Lurker > darkknight109

I work on a sliding scale.

-20+%: An excellent meal where the server did something above and beyond to make the experience enjoyable - was friendly and sociable, very fast and attentive with drink refills, that sort of thing (or, on the flip side, if something happens with my party that makes us a pain in the ass to deal with, I'll boost up the tip just to compensate the server for putting up with us). If I order a light meal my tip might also wind up here, because I always feel cheap if the tip is less than $4.00, so that's my minimum, even if the meal was only ~$12.
-17-18%: My usual standard tip for a good meal with no complaints. This is how I tip most often.
-15-16%: My tip if there were some minor complaints about the experience, but nothing major. Things like food being slow arriving (relative to how busy the place is, that is), server not refilling drinks very often, etc.
-10-12%: There was a significant problem with the meal. Food was cold, order got lost or screwed up, wait staff was rude, etc. I'm a pretty laid-back guy, so it's rare that my tips go this low - however, when they do, I usually don't go back to the restaurant for a few months afterwards. If it seems like it was just a bad day, I might bump this up to a 15% and chalk it up as a one-off, but I'll note the restaurant in my mind and if the experience is repeated the next time I'm there, I don't come back.
-0%: A complete and utter disaster of a meal with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Terrible food, obnoxious and inattentive wait staff, long waits, etc. I've only given out a 0% tip twice in my life (aside from those places that don't accept tips, of course) and both times the restaurant really went out of their way to earn it.

InfestedAdam posted...

My friend tried to tip once in Japan and the workers insisted he take back the money.

Hospitality is Serious Business in Japan, to a ridiculous extent, and yes, in most places tipping there is considered rude (since you're essentially offering to "pay extra" for something they consider within the minimum scope of what they're supposed to be doing for you - you're either implying that you're wealthy enough not to care or that their service is so shoddy that bare essentials warrant extra praise and service).

To give you an idea of how crazy they take it, I was once running late for a meeting in Naha and my cab fare came out to 3467 yen - just shy of $35. I quickly handed the guy 3500 yen and got out of the cab... only to suddenly hear shouting behind me. The driver actually got out of the cab and chased me down so he could hand me my 33 yen change (about 35 cents).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

SunWuKung420 posted...

Imagine using an urban dictionary term to try to make your argument.

Assuming you're referring to that reference to TDS, it's not an urban dictionary term. However, it's also not the hot-and-edgy term so many Trump supporters think it is. It's literally a 16 year old meme that has been applied to virtually every conservative politician of any notable prominence over the last decade and a half (and I always find it entertaining when someone has clearly heard it for the first time and starts using it everywhere thinking it's some new, biting commentary). The original "Derangement Syndrome" was Bush Derangement Syndrome and it was as dumb a term then as it is today, especially given that its propagators seem remarkably quiet about its use when a Democrat is in power, despite the fact that it is equally applicable to detractors of Democrat politicians (which is to say that any politician will have a small group of people that disagree with them about everything as a knee-jerk reaction rather than based on any actual analysis or genuinely held belief, but that group is almost always far, far smaller than their supporters like to pretend).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

The_tall_midget posted...

darkknight109 posted...

OhhhJa posted...

Honestly, I cant wait until the full report drops so we can lay this bullshit to rest

This post aged well.

As does anything the unhinged people suffering from TDS say and do.

But who cares about that shit! Drumpf is going down any minute now!

Sure, sure.

Meanwhile, 375 former federal prosecutors - Democrats and Republicans both - just signed a statement saying that the evidence in the Mueller report meets the standards for Obstruction of Justice and if they'd ever encountered someone without the legal protections of the presidency who had that sort of evidence against them, they would absolutely file charges.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

Honestly, I cant wait until the full report drops so we can lay this bullshit to rest

This post aged well.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Hey, if you get to drastically oversimplify complex issues in favor of a pithy retort, then I also get to drastically oversimplify complex issues in favor of a pithy retort.

"How much land you own doesn't matter in elections" isn't an oversimplification of a complex issue, it's literally how democracy works. You don't get extra votes for having more land, more money, more kids, more friends in government, etc. - if you are an adult citizen, you get one vote and only one vote, end of story.

Trying to say "Yeah, well, Republicans have more land," as moore did is about as relevant to a discussion of political trends as saying, "Yeah, well, more Democrats like the colour blue".
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And the last time people had a problem over a few larger and more populated states forcing their will on everybody else, we fought a war over it.

If you think that's the last time people had a problem over the larger states pushing issues that the smaller ones opposed, there's about 150 years of history you may want to brush up on...
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

mooreandrew58 posted...

and i'm not arguing that. just saying its still legit cause thats how the system was designed to work.

Debatable. It's how the system works, but not really how it was designed to work.

Recall that if no candidate wins an absolute majority of electoral college votes then the matter goes to congress; the House of Representatives picks the president and the Senate selects the vice president (from the top three candidates who received at least one electoral college vote). But here's the thing - this system was expected to be the norm, not a weird hypothetical tie-breaker rule for a one-in-a-million situation where the electoral college is tied.

