're endorsing all their bad behaviour". It just gives either side another reason to feel smug in their self-assurance that *their* superior morals entail that they've followed this principle but their opposite side have not.
Morgoth, on 11 November 2016 - 09:47 PM, said:
D, on 11 November 2016 - 05:34 PM, said:
Morgoth, on 11 November 2016 - 04:42 PM, said:
The problem with that argument is that most of the criticism of Hillary from the right, at least the loudest criticisms, are mostly baseless conspiracies, whereas the main criticism of Trump seems to be directly based on things he's demonstrably said.
I'm not sure I agree with that. There's definitely lots of baseless conspiracies and misinformation from the right about Clinton. There's also lots of misinformation from the left about Trump. I'm not sure I agree that these constituted "the loudest criticisms". Kind of a moot argument... there's no way to measure the "loudest".
As Quicktidal said, your example of Trump is hardly misinformation. As to Clinton, one can simply look to the three main "scandals", Bengazi, the emails and the Clinton Foundation. All three have been shown again and again (look at any factcheck service if you need to be convinced), to be entierly without teeth. There was a segment on the emails on This American Life recently, which was very good, too (act 1).
https://www.thisamer.../601/transcript
"Without teeth" meaning... what exactly? I don't think a lot of people ever actually thought she'd intentionally sabotaged Benghazi or whatever the crazies were spouting. I imagine the average GOP voter certainly didn't expect she had done anything that would actually be indictable... but they were nevertheless very uncomfortable with all the conflict-of-interest/wall-streeet-and-foreign-power-cozying that kept coming up.
Being a cultural elite who cares more about protecting Goldman Sachs than actually serving average citizens is a major character flaw for a prospective president, one that some people *could* find just as damning as, say, being a xenophobe. I'm not saying those character flaws necessarily *should* be equally bad... but whatever my relative weighting of them is I don't necessarily think everyone in the world should automatically have the same weighting as me, either, and why would I want to just handwave away everyone who has a different relative weighting of them as being inexcusable vermin that there is no point in even trying to talk to or reach common ground with?