Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

Exactly. That was a statement he put on his campaign website back in 2015. Here's an interesting article about it. Yes. Brietbart. Deal with it. Of particular interest (to me anyway) was this bit:



In case you were having trouble following the guys point (or don't bother to read it at all), he was basically saying that an actual "ban on muslims" would be bad, for a number of reasons, but would not be unconstitutional. And then speculating that the election year rhetoric might actually shake down to something far less problematic. Basically "Yeah, he said he wanted to ban muslims, but what if he only just bans a small number of countries? That would be ok, right?" Um... Which is what he actually did. So it's like this guy was pretty decent at predicting "What Trump Really Meant". Or was just randomly lucky...


One of the things I've noticed about Trump (and may have commented on it before here, but I honestly can't remember), that he does that we're not used to politicians doing (at all!), is he treats everything as a negotiation. He starts his position like 8 steps past anything remotely reasonable. Then backs off to a more reasonable position. He knows that if he starts out in reasonable territory, it'll still be opposed and he'll end up giving even more ground on the issue. I know I've definitely seen this behavior, and it still surprises me that people howl and yell every time he says something "outrageous". Um... It's intentionally outrageous guys. So that when he changes to something that's not, he'll actually get what he wants.

I see this language as the same sort of thing. Yes, it's quite jarring because we think of politicians as having to set solid positions and then fight for them. And we have a difficult time with politicians who'll say they want one thing, knowing it'll make it easier to get what they really want. But this is his way of doing things. And once you kinda grok it, it actually starts to make a bit of sense. You have to judge him based on the resulting action, not on what he says along the way. He negotiates. Which means he's always going to present a starting position that is unworkable and unreasonable and will be soundly rejected, not even just by his opponents, but by folks in his own party as well. He seems more than willing to take the slings that come his way in the process of doing this, if the end result is what he wants.

Not sure I like that methodology at all, but I think it helps to understand that's what he's actually doing. And yeah, getting all alarmed about the things he says appears to be part of this methodology as well.

It had already been stated previously in the conversation that it could be implied based on Trump's previous campaign rhetoric. The comment afterward was that they referred to the EO repeatedly as a Muslim ban. When they hadn't.

This isn't "policing", it's a straight ban on entry. Comparing it to another hypothetical ban on entering is far more apt than "better policing".

If you want something closer your crime areas stat, it would be like saying "No black people from [six states] are allowed in my shopping mall" and justifying it by saying those states have too much crime so those black people are probably criminals. But not the white people from those states, they're okay. Or black people from other states. So it's not really based on race. Except that it only impacts black people.

Sometimes its through ineptitude, moral blind spots and "acceptable losses" but those people aren't hurt any less for it.

Edited, Feb 17th 2017 8:23am by Jophiel

I find it ironic that Trump starts "eight steps past reasonable", then backs up two and Gbaji says "He's more reasonable now!" and supports it. Then tells us that we're just missing Trump's tricks.

Hey dumbass, you're supporting a stance that's still six steps past your definition of reasonable. It wasn't us who got played for fools.

Edited, Feb 17th 2017 12:09pm by Jophiel

Well, and "they" was specifically "his administration", suggesting members of Trumps Administration, post inauguration, referring directly to the executive order he wrote, as a "Muslim Ban". I have not heard anyone in the Trump administration use that phrase to describe it. I've heard literally hundreds of critics of his administration use it, however. Hence my request for an actual quote.

I'm not at all debating that there are many people who view it as a Muslim Ban. But that's not the statement that was made. Let's not forget that the argument being presented was that it's ok for critics of the Trump administration (and specifically the EO) to call it a Muslim Ban, because that's what they called it. If there is no quote of the Trump Administration calling it that though, then the argument completely falls apart.

Again, this does not mean that people can't call it a Muslim Ban if they want, but then they're just putting their own opinion out there, and kinda have to defend it on its own merits and not with a made up claim about the same label being used by the Administration.

"Terrorist" became a meaningless term once we started applying it to insurgent fighters trying to kill US soldiers in foreign lands. Seems odd that you're just getting worked up about it this week.

Edited, Feb 17th 2017 5:21pm by Jophiel

I'm not "getting worked up about it", I'm posting my definition. It's a definition I've used for years. I've used it in the past to argue that it was wrong to label insurgents fighting against US soldiers in Iraq "terrorists" as well. Yes, even when they plant IEDs. They're combatants, not terrorists. They may or may not be "unlawful combatants", but that definition *also* is not the same as "terrorist". As a general rule, if you are engaged in violence and the target of that violence is the enemy you are fighting against, then what you are doing is *not* terrorism. It may be illegal. It may be immoral. But it's not automatically terrorism.

Each of these terms has very specific meanings. I just think we should at least make some effort to keep them straight.

Also why haven't we just killed all the fake Jews like Steve bannon yet?

Who can you trust at Goldman these days...

I checked forum search "gbaji/insurgent" and found zero threads containing anything even remotely close to this claim.


Maybe gbaji should get premium?

Hebephilia! Get it right, Joph.

Actually, to his credit, he has made that argument. He was arguing that crashing a plane into an IRS building to "wake up America" wasn't terrorism.

Don't know if I'd agree with him there but he did make the specific argument that planting an IED to blow up military vehicles wasn't an act of terrorism.

I'd be more impressed if Gbaji was ringing this bell back when Bush was calling every enemy combatant a terrorist (can't have a War on Terror without terrorists) but credit where due.

Poor Milo got dumped as the keynote speaker of CPAC.

I got lucky on a string of "terrorism isn't"

And his book deal, apparently. Which is absolutely shocking considering his position at Breitbart and our constant assurance of their yuge integrity and of their being the only source of real news anywhere in the world.

Speaking of 45, possibly his first smart move in naming Herbert Raymond McMaster to replace that idiot Flynn as National Security Advisor. He wrote a pretty good book about how it's bad to not question high-ranking officers and presidents on their war time strategies. He's also quite the intellectual who has shaped a lot of the military. This is the kind of guy you'd actually want on the job so he'll probably get himself gone'd before November, but at least he'll get sacked for integrity.