Trump orders FBI to target blacks and environmentalists

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It's a myth. Lobbyists make this claim because it's convenient for them. It casts universal health care in a bad light, and makes it seem as if their hands are tied, when they're not. It gets you mad at Canada, the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, and so many other countries, so that you're not looking at the corporations and their lobbyists who are manipulating you. Those countries are doing the best for their citizens. We need to do the same. This is not a zero-sum game.

Actually my wife's relatives often come over and we tell them "Mi casa su casa"

And yet science says the opposite.
https://www.salon.com/2018/03/23/trump- ... -with-him/

Right wing conservatives have and (always will be) selfish bastards. Trump voters are the worst of the worst.

Evidence based research "trumps" Trump apologists
journal Personality and Individual Differences, psychologist Ryne Sherman explains "a prototypical Trump supporter" as someone with "little interest in supporting social welfare programs," "a strong desire for power," "a strong desire to make money," various "concerns about personal and financial safety" and a "preference for strictly adhering to social conventions (i.e., order, structure, and following the chain of command)." These findings undermine any claim that Trump is somehow not a "real" Republican and thus not representative of what conservatives really believe or think:
These findings complement what is already known about Donald Trump's voters, a group comprising tens of millions of white Americans who have joined what is effectively a political death cult, and apparently will not abandon their Great Leader under any circumstances.

Trump's Republican and conservative supporters share the following attributes:

They are more likely to be authoritarians and to embrace other extreme right-wing ideologies.
They are racially resentful and hostile to nonwhites. This attitude is especially pronounced towards African-Americans.
They exhibit forms of toxic behavior associated with "collective narcissism."
They believe that white people are the real victims of racism in America.
They are political bullies who engage in social dominance behavior against individuals and groups they view as Other (nonwhites and immigrants, Muslims, gays and lesbians) or their political enemies (liberals and progressives).
They hold sexist and misogynistic views.
Trump's most extreme and enthusiastic supporters in the "alt-right" feature the "dark triad" of personality traits: narcissism, a propensity for violence, and a Machiavellian longing to manipulate others.
They have little regard for America's democratic norms and institutions and believe that winning at costs is all that matters -- even if that means siding with a foreign power such as Russia to elect Donald Trump
They live in regions of the United States where people are more likely to be unhappy, miserable and physically unwell and to suffer from the "deaths of despair."
They are attracted to Trump's threats of violence and his other antisocial behavior.
They are anti-intellectual, disdainful of higher education and hostile towards experts.
They possess a deep fear of death and social obsolescence which compels them towards "strong leaders," guns, superficial expressionss of patriotism and Christian fundamentalism
They are extremely gullible and thus vulnerable to disinformation and other lies, as disseminated through the right-wing media.
They seek simple answers to complex problems and are quick to reject new and inconvenient information.
Either directly or indirectly, they want to hurt others whom they consider "un-American" or outside their tribe and community

and since those people tend to congregate in lower-cost-of-living rural areas, i am surrounded by them. it is like a low-grade siege here.

The thing that I am always shocked by is when people claim (and believe) that 'such-in-such' is not funded by tax dollars. For instance, Planned Parenthood services. Granted, the money may go through several wash cycles, but taxes are where the government gets their money. Nobody says, 'in addition to my taxes, I think I'll donate a few extra grand to the government so that they can have a not linked to taxes slush fund.'

If an agency receives government funding, at some point that money was tax dollars.

Was it Margaret Thatcher who said, 'the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.'

The US is not a socialist country, per se. But, we do espouse several socialist programs already: welfare, medicaid and food stamps. That's tax payer funded. They should be programs for citizens only. But, if you listen to a liberal, we should be funding citizens and every illegal immigrant that comes across the boarder. And usually the majority of these liberals lobbying for all the easy money are one paycheck away from poverty, so the chances of them making any significant contribution to these programs are nil. If they work, they pay taxes and then get it all back at tax time, because they are in such a low tax bracket. While the people paying for it, pay in 17k and get back $1,600.

Now, I'm happy to pay my taxes to live in this country. But, when the people preaching at me about how selfish I am get ALL of their tax money back after April 15th and the government keeps over 15k of my earned income, I'm inclined to believe that they are full of shite.

That Salon article which Cloudflare won't let me quote - appears to be 5% science and 95% biased partisan blathering using the same verbiage jargon and catchphrases I see being all over the place. It is like one person with thousands of sockpuppets because so many articles sound so much alike.

The part I quoted is from Sherman (2019) journal Personality and Individual Differences...it's science deal with it...

Oh sure, most scientific articles usually start out with wording such as;

"Right wing conservatives have and (always will be) selfish bastards"

I mean right from the start one can see both scientific and journalistic integrity.

It's not easy to tell how much of the article is Ryne Sherman and how much is Chauncey DeVega.

So why not post Ryne Sherman's findings from a scientific journal?

What scientific process has Ryne Sherman's findings been put though? Peer review, meta analysis or similar?

I cracks me up how liberals will eviscerate climate skeptics for denying the conclusions of a science that uses only natural experiments, operates on long time scales, and while solid in its fundamentals has never been accurate in its specific predictions.

Then they'll turn around and deny economic conclusions that are from a science that only uses natural experiments, operates on long time scales, and while solid in its fundamentals has rarely been accurate in its specific predictions.

Minimum wage increases raise unemployment

Rent control creates housing shortages

Less profit for a company will decrease its overall output

CO2 raises the temperature of the earth

Sea levels rise with temperature increases

All these things are true.

Here's the attributes the study found correlated with Trump support, being a republican, and being a conservative.

