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On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:30 Plansix wrote:On March 11 2016 06:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:09 Plansix wrote:On March 11 2016 06:04 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
The question is bait for basically the reasons you just listed. Is it really a complex answer? “That is incorrect and overly broad. There are problems with violence in the middle east and at some level they are related to the predominant religion in that area. But it is not the sole cause of the violence, as economics and political turmoil also are large factors. But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” is completely false.” That's not a claim that Trump has made, although that's apparently where the question is coming from in the context of endorsing a candidate. The fact that they have a governor on TV and spring a question like that (about an issue you clearly think is more nuanced), a question that's about a step away from asking someone "Are you a bigot?" and it's no surprise he didn't want to indulge their bait. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Wednesday that he thinks "Islam hates us," drawing little distinction between the religion and radical Islamic terrorism.
"I think Islam hates us," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper, deploring the "tremendous hatred" that he said partly defined the religion. He maintained the war was against radical Islam, but said, "it's very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who." Yeah, it is a statement Trump made. But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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.
Yes, I'm saying in any other context you would be able to see the distinction between talking about a geopolitical force and making a universal statement about the adherents to it, except in this specific case you've been conditioned to overreact sharply to anything that could be even perceived as bigotry.
On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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.
What you're purporting to do here is read Trump's mind. I am doing my best to read people's words, not their minds. The geopolitical force people refer to when they use a word like Islam, a word that's a huge umbrella covering many things, is not contained within one holy book of the faith. It's like saying the USSR didn't "hate" the West because it wasn't codified in Marx.
On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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."
I've responded appropriately to the points made here. Here's a breakdown of the structure of this line just so you can see:
-Suppose, for the sake of argument, I, kwizach, am wrong and Trump wasn't being bigoted,
-But Trump actually was making a bigoted statement anyway,
-Rick Scott wouldn't respond to a question from Joe Scarsborough, therefore either
1) Rick Scott is bigoted just like Trump, which was proved two lines ago
2) Rick Scott is a coward who won't stand up to Trump's bigotry, which was proved three lines ago
On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
What I said is of course a generalization, but I think we may be living on different planets if you're claiming it's one that holds no water.
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On March 11 2016 09:04 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +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. The flaws and falsehoods in Huntington's analysis have been pointed out at length in the IR literature (and beyond). Didier Bigo rightly denounced Clash of civilizations as unscientific in the first place and as the product of political/security interests ("Grands débats dans un petit monde").
Theories in social sciences are not refutable, they are always wrong, incomplete abstraction that have no value outside of specific social contexts and that are never free from normatives aspects. Now I ve read Huntington years ago : i remember a theory presented as an hypothesis and nothing more, built to explain a tendancy (kosovo, he forsaw the ukrainian conflict) that were not understandable by the classical models of the moment.
His model is grossly simplified (even the term civilization have no value from an historical point of view) much like a model in astrology that would consider the earth to be a perfect ball.
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On March 11 2016 09:08 biology]major wrote:
When anderson cooper asked Trump : is it Islam vs the US or is it Radical Islam vs the US, trump said radical but it's tough to seperate who's who. I think that's exactly the problem, no one knows where normal islam ends and radical islam begins. There are so many subtle ideological stepping stones that lead to ISIS but who's to say that it isn't toxic well before that?
Islam is 1.5 billion people. That is more than the entire population of the United States. ISIS is 30-60K fighters. Radical Islam make up a tiny fraction of the religion and the people who follow it. But be 100%, ISIS will be using Trumps statements in their latest recruiting video, like always. He is their greatest ally in the US. Because he doesn't think before he says bigoted shit.
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On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:30 Plansix wrote:On March 11 2016 06:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:09 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
Is it really a complex answer?
“That is incorrect and overly broad. There are problems with violence in the middle east and at some level they are related to the predominant religion in that area. But it is not the sole cause of the violence, as economics and political turmoil also are large factors. But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” is completely false.”
That's not a claim that Trump has made, although that's apparently where the question is coming from in the context of endorsing a candidate. The fact that they have a governor on TV and spring a question like that (about an issue you clearly think is more nuanced), a question that's about a step away from asking someone "Are you a bigot?" and it's no surprise he didn't want to indulge their bait. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Wednesday that he thinks "Islam hates us," drawing little distinction between the religion and radical Islamic terrorism.
