This place used to be quite different, no?

[UberNeuman]

It's Christopher Plummer from the ST movie "The Undiscovered Country". If you haven't seen it, Plummer is a Shakespeare quoting Klingon, and this is a 6 second clip of him in a captain's chair in a battle with Kirk, swivelling around make a madman and saying "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!"

Thank goodness he knew not to say "let loose".

Only because he said it in the original Klingon.

 

[Moonbeam]

You fuckers, I actually HAVE immigrant family members (through my sister who is married to one). I actually know immigrants, am friends with them. Have great respect for them and as I said we entitled and spoiled Americans have much to learn from them.

You guys are a bunch of fucking brainwashed idiots!!!!

I have been reading your arguments on immigration here with curiosity and fascination and especially with regards to what you see in liberals that makes their notions on the subject immoral. I find these differences illustrate the points I tried to make to my liberal buddies yesterday. I claimed they have a moral blindness that makes the moral concerns of conservatives invisible and all the while conservative can actually be applying their own greater range of moral values improperly.

I try to encapsulate the paradox represented here like that:

Conservatives have all the moral values that liberals have and a bunch more that are important and real, that can confer survivability to society, but because morality can and often is inculcated into people by putting them down with threats that evoke fear, the morality becomes rooted in the fear of being evil rather than as it should be via love of the good. That means that where this happens you get more people whose morality is hypocritical apace with how many different moral concerns they have.

The more values we hold that were improperly inculcated, the more areas of bigotry a person can manifest.

With that said what is the reaction of a bigot vs a truly moral person to having his moral values challenged? Would it be logical to assume that a bigot reacts with anger because his sacred cows consist of values that if lost would cause fear, the means by which they were instilled? And what of the inwardly moral person. Would he or she not say, “poor critic of me has no idea of the self respect one can have when one’s moral values are real”.

So which was the kind of post I quoted of yours here?

The moral value I found interesting that you suggested was that be allowing emotions of sympathy we invite more and more to break our laws. Liberals, I think would not be the pool of people out of which that value here would normally surface. Why do you think it did with you?

 

[MavericK96]

Wow, OP's responses sure devolved quickly.

 

[Thebobo]

Wow, OP's responses sure devolved quickly.

or evolved depending how you look at it..

 

[dank69]

Wow, OP's responses sure devolved quickly.

It's all about the ego.

 

[Moonbeam]

Not sure I understand what you are trying to tell me.

We have to be careful how we understand that word 'try'. It can imply an effort with intention or aim as if the goal were achievable by that means. I wasn't trying in that sense so much as shouting out, quietly of course, my sense that you are not seeing something. But that would be like telling you that you have a piece of tape stuck on the back of your head, knowing as I do, that you would immediately turn around to look, with the result, of course, that the tape would still remain invisible to you. So what I was actually trying to do was to give you a heads up that here was a chance to try to sense the tape in a non usual way for you, to try to feel out without your usual fixed methodology, what might be there. Perhaps a couple of hairs might be pulling. If I tried to tell you with greater precision what you might have done you would just turn around to look again. When you go off into the weeds and I point it out, you explain to me all about weeds. The point isn't the weeds, it's that you wandered off into them.

 

[fskimospy]

It's all about the ego.

I think people come in here with the idea that they are somehow great debaters and logical geniuses and will be able to put the stupid denizens of P&N in their place in no time. When that doesn’t happen and/or they find out they might not be so smart after all they get mad.

 

[woolfe9998]

Many of the normal people that leaned right are very much anti-trump so now they seem like they are on the left, same with many of the moderates. Others just don't post much any more.

Since most people on here are educated and educated people broke hard away from Trump, I think we are matching what polls are showing.

Between this and my previous handle, I've been posting regularly here since 2008. I started during that election cycle. At the time, the board was more or less evenly split right/left. It was maybe 55/45 in favor of left. The leftward shift actually occurred during the Obama years. The mix is about the same now as it was 2 years ago.

 

[realibrad]

I think people come in here with the idea that they are somehow great debaters and logical geniuses and will be able to put the stupid denizens of P&N in their place in no time. When that doesn’t happen and/or they find out they might not be so smart after all they get mad.

Where do you think you fit in then?

 

[Moonbeam]

I think people come in here with the idea that they are somehow great debaters and logical geniuses and will be able to put the stupid denizens of P&N in their place in no time. When that doesn’t happen and/or they find out they might not be so smart after all they get mad.

