Sunday School

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

That was one of my first thoughts today when I heard the rambling speech he made. I also thought about what the family of the WaPo journalist Jamal Khashoggi must be thinking. Of course Trump would not mention that. He does not care about what happened him. Or maybe he really does like MBS too much to mention it.

The Saudis are brutal suppressors of dissent and Trump is deranged for thinking they are allies, but Jamal Khashoggi was no Salman Rushdie or Ibn Warraq. Not merely was Jamal Khashoggi a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fathers of Wahabism and Salafism, but he actually shed tears over the death of Bin Laden. His story was one with no heroes.

[_Robert_Participant]

Trump only understands who is kissing his ass at the moment. The man knows nothing about geopolitics, economics, science or history. He will instantly turn on you. The fact that so many Americans fell for his vile bullshit heartbreaking.

When I look around, many boomers are on board the MAGA train, but surprisingly it is the mid-life crisis set. The wealth just doesn’t trickle down as promised, American corporations voluntarily sending the jobs overseas, their sons are still living at home, and their daughters are producing bedroom porn, covered in tats. Trump is gonna fix all that by chain-sawing the last social safety nets and lowering taxes for billionaires who are already richer than ever.

Besides taxing the rest of us with pointless tariffs, destroying due process and elections, theologizing the government, killing scientific research and clean energy while promoting bad science and conspiracy, enriching himself through grifting and conflicts of interest, threatening/excluding the press, shitting on the constitution, embracing dictators, dissing out true allies, and sidestepping the legislature/judicial just to name a few.

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Descent into madness or Trump’s America?

It is surreal. I think Bannon described it as a strategy in which there is literally an enfilade of shit from Trump that is so constant that we the people are inured to it and so it is normalized. The bar is so low you can’t see a bar. Think back not too distant to Watergate. Politicians on both sides put country before party or self. And what was Watergate compared to each individual Trump wrongdoing? Minor league transgression. Turn the page again and again.

And it all points to the lessons humans do not make about humans. It is not about identity. Or what did Enco say? Identitarian? Is that about Armenians as a group? It is about being human. Up to age 12 or maybe 13 i believed Germans to be uniquely evil. Reading history the revelation dawned that they’re just more of the same. Perhaps their cultural fondness for authority played some part in the way they followed like ants, turned on minorities and sought to elevate the master race and dominate the world. Bottom line, just human. They were just following orders and doing what the others were doing. And now in USA we have extremes and extreme polarization. Aah no worries. It can’t happen here.

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Argument From Popularity Fallacy. The fact that people might want government largess doesn’t make it good them or for an economy.

We embed this fallacy in our national, state, and local government’s various constitutions. I have taught logic. Verbal fallacies, unlike formal fallacies, do not imply false conclusions with necessity. They are inconclusive.

So, you’re saying one can’t argue that the will of the people means anything? Maybe Trump is right about elections. We don’t need them, we need a potentate at the top to run the show to the benefit of all.

Ask your AI about the moral hazards and economic effects of taxation and government subsidies and about whether a rising tide floats all boats.

I’m well aware of all of the arguments about disincentives and creating dependencies when it comes to taxation. I haven’t been living under a rock. I’m also aware of the “rising tide floats all boats” which can also be used in favor of taxing the rich, who would benefit from a society made more stable by reducing poverty with all of the attendant problems.

Decades of pampering the rich with what amounts to an embarrassment of loopholes, cutouts, incentives, etc., has resulted in putting the burden more and more on those who can least afford it.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

When my brokerage portfolio first hit the $2M mark, it was like some sort of trigger. I had all these financial tax advisors calling/emailing me about having consultations to reduce my future taxes.

 

[UnseenParticipant]

Argumentum ad populum or baldfaced fact?

[UnseenParticipant]

Republicans, currently embodied in the extralegal “department” called DOGE seem to have the idea that when it comes to government efficiency, less is more. Fire 15% of workers here and 33% there while closing government offices and suddenly telphone wait times become shorter and the freeloaders will self-eliminate (not the homebound or transportation challenged).

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

“And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.” (read the comments too).

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

We embed this fallacy in our national, state, and local government’s various constitutions. I have taught logic. Verbal fallacies, unlike formal fallacies, do not imply false conclusions with necessity. They are inconclusive.

The very definition of any Fallacy, verbal or formal, is that the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. And wanting does not mean good (or getting, as Mick observed) no matter how many people want. Start again.

So, you’re saying one can’t argue that the will of the people means anything? Maybe Trump is right about elections. We don’t need them, we need a potentate at the top to run the show to the benefit of all.

I never made an Argument From Authority, so you just piled a Strawman Non Sequiteur onto the Argument From Popularity. Again, start again

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

I’m well aware of all of the arguments about disincentives and creating dependencies when it comes to taxation. I haven’t been living under a rock. I’m also aware of the “rising tide floats all boats” which can also be used in favor of taxing the rich, who would benefit from a society made more stable by reducing poverty with all of the attendant problems.

Decades of pampering the rich with what amounts to an embarrassment of loopholes, cutouts, incentives, etc., has resulted in putting the burden more and more on those who can least afford it.

Somehow, this never includes stopping bail-outs to Detroit, Investment Banking Firms, Saving & Loans, Big-Ag, no-bid Defense Contractors, NGOs, and other multi-billion Dollar benefactors of government spending. Why doesn’t so-called “Most Important Economist in the World” Jeffrey Sacks consider that as a part of the National Debt?

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

And wanting does not mean good (or getting, as Mick observed) no matter how many people want. Start again.

And yet, in a democracy what the people want the people should get. Otherwise the demos (people) goes away leaving just the kratos (rule).

