The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(08-31-2020, 09:30 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-31-2020, 08:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The word of a liar or a fool is itself worthless, which explains why I never accept anything that Donald Trump says at face value. At times I cannot tell whether he is a liar or a fool, but malignant intent and extreme incompetence (including at the most important deed that an adult with adult responsibilities can do, which is to discern  either truth or its closest approximation) have shown, in my experience, to have much the same dire consequences. I doubt that there will be any drone strike by the Trump administration, as there is not enough time for such before the election. Besides, President Trump may need a safe haven should he fear criminal prosecution such as for negligent homicide involving COVID-19. 

That is not a freak-out. That is a cautious assessment. 

I am in no position in which to predict how Joe Biden will deal with Vladimir Putin... things on January 21, 2021 could be so messy that taking revenge against Putin might be a low priority. Mercy may come at a price for Putin... maybe return territory snipped off Ukraine to Ukraine? 

Donald Trump's handling of COVID-19 is a catastrophe on the scale of a bungled war. Through his incompetence, his failed leadership, and his intellectual hollowness he failed to do what would have made America's war with COVID-19 something other than the costly stalemate that has cost so many lives.  If I were President I would treat COVID-19 as a dangerous enemy in the sense that Osama bin Laden was. I would follow the lead, if necessary, of Big Business in shutting down operations to save money as did for-profit sports leagues. If it takes a shutdown of much of the consumer economy for a couple months to keep losses from mounting to dangerous levels... then that is exactly what FDR did in World War II, and for a far longer time -- just as did his good buddy Sir Winston Churchill. If it takes a sacrifice of a free market and consumer indulgence to save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives... you know, keeping from having signs like this popping up in America or Britain:





FDR made the same choice that Churchill did. It was the right choice. As a German-American I would rather convert to Judaism than be a Nazi scum... I know which way requires far fewer compromises of my moral and cultural values 

Do you get the point? We are in a Crisis, and we need a leader capable of expressing values that transcend time and place in the defense of civilization. Donald Trump has no idea of what civilization is, let alone its value. 

What would I tell people to do rather than indulge in the social, consumer economy in person? Use their computers to connect to great music and literature and to get informed about COVID-19. I would promote messages in WWII-style posters telling people to stay home. It is now past that stage.  Trump wasted the efforts that many state and local governments, businesses, religious bodies, and persons have already done. We may have to start over during the Biden Presidency... except with 180,000 (so far, and counting) deaths. People who have died of COVID-19, unlike those who have died in America's victorious wars to achieve or maintain independence, to emancipate slaves, and to defeat aggression by totalitarian powers, have died for nothing except to demonstrate what a horrible person Donald Trump is.  

How bad is Donald Trump? The best arguments against Donald Trump are conservative and Christian. It is as if a Democratic President had gone so far in destroying a market economy and toying with Marxist rhetoric while developing a cult of personality that genuine liberals would have to align with a conservative, free-market, Bible-believing leader just to ensure that the next chance for a liberal America will be desirable.

Yep. The word of a liar and fool is worthless. You should stop talking out of your ass while your ahead and go a way. I don't like idea of destroying you in public but I'll do it if you choose to continue talking out your ass. I actually think the Trump administration has done a pretty good with the Covid19 crisis considering we were blind sided and in a position of having to start from scratch and respond to an unknown virus with limited supplies and mobilize and convert manufacturing that didn't exist. Yes, I know we've lost a couple hundred thousand lives so far but it could/should have been much worse so far.

I use my fingers when I post, thank you. If you think that Trump has done well in dealing with COVID-19, then you might be so foolish as to believe that the best first move in chess is to push the King's bishop's pawn. (Such moves comprise the two worst starts in chess, and I have not started a game with that move for fifty years). 

How could Trump do worse than he has done with COVID-19? Other countries similar in economic development have had lower levels of infection than we have had. Short of encouraging people to have COVID-19 parties in which sick people infect healthy people, how could he do worse? Mark my words --  Trump's Republican convention, a show of people exposing themselves to whatever germs are out there when the germs are so dangerous that they make this fellow 



less menacing. About ten people die each year of rattlesnake bites in America even though rattlers are more common than they might seem. Rattlers have the sense to back off when they recognize a dangerous predator. A rattler is likely to back off in your presence or the presence of your pooch. It even fears a cat that, even if not venomous, can deliver a lethal bite to any animal with a small neck or throat. A cat boxes a rattler until the rattler is exhausted and then delivers a lethal bite to the vulnerable neck or throat,   

A person who can spread COVID-19 viruses through a cough or sneeze is arguably deadlier than a rattler. Mask it or casket!

"A couple hundred deaths" is no triviality unless one is evil in the sense that Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mao, Idi Amin, or Saddam Hussein is evil.