Trump has a “go back to Africa” moment

[homersapien 11,373]

20 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Not always. Sometimes. 

Youth has nothing to do with one's ability to maintain an articulable standard describing the basis for variations on viewpoints which constitute a matter of public discussion.

Your "articulable standard" for what constitutes racist rhetoric - or more accurately, what doesn't - is hogwash. 

So, you are either ignorant or trying to resolve your cognitive dissonance.

Personal experience, as well as one's proximity to a time in history, actually helps to delineate opinions that do not mutually correspond.

Translation: you don't have a clue about the actual history of the rhetoric in question.

Nonetheless, you thrust your argument on personal experience. I don't have a problem with that, but if the goal is to argue for the reasonableness of your viewpoint, or alternatively the unsoundness of another viewpoint, you probably would want to rely on a notion that weighs in favor of objectivity. I can assure you that touting about personal experience does not accomplish that; it merely explains the basis of your view, it doesn't rebut differing views or warrant them "foolish" and/or "ignorant."

I didn't invent the idea of telling people of color to go back where they came from, I was just fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to witness people using it as a form of racial hatred.  You didn't. 

There's nothing "unreasonable" about acknowledging that history and you cannot make that history disappear with your own novel interpretation that reverses it.

 

Quote

You claim that the "foolish part comes from the denial of, and doubling down on, that ignorance, which is again, something that comes with youth." The inherent problem with this statement is, yet again, the subjective view it expounds; namely that I am purportedly just being ignorant. That you do not agree with my view, and your perception that somehow my view is necessarily devalued because of my age and my separation from historical precepts, does not demonstrably indicate I am somehow thereby ignorant. 

Correct.  I am giving you the benefit of doubt and saying your error is due more to ignorance than trying to deal with the cognitive dissonance of accepting Trump as a racist.

But it's not just me who recognizes your position as ignorant (or trying to resolve your cognitive dissonance).  It's everyone else with the experience who knows otherwise. (That's a lot of people.  Look around.)

 

 

Quote

You have no reason to think I am racist or even a bad person. You also do not have any reason to think I am arrogant on the basis of our disagreement. That someone disagrees with you on a topic, and that that person is younger than you does not connote arrogance.

It's not just this exchange.  I have reason to believe you are arrogant based on the numerous sophomoric insults that generally pepper your posts touting your intellectual or education superiority or some such nonsense. 

 

Quote

I too hope I will improve with time. And yes, "most" people do; however, as you can personally testify to, not all people do. 😎

Actually I am more inclined to think most people development humility with age.  (Obviously Trump is an exception.) 

Speaking for myself,  I am a completely different person now than I was at your age.  Life experience has a way of attenuating one's arrogance and hubris.

"Cognitive dissonance, first described by the psychologist Leon Festinger in the late 1950s, occurs when conflict emerges between what people want to believe and the reality that threatens those beliefs. The human mind does not like such inconsistencies: They set off alarms that spur the mind to alter some beliefs to make the perceived reality fit with one’s preferred views.

 In the case of Trump’s remarks — when absorbed by his supporters who do not consider themselves racist — those inconsistencies can be summarized in a sort of syllogism: (1) I do not support racists. (2) I do support President Trump. (3) President Trump has just made a racist remark. Those three facts simply don’t fit together comfortably in the mind. 

 Just as a hungry person will seek food to alleviate hunger, Festinger argued, people who experience mental discrepancies of this sort will work to put them in accord, to reduce the dissonance. And they will often go to extraordinary lengths to do so: Resolving cognitive dissonance often takes considerable mental gymnastics........."

At this point I am not totally sure you are suffering from the above cognitive dissonance.  For that, one would need to first understand that what he said was racist.  I am not sure you do understand that.  Giving you the benefit of doubt, it's possible your ignorance may be honest. Having no actual experience of the history you may not actually understand how his comments are racist.  (Personally I think the meaning is pretty clear even without such history, but like I said, I choose to give you the benefit of doubt due to your inexperience.)

At any rate, your position is the same as someone using the third way of resolving the cognitive dissonance propagated by Trump's words:

"A third route to resolving dissonance, in this specific case, is to flatly (and boldly) reject the consensus that telling someone to “go back” to their family’s country of origin is racist. Rep. Harris — with his revisionist argument that Trump wanted the women to go back to their districts — is probably the most striking example of this. But Fox News analyst Brit Hume may also belong in this category, with his hairsplitting statement that Trump’s comments were “nativist, xenophobic . . . and politically stupid” — but absolutely not racist, “a word so recklessly flung around these days that its actual meaning is being lost.” If Trump is just the latest in a long parade of people falsely accused of racism by liberals, that, too, makes it easier to take his side. (“Xenophobic” is not too far from “racist,” definitionally, but it does not carry nearly the same moral charge, so reframing the accusation that way may well ease psychological tension.)

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Your "articulable standard" for what constitutes racist rhetoric - or more accurately, what doesn't - is hogwash. 

That you think it is "hogwash" does not make it "hogwash."  

