Nuking a hurricane is by orders of magnitude dumber than the line in "Armageddon" where someone suggests they just fire nukes at the asteroid. Forget about DOING it, the fact that he thinks it's a plausible option shows he is utterly unfit for the office. It's one thing to elect a horrible person, it's one thing to elect a completely dishonest person, it's one thing to elect a corrupt person, it's another thing to elect a total moron. We somehow managed to hit all 4 square on the nose. Nuke a hurricane, buy Greenland, windmills cause cancer. I used to have to listen to AM radio at 2am to hear this kind of nonsense. Now it's coming out of the Oval Office.
as far as the wider world is concerned, I think yours is a niche definition of racism - though I agree it is somewhat more accepted in the US. Here are the first 3 dictionary definitions of racism I get from Googling.
Merriam-Webster
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2a : a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
b : a political or social system founded on racism
3 : racial prejudice or discrimination
Oxford
Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.
Cambridge
The belief that people's qualities are influenced by their race and that the members of other races are not as good as the members of your own, or the resulting unfair treatment of members of other races
None of those definitions are consistent with the idea racism can only exist where there's a power imbalance. I have a bit more sympathy with @jjstraka34's view that we should use the term institutional racism to describe this situation, but I still think this would be much better tackled by looking at the impact on the individual. That's partly because individual disadvantage may not just relate to current prejudice, but the legacy of past prejudice. Even if we were in a situation where there was no intent to discriminate against blacks in the US today, most of them would still face more hurdles to success - as a result of not having had the opportunities to build up the same financial, social and educational capital in the past. However, the same argument can be made about some white people (and I think should be if the aim is to promote equality of treatment).
Using a dictionary’s limited definition of a term as evidence that term cannot have another meaning, expanded meaning, or even conflicting meaning. This is a fallacy because dictionaries don’t reason; they simply are a reflection of an abbreviated version of the current accepted usage of a term, as determined by argumentation and eventual acceptance. In short, dictionaries tell you what a word meant, according to the authors, at the time of its writing, not what it meant before that time, after, or what it should mean.
Dictionary meanings are usually concise, and lack the depth found in an encyclopedia; therefore, terms found in dictionaries are often incomplete when it comes to helping people to gain a full understanding of the term.
The second is that I'm speaking of scholarship going back to the 19th century, and you're quoting dictionaries at me as if these are somehow equal, and they're not. To add to the fallacy mentioned above, dictionary definitions often reflect dominant cultural hegemony - so dictionaries are more likely to avoid the more developed analysis of anti-racist scholars and activists.
No, wait, there's a third: Merriam-Webster's definitions 1, 2a, 2b, and Oxford's are actually supportive of the definition that I gave, in that they refer to a belief that one's race is inherently superior to others, or a doctrine or political program based on this assumption, or a political or social system founded on racism. What I described fits these categories all at once.
No, wait, there's a fourth: My definition is fairly well accepted among serious anti-racist scholars and activists, and is not in fact niche. Dictionary definitions are not considered persuasive in that context.
If you're not focusing specifically on the US situation then it's not difficult to see examples of racism elsewhere in the world. For instance I've recently been following stories from Kenya about violence triggered by elections. That's been an increasing problem for a number of years as a result of political parties taking on more tribal allegiances over time - exacerbating racial tensions. I expect you're aware of the genocide in Rwanda in the early 1990s, but there are plenty more examples of less horrific racism in Africa.
I wasn't aware anyone involved in this discussion is in Kenya and I specified earlier in the thread that I was posting about European nations or nations colonized by Europeans, such as the US, Canada, and Australia. Kenya still suffers from lingering problems brought about by European colonization (specifically the British Empire - which was primarily run by white people) and only attained independence from the British Empire in 1964. This is whataboutery.
Bringing up Kenya and Japan like this is the fallacy of relative privation. Yes, things are bad in other countries, but this does not mean there's anything wrong with focusing on the racism in the US or even simply talking about it. Nor does it actually point to an epidemic of racism against white people in the US, UK, etc.
The point is that racism was never and is not now just a 'white on black' issue and using an argument that concentrates on that may help conceal more than reveal wider racial problems. I do understand the argument that you can define the same action as racism where there's a power imbalance one way, but prejudice where it's the other. However, as I said before I think it's unhelpful to allow actions to be portrayed differently - if our aim is to encourage fairness we should not start by accepting an imbalance in the way we describe racism. Rather than helping to highlight racism, this may just provide some people with a way to excuse their racist behavior.
It is not unbalanced or unfair to point out that some groups of people are subject to far more intense discrimination than other groups of people. White people are not and never have been subjected to the intense degree of discrimination, prejudice, and oppression that people of color have, and framing "racism against both as equally bad" is extremely tone-deaf not to mention factually incorrect in every way possible.
When one's understanding of racism is limited to "when someone who's skin is a different color is mean to me" then it's actually difficult to have a reasonable discussion about this. Much of this thread has been taken up with imaginary scenarios about white people subjected to racism despite the numerous examples I provided of systemic injustice in the United States alone, and barely scratched the surface.
Now google "Black Wall Street," "redlining," , "the war on drugs," "American Indian Boarding Schools," just who was taking scalps from whom, immigration limits on Asians, US detainment camps for during World War II, the extensive exploitation of Chinese immigrants to build railroads, what "Manifest Destiny" really meant to Native American societies, Sundown Towns, and Jim Crow.
For Britain, there's always the Bengal Famine of 1943, not to mention their entire colonial history. For Canada there's again indigenous genocide and "residential schools." Australia has the Stolen Generation. Just to name a few. This barely scratches the surface of this topic.
Oh, heck, for a recent British example, there's the recent deportation of dozens of members of the Windrush generation.
For a very current US example, ICE. Period. Just ICE. And the concentration camps, which the Federal government wants to be indefinite detainment. Never mind those who finally do get their hearing to assess their request for asylum. Judges acknowledging that "yes, deporting this person will probably get him killed, but I'm going to deport him anyway." Latino children stolen from their families and kept in cages.
@BelleSorciere this isn't something I think we should be arguing about - particularly given that I think there's not that much difference in our views. The apparent differences are essentially about the perspective being applied and a question of tactics.
Perhaps it might help to clarify my point of view by responding to some of the things you raised though:
- on the question of definition I accepted yours was a proper definition, so there was no appeal to definition involved in my post.
- I said that "as far as the wider world is concerned" yours is a niche definition. I accept that including the power dynamic in the definition is more common among scholars, particularly in the US - but that wasn't the audience I was writing for. For a general audience I think quoting dictionary definitions is normally appropriate. If you look at Wikipediaarticles on this issue they show the same sort of distinction between the definitions used by some scholars and by the general public.
- I referred to racism elsewhere in the world to illustrate the point I was making that racism is common everywhere, but the way it manifests may be very different. A definition of racism that may seem helpful in one context will not necessarily be seen as helpful in other contexts. That's why I wanted to take a much more general line of promoting equality as a response to racism (as well as other forms of prejudice).
In terms of perspective I was trying to apply a 'one size fits all' approach across the world rather than looking at one particular situation. Even if I'm correct in my view that it's generally unhelpful to define racism as requiring a power imbalance, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not helpful in the specific context of the US. On another issue of perspective my view is essentially about how one individual treats another. From that perspective I don't think it makes sense to refer to a particular type of attack by a white person on a black person as racist, but not do so for the same type of attack by a black person on a white person. I don't believe my view is at all unusual on this - I suspect most people struggle to understand how this distinction can be fair. Including power in the definition is far easier to understand though in the context of referring to social groups rather than individuals (though as I suggested previously I think the term institutional racism would still be better in this situation).
