07-26-2020, 11:21 AM
(07-26-2020, 03:40 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-26-2020, 01:17 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Your idea of what constitutes America and my idea of what constitutes America are utterly incompatible.
I'm not all that radical. I now find that the best arguments against Donald Trump are conservative arguments. The next best are statistical arguments.
It's late July, and the polls generally show him losing by a huge margin. The calendar is becoming the definitive enemy of the Trump campaign. The campaign might tighten up as Biden concentrates on ensuring a narrower but more certain win .
Team Biden might compare to a football team with a big lead, but not one yet decisive because it is too early. Maybe Trump gets to consolidate wins in state that he must win yet not enough to get to 270 electoral votes. But if Trump gambles he wastes resources on states that are extreme long-shots for him. If he loses those, then he opens states that he absolutely must win well short of 270 for him -- like Texas. So he plays for Minnesota and loses Texas. 270 or 420 for Biden -- the legal consequences are the same. He will be President.
OH, by the way -- you do not want to argue with me on statistics and probability.
Agreed. We are incompatible. In the real world, people who are incompatible get divorces, agree to split and go separate ways, cut bait and leave it up to fate or use force to eliminate the other. I already won by defeating a Liberal forum. Hint: You had me banned. Did it work or did it eliminate your protector? It's not a coincidence that the moderator who banned me was fired.
Another poster and I asked that your previous incarnation be banned when it called for someone to commit suicide. I complained to the moderator about that, and suggested that you might not be in such trouble with me if you rescinded the offending post and apologized. Many times we post what we might regret later. I did not need protection: I thought that someone else might have needed some protection. Besides, I thought that a benign correction of your then-incarnation was apt and perhaps even beneficial to you. The cost of divesting oneself of a bad habit is usually well worth freedom from that bad habit.
There have been times when someone called attention to me that I had gone too far... and I backed down. I deleted or modified the post or apologized for what I had said. But I am going to hurt some feelings at times. I know that.
As someone with Asperger's syndrome I might see things more literally than others. Even so, I could not see what was said as harmless. I might have accepted "Kill that character"... which I can imagine with a film director doing with a character in the script who is dragging a screenplay into a muddle. Just think of "Ugarte" (Peter Lorre) in Casablanca. The character makes his point quickly as one who steals from people in distress and sanctimoniously blames the victims for being his victims. "Ugarte" had to be killed at some point; he was an odious character, and it would have been all to easy to have him collaborating with the Germans and mucking up the story. After all, he had the precious exit passes critical to the story, Casablanca is my favorite movie, and I have described its script as being the sort that Shakespeare would have written as a screenplay had he been active in the early-middle decades of the 20th century. Yes, Shakespeare had no qualms about killing a character when such was essential to the success of his plays.
I see death, except as a literary or stage device, too serious to treat lightly. We all make mistakes, and your previous incarnation made a big -- but not irredeemable one. It could have said "I did not mean that literally" or "Gee, it is unfortunate that we have some moralizers who can't recognize a joke for what it is". But that was some time ago. My father was alive then and still had his mental capacities and moral compass. I told him what I did in seeking the poster banned. He concurred with me. It is terribly wrong to urge someone to commit suicide, and if one is successful in urging someone to do so, then one is culpable at the least of manslaughter. I may have an inadequate sense of humor, but I have some moral sensibilities.
(OK, I did cheer when Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein departed This World and went to the world of demons in which they would far better fit... but that involves extreme cases of unmitigated and inexcusable evil. But most of us could understand that).
... the problem isn't your disagreement with me; it is with your disagreement with statistical inferences that do not depend upon any personality. If it were Hillary Clinton down by ten points or so against a Republican challenger this time at this stage, then I would be hedging my personal life upon the near-certainty of a win by the Republican nominee for President. Politically I would be trying to rescue what I could, like vulnerable incumbents.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
