07-31-2016, 09:58 AM
(07-30-2016, 01:52 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-30-2016, 10:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The Cleveland convention crowd did their 'Lock her up!" chant a week ago. Trump just endorsed that, 'I'm starting to agree'Lets see, the Democrats are allowed to "hit" Trump for this and that or for whatever they want but Trump is chastised for saying he's going to "hit" them back. Are you into child's play? Do you think child's play is going to resolve issues? Do you really want to do liberal child play with an old school adult? I'll do liberal child's play if you want just for shits and giggles and to see how many emotional twits it drums up. Hell, I played that game all through the Bush years. I played it with Kiff. Where's Kiff? I played it so well that your numbers fell greatly and older posters began dropping out. I "hit" hard and I "hit" where it has the greatest impact and where it really hurts. I expect more from a so-called intelligent adult like yourself. I know who the real bully beaters are and who they tend to support. I also know the name of candidate who represents them. Did you go to a similar high school as me? A larger suburban high school with several social groups? If you did, did you pay much attention to what actually made it work?
This is par for the course with his use of language that pushes the spiral of violence. He doesn't say he wants to rebut what the Democratic speakers are saying, he says he wants to be physically violent with them. He doesn't say he wants to defeat his opponent in an election, he says he wants to imprison opposing politicians.
Now, I'm not quite one to say Trump is Hitler's long lost clone. Trump does show a persistent liking for Agricultural Age tyrannic government, with his endorsement of great leaders like Saddam Hussain. He might be as close to a Cynic Hero restoree politicians as we are apt to find. Still, not all tyrants or wannabe tyrants are equally bad. At this point Trump is reality connected enough to state his mind but not to try to act on it. He hasn't actually punched anybody. He didn't find any Republican Philadelphia cops and send them into the convention to arrest Hillary.
But I wouldn't want to tempt him by granting him the power to actually do what he says he wants to do.
We liberal Democrats are more likely to use words, statistics, and images. Such is my practice. It is non-violent. The nastiest threat that I have to offer is that gross failure of a political elite to serve the welfare of the people while enriching and pampering themselves is the historical precedents of Jacobinism, Bolshevism, and Maoism that never emerge in healthy societies. I am not so sure of what Donald Trump means when he says "hit". I hope that with Donald Trump such does not mean "hit" as in underworld parlance. In view of the sick games that he plays with words (contrast Barack Obama, who says what he means and means what he says), Donald Trump scares me.
Donald Trump has a proclivity for linguistic ambiguity, and when it comes from someone exercising extreme power (President of the United States is about as powerful as Imperator Romanus once meant) one needs good cause to not expect the worst. The difference between President of the United States and Imperator Romanus, aside from reach and weapons, is that the Roman Emperors were generally worse than American Presidents. George W. Bush, one of our worst, was more moral than practically every Roman Emperor around for a similar amount of time. Our Founding Fathers may have had much admiration of Rome -- but they wisely chose to reject (except for one blatant and ultimately disastrous oversight) the depravities of ancient Rome.
We liberal democrats have come to redefine even such stock phrases of the Right in recent years as fiscal responsibility, military strength, law and order, and family values to include more people. Not starting wars for profit is financial responsibility, and choosing caution in escalation of disputes and differences into war is one way of keeping military strength intact. We have long given up the idea that criminals are consequences of exploitation and oppression instead of bad characters who would hurt others even if they had all the assets that they wanted. Our concept of family values includes respect for same-sex couples while tightening protection of children and cracking down on sexual trafficking. You did hear Senator Amy Klobuchar call for harsher laws and more rigid enforcement of existing and new laws against sex trafficking, did you not?
Yes, Classic X'er, you are good at hitting people in their feelings while suggesting that you are the martyr of some noble cause. Your cause is economic sadism on behalf of people who believe that America fares best so long as the Right People get everything that they want -- which means ... everything! The more power and rewards that our elites have gotten, the more miserable life has become for the rest of us. Those elites would love to convince us that they radiate some quality of their own wonderfulness that enhances our lives because we get vicarious pleasure from their exuberant indulgence. If right-wing Republicans have formulated such as theories, Donald Trump offers himself as an example of the person who radiates the wonder that is himself.
Donald Trump has gone far off the edge. He represents much that is wrong in America -- most importantly the rapaciousness and pathological narcissism of many members of the economic elites. Even worse, he has suggested that bigotry and violence that Republicans from the time of Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush have eschewed might be a good thing.
The word that Donald Trump has used that most scares me is "hit", which in its most ominous definition suggests the underworld slang term "whack", as in "Al Capone allegedly whacked rival gangsters in the St. Valentine's Day massacre". I have cause to believe that the word does not simply mean the minor assault of a slap in the face or a minor punch into someone's fat belly. I wonder if that sort of hit suggests a Mafia-like hit against a critic or opponent. Sure, most of us accept that the assassination of Osama bin Laden had to be done in much the same manner as an underworld hit, as in "Barack Obama whacked Osama bin Laden" or "The Mossad whacked perpetrators of the killers of the Israeli Olympic team".
It is wise that people not toy with evil. Political violence has long been far outside the realm of the acceptable in American life. We have a Presidential nominee who has gone far beyond the measured rhetoric of George Wallace in 1968. We have a Presidential nominee who has seen nothing wrong with the beating of hecklers.
Donald Trump is simply too risky a choice for President. Conservatives who cannot quite stomach voting for Hillary Clinton because she promises much that Barack Obama offered have a valid alternative to the top of the Republican ticket in Gary Johnson, who is closer to the economic and social orthodoxy of the Republican Party of Reagan and both Bushes. His admiration for dictators sickens me.
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.