In terms of tactics I may have misinterpreted your response, but the tone of that came across to me as if you felt I was somehow condoning racism or trying to minimize the extent of the problem. That's not the case at all. I agree it's a significant problem and would like to see plenty of effort to tackle it. However, I feel that defining racism as having to involve a power imbalance may be unhelpful in promoting an acceptance by the general public of the need to tackle racism. That's because of the possibility of that definition being rejected by many people as unreasonable - particularly if they are looking at things from an individual perspective. That may in turn lead them to conclude that racism is not a real concern, when they might have reached a different conclusion for a different definition of racism.
Latino children stolen from their families and kept in cages.
As opposed to adults selling their own children to the cartels to get the money to pay coyotes to smuggle themselves across the border? Which situation is worse?
It warms my heart to know that we are no longer able to believe or cite dictionaries. I was wondering what I was going burn in the fireplace to keep warm this winter.
So it appears that Trump is helping commit fraud in the stock market.
He tweeted that China called him to restart talks about the Trump Trade War. China is denying this, so it seems to be another Trump lie. But this lie had tangible effects in that the stock market jumped a bit on the good (fake) news.
So some people who would have bought or sold stocks with the knowledge that Trump was going to hereby proclaim a thawing in the trade war would have made money from the suckers who did not have that knowledge.
Worth noting that Trump has used this lie before. One instance I recall was John Oliver showing a clip where Trump claimed John Oliver called him begging for an interview and Trump said no. And Oliver didn't and checked with everyone that no one accidentally tried to interview Trump and of course no one did.
This is the equivalent lie of a real estate agent claiming to a buyer that there's lots of offers on a house when in reality there aren't, the guy's just trying to get the highest price.
Without evidence of Trump allies using this information to predict the stock market, I doubt that Trump is trying to commit fraud in this case or manipulate the stock market for personal gain. I think he's just lying for strictly PR-related reasons. He doesn't like it when people are mad at him, so he's trying to convince people that he's getting better results from the trade war than he actually is.
Without evidence of Trump allies using this information to predict the stock market, I doubt that Trump is trying to commit fraud in this case or manipulate the stock market for personal gain. I think he's just lying for strictly PR-related reasons. He doesn't like it when people are mad at him, so he's trying to convince people that he's getting better results from the trade war than he actually is.
Whether he means to or not he is manipulating the markets.
That we can't tell if he's intentionally doing it or not which is really convenient for him because it shows he can get away with it. And he will keep doing it.
I'd argue he absolutely is doing it on purpose - his tweets attacking the Fed and his fear or the markets going down are definitely main concerns that drive him. More than the racism, more than anything else he's out to make a buck - that's why pretty much the main thing Republicans got accomplished was tax cuts for the rich.
I don't know why people see how much dirty politicians are and still believe that the state(controlled by then) can work... Is extremely more likely that an politician can get away from killing civilians than an "contractor"
Only talking about education. Most recent Brazilian presidents(Bolsonaro, Lula) can't even read an basic text on English. Dom Pedro II was fluent in Portuguese, Latin, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, Occitan and Tupi, he also made a lot of investments on science( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_II_of_Brazil )
The emperor at age of 12
And this was not restrict to the royal family. Was expected from Barons during imperial times to be able to speak in at least four different languages, understand etiquette, history, religion, mathematics, finance, administration, etc. Many places who was rich farms 150+ years ago are now "favelas"...
He tweeted that China called him to restart talks about the Trump Trade War. China is denying this, so it seems to be another Trump lie.
I did not realize that you were on that call, as well. What did the Chinese actually say? Surely the leadership of the Party in Bejing would never resort to lying, would they?
He tweeted that China called him to restart talks about the Trump Trade War. China is denying this, so it seems to be another Trump lie.
I did not realize that you were on that call, as well. What did the Chinese actually say? Surely the leadership of the Party in Bejing would never resort to lying, would they?
Damned party lines!
(couldn't resist the double entendre)
I would not uncritically assume that Trump is telling the truth when he says the Chinese have suddenly decided that they are willing to talk to him. That's a remarkable departure from their conduct thus far. And I have been by far the biggest critic of the Chinese government on this forum thus far--I am the last person to trust the word of the Party.
I'm reasonably certain this is one of the countless times that Trump is saying he is making more progress than he is. I doubt it's sheer coincidence that he's saying this just as his constituents are growing weary of the trade war.
I don't know why people see how much dirty politicians are and still believe that the state(controlled by then) can work... Is extremely more likely that an politician can get away from killing civilians than an "contractor"
Only talking about education. Most recent Brazilian presidents(Bolsonaro, Lula) can't even read an basic text on English. Dom Pedro II was fluent in Portuguese, Latin, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, Occitan and Tupi, he also made a lot of investments on science( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_II_of_Brazil )
The emperor at age of 12
And this was not restrict to the royal family. Was expected from Barons during imperial times to be able to speak in at least four different languages, understand etiquette, history, religion, mathematics, finance, administration, etc. Many places who was rich farms 150+ years ago are now "favelas"...
Because the answer to "all politicians are dirty" is not "burn down the entire government".
The answer is to institute more safeguards. More checks and balances, more inspections, more scrutiny on politicians' business dealings, campaign contributions, and gifts/bribes. Instead what we have had is a LESSENING of safeguards over the last 20 years. Citizens United is merely a watershed moment, it is neither the beginning nor the end of corruption in (American) politics.
And yes, statesmen of the past were far more educated with a true liberal arts education. SOLID background (years) in ALL the following: the soft sciences of philosophy, economics, political science; at LEAST 2 foreign languages, probably 3; the hard sciences and maths; and the arts including painting, sculpting, theatre, literature. ALL of that. These days you are lucky to even require more than 1-2 courses in any one of those. I've spent over 10 years in undergrad education and I still wish I had time to learn more outside my majors (hard sciences and accounting), particularly in philosophy and information systems.
Edit-However, the modern world is such that there's just TOO MUCH TO KNOW to be a master at more than 1, maybe 2 things. Perhaps 3-4 if they're interlinked and interdiciplinary like biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. ENTIRE FIELDS of science did not exist 150 years ago. Nuclear physics only came about in the 1880s, nuclear chemistry since about the 1930s, hell, the ENTIRE FIELD OF GEOLOGY is barely 200 years old. ALL of Geology's underpinnings came about in the late 1700s and 1800s. Let alone specifics like "plate-tectonic theory" which is around 60 years old.
That's not even getting into things like computers. I've got a book to read about the life of a fictional CIO (chief information officer, the person in charge of info systems in a corporation) and the authors of that, who teach at Harvard, even had the characters in the book acknowledge that there's just too much to know about technology. Architecture, programming languages, layers from the CPU to the RAM to the OS to the servers' databases, I/O, security, it's just so much. The best to hope for as a manager is to have the specialists tell you about their individual parts, and know enough to know the general picture.
I'm reasonably certain this is one of the countless times that Trump is saying he is making more progress than he is. I doubt it's sheer coincidence that he's saying this just as his constituents are growing weary of the trade war.
I don't disagree with that assessment. The problem with liars is this: just because *anything* they say can be a lie doesn't meant that *everything* they say is a lie. Still, it is best to presume that they are lying and proceed from there.
Let's assume this trade war continues to escalate. Isn't the logical question who can afford to make their citizens suffer more without reaping the consequences of doing so?? As far as I know, the Chinese government answers to no one, least of all it's citizens. Trump is at least ostensibly forced to factor in how a massive raise in prices at the store will hurt him electorally. It doesn't seem like a fight a leader of a so-called democracy CAN win when the other side isn't answerable to an electorate.
Perhaps, but the Chinese government has an interest in keeping profits high; it is not just a question of who can weather the PR storm better. The Party places great value on PR, but the leadership is a group of businessmen first and foremost--those are the kind of people who attain power in the Chinese system.