Based on notes, essays, and comments published at the time the constitution was being written, it was clear that the constitution's framers didn't really intend for the electoral college to pick the president; instead, they expected that the electoral college would put forward a list of names and that *congress* would then pick the president. Which, incidentally, is how most democracies do it - the legislature is elected directly by the people and they pick the executive; as an example, in Westminster democracies (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, et al) parliament is elected and they get to choose who the prime minister is (which, at least in theory, could be anyone, but in practice is almost always the leader of whichever party gets the most votes). Notably, since the legislature is responsible for picking the executive, they also have the right to replace them - prime ministers can be tossed out and replaced without any elections taking place if they lose the confidence of parliament.

Anyways, the electoral college picking the president was assumed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event. What the founders hadn't counted on is the founding of political parties and the coalescence of votes around just a handful of candidates. It was intended that a large number of people would step forward and contest the presidency - none of them were likely to win an absolute majority of the electoral college, so instead congress would now have a short-list of the best candidates and would pick the one they felt was the most suitable for office. But as soon as it became a one-on-one fight in the 1800s, the whole system stopped working as intended and a mechanism that was originally intended as a safety valve to ensure that a candidate so overwhelmingly popular could not be denied office instead became the normal way to pick a president, distorting the popular vote and, arguably, corrupting the intent of the constitution.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

mooreandrew58 posted...

so you saying the vast majority of the actual landscape of the country should be ignored because so little of the popluation lives there?

Geography doesn't vote, people do. The fact that Republican voters live in a much larger area of the country means absolutely nothing because they're also way, way, way more spread out.

People already tried the "whoever owns the most land wins" thing - it's called feudalism and it turned out to be a pretty shitty way of governing.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

mooreandrew58 posted...

thing is you might get completely different results if you go to a different area.

Yes, which is why good polls will poll in many different areas rather than just one.

mooreandrew58 posted...

some i'm sure intentionally skew the results by focusing on one area

Skew usually happens through methodology (i.e. how the data is manipulated) rather than in how it is gathered. Rasmussen, for instance, is notoriously bad for that.

mooreandrew58 posted...

its why I never really trust it.

You should, because they're pretty accurate.

I mean, if you want proof all you need to do is compare poll results to electoral results. What you find is that the "big", national elections usually see an average error in the range of ~+/-4% from what the polls called, while smaller, state-level or representative-level races usually manage ~+/-5%. And they usually get the "who is going to win" question right about 80% of the time.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

mooreandrew58 posted...

polls are never 100% accurate.

Of course they're not - they're accurate to a specific error (the exact number varying based on the number of people polled and the methodology, but usually around +/- 2%) to a specific degree of confidence (usually 95%).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Decoy77 posted...

My question is how isn't like 30 points higher by now?

That's the fun part about Trump's lying and demonizing of the media - he's lied so much and exaggerated his successes to such a ridiculous extent (and made his own administration complicit in propagating those lies) that few people have any reason to believe Barr's glowing summary of the Mueller report. The credibility of Trump and his cronies is near zero and no one with half a brain should believe anything they say without independent verification.

Plus, you know, there's the dozens of other tremendously shitty things that he's done that have nothing to do with the Mueller investigation at all.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

BloodWhen_iWipe posted...

OhhhJa posted...

BloodWhen_iWipe posted...

This is why his base remains faithful:

He loves the poorly educated, and they love him back.

Yet that's why trump supporters own homes and businesses and Bernie supporters live in their car

*citation needed

Just saying that most trump supporters I've met in real life are well adjusted people with families and careers. Most Bernie supporters I've met have shitty jobs

Personal anecdotes are not citations.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

That you know of and, as a person of no particular importance, it's highly unlikely that your words or deeds would ever be truly scrutinized especially if you virtue-signaled properly. You almost certainly have said or done something that somebody would wring their hands over or clutch their scarf.

Pretty sure I haven't, Sparky. I'd remember being a racist shitbag.

Zeus posted...

The fact that you didn't understand what I said doesn't constitute dodging, it indicates a poor comprehension.

I understood it perfectly - you were alarmed when I pointed out that your attempted criticism of someone else also reflected badly on Dear Leader Trump and had to scramble for a couple of posts to come up with an excuse for why it was OK for Trump to call immigrants 'animals', but not other people.

It seemed very straightforward, honestly, unlike most of what you post.

Zeus posted...

If you could furnish proof that... shit, been so long I can't remember who this was about... is roughly 80 years old, I would entertain that argument.

Not my fault it takes you a couple weeks of hard thinking to come up with a response to my posts.

Zeus posted...

And here we a defense favored by shut-ins.

You're projecting again - you should come up with some other way to argue, this really doesn't do you any favours.

Zeus posted...

