US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3264

On March 11 2016 07:26 Nyxisto wrote:


Who is this islam, where does he live and why does he hate the US again?

On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:

Why is that bigoted? How about if Rick Scott sincerely said "Islam loves the US," how would your response change in that case?

Anyway, you're ignoring the actual MSNBC interview. Joe Scarsborough made the same mistake Plansix did (or rather, Plansix repeated it), which is that he asked whether Scott believed "all Muslims" hate the US and suggested that's what Trump said/meant (which he didn't if you actually listen to the source). That is a misinterpretation of the statement and the context where it originated. And it's probably deliberate. Once an interviewer says something like that, you can't erase it from memory. It poisons the rest of the discussion. There'd be no room for Rick Scott, whatever his views (again I have no idea), to represent an otherwise reasonable position - like taking a stance on the extent religion is a factor in radical Islam - because he'd just get pressed with more bait. There's nothing wrong with not answering a question like that, as we can see folks have already judged him guilty of some kind of bigotry-by-association as they love to do.

If someone said "Pakistan hates India" or "Turkey hates Kurdistan" or "Christianity hates paganism" or "There is a tremendous poverty in the black community," do you believe these are bigoted statements? Or can you at least see they're not synonymous with "All Pakistanis hate India" or "All Turks hate Kurdistan" or "All Christians hate paganism" or "All blacks in the US are poor" respectively, which is good, because those would all clearly not be true statements - am I missing anything?

On March 11 2016 07:29 Jockmcplop wrote:


Not just Islam, dude.

ALL of the Islams.

On March 11 2016 07:34 Plansix wrote:

Clearly we need to ship all the Islams back to ISIS were they came from. And then build a wall so they can't come back to America.

On March 11 2016 07:47 oneofthem wrote:
trump is just a guy who judges the worth of anything by how much money is involved. he gives no fuck about ethics

On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:

Please, it's painfully obvious that you're jumping through hoops to try to justify the statement and Rick Scott's response. Islam isn't a thinking entity, so when Trump says that it "hates America", he is unambiguously saying that the people who believe in Islam, namely Muslims, hate America. He is clearly qualifying the followers of Islam as a hateful group, which is by definition bigoted.

And even if you were right that Trump meant something completely different by "Islam hates America" (which he didn't, so you're wrong), Rick Scott could have easily said so, and responded with "I disagree that Muslims hate America, but I agree that Islam hates America" (which would be a nonsensical statement, but that's where your logic leads). He didn't, because he either agrees with Trump and is bigoted as well, or he disagrees with Trump and he's a coward who doesn't want to stand up against bigotry.

On March 11 2016 07:03 Nyxisto wrote:
There needs to be a new word for this. Trump isn't even lying, which is actively subverting truth I guess, he's just making random stuff up to the point where nobody including him even knows what he said anymore. I don't know why people even use this as an excuse as in "yeah he's actually reasonable he's just acting", how is someone like this fit for being the president?

On March 11 2016 08:23 OtherWorld wrote:

I mean, confusing people is a legit strategy, and in fact it often works, because you're often unable to respond when confused. It should draw anyone with a decent sense of reason away from him as a potential president, but shit happens.

On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:

I'm seeing that you're hesitant about considering any examples... Is the statement "France hates the US" bigoted? Do you think it's synonymous with the statement "All French people hate the US," or do you think maybe the terms "Islam" and "France" are abstractions? Do you think if I say I hate country music that it means I have a personal loathing for Bob Dylan?

You are doing exactly what Joe Scarborough would have done if Rick Scott had been stupid enough to go down that road. The point I am plainly trying to lead you to is that "All Muslims hate us" (the antecedent of "us" was the West, not the USA) is not synonymous with "Islam hates us."

I don't care about the truth of what Trump said for this point.* I care very deeply that people don't have the keenness to spot their simple logical mistake. If you make a claim about X, it's not a claim about all the parts or members of X, nor is it a generalization about the parts or members of X. If I say the 787 is a smart aeroplane, nobody would be up in arms saying "what do you mean, aeroplanes can't be smart that doesn't even make sense, so what's so smart about a tire and landing gear and bathroom mirror an-" because you know exactly what the meaning is. I know that bigotry is a touchy subject, but that's not an excuse for conflating statements that aren't the same just to throw Rick Scott under the bus for sport.

