kurtster wrote:
 

So they took away the guns? Whew. Well done, Mr. President.

kurtster wrote:

You seem to be not just missing the point, but diving into a ditch to avoid it.

When Trump lies—constantly, on every topic imaginable, in every forum available, at every opportunity; when he insists that anyone under his authority back those lies up; when he pretends he has power he doesn't to do things that governments are prohibited from doing—and his supporters excuse this as just a matter of style, they are normalizing this behavior. You all have ceded any moral authority to complain about any future president doing exactly the same thing for their agenda.

Joe Biden lies? So what? Your own defense of Trump will be trotted out to defend him. That's just his style, and your tears of impotent outrage are delicious.

You don't get to hold your political opponents to a higher standard of honesty you hold your allies, or your self. These last four years have seen an entire political movement burn its last few shreds of credibility in a desperate attempt to cling to power. It exiled the few voices inside its camp that dared hold to principle as traitors. You deserve what you'll get for this.

Unfortunately the rest of us don't, and we get it too..

 VV wrote: 
Most people here do not approve of libertarians.  Just made an assumption based upon past interactions.    If that is not the case, then my apologies.  

Still the remark was made directly to Lazy8 and no one else.  Feel free to do as you wish, as always.  I don't have anything further to say on this unless L wishes to answer back, but this would not be the thread for that anyway.

Peace, out.

My assumption would be that lying does more to subvert liberty than to promote it.

 kurtster wrote:
 
Very obtuse.
 
Also not sure how you lumped me in with not approving of Libertarians. Just because I don't pay much attention to them doesn't mean I approve or don't approve of them. If you  equate apathy with non-approval then so be it.

 VV wrote: 
I was specifically addressing Lazy8 on this.  He addressed something I wrote in here over a month ago.  It means something to him as a libertarian, I believe.  That is all that matters to me.

No deflection.  Neither you nor buddy are libertarians let alone even approve of them.  Nothing for either of you two to worry about.

 kurtster wrote:
 

How did the narrative shift from lying to civil liberties? You might want to stay on topic at least once in awhile there K.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Just saw this as I haven't been in here since.

I could write a page or three for an answer, but in the big picture, it really doesn't matter anymore.

The die is cast.  Nearly all of our remaining civil liberties have been usurped in the name of Covid 19.  Everyone is rolling over and playing dead.  Resistance is futile and those who do will be brutally canceled.  The fight belongs to you now, the younger who still have a clue.  At my age, pfffffttttt, it's over.  

But we have different views that clash.  I am not a globalist.  I see the loss of our civil liberties as inevitable with the increase of globalism.  You seem to remain optimistic that will not happen.  I hope that you are right.

26,548

kurtster wrote:

But who cares really? All presidents lie. Whatabout...

Do you understand the implications of the blank check you're writing?

Fallacious Trump

A Political Obituary for Donald Trump

Presidents lie routinely, about everything from war to sex to their health. When the lies are consequential enough, they have a corrosive effect on democracy. Lyndon B. Johnson deceived Americans about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and everything else concerning the Vietnam War. Richard Nixon’s lifelong habit of prevaricating gave him the nickname “Tricky Dick.” After Vietnam and Watergate, Americans never fully recovered their trust in government. But these cases of presidential lying came from a time when the purpose was limited and rational: to cover up a scandal, make a disaster disappear, mislead the public in service of a particular goal. In a sense, Americans expected a degree of fabrication from their leaders. After Jimmy Carter, in his 1976 campaign, promised, “I’ll never lie to you,” and then pretty much kept his word, voters sent him back to Georgia. Ronald Reagan’s gauzy fictions were far more popular.

Trump’s lies were different. They belonged to the postmodern era. They were assaults against not this or that fact, but reality itself. They spread beyond public policy to invade private life, clouding the mental faculties of everyone who had to breathe his air, dissolving the very distinction between truth and falsehood. Their purpose was never the conventional desire to conceal something shameful from the public. He was stunningly forthright about things that other presidents would have gone to great lengths to keep secret: his true feelings about Senator John McCain and other war heroes; his eagerness to get rid of disloyal underlings; his desire for law enforcement to protect his friends and hurt his enemies; his effort to extort a foreign leader for dirt on a political adversary; his affection for Kim Jong Un and admiration for Vladimir Putin; his positive view of white nationalists; his hostility toward racial and religious minorities; and his contempt for women.

The most mendacious of Trump’s predecessors would have been careful to limit these thoughts to private recording systems. Trump spoke them openly, not because he couldn’t control his impulses, but intentionally, even systematically, in order to demolish the norms that would otherwise have constrained his power. To his supporters, his shamelessness became a badge of honesty and strength. They grasped the message that they, too, could say whatever they wanted without apology. To his opponents, fighting by the rules—even in as small a way as calling him “President Trump”—seemed like a sucker’s game. So the level of American political language was everywhere dragged down, leaving a gaping shame deficit.

The circumspect warning labels in recent weeks need to be replaced with brutal humdingers that ridicule Trump without mercy or special consideration. If I were Jack Dorsey, I’d be hiring insult comics to respond to Trump’s pathetic tweets in real time. The best way to make a bully stop bullying is to punch him square in the mouth. Twitter needs to lose the coddling language of “claim” and “disputed” and “differently.” It needs to stop pulling its punches. What Twitter needs is a new bucket of warning labels for this radioactive lame duck:

“Every single word above is FALSE.” “Grifters gonna grift.” “Sean Hannity just admitted he doesn’t vet info on his show.” “We should change this username from @realDonaldTrump to @realPinocchio because this wooden puppet is lying his ass off.” “The only person who believes any of this has a name that rhymes with Windsee Bayhem.” “We are calling BS on this lol.” “There are lies, damned lies and everything that comes out of this account now.”

The “Projection is Confession” chapter advanced a basic principle of Donald Trump’s ‘tells’, the giveaways of his true meaning and intentions: Trump tells you exactly what he's doing by what he accuses others of doing.

kurtster is right to a point....

Trump is not some historical aberration.  He is a particularly ugly mirror for the rest of us.  

We all lie or lie by omission whether it is romance, work or politics.   We expect our politicians to find workable compromises between constituencies with different views, values and information sets.

Trump's flaw is that he appears to lie more often than he tells the truth.   There is nothing wrong with a few lies here and there but he takes the mendacious art form to an extreme rarely observed elsewhere.

 kurtster wrote:
 
That's a bit like saying "Ted Bundy wasn't really so bad...I mean look at how many people have murdered someone."

 kurtster wrote:
 

He's draining the swamp tho.