There are certain things that people of reasonable age and social activity should know. If you're pleading ignorance, perhaps you could explain the circumstances surrounding said ignorance.

I'm not pleading ignorance at all - I already posted my explanation for why your poorly thought-out claim was bullshit (an explanation which, I note, you didn't even attempt to challenge or disprove, I'm guessing because you can't).
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Man, Trump just cannot milk a good news cycle, can he? He could have ridden out this Mueller thing for weeks and instead he decides to immediately shift everyone's focus to his attempts to wipe out a popular healthcare law. Guess we know why his approval rating is where it's at now, eh?

Zeus posted...

No, it's completely compatible with my original statement considering that somebody who doesn't completely understand the implications associated with a word using it is completely different from somebody reasonably expected to know said meaning.

And as I've already said multiple times, Trump had those implications explained to him. He's either a racist for knowing those connotations and making his comments anyways or a moron for not understanding those connotations even after they're explained to him.

Or both. Actually, yeah, it's probably both.

Zeus posted...

And you once again misconstrue the issues.

Your parroting of me in an attempt to sound witty is absolutely adorable, by the way.

Zeus posted...

Therefore there's no reasonable expectation for him to take the "Cry Wolf" crowd seriously but, even taking that into account, you're talking post facto.

In what way is this post-facto?

Zeus posted...

Otherwise, it comes back to the fact that you can't reasonably expect the very old to be PC when the rules of PC have changed many times during their lifetime *especially* when you're young enough to be their grandkid.

Weird how no other "very old" politician has trouble with this.

Also, if you think I'm young enough to be Trump's grandkid, you must have pretty flexible views on age-of-consent laws.

Zeus posted...

Can I send you a copy of Hooked-on-Phonics so you can understand it?

You'd be better served by looking at it yourself, honestly.

Zeus posted...

You seem awfully troll-y about most things.

That's awfully funny coming from the "left-leaning centrist".
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Oh? And you know for a fact that somebody explained that to them so they actually understood it?

I do concede that Trump could just be a complete moron, like you're suggesting here, but that honestly doesn't paint him in a much better light.

Zeus posted...

Racism requires a certain level of understanding understanding or intent, which again ties back into what I've repeatedly said -- Trump is an old man who doesn't understand those connotations in a way that somebody who grew up in the system would.

Which would have been fine if that was your initial response, but it had to be pried out of you. You didn't say "I don't think it was really racist when Trump said it because of these reasons..." - if you had, that would have been an acceptable answer to the question. Instead you continued to dodge for a few posts until you finally came out with a qualified "no".

Zeus posted...

Which, as previously mentioned, ties back to context. Again, for instance, if you grew up in an age when you taught to say colored because that was the politically correct thing to say, odds are you're going to innocently say it from time to time.

Alright, so what's your excuse for saying "calling people animals is racist" to people who very well could have grown up with the term the same way Trump did?

Zeus posted...

Because, again, you don't seem to talk to many people.

You're projecting again.

Zeus posted...

You have a skewed worldview based on an overly apparent lack of offline communication, which is you insist on having statistics nobody has collected to prove something you should already know.

And here we see the Know-Nothingist's favourite defence - "We don't need no stinking stats, it's just common sense!"

To prove how ridiculous this is, let's do a little playing with numbers. The average person knows somewhere between 600 and 800 people, based on various estimates and studies that have been carried out. Note that this includes casual acquaintances, and people you are familiar with but barely know - Dunbar's Number provides the maximum number of people with whom someone can maintain a close social relationship as 150.

But you don't really need to be close to someone to know if they have a habit of making racist statements. So let's say you "know" 800 people. Problem is that those people aren't all going to be seniors - in fact, unless you're a senior yourself, most of them probably won't be seniors. The number of seniors in an average young person's life is likely in the low double digits, unless their job has them interacting with seniors on a regular basis. But, again, let's be generous and assume you know 100 seniors.

There's about 40 million seniors in the US, meaning our hypothetical example counts for just 0.00025% of the senior population, nowhere near enough for statistical relevance. Worse, it's not even randomly sampled, as most of those seniors are going to be clustered in a single geographical area.

This is exactly why your personal anecdotes, however interesting they are and however convinced you are of their validity, are worth precisely nothing in a debate like this. If you want me to take you seriously when say something like this, back it up with something that's more concrete.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

It's absolutely irrelevant given that the term is currently both less controversial and really known more to young people.

If that's the case, why were you busy arguing with people that calling people animals was mad-racist? You seem to have done a complete 180 as soon as I pointed out that Trump used the exact same language you were criticizing others for and are now saying "Well, it's really not *that* racist, and young people are the only ones who care anyways".

Zeus posted...

And it baffles me that you think a society's leader should solely focus on studying lesser mores than actually governing.

Contrary to your assertions, a decent leader does not need to spend time "studying" what language is and is not acceptable, because they simply don't use language that ever even borders on offensive. Again, I'm not familiar with any president of either party in the last ~40 years having an issue with this. Perhaps I have forgotten a faux pas somewhere, but it's definitely not a common event.

