Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Sy-Borg: "Trump and Hitler are utterly different. Hitler was obsessed with order, Trump is anarchic. Hitler had deep hangups about the Jews and even wrote a tome about them, Trump just wants immigrants to be documented. Trump is a former liberal, and three of his closest allies are people who left the Democrats because they felt the Dems had lost their way."
Quick Reply: Yes there are differences but the more important similarities are as I mentioned. Trump is a narcissist and only cares about the undocumented immigrants because they are a group he can demonize. He doesn't have an ounce of goodness in him.

You are on a philosophy forum and you're claiming that a person is one hundred percent bad and zero percent good?

Trump is a patriot. He has good qualities and bad qualities, and I think you don't understand him at all. Anyone who cannot see a legitimate reason for securing borders and removing illegal migrants does not understand enough about economics or politics to have an informed opinion.

[Belinda]

Sy-Borg: "Trump and Hitler are utterly different. Hitler was obsessed with order, Trump is anarchic. Hitler had deep hangups about the Jews and even wrote a tome about them, Trump just wants immigrants to be documented. Trump is a former liberal, and three of his closest allies are people who left the Democrats because they felt the Dems had lost their way."
Quick Reply: Yes there are differences but the more important similarities are as I mentioned. Trump is a narcissist and only cares about the undocumented immigrants because they are a group he can demonize. He doesn't have an ounce of goodness in him.

You are on a philosophy forum and you're claiming that a person is one hundred percent bad and zero percent good?

Trump is a patriot. He has good qualities and bad qualities, and I think you don't understand him at all. Anyone who cannot see a legitimate reason for securing borders and removing illegal migrants does not understand enough about economics or politics to have an informed opinion.

Can you be a patriot if your motives are utterly self centred?

[Sculptor1]

Sy-Borg: "Trump and Hitler are utterly different. Hitler was obsessed with order, Trump is anarchic. Hitler had deep hangups about the Jews and even wrote a tome about them, Trump just wants immigrants to be documented. Trump is a former liberal, and three of his closest allies are people who left the Democrats because they felt the Dems had lost their way."
Quick Reply: Yes there are differences but the more important similarities are as I mentioned. Trump is a narcissist and only cares about the undocumented immigrants because they are a group he can demonize. He doesn't have an ounce of goodness in him.

You are on a philosophy forum and you're claiming that a person is one hundred percent bad and zero percent good?

Trump is a patriot. He has good qualities and bad qualities, and I think you don't understand him at all. Anyone who cannot see a legitimate reason for securing borders and removing illegal migrants does not understand enough about economics or politics to have an informed opinion.

Trump nothing like a patriot. A man that pretends bone spurs to dodge the draft is not a patriot.
From his behaviour Trump is a patriot of Trump. He'll do anything to get attention for himself.
All that garbage about immigrants, borders is playing to the crowd and their natural xenophobia and racism.
Immigrants pay more tax, commit less crime, and boost the economy. They are also less likley to be unemployed. They work harder and for less.

As for economics. Trump totally screwed the economy and it has taken the Democrats 4 years to get it back on track. Trump was too ineffective to be wholly blamed for the failure of the economy , much of that is due to the pandemic and the distruption of the deaths of 1.2 million Americans, and the loss of economic activity during the lockdowns. But Trump's failure to act rationaliy at the time was part of the problem.
Trump now inherits a thriving economy growing faster than all other Western countries.
I doubt he will be allowed to bring in the idiotic tariffs, nor be allowed to deport millions of coloured folk like he promised since there is still some Republicans in government ready to hold him back.
However COngrees and the Senate have a tiger by the tail. A tiger willing and able to bring down havoc on AMerica.

[Lagayascienza]

Can you be a patriot if your motives are utterly self centred?

Not unless one identifies the wellbeing of the nation with one's own personal wellbeing. "L'État, c'est moi" may be apocryphal but it captures the mindset of dictators like Louis XIV, Hitler and Stalin. Trump is so narcissistic that it may well apply to him, too. But the United States will be the United States under the Democrats or the Republicans. Nothing much will change with Trump. The few wealthy will get wealthier as the many poor get poorer, just as they have been doing for many decades now. Only better, fairer political and economic systems, better policies, and an unbiased media could produce meaningful change in the USA. Without those, things will remain the same, and likely get worse, under either party. Both parties are beholden to capital. This state of affairs is so embedded in the psyche of the USA that nothing short of economic or environmental catastrophe, or a global nuclear conflagration, will change it. And then, globally, it will be winner takes all.

