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[smjjames]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-joe-arpaio-sheriff-arizona-220980

Does anybody else think that the guy policing Trumps rally is going to end up with trouble? Even though he isn't really connected with police brutality in the physcial sense, it just seems like a set of conditions ripe for some sort of physical clash.

[TheBiggerFish]

...Wow, that's actually a rather devious plan.

Not that it really would work.

[smjjames]

It's Arpaio. This is a man, who, while being tried for violating the Court's decision against a bill that more-or-less legalized racial profiling, had the judge's wife investigated. When discovered, he insisted that since the judge could no longer be impartial, he should recuse himself.

I know who he is....

...Wow, that's actually a rather devious plan.

Not that it really would work.

I don't think theres actually anything devious about it. The rally is in his county and either Trump asked him if he could or Arpaio asked, or maybe because he's Sherriff, it's his responsibility.

[Shadowlord]

TBF meant that other thing you just quoted. 

[TheBiggerFish]

I meant:

It's Arpaio. This is a man, who, while being tried for violating the Court's decision against a bill that more-or-less legalized racial profiling, had the judge's wife investigated. When discovered, he insisted that since the judge could no longer be impartial, he should recuse himself.

[Vector]

Ok so the rape thing has nothing to do with the US policies, not sure why it's mentioned at all.

Nah I see people using numbers caused by stricter immigration control reducing illegal migration and trying to use them to justify lowering immigration control

No, I'm trying to say that we probably do not need to increase immigration control. I bring up the rape issue because I'm trying to say this:

If I was going to try to come to the United States and

a. I had an 80% likelihood of being raped by someone
b. Human rights violations are happening at the detention centers
c. More folks were getting kicked out than able to come in
d. Which means that the time and money spent and being raped and probability of getting kicked out was essentially just a waste

And I was going to come here anyway to live despite not speaking English and not having papers and not having all kinds of everything else, I'm pretty sure that my life would be extremely shitty.

We could work off the premise that people who want to come here illegally are here in order to rape, murder, and take our jobs, but I can tell you statistically speaking that that's extremely unlikely. Look at the studies which say that folks just want a home. I mean, really, think about it--think about the people you know. Sure, there's always a few assholes, and every culture has a dark side, but it's not like the entire population of the United States is Donald Trump, even though he is a member of our crew who gets a lot of airtime.

And what I'm trying to say is that if the reason why people are willing to brave all of this nonsense is due to having an extremely shitty life, and the argument is "so we should make it just as shitty for them here as where they came from, so they have no impetus to leave their home," that's a bad argument. First of all, torture is bad for the soul.

But second of all, I thought that the idea was that we were supposed to be better. "American exceptionalism, except when it comes to basic human decency for refugees & waterboarding & closing Guantanamo bay."

The argument has become: "Amercans are exceptional, which is why all of these horrible things we do are really okay. Because we had the right, given to us by god, to do the things to which we take exception when others do them."

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I really believe that the proposed solutions are against American principles, values, and virtues. There's always going to be limits on ideals like the following:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me

Obviously... and at many other times, we haven't upheld those ideals either.

But what does it mean, anyway, to "Make America Great Again?" What I really want people to ask themselves is--is hypocrisy the road to greatness? We're all mostly pragmatists here, I think, or at least I feel like one--and I have to ask also whether punishing people trying to find a way out of a horrible situation is just or functional. Do you think it will do anything other than produce a cycle of revenge? Somehow, I manage to tell panhandlers "no, sorry" without hurling invective or attacking them physically. Even the tenacious ones. Even the asshole whose off-leash pitbull attacked me.

Even when it comes to your enemy--you have to have a certain respect for someone who bites at your heels so tenaciously. Who is it who needs to crush a tide of women, children, well-trod citizens of foreign lands under their boots? Treating these people with violence and the "point of a sword" causes us to lose face and honor. China built a wall to keep out the barbarian hordes. What great nation uses a wall and soldiers to keep away a pile of refugees, and would be proud after the fact?

And like I said, I'm a pragmatist. So maybe under some circumstance these actions would be necessary, but this is what I'm convinced of--under no circumstance should we be shameless; not in our refusals to set a chair and glass of wine out for our wandering neighbor.

[Shadowlord]

Do you want to know why we keep comparing Trump to Hitler? Perhaps this will be enlightening.

[mainiac]

It comes from Germany and you know they make good Hitler comparisons there!

[smjjames]

Are you trying to say that there is some logical fallacy in the reasoning?

[WealthyRadish]

I'd say the comparison to the Nazis in 1933 is off by a very wide margin, though it does have some superficial similarities. Trump's running what is essentially an independent campaign, without any sort of party organization behind him, whereas the Nazis succeeded thanks mostly to the strength of their organization, exceptional campaigning, and the rampant street violence and other illegal activities. We also live in a country with arguably the world's strongest history of representative democracy, while the Weimar republic was extremely fragile and viewed by a majority or near majority of its citizens as completely illegitimate.

Without either of those things, there's no way Trump could do anything remotely Hitleresque, even if he was really literally Hitler and managed to get elected. He would have a tough time without his own unrelentingly zealous party, the great depression, a populace ambivalent about democracy, a time much more receptive to notions based on prejudice, and the leftover anger from the nation's most humiliating military defeat in history (soon to be surpassed). This is even accepting that he's literally Hitler, which he isn't. He's an idiot saleman who's going to enjoy a lifetime of boosted name recognition for his brand after this. Hitler's biggest mistake is that he didn't build some condos and sell steaks after losing to Hindenburg.

[mainiac]

Hitler's biggest mistake is that he didn't build some condos and sell steaks after losing to Hindenburg.

Alt history is usually so lazy and predictable.  Ideas like this one deserve a television series more then the man in the high tower.

[sluissa]

We also live in a country with arguably the world's strongest history of representative democracy, while the Weimar republic was extremely fragile and viewed by a majority or near majority of its citizens as completely illegitimate.

Congress currently has an 11 percent approval rating, and while Obama's might be a bit better it hasn't broken 50% in a while. (Currently hovering somewhere between 40-50%)

One of the reasons Trump is getting so much traction is because he's viewed as an outsider.

[Twi]

We also live in a country with arguably the world's strongest history of representative democracy, while the Weimar republic was extremely fragile and viewed by a majority or near majority of its citizens as completely illegitimate.

Congress currently has an 11 percent approval rating, and while Obama's might be a bit better it hasn't broken 50% in a while. (Currently hovering somewhere between 40-50%)

One of the reasons Trump is getting so much traction is because he's viewed as an outsider.

To be fair, while many people may not like our government, I hear few crying out that it's illegitimate. Yes, I know, some do, but is it any more than the usual amount?

[TheBiggerFish]

To be fair, while many people may not like our government, I hear few crying out that it's illegitimate. Yes, I know, some do, but is it any more than the usual amount?

Yeah, those aren't the same statistics at all.

[Vector]

Honestly, I think that the folks saying that Obama should not nominate the next member of the supreme court and should instead "leave it to the people" are saying something about the illegitimacy of the powers of the presidency.

We've also been having a hell of a lot of arguments, ever since Bush, about the electoral college and representative democracy in general being, well, illegitimate.