Zeus posted...

So you're basically pleading ignorance regarding the presidential primaries?

Yes, actually. Not my country, so I didn't particularly care at that point. I kept abreast of the highlights, but did I actually pay any substantial attention to the primaries? No, and I never have.

Zeus posted...

That would explain a LOT, considering your apparent lack of political knowledge. You might also be surprised to learn that he insisted whites can't be poor.

Fascinating, but I'm still not seeing a source (for your previous comment - I did find Bernie's comments on race you're referencing here, unrelated and irrelevant to the discussion though they may be). And no, "the primaries" are not a source. That's like me saying "Yes, I found this fact - it's in the Encyclopedia Britannica."

Unless you can provide a specific clip or news article quoting him saying what you're attributing to him, I'm going to assume that you're either:
a) Completely misconstruing something he actually said;
b) Misremembering the quote or attributing it to someone who didn't actually say it; or
c) Flat out making shit up

You can change that assumption, but only if you actually provide a source.

It's hilarious to me that you're accusing me of political ignorance, yet can't be bothered to back up your own statements with an actual source.

Zeus posted...

Except even 20 years ago that was nowhere near acceptable.

So, funny thing about that - I didn't actually look up the full context when you originally referenced it and I just did. Turns out she never actually calls African Americans "superpredators" - she just says that juvenile gangs connected to drug cartels are "superpredators" that have no conscience or empathy, never suggesting that the gangs were composed of African Americans.

Trump and Reince Priebus attempted to slag her with it in an attempt to reduce her standing with African American voters and, to be fair, Clinton did apologize when pressed by BLM reps (I suspect more out of a sense of political expediency than anything else), but her initial comments weren't nearly as controversial as you're suggesting. And you sound like you were pretty young in the 90s, if you were alive at all, so I'll go ahead and point out that nothing of what she said would have raised many eyebrows back then.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Again, depends on the context.

But that's not what you said originally; you just said that calling people animals was racist, full stop. Not "it can be racist, depending on context." In fact, most of the people you were arguing with were trying to point out to you the exact same thing you're saying now, which you weren't having.

Zeus posted...

And, of course, some words are harder stops than others.

You are, once again, completely misconstruing the issue.

Trump didn't accidentally call immigrants animals. He called them animals, several people pointed out that doing so was racist and explained the connotations of what he had said, and then - in direct response to those people - he called them animals again.

You're trying to paint this like Trump was doing this by accident, which he absolutely was not.

Zeus posted...

Once you get a little older, maybe you'll understand.

This is hilarious given that I'm almost certainly older than you are, judging by some of the things you've posted in the past.

Zeus posted...

I know how old you aren't.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here, can you post it in English please?

Zeus posted...

...and people are STILL using that then correcting themselves afterward, if it at all. All you're doing is showing what a moving target these things are.

Again, you're painting this like Trump did this without realizing it. He lost that plausible deniability when someone pointed out what he was doing to him.

Zeus posted...

No, I'm not projecting.

I don't know, you seem awfully touchy about this subject. Are you angry you can't get away with using a racist slur of some kind that you used to use or something?

Zeus posted...

There's a CONSTANT push on new words all the time. There's no fucking possible way that you could keep up with everything

I mean, I've never been accused of racism or using a slur that I didn't realize was a slur, so I seem to have managed just fine.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Or Hillary Clinton who -- TWENTY years ago when she was a much younger woman -- described black youths as "super predators"?

Twenty years ago when social mores were different? Isn't that the point of this entire topic - that social norms change?

Zeus posted...

...because both sides of the analogy were deliberately extreme, since the n-word is a recognized universal taboo going back at least 70 years whereas the term "animal", which has a less strong connotation, only started to really develop its mainstream negative connection about 30 years ago

None of which addresses anything in the point you're responding to. What I pointed out is - regardless of the nature of the slur you're talking about - someone loses their "I didn't know any better" defence the instant the slur is pointed out and explained to them.

Zeus posted...

I literally already did.

No, your response was always "I think Donald Trump is an old man." You never actually addressed whether you thought what he said was racist or not and it was only after several posts worth of prodding that you arrived at a tenuous "no" answer.

Which, as previously mentions, shoots a few holes in your earlier assertions in this topic, because it means that you can apparently make statements that are racist without those statements being racist just by dint of being old.

Zeus posted...

Try leaving your home at some point and talking to them.

Personal anecdotes are not citations. If you think they are, then here's my counterpoint: every senior citizen I've ever met (with one exception - a very bad alcoholic who has numerous life problems) understands evolving social mores and keeps on top of them.

Maybe you should just get out there and talk to non-shitty people for a change?
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Yep!

Nope!

Zeus posted...

Even you must realize that you're suggesting something ludicrous.