The arguments you have made in this thread regarding immigration I find deeply logical and persuasive and my effort above was to address the effect that can have on a position that can involve some unconscious assumptions generally referred to as bigotry, but in this present post it isn't the logic that grabs me, but the implication that people who run into the fact that their opinions may arise from motivations they don't understand somehow makes them stupid, as in not so smart they don't get mad. I believe it is wrong to attach a pejorative valuation to the blindness of others because that is a defense mechanism they had to adopt as children to survive moral torture. And unless you yourself are fully conscious of the origins of your moral beliefs, you can't really say with certainty you aren't just like them.

In short, I myself reach reflexively the their stupid explanation because I am a liberal and have a liberal brain defect. It is one that scientific investigations into the origin of motivations tells me is a defect I would do well to avoid if possible.

 

[fskimospy]

Where do you think you fit in then?

I think I’m a pretty smart guy but there are plenty of people here who are just as smart. I think my primary advantage here is that I’ve ‘done the reading’, so to speak. Most people don’t bother.

 

[Zorba]

Between this and my previous handle, I've been posting regularly here since 2008. I started during that election cycle. At the time, the board was more or less evenly split right/left. It was maybe 55/45 in favor of left. The leftward shift actually occurred during the Obama years. The mix is about the same now as it was 2 years ago.

I agree about the previous split. But there are moderate posters that used to seem more right leaning, that come off much more left since Trump, like @Hayabusa Rider and @Jaskalas. Even some of the always conservative people come off more moderate in some threads since the election, like @glenn1.

We've also lost a lot of the really annoying right wing trolls like Spidey, ProfJohn, and TexasHiker.

 

[fskimospy]

The arguments you have made in this thread regarding immigration I find deeply logical and persuasive and my effort above was to address the effect that can have on a position that can involve some unconscious assumptions generally referred to as bigotry, but in this present post it isn't the logic that grabs me, but the implication that people who run into the fact that their opinions may arise from motivations they don't understand somehow makes them stupid, as in not so smart they don't get mad. I believe it is wrong to attach a pejorative valuation to the blindness of others because that is a defense mechanism they had to adopt as children to survive moral torture. And unless you yourself are fully conscious of the origins of your moral beliefs, you can't really say with certainty you aren't just like them.

In short, I myself reach reflexively the their stupid explanation because I am a liberal and have a liberal brain defect. It is one that scientific investigations into the origin of motivations tells me is a defect I would do well to avoid if possible.

I agree we all have our unconscious motivations, biases, etc. I’m certainly not above any of that. I imagine it’s a continuum of awareness though, and I am above some in that awareness, haha.

 

[Moonbeam]

I honestly think this is the biggest gap between liberals and conservatives at least based on the posting here. People who identify themselves as "conservatives" here frequently appear unable to empathize with the situations of other people unless they have lived that same situation themselves. It comes up again and again as "x" was good enough for me so it should be fine for everyone or I've never had "y" problem so no one else should either.

If liberals specialize in shades of gray and have only a couple of important moral values, and conservatives have bright lines of morality they draw in the sand, can you see where what you call empathy and they call empathy might be different. If a wishy washy upbringing in a liberal home, I think something conservatives are terrified of, leads to children who grow up with subjective and therefore easily pliant moral restraint, empathy being the cause of the lack of discipline, how can empathy be a good thing in that case? I think your problem here is that what you call empathy is what you think empathy is and not everybody sees empathy in that way. This is a trap created by the unconscious assumption of what you believe about empathy. You know that empathy is good and so do conservatives, but the argument devolves because each side sees the good in different ways. So the motivation on both sides is good, but the definitions may be good or bad etc. So the debate becomes who is right or wrong morally, when the argument should be here about what empathy is and how do you apply it properly.

 

[Capt Caveman]

You fuckers, I actually HAVE immigrant family members (through my sister who is married to one). I actually know immigrants, am friends with them. Have great respect for them and as I said we entitled and spoiled Americans have much to learn from them.

You guys are a bunch of fucking brainwashed idiots!!!!

What was your previous banned username? You sound like a big snowflake.

 

[Blackjack200]

If liberals specialize in shades of gray and have only a couple of important moral values, and conservatives have bright lines of morality they draw in the sand, can you see where what you call empathy and they call empathy might be different. If a wishy washy upbringing in a liberal home, I think something conservatives are terrified of, leads to children who grow up with subjective and therefore easily pliant moral restraint, empathy being the cause of the lack of discipline, how can empathy be a good thing in that case? I think your problem here is that what you call empathy is what you think empathy is and not everybody sees empathy in that way. This is a trap created by the unconscious assumption of what you believe about empathy. You know that empathy is good and so do conservatives, but the argument devolves because each side sees the good in different ways. So the motivation on both sides is good, but the definitions may be good or bad etc. So the debate becomes who is right or wrong morally, when the argument should be here about what empathy is and how do you apply it properly.

