Nice sentiment, but I don't understand why he's "proclaiming" it a Federal Holiday. Ronald Reagan signed it into law (despite initially opposing it) as a Federal Holiday in 1983.

I think every president does it every year to specify the exact day. Trump did it last year. Obama did it before him. Bush also.

If you mean this, then how do you account for the fact that for at least 2500 years, and no doubt longer, this has been an important topic?

For the same reason you know what words to use and in what order to place them. We could quibble about definitions and may be justified in doing so, but there is a general consensus on what words mean and how they could be used, hence the dictionary.

Then why are you so misguided on and about Trump? Are you incompetent? Or is your proposition false or disingenuous? (All, clearly!)

Your virtue-signalling doesn’t find any currency with me, unfortunately. It might curry favor and advantage in your world, but looks pathetic and self-serving in mine.

This is partly true. Sure, you can find examples of this, but on the other hand you can find the opposite too. There is great open discussion also. And is this REALLY such a big problem is a valid question. And where I disagree with (for example Jordan Peterson) is that this trend would be a well thought agenda pushed by some (Marxists) leftists. It isn't. Nobody has planned this. It's not even the woke left that actually make this any kind of problem. The left has been all the time like this. It was worse when there still was the Soviet Union. Hence to think that this is a big issue is wrong. The World is far more conservative than it looks to be.

I think you’re right about this. Political correctness is not limited to any sort of political party or persuasion, manifests in many ways, and all sides practice variations of it (though in the hidden tribes study only 30% of American progressives believed political correctness is not a problem, deviating from the norm who mostly think it is).

I think Orwell, always prescient, touched on political correctness before the term “political correctness” came into use. He described it as “intellectual cowardice”, which he saw as a problem.

This kind of thing is not a good symptom. Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship (except security censorship, which no one objects to in war time) over books which are not officially sponsored. But the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the MOI or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
...

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is ‘not done’ to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was ‘not done’ to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/

Most competent people can figure out what words mean on their own accord.

There is no need to 'start over'. When you successfully repel a thief from your home, or incapacitate a mugger, you needn't step back and ask yourself 'How now shall we organise society?' 'Society' is what happens when we don't aggress against one another and invade one another's property. The State will not be abolished through an overnight coup, from which we will have to wait for the dust to settle so that we can then rebuild civilisation. In some ways the State has grown, and in other ways the State has been totally out-manoeuvred by free enterprise, and shown to be the lumbering, ineffectual brute that it is (technology and the internet, especially, have contributed to this). If there is an end to the State, it will be through successive out-maneouverings by more competent service-providers, and in this sense the trajectory is good. We need not have a structural vision in our heads to anticipate the occurrence of such.

Engels made the argument that in a socialist society the institutions of the state would just whither away and coercion would no longer be necessary for a society to function. The state is replaced by “the administration of things”, which seems to me a distinction without a difference save for that it would be administered voluntarily. In practice, however, the state only became more entrenched or collapsed under their own weight in those societies.

Since the state operates in many ways as a monopoly (Crown corporation in the commonwealth, for example), could the free enterprise route to a the withering of the state risk trading one monopoly for another, one state for another?

Given the voice if anti P.C. is far shriller, louder, and more powerful, and the shut-them-down P.C. contingent is a small, youthful minority, and the communications errors of this youthful contingent is being used by the far right to shore up its appeal, I would say that your fears of P.C. being able to bring consensus to a closed point is misplaced. The FAR greater threat is the far right.

Being anti-P.C. spans the entire political spectrum, at least in America.

Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture
Warning To Democrats: Most Americans Against U.S. Getting More Politically Correct

The far-right is a greater threat than the PC crowd, but they both employ the same censorial tactics, and so we can oppose them for the same reasons.

I hope you guys are enjoying the holiday.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2020, as the Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday. On this day, I encourage all Americans to recommit themselves to Dr. King’s dream by engaging in acts of service to others, to their community, and to our Nation.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-martin-luther-king-jr-federal-holiday-2020/

An expert is only an expert in a certain field, but not much else.

Propaganda is much broader in scope because it employs images, music, statues and other artifacts, including rhetoric itself. So when the propaganda is limited to just rhetoric it becomes rhetoric. When that’s the case, the intention behind either may be all that’s left to differentiate between the two. Maybe something like rhetoric is intended to convince while propaganda is intended to control.

Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar will be tied up in impeachment (though they should recuse), limiting much of their campaigning time, keeping them away from Iowa for much of the final two weeks before the Feb. 3 caucuses. This was a master-stroke of the corporate wing of the DNC.

Are you referring to Zelensky' statements? That is something, but it is at odds with testimony by the diplomats. It would be risky for Zelensky to say he felt pressured, and to his benefit to convey to Trump that "he loves your ass". On the other hand, the diplomats took a risk by testifying, and they corroborate one another.

And the Ukrainian foreign minister. His recent interview pretty much refuted the entire case against Trump. No quid pro quo, no pressure, implicit or otherwise, refutes Sondland, says everything was routine... I wonder if they would be able to testify.

What's the point of testimony by Hunter and the whistleblower?

They are the start of this whole mess and would be useful to the defense.

It's said to be likely that the thoroughly corrupted Republican senate will vote to acquit anyway, but one can only hope this is not a foregone conclusion.

I have a sinking suspicion the GOP might betray the president. I hope I’m wrong, but you might just get what you desire.

There is testimony evidence of pressure, and documentary evidence the aid was held up illegally. If the requested investigation was not for criminal purposes, what else could it be other than simply digging up dirt on an opponent? The fact that Trump's position that his call was "perfect" is troubling, because it suggests we can expect more of the same.

Recall that I'm not convinced his action is necessarily worthy of removal from office, but that it was important to send him the message that it's wrong. My hope is that a fair number of Republicans will send him that message - voting to acquit solely because it doesn't rise to the level of "high crime" but noting that he shouldn't have done that.

From the Ukrainian side there is exculpatory evidence that there was no pressure, that hold ups on the American side are routine, and that nothing amounted to any quid pro quo. This is direct evidence considering it involves people on the phone call, the supposed victims. It’s a shame their words were not even considered in the inquiry, but that’s to be expected in such a partisan inquiry.

I actually would like to hear Bolton’s testimony, and also Hunter Biden’s, Lev Parnas’, and the whistleblower’s. Let the chips fall where they may.

I’m glad we can agree it is deserving of scrutiny. Luckily there was no pressure, nor any call for criminal investigations from the president.

I think where we disagree is whether Trump abused the power of his office. Considering that abuse of power is one of the articles of impeachment hopefully more facts will come to light in the upcoming trial.

I get that it looks bad for Hunter to have taken the high paying job, but he's hardly the first person to profit from a name and connections (e.g. Giuliani; Trump's kids). You need something more than the mere fact that he worked for Burisma.

What about your standard, avoid any action that could potentially be perceived as unethical or illegal? Sounds like it’s not so much a standard anymore, at least when applied to the Bidens.

I didn't say there was necessarily anything wrong with Ukraine investigating. I said there's something with Trump pushing an investigation of a political opponent.

You said it “looks wrong on its face”, that it is not “appropriate”. This is the court of opinion, and given that the standard here is selectively applied, it seems partisan.

He has made his case and so have members of Congress and the senate.

Biden threatened to withhold over a billion dollars if the top prosecutor wasn’t fired. Meanwhile his son was being payed vast sums of cash working for a corrupt Ukrainian gas company, and this right after a revolution.

In combination with his dealings with a state-owned Chinese bank, travelling in Air Force 2 and even getting old Joe to shake hands with his new CCP partners, there was a pattern emerging.

This doesn’t look bad? As someone who wants to be an informed voter it is in our best interest to sort out these conflicts of interest.

Still I do not understand the argument that a Democratic Party candidate’s son cannot be investigated by Ukraine because he’s running for office. “It looks wrong” does not seem an adequate enough explanation, and in fact it looks like grasping for straws.

This is a pretty awkward interview for the pro-impeachment wing of congress.

I understand.

No, I do not think people are attacking me personally. Wrong. I just think it’s odd that with all the name-calling and hostility towards my posts that I am held up as an example of what is wrong with public discussion.

You said this before and I ignored it: that they deluged Trump, but were completely silent about the Uygurs.

It brings into view how meaningless the anti-Trump stuff really is.

History will not be kind to them. They will be demoted to its proverbial dustbin while the source of their ire will be remembered for centuries to come.

I can appreciate that. That’s why conflicts of interest warrant scrutiny and is grounds for suspicion.