The PR thing is working more in China's favor, though. Americans will consistently blame Trump for any problems the trade war generates, and the Chinese people would also blame Trump even without Party propaganda influencing them. Trump kind of set himself up to take the blame when he advocated so strongly for a trade war when no one else was.
I'm reasonably certain this is one of the countless times that Trump is saying he is making more progress than he is. I doubt it's sheer coincidence that he's saying this just as his constituents are growing weary of the trade war.
I don't disagree with that assessment. The problem with liars is this: just because *anything* they say can be a lie doesn't meant that *everything* they say is a lie. Still, it is best to presume that they are lying and proceed from there.
Why? Trump lies more than China to us. Let's presume he's lying since he's lied about everything from crowd size to well everything. Climate change is not a chinese hoax either. It's harder to find something he's not lying about to be honest. He's somewhere near 11k lies.
China does not lie he does. Sure, they'll hide the truth but they aren't lying like a firehose like he does. To be honest, who cares about China, I just know he lies. About everything. Blames others for everything bad. Gaslights. Lies.
President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.
He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.
..................
When aides have suggested that some of his orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying “take the land,” according to officials present at the meetings.
So, for the record, he wants to flat-out STEAL private land, and if any laws need to be broken to speed up the situation, he is actively ENCOURAGING subordinates to break the law and preemptively offering them pardons for doing so. I dare anyone to defend this. Does it even need to be pointed out that if a President can tell underlings to break the law with the promise of a pardon that it effectively means there are NO constraints on what he can do without consequence?? This is turning the pardon power into nothing but a cudgel of authoritarian rule.
Perhaps, but the Chinese government has an interest in keeping profits high; it is not just a question of who can weather the PR storm better. The Party places great value on PR, but the leadership is a group of businessmen first and foremost--those are the kind of people who attain power in the Chinese system.
The PR thing is working more in China's favor, though. Americans will consistently blame Trump for any problems the trade war generates, and the Chinese people would also blame Trump even without Party propaganda influencing them. Trump kind of set himself up to take the blame when he advocated so strongly for a trade war when no one else was.
I spent some time this morning reading up on China's 'Belt and Road Initiative', which is China loaning money to countries all over Africa, Asia, and even eastern Europe, in order to fund infrastructure projects carried out by Chinese companies. Bridges, railroad, seaports, airports.
It's actually a hell of a good plan, what I even read referred to once as the "Chinese Marshall Plan". It gets Chinese manufacturing to burn up excess capacity. It promotes foreign goodwill, and if those countries which happen to be not really good debtors default, which is actually probably most of them, well, China will just dictate good terms for the debt settlement, like 99 year leases on the infrastructure they just built.
It actually started out because of a question I posed myself: How much of China's GDP is in manufacturing? The answer, by the way, was about 47%. America has about 20% of its GDP in manufacuring. This in turn was prompted by the fact that America's agriculture is only about 1% of GDP. China's ag as a % of GDP is about 13%.
After looking at a list of all countries by breakdown of Ag/Ind/Services I posit that it would be a REALLY good thing if America's government would get off its ass and get about a trillion dollar/year infrastructure bill going. Seriously, only France has less industry as a % of GDP than America among the top 30 largest economies. Not only that, but America is at little more than 19%, most countries are 25-30%.
It's one of the reasons China is so incredibly popular in Africa. They have funded so many infrastructure projects and, unlike America and some other democratic states, they don't require investment to come with human rights requirements. They don't ask African governments to respect human rights as a prerequisite for Chinese investment.
It's not all rosy, at least not in the eyes of everyone on the ground. Some Africans at least have complained about Chinese involvement in the sense that Chinese investors have a habit of hiring their own workers to complete projects rather than hiring local workers--those kinds of decisions mean a lot of the profit ends up going back to China rather than being spread to the Africans themselves. There are some concerns about Chinese imperialism in Africa. I haven't been following that issue very closely, however.
Their policies can be incredibly indifferent to basic ethics, but it's very smart policymaking from a strictly realist perspective. China is buying a great deal of influence in Africa for a rather good price. It's a bit like their purchasing of heavy metal deposits, which they can use (and have already used) to restrict other countries' access to the materials needed for high-end electronics: they're seizing opportunities that will make them more powerful decades into the future.
Perhaps, but the Chinese government has an interest in keeping profits high; it is not just a question of who can weather the PR storm better. The Party places great value on PR, but the leadership is a group of businessmen first and foremost--those are the kind of people who attain power in the Chinese system.
The PR thing is working more in China's favor, though. Americans will consistently blame Trump for any problems the trade war generates, and the Chinese people would also blame Trump even without Party propaganda influencing them. Trump kind of set himself up to take the blame when he advocated so strongly for a trade war when no one else was.
I spent some time this morning reading up on China's 'Belt and Road Initiative', which is China loaning money to countries all over Africa, Asia, and even eastern Europe, in order to fund infrastructure projects carried out by Chinese companies. Bridges, railroad, seaports, airports.
It's actually a hell of a good plan, what I even read referred to once as the "Chinese Marshall Plan". It gets Chinese manufacturing to burn up excess capacity. It promotes foreign goodwill, and if those countries which happen to be not really good debtors default, which is actually probably most of them, well, China will just dictate good terms for the debt settlement, like 99 year leases on the infrastructure they just built.
I'm not sure what you mean by a good plan, but the reference to the Marshall Plan suggests this is good for the countries where the investment is taking place. While the Chinese certainly want to give that impression, I don't think it's at all clear that's always the case. The potential benefits to the Chinese are clear, e.g. they get a home for spare capital, can export quality jobs (most of the best work on the projects is given to Chinese, not indigenous workers), get opportunities to apply their legal system to other countries and increase their 'soft' power in the world. For the recipient countries though, they get infrastructure which may be of relatively little real value to them (as it is intended to help Chinese exports, which are not necessarily the same as the needs of the country) and which often puts them into high levels of debt (allowing the Chinese to further increase their level of influence in the country).
The Marshall Plan certainly had as a major objective increasing the soft power of the US and creating opportunities for profitable commerce. However, there were not the same strings attached to that plan and it was geared directly to increasing the capabilities of the host country - rather than just increasing its ability to trade with the US. The BRI seems to me to be a much more direct attempt to export the Chinese system and gain influence over other countries. If you're not a fan of the Chinese system that's likely to be a concern ...
Why? Trump lies more than China to us. Let's presume he's lying since he's lied about everything from crowd size to well everything. Climate change is not a chinese hoax either. It's harder to find something he's not lying about to be honest. He's somewhere near 11k lies.
China does not lie he does. Sure, they'll hide the truth but they aren't lying like a firehose like he does. To be honest, who cares about China, I just know he lies. About everything. Blames others for everything bad. Gaslights. Lies.
You do realize that I was actually talking about Trump, right? And that my assessment was "presume he is lying then go from there"?
I would think twice before agreeing with the phrase "China does not lie". They were hiding spyware in very small chips hidden in the motherboards of many products; some of the chips were embedded in between the silicon layers and looked as if they were supposed to be there.
It's not all rosy, at least not in the eyes of everyone on the ground. Some Africans at least have complained about Chinese involvement in the sense that Chinese investors have a habit of hiring their own workers to complete projects rather than hiring local workers--those kinds of decisions mean a lot of the profit ends up going back to China rather than being spread to the Africans themselves. There are some concerns about Chinese imperialism in Africa. I haven't been following that issue very closely, however.
Their policies can be incredibly indifferent to basic ethics, but it's very smart policymaking from a strictly realist perspective. China is buying a great deal of influence in Africa for a rather good price. It's a bit like their purchasing of heavy metal deposits, which they can use (and have already used) to restrict other countries' access to the materials needed for high-end electronics: they're seizing opportunities that will make them more powerful decades into the future.
On my other board, we have a couple of posters who do live in Africa and they see it on a regular basis.