[Pattern-chaser]

Here is the latest but certainly not the last attack on free speech in the US.

You misunderstand, in the stereotypically straw-man way that people use to defend their fondest ideologies. I am not attacking free speech, I'm advancing the view that if free speech is to be of the greatest benefit, to all, then it has to have constraints placed on it. Hate speech is the obvious example, but not the only one.

And my comment stands, I think. With the might of the Imperial Constitution behind it, so-called 'free speech' is in no significant danger. How can it be, with a protector like America?

[Lagayascienza]

Free speech depends on who defines "free". In NAZI Germany, for example, publicly defending equal rights for Jews would not have been considered free speech. It would have been considered a ticket to a concentration camp for enemies of the state.

Democracy depends on a measure of free speech. But even in democracies there must be limits to free speech if democracy is to be maintained. The reason that monsters like Hitler come to power in democracies is that they are able, though their propaganda machines, to freely say what they liked.

Truth should always be feely speakable. Untruths not so much.

[Mo_reese]

Here is the latest but certainly not the last attack on free speech in the US.

You misunderstand, in the stereotypically straw-man way that people use to defend their fondest ideologies. I am not attacking free speech, I'm advancing the view that if free speech is to be of the greatest benefit, to all, then it has to have constraints placed on it. Hate speech is the obvious example, but not the only one.

And my comment stands, I think. With the might of the Imperial Constitution behind it, so-called 'free speech' is in no significant danger. How can it be, with a protector like America?

You speak as if the American Empire is healthy and well. That is not the case, but that should have a thread of it's own.
The Constitution of the US is not "Imperial" and it's not absolute. It's only as good as the present interpretation via the Supreme Court of the US. They think that "free speech" includes corportate donations to political candidates. This single interpretation has brought the US to it's knees.
But back to free speech, the government of the US does not value free speech, if it goes against the policies of the government. I've listed some examples where protestors against the policies of the government are shut down. People are brutalized by police and thrown in jail. And America isn't the "protector" of freedoms in the world. In fact the US actions of helping Israel violates US law and international law. Also the Patriot Act (actually the un-patriot act) has blown holes in the Constitution.

[Sy Borg]

However COngrees and the Senate have a tiger by the tail. A tiger willing and able to bring down havoc on AMerica.

I remember when another anti-establishment leader, Milei, was voted in as leader of Argentina. The media were like you - predicting the most dire consequences. However, after a hard period, he has finally got inflation under control.

https://eurasiabusinessnews.com/2024/11 ... -in-a-row/

[Sy Borg]

Truth should always be feely speakable. Untruths not so much.

The biggest issue is truths that are untold, which is why a platform like X that does not play by the rules can be valuable - filling in the numerous blanks deliberately ignored or underplayed by the mainstream media.

[Lagayascienza]

I guess we all have to make judgements about where we will be most likely to encounter truth rather than conspiracy theories and propaganda. I am wary of the sort of stuff that bangs around in the online echo chambers of social media. I also question everything I read or hear in the mainstream news media. Some news outlets I trust more than others. I've never done Twitter or X so I can't say anything about what I might encounter there. I only know what others have said about it. But hearsay is often unreliable. I'll take a look at X.

[Good_Egg]

There's a discussion to be had about authoritarianism, and this thread may get there yet.

Can we first recognise that authoritarian government is a temptation in every country and for both sides of the left/right divide ? And get beyond the specifics of Mr D. Trump and spurious likening to Hitler ?

Free speech - in the sense of government permitting vs persecuting speech which contradicts government's preferred narrative - is part of the wider issue of authoritarianism. But only part.

So on the one hand I commend Lagaya's suggestion

Truth should always be feely speakable. Untruths not so much.

Which I take to mean that it should be part of the constitution of every society that the truth of a statement is a valid legal defence against any charge that publicly making such a statement is an illegal act.