Somehow, this never includes stopping bail-outs to Detroit, Investment Banking Firms, Saving & Loans, Big-Ag, no-bid Defense Contractors, NGOs, and other multi-billion Dollar benefactors of government spending. Why doesn’t so-called “Most Important Economist in the World” Jeffrey Sacks consider that as a part of the National Debt?

Most of that is just more special treatment lopsidedly benefitting the rich because the system is set up to do that. And it’s set up that way because those at the bottom have little wealth or power.

 

 

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

And yet, in a democracy what the people want the people should get. Otherwise the demos (people) goes away leaving just the kratos (rule).

What if the People wanted to punish Atheism with death?
Or, more to the point, what if the People demanded that no one earn more wealth than anyone else?

Again, why the United States is not a Democracy but a Constitutional Republic.

Most of that is just more special treatment lopsidedly benefitting the rich because the system is set up to do that. And it’s set up that way because those at the bottom have little wealth or power.

Well, it is government spending that creates the National Debt, not people wanting to keep their own paychecks.

[_Robert_Participant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen,

I’m well aware of all of the arguments about disincentives and creating dependencies when it comes to taxation. I haven’t been living under a rock. I’m also aware of the “rising tide floats all boats” which can also be used in favor of taxing the rich, who would benefit from a society made more stable by reducing poverty with all of the attendant problems. Decades of pampering the rich with what amounts to an embarrassment of loopholes, cutouts, incentives, etc., has resulted in putting the burden more and more on those who can least afford it.

Somehow, this never includes stopping bail-outs to Detroit, Investment Banking Firms, Saving & Loans, Big-Ag, no-bid Defense Contractors, NGOs, and other multi-billion Dollar benefactors of government spending. Why doesn’t so-called “Most Important Economist in the World” Jeffrey Sacks consider that as a part of the National Debt?

At least those things help to equalize wealth imbalances. The government acts like a heat-sink absorbing each knee-jerk crisis as investors panic. Do explain why so-called “conservatives” on average, manage to increase the deficit more than us “socialists”? Maybe because they always reduce taxes for the wealthy? Maybe because “cost-cutting” root problem solutions ends up costing more because of the horrible after-effects? Proactive thoughts like that are beyond libertarian ideology, I know. They think we are not a society. Just independent individuals who can perform brain surgery on themselves.

When “America was great” in the 50s and 60s, it’s easy enough to go and find out what the tax rates on the richest of the rich was back then. Hint: it was 91%, but that wasn’t the effective rate of course.

Bezos doesn’t care if his thousands of trucks run over potholes. They clog our inadequate road systems with trucks full of Chinese made MAGA hats. Imagine if Biden accepted a gifted airplane from Hamas supporting Arabs?

This country is dumber than a box of hammers.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Robert,

At least those things help to equalize wealth imbalances. The government acts like a heat-sink absorbing each knee-jerk crisis as investors panic.

So you think government bailing out AIG and American auto manufacturers and Raytheon help the poor? Please tell that to the old Occupy crowd before they cannabalize you.

Why do you even automatically assume that inequality of wealth is a bad thing, or that equality of outcome is even possible? As long a there is equal freedom to move upward and as long as wealth depends on providing a better product or service inequality of outcome is not a problem.

Do explain why so-called “conservatives” on average, manage to increase the deficit more than us “socialists”? Maybe because they always reduce taxes for the wealthy? Maybe because “cost-cutting” root problem solutions ends up costing more because of the horrible after-effects?

Annual deficits and overall National Debt are both the result of government spending more than it takes in, something both “conservatives” and “progressives” have done for decades.

Proactive thoughts like that are beyond libertarian ideology, I know. They think we are not a society. Just independent individuals who can perform brain surgery on themselves.

Keep that assembly line of Strawmen coming!

Bezos doesn’t care if his thousands of trucks run over potholes. They clog our inadequate road systems with trucks full of Chinese made MAGA hats. Imagine if Biden accepted a gifted airplane from Hamas supporting Arabs?

And on whose watch did those roads deteriorate? And whose energy policies crippling U.S. production of fossil fuels enabled Qatar to have the wealth to bankroll Islamic terrorism and propaganda from Al-Jazeera?

This country is dumber than a box of hammers.

A box of hammers can at least be used to build something. All governments do is take and restrain building wealth.

• This reply was modified 4 weeks ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling. Something I do without a government bailout

[UnseenParticipant]

TheEncogitationer wrote:

Unseen,

And yet, in a democracy what the people want the people should get. Otherwise the demos (people) goes away leaving just the kratos (rule).

What if the People wanted to punish Atheism with death? Or, more to the point, what if the People demanded that no one earn more wealth than anyone else? Again, why the United States is not a Democracy but a Constitutional Republic.

Most of that is just more special treatment lopsidedly benefitting the rich because the system is set up to do that. And it’s set up that way because those at the bottom have little wealth or power.

If the people want something bad enough, they will get it by using the tools of the constitutional republic or by rising up against the government.

What has our constitutional republic given us by ignoring the people is Donald Trump (by ignoring the public’s concern over immigration, distress over wokeism and the degradation of traditional values on gender and family structure, etc.) and a Republican Congress that’s dead-set on an unpopular agenda of eliminating services the public relies on. I think most of us can see a reckoning coming in the midterm elections.

Well, it is government spending that creates the National Debt, not people wanting to keep their own paychecks.

We have a national debt because a small percentage of the population pays a far smaller percentage of their wealth than those who can least afford it. You may not like what the government spends it on but, hey, what it’s spent on is determined by a constitutional republic’s legislators.

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