 

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

So, you are either ignorant or trying to resolve your cognitive dissonance.

These "necessary" conclusions are only relevant to the extent you have substantiated what preceded them (which you have not); and to the extent you dispelled with all other reasonable conclusions (which you have not). Thus, these conclusions hold no water. 

 

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

There's nothing "unreasonable" about acknowledging that history and you cannot make that history disappear with your own novel interpretation that reverses it.

No one is trying to make history disappear (unless it's you conjuring up some novel Constitutional argument 😂). The extension of your reasoning amounts to a baseless refutation of literally any opinion that does not align with yours. History is only useful for you  here to the extent you camouflage the incapability of accepting a different point of view.  It's quite obvious. 

 

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

But it's not just me who recognizes your position as ignorant (or trying to resolve your cognitive dissonance).  It's everyone else with the experience who knows otherwise. (That's a lot of people.  Look around.)

You'll need to substantiate this beyond pointing to other posters and linking WaPo articles. Again, you argue as if anyone who does not come out on the same end as you necessarily lacks "experience." (assuming this undefined "experience" is somehow a prerequisite to making an informed judgement on the comments at hand). I guess the people who do have this "experience," yet still disagree with you, are just..... [insert your mental gymnastics here]

 

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

It's not just this exchange.  I have reason to believe you are arrogant based on the numerous sophomoric insults that generally pepper your posts touting your intellectual or education superiority or some such nonsense.

Sure, you can call me arrogant on that matter. That is perfectly fine, because after all.... I am intellectually and academically superior to you

 

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Speaking for myself,  I am a completely different person now than I was at your age.  Life experience has a way of attenuating one's arrogance and hubris.

One can only imagine how "young homer" acted. I am happy you have come to a position in life where you can pat yourself on the back in this regard though. It's great that you can use the forum as an outlet to find verification of your self-proclaimed evolvement. 

[homersapien 11,373]

18 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

That you think it is "hogwash" does not make it "hogwash."  

Nor does you claiming Trump's words were not racist make it so.

 

These "necessary" conclusions are only relevant to the extent you have substantiated what preceded them (which you have not); and to the extent you dispelled with all other reasonable conclusions (which you have not). Thus, these conclusions hold no water. 

This is an exchange of opinions, it's not science. My conclusion are every bit as valid as yours, and considering the base of experience informing both, probably more so.

 

No one is trying to make history disappear (unless it's you conjuring up some novel Constitutional argument 😂). The extension of your reasoning amounts to a baseless refutation of literally any opinion that does not align with yours. History is only useful for you  here to the extent you camouflage the incapability of accepting a different point of view.  It's quite obvious. 

History doesn't exist for the one who ignores it or is unaware of it. So that person is effectively making it disappear (for them.)  Telling people to go back to the country they came from was and is a commonly used racist or xenophobic trope.  That's historical fact.  Your ignorance of that fact doesn't affect it's validity.

 

You'll need to substantiate this beyond pointing to other posters and linking WaPo articles. Again, you argue as if anyone who does not come out on the same end as you necessarily lacks "experience." (assuming this undefined "experience" is somehow a prerequisite to making an informed judgement on the comments at hand). I guess the people who do have this "experience," yet still disagree with you, are just..... [insert your mental gymnastics here]

I don't need to "substantiate" the fact that the majority of Americans paying attention recognize Trump's comments as racist.  Trump is clearly not appealing to the majority of Americans as every poll demonstrates.  That doesn't require "experience" as much as it does simple observation and common sense.

 

Sure, you can call me arrogant on that matter. That is perfectly fine, because after all.... I am intellectually and academically superior to you

You betcha. You're a legend in your own mind.

 

One can only imagine how "young homer" acted. I am happy you have come to a position in life where you can pat yourself on the back in this regard though. It's great that you can use the forum as an outlet to find verification of your self-proclaimed evolvement. 

I don't need this outlet to verify or confirm anything.  Such self-understanding naturally comes with age.  Hopefully you will see for yourself in 40 - 45 years or so.

 

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

12 hours ago, homersapien said:

I wish I was as smart as you. Please mentor me, Nola. I’m being serious.

I’d be happy to Homer!

[AURex 1,998]

On 7/15/2019 at 8:14 PM, toddc said:

The OP is a great example of making things say something that was never said. He didn’t say go back to your country, and he meant go back to your district and fix that and then come back to congress and tell us how to fix the US.

This is extremist right wing spin. What he actually said, and I quote, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."  OK, Donald, do you mean, like, NYC where YOU come from? Or Minnesota? Other U.S. locations? Because these are U.S. citizens.

His ONLY motivation was to rouse his white racist voters. That's all. And the latest Trump fan rally, with all the "send her back" screaming, is evidence that he is now in re-election mode ----- terrify the white conservatives and energize the ultra-right haters.

[homersapien 11,373]

13 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

I’d be happy to Homer!

For the record, I didn't post that.

And it's not funny or cute to use the "quote function" and make up things never posted.  It's way out of bounds.