"I think Islam hates us," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper, deploring the "tremendous hatred" that he said partly defined the religion. He maintained the war was against radical Islam, but said, "it's very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who." Yeah, it is a statement Trump made. But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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. Yes, I'm saying in any other context you would be able to see the distinction between talking about a geopolitical force and making a universal statement about the adherents to it, except in this specific case you've been conditioned to overreact sharply to anything that could be even perceived as bigotry.
You are repeating what you said before. I answered your point about Islam and Muslims being different. See below. Also, Islam is not a "geopolitical force" which you can reasonably anthropomorphize to have it hold the kind of sentiments Trump was talking about, unless by targeting its believers.
On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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. What you're purporting to do here is read Trump's mind. I am doing my best to read people's words, not their minds. The geopolitical force people refer to when they use a word like Islam, a word that's a huge umbrella covering many things, is not contained within one holy book of the faith. It's like saying the USSR didn't "hate" the West because it wasn't codified in Marx.
I am not reading Trump's mind any more than you are reading minds when you say that you know what "it's a smart airplane" means, and that you know the person is not saying it's the actual airplane that is capable of intelligent thought. If you want to be willfully obtuse about it, good for you.
On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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." I've responded appropriately to the points made here. Here's a breakdown of the structure of this line just so you can see: -Suppose, for the sake of argument, I, kwizach, am wrong and Trump wasn't being bigoted, -But Trump actually was making a bigoted statement anyway, -Rick Scott wouldn't respond to a question from Joe Scarsborough, therefore either 1) Rick Scott is bigoted just like Trump, which was proved two lines ago 2) Rick Scott is a coward who won't stand up to Trump's bigotry, which was proved three lines ago
That is not a response to the point I'm making, no, and that breakdown is not an accurate representation of what I argued. Here you go:
- Suppose, for the sake of argument, I, kwizach, am wrong (even though I am not), and Trump was targeting Islam and not Muslims.
- This means Joe Scarborough incorrectly confused Trump's targeting of Islam with a targeting of Muslims.
- If Rick Scott was of the opinion that Trump was targeting Islam and not Muslims, he would obviously correct this misrepresentation (it would make his response much easier than what he went through to get out of it).
- He did not correct it, therefore it is more than likely he did not see it as a misrepresentation and he either:
1. Agrees with this targeting of Islam and Muslims and is bigoted
2. Doesn't agree with it, but is too much of a coward to say anything.
On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote: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. 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. What I said is of course a generalization, but I think we may be living on different planets if you're claiming it's one that holds no water.
Like I said: it's a ridiculously simplistic and ignorant depiction of the situation.
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On March 11 2016 09:14 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:04 kwizach wrote: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. The flaws and falsehoods in Huntington's analysis have been pointed out at length in the IR literature (and beyond). Didier Bigo rightly denounced Clash of civilizations as unscientific in the first place and as the product of political/security interests ("Grands débats dans un petit monde"). Theories in social sciences are not refutable, they are always wrong, incomplete abstraction that have no value outside of specific social contexts and that are never free from normatives aspects. Now I ve read Huntington years ago : i remember a theory presented as an hypothesis and nothing more, built to explain a tendancy (kosovo, he forsaw the ukrainian conflict) that were not understandable by the classical models of the moment. His model is grossly simplified (even the term civilization have no value from an historical point of view) much like a model in astrology that would consider the earth to be a perfect ball.
There was no need for that attempt at epistemology 101. Huntington did not present a theory, he presented a model and a hypothesis. And like I said, the flaws in the foundations of his model have been pointed out at length in the literature, which is what I referred to in my initial post.
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On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:30 Plansix wrote:On March 11 2016 06:18 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
That's not a claim that Trump has made, although that's apparently where the question is coming from in the context of endorsing a candidate. The fact that they have a governor on TV and spring a question like that (about an issue you clearly think is more nuanced), a question that's about a step away from asking someone "Are you a bigot?" and it's no surprise he didn't want to indulge their bait. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Wednesday that he thinks "Islam hates us," drawing little distinction between the religion and radical Islamic terrorism.
"I think Islam hates us," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper, deploring the "tremendous hatred" that he said partly defined the religion. He maintained the war was against radical Islam, but said, "it's very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who." Yeah, it is a statement Trump made. But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people".