I don't know why people see how much dirty politicians are and still believe that the state(controlled by then) can work... Is extremely more likely that an politician can get away from killing civilians than an "contractor"
Only talking about education. Most recent Brazilian presidents(Bolsonaro, Lula) can't even read an basic text on English. Dom Pedro II was fluent in Portuguese, Latin, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, Occitan and Tupi, he also made a lot of investments on science( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_II_of_Brazil )
The emperor at age of 12
And this was not restrict to the royal family. Was expected from Barons during imperial times to be able to speak in at least four different languages, understand etiquette, history, religion, mathematics, finance, administration, etc. Many places who was rich farms 150+ years ago are now "favelas"...
Because the answer to "all politicians are dirty" is not "burn down the entire government".
The answer is to institute more safeguards. More checks and balances, more inspections, more scrutiny on politicians' business dealings, campaign contributions, and gifts/bribes. Instead what we have had is a LESSENING of safeguards over the last 20 years. Citizens United is merely a watershed moment, it is neither the beginning nor the end of corruption in (American) politics.
And yes, statesmen of the past were far more educated with a true liberal arts education. SOLID background (years) in ALL the following: the soft sciences of philosophy, economics, political science; at LEAST 2 foreign languages, probably 3; the hard sciences and maths; and the arts including painting, sculpting, theatre, literature. ALL of that. These days you are lucky to even require more than 1-2 courses in any one of those. I've spent over 10 years in undergrad education and I still wish I had time to learn more outside my majors (hard sciences and accounting), particularly in philosophy and information systems.
Edit-However, the modern world is such that there's just TOO MUCH TO KNOW to be a master at more than 1, maybe 2 things. Perhaps 3-4 if they're interlinked and interdiciplinary like biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. ENTIRE FIELDS of science did not exist 150 years ago. Nuclear physics only came about in the 1880s, nuclear chemistry since about the 1930s, hell, the ENTIRE FIELD OF GEOLOGY is barely 200 years old. ALL of Geology's underpinnings came about in the late 1700s and 1800s. Let alone specifics like "plate-tectonic theory" which is around 60 years old.
<...>.
The solution is to stop treating the governments as deities in an cultural and legal level, make an president who trows napalm into an African Village so responsible as an contractor who does the same(hypothetical example) and let the regulatory/legal power decentralized.
For eg, in the topic of gun control. If is an federal law, everybody from the southern part of Florida to Northern part of Alaska would be forced to follow the same law despite living in completely different realities. If an city approves an stupid law, an city dealing with the consequences and rapidly seeing that other cities are not dealing with the same consequences would create an incentive to not produce stupid laws. Let each town has his own laws, own currency(gold standard preferentially), own culture, etc.
PS : Modern monarchs like Prince Hans Adam still has an insanely better education than the average President.
I don't know why people see how much dirty politicians are and still believe that the state(controlled by then) can work... Is extremely more likely that an politician can get away from killing civilians than an "contractor"
Only talking about education. Most recent Brazilian presidents(Bolsonaro, Lula) can't even read an basic text on English. Dom Pedro II was fluent in Portuguese, Latin, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, Occitan and Tupi, he also made a lot of investments on science( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_II_of_Brazil )
The emperor at age of 12
And this was not restrict to the royal family. Was expected from Barons during imperial times to be able to speak in at least four different languages, understand etiquette, history, religion, mathematics, finance, administration, etc. Many places who was rich farms 150+ years ago are now "favelas"...
Because the answer to "all politicians are dirty" is not "burn down the entire government".
The answer is to institute more safeguards. More checks and balances, more inspections, more scrutiny on politicians' business dealings, campaign contributions, and gifts/bribes. Instead what we have had is a LESSENING of safeguards over the last 20 years. Citizens United is merely a watershed moment, it is neither the beginning nor the end of corruption in (American) politics.
And yes, statesmen of the past were far more educated with a true liberal arts education. SOLID background (years) in ALL the following: the soft sciences of philosophy, economics, political science; at LEAST 2 foreign languages, probably 3; the hard sciences and maths; and the arts including painting, sculpting, theatre, literature. ALL of that. These days you are lucky to even require more than 1-2 courses in any one of those. I've spent over 10 years in undergrad education and I still wish I had time to learn more outside my majors (hard sciences and accounting), particularly in philosophy and information systems.
Edit-However, the modern world is such that there's just TOO MUCH TO KNOW to be a master at more than 1, maybe 2 things. Perhaps 3-4 if they're interlinked and interdiciplinary like biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. ENTIRE FIELDS of science did not exist 150 years ago. Nuclear physics only came about in the 1880s, nuclear chemistry since about the 1930s, hell, the ENTIRE FIELD OF GEOLOGY is barely 200 years old. ALL of Geology's underpinnings came about in the late 1700s and 1800s. Let alone specifics like "plate-tectonic theory" which is around 60 years old.
<...>.
The solution is to stop treating the governments as deities in an cultural and legal level, make an president who trows napalm into an African Village so responsible as an contractor who does the same(hypothetical example) and let the regulatory/legal power decentralized.
For eg, in the topic of gun control. If is an federal law, everybody from the southern part of Florida to Northern part of Alaska would be forced to follow the same law despite living in completely different realities. If an city approves an stupid law, an city dealing with the consequences and rapidly seeing that other cities are not dealing with the same consequences would create an incentive to not produce stupid laws. Let each town has his own laws, own currency(gold standard preferentially), own culture, etc.
PS : Modern monarchs like Prince Hans Adam still has an insanely better education than the average President.
They are forced to follow federal law. The constitution literally says that the U.S. Constitution, and the laws passed by the U.S. Congress supercede all 50 state Constutitions and state laws. And of course municipal laws.
However, federal law is not entirely absolute. Because of the 9th and 10th amendments, basically anything the states want to implement that does not contradict federal constitution or law is allowable. At least until the SCOTUS says its not.
There's 1 federal government. There's 50 state governments, and something like 8 territorial governments. I think there's about 3,000 counties or whatever they want to be called (Oooh, I was very close, 3007 counties, 3142 total). There's something like 40,000 municipal governments. I'm sort of familiar with the numbers from my recent Governmental Accounting class.
That's a LOT of governments that you're saying should all have TOTALLY different laws, and their own currency (REALLY?!). There's only 180 currencies in the world. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY! There's more countries than currencies.
I could expound further about it, but I will cut short and say the additional overhead you're proposing to fragment the U.S. into is, to put it mildly, insane.
Perhaps, but the Chinese government has an interest in keeping profits high; it is not just a question of who can weather the PR storm better. The Party places great value on PR, but the leadership is a group of businessmen first and foremost--those are the kind of people who attain power in the Chinese system.
The PR thing is working more in China's favor, though. Americans will consistently blame Trump for any problems the trade war generates, and the Chinese people would also blame Trump even without Party propaganda influencing them. Trump kind of set himself up to take the blame when he advocated so strongly for a trade war when no one else was.
I spent some time this morning reading up on China's 'Belt and Road Initiative', which is China loaning money to countries all over Africa, Asia, and even eastern Europe, in order to fund infrastructure projects carried out by Chinese companies. Bridges, railroad, seaports, airports.
It's actually a hell of a good plan, what I even read referred to once as the "Chinese Marshall Plan". It gets Chinese manufacturing to burn up excess capacity. It promotes foreign goodwill, and if those countries which happen to be not really good debtors default, which is actually probably most of them, well, China will just dictate good terms for the debt settlement, like 99 year leases on the infrastructure they just built.
