Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[pbrower2a]

(10-06-2022, 03:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-05-2022, 02:15 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Does being referred to as   deaf, dumb and blind or simply clueless seem/sound at all familiar to you? So, have you become more independent since you elected old senile  Biden or are you still as reliant upon others  as you've been the entire time that I've known you?

I'm on the autistic spectrum, which is bad enough. Loved ones covered for me, but they really didn't let me get away with much. I needed to discover how to get away with autism so that I could live as normal a life as is possible. That means steady work that I do not hate, connections to my community, and maybe a wife and children. That's a reasonable expectation for someone with an above-average IQ and a solid moral compass. I live as close as possible to the honor code of the Service Academies -- basically 

Quote:Do not lie; do not cheat; do not steal, and do not tolerate lying, cheating, and stealing by others.  

It has different formulations in the Academies, but it also applies to all skilled trades and professions except perhaps marketing. If you lie, cheat, or steal, then you create a toxic workplace. If your workplace tolerates, let alone promotes, such, then you are in a toxic environment -- one that cheats customers in part by cutting dangerous corners. 

I thought that I had a fault of character... no, I have faulty connections between my mind and body, and they make it seem that I am a liar. I would flunk a lie-detector test even if telling the truth.

Donald Trump lies, cheats, and steals and expects others to do much the same on his behalf. That is toxic leadership. Good reason exists for that military code; misrepresentation of reality to make oneself look good or to cover up for misconduct or incompetence can get people killed in combat. Cheating to get ahead is to put oneself ahead in the competition for rank is one way to get promoted into responsibilities that one cannot handle well. Stealing takes military supplies that some other officer might need. 

Then again consider yourself in the role of an engineer. Maybe in return for a bribe you can replace standard concrete or steel to create a less stable bridge over a river for commute traffic. Should that bridge collapse, then at least morally you are a murderer -- as much a murderer as some street thug who does an armed robbery and shoots a salesclerk who is not swift enough to turn over the money or who suggests turning on a camera to detect you -- except that it could be several people at once. Misrepresenting your calculations is cheating, and it too can kill. Lying? One must lie to defend oneself against accusations of misconduct. I don't care how brilliant an engineer is, if he lies, cheats, or steals on the job in ways that compromise a project, then he should be fired and compelled to seek a career in which his misconduct is less likely to get someone killed -- like warehouse work.

 I doubt that you have ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is essential for those who want to know how different the fraud of totalitarianism is from democracy. Totalitarian leaders lie all the time about everything from their desires of military aggrandizement to the validity of expectations on human rights and civil liberties. They kill anyone who gets in the way and treat the common man with gross callousness whether a worker in a plant or cannon fodder in military service. In a democracy one expects leadership to recognize human life as precious and the achievement of the desires of the common people as a desired end; in a totalitarian regime those are obstacles to the Glory of the Leader. In a democracy one generally gets what one pays for through formal taxes; totalitarian regimes bleed the common man for the egoistic indulgence of the elites and their hangers-on. The lying gets so bad, as in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that words become lies, and as Orwell suggests, people are stripped of the language that can even express their feelings and hopes, let alone the ability to recognize a lie for what it is because words lose their meaning. Even at the small scale of the Manson cult words lose their meaning, which shows the pathological control that Charles Manson had over his cult.    
I don't know if you have ever heard the expression "Are you going to believe me or are you going to believe your lying eyes?"  Let's make it clear that adultery is a betrayal of a marriage, and that if one sees evidence of adultery one has good cause to suspect personal betrayal. We need traveling salesmen and truck drivers who travel around the country and find themselves in the temptation, out of loneliness, boredom, and the sex drive, to cheat on a spouse. Assuming that it is Hubby who does the cheating, maybe Wifey in the Twin Cities opens the credit-card statement and finds that Hubby is making frequent purchases from a high-priced lingerie shop in Fort Worth or Fort Wayne.  Maybe he is paying something other than the Single rate at the motel. Should Wifey be concerned? If I were Wifey I would be consulting a divorce lawyer. Maybe one needs to have a private investigator follow Hubby around and  see whether someone goes into his hotel room after he checks in and whether he buys lingerie at the Cheaters Paradise store -- you know, lingerie that doesn't fit Wifey and isn't her taste. She is satisfied with lingerie from mass-manufacturers. 

(OK, I'm not going to write the book, but in Men: an Owner's Manual I would call to attention that women do not think of sexy lingerie as an appropriate gift, even such is suggested in Playboy. I would suggest that she buy sexy lingerie for her to wear as an enticing gift to him!)
I have read plenty of history, and I know to some extent how the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia. Events in Washington DC on January 6 fit much the same pattern. To say that the world would be a far better place had the Bolshevik Revolution failed may not be what you expect from me... but it made the fascist reaction possible and intensified hatred by the Hard Right in many countries toward Jews, culminating in the Holocaust. A bigot like Hitler thought that a Jewish small-business owner was just the same as the destructive and murderous "Jewish Bolshevik" except to have a thin veneer of respectability. Big Business in Germany wanted to destroy such small-business owners to consolidate near-monopoly more completely and found common cause with Hitler. That alliance culminated in the Holocaust. 

I've known plenty of Jews. The alleged veneer is also the deep reality, and I must recognize that Jews never persecuted my Huguenot, Quaker, and Mennonite ancestors; indeed the same sorts of people who persecuted my Huguenot, Quaker, and Mennonite ancestors also persecuted Jews.  Unless someone is trying to pull a con, most people are what they say they are. I'm satisfied that Judaism if practiced fully is pure morality. I can live with that. Antisemitism typically turns words about Jews into lies. 

...Ultimately most of us have learned that something analogous to science and jurisprudence (which both insist upon rigorous adherence to the meaning of words used in scientific contexts) applies to words. Most of us recognize that what we observe gives at the least insights into the truth unless we are dealing with a funhouse mirror or a cinematic special effect for pure entertainment. Liars often turn to code-words. 

Trump took the sorts of tiger-cub steps on the road to totalitarianism. To compare Hitler or Stalin to a man-eating tiger is to understate the horror on a gigantic stage. Gutting the meaning of words to deceive people is the worst of all lies because in addition to contradicting the truth it cripples our ability to express what is truly human. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston's 'romance' with Julia so completely lacks sizzle that it is the most incompetent expression of romance in well-received literature. Then again, words have no meaning, so both Winston (who is comparatively privileged as part of the bureaucracy) lack the words that can express love. Smart people are highly verbal in the expression of love -- but not in Nineteen Eighty-Four.