So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US?
When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us"
Islam could mean a lot of things
Us could mean a lot of things
and even Hate could mean a lot of things
And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing.
Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc...
Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc...
Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc...
For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said.
You also don't know if *why* Trump said it.
-Does he actually fear Muslims?
-Does he want to incite his supporters?
-Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas?
-Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear?
-Does he believe what he say?
-etc....
When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means.
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On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:30 Plansix wrote:On March 11 2016 06:18 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
That's not a claim that Trump has made, although that's apparently where the question is coming from in the context of endorsing a candidate. The fact that they have a governor on TV and spring a question like that (about an issue you clearly think is more nuanced), a question that's about a step away from asking someone "Are you a bigot?" and it's no surprise he didn't want to indulge their bait. http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Wednesday that he thinks "Islam hates us," drawing little distinction between the religion and radical Islamic terrorism.
"I think Islam hates us," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper, deploring the "tremendous hatred" that he said partly defined the religion. He maintained the war was against radical Islam, but said, "it's very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who." Yeah, it is a statement Trump made. But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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. Yes, I'm saying in any other context you would be able to see the distinction between talking about a geopolitical force and making a universal statement about the adherents to it, except in this specific case you've been conditioned to overreact sharply to anything that could be even perceived as bigotry. You are repeating what you said before. I answered your point about Islam and Muslims being different. See below. Also, Islam is not a "geopolitical force" which you can reasonably anthropomorphize to have it hold the kind of sentiments Trump was talking about, unless by targeting its believers. Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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. What you're purporting to do here is read Trump's mind. I am doing my best to read people's words, not their minds. The geopolitical force people refer to when they use a word like Islam, a word that's a huge umbrella covering many things, is not contained within one holy book of the faith. It's like saying the USSR didn't "hate" the West because it wasn't codified in Marx. I am not reading Trump's mind any more than you are reading minds when you say that you know what "it's a smart airplane" means, and that you know the person is not saying it's the actual airplane that is capable of intelligent thought. If you want to be willfully obtuse about it, good for you.
Are you saying your qualm is with the word "hate?"
On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote: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. 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. What I said is of course a generalization, but I think we may be living on different planets if you're claiming it's one that holds no water. Like I said: it's a ridiculously simplistic and ignorant depiction of the situation.
Something being a rough generalization doesn't make it ignorant. Similarly, something being stupid doesn't make it bigoted.
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On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means.
I think the ambiguity is undeniably intentional and betrays that it's not done for the good of Americans. So to me it's largely irrelevant as to what he "means" or "why" beyond the obvious.
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On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means.
With respect to Islam, he mentions "people" in general in the interview (not only radicals). It is clear he is talking about Muslims. I'm not making a statement with regards to how his supporters understood it (I'll let you "figure it out", to quote Trump), I'm making a statement with regards to what Trump himself was saying.
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On March 11 2016 09:42 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:But the claim that all 1.5 billion people who identify as members of Islam “hate the US” This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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. Yes, I'm saying in any other context you would be able to see the distinction between talking about a geopolitical force and making a universal statement about the adherents to it, except in this specific case you've been conditioned to overreact sharply to anything that could be even perceived as bigotry. You are repeating what you said before. I answered your point about Islam and Muslims being different. See below. Also, Islam is not a "geopolitical force" which you can reasonably anthropomorphize to have it hold the kind of sentiments Trump was talking about, unless by targeting its believers. On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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. What you're purporting to do here is read Trump's mind. I am doing my best to read people's words, not their minds. The geopolitical force people refer to when they use a word like Islam, a word that's a huge umbrella covering many things, is not contained within one holy book of the faith. It's like saying the USSR didn't "hate" the West because it wasn't codified in Marx. I am not reading Trump's mind any more than you are reading minds when you say that you know what "it's a smart airplane" means, and that you know the person is not saying it's the actual airplane that is capable of intelligent thought. If you want to be willfully obtuse about it, good for you. Are you saying your qualm is with the word "hate?"
So now you're being willfully obtuse about what I'm saying?
On March 11 2016 09:42 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote: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. 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. What I said is of course a generalization, but I think we may be living on different planets if you're claiming it's one that holds no water. Like I said: it's a ridiculously simplistic and ignorant depiction of the situation. Something being a rough generalization doesn't make it ignorant. Similarly, something being stupid doesn't make it bigoted.
