Voting

True, but nobody treats plagiarism the way academics does. With there being more important things to focus on, as Kitty pointed out, the criticism for this plagiarism is overblown.

Could you do it? Could you support someone if it means going against your convictions?

Pretty sure Russia would try to obtain any classified information they could from us, regardless of Trump imploring them to do so.

That's why people have been turning to alternative sources lately. Mainstream media has failed to do its job.

I doubt Trump would've lost. But at the very least it would have satisfied some voters. By denying the roll call vote, they only served to further alienate people. Also didn't the Sanders supporters loose their shit anyways? I head that hundreds of them left the convention after the roll call vote.

Exactly. I brought up the Trump claiming that Cruz's father was involved with the JFK shooting to some family and they claimed that all Trump did was show a picture of Cruz's father with Lee Harvey Oswald. And they argued with me when I said Trump didn't need to openly say it; simply showing that picture would cause people to draw their own conclusions and decide. I mean, there are pictures of Roosevelt and Churchill with Stalin. If you only knew that Stalin was a bad guy and didn't know the context of the picture I'm quite certain people would draw conclusions claiming Roosevelt and Churchill were just as evil as Stalin.

Pretty sure it did. My mom also told me that there were people out there with Hillary signs that had certain letters brightened and other letters faded to emphasize "Liar" out of Hillary.

 

While I really don't like Trump and am pretty sure he's a racist, can we please clarify what makes him a racist? Technically speaking, Mexican is not a race. Not only that, but somebody is not a racist simply because they are against illegal immigration. Additionally, Muslim is not a race either. Islam is an ideology and as such is susceptible to criticism.

So while I believe Trump is a racist, those two points people love to use are not actual cases of racism.

I heard the white noise machines were also there to make it seem like there were more people there than there actually were. I also heard that there were a bunch of paid actors to make it seem like there were more people there in attendance than there actually was. Although I suppose technically it still counts as attendance. But paid attendance is different than supportive attendance, if you know what I mean.

Probably because he was the runner up and had a sizeable number of delegates compared to Kasich.

All of mainstream media (News, general entertainment) has been dying a slow death for a while now. Thanks to things like YouTube people have other options. As such, these more "classic" entertainers have to try to keep their audience through various means including ridiculing internet entertainers. If you've ever watched Game Theory, the channel made a video on this subject that I found rather interesting.

 

The entire purpose of the technicality was because too many people misuse the term and there is a disturbing trend of people giving it an incorrect definition and believing their definition to be correct when it is not. Even if we were to expand the definition to be able to be racist towards Mexicans I would still argue that what Trump said isn't racist for the things he has said. Extremely bigoted, don't get me wrong, but not racist. Trump's comments aren't towards the Mexican people as a whole. His comments are towards immigrants who come here illegally.

 

When people define racism in such a way that excludes people from being racist due to their own race, I am correct when I tell them their definition is incorrect. There is a big difference between those definitions of racism and different dictionaries having different definitions for the same word. In the case of dictionaries, they are different ways of describing the same thing and these definitions mean the same thing. My point about different people's definition of racism, on the other hand, is that these different definitions are attempts to change it to mean something it isn't.

Your examination of Trump's tweet is off though. At least part of it is. He's not condescending "Mexican" as a sub-par language. He's voicing the idea that people who live in America should speak English since it is the language the majority of the population speak. While English isn't officially the language of America, unofficially it has been since the country was founded. Wanting English to be the official language of the country or thinking that it should be the official language is not racist.

 

No it is not. That's like saying "white people can't be racist" is a valid definition.

So I don't misunderstand you, please explain what you mean by groups of people being devoid of race based decisions would still keep a system of oppression. I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean and I know I'm going to misunderstand your intent if I just go off of what I think you're saying.

As for the bolded part, that is suffering from a massive lack of logic. You are operating under the assumption that when whites pursue and gain power they keep it for themselves while when other non-white groups pursue and gain power they will share it equally among everyone. At the very least that is a strawman argument. People of any group, be them white or not, are capable of benevolence and cruelty. Minority groups gaining power does not mean they would share said power. They are equally as likely as white people to take that power for themselves and oppress others. Furthermore, racism and power are two separate things. Racism can very well occur in situations devoid of power. Not only that but your argument is getting dangerously close to the very incorrect claim that all white people are racist.

Women can too be sexist. Racism and sexism are very much individual issues. There are definitions that accurately describe these terms. The problem becomes when people start tacking on more things to them and making them more complex.

If you're going to go that way, then why do we even have definitions in the first place? The entire point of definitions is so we have an understanding of what the other person is talking about when we get into social interactions. So when people have two very different definitions of the same thing, different to the point that each definition means something entirely different, conversations and debates start to fall apart. The only thing I'm failing to understand here is how certain viewpoints are viewed with any sort of seriousness to them.

What am I talking about? You brought up talk about English not being our official language and then claimed that Trump condescends Spanish as being sub-par to English. I explained the viewpoint of those who claim stuff like "This is America, we speak English." I offered an opposing viewpoint to your claim; a viewpoint that is more likely to be Trump's intent with his tweet. In fact, the entire focus of Trump's tweet is to insult Jeb Bush. If Jeb Bush didn't speak Spanish, Trump would have come up with a different tweet to insult him with.

