I wouldn't come down on the human race as a whole, because of this kind of thing. Especially not in comparison to all the other species on the planet. When some non-human creatures are stressed at all, they react by killing and eating their own young.

When I WOULD be concerned for the race, is if this sort of act were just ACCEPTED as a necessary evil. As long as the vast majority of us react with revulsion and act against the insanity of the person who does such things, we will be as good as we can be as a species.

The fact that you are far from alone in finding this horrifying and infuriating, is a good thing.

What you are saying with this thread, is that since violent people WILL find a way to act out, that we should collectively do NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO TRY TO STOP THEM.


I would suggest instead, that the solution to a very complicated problem, is going to involve a complicated response, with multiple actions.

I completely agree that JUST preventing people from having guns doesn't prevent all violent acts. But doing NOTHING because that's true, is about as intelligent and logical as deciding to do NOTHING about robbery, since JUST locking your car door doesn't prevent all such acts.

I'd find another school fast, if the administrators were so inept, ignorant, short-sighted and lacking in creativity that they actually thought that strangers in authority hitting a child, was a good idea.

It's more than insane. It's giving up on teaching and on raising a child, and falling back on satisfying the anger of the authority figure.

I was myself spanked as a child, and I know all too well, that learning how to do a better job at life was not even slightly helped by that. All I learned, and all any child learns when you hit them, is that grown ups are physically dangerous creatures who do arbitrary nasty things to children.

Having directly observed the evolution of the ANti-ism (my term) that has been very purposely conducted and encouraged during my lifetime, I would say the answer to this question is "yes, absolutely."

What I've seen happen in a variety of ways, is the same general process being used to try to win things for various interest groups.

Basically, there are three steps: declare the existence of a condemnable group; label it with a catchy title of YOUR choosing (not theirs), and then proceed to demand that this (actually non-existent) unified group be attacked and destroyed in one way or another. A key part of the stunt, is to insist that the label both CAUSES the members to be defective, and is pasted onto them because they hold one or more opinions you don't like.

It's a very child-like bit of vicious behavior that I saw first, on the playground at elementary school. Anyone else ever hear the term "cooties" when they were younger? Where I was, all girls were supposed to suffer from them BECAUSE they were girls. No one ever explained to me what cooties were, or why only all girls had them, only that I was not supposed to play with or be friends with any girls.

I remember one particular pivotal point in the late 1970's, while Ronald Reagan was running for President. He made a speech (several of them) in which he specified that the problem with Democrats wasn't that they were mistaken about anything they wanted, the problem with them was that they WERE LIBERALS. That ALL things liberal were to be condemned out of hand, and that all things conservative (by implication) should be adopted instead.

That was so appealing to a lot of people who felt as though they had been criticized on a social personal level for over a decade by self-righteous people demanding social change, that it carried Reagan to two terms in the White House, and became THE central rallying concept for the entire Republican Party.

The thing is, there was nothing factual involved with it. It was JUST a political labeling game, designed to wildly oversimplify choices for everyone, and to make them feel GOOD about refusing to think about the concerns of their opposition.

It was the same kind of thinking I also saw on the rebellious so-called "left" of those times as well. The idea that anyone over the age of thirty was inherently not to be trusted, was the exact same kind of propaganda. So was the idea that long hair made a male thoughtful and righteous, or that liking or disliking a particular rock star or kind of music, made a person a lunkhead or a genius.

Bottom line, what's inherently defective, is that thinking process. Deciding that you can choose a label to slap on other people, and then condemn them for having that label, has become commonplace, despite being rather obviously illogical to the point of insanity.

I think this is another way of asking what we are trying to actively accomplish in life, really. After all, you can't leave anything behind, unless you do things that make changes happen, in some way.

I don't have the power to do very much affecting others, or the world, but the thing I most would like to accomplish, is to get as many people as I can manage to, to think just a little more carefully about what they do and say, especially when it comes to letting someone else tell them what to do. Or not do.

Excellent. You are elaborating on my point, though I don't think you realize it.

What you are talking about, is what people hope to ACCOMPLISH by using tariffs; in the case of Europe, by more or less harassing them into making changes in their own policies. Similarly, the hope behind raising tariffs on raw materials, can be in order to help home country raw material companies (miners and the like) make more money, and expand.

The thing is, the tariff itself, doesn't do any of that. That's the important point I'm trying to make. The tariff JUST adds cost to imports. If people here respond to the higher cost of imports by buying more expensive American made products instead, then Americans can benefit from that greater economic growth.

