Does Trump Want To Be President?

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Sy Borg
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Sy Borg »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 30th, 2021, 5:40 am
Greta wrote: January 29th, 2021, 8:08 pm TP, that analogy does not work. Do we sterilise white collar criminals and burglars as well? Do we sterilise shoplifters and jaywalkers as well?

You keep ignoring the middle ground, such as the middle ground between incitement and personal responsibility. Now you don't take into account the middle ground between forced sterilisation and other, less extreme deterrents.
The whole point of the analogy is that I don't agree that preventing future crimes is a sufficient justification for invoking (punitive) force towards any arbitrary thing that will prevent future crimes. The only prevention move I agree with on that end is incarceration when someone has already committed a crime and there is good reason to believe that they would commit the same or a similar crime if freed. (Though even then I don't agree with the approach we take to incarceration.) I think it's immoral to forcibly sterilize anyone just because there's an increased chance that they'll produce offspring who will commit murders, and I think it's immoral to prohibit speech just because there's an increased chance that it will influence people to commit murders (or whatever actions I might morally object to).
You are conflating very different issues. Sterilisation is a punishment, incitement is a crime. In Australia, for instance:

"Generally, under the Commonwealth Criminal Code it is a crime to urge the commission of an offence. A person can still be guilty even if committing the offence incited is not possible. The following maximum penalties apply: 10-years jail if the offence incited carries life imprisonment."

Such rules can be found worldwide, and for good reason. It's simply shallow to, say, treat a Mafia boss who orders a hit to be innocent while only convicting the hitman who physically comitted the murder.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Ecurb wrote: January 30th, 2021, 3:34 pm We seem to be abandoning Trump and whether he's guilty of inciting anything. Terrapin's position is ludicrous. Let's posit three situations:

1) A man knows his enemy walks down a certain path every day. He builds a tiger-trap pit on the path, covered with twigs and leaves, with sharpened stakes implanted at its bottom. The enemy falls into the pit and implaled and dies.

2) The man builds an explosive device and plants it on the path. He bribes a small child to watch the path and push a plunger when the enemy walks by (the child doesn't know the plunger is hooked up to a bomb). The enemy is blown to smithereens.

3) A man builds an explosive device. He hires an accomplice to push the pluunger. The enemy is exploded.

The result is the same in each case. The moral culpability is the same in each case. It's true, of course, that in case 2 the child pushing the plunger doesn't know what the result will be, but I don't see how the person who bult the bomb is morally absolved in case 3, but not in case two.

In any event, since Terrapin's position is idiosyncratic, and nobody in the world agrees with him, he should make some attempt to justify it, instead of merely explaining it. Perhaps, however, we should return to Trump's culpability, which is a more interesting and nuanced situation.
The moral culpability isn't the same in each case in my view. My view can't be incorrect. It also can't be correct. Moral stances aren't correct or incorrect. They're not true or false.

But sure, my view on this is definitely unusual, as is my view on many things.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

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Terrapin Station wrote: January 30th, 2021, 6:11 pmBut sure, my view on this is definitely unusual, as is my view on many things.
Absolving ringleaders and instigators and punishing the foot soldiers appears to be standard practice. Thus few Mafia dons are convicted of crimes, despite being the main problem. More unusual is apportioning proper responsibility to ringleaders.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Greta wrote: January 30th, 2021, 8:49 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: January 30th, 2021, 6:11 pmBut sure, my view on this is definitely unusual, as is my view on many things.
Absolving ringleaders and instigators and punishing the foot soldiers appears to be standard practice. Thus few Mafia dons are convicted of crimes, despite being the main problem. More unusual is apportioning proper responsibility to ringleaders.
If my view is the norm I'm fine with that.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Sculptor1 »

Hey Trumpers.

Please watch this and tell WTF is going on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35aT9ikWcqc
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Sculptor1 wrote: January 31st, 2021, 12:57 pm Hey Trumpers.

Please watch this and tell WTF is going on?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35aT9ikWcqc
Are there any "Trumpers" on the board? (I sincerely don't know)
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

Terrapin Station wrote:No. At least aside from talking about someone who is significantly disabled, because the adult can tell the person to take a hike and the adult doesn't need to keep interacting with whoever is verbally abusing them. Kids don't have that option. They can't just leave home and survive on their own. They're dependent on their parents or guardians in a way that adults are not. I'd actually change this so that at a relatively young age, kids could leave and be on their own if they want to be (I'd require demonstrating the capacity for it below, say, 13 years old), but babies, toddlers, etc. obviously aren't capable of this. I have a problem with it because of the dependency relationship and the fact that the adult(s) overseeing a kid need to guide their development in various ways (including food, health care, education, etc.)
I think our difference of opinion here again comes down to what I've called previously the all-or-nothing approach with which I disagree. I don't think, as adults, we simply, discontinuously stop being dependent on each other when we stop being children. It's a continuum. I think, for the purpose of deciding my moral position on the perpetrators' words, individual cases of verbal abuse have to be treated separately. You've said something similar about kids demonstrating their capacity for independent living below some age. You implied an individual assessment of each pre-13 child's capacities. I think the same consideration of individual circumstances and abilities applies to all, not just those below some fairly arbitrary age.