Being a generalization doesn't make a statement simplistic and ignorant. Your statement was those things, but not by virtue of being a generalization. Similarly, Trump's statement was bigoted, and not only stupid.
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On March 11 2016 09:44 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means. With respect to Islam, he mentions "people" in general in the interview (not only radicals). It is clear he is talking about Muslims. I'm not making a statement with regards to how his supporters understood it (I'll let you "figure it out", to quote Trump), I'm making a statement with regards to what Trump himself was saying.
Why would Trump distinguish between Radicals and Non-Radicals when talking about Muslims to a crowd of conservatives? He is an entertainer after all--he even had his own TV Show. People itself could mean a lot of things and is used as often to define groups within a population as it is used to define the population itself.
For example, when my friend sees something on facebook and says "people are stupid" he does not mean "Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists" are stupid nor does he even mean the totality of all human beings are stupid. He means that there are subsections of society, that he cannot specifically define, that do things that he does not agree with. Jumping to a conclusion about what Trump is specifically meaning from such scarce evidence of a few words and phrases in one random speech is absolutely stupid. And being forced to make conclusions that forces you take a side in the issue when the people he is asking about might affect your candidacy during reelection is also stupid.
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On March 11 2016 09:50 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:44 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means. With respect to Islam, he mentions "people" in general in the interview (not only radicals). It is clear he is talking about Muslims. I'm not making a statement with regards to how his supporters understood it (I'll let you "figure it out", to quote Trump), I'm making a statement with regards to what Trump himself was saying. Why would Trump distinguish between Radicals and Non-Radicals when talking about Muslims to a crowd of conservatives? He is an entertainer after all--he even had his own TV Show. People itself could mean a lot of things and is used as often to define groups within a population as it is used to define the population itself. For example, when my friend sees something on facebook and says "people are stupid" he does not mean "Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists" are stupid nor does he even mean the totality of all human beings are stupid. He means that there are subsections of society, that he cannot specifically define, that do things that he does not agree with. Jumping to a conclusion about what Trump is specifically meaning from such scarce evidence of a few words and phrases in one random speech is absolutely stupid. And being forced to make conclusions that forces you take a side in the issue when the people he is asking about might affect your candidacy during reelection is also stupid.
The subsection of society that Trump is talking about is Muslims, and he is being bigoted towards them. Like I said to oBlade, if you're going to be willfully ignorant about it, good for you. Being an entertainer doesn't prevent one from being bigoted or making bigoted statements.
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On March 11 2016 09:47 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:42 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 06:47 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
[quote]
This interpretation by you (and MSNBC) aren't what the candidate said. If I were in Rick Scott's position, and I honestly have no knowledge of him or his views, I would not want to dignify someone baiting me with a strawman instead of honestly soliciting my view; nor, if I were in the position of a Democratic candidate two debates ago and a moderator was asking me to explain in what ways I was racist, would I care to bite. You can't give an honest answer to a dishonest question; that just invites more badgering. Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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. Yes, I'm saying in any other context you would be able to see the distinction between talking about a geopolitical force and making a universal statement about the adherents to it, except in this specific case you've been conditioned to overreact sharply to anything that could be even perceived as bigotry. You are repeating what you said before. I answered your point about Islam and Muslims being different. See below. Also, Islam is not a "geopolitical force" which you can reasonably anthropomorphize to have it hold the kind of sentiments Trump was talking about, unless by targeting its believers. On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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. What you're purporting to do here is read Trump's mind. I am doing my best to read people's words, not their minds. The geopolitical force people refer to when they use a word like Islam, a word that's a huge umbrella covering many things, is not contained within one holy book of the faith. It's like saying the USSR didn't "hate" the West because it wasn't codified in Marx. I am not reading Trump's mind any more than you are reading minds when you say that you know what "it's a smart airplane" means, and that you know the person is not saying it's the actual airplane that is capable of intelligent thought. If you want to be willfully obtuse about it, good for you. Are you saying your qualm is with the word "hate?" So now you're being willfully obtuse about what I'm saying?
You said, I'm paraphrasing, that you have no trouble with the 787 example, granting that the word "smart" obviously has a different sense when used in the context of an aeroplane than with a person.