I'm not sure what you mean by a good plan, but the reference to the Marshall Plan suggests this is good for the countries where the investment is taking place. While the Chinese certainly want to give that impression, I don't think it's at all clear that's always the case. The potential benefits to the Chinese are clear, e.g. they get a home for spare capital, can export quality jobs (most of the best work on the projects is given to Chinese, not indigenous workers), get opportunities to apply their legal system to other countries and increase their 'soft' power in the world. For the recipient countries though, they get infrastructure which may be of relatively little real value to them (as it is intended to help Chinese exports, which are not necessarily the same as the needs of the country) and which often puts them into high levels of debt (allowing the Chinese to further increase their level of influence in the country).
The Marshall Plan certainly had as a major objective increasing the soft power of the US and creating opportunities for profitable commerce. However, there were not the same strings attached to that plan and it was geared directly to increasing the capabilities of the host country - rather than just increasing its ability to trade with the US. The BRI seems to me to be a much more direct attempt to export the Chinese system and gain influence over other countries. If you're not a fan of the Chinese system that's likely to be a concern ...
While I mostly agree with you, and as a European highly appreciate the Marshall Plan as the main reason people were able to build up a solid economy after the Second World War (sorry, but WWII, although shorter, sounds like a game), I don't think its main incentive was humanitarian. (I know you didn't say that.)
It was profitable for America to strengthen their influence and create trade opportunities, but I think the most important motivation was to keep the influence of the Soviet Union in Europe at bay.
The reason doesn't matter much, in the end. It was good for Europe.
Whether the Chinese investments in Africa are good for Africa is something that we can't judge. Anyone from Africa around here, or knowledgeable enough about the situation?
I've only read, confirmed by Kenyan friends, that China buys huge amounts of land in Africa, paying the government, and people who have been living on that land (subsistence farmers) for generations have to leave, because it's not officially theirs. Grain is produced there with industrial methods, with huge machines and next to no need for human workers. If at all, they're qualified technicians. From China. And it's not exactly environmental friendly, either.
The governments profit from selling the land, at least for the moment. That profit doesn't reach the population, because we're not talking about "our" kind of political systems. And it doesn't generate employment or growth in the country's own economy. So, I don't know if there's some kind of advantage for African countries in general. But maybe they don't have much of a choice when it comes to investors of any kind. Also because, as mentioned before by others, European or American investors usually attach some human rights requirements. At least when it's connected to the government and/or in public. I'd rather not think about some pharmaceutical companies and their trials, for example. But that's a different subject.
I know that's just a very narrow view on the situation. I'd love to hear from someone who can see the bigger picture and has more information.
Another major development on Brexit this morning - Johnson has said he plans to ask the Queen to prorogue Parliament between 9th September and 14th October.
Proroguing means ending one session of Parliament. Sessions typically last a year and are opened by a Queen's Speech setting out the government's proposed agenda for the session. No Parliamentary business transfers automatically between sessions, though there is a mechanism to agree that existing Bills can be carried over if desired.
The existing session of Parliament has lasted nearly 2 years (as a result of the need to keep meeting to consider Brexit), so is overdue to end. It's also entirely reasonable that a new government would want to set out a new agenda of their own. Thus, in principle, there should be nothing controversial about Johnson wishing to start a new session.
However, the timing and length of the suspension is extremely controversial. It's being presented as purely a proposal to kick-start the domestic agenda, but unless someone's been living in a cupboard for the last few years they're not going to believe that - and will be insulted by any suggestion they should.
It was only yesterday that various opposition groups met together and agreed on how they intend to take control of Parliamentary business and pass a law requiring Johnson to seek a further extension to Brexit. If Parliament is prorogued as outlined above that will make passing such a law somewhere from extremely difficult to impossible.
Potentially, an easier and quicker route to prevent a no deal Brexit would be to pass a vote of no confidence against the government and then form an alternative government for a temporary period to legislate for a Brexit extension before calling a new general election. That wasn't done by opposition groups for three main reasons:
- lack of agreement over who would head the new government
- many of the Conservatives who oppose no deal were unwilling to bring down the government over the issue
- a tactical concern that Johnson might refuse to resign and just call a general election for a data after Brexit had already happened (something that could still occur and cause a different form of constitutional crisis)
In my view this is a blatant attempt to prevent Parliament from expressing its will. That's likely to have all sorts of consequences - too many to consider properly in this post. I will though throw out a few things it might trigger:
- last month Parliament passed a bill that included an amendment to require a minister to report progress to Parliament every 2 weeks on restoring the Northern Ireland assembly. That was a specific attempt to stop Parliament being shut down in this way and a legal case to consider that was already under way. Opponents of no deal will now be attempting to fast track that case, but irrespective of the outcome asking the courts to intervene in the democratic process is not going to be conducive to reconciliation.
- the Brexit process has already changed attitudes in Scotland (which had a large majority for Remain), such that there seems a real prospect of them voting for independence if another referendum is held. This sort of anti-democratic action by the UK government is a gift for the Scottish nationalists in making the case they should no longer be subject to the UK government.
- the prospects for the government being defeated in a vote of confidence have increased very sharply. While it may have been difficult to get agreement on tactics against a no deal Brexit, it should be far easier to get agreement on what to do to a government that aims to subvert the will of Parliament. Those Conservative MPs unwilling to vote against the government on a no confidence vote about Brexit are far more likely to do so on a vote about whether the government or Parliament best represents the will of the people.
Ask the Galactic Senate how that worked out with Palpatine. I also put the over/under at 3-5 hours before Trump, who the usual crowd will say is "joking", tweets about whether the United States Congress should be suspended.
I don't know why people see how much dirty politicians are and still believe that the state(controlled by then) can work... Is extremely more likely that an politician can get away from killing civilians than an "contractor"
Only talking about education. Most recent Brazilian presidents(Bolsonaro, Lula) can't even read an basic text on English. Dom Pedro II was fluent in Portuguese, Latin, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, Occitan and Tupi, he also made a lot of investments on science( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_II_of_Brazil )
The emperor at age of 12
And this was not restrict to the royal family. Was expected from Barons during imperial times to be able to speak in at least four different languages, understand etiquette, history, religion, mathematics, finance, administration, etc. Many places who was rich farms 150+ years ago are now "favelas"...
Because the answer to "all politicians are dirty" is not "burn down the entire government".
The answer is to institute more safeguards. More checks and balances, more inspections, more scrutiny on politicians' business dealings, campaign contributions, and gifts/bribes. Instead what we have had is a LESSENING of safeguards over the last 20 years. Citizens United is merely a watershed moment, it is neither the beginning nor the end of corruption in (American) politics.
And yes, statesmen of the past were far more educated with a true liberal arts education. SOLID background (years) in ALL the following: the soft sciences of philosophy, economics, political science; at LEAST 2 foreign languages, probably 3; the hard sciences and maths; and the arts including painting, sculpting, theatre, literature. ALL of that. These days you are lucky to even require more than 1-2 courses in any one of those. I've spent over 10 years in undergrad education and I still wish I had time to learn more outside my majors (hard sciences and accounting), particularly in philosophy and information systems.
Edit-However, the modern world is such that there's just TOO MUCH TO KNOW to be a master at more than 1, maybe 2 things. Perhaps 3-4 if they're interlinked and interdiciplinary like biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. ENTIRE FIELDS of science did not exist 150 years ago. Nuclear physics only came about in the 1880s, nuclear chemistry since about the 1930s, hell, the ENTIRE FIELD OF GEOLOGY is barely 200 years old. ALL of Geology's underpinnings came about in the late 1700s and 1800s. Let alone specifics like "plate-tectonic theory" which is around 60 years old.
<...>.
The solution is to stop treating the governments as deities in an cultural and legal level, make an president who trows napalm into an African Village so responsible as an contractor who does the same(hypothetical example) and let the regulatory/legal power decentralized.
For eg, in the topic of gun control. If is an federal law, everybody from the southern part of Florida to Northern part of Alaska would be forced to follow the same law despite living in completely different realities. If an city approves an stupid law, an city dealing with the consequences and rapidly seeing that other cities are not dealing with the same consequences would create an incentive to not produce stupid laws. Let each town has his own laws, own currency(gold standard preferentially), own culture, etc.