So, going back to the words and commands of political and military leaders, the extent to which I would morally judge them for their words would depend on all kinds of things, such as the kind of society their citizens live in, the extent to which they leverage the authority given to them by the governmental structures of that society, the extent to which they make use of misinformation and the extent to which they exploit the psychology of fear, tribalism, xenophobia etc. For that reason, I'd make a different moral judgement on politicians grandstanding and showboating on the floor of the house/senate/parliament and politicians making a concerted effort, over a period of time, to whip up violent revolution. I'd tend to view the latter as much more closely related to the actions of despots than the former. I'd tend to seem them as closer to things like the gradual conditioning of German citizens in 1930's Germany towards seeing Jews as sub-human, or the similar conditioning of Hutus to think that Tutsis were "rats" and "cockroaches" in Rwanda in the 90's. I make moral judgements on those kinds of speech.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/15/rw ... -sentence/

I think the Rwanda genocide is an interesting case. According to the article above from a few years back, one of the politicians who did that whole "Tutsis are cockroaches" thing was arrested for it. Obviously from a complete free speech perspective, the only people who did anything wrong were those who actually did the physical activity of hacking members of the rival tribe to death, not those who used that human tendency to tribalism and stranger-fear to create the milieu in which it happened. It would be argued that punishing the hackers (so to speak) would discourage people from being susceptible to this verbal exploitation of their fears and demons in future and thereby make future talk like that futile. So deterring future crime (it would be argued) need not be done at the expense of abandoning the principle of free speech.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Belindi »

Steve3007 wrote: February 1st, 2021, 6:23 am https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/15/rw ... -sentence/

I think the Rwanda genocide is an interesting case. According to the article above from a few years back, one of the politicians who did that whole "Tutsis are cockroaches" thing was arrested for it. Obviously from a complete free speech perspective, the only people who did anything wrong were those who actually did the physical activity of hacking members of the rival tribe to death, not those who used that human tendency to tribalism and stranger-fear to create the milieu in which it happened. It would be argued that punishing the hackers (so to speak) would discourage people from being susceptible to this verbal exploitation of their fears and demons in future and thereby make future talk like that futile. So deterring future crime (it would be argued) need not be done at the expense of abandoning the principle of free speech.
The intention of divisive hate speech is the same as the intention to genocide. Unfortunately in legal terms it is difficult to isolate intent from the act. God alone can do this. Motive is the best we can do, legally. Some unfortunates who have nice kind intentions are trapped by a lethal character flaw; of such are the great historical dramas made.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

Belindi wrote:The intention of divisive hate speech is the same as the intention to genocide. Unfortunately in legal terms it is difficult to isolate intent from the act...
This would be one of the issues leading free speech advocates to be be reluctant to pass moral judgement on any speech. If we're talking in legal terms, and therefore looking to pass a judgement which has real consequences for the speaker, it might often be difficult to decide, in any way that might be called objective, what the intent was or, if we judge speech by its consequences, what the consequences were.

Jo Brand joke: "They say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I say it's through his breast pocket with a knife." Advocating murder perhaps? No of course not. But more recently she got into trouble, in relation to a story about a politician having a milkshake thrown over him, for suggesting battery acid would have been better. Joking of course. A bit sick? Some might think so, but telling sick jokes isn't illegal, even if they're not to everyone's taste. But there was talk of police action and she apologized. I suppose the fear was that someone might actually think it a good idea and do it. But that would be their fault, and in no way Jo Brand's fault, right? In that case I think I'd say yes.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: February 1st, 2021, 6:06 am I don't think, as adults, we simply, discontinuously stop being dependent on each other when we stop being children.
You understand that I don't think that, either, right? I didn't type anything to suggest that I think that.

I said, "the adult doesn't need to keep interacting with whoever is verbally abusing them," and "Kids [are] dependent on their parents or guardians in a way that adults are not." That doesn't say that kids are dependent on [others] whereas adults are not. It says that kids are dependent in a way that adults are not.

One simple difference there--this is not at all the ONLY difference--is that legally, kids are not allowed to go off and live on their own, whereas adults are. Legally, kids are required to have a parent or guardian who watches over them.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

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Terrapin Station wrote:You understand that I don't think that, either, right? I didn't type anything to suggest that I think that.
Understood.
I said, "the adult doesn't need to keep interacting with whoever is verbally abusing them," and "Kids [are] dependent on their parents or guardians in a way that adults are not." That doesn't say that kids are dependent on [others] whereas adults are not. It says that kids are dependent in a way that adults are not.