I think empathy is the ability to internalize and experience the experiences of another. When we see someone behaving in a cruel manner, we accuse them of lacking empathy because the alternative, that the person is able to empathize with the subject of their cruelty and not alter their cruel behavior, is rather frightening.

 

[Jhhnn]

Are you fucking kidding me? Or you are deliberately trolling? Do I look like someone who wants to make America all white again? Have you even bothered to read my posts?

And what the hell does "innocent" mean? Is going back to their countries some kind of death sentence to be pronounced on the "guilty" ones? What has innocence or guilt got to do with it?

Everything. You know it as well as I do. That's why you've turned so defensive. It's immoral to make innocent people suffer any sort of penalty. Being deported or revocation of the documentation necessary to be legally employed is obviously a huge penalty.

The whole thing with the Salvadoran refugees is completely ridiculous. We let them into this country "temporarily" 17 fucking years ago. They have American spouses, kids, jobs, mortgages & obligations. Whose fault is it that they're still here after all these years? It's our own fault, not theirs. Once that's admitted then granting them full immigrant status is the only moral choice.

It's much the same with the Dreamers. They're not responsible for being brought here as children. They've been raised American, went to school with our own kids. None of that is their fault. Some have American citizen children who depend on them as breadwinners. Revoking DACA is every bit as cruel & stupid as screwing over the Salvadorans.

Oh, and if you don't want to be mistaken for a xenophobic stiff dick raver don't use their talking points, don't try to turn the lives of real people into abstractions. Try putting yourself in their shoes & see how it feels.

 

[umbrella39]

Has ProfJohn flushed the toilet yet??? Is this thing seriously still going on...

 

[Noah Abrams]

So we should immorally and impractically harm children brought to the United States to send a message to anyone else that would like a better life for their children? This is your moral argument?

I don't think I am advocating "harming" who were brought here as illegals. They came here as illegals, and I am suggesting we do nothing about it. I am not advocating any action against them. There are upwards of millions of illegal people here in this country already. Are they being harmed by anyone?

I am also not talking about sending any message to anyone. Sending a message is bombing a village to save a village - Vietnam. To keep others in line, so as they do not resist imperialism. That is what is called sending a message. Iraq, another one. How dare our former beloved dictator turn against our interests? So we will bomb the shit out of that country, not once but twice. That is sending a message to any others who might get some ideas in their heads.

Anybody who wants to come here, we do have an extensive legal system. Yes it is kinda fucked up - and just the other day I heard a heart breaking story which I can share if anyone is interested (I doubt anyone is). So you suggest we fuck the people who have the inherent decency in them to follow the law and legalize the law breakers and/or their children?

By the way, I was trying only to make a moral argument. That does not mean I am a moral person myself. I don't think I am.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I agree about the previous split. But there are moderate posters that used to seem more right leaning, that come off much more left since Trump, like @Hayabusa Rider and @Jaskalas. Even some of the always conservative people come off more moderate in some threads since the election, like @glenn1.

We've also lost a lot of the really annoying right wing trolls like Spidey, ProfJohn, and TexasHiker.

Full disclosure on my part. I am by nature someone who is usually not satisfied by "statement X confirms conclusion Y". Very often words are constructed to limit conclusions, not expand on them. At times we do this for brevity and clarity, but in politics, that may be a means of obfuscatory opportunism. I tend to look at a premise and analyze "Is this contextually valid and complete and are there other possibly credible views. If true how significant is it in a larger topic of debate". I'll play devil's advocate, a prodder, or for those who don't get it, troll. But usually, there is a purpose.

The problem is that challenging the "truths" of a given cohort tends to make one "the other". In effect I might be, at least to the point I can see valid criticism or different ways of approach. God knows I was a corporatist shill Republican profiting off of Big Pharma or whatever when Obamacare was proposed. I should expect that someone now will go on defense now.

But if Bush or Obama or Trump engaged in what I consider violations of rights, who should I side with? Who should I defend? Who should I not include in a general case of systemic abuse? The latter gets whataboutism a fair deal which is often really lame use of ad hominem.

Let me play truth and consequences and see if anything happens.

I state categorically that the Obama administration under the authority long given by Congress, could have acted to prevent hundreds of thousands of prosecutions of MJ under federal law, but did not even make an attempt. The occasional response was that Obama was black and couldn't do that. Yeah. Why? It could make future black presidents look bad. Well it goes on from there.

No wonder I'm on the left and the right sometimes at the same time . I suspect I'm not alone with others processing in a similar way.

 

[Moonbeam]

I agree we all have our unconscious motivations, biases, etc. I’m certainly not above any of that. I imagine it’s a continuum of awareness though, and I am above some in that awareness, haha.