I completely realize that, because the idea that old people get a pass on racism because "they're too old to understand it" or something, is inherently ludicrous. That's exactly what I'm trying to highlight for you, so I'm glad you at least partially understand it.

Zeus posted...

You're hardly a senior citizen. Most significant mores were the same from when you were growing up.

You don't know how old I am, so you don't actually have a basis for saying that. You're also wrong about most significant mores being from when I was growing up. I already posted this, but I'll say it again - when I was growing up, a six-letter gay slur was still being used in children's entertainment. I'm not talking about things like those famous Eddy Murphy comedy skits now, I'm talking actual children's-oriented entertainment. It just wasn't considered offensive back then (though "queer" was looked on much more negatively back then, albeit not to the same level that its alternative occupies today). When I was growing up, "rape" was a perfectly acceptable synonym for hardship or lopsided defeat, ("Man, I got raped by that test!" or "Boy, that local sports team just got raped yesterday"). Racial stereotypes like the lazy Mexican and the magical Indian were everywhere; hell, there were even still some cartoons running with blackface-style animation/humour. Those are not things that are acceptable today. I know that and I've managed to adjust.

I am curious, though - what age do you get your "Get out of Racism Free" card? How old and/or Republican do you have to be to be excused from racist statements?

Zeus posted...

More importantly, you almost certainly haven't kept up with emerging mores -- especially since some of which are hotly contested, like the assertion that "thug" is the new n-word.

You're projecting, Zeus. And yes, I'm well aware of the connotations of "thug" - as others have observed, that's a word that seems to get pitched at a very specific and narrow band of melanin-content and chromosomes.

Zeus posted...

Irrelevant.

No, it's definitely not irrelevant. The president is and should be held to a higher standard than a random hobo on a side street. He occupies an elevated position in society and so expectations of him are similarly elevated. People actually have good reason to pay attention to what he says, so he is expected to be up on his ability to make speeches that aren't in breach of social etiquette.

It baffles me that you think it doesn't matter whether or not a society's leader is actually up to speed on the social norms of the society he's supposed to be leading.

Zeus posted...

You mean Bernie Sanders who talked about rounding up black men from street corners?

Never heard of this, so I went looking for it and came up with nothing. Source or it didn't happen.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Then you literally have a hearing/vision problem or a memory issue because I've brought this to you specifically, in addition to all of the other times I've discussed this.

Nope!

Zeus posted...

No, I'm pointing out that PC has moving goalposts and when you got into the game directly impacts roughly where those goalposts lie.

So why not say that in your original post? All you said is "Calling people animals is racist", not "Calling people animals is racist, as long as you were born after 1970. " I mean, shouldn't you be checking the ages of the posters you were trying to call out if that's your view? Or does that only apply to Donald Trump?

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, I haven't had any issues adopting to new social mores and neither have any of the seniors I know. The language that was commonplace when I was in high school would be considered extraordinarily offensive now, yet somehow I've managed to keep up with the times and change my idioms as necessary to avoid being an asshole.

Zeus posted...

However, you're talking about a guy old enough to have grown up at a time when colored was the racially acceptable way to refer to blacks because people decided that the n-word was offensive.

I'm also talking about the fucking President of the United States. Donald Trump isn't just "some random old guy", he occupies the highest office in the USA. I feel like a politician - nevermind the supposed-"leader of the free world" - should at least have enough capacity for understanding human social trends to avoid making such an easily avoidable gaffe.

I mean, I can't remember Obama screwing that up. Or Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, if you prefer someone in Trump's age demographic, yet Trump gets repeatedly stung by this sort of language and behaviour. That's not something that can - or should - be excused.

Zeus posted...

However, if a non-native, non-English speaker heard the word used and repeated it, you would hardly call him racist despite the n-word being widely viewed as one of the most racist words ever.

Fair point. Only one problem with it: Donald Trump isn't a non-native and despite his at-times torturous prose, English is his first language.

Yeah, if someone who can barely string a sentence together uses a racial slur because they're repeating something they heard in a song somewhere or something like that, that's understandable and eminently forgivable. But that's not what Trump was doing - he knew exactly what the connotations of that word, and that particular use of that word, were. We know that he knew it, because *people fucking pointed it out to him*. And then he used it again directly in response to them.

To tie it back to your analogy, if that barely-speaks-English foreigner says a racial slur that he didn't realize was offensive, you can chalk that up to simple ignorance. But if you explain to them that it's offensive, and explain *why* people don't use that word in polite company, and they continue to use it anyways they've lost that "I just didn't know any better" defence.

Zeus posted...

That's a very glib interpretation. It also completely misses the point.

So explain it. Elaborate and actually back up your argument. That's what I've been prompting you to do from my first post in this topic.

Zeus posted...

The vast majority of seniors are un-PC in some area

*citation needed*
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Given that you've heard this many times before

Literally have never heard this before now, but nice assumption.

Zeus posted...

It's not really a "yes, but..." or a "no, but..." although it's probably closer to a "no, but..." because it's a contemporary connotation.