*There are a thousand reasons to criticize Trump. How about torture and the fact that he doesn't understand the internet? He may even be a bigot. But no, his use of simple language (as usual) to talk about the geopolitical divide between Islam is supposed to be the smoking gun.

On March 11 2016 08:29 OtherWorld wrote:

"France hates X" can be understood both as "(All) French people hate X" or "The French government (that is, the entity "France") hates X". The former is necessarily stupid because you cannot put millions of people sharing a single, insignificant feature (here nationality) into the same bad, the latter is acceptable because official entities have official positions.
Now, Islam is one of these religion which you cannot consider as a single, clearly drawn out entity. There is no "Pope", there are multiple ways to think Islam and to practice it. Thus the only meaning you can apply to "Islam hates X" is "All Muslim people hate X", which is necessarily stupid.

On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:

I'm seeing that you're hesitant about considering any examples... Is the statement "France hates the US" bigoted? Do you think it's synonymous with the statement "All French people hate the US," or do you think maybe the terms "Islam" and "France" are abstractions? Do you think if I say I hate country music that it means I have a personal loathing for Bob Dylan?

You are doing exactly what Joe Scarborough would have done if Rick Scott had been stupid enough to go down that road. The point I am plainly trying to lead you to is that "All Muslims hate us" (the antecedent of "us" was the West, not the USA) is not synonymous with "Islam hates us."

I don't care about the truth of what Trump said for this point.* I care very deeply that people don't have the keenness to spot their simple logical mistake. If you make a claim about X, it's not a claim about all the parts or members of X, nor is it a generalization about the parts or members of X. If I say the 787 is a smart aeroplane, nobody would be up in arms saying "what do you mean, aeroplanes can't be smart that doesn't even make sense, so what's so smart about a tire and landing gear and bathroom mirror an-" because you know exactly what the meaning is. I know that bigotry is a touchy subject, but that's not an excuse for conflating statements that aren't the same just to throw Rick Scott under the bus for sport.

On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:
*There are a thousand reasons to criticize Trump. How about torture and the fact that he doesn't understand the internet? He may even be a bigot. But no, his use of simple language (as usual) to talk about the geopolitical divide between Islam and the West is supposed to be the smoking gun.

On March 11 2016 08:58 WhiteDog wrote:
"on par with Huntington's repeatedly debunked Clash of civilizations."
Debunked, lolz.

I debunked Bourdieu's theory of social reproduction because Obama became a president.

On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:

I don't think you realize that you inadvertently agreed with me there. When you say that "you know exactly what the meaning is" when you say "the 787 is a smart aeroplane" -- that's the point: you should know exactly what the meaning is when Trump says "Islams hates America", and that meaning is that the people who believe in Islam, namely Muslims, hate America. There is no logical mistake whatsoever; it's simply a matter of not being completely oblivious to what is actually being said.

With regards to your fallacious analogies, I know very well that Islam and Muslims are different -- one is a faith, the other is a group of people. One can very well honestly criticize Islam as a faith and social institution, or any other religion for that matter, without targeting believers per se. The point is that Trump is not doing that -- he's explicitly using Islam as a proxy to make a statement about Muslims, which is a tactic employed by the far-right everywhere. It would make zero sense to argue that Islam itself hates America (do tell me if you've discovered a mention of America somewhere in the Quran), and it's easily understandable that he's talking about the people who believe in Islam, who are the ones with agency and the knowledge of America's existence. In short, you're being deliberately obtuse, while Trump's bigotry in targeting Muslims through Islam could not be more obvious.

You didn't respond to my other point, by the way: "even if you were right that Trump meant something completely different by "Islam hates America" (which he didn't, so you're wrong), Rick Scott could have easily said so, and responded with "I disagree that Muslims hate America, but I agree that Islam hates America" (which would be a nonsensical statement, but that's where your logic leads). He didn't, because he either agrees with Trump and is bigoted as well, or he disagrees with Trump and he's a coward who doesn't want to stand up against bigotry."


There is no such thing as a "geopolitical divide between Islam and the West". It's a ridiculously simplistic and ignorant depiction of the situation, on par with Huntington's repeatedly debunked Clash of civilizations.

On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:

You're speaking like a true fundamentalist.

You know that there is nuance in speech, you're just pretty certain that the group of people you disagree with (conservatives) don't have that nuance.

That habit you have of making assumptions on what people mean because that is how you believe those people think is the exact reason why we have bigots in society.