But you can't count on a simple result. In the case of the aluminum and steel tariffs, for example, one American manufacturing company has already gone out of business, because the only way to compete with the finished steel products being shipped here from elsewhere, was to use cheaper imported steel. There are no tariffs on the finished goods involved, just the raw materials, so the result of the tariffs in that case, was fewer manufacturing jobs in the US.

That's the thing to think about when tariffs are proposed: they are similar to a sledge hammer, in a way. They JUST pound the prices up. Just as a sledge hammer can only pound things (it has no claw on the other end to pull nails out), a tariff JUST increases costs. When JUST increasing costs is what you need to do, it's the right tool. But you can NOT count on tariffs to make it possible for Americans to buy MORE of anything, homegrown or not, because tariffs do NOT cause wages or other income to rise in the customer classes.

Here's what a tariff does: it makes the thing it's attached to, more expensive in the country applying the tariff.

It doesn't do anything else at all.

That's why they don't get used more than they do, and why the results when they are used, aren't always what people hope for.

If the reason why an American company is having it's products made overseas is because the American buyers can't afford them otherwise, putting a tariff on the overseas-made product won't cause it to be made here. Because the change in PRICE, doesn't cause a change in the CUSTOMER PURCHASING POWER.

Putting a tariff on raw materials doesn't always do what we might like, either. As with the finished product tariffs, a raw materials tariff causes the products made from those materials to cost more to sell here. If the market here won't tolerate a price rise, a tariff such as that will cause an end to local manufacture, rather than causing local raw materials to become more marketable.

When it comes to tax changes, especially cuts, there are short term and long term results.

IN the short term, the latest cuts went straight into the pockets of the corporations and their power brokers. Whether the promised eventual results, of prosperity, and rapid growth which results in sustained economic stability, and a return to a higher standard of living for the American middle and lower classes ever occurs, who knows. I see no sign of that so far.

Wages have finally inched up slightly, only AFTER the unemployment rate finally reached the point where employers are being violently (economically speaking) forced to raise SOME wages in SOME sectors, but the bulk of the tax cuts have been plowed into the usual areas that tax cuts for the investor classes always are: playing games with the stock market. American industrial jobs are STILL going overseas at the same rate as before. International trade is a confused mess right now, due to the simultaneous decision to wage a tariff war, and to overturn all previous trade agreements.

And of course, since the Republicans dropped their previous pretense of having to balance the budget, the deficits and budget shortfalls are increasing by trillions, faster than ever before. Will that do as so many Republicans USED TO claim, and ultimately bring everything crashing down?

I have no idea.

I've been surrounded by a world full of people eagerly accusing each other of hypocrisy, for most of my life. After a while, came to be very specific about what I will accept as actual hypocrisy, because so many of the cases turned out to be something else on close inspection.

For example, I don't support most "hypocrisy by transference" accusations.
That's what this one seems to be. That is, the complaint seems to be that people support Trump OVERALL, rather than opposing him IN EVERY RESPECT, while they also oppose some particular things that Trump has done or said. That's too vague and disconnected for me to allow "hypocrisy" as the label.

In addition, a lot of the time, accusing someone of hypocrisy like this, ignores the far greater negative acts of the person being criticized.

In my observation and personal analysis, Trump's attack on McCain isn't problematic because he declared McCain to not be heroic, due to having been captured. What's problematic about it, is that it is part of an overall attitude that Trump has, that facts and logic and consistency don't matter in the least, and that only "what I want right now" is important.

Because that is the reason WHY Trump pretends to disrespect McCain. He does so entirely because during his campaign, he NEEDED to pretend to have no respect for McCain, in order to persuade some Republicans to support himself for President, OVER McCain. The only reason why he continues to pretend to believe as he does, is again, all about himself, and has nothing to do with obeying any principle. He continues to pretend to think badly of McCain, because he is defending Trump, not because he is defending an ideal.

That isn't hypocrisy, it's vastly worse. It shows that Trump is entirely UNPRINCIPLED. That he has no recognizable sense of personal honor.

I think what you are describing is quite correct, but also a lot more subtle and complicated than you've said here.

Take the appearance of being righteous or religious, for example. There certainly are plenty of people who don't actually understand what they are saying when they quote religious sayings, or perform rituals they've learned, but exactly WHO they are trying to put on the appearance of faith for, can vary a lot.

Some want to reassure themselves. They learn the rites and memorize the texts, in order to feel as though they are spending their lives on the right things, whether they understand anything they are doing or not.

