Man stabs, kills pro-Trump boss

[Revoltingest]

It's weaker to pretend that unwavering, slavish adoration and idolization of politicians isn't the least bit questionable. They're not infallible heroes. No only is it a creepy attitude, it's dangerous.
All politicians and parties should be scrutinized and held to account, even the ones you favor.

But your posts are far from objective.
They're insulting. That serves no good purpose.
So you're not fighting the good fight...you're just fighting.

 

[Father Heathen]

[


A really fine job of virtue signalling here. Now if you could only actually be virtuous....

Criticizing irrational behavior is "virtue signaling"? I don't think you understand what the phrase actually means. Besides, I never claimed to be an exemplar of virtue.
Anyway, go sit in the lotus position and meditate on that for a while.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Criticizing irrational behavior is "virtue signalling"? I don't think you understand what the phrase actually means. Besides, I never claimed to be an exemplar of virtue.
Anyway, go sit in the lotus position and meditate on that for a while.

You are trying to portray yourself as the neutral (virtuous) outsider who is objective and emperical by insinuating that others here are not.

 

[Father Heathen]

But your posts are far from objective.
They're insulting. That serves no good purpose.
So you're not fighting the good fight...you're just fighting.

 

[Father Heathen]

You are trying to portray yourself as the neutral (virtuous) outsider who is objective and emperical by insinuating that others here are not.

Uh, nope.
If that's how you interpreted it then it flew over your head.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Many Trump haters are insane for failing to appreciate how our P.O.T.U.S. has helped lead America into unprecedented economy prosperity with his executive actions of enacting regulation cuts, U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty, fair and balanced trade deals like U.S.M.C.A. and the China Phase One, and approval of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017; all this of our Trump-led Trumped-up economy leading to record prosperity with record high stock valuations, record employment opportunities for minorities, real wage growth for the middle class, and reduced poverty.

Do you know why stocks are going up, generally?

Trump's tax cuts have created a short term revenue bump for many companies, yes. However, the fundamentals of the economy are in the toilet, so most large companies don't see much potential to grow themselves.

Because of this, instead on investing this extra revenue into growing their business: opening new plants, doing more R&D, launching new products, etc. (i.e. the stuff that stimulates job growth), they're using it for stock buybacks and dividend issues.

These sorts of measures can certainly raise stock prices in the short term, but they're not a marker of real economic growth. If anything, what's going on is a sign of bad things on the horizon.

 

[Salvador]

Do you know why stocks are going up, generally?

Trump's tax cuts have created a short term revenue bump for many companies, yes. However, the fundamentals of the economy are in the toilet, so most large companies don't see much potential to grow themselves.

Because of this, instead on investing this extra revenue into growing their business: opening new plants, doing more R&D, launching new products, etc. (i.e. the stuff that stimulates job growth), they're using it for stock buybacks and dividend issues.

These sorts of measures can certainly raise stock prices in the short term, but they're not a marker of real economic growth. If anything, what's going on is a sign of bad things on the horizon.

My 401-K and Roth IRA savings plans are doing rather quite well...Thank you very much Mr. President Trump!

 

[Woberts]

I'm ok with this. You have to take victories whenever you can.

 

[Father Heathen]

I'm ok with this. You have to take victories whenever you can.

I hope you're joking. You defeat ignorance and foolishness with wisdom and intelligence, not death and violence.
Even if you're a sociopath who doesn't value human life, it's not a good strategy to make martyrs of your foes.

 

[Woberts]

I hope you're joking. You defeat ignorance and foolishness with wisdom and intelligence, not death and violence.
Even if you're a sociopath who doesn't value human life, it's not a good strategy to make martyrs of your foes.

Martyrs are useless when there aren't any foes left.

 

[Father Heathen]

Martyrs are useless when there aren't any foes left.

So you propose a genocide against political opponents? That's the historic legacy you'd want forever tied to your political ideology?
An ideology has to be pretty weak if it can't survive without being propped it up on a pile of corpses.

 

[gnomon]

I can attest to a similar experience as you both report. We moved out of the States about ten years ago. It took a few years to decompress. It's lot like being in a room with a persistent mechanical or electrical sound that you eventually don't hear until you step out of the room and re-enter, but has an undesirable effect on your mental state and point of view.

And you can feel the antipathy Americans have for one another in this thread.



That's common. He was probably just listening to Hannity or Limbaugh.



Soon? At any Trump rally now.



That's the mutual contempt to which I referred. As others have mentioned, it's palpable now, at least from the outside looking in.



And here it is again. This is the quality of the dialogue - insanity, derangement, bloodshed.



America has a terrible PR problem that I suspect Americans are less aware of than non-Americans. Consider what the world is seeing. @Salvador sees all good in Trump's America, but that's not the prevailing view elsewhere.

And it's not all due to antipathy for Trump. America looks like a shooting gallery. This is shocking and unintellible to people who aren't living in American gun culture. They see police shooting kids in the back running from them. They see white supremacy on the rise. They see the constant bickering between the parties and their supporters, bickering that goes beyond partisan differences to outright contempt. They see children being caged. They saw Trump's performance regarding Puerto Rico. They see Trump cozying up to dictators and see him as under Putin's thumb. They consider the elections insecure.

Foreigners are not seeing what proud Trump supporters in America are seeing.

I'm so sorry for your experience.

It's so bad that you had to leave under the Obama administration to ..... "decompress". If there is any wisdom you can depart upon the rest of us still languishing here......

Please import upon us your wisdom. Maybe the rest of us can just uproot and "decompress" like you had the courage to do.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I'm so sorry for your experience.

It's so bad that you had to leave under the Obama administration to ..... "decompress". If there is any wisdom you can depart upon the rest of us still languishing here......

Please import upon us your wisdom. Maybe the rest of us can just uproot and "decompress" like you had the courage to do.

Wisdom? Thanks for the kind words.

After the Clinton years, which was characterized by a partisan witch hunt and a nasty new movement that weaponized religion and merged it with conservatism, in association with the rise of conservative media disinformation being swallowed gladly by an apparently defenseless electorate, followed by the Bush's first term, my wife and I thought that we could see America's future for the next several decades, didn't like what we saw, and chose to graft ourselves into another culture.

I don't think much courage was required. But one does need to be able to leave the country, which for us meant being able to retire, since we chose a country with an economy good for spending, but not for earning or working. Many people are anchored to their current life by debt, the need to keep working, (grand)children, parents, or a fear of the unknown.

Yeah, after enduring the Bush years, we were gone for the Obama years, but we were pretty confident that America would welcome more Republicans such as Trump, and that the downward spiral would continue two steps downward followed by a reaction with step back up, followed by forgetfulness and more bad decisions by the electorate electing Republicans (now add foreign election tampering), and the writing was on the wall : things will get increasingly worse for people living in America, and already, they were pretty undesirable. We didn't want to go where America appeared to be heading, and I believe current events support that judgment.

I have no regrets about that decision.

Of course, I brought this up in this context of adding a third perspective to the difference between how things appear from within and without America, a difference best appreciated by stepping out of the milieu the anger, resentment, and fear long enough to experience it explicitly again rather than just as a background irritant when stepping back in. The difference is best appreciated spending sufficient time in both, and comparing how one feels in the two settings.