10-24-2020, 03:40 AM
(10-24-2020, 02:38 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Is Biden comparable to FDR as a leader or not?
Probably not. It would be difficult to match FDR; besides, the pressing needs of the 1930's (staving off an economic meltdown that could have undone our commercial and industrial society) and the early 'forties (defeating the two most dangerous and demonic enemies that America has ever known -- at once). Undoing the damage that Donald Trump has done is a big enough job. Biden will need to appeal to the best in American character and make us return to old virtues that made such greatness that America has known possible.
Quote:... it's very obvious to me that he's not up for the task and that he's not in the same league as FDR. So, what the (expletive deleted) have the Democrats been doing for the last nine months?
Exactly what the Party on the Outside must do to start anew when compromise and deal-making is impossible with a my-way-or-the-highway style of leadership: documenting the gross inadequacies of that leadership, is impossible, enunciating a contrary vision, and waging a solid campaign. With an incumbent able to cut deals, like Reagan or Obama, then waiting for the next electoral opportunity to force change is possible is all that is available. When the President acts like a despot, as is unique to Trump among America's Presidents, a waiting game may be completely inadequate because that despot will consolidate greater power and entrench the position of himself or his successors.
It's freedom or fascism, Classic X'er.
Quote:Have they been watching CNN 24/7 and talking with other Democrats on the internet and enjoying their free time off as the rest of us have been working through the COVID19 crisis or what? Could we afford to eliminate every do nothing Democrat, do nothing politician, do nothing people and the bulk of the criminals and come out way ahead as a nation? I think we could and I think we will as a nation.
I can construe some of your language as eliminationist toward the handicapped and the elderly. My suggestion toward you remains the same. I suggest that you discuss your values with Christian clergy who have a strong foundation in philosophical as well as moral questions.
Do not make the same question that mocks God as did Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
I am not saying that that story is literal truth (indeed I consider everything in Genesis up to the Covenant between God and Abraham suspect), but that is a retort that many wrongdoers have said. Yes, those who herded Jews into gas chambers or shooting pits during WWII literally violated their brotherhood in shared Humanity with the Jews, and I can see no interpretation of Christianity that says that Holocaust perpetrators have any pleasant and satisfying role in the World to Come.
Speaking of criminals -- what do you expect to do about our current President? I would be satisfied with the Hague Tribunals because:
1. Process is so far as I have heard beyond complaint.
2. Trump could come under trial in many US states (perhaps including Michigan and Virginia as well as New York) as well as the federal government) so there would be disputes over what charges he would face. Such could delay trials.
3. His response to COVID-19 has resulted at the least at first in a disproportionate suffering of death and disability among African-Americans, and that would be better resolved somewhere other than the USA; this could be his worst offense
4. Trying him anywhere in the USA would create huge problems of logistics; if culpable of negligent homicide on a huge scale (and that may be an understatement) he could easily be 'sprung' because he has fanatical supporters here
5. Trump has enablers who could also be put on trial.
6. Sentences by the Hague Tribunal are severe, and conviction is highly likely. Trump has had some influence upon the legal system by sponsoring the appointment of Federal judges and three Justices of the US Supreme Court already, and I can imagine his three nominees doing him a great favor in gratitude. I want this man out of the American appellate process because I do not want his crimes to challenge it.
OK... which Hague tribunal location? Milosevic is my comparison for offenses. He supposedly denounced crimes done on his behalf but he could not deny culpability. Milosevic was tried in the Hague, where he was helpless. There was no Serbian military presence in the Netherlands (which is a NATO member and has US troops). Arusha, Tanzania is the site of the Hague trials of the perpetrators of the Rwanda genocide, and Tanzania has no American military presence.
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.