Positive correlation:
"Welfare programs just encourage people to be lazy"
"People who are poor just need to work harder"
"In life, winning is the only thing that matters"
"A company's main focus should be profits"
"Making high risk/high reward investments is exciting"
"Art shows are boring"
"Dress codes are good and should be followed strict"
"Organizations should be sure their star players get the best treatment"
"I prefer things to be business-like, rather than casual and informal"
"The chain of command is good for workplace communication and should be followed"
"Vacations are for weaklings"
"It's important to be stylish"
"I'm not really interested in how things work"
"I like to socialize and network with others"
"It doesn't matter who gets the credit as long as the work gets done"

I neglected one statement from the study because the correlation was mischaracterizes in my opinion. The statement "I prefer to work alone instead of in groups" was 0.00 with Trump supporters,-0.01 with republicans and -0.02 with conservatives.

Negative correlation:
"Raising the minimum wage is a good idea"
"Building relationships is more important than building profit"
"Happiness is more important than money"
"Protesters are the most patriotic citizens"
"I don't like to gamble"
"Applying the scientific method is the best way to discover the truth"
"As long as you try your best, it doesn't really matter how the results turn out."
"I'd rather read a book alone than go to a social event"
"All work and no play is a miserable way to live"
"I don't like the pressure of being in charge"
"When it comes to finances, I prefer to play it safe"
"I try to stay out of the spotlight"
"When I don't understand something, I try to figure it out right away"
"Most people don't appreciate the beauty around them."

Now here's what you stated:



95% of that is not in the study at all.

I don't participate in life, because I have deficits, and over time, hiding became more comfortable.

Hiding means you can pretend to be normal.

Well, lets look at the minimum wage. There is no clear correlation between the minimum wage and unemployment:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... ge/513155/

Now, if you just listen to Econ 101, it would seem simple. But there are so many other factors involved that no clear correlation or cause and effect occurs in many cases.

In contrast, with CO2 forcing global warming, scientists have found that increasing CO2 overcomes all forcing in the opposite direction of temperature through exhaustive research, and thus it is causal for temperature increases--not just through a simplified Science 101 assertion. In addition, there is a clear correlation between CO2 and temperature as has been borne out by the evidence. At least, this is my understanding of it.

Climate is also a complex system: https://www.businessinsider.com/one-pla ... ing-2016-6

The naive conclusion from the trend of the southern ocean cooling instead of warming is that CO2 increases did not increase temperature. Just like the naive trend of observing a limited area trend such as the New Jersey fast food example would be that minimum wage increases don't matter.

No economists disputes the principle of minimum wage increases. Was is disputed is the elasticity of the price of labor, and the sensitivity of the market to wage increases. Simply put a wage hike from $9.00 -> $10.00 might have minor effects, but a wage hike from $9.00-$90.00 would have dramatic effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WYp5xmvI: 4:56-9:30 covers a minimum wage case in Puerto Rico that convinced Dr. Sowell to abandon his marxist ideas.

From his book Basic Economics Chapter 11,


You claim to like engaging with evidence. When the overwhelming majority of a field says something is the case and has evidence to support it, it usually is.

You're insulting my intelligence here.

When did I ever deny any of this? I simply gave my best understanding of the system at hand, for why scientists understand that CO2 is so important.



If I was as stupid as you're making me out to be, then I would have just said, minimum wage to infinity dollars per hour! But I'm not. I'm simply talking about the need for a living wage.



Dr. Sowell is not the "overwhelming majority" of economists, neither does he represent them.

You are representing the idea that liberals are just a bunch of pie in the sky dupes. We're not. And I've made it clear repeatedly. The problem here isn't that liberals are pie in the sky. It's that conservatives have grown cynical and pessimistic, and mistaken their pessimism for reality.

That has been my central thesis for like the last few pages of this thread.

If I thought you were too stupid to have a discussion with I would not be having this discussion. On the contrary I think you can be reasoned with.

Now, since you would agree that the minimum wage cannot be increased to infinity, it would follow that you agree there is a point of a minimum wage increase that is harmful to society. This is where reasonable disagreement can be made. At what point is a minimum wage hike harmful. There is a school of economic thought that says that point is 0. Others would argue it is above 0. No one argues it doesn't exist.



It is quite true that Dr. Thomas Sowell is not the overwhelming majority of economists. He is well respected and a personal resource of mine. I use his examples because they are the ones I remember and can find readily with little effort. You may want to look at those unemployment numbers and compare them to the 1970s ones touted in the atlantic article.

However, my assertion that the overwhelming majority of economists believe that minimum wage hikes increase unemployment is not based on Dr. Sowell's position.




From your point of view conservatives have mistaken pessimism for reality. From the conservative point of view liberals have overestimated what is realistically achievable.

In my opinion you have mis-characterized our exchange. I put out a thesis that in general conservatives believe in limits, and that is why many of their "heartless" positions are perceived by them to be "realistic." I also offered my own admittedly right of center opinion on this. To which I received the reply:



From which point forward my purpose was to demonstrate that I was not just spouting cliches but had positions based in evidence and reason. It is why I brought up the complicating factors in health care. It is why when you challenged me on them I expanded upon the economics arguments.

You say I've insulted your intelligence. I personally find it insulting to say that my positions are just cliches with no thought behind them. So if you wonder why I've argued so hard it is because of the following things:

1) I think your assessment on healthcare is incorrect.

2) I felt insulted when my position was dismissed as an unthinking cliche.

Perhaps we can de-escalate the rhetoric. We're obviously going to disagree on things, but if we're both getting angry in this thread then we're going about the discussion wrong.

Ok So perhaps I shouldn't be taking secondary sources (Salon article) so I will wear that....

My point was that rather than showing "tough love" that Trump voters are inherently selfish bastards

The most compassionate republicans are supposed to be evangelical christians yet they are actually no better than the average "trumpite"
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/201 ... into-2020/