Yet when the statement we're looking at is "Islam hates us," rather than wondering whether the word "hate" has any kind of different function in that context, you want to be able to claim the language used only applies to people, not abstractions, and therefore Trump was actually talking about all Muslims, or about Muslims generally in a prejudicial way (because it would supposedly never make sense to anthropomorphize an intangible construction like we do daily when talking about nations). I futilely put the question to you much earlier, for this very reason, as to what your response would have been if Rick Scott had gone on the record saying "Islam loves us."
On March 11 2016 09:47 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:42 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote: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. 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. What I said is of course a generalization, but I think we may be living on different planets if you're claiming it's one that holds no water. Like I said: it's a ridiculously simplistic and ignorant depiction of the situation. Something being a rough generalization doesn't make it ignorant. Similarly, something being stupid doesn't make it bigoted. Being a generalization doesn't make a statement simplistic and ignorant. Your statement was those things, but not by virtue of being a generalization. Similarly, Trump's statement was bigoted, and not only stupid.
What would be a more appropriate generalization, if you please - the world is in harmony?
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On March 11 2016 09:52 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:50 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:44 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means. With respect to Islam, he mentions "people" in general in the interview (not only radicals). It is clear he is talking about Muslims. I'm not making a statement with regards to how his supporters understood it (I'll let you "figure it out", to quote Trump), I'm making a statement with regards to what Trump himself was saying. Why would Trump distinguish between Radicals and Non-Radicals when talking about Muslims to a crowd of conservatives? He is an entertainer after all--he even had his own TV Show. People itself could mean a lot of things and is used as often to define groups within a population as it is used to define the population itself. For example, when my friend sees something on facebook and says "people are stupid" he does not mean "Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists" are stupid nor does he even mean the totality of all human beings are stupid. He means that there are subsections of society, that he cannot specifically define, that do things that he does not agree with. Jumping to a conclusion about what Trump is specifically meaning from such scarce evidence of a few words and phrases in one random speech is absolutely stupid. And being forced to make conclusions that forces you take a side in the issue when the people he is asking about might affect your candidacy during reelection is also stupid. The subsection of society that Trump is talking about is Muslims, and he is being bigoted towards them. Like I said to oBlade, if you're going to be willfully ignorant about it, good for you. Being an entertainer doesn't prevent one from being bigoted or making bigoted statements.
There are many things that make Trump a bigot. The phrase "Islam hates us" is not something, on its own, evidence of that. Especially when it doesn't say much.
For the same reason my saying to my friend "I love you man" automatically mean I want to marry him/her. You would need a lot more context and a lot more evidence before that conclusion can be made.
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On March 11 2016 09:50 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:44 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means. With respect to Islam, he mentions "people" in general in the interview (not only radicals). It is clear he is talking about Muslims. I'm not making a statement with regards to how his supporters understood it (I'll let you "figure it out", to quote Trump), I'm making a statement with regards to what Trump himself was saying. Why would Trump distinguish between Radicals and Non-Radicals when talking about Muslims to a crowd of conservatives? He is an entertainer after all--he even had his own TV Show. People itself could mean a lot of things and is used as often to define groups within a population as it is used to define the population itself. For example, when my friend sees something on facebook and says "people are stupid" he does not mean "Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists" are stupid nor does he even mean the totality of all human beings are stupid. He means that there are subsections of society, that he cannot specifically define, that do things that he does not agree with. Jumping to a conclusion about what Trump is specifically meaning from such scarce evidence of a few words and phrases in one random speech is absolutely stupid. And being forced to make conclusions that forces you take a side in the issue when the people he is asking about might affect your candidacy during reelection is also stupid.
Are you kidding with this? He is running for the office that controls the nukes, commands the military and you ask why he needs to be clear when talking about ISIS and 1.5 billion people? Do you understand that the entire world hears everything he says, right? He clearly doesn't understand that. But you get that, right?
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There are straight up way too many debates. Nothing changed since last week.