PS : Modern monarchs like Prince Hans Adam still has an insanely better education than the average President.
They are forced to follow federal law. The constitution literally says that the U.S. Constitution, and the laws passed by the U.S. Congress supercede all 50 state Constutitions and state laws. And of course municipal laws.
However, federal law is not entirely absolute. Because of the 9th and 10th amendments, basically anything the states want to implement that does not contradict federal constitution or law is allowable. At least until the SCOTUS says its not.
There's 1 federal government. There's 50 state governments, and something like 8 territorial governments. I think there's about 3,000 counties or whatever they want to be called (Oooh, I was very close, 3007 counties, 3142 total). There's something like 40,000 municipal governments. I'm sort of familiar with the numbers from my recent Governmental Accounting class.
That's a LOT of governments that you're saying should all have TOTALLY different laws, and their own currency (REALLY?!). There's only 180 currencies in the world. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY! There's more countries than currencies.
I could expound further about it, but I will cut short and say the additional overhead you're proposing to fragment the U.S. into is, to put it mildly, insane.
during medieval era, was extremely common to different cities have different rules. Similar to ancient Greece. Athenas and Sparta. Both are Greek but the difference among the two in legal therm is far greater than we can even imagine.
And continental states with centralized power always failed since roman empire. Washington, Moscow, Brussels, etc gains each day more and more power and centralized continental regions never worked and will never work.
The Chinese opening was only to delay the inevitable.
All states fail or become something else regardless of size, the only question is when. Before the Roman Empire fell, so did all the Greek and Italian city states. As for China: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide."
Anyway, you said the government should be as responsible for what they are doing as a private contractor is - let us ignore first that in many cases private contractors are not responsible for much at all (even the basic idea behind corporations and limiteds is to limit personal responsibility): who do you think should hold them responsible? If you have only limited, small and decentralized regulatory authorities why do you think those are capable of calling anyone to account? And who enforces their decrees?
Comments
Two things, here:
One is that this is a fallacy - an appeal to definition.
Dictionary meanings are usually concise, and lack the depth found in an encyclopedia; therefore, terms found in dictionaries are often incomplete when it comes to helping people to gain a full understanding of the term.
The second is that I'm speaking of scholarship going back to the 19th century, and you're quoting dictionaries at me as if these are somehow equal, and they're not. To add to the fallacy mentioned above, dictionary definitions often reflect dominant cultural hegemony - so dictionaries are more likely to avoid the more developed analysis of anti-racist scholars and activists.
No, wait, there's a third: Merriam-Webster's definitions 1, 2a, 2b, and Oxford's are actually supportive of the definition that I gave, in that they refer to a belief that one's race is inherently superior to others, or a doctrine or political program based on this assumption, or a political or social system founded on racism. What I described fits these categories all at once.
No, wait, there's a fourth: My definition is fairly well accepted among serious anti-racist scholars and activists, and is not in fact niche. Dictionary definitions are not considered persuasive in that context.
I wasn't aware anyone involved in this discussion is in Kenya and I specified earlier in the thread that I was posting about European nations or nations colonized by Europeans, such as the US, Canada, and Australia. Kenya still suffers from lingering problems brought about by European colonization (specifically the British Empire - which was primarily run by white people) and only attained independence from the British Empire in 1964. This is whataboutery.
Bringing up Kenya and Japan like this is the fallacy of relative privation. Yes, things are bad in other countries, but this does not mean there's anything wrong with focusing on the racism in the US or even simply talking about it. Nor does it actually point to an epidemic of racism against white people in the US, UK, etc.
It is not unbalanced or unfair to point out that some groups of people are subject to far more intense discrimination than other groups of people. White people are not and never have been subjected to the intense degree of discrimination, prejudice, and oppression that people of color have, and framing "racism against both as equally bad" is extremely tone-deaf not to mention factually incorrect in every way possible.
When one's understanding of racism is limited to "when someone who's skin is a different color is mean to me" then it's actually difficult to have a reasonable discussion about this. Much of this thread has been taken up with imaginary scenarios about white people subjected to racism despite the numerous examples I provided of systemic injustice in the United States alone, and barely scratched the surface.
Now google "Black Wall Street," "redlining," , "the war on drugs," "American Indian Boarding Schools," just who was taking scalps from whom, immigration limits on Asians, US detainment camps for during World War II, the extensive exploitation of Chinese immigrants to build railroads, what "Manifest Destiny" really meant to Native American societies, Sundown Towns, and Jim Crow.
For Britain, there's always the Bengal Famine of 1943, not to mention their entire colonial history. For Canada there's again indigenous genocide and "residential schools." Australia has the Stolen Generation. Just to name a few. This barely scratches the surface of this topic.
Oh, heck, for a recent British example, there's the recent deportation of dozens of members of the Windrush generation.
For a very current US example, ICE. Period. Just ICE. And the concentration camps, which the Federal government wants to be indefinite detainment. Never mind those who finally do get their hearing to assess their request for asylum. Judges acknowledging that "yes, deporting this person will probably get him killed, but I'm going to deport him anyway." Latino children stolen from their families and kept in cages.
Perhaps it might help to clarify my point of view by responding to some of the things you raised though:
- on the question of definition I accepted yours was a proper definition, so there was no appeal to definition involved in my post.
- I said that "as far as the wider world is concerned" yours is a niche definition. I accept that including the power dynamic in the definition is more common among scholars, particularly in the US - but that wasn't the audience I was writing for. For a general audience I think quoting dictionary definitions is normally appropriate. If you look at Wikipedia articles on this issue they show the same sort of distinction between the definitions used by some scholars and by the general public.
- I referred to racism elsewhere in the world to illustrate the point I was making that racism is common everywhere, but the way it manifests may be very different. A definition of racism that may seem helpful in one context will not necessarily be seen as helpful in other contexts. That's why I wanted to take a much more general line of promoting equality as a response to racism (as well as other forms of prejudice).
In terms of perspective I was trying to apply a 'one size fits all' approach across the world rather than looking at one particular situation. Even if I'm correct in my view that it's generally unhelpful to define racism as requiring a power imbalance, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not helpful in the specific context of the US. On another issue of perspective my view is essentially about how one individual treats another. From that perspective I don't think it makes sense to refer to a particular type of attack by a white person on a black person as racist, but not do so for the same type of attack by a black person on a white person. I don't believe my view is at all unusual on this - I suspect most people struggle to understand how this distinction can be fair. Including power in the definition is far easier to understand though in the context of referring to social groups rather than individuals (though as I suggested previously I think the term institutional racism would still be better in this situation).
In terms of tactics I may have misinterpreted your response, but the tone of that came across to me as if you felt I was somehow condoning racism or trying to minimize the extent of the problem. That's not the case at all. I agree it's a significant problem and would like to see plenty of effort to tackle it. However, I feel that defining racism as having to involve a power imbalance may be unhelpful in promoting an acceptance by the general public of the need to tackle racism. That's because of the possibility of that definition being rejected by many people as unreasonable - particularly if they are looking at things from an individual perspective. That may in turn lead them to conclude that racism is not a real concern, when they might have reached a different conclusion for a different definition of racism.
Yes that's pennies on the dollar to what he's ripping us off. This guy is a con artist.
Full accounting, as far as we know here:
https://trumpgolfcount.com/
As opposed to adults selling their own children to the cartels to get the money to pay coyotes to smuggle themselves across the border? Which situation is worse?
It warms my heart to know that we are no longer able to believe or cite dictionaries. I was wondering what I was going burn in the fireplace to keep warm this winter.