But on the other hand, I'm not a complete libertarian. If someone tries to publish an article on "how to be an effective terrorist" or "atom-bomb making for teenagers" I rather hope that there is some branch of the counter-intelligence function of government (the FBI, in the US case) that has the competence and the legal powers to prevent it.

My concern is the abuse of such power for ends that are political (rather than anti-wrongdoing). Which I guess requires a philosophy in which that is a clear and valid distinction.

[Sculptor1]

However COngrees and the Senate have a tiger by the tail. A tiger willing and able to bring down havoc on AMerica.

I remember when another anti-establishment leader, Milei, was voted in as leader of Argentina. The media were like you - predicting the most dire consequences. However, after a hard period, he has finally got inflation under control.

Biden inherited a raising inflation . Economic impacts can take 2 or more years to show in the inflation figures. Biden had a period of reconstruction in the early days.
It might have escaped your attention span , but the inflation caused by Trump and covid is now under control, thanks to Biden.
World economic experts are calling the US economy miraculous.
Trump is going to trash all the gains.

And BTW, Argentina. .. What cost to the poor? There are ways and means of tackling inflation. But if your only rubric is how good the rich feel then you are going to create misery, as we are seeing in Argentina, where the poor are once again paying for the mistakes of rampant capitalism.

[Pattern-chaser]

Here is the latest but certainly not the last attack on free speech in the US.

You misunderstand, in the stereotypically straw-man way that people use to defend their fondest ideologies. I am not attacking free speech, I'm advancing the view that if free speech is to be of the greatest benefit, to all, then it has to have constraints placed on it. Hate speech is the obvious example, but not the only one.

And my comment stands, I think. With the might of the Imperial Constitution behind it, so-called 'free speech' is in no significant danger. How can it be, with a protector like America?

You speak as if the American Empire is healthy and well. That is not the case, but that should have a thread of its own.

No, I speak of it as if it has more than enough power to impose its will upon much of the world.

The Constitution of the US is not "Imperial" and it's not absolute.

The Constitution is, I think, the core of US law, and US law spreads across its Empire (most of the world).

But back to free speech, the government of the US does not value free speech, if it goes against the policies of the government.

Well, all governments set aside their fondest principles when it suits them. But America, and Americans, are, er, forthright in their 'defence' of so-called 'free speech'.

[Mo_reese]

No, I speak of it as if it has more than enough power to impose its will upon much of the world.

The US imposes it's will on most of the world because of brute strength and not because it has an Empire.

Again, the US Constitution is not absolute. It has changed significantly via interpretation since 2000.
The Patriot Act of 2001 made major strides to limit Constitutional powers under the guise of assuring safety against terrorism. Surveillance powers were expanded to set up a "special court" to decide when the US government can spy on citizens. I don't believe that court has ever denied the governments request to violate the Constitution. Protestors can be arrested without due process if they are "suspected" of terrorism and the government gets to decide on the definition of terrorism.

[Sy Borg]

However COngrees and the Senate have a tiger by the tail. A tiger willing and able to bring down havoc on AMerica.

I remember when another anti-establishment leader, Milei, was voted in as leader of Argentina. The media were like you - predicting the most dire consequences. However, after a hard period, he has finally got inflation under control.

Biden inherited a raising inflation . Economic impacts can take 2 or more years to show in the inflation figures. Biden had a period of reconstruction in the early days.
It might have escaped your attention span , but the inflation caused by Trump and covid is now under control, thanks to Biden.
World economic experts are calling the US economy miraculous.
Trump is going to trash all the gains.

And BTW, Argentina. .. What cost to the poor? There are ways and means of tackling inflation. But if your only rubric is how good the rich feel then you are going to create misery, as we are seeing in Argentina, where the poor are once again paying for the mistakes of rampant capitalism.

The poor in Argentina have been plentiful and suffering under poor economic management for many years. I do not believe that Trump will necessarily lose the gains made in the last few years, which is just typical oppositional doomsaying. Personally, I am interested to see how the next administration's approaches go. They are looking into some systemic issues that have been allowed to become problematic over time, eg. the synergy between parts of the medical profession, Big Pharma, manufacturers of HPFs, and Monsato, contributing to increasing obesity.