One simple difference there--this is not at all the ONLY difference--is that legally, kids are not allowed to go off and live on their own, whereas adults are. Legally, kids are required to have a parent or guardian who watches over them.
OK, so we could generalize your view on the rights and wrongs of verbal abuse: all people who are not free to go off and live on their own (who are constrained from doing so by the threat of some kind of punishment or by physical constraint - the methods that the law uses) are not free to escape verbal abuse. They are forced to carry on interacting with their abuser. For that reason verbal abuse against members of that group is morally wrong. Yes?
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Steve3007 wrote: February 1st, 2021, 12:11 pm
Terrapin Station wrote:You understand that I don't think that, either, right? I didn't type anything to suggest that I think that.
Understood.
I said, "the adult doesn't need to keep interacting with whoever is verbally abusing them," and "Kids [are] dependent on their parents or guardians in a way that adults are not." That doesn't say that kids are dependent on [others] whereas adults are not. It says that kids are dependent in a way that adults are not.

One simple difference there--this is not at all the ONLY difference--is that legally, kids are not allowed to go off and live on their own, whereas adults are. Legally, kids are required to have a parent or guardian who watches over them.
OK, so we could generalize your view on the rights and wrongs of verbal abuse: all people who are not free to go off and live on their own (who are constrained from doing so by the threat of some kind of punishment or by physical constraint - the methods that the law uses) are not free to escape verbal abuse. They are forced to carry on interacting with their abuser. For that reason verbal abuse against members of that group is morally wrong. Yes?
It's not something I'd come up with a "principle" like that about. Again, I'm not a fan of a principle-oriented account to ethics like that. In general, though, as I said already, I'd only have a problem with verbal abuse when it comes to kids or to someone with a pretty sever disability--where there's a stronger dependence on a guardian/caretaker that can't be avoided.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

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Terrapin Station wrote: January 30th, 2021, 6:11 pm
Ecurb wrote: January 30th, 2021, 3:34 pm We seem to be abandoning Trump and whether he's guilty of inciting anything. Terrapin's position is ludicrous. Let's posit three situations:

1) A man knows his enemy walks down a certain path every day. He builds a tiger-trap pit on the path, covered with twigs and leaves, with sharpened stakes implanted at its bottom. The enemy falls into the pit and implaled and dies.

2) The man builds an explosive device and plants it on the path. He bribes a small child to watch the path and push a plunger when the enemy walks by (the child doesn't know the plunger is hooked up to a bomb). The enemy is blown to smithereens.

3) A man builds an explosive device. He hires an accomplice to push the pluunger. The enemy is exploded.

The result is the same in each case. The moral culpability is the same in each case. It's true, of course, that in case 2 the child pushing the plunger doesn't know what the result will be, but I don't see how the person who bult the bomb is morally absolved in case 3, but not in case two.

In any event, since Terrapin's position is idiosyncratic, and nobody in the world agrees with him, he should make some attempt to justify it, instead of merely explaining it. Perhaps, however, we should return to Trump's culpability, which is a more interesting and nuanced situation.
The moral culpability isn't the same in each case in my view. My view can't be incorrect. It also can't be correct. Moral stances aren't correct or incorrect. They're not true or false.

But sure, my view on this is definitely unusual, as is my view on many things.
Interesting. How do they differ and why?
"As usual... it depends."
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Ecurb »

Terrapin Station wrote: January 30th, 2021, 6:11 pm
Ecurb wrote: January 30th, 2021, 3:34 pm We seem to be abandoning Trump and whether he's guilty of inciting anything. Terrapin's position is ludicrous. Let's posit three situations:

1) A man knows his enemy walks down a certain path every day. He builds a tiger-trap pit on the path, covered with twigs and leaves, with sharpened stakes implanted at its bottom. The enemy falls into the pit and implaled and dies.

2) The man builds an explosive device and plants it on the path. He bribes a small child to watch the path and push a plunger when the enemy walks by (the child doesn't know the plunger is hooked up to a bomb). The enemy is blown to smithereens.

3) A man builds an explosive device. He hires an accomplice to push the pluunger. The enemy is exploded.

The result is the same in each case. The moral culpability is the same in each case. It's true, of course, that in case 2 the child pushing the plunger doesn't know what the result will be, but I don't see how the person who bult the bomb is morally absolved in case 3, but not in case two.

In any event, since Terrapin's position is idiosyncratic, and nobody in the world agrees with him, he should make some attempt to justify it, instead of merely explaining it. Perhaps, however, we should return to Trump's culpability, which is a more interesting and nuanced situation.
The moral culpability isn't the same in each case in my view. My view can't be incorrect. It also can't be correct. Moral stances aren't correct or incorrect. They're not true or false.

But sure, my view on this is definitely unusual, as is my view on many things.
You're simply avoiding the issue. Moral views can be "incorrect" (even, presumably, in Terrapin's eyes) if they are inconsistent or contradictory. Even a moral relativist should answer the question: How is the moral culpuability different in the three scenarios I suggest?
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