Remember that he only asked Zelensky to look into it if it’s possible—Burisma is a Ukrainian company—“so whatever [Zelenski] can do with the Attorney General would be great”. The attorney General is the head of the DOJ, which is responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice in the United States.

So what about congressional Democrats pursuing investigations into their political opponent, POTUS, who is the man to beat in the upcoming election?

The problem with political correctness is its censorial undertakings. These undertakings help the far-right because when censored they can claim “free speech” and they will be defended on free speech grounds. If they claim power they might use their persecution as reason to persecute others. For instance, when Hitler was debating Otto Wells regarding the Enabling Act, he justified his suspension of civil liberties by saying that his own civil liberties were routinely suspended and his speech “verboten”.

The trend of PC’s emancipated terminology brings us to a consensus that does not welcome dissent. It makes differences on matters of principle almost unspeakable. This deadening of our language leads to a culture of euphemism and dog-whistle.

“ People in the grip of political correctness are in search of the one who has sown the hatred and rejection that they sense all around. They are experts in taking offence, regardless of whether offence has been given. They refrain from addressing the arguments of the one whom they accuse, and when they are offended by a remark they do not hesitate to take it entirely out of context, so as to dress it up as a crime. As judge, prosecutor and jury they are the voice of an unquestionable righteousness. Their goal is to intimidate their opponents, by exposing them to public humiliation. Like the Nazis and communists whose methods they copy, they impose their worldview through fear.”

- Scruton

Some babies are born black - other babies have different skin pigmentation.

Though, it's not all about skin pigmentation; it's about genetic build.

Race is not a social construct. Different, non-relative genetic builds occur naturally.

Animals in the Southern Hemisphere, are nurtured by the Earth and Sun a lot differently than those in the Northern Hemisphere.

The human vessel evovles differently in different parts of the world.

A human’s genes come from his parents, not from groups of people.

Philosophy Forum 2020 edition.

If it's all downhill from here, I wonder where the discussion will be in 2024.

Wagging your finger every time I defend myself, but never when I’m attacked.

Thanks for writing that. It was a really good read. It deserves more views.

Scruton got his job back after the New Statesman apologized for misrepresenting his views, the same misrepresentations haters are making in this very thread.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jul/23/roger-scruton-gets-job-back-after-regrettable-sacking

The thought police are not a decent crowd, just opportunists. If you cannot refute his arguments you must resort to character assassination.

That's not a standard, that's a judgment. If you can't show that your judgment is based on some objective standard, then it would appear to be purely partisan.

Fair enough. Do you have an objective standard?

He didn’t do anything wrong seems a sufficient standard to me. There was an congressional inquiry and the accusations were not supported by the facts.

Perhaps a similar inquiry will do the same for Biden.

You still aren't getting it. What should be the basis of pursuing an investigation? Is a hunch that's rooted in animosity sufficient?

I know you don't believe Trump was doing this for political gain, but would it be OK if some future President actually did something analogous for personal political gain? If not, then on what principle do you allow the just investigations while disallowing the unjust?

The basis is the evidence. Hunter Biden was put on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian company making vast sums of cash while his father, the Vice President, just finished supporting a recent coup in the country. That’s at the very least a huge conflict of interest, and I think it should be investigated in case corruption was involved.

If any president did what Trump did I would be OK with it because he did nothing wrong. It’s just that simple.

Do you believe Trump is being impeached for political gain?

Phase 1 of China deal. Done.
USMCA. Done.

Pretty amazing.

If I take you literally, and extrapolate to any serious wrongdoing (you were too specific to the Bidens; makes it sound like a special pleading), it suggests you think a President can investigate anyone because anyone "may" have done something seriously wrong. Can you provide a reasonable, nonpartisan generalized standard that you'd be fine with applying to someone of either party?

It applies to any public official or employee of the government. Conflict of interest investigations are routinely applied to members of Trump’s administration (Scott Pruitt or Ryan Zinke for example, both of whom resigned). If it uncovers corruption then justice should be served, if it doesn’t then so much the better.

I don't know what candidate he is, but really, have listened through a Putin-Trump press conference?

It's REALLY different (like Twilight Zone different) from let's say Trump speaking with an "NATO ally", who Trump can pummel all he wants.