Some others are trying to please an authority which they have previously latched on to, as being "the opinion which matters." That authority can be anything from a version of a God, to a sense of the society around them, and anything in between. But once they are determined that there IS a single most important authority in the world, they will do their best to "please" them.

And I've seen plenty of people who wanted to, as you say, "feel that they are doing the right things," but the real motivation behind THAT, isn't passive. Some people want to feel that they are correctly religious or patriotic or whatever, in order to justify their REAL goal, which is to attack other people and tell them how to live.

Pedophiles are known to seek out positions of authority over children in order to control them for their own reasons. So too, many people seek out positions of religious or patriotic authority, not to lead or to help or to live up to the standards which they pretend to be upholding, but instead to HAVE THE CONTROL that authority affords them, so that they can indulge their real pleasure of abusing others.

But yes, in many instances, it all stops at their just wanting to FEEL that they are in power, or that they are on the right track, or in the case of romance, that they are in love. That's why some people fall in love so easily, and also why they may suddenly dump the person they've just spent the last few months or years proclaiming everlasting adoration for, and take up with some stranger they just met.

I've found that self-awareness is not something that comes naturally. A person has to do a LOT of work, to figure themselves out, no matter how simple or calm their lives may appear to be.

I completely agree that WHY he protested is what set these particular people against him. I only skeptical that it is primarily because he is non-white.

As for why Trump poked his nose in, that's a separate issue, as it always is with Trump.

One of the tricks about collusion, is that it can occur without anyone overtly saying anything to anyone. Silent collusion happens all the time, unfortunately, especially where politics and prejudice are involved.

What I find tricky and confusing about the issue of collusion, is the fact that the NFL is a private club, not a publicly held company, and not a government operation. The rules and laws regulating what private clubs can do, are different from the ones for companies and for government functions.

It's obvious to me, that the NFL owners "collude" with each other almost constantly, in one way and another. They get together as a group, and set up the rules for how the game is played, what players can do on the field, they even set standards of personal behavior for the players (though not for each other, amusingly enough).

They are said to be discussing, and may have already decided to make it a formal rule, that everyone has to pretend to be happy to stand and honor the singing of the National Anthem before every game. I personally disapprove of that, because I think it is an insult to the anthem and to patriotism, to turn it into a showmanship routine like that.

Personally, I don't think there is any indication that his being "black" has anything to do with his being ignored by almost every team, and not being offered a starting job with any of them. And last I heard, he and his lawyers are not making such a claim.

I'll be interested in the out come of the trial.

The NFL has a long history of playing legal games with fans, players, and with it's own claimed status as part of an entertainment industry.

Holding players to a certain standard when it comes to just-for-show patriotism is just one of the squirrely things about them.

Far from the first time we've seen fishing "wars." They've gone on since fishing was invented.

It's usually really about people anxious to make a living, and chafing at any limits placed on them, foreign or domestic. Like this.

So, are you saying that anyone who doesn't like the way things are, should leave?

Does that include the people who you LIKE, who don't like the way things are, or just whoever you DON'T like?

That's the way it works, when you try to appeal to a principle, as you did here with your "if you can't stand the heat" quote.

By that standard, you must REALLY despise Donald Trump, since he complains constantly about anyone who fails to praise him.

My recognition of this very common phenomenon a long while ago, is what made me realize that MOST people use philosophy and reasoning in reverse.

That is, they don't start from a principle, and then deduce a decision or a behavior; they start from what they want, and then cast about for likely sounding philosophical phrase, or political sound bite, and throw it out as though it's a law.

The real irony of the let's-build-a-wall thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that even if it is built to the exact specifications it's biggest advocates desire, it wont do anything whatsoever to fix the actual problem that led to it being proposed.

That is, since the real reason for flat wages and a huge decline in the wealth of the American middle class is NOT illegal immigrants, and never has been, the primary product of building the wall, will be the follow on design and manufacture of a new cover story for the people who are ACTUALLY holding wages down.

I don't have time to read the five pages of responses and counter responses to this right now, so please pardon if I repeat what someone else already said. And realize I am not intentionally ignoring anyone.

JUST looking at the above quoted opening post, I am strongly in support of true self-awareness for everyone. Knowing who you are and why, as well as where you are and HOW you are and why, is very important for anyone to live an authentic life, as well as an imperative, if ANY of us are to solve life problems in the most accurate way.

I see one potentially dangerous mistake in the opening post, as written. Here: "White guys who ignore their privilege find themselves resented, and then they avoid the resentful."