Then you're basically acknowledging that calling someone an animal isn't actually racist, depending on who's making the statement, which kind of shoots your original arguments in this topic in the foot.

You're also acknowledging that whether a specific slur is racist or not depends on who is saying it and that Trump gets a pass on this, for some bizarre reason, but that's a separate discussion.

Zeus posted...

Which is a ridiculous comparison, even by your usual standard.

Not really. You answered the question "Is this statement by Donald Trump racist?" by answering "I think Donald Trump is an old man." The answer doesn't even vaguely match the question.

Zeus posted...

There are far too many mores to reasonably expect anybody not born into them to keep track of them.

Conveniently ignoring that this more was pointed out to Trump after he first breached it and he pushed back with an even harder statement.

Not to mention, most seniors manage to do just fine at not being blithering racist idiots, despite not being "born into it", as you put it.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus, is there a reason why you wait over a week in between your replies to a topic? Are you just kind of hoping no one notices so that you can get the last word in and notch it as a victory or something?

Zeus posted...

Once again we come to the issue of whenever you get anything other than the black/white response you want, you pretend that it's not an answer.

Because it's not. You literally have not answered the question of whether or not you think Trump's statement qualifies as racism or not.

I didn't say the answer had to be black and white - in fact, I figured you'd use this cop-out, which is why I specifically stated that "Yes, but..." and "No, but..." were completely acceptable answers. You can clarify your answer as much as you care to, and if you want to say "Yes, but it's not as racist as when a young person says it" that's your prerogative, but you still have to answer the question. All you've said is that you think Trump is a 70+ year old man - a nice factoid, but not an answer to the question.

It's like if someone asked me if Mike Pence hates gay people and I answered, "I think Mike Pence is a man who is married to a woman and who holds the office of Vice President. I think he has white hair and that he was elected in 2016." All true, all facts, not in any way an answer to the question asked.

Zeus posted...

Then you have some issues.

Why do you say that? Do you think seniors are just too old and dumb to understand changing social mores? Too senile to comprehend offence and disrespect?

Because that's mad ageist, bro. Have more respect for our senior citizens than that.

Or do you think that Trump is just too stupid to understand the implications behind his words, even after they've been pointed out to him? Maybe, instead of these continued dodges, you should just - y'know - answer the question.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

GreenKnight127 posted...

Approval ratings.....based on polls that maybe .000067% of the population actually participated in.......of which .00000000000008% answered seriously.

Pictured: someone who does not understand how polling, sample sizes, and statistics in general work.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

I think he's a 70 year-old man who lived through many iterations of political correctness so he's likely to misstep by accident as he is to not give a fuck. I have to ask if you feel that the elderly -- who grew up in a vastly different era -- should be held to the same political correctness standard as kids who grew up in an age when implications are readily understood?

Interesting non-answer. It's a really simple question: do you think he was being racist? Yes or no? "Yes, but..." or "No, but..." are also acceptable answers, but just saying "He's 70 years old" is a mealy-mouthed dodge.

I mean, you've said several times that you think calling someone an animal is racist. So that suggests to me that you think Donald Trump was also being racist when he called immigrant gang members "animals". Is that true or no?

By the way, it definitely wasn't an accident. He'd previously labelled those gang members "animals" and when numerous people pointed out the implications of that sort of language, he doubled down and made his "these are not human beings; these are animals" comment. You could make the argument that the first was an accidental slip, but when he repeats it after it was specifically pointed out to him? It's not unintentional at that point.

And to answer your own question, yes, I think people should be held to the same standard, regardless of their age. We're all in one society, after all, and my opinion of senior citizens is not so low that I think they're incapable of mentally comprehending societal changes. I grew up in an era where calling people a six-letter gay slur that I can't even write in its censored form on this site was so totally unremarkable it was used on children's TV shows. Where joking about getting raped (i.e. "Man, I totally got raped by that test! It was brutal!") was 100% normal. Where casual ethnic stereotypes like the lazy Mexican or the Magical Indian or the buck-toothed angry Chinese man were still extraordinarily common in children's entertainment. None of those things are acceptable today. I don't pretend that I'm somehow entitled to still use those because of some social grandfather clause that exempts me because of my age, because of course I don't, that's dumb.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

IronicFool posted...

darkknight109 posted...

No, the polls did not say that Trump had "virtually no chance". The reputable polling outfits...

It just occurred to me that while I recall a lot of people calling it a shoe in for Hillary I do not believe I looked at any actual odds predictions. What polling outfits are you looking at?

I watched several, and I'd be lying if I said I remembered all of them. There was one site that was a really good aggregator of the major ones, but I don't remember what it was. I also recall that fivethirtyeight had a pretty good summary that they kept updated with the latest poll numbers in addition to their own statistical models.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

You're both fighting over what amounts to something that's relatively unpredictable with tiny sample sizes for all variables.