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On March 11 2016 09:37 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:14 WhiteDog wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 kwizach wrote: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. The flaws and falsehoods in Huntington's analysis have been pointed out at length in the IR literature (and beyond). Didier Bigo rightly denounced Clash of civilizations as unscientific in the first place and as the product of political/security interests ("Grands débats dans un petit monde"). Theories in social sciences are not refutable, they are always wrong, incomplete abstraction that have no value outside of specific social contexts and that are never free from normatives aspects. Now I ve read Huntington years ago : i remember a theory presented as an hypothesis and nothing more, built to explain a tendancy (kosovo, he forsaw the ukrainian conflict) that were not understandable by the classical models of the moment. His model is grossly simplified (even the term civilization have no value from an historical point of view) much like a model in astrology that would consider the earth to be a perfect ball. There was no need for that attempt at epistemology 101. Huntington did not present a theory, he presented a model and a hypothesis. And like I said, the flaws in the foundations of his model have been pointed out at length in the literature, which is what I referred to in my initial post.
My point was exactly that the flaws of the model does not refute it, unless you have another with the same or better results.
I love ideological people arguing that there are no "clash of civilisation", and living out of those useless assumptions, when the world at large is plagued by conflict that are largely (and losely) interpreted as cultural. But the manifest destiny of the modern intellectual is to explain us what not to think and not to share some knowledge on a subject. Islam is not a problem - see all those good muslims ! And don't forget, vote Hillary.
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Rubio is more dead in the water than he was last week.
My guess is he just falls on his sword for the party and tries to drag Trump down with him. He knows that no matter how badly Trump wants to seem Presidential, all you have to do is throw a few insults Trumps way and he won't be able to help himself.
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On March 11 2016 09:58 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:47 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:42 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 06:53 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
Trump said "I think Islam hates us". That's not an interpretation. That's what he said. It is a profoundly stupid and bigoted statement, and Scott was asked to give his position on that statement. Again, any decent person would instantly condemn that statement as ridiculous false and xenophobic. 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? 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. 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. 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. Yes, I'm saying in any other context you would be able to see the distinction between talking about a geopolitical force and making a universal statement about the adherents to it, except in this specific case you've been conditioned to overreact sharply to anything that could be even perceived as bigotry. You are repeating what you said before. I answered your point about Islam and Muslims being different. See below. Also, Islam is not a "geopolitical force" which you can reasonably anthropomorphize to have it hold the kind of sentiments Trump was talking about, unless by targeting its believers. On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:
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. What you're purporting to do here is read Trump's mind. I am doing my best to read people's words, not their minds. The geopolitical force people refer to when they use a word like Islam, a word that's a huge umbrella covering many things, is not contained within one holy book of the faith. It's like saying the USSR didn't "hate" the West because it wasn't codified in Marx. I am not reading Trump's mind any more than you are reading minds when you say that you know what "it's a smart airplane" means, and that you know the person is not saying it's the actual airplane that is capable of intelligent thought. If you want to be willfully obtuse about it, good for you. Are you saying your qualm is with the word "hate?" So now you're being willfully obtuse about what I'm saying? You said, I'm paraphrasing, that you have no trouble with the 787 example, granting that the word "smart" obviously has a different sense when used in the context of an aeroplane than with a person. Yet when the statement we're looking at is "Islam hates us," rather than wondering whether the word "hate" has any kind of different function in that context, you want to be able to claim the language used only applies to people, not abstractions, and therefore Trump was actually talking about all Muslims, or about Muslims generally in a prejudicial way (because it would supposedly never make sense to anthropomorphize an intangible construction like we do daily when talking about nations). I futilely put the question to you much earlier, for this very reason, as to what your response would have been if Rick Scott had gone on the record saying "Islam loves us."
Like another poster mentioned, nations can be anthropomorphized without necessarily referring to their populations because there are other entities within the nation that can be associated with the anthropomorphization -- for example, their governments. In the case of Islam, however, if you are going to claim that it hates the U.S., you can hardly turn elsewhere than to its believers to attribute the origin of the hatred. Last time I checked, the Quran does not mention the U.S.
Also, with regards to the use of "smart" about an airplane, it is not a matter of using a different meaning of the word but of understanding where the attribution goes with regards to the smartness we're talking about (it's a smart airplane --> it was smartly designed --> the people responsible for the design did their job smartly). Likewise, the hatred Trump is talking about is attributed to the believers. That is why Trump himself attributed this hatred to "people" in the interview itself.