What I'm worried about, is that you appear to want those of us who DO have accidentally acquired privileges (in my case, being white and male) to accept what should accurately be called "revenge or counter racism-sexism" from those who suffered from OTHER white males, unrelated to us.

I hold EVERY grown individual responsible for their own behavior and to be self-aware. That includes both knowing that they are or are not artificially privileged, due to the society they chanced to be born into, AND to recognize that any given SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL who they are dealing with, is not responsible for every OTHER member of whatever group that the first individual perceives them to be a part of.

On the same side as this opening post, I want to slightly extend a good simile made there. In addition to my having no patience with people who were "born on third base, and want to be credited with hitting a triple," I ALSO have no patience with people who were born on first or second base, and want to be credited with three bases, simply because someone else either got a walk, which ALLOWED them to go to third.

In other words, I give a LOT more appreciation and respect to people who started from real nothing, and made it to the middle class; but very little to people who started with millions, and turned that into billions. This is because I also know that, just as baseball's rules "rigs" things so that people who are ON base, will get additional "free" bases when someone else is walked, so too the American economic system as it is now, is rigged so that ALREADY rich people suffer far less risk when investing, and get far more government assistance and financial protection, than those without great wealth.

A lot of people don't seem to understand the most basic thing about tariffs, and why they are controversial economic tools.

Tariffs do exactly one thing: they make the price of something imported, higher. Nothing else.

They do NOT make domestic products cheaper.

That makes it extra important to know what the goal is, before you enact them.

Historically, tariffs have been used for a number of different goals. Sometimes the goal is to allow local industries to be able to compete with foreign industries, by making the end products cost the same, or make local products cost less. Sometimes they have been applied, simply to bring in revenue for the home government, when there are no local industries to protect.

What's least common, is simple punishment of a foreign nation.

Tariffs on finished goods, will usually make the domestic equivalent more economically attractive.

Tariffs on raw materials, make the cost of the final domestic products produced with them, much higher. If the goal is to help domestic raw materials companies, at the expense of the cost of living of the customer classes, that tariff application can work, providing domestic customers continue to buy the final products, at the now much higher cost to them.

But there's a hole in the system. That is, that if you raise tariffs on steel and aluminum, for example, domestic companies which were only able to compete with foreign manufacturers because they got cheaper steel and aluminum from overseas, will now lose in the marketplace, and the businesses will fail. Domestic steel and aluminum wont cost less to make because of the tariffs, so they wont be able to save the domestic manufacturers. Those business owners will have no other choice, but to end production altogether, or shift manufacturing out of the country.

Either way, one thing is certain: the cost of living for the rest of the domestic population will RISE because of the tariffs.

That's why American leaders have historically not been at all unified on tariffs being the idea tool to use to address all economic issues.

Tariffs are a tricky business.

According to DNA analysis, and the archaeological record, I am ultimately African, as we all are. Ironically, that means that no matter who you are today, somewhere in your distant heritage, one batch of your relatives decided to do horrible things to another batch of your relatives.

Detailed records don't exist for me to personally detail everyone who may have contributed to my physiology since that distant time, but I can say for sure that the most recent (last few centuries) time, everyone was from what is now called France or Germany, or Norway.

The way that heritage works, is complicated. As a basic American, I am philosophically opposed to declaring a descendent to be entirely responsible for the "sins" of their forefathers. Even more to the point, since my political allegiance is to Solutionism, I am insistent on accepting ALL pertinent facts, and applying logic to them, in order to decide on whatever course of action or inaction I will take in a given situation.

Those facts do include the actions that my forebears participated in, willingly or not. And the ongoing results of those actions, are ENTIRELY my responsibility to accept and deal with.

By the way, CrystalFairy, Dutch is a West Germanic language, and your overall heritage as Dutch, makes you more "germanic" than anything else. No offense, I am a mix of primarily German and French heritage most recently. But saying one is Dutch and not German, is like saying one is Austrian and not German. It's nationalistically true, but from a heritage point of view, it isn't factual.

Well, you really didn't pull yourself out of POVERTY by buying property. People who are actually in poverty, can't qualify to buy property.

I'm sure you really did have to work very hard at whatever you did, and that you certainly didn't have an easy time of things, but you have to admit that there is no such thing as buying property with no money down, no job, and no education.

One person's "keeping the Federal Government within Constitutional limits" is another person's "declaring corporations to be individual citizens when it comes to SPENDING money, but not when they are paying taxes."

In addition, since the modern Republican Party has been working to reverse the accomplishments of it's founders, how does that fit in with this appreciation?