A national election is anything but a small sample size. That's one of the largest sample sizes possible.

OhhhJa posted...

I know you pride yourself with your statistics knowledge so you should admit that even *gasp* you could be wrong and trump could be reelected.

When did I say that it's impossible for Trump to be re-elected?

We don't even know who his opponent will be and, as the old saying goes, two weeks is an eternity in politics. Trying to guess the probable election outcomes this far out is a mug's game.

The only thing that I was originally responding to was PO's assertion that the constant outrage over Trump has tuned out all but the hardcore Democrats, thereby helping Trump; the skyhigh participation in the midterms shows that is wrong. It doesn't guarantee that Trump won't be re-elected - and I never suggested it did, so I have no idea where you got that idea - but it does put paid to the idea that most people have "tuned out".

OhhhJa posted...

After all, the polls last time suggested he had virtually no chance and we saw how that worked out.

If you're going to start quoting statistics, you should at least look up the ones you're citing.

No, the polls did not say that Trump had "virtually no chance". The reputable polling outfits had the odds of Hillary winning at roughly 70%, give or take ~5%. She was definitely the odds-on favourite, but Trump's odds of winning were far from non-existent (to contrast, in Obama's re-election campaign he ended with a ~90% chance of winning).

Moreover, the polls were actually pretty accurate when you actually dig down in the details. Hillary was polling ahead in the popular vote by about 3%, and that's almost exactly where she wound up. There were no states that made a huge jump over to Trump that completely defied the polling numbers - when you factor in the margin of error, the results were very much within what was statistically expected. Basically, based on the numbers from before the election, one of three results was expected: a marginal Trump victory, a marginal Clinton victory (the most likely result), or a significant Clinton victory.

And make no mistake Trump's victory was extraordinarily marginal. The electoral college masked it pretty well, but this was probably the closest presidential election in the country's history other than Bush vs. Gore. Trump barely scraped out a win in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. If 50,000 people in those states - or about half a football stadium - had swapped their votes, we would be saying "Madame President" right now.

The idea that Trump's win was some great statistical anomaly is a myth, perpetrated by those who either don't understand statistics or don't understand how elections work.

OhhhJa posted...

Also, in reference to him winning by the skin of his teeth, Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 to al gore and still got elected again in 2004

Bush's popularity also skyrocketed after 9/11, with his approval ratings topping out at an eye-popping 90%, and it enjoyed smaller blips after the initial invasion of Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein. By contrast, Trump has literally never been more popular than he was on election day; his approval has dropped among all political affiliations, and is currently somewhere between ~37% and 42%, which is roughly where Bush's was during the start of the financial crisis (and you saw what happened the following election to the Republicans).

See previous comment about calling elections this far out, but those are two very different scenarios.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Kind of like how Republicans winning big in the house during Obama's term meant that he didn't get re-elected... oh wait...

Yeah, good point. I mean, if you ignore the turnout (2018 was the highest voter turnout for a midterm ever in the era of universal suffrage, whereas 2010 was one of the lowest), the difference in popularity (even at his lowest point, Obama was never as unpopular as Trump), and the difference in their electoral margins (Trump got in by the skin of his teeth, winning by just ~90k votes across three states and losing the popular vote in the process), it almost looks like the two situations are similar, even though they aren't.

I notice you still haven't responded in that other topic by the way, so I'll re-ask my question here: did you think Trump was being racist when he called immigrant gang members "not people" and "animals"? I mean, a lot of the Democrats thought so and you did say that "animal" and calling people less than human was a racial slur, so I'm just wondering if you agree with them that Trump was really racist.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

DPsx7 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

DPsx7 posted...

It probably is higher because the idiotic media can make more money by posting the negative stories. He's just a guy with a job, neither a god nor a fool. The biggest reason he can't get everything done is because everyone who was so butthurt over the election is going out of their way to be difficult. The haters are dumber than a bag of foam.

Yeah, the Republican president with a Republican House, Republican Senate, and conservative Supreme Court was being hamstrung by the Democrats. That makes sense.

If you really want to see obstructionism, check out how McConnell ran the senate after the Democrats lost the majority during Obama's tenure.

Don't act like everyone is playing nice. The system is set up to make sure no one person has too much power but it's also preventing many things from moving forward.

I didn't say everyone was playing nice; I said the idea he was being meaningfully obstructed when literally every branch of government was on his side is patently ridiculous.

DPsx7 posted...

I wouldn't be surprised if the big ego, the idea that we're supposed to be involved with everything, is why plenty of countries hate us.

And do you think Trump launching trade wars against allies and badmouthing their leaders (and sometimes their populace) is going to improve that?

And for whatever fuck-ups the US has committed abroad (and there have been no shortage of them), the idea of China setting up their own global alliance while the US just kind of sits around with its thumb up its ass is not an idea that should bring anyone comfort.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

DPsx7 posted...