But just listen to him speaking to his followers. Then Trump make sense and is consistent. It's a great Witch hunt against him lead by the Obama-Hilarites of the deep state.

Trump speaks the world goes wild. I’m well aware of the word-politics, mostly because that is all some people have.

Nos4's replies here say it all. On the basis of his many posts, he is a) playing games, b) is mentally ill, c) is in some way a paid troll. It is therefore an error to engage with him. The real clues are in his language. All of his arguments are fallacious. Not least because of their frequent categorical nature.

Tim Wood’s hysteria has polluted his reason, so much so that he see’s enemies in everyone who disagrees with him. His borderline McCarthyism reeks of paranoia and fear, and this while he touts justice from the other side of his mealy mouth.

OK, do you think reasonable people could think it does look bad (on the surface, at least)? Bear in mind that a September poll showed that 63% of Americans (including 32% of Republicans) considered it wrong (source)

Plenty of reasonable people do think it looks bad, so yes.

That's not what I asked. I asked when it is OK for a President, utilizing his office, to push for the investigation of a political opponent.

When that political opponent may have abused his office for personal benefit by letting his son reap vast sums of money from a corrupt company in a destabilized country he just helped destabilize.

You know, on this issue I just base my view just on Trump's obscene adulation of Putin, the utterly crazy propositions Trump has made (and has had to quickly backtrack) and the sheer devotedness on NEVER EVER saying one critical thing about his best friend Vlad. Listening through a Donald and Vladimir press conference was like listening to a leader of a Great Power and a proxy puppet government giving a press conference. Hence I reason that yes, we really can talk of Agent Trumpov in the White House. It's the biggest intelligence coup ever in the history of intelligence work.

That’s hilarious. There are, of course, more simple explanations for reserving criticism of a world leader, but sure, Trump’s the Manchurian candidate.

Please expand on this by answering two questions:
1) are you saying it doesn't look bad to YOU, or do you feel that it shouldn't look bad to any reasonable person?
2) Under what circumstances is it OK for a President, acting as President, to push an investigation of a political opponent? For example, is it always OK? OK if there's an objectively good reason to think the opponent committed a crime? OK if he has hunch that the opponent committed a crime?

1) it doesn’t look bad to me. In fact, to me, it looks like the president is doing his job.

2) It is always ok to ask another leader to look into possible corruption between two countries no matter who is involved, but especially when it involves the conflicts of interest of high-ranking officials, their family, and corrupt energy companies paying vast sums of cash.

There are pictures of John McCain standing with the leader of Svoboda, a far-right neo-nazi, during the revolution in Ukraine. Also, Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, handed out cookies to protesters. Her leaked phone call, where she discusses possible candidates for the new Ukrainian government, suggests that the US played a little more than a supportive role in regime change. In their hubris we in the West backed neo-nazis in a Ukrainian regime change against a democratically-elected president, giving us the Ukraine we have today.

Familiar names appear throughout this episode: Biden, Brennan, McCain, Nuland (pictured below with the alleged whistleblower).



Nuland and McCain are connected to Steele and his dossier.

I suspect this is all connected to “Russian meddling”, and the current impeachment attempt against Trump is an attempt at a cover up. God forbid someone finds out what went on in Ukraine.

He could have established more, or stricter, benchmarks and held up funding if they weren't met. There were, in fact, benchmarks and these were met in May. Do you surmise that Trump considered these inadequate?

There are no explicit statements regarding benchmarks that I am aware of.

Ok, but you obviously do not believe she is right. So what's your take on it: Mistake? Lying? Something else?

I won’t infer any malicious intent so I will err on the side of mistake or misinformed.

"He was clearly." What does "clearly" mean in this context?

Simply that one can infer from his public statements that those particular situations concerned him.

Do you agree that on the surface it looks bad to pursue the Bidens in this way, since Joe is a political opponent?

No, I do not.

Fiona Hill opined that the efforts to look into the Bidens was a "political errand." Was she lying? Was she simply mistaken? Is there no possibility she was right?

There is always a possibility she could be right.

Can you offer any evidence that Trump was actively battling corruption in Ukraine -other than the Biden matter - that predates the whistleblower complaint?

Trump has no jurisdiction in Ukraine so I do not see how he could actively battle corruption there. He was clearly concerned about Ukraine’s involvement in the Russia hoax, their election meddling with the DNC, Biden’s involvement with the Burisma.