He tweeted that China called him to restart talks about the Trump Trade War. China is denying this, so it seems to be another Trump lie. But this lie had tangible effects in that the stock market jumped a bit on the good (fake) news.
So some people who would have bought or sold stocks with the knowledge that Trump was going to hereby proclaim a thawing in the trade war would have made money from the suckers who did not have that knowledge.
Worth noting that Trump has used this lie before. One instance I recall was John Oliver showing a clip where Trump claimed John Oliver called him begging for an interview and Trump said no. And Oliver didn't and checked with everyone that no one accidentally tried to interview Trump and of course no one did.
This is the equivalent lie of a real estate agent claiming to a buyer that there's lots of offers on a house when in reality there aren't, the guy's just trying to get the highest price.
Whether he means to or not he is manipulating the markets.
That we can't tell if he's intentionally doing it or not which is really convenient for him because it shows he can get away with it. And he will keep doing it.
I'd argue he absolutely is doing it on purpose - his tweets attacking the Fed and his fear or the markets going down are definitely main concerns that drive him. More than the racism, more than anything else he's out to make a buck - that's why pretty much the main thing Republicans got accomplished was tax cuts for the rich.
Only talking about education. Most recent Brazilian presidents(Bolsonaro, Lula) can't even read an basic text on English. Dom Pedro II was fluent in Portuguese, Latin, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, Occitan and Tupi, he also made a lot of investments on science( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_II_of_Brazil )
The emperor at age of 12
And this was not restrict to the royal family. Was expected from Barons during imperial times to be able to speak in at least four different languages, understand etiquette, history, religion, mathematics, finance, administration, etc. Many places who was rich farms 150+ years ago are now "favelas"...
I did not realize that you were on that call, as well. What did the Chinese actually say? Surely the leadership of the Party in Bejing would never resort to lying, would they?
Damned party lines!
(couldn't resist the double entendre)
I'm reasonably certain this is one of the countless times that Trump is saying he is making more progress than he is. I doubt it's sheer coincidence that he's saying this just as his constituents are growing weary of the trade war.
Because the answer to "all politicians are dirty" is not "burn down the entire government".
The answer is to institute more safeguards. More checks and balances, more inspections, more scrutiny on politicians' business dealings, campaign contributions, and gifts/bribes. Instead what we have had is a LESSENING of safeguards over the last 20 years. Citizens United is merely a watershed moment, it is neither the beginning nor the end of corruption in (American) politics.
And yes, statesmen of the past were far more educated with a true liberal arts education. SOLID background (years) in ALL the following: the soft sciences of philosophy, economics, political science; at LEAST 2 foreign languages, probably 3; the hard sciences and maths; and the arts including painting, sculpting, theatre, literature. ALL of that. These days you are lucky to even require more than 1-2 courses in any one of those. I've spent over 10 years in undergrad education and I still wish I had time to learn more outside my majors (hard sciences and accounting), particularly in philosophy and information systems.
Edit-However, the modern world is such that there's just TOO MUCH TO KNOW to be a master at more than 1, maybe 2 things. Perhaps 3-4 if they're interlinked and interdiciplinary like biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. ENTIRE FIELDS of science did not exist 150 years ago. Nuclear physics only came about in the 1880s, nuclear chemistry since about the 1930s, hell, the ENTIRE FIELD OF GEOLOGY is barely 200 years old. ALL of Geology's underpinnings came about in the late 1700s and 1800s. Let alone specifics like "plate-tectonic theory" which is around 60 years old.
That's not even getting into things like computers. I've got a book to read about the life of a fictional CIO (chief information officer, the person in charge of info systems in a corporation) and the authors of that, who teach at Harvard, even had the characters in the book acknowledge that there's just too much to know about technology. Architecture, programming languages, layers from the CPU to the RAM to the OS to the servers' databases, I/O, security, it's just so much. The best to hope for as a manager is to have the specialists tell you about their individual parts, and know enough to know the general picture.
I don't disagree with that assessment. The problem with liars is this: just because *anything* they say can be a lie doesn't meant that *everything* they say is a lie. Still, it is best to presume that they are lying and proceed from there.
The PR thing is working more in China's favor, though. Americans will consistently blame Trump for any problems the trade war generates, and the Chinese people would also blame Trump even without Party propaganda influencing them. Trump kind of set himself up to take the blame when he advocated so strongly for a trade war when no one else was.
Why? Trump lies more than China to us. Let's presume he's lying since he's lied about everything from crowd size to well everything. Climate change is not a chinese hoax either. It's harder to find something he's not lying about to be honest. He's somewhere near 11k lies.
China does not lie he does. Sure, they'll hide the truth but they aren't lying like a firehose like he does. To be honest, who cares about China, I just know he lies. About everything. Blames others for everything bad. Gaslights. Lies.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/29/media/reliable-sources-04-28-19/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/27/when-hes-not-lying-he-sounds-crazy/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/take-the-land-president-trump-wants-a-border-wall-he-wants-it-black-and-he-wants-it-by-election-day/2019/08/27/
President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.
He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.
..................
When aides have suggested that some of his orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying “take the land,” according to officials present at the meetings.
So, for the record, he wants to flat-out STEAL private land, and if any laws need to be broken to speed up the situation, he is actively ENCOURAGING subordinates to break the law and preemptively offering them pardons for doing so. I dare anyone to defend this. Does it even need to be pointed out that if a President can tell underlings to break the law with the promise of a pardon that it effectively means there are NO constraints on what he can do without consequence?? This is turning the pardon power into nothing but a cudgel of authoritarian rule.
I spent some time this morning reading up on China's 'Belt and Road Initiative', which is China loaning money to countries all over Africa, Asia, and even eastern Europe, in order to fund infrastructure projects carried out by Chinese companies. Bridges, railroad, seaports, airports.
It's actually a hell of a good plan, what I even read referred to once as the "Chinese Marshall Plan". It gets Chinese manufacturing to burn up excess capacity. It promotes foreign goodwill, and if those countries which happen to be not really good debtors default, which is actually probably most of them, well, China will just dictate good terms for the debt settlement, like 99 year leases on the infrastructure they just built.
It actually started out because of a question I posed myself: How much of China's GDP is in manufacturing? The answer, by the way, was about 47%. America has about 20% of its GDP in manufacuring. This in turn was prompted by the fact that America's agriculture is only about 1% of GDP. China's ag as a % of GDP is about 13%.
After looking at a list of all countries by breakdown of Ag/Ind/Services I posit that it would be a REALLY good thing if America's government would get off its ass and get about a trillion dollar/year infrastructure bill going. Seriously, only France has less industry as a % of GDP than America among the top 30 largest economies. Not only that, but America is at little more than 19%, most countries are 25-30%.
It's not all rosy, at least not in the eyes of everyone on the ground. Some Africans at least have complained about Chinese involvement in the sense that Chinese investors have a habit of hiring their own workers to complete projects rather than hiring local workers--those kinds of decisions mean a lot of the profit ends up going back to China rather than being spread to the Africans themselves. There are some concerns about Chinese imperialism in Africa. I haven't been following that issue very closely, however.
Their policies can be incredibly indifferent to basic ethics, but it's very smart policymaking from a strictly realist perspective. China is buying a great deal of influence in Africa for a rather good price. It's a bit like their purchasing of heavy metal deposits, which they can use (and have already used) to restrict other countries' access to the materials needed for high-end electronics: they're seizing opportunities that will make them more powerful decades into the future.
I'm not sure what you mean by a good plan, but the reference to the Marshall Plan suggests this is good for the countries where the investment is taking place. While the Chinese certainly want to give that impression, I don't think it's at all clear that's always the case. The potential benefits to the Chinese are clear, e.g. they get a home for spare capital, can export quality jobs (most of the best work on the projects is given to Chinese, not indigenous workers), get opportunities to apply their legal system to other countries and increase their 'soft' power in the world. For the recipient countries though, they get infrastructure which may be of relatively little real value to them (as it is intended to help Chinese exports, which are not necessarily the same as the needs of the country) and which often puts them into high levels of debt (allowing the Chinese to further increase their level of influence in the country).