It probably is higher because the idiotic media can make more money by posting the negative stories. He's just a guy with a job, neither a god nor a fool. The biggest reason he can't get everything done is because everyone who was so butthurt over the election is going out of their way to be difficult. The haters are dumber than a bag of foam.

Yeah, the Republican president with a Republican House, Republican Senate, and conservative Supreme Court was being hamstrung by the Democrats. That makes sense.

If you really want to see obstructionism, check out how McConnell ran the senate after the Democrats lost the majority during Obama's tenure.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Foreman22 posted...

Its honestly actually higher. Do you think the media going to show anything positive towards him? Media wants the power to be a Kingmaker. Add to the fact that many have caught onto the Medias extreme bias and they simply tell the media what they want to hear. Exit polls prove this.

"The polls are wrong! These other polls say so!"

Judgmenl posted...

I ask everyone in this thread a simple question:
Do you think the president is trying to do what is best for the country?

Based on the strictest wording of your question, no.

I think for some of his stuff - like the tariffs - he's trying to do what he thinks is best for the country, but that's not the same as doing what's *actually* best for the country and most of the experts readily admit that 90+% of his ideas are bad (not even a little bit bad either - like disastrously, "Holy fuck, why would you ever say that out loud?" bad). Other stuff, like the tax cuts, he genuinely doesn't give a shit and is just doing what's best for himself (either to personally enrich himself or to maximize his popularity among his base).

Thanks to Trump, America is burning its bridges and turning inwards at one of the worst possible times both for it and the country as a whole. China, with their "One Belt, One Road" policy is fighting hard to expand their influence and carve out a hegemony, which it is partially doing by filling the void left by waning US influence, especially in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Putin has grand visions of a neo-Soviet dynasty - his country lacks the resources to pull it off, but clearly he's not averse to mayhem. Hell, US and Ukranian observers have noticed suspicious Russian military movements over the last few weeks and are concerned about potential attacks or operations in the lead-up to the Ukranian elections (Putin is hoping the current pro-EU, pro-West prime minister is ousted and appears to be ratcheting up tensions to try and make him appear weak). Hell, they still haven't released the ships or sailors they detained a few weeks back. But is Trump doing anything to support a US ally in the region or stand up to Russian aggression? Of course not, he's too busy worrying about some dumb-fuck piece of concrete that won't even solve the problems he's trying to fix.

Meanwhile, the rest of the western world is rapidly realizing that the US elected a clown to be their head of state and that America can no longer be counted on as a steady, reliable ally. I mean, holy shit, look at these numbers (poll of various countries on how much confidence they have in the president of the US to "do the right thing" when it comes to world affairs) and what happened to them between 2016 and 2017

http://www.pewglobal.org/database/indicator/6/survey/all/

America is losing its influence and that may be the most lasting damage for the country in the long run. The US has enjoyed nearly 30 years as the world's only real superpower, with all the advantages that conferred, and that era is now almost unarguably coming to an end. Admittedly, that trend predates Trump, but he has exacerbated it by treating allies like thieves or fools and dictators like celebrities.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

People who hate him screaming about how the sky is falling every single day for the last 700+ days has basically resulted in everyone who didn't already hate him beforehand to completely tune out every single negative story about him, assuming it's either "more bullshit" or "deliberate slander".

Congratulations - the people who can't stand him the most have essentially done the most to ensure his chances of getting reelected.

I mean, the US just had the highest midterms turnout in over 100 years and it resulted in the worst House losses for the Republican party since the aftermath of Nixon's resignation, so I'm gonna say you're probably wrong about this...
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Because Trump isn't - and never has been - the problem.

It's not like he came out of nowhere and took over the country by force, or hid his true intentions, or anything like that. For whatever else you can say about him, Trump was plainly transparent from his very first press event announcing his candidacy of exactly what sort of a person he was and how he would govern. He said he'd build a wall, get rid of the elites ("elites", in this context, meaning anyone with a brain and/or relevant job experience to what they're doing), be hostile to immigrants, and generally act like a disruptive asshole and lo and behold that's exactly what he's done.

Trump is where the Republican party has been slowly trending for decades, beginning with the end of the Reagan years where the party decided to lean less on conservative econopolitical principles and more on social hotbutton issues to get out the vote. He's an ugly caricature of what they've become, but not really all that inaccurate of one; the dishonesty, the know-nothingism, the identity politics, none of that is new. The Republicans have been fostering - or, at least, tolerating - the proponents of that sort of political skulduggery for a long time now and it's finally become the dominant force in the party. The only thing that really separates Trump from someone like Dick Cheney or Newt Gingrich is that Trump doesn't bother to hide his political warts or dress them up in nice language.

So yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all that Trump still enjoys the full-throated support of the nation's Republicans; thus far, he hasn't broke ranks with them in any significant way. Absent a major economic collapse, open war, or some other disaster that Trump proves himself completely incapable of adequately addressing, I don't think his approval rating will ever dip below ~35%.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!