Then let me suggest where I am on that continuum. We live in a competitive world in which intelligence is highly valued and highly rewarded, provided it doesn't critique the system. The result is that because competition is hate, any who seem to rise on the intelligence spectrum will face attempts to hammer them down. We have all been told we are stupid as a way to inflict pain or to incorrectly attempt to motivate. Stupid becomes a curse.

Like all systems of repression there is the Stockholm effect, where some enforce the stupid sanction and some retain their empathy for the victims, a natural reaction to fear and uncertainty as to our own IQ status.

I learned long ago that I felt stupid and wanted for all the world as a result to be smart. As a result of changing from school in Hawaii to California I suddenly appeared to be smart on my report card. So I took off academically with that encouragement. But I wasn't really smart, just better educated and I widened that gap by studying.

But none of this actually made me feel smart. I feel stupid to this day and I also feel shame. Here I am in love with the idea of being smart, wanting to see myself that way, being competitive and trying to win by belittling the intelligence of others. I'm just a piece of shit. I am arrogant and lacking in respect for the inner life of other people, trying to make them feel bad. I do to others what was done to me, not what I wish were done to me.

So it is this awareness of my flawed nature that has made it possible for me, I think, to want to put the breaks on my contemptuousness to others, and why, I think, the scientific studies of differences in moral concerns between liberals and conservatives was able to reach me. I am very familiar personally with the issues of being stupid, of contempt for stupid, of the ego inflation calling others stupid brings, etc. I don't know where you are on the continuum or if it really is one, but in case I see something you may not I wanted to share. I also may be less concerned about being stupid than I used to be and who knows, maybe you don't have to be smart to know a thing or two. Love you.....

 

[Jhhnn]

I don't think I am advocating "harming" who were brought here as illegals. They came here as illegals, and I am suggesting we do nothing about it. I am not advocating any action against them. There are upwards of millions of illegal people here in this country already. Are they being harmed by anyone?

I am also not talking about sending any message to anyone. Sending a message is bombing a village to save a village - Vietnam. To keep others in line, so as they do not resist imperialism. That is what is called sending a message. Iraq, another one. How dare our former beloved dictator turn against our interests? So we will bomb the shit out of that country, not once but twice. That is sending a message to any others who might get some ideas in their heads.

Anybody who wants to come here, we do have an extensive legal system. Yes it is kinda fucked up - and just the other day I heard a heart breaking story which I can share if anyone is interested (I doubt anyone is). So you suggest we fuck the people who have the inherent decency in them to follow the law and legalize the law breakers and/or their children?

By the way, I was trying only to make a moral argument. That does not mean I am a moral person myself. I don't think I am.

Running for the shelter of moral ambiguity is cowardly.

 

[Moonbeam]

I think empathy is the ability to internalize and experience the experiences of another. When we see someone behaving in a cruel manner, we accuse them of lacking empathy because the alternative, that the person is able to empathize with the subject of their cruelty and not alter their cruel behavior, is rather frightening.

Yes, I agree, but the question is if their manner actually is cruel or cruel because our beliefs about what cruel is might fall short of full understanding. Is there bias in our understanding of what on it's face must be good as with empathy. What if what we believe empathy is isn't want it really is? Do we question before we judge? Do we judge is we know?

 

[Moonbeam]

Running for the shelter of moral ambiguity is cowardly.

Yes, but is what you see as running for such a shelter really what you see or is it just what you believe you see. Are you both on the same page as to what moral ambiguity is? Stick a third person in here and he or she might claim neither one of you know what you're talking about, so sure of their own opinion.

 

[Starbuck1975]

For Dreamers, this country and culture is all they know. They grew up here, brought here as babies. It would be akin to ICE agents showing up at YOUR door and deporting you to a country you never knew.

No it wouldn’t because I am an American citizen. I do have relatives who are not American citizens and have spent a considerable amount of money to achieve some level of legal status, with employment being the biggest obstacle. If only they could just run across a border.

Why is it empathy is such a difficult thing for so many?

Empathy is a slippery slope. One could empathize with any criminal if you take in a broader context. I empathize with the heroin addict who robs a store or the veteran addicted to pain killers who raids a pharmacy. I empathize with the poor inner city kid who gets sucked into a gang and then murders someone. I empathize with Dreamers. But unless we are willing to reform inmigration law or implement more robust guest worker laws, we need to deter illegal immigration with stricter enforcement.

Go to any liberal democratic socialist country as a non citizen and see how long you survive under the radar. France and Germany and Sweden and Switzerland are all empathetic societies, and are draconian and rather nationalistic when it comes to immigration.