Maybe when looking at ethnicity demographics and language.
Other than that, we are ideologically very different. A group like the NDP would have very little support in the US. We are, from 30,000 ft (or 10,000 m), a very socialist nation. The US as whole doesn't see the difference between socialism and communism and any mention of anything leaning that way gets you labelled a soviet.
I think socialism is very much the wrong term. Red Torys still exist here. We don't yet seem to live in the post-political, post-family, and post- religious dreams that European socialists live in. Maybe we are close.
I think socialism is very much the wrong term. Red Torys still exist here. We don't yet seem to live in the post-political, post-family, and post- religious dreams that European socialists live in. Maybe we are close.
I meant compared to many places we are socialist-leaning. Particularly when compared to the US. It's a pretty stark contrast between us and them that way. It's really the main thing that separates us IMO.
Economic systems are a spectrum. To be considered a socialist nation (especially when looking at a direct comparison to a very capitalist nation like the US), you don't have to be full-blown, pay 80% tax type of socialism.
Maybe when looking at ethnicity demographics and language.
Other than that, we are ideologically very different. A group like the NDP would have very little support in the US. We are, from 30,000 ft (or 10,000 m), a very socialist nation. The US as whole doesn't see the difference between socialism and communism and any mention of anything leaning that way gets you labelled a soviet.
Indeed, vastly different countries with fundamentally different values. Obviously American culture influences Canadian culture a lot, but still fundamentally different. Every nations culture permeates other nations' cultures to some extent.
The only part I would disagree with is the ethnic demographic. Mexican/Latino is a huge demographic in the USA. They aren't just a minority.
Indeed, vastly different countries with fundamentally different values. Obviously American culture influences Canadian culture a lot, but still fundamentally different. Every nations culture permeates other nations' cultures to some extent.
The only part I would disagree with is the ethnic demographic. Mexican/Latino is a huge demographic in the USA. They aren't just a minority.
Yes, the Hispanic element, the African-American element, the size, and political strength of the trans-humanist movement.
We have First Nations, Quebecois, the Western coalition, the Pacific culture of Vancouver.
Indeed, vastly different countries with fundamentally different values. Obviously American culture influences Canadian culture a lot, but still fundamentally different. Every nations culture permeates other nations' cultures to some extent.
The only part I would disagree with is the ethnic demographic. Mexican/Latino is a huge demographic in the USA. They aren't just a minority.
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Originally Posted by peter12
Yes, the Hispanic element, the African-American element, the size, and political strength of the trans-humanist movement.
We have First Nations, Quebecois, the Western coalition, the Pacific culture of Vancouver.
Very different countries.
Yes of course. But we are looking at it from 30,000 feet. IE, from an outsider. People from other nations around the world tend to not know the difference between an American and Canadian purely by looking at them or hearing them talk (by this I mean people who are born in these countries and therefore likely don't have accents prevailing from other nations or languages). A Hispanic person meeting someone from outside North America is probably presumed to be from Central/South America.
There's a reason we wear CDN flag badges when travelling abroad, so as to not be confused with an American.
I wonder how many of them believe Trump is actually a Christian. He has been married three times, is a famous and unrepentant philanderer, and is the poster boy for greed and vulgarity. How do they not see this? Even he doesn't try to hide it. It's all a vital part of his personality.
I wonder how many of them believe Trump is actually a Christian. He has been married three times, is a famous and unrepentant philanderer, and is the poster boy for greed and vulgarity. How do they not see this? Even he doesn't try to hide it. It's all a vital part of his personality.
Gotcha questions: Any question of substance
Questions Trump wants: Should we deport Mexicans? What colour is the sky?
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Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt found something Donald Trump doesn’t win at on Thursday — knowing his terrorists.
“I’m looking for the next commander-in-chief, to know who Hassan Nasrallah is, and Zawahiri, and al-Julani, and al-Baghdadi. Do you know the players without a scorecard, yet, Donald Trump?” Hewitt asked the 2016 Republican candidate, referring to the respective leaders of Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State.
“No," Trump said.
"You know, I’ll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they’ll all be changed. They’ll be all gone,” he said. “I knew you were going to ask me things like this, and there’s no reason, because, No. 1, I’ll find, I will hopefully find Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the pack.”
Trump said asking him who the key players are was a type of “gotcha question.”
“I will be so good at the military, your head will spin. But obviously, I’m not meeting these people. I’m not seeing these people,” Trump said.
"Now, as far as what you’re talking about now, I will know every detail, and I will have the right plan, not a plan like this where we’re probably going backwards based on everything that I’m hearing, but we’re probably going backwards, zero respect. We have, we are not a respected country, and certainly as it relates to ISIS and what’s going on, and Iran."
Trump also mixed up the Quds Force, the elite foreign unit of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with the Kurds — the Middle Eastern ethnic group concentrated in nothern Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria and Turkey.
“Are you familiar with Gen. Soleimani?” Hewitt asked.
“Yes, but go ahead, give me a little, go ahead, tell me.” Trump said. “The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated by …”
“No, not the Kurds, the Quds Forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Forces,” Hewitt said.
"Soleimani is to terrorism sort of what Trump is to real estate," Hewitt explained later.
"OK," Trump said.
"Many people would say he’s the most dangerous man in the world, and he runs the Quds Forces, which is their Navy SEALs," Hewitt elaborated.
"Is he the gentleman that was going back and forth with Russia and meeting with Putin?" Trump asked. "I read something, and that seems to be also where he’s at."
Predictably he's already gone on interviews calling Hewitt a "third rate radio guy". Which begs the obvious question: If he's third rate, why did you go on the show?
__________________
"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
I will just focus on this bit as the rest of it is pretty much irrelevant, and was already answered in my previous post.
Actually, your previous post said very little except to make some false equivalencies between two very different candidates with very different agendas. As to its relevance, I would think motivation of the two individuals, and the history of both of their behaviors, are both extremely important to discuss when it comes to the potential of an individual becoming the nominee?
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The rest of my post is based very much on Charles Murray's excellent book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (http://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Apart-St.../dp/030745343X). I highly recommend all to read it. It speaks very directly to some of the coming issues for the USA. He focuses on white America in order to eliminate race from the discussion (some of Murray's previous work focused on black inner-city America, and was accused falsely of racism).
I can see why you are enamored with Murray. He's a political scientist long on dogma and philosophy and short on the pragmatism required to address the many problems he envisions. His libertarian values never cease to get in the way of a good discussion of pinpointing solutions to the many problems he finds. Complexity of issues is lost on those who search out means to divide, and Murray is all about division. Murray is, after all, one of the authors of the notorious The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, where he argues that intelligence is a greater predictor of one's place in American society rather than socioeconomic means or access to education. This screed argued that white people were more successful and deserving of their place in the seats of power because they were much more intelligent than their black, brown and yellow counterparts, claiming high IQ was genetic and there was a preponderance of high IQ on those with a melanin deficiency. Not a surprising conclusion from someone considered a White Nationalist.
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If you follow American culture, and its radical change over the past 10-30 years, you will note that America has been dividing into two tribes, basically a split right down the middle