The Marshall Plan certainly had as a major objective increasing the soft power of the US and creating opportunities for profitable commerce. However, there were not the same strings attached to that plan and it was geared directly to increasing the capabilities of the host country - rather than just increasing its ability to trade with the US. The BRI seems to me to be a much more direct attempt to export the Chinese system and gain influence over other countries. If you're not a fan of the Chinese system that's likely to be a concern ...
You do realize that I was actually talking about Trump, right? And that my assessment was "presume he is lying then go from there"?
I would think twice before agreeing with the phrase "China does not lie". They were hiding spyware in very small chips hidden in the motherboards of many products; some of the chips were embedded in between the silicon layers and looked as if they were supposed to be there.
On my other board, we have a couple of posters who do live in Africa and they see it on a regular basis.
The solution is to stop treating the governments as deities in an cultural and legal level, make an president who trows napalm into an African Village so responsible as an contractor who does the same(hypothetical example) and let the regulatory/legal power decentralized.
For eg, in the topic of gun control. If is an federal law, everybody from the southern part of Florida to Northern part of Alaska would be forced to follow the same law despite living in completely different realities. If an city approves an stupid law, an city dealing with the consequences and rapidly seeing that other cities are not dealing with the same consequences would create an incentive to not produce stupid laws. Let each town has his own laws, own currency(gold standard preferentially), own culture, etc.
PS : Modern monarchs like Prince Hans Adam still has an insanely better education than the average President.
They are forced to follow federal law. The constitution literally says that the U.S. Constitution, and the laws passed by the U.S. Congress supercede all 50 state Constutitions and state laws. And of course municipal laws.
However, federal law is not entirely absolute. Because of the 9th and 10th amendments, basically anything the states want to implement that does not contradict federal constitution or law is allowable. At least until the SCOTUS says its not.
There's 1 federal government. There's 50 state governments, and something like 8 territorial governments. I think there's about 3,000 counties or whatever they want to be called (Oooh, I was very close, 3007 counties, 3142 total). There's something like 40,000 municipal governments. I'm sort of familiar with the numbers from my recent Governmental Accounting class.
That's a LOT of governments that you're saying should all have TOTALLY different laws, and their own currency (REALLY?!). There's only 180 currencies in the world. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY! There's more countries than currencies.
I could expound further about it, but I will cut short and say the additional overhead you're proposing to fragment the U.S. into is, to put it mildly, insane.
While I mostly agree with you, and as a European highly appreciate the Marshall Plan as the main reason people were able to build up a solid economy after the Second World War (sorry, but WWII, although shorter, sounds like a game), I don't think its main incentive was humanitarian. (I know you didn't say that.)
It was profitable for America to strengthen their influence and create trade opportunities, but I think the most important motivation was to keep the influence of the Soviet Union in Europe at bay.
The reason doesn't matter much, in the end. It was good for Europe.
Whether the Chinese investments in Africa are good for Africa is something that we can't judge. Anyone from Africa around here, or knowledgeable enough about the situation?
I've only read, confirmed by Kenyan friends, that China buys huge amounts of land in Africa, paying the government, and people who have been living on that land (subsistence farmers) for generations have to leave, because it's not officially theirs. Grain is produced there with industrial methods, with huge machines and next to no need for human workers. If at all, they're qualified technicians. From China. And it's not exactly environmental friendly, either.
The governments profit from selling the land, at least for the moment. That profit doesn't reach the population, because we're not talking about "our" kind of political systems. And it doesn't generate employment or growth in the country's own economy. So, I don't know if there's some kind of advantage for African countries in general. But maybe they don't have much of a choice when it comes to investors of any kind. Also because, as mentioned before by others, European or American investors usually attach some human rights requirements. At least when it's connected to the government and/or in public. I'd rather not think about some pharmaceutical companies and their trials, for example. But that's a different subject.
I know that's just a very narrow view on the situation. I'd love to hear from someone who can see the bigger picture and has more information.
Proroguing means ending one session of Parliament. Sessions typically last a year and are opened by a Queen's Speech setting out the government's proposed agenda for the session. No Parliamentary business transfers automatically between sessions, though there is a mechanism to agree that existing Bills can be carried over if desired.
The existing session of Parliament has lasted nearly 2 years (as a result of the need to keep meeting to consider Brexit), so is overdue to end. It's also entirely reasonable that a new government would want to set out a new agenda of their own. Thus, in principle, there should be nothing controversial about Johnson wishing to start a new session.
However, the timing and length of the suspension is extremely controversial. It's being presented as purely a proposal to kick-start the domestic agenda, but unless someone's been living in a cupboard for the last few years they're not going to believe that - and will be insulted by any suggestion they should.
It was only yesterday that various opposition groups met together and agreed on how they intend to take control of Parliamentary business and pass a law requiring Johnson to seek a further extension to Brexit. If Parliament is prorogued as outlined above that will make passing such a law somewhere from extremely difficult to impossible.
Potentially, an easier and quicker route to prevent a no deal Brexit would be to pass a vote of no confidence against the government and then form an alternative government for a temporary period to legislate for a Brexit extension before calling a new general election. That wasn't done by opposition groups for three main reasons:
- lack of agreement over who would head the new government
- many of the Conservatives who oppose no deal were unwilling to bring down the government over the issue
- a tactical concern that Johnson might refuse to resign and just call a general election for a data after Brexit had already happened (something that could still occur and cause a different form of constitutional crisis)
In my view this is a blatant attempt to prevent Parliament from expressing its will. That's likely to have all sorts of consequences - too many to consider properly in this post. I will though throw out a few things it might trigger:
- last month Parliament passed a bill that included an amendment to require a minister to report progress to Parliament every 2 weeks on restoring the Northern Ireland assembly. That was a specific attempt to stop Parliament being shut down in this way and a legal case to consider that was already under way. Opponents of no deal will now be attempting to fast track that case, but irrespective of the outcome asking the courts to intervene in the democratic process is not going to be conducive to reconciliation.
- the Brexit process has already changed attitudes in Scotland (which had a large majority for Remain), such that there seems a real prospect of them voting for independence if another referendum is held. This sort of anti-democratic action by the UK government is a gift for the Scottish nationalists in making the case they should no longer be subject to the UK government.
- the prospects for the government being defeated in a vote of confidence have increased very sharply. While it may have been difficult to get agreement on tactics against a no deal Brexit, it should be far easier to get agreement on what to do to a government that aims to subvert the will of Parliament. Those Conservative MPs unwilling to vote against the government on a no confidence vote about Brexit are far more likely to do so on a vote about whether the government or Parliament best represents the will of the people.
during medieval era, was extremely common to different cities have different rules. Similar to ancient Greece. Athenas and Sparta. Both are Greek but the difference among the two in legal therm is far greater than we can even imagine.
And continental states with centralized power always failed since roman empire. Washington, Moscow, Brussels, etc gains each day more and more power and centralized continental regions never worked and will never work.
The Chinese opening was only to delay the inevitable.
Anyway, you said the government should be as responsible for what they are doing as a private contractor is - let us ignore first that in many cases private contractors are not responsible for much at all (even the basic idea behind corporations and limiteds is to limit personal responsibility): who do you think should hold them responsible? If you have only limited, small and decentralized regulatory authorities why do you think those are capable of calling anyone to account? And who enforces their decrees?
I guess that means the die is cast. It sounds (based on @grond0 's post) that either there will be a hard exit or the Johnson government will fall.
I suppose there is the Hail Mary that the EU will blink and offer a better deal to prevent the hard exit, but that sounds unlikely.