King Donald?

[Jamie123]

Grannyopterix is always worth listening to...

The Glorious Revolution again, with Trumpety-Trump as William of Orange? (At least he's the right colour for it!)

Edited Tuesday at 12:11 PM by Jamie123
I can't spell Donald

[Ironhold]

What people forget is that Trump came up in the world of business at a time when bombast, aggression, and persistence were considered to be features rather than bugs. 

As part of it, there was a bit of a ritual you could sometimes observe in which people would come to the bargaining table, deliberately throw out ostentatious demands, and then "allow" themselves to be negotiated down to what they had actually wanted to achieve in the first place. This allowed both sides to claim victory by getting what they wanted *and* praise themselves for how awesome they were that they talked the other guy down the way they did. 

Something, perhaps the assassination attempts, led to Trump reverting back to this mindset. 

View what he's saying and doing through the lens of this business environment, apply a bit of game theory, and what he's doing makes a *lot* more sense, even in a rather screwball fashion. 

[NeuroTypical]

I'm glad to see the basic human right of free speech is getting a lot of notice in the UK.   How many people are arrested every week in the UK for stuff they post online?

The solution to bad speech is more speech.  It's not trying to force people not to say things disagreeable.

Edited Tuesday at 04:58 PM by NeuroTypical

[Ironhold]

37 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I'm glad to see the basic human right of free speech is getting a lot of notice in the UK.   How many people are arrested every week in the UK for stuff they post online?

The solution to bad speech is more speech.  It's not trying to force people not to say things disagreeable.

This is why a lot of people, like myself, favor the "Marketplace of Ideas" concept, in which whatever stance you have must be able to compete against what else is out there. 

If you truly believe that your idea is superior to someone else's, you must be willing to defend your idea with logic and evidence as needed. 

[Jamie123]

13 hours ago, Ironhold said:

This is why a lot of people, like myself, favor the "Marketplace of Ideas" concept, in which whatever stance you have must be able to compete against what else is out there. 

If you truly believe that your idea is superior to someone else's, you must be willing to defend your idea with logic and evidence as needed

That's exactly what most British people said when David Irving was thrown into prison by the Austrians. Nowadays, according to the lefty-wokey pseudointelligencia Starmerites who govern this country now, the truth or falsehood of an idea is less important than the groups of people it is likely to offend.

As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: "I bow not yet before your iron crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down."

Discretion may be the better part of valour, but let's not forget there's another part too.

(I've woken up a little bit Henry V this morning!)

Edited Wednesday at 06:38 AM by Jamie123

[Ironhold]

11 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

That's exactly what most British people said when David Irving was thrown into prison by the Austrians. Nowadays, according to the lefty-wokey pseudointelligencia Starmerites who govern this country now, the truth or falsehood of an idea is less important than the groups of people it is likely to offend.

As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: "I bow not yet before your iron crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down."

Discretion may be the better part of valour, but let's not forget there's another part too.

(I've woken up a little bit Henry V this morning!)

Some years ago there was a to-do here in the United States when it was discovered that a law school was allowing students to avoid classes where the subject for the day was case law & legal precedents regarding rape cases; the school meant well in that they were trying to avoid triggering anyone for whom that was a sensitive topic, but a great many outside observers noted that *as* lawyers there was a chance they'd have to deal with such cases in the courtroom and so they needed to know this information in order to adequately serve the community. 

That's what's going on here on a larger scale, a refusal to talk about things that are difficult or hard to hear because certain parties lack either the mental, emotional, or moral fortitude to listen to what needs to be said. 

I understand, for example, that most people don't want to hear the fine details of a life-altering medical episode I had back in 1992. However, I've had to mention the broad strokes of what took place in order to explain to people why I have certain physical limitations IRL, as I was a victim of medical malpractice during the ordeal and the malpractice left me with permanent injuries.