On March 11 2016 09:58 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:47 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:42 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 09:31 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:12 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote: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. 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. What I said is of course a generalization, but I think we may be living on different planets if you're claiming it's one that holds no water. Like I said: it's a ridiculously simplistic and ignorant depiction of the situation. Something being a rough generalization doesn't make it ignorant. Similarly, something being stupid doesn't make it bigoted. Being a generalization doesn't make a statement simplistic and ignorant. Your statement was those things, but not by virtue of being a generalization. Similarly, Trump's statement was bigoted, and not only stupid. What would be a more appropriate generalization, if you please - the world is in harmony?
Why would denouncing the simplistic and ignorant nature of your initial statement mean that I believe the world in in harmony? There are armed groups waging war in the name of Islam in some regions, and they are opposed by both Western and non-Western powers. This does not make your initial statement accurate.
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On March 11 2016 09:59 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 09:50 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:44 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:40 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 09:07 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 09:04 Naracs_Duc wrote:On March 11 2016 08:46 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 08:23 oBlade wrote:On March 11 2016 07:30 kwizach wrote:On March 11 2016 07:18 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
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? 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. 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. Nowhere am I talking about conservatives in general. I am specifically talking about Trump, who is using a tactic widely employed by the far-right in Europe to target Muslims: use Islam as a proxy target instead, to avoid mentioning Muslims directly. But go ahead, do tell me what else Trump really meant when he said "Islam hates us" (not "radical Islam" but "Islam"), if he wasn't talking about Muslims. He even specifically mentioned the hatred of those "people". So when listening to an american politician, you make the generalization that he has the same opinions as politicians outside the US? When someone says something as abstract as "Islam Hates Us" Islam could mean a lot of things Us could mean a lot of things and even Hate could mean a lot of things And while he could be saying one thing, his followers could be understanding a different thing, and you could understand a different thing. Islam could mean Muslims, it could mean ISIS, it could mean IS, it could mean Terrorists, it could mean Muslim Americans, it could mean the Middle Easterners, it could mean Africans, etc... Hate could mean "at war with" it could mean "culturally disagreement" it could mean "are defensive of" it could mean "wants to invade" it could mean "wants to brainwash," etc... Us could mean "Americans" it could mean "the West" it could mean "the GOP" it could mean "my fellow birthers" it could mean "America as a nation" it could mean "America as a culture" it could mean "the West as a culture," etc... For the most part, the specific meaning of Muslims hate americans is not the only meaning, it is simply your understanding of what Trump said. You also don't know if *why* Trump said it. -Does he actually fear Muslims? -Does he want to incite his supporters? -Does he want to preach anti-islam ideas? -Does he simply say what he thinks his fans want to hear? -Does he believe what he say? -etc.... When the phrase is so vague, and the circumstance of when he said it so based on entertainment and pandering--you can't really make any concrete statement as to what it means. With respect to Islam, he mentions "people" in general in the interview (not only radicals). It is clear he is talking about Muslims. I'm not making a statement with regards to how his supporters understood it (I'll let you "figure it out", to quote Trump), I'm making a statement with regards to what Trump himself was saying. Why would Trump distinguish between Radicals and Non-Radicals when talking about Muslims to a crowd of conservatives? He is an entertainer after all--he even had his own TV Show. People itself could mean a lot of things and is used as often to define groups within a population as it is used to define the population itself. For example, when my friend sees something on facebook and says "people are stupid" he does not mean "Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists" are stupid nor does he even mean the totality of all human beings are stupid. He means that there are subsections of society, that he cannot specifically define, that do things that he does not agree with. Jumping to a conclusion about what Trump is specifically meaning from such scarce evidence of a few words and phrases in one random speech is absolutely stupid. And being forced to make conclusions that forces you take a side in the issue when the people he is asking about might affect your candidacy during reelection is also stupid. Are you kidding with this? He is running for the office that controls the nukes, commands the military and you ask why he needs to be clear when talking about ISIS and 1.5 billion people? Do you understand that the entire world hears everything he says, right? He clearly doesn't understand that. But you get that, right?
Agreed. There's a lot of things I would rather do than Trump, lots of things I would advise he not do if I was his advisor. But that isn't really the problem being discussed?
Trump knows his voter base. When talking to his voter base--why would he change his language such that they might possibly like him less at the cost of people who aren't voting for him would like him more?
Do I disagree with him, of course I do. But then I'm not the one running for president.
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