 

Sorry for the rather late reply. Although I suppose you're more upset to see the notification of me quoting your post and continuing this argument.

It was an example I made up.

Ok. So basically a minority being devoid of any race based decision is a form of oppression. Yet were this to happen to whites it wouldn't be racist? Wouldn't whites then be the ones oppressed because they are being devoid of any race based decision?

Here is how I interpreted your comment. From what you said, it sounds like you assume minorities would distribute power among everybody equally while whites keep it for themselves. Whether you meant that or not, I don't know. It is what it sounded like to me. Assuming that is what you meant, it is an incredibly wrong statement and incorrectly assumes each minority would do the right thing and not simply take power for themselves. I do believe it is possible but I'm also accounting for power corrupting them and as such I do not claim either as the guaranteed outcome.

Perhaps I've misspoken in my argument about what racism is. For that, I apologize. Racism is an individual issue. It is also an issue with society. Your example above, of targeting African Americans with voting laws, is an example of racism. I do not disagree with that. My point is that there is more to racism than that.

Well fortunately here's something we can agree on.

Where have I said anything about these issues being solved with a clear cut definition? My entire point about having definitions is so that we're all on the same page and then we can start to work towards solving these problems. I can accept that definitions change. I haven't argued about that fact once.

You aren't getting it. Which I suppose is my fault for not getting my intent across. I'll admit that I was wrong to say that debates fall apart. My intent was that it becomes a debate about that definition, y'know that thing we're doing right now.

You say I can't claim to know his intent and yet you claim that he intended to denote Spanish as a sub-par language to English. I'm not overlooking his comment. I am not giving a knee-jerk reaction to what he said. I'm considering that idiot's though process and what other possible reasons he may have for saying the stupid shit he says. As such, it is a very real possibility he was voicing the idea that people should speak English if they live in America.

Kitty explained why. He has a problem with illegal Mexican immigrants, not all Mexican immigrants. Despite what people want to claim they are not the same thing. He has a problem with Muslim immigrants because ISIS has threatened to have terrorists come in with the immigrants and attack us. Since ISIS has threatened to attack us it is not wrong to prevent people from that region coming here if it means that we can prevent potential attacks from happening on U.S. soil. Trump banning Muslims from entering the country would not be the first time something like that has happened before. FDR rounded up all Japanese American citizens and put them in internment camps because we were at war with Japan. Jimmy Carter banned Muslim immigrants during the Iran hostage crisis. What FDR did was much worse than what Trump says he's going to do and Carter did the same thing Trump says he'll do.

It's funny how nobody seems to believe this idea. I know people who believe that Clinton had set up winning the Democrat nomination for 5 years now. Fun theory to look at. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was one of Clinton's campaign managers back in 08. Clinton's VP pick Tim Kaine was the previous head of the DNC who stepped down for this woman. And since Debbie Wasserman Schultz stepped down she got a nice job from Clinton. People readily accept the idea that Clinton rigged her side based on this evidence but ignore the evidence that points towards her rigging the election on the opposing side as well.

 

I just saw a tweet from the Secret Service saying they're aware of what Trump said. Holy crap.

I'm tempted to argue that those token social issues are simply tricks to make people think they're different. I mean, I know I would (At the very least) get weird looks if I told people that the Democratic Party didn't actually care for minorities at all and simply used them to stay in power. But let's be honest here. While individuals in the party may actually care about minorities, I cannot believe that the entire party actually cares in any way..

No kidding. To add to the disappointment, I keep on hearing talk of how Johnson's not a good Libertarian candidate. Which I suppose doesn't matter to some, but it is still disappointing. Especially because with all my talk of not choosing the lesser of two evils it starts to feel as though voting for him is picking the lesser of three evils.

 

Certainly. In all honesty I'm pretty sure there's a way to blame Bill Clinton for ISIS as well.

There's a meme for that somewhere.

I've heard the stories. Though even if they're hoping somebody tries, they know they've gotta try to prevent it whether they want to or not.

Unfortunately people will deny it tooth and nail. Also did you read more than the "Taco Bowl" engagement? That's most of what I heard and I never got around to looking at more.

Yeah, Johnson's support of the TPP is probably my biggest complaint towards him. Due to some (Probably really petty) personal reasons, I've basically unofficially vowed to be forever against the TPP.

 

I think Johnson supports it because some people believe it goes towards free trade, which is supposed to be good for a capitalistic market. And since the Libertarian party is much more pro-capitalism than other parties, it would make sense for them to support it. To be honest though, I'm not sure if other Libertarians support it or just Johnson.

I'm not sure about it being disastrous for jobs, but you are right about the net neutrality and copyright parts. If I recall correctly, the TPP would almost shut down stuff like YouTube because of changes in copyright. If you're someone like me who uses the internet to watch anime and read manga and do those sorts of (Technically already illegal) things, the TPP would shut that down. In fact, that probably really petty reason why I'm against it is because the author of my favorite manga ever had to prematurely end my favorite manga in order to protect him having the rights to it (The TPP would give the rights of manga series to the publisher instead of the author) and to fight against Japan adopting the TPP.

One other aspect of the TPP that I read would be that it would allow oil companies to sue governments for loss of profits if a government decided to enact laws to fight climate change. Personally I feel that whether you support the idea of climate change or not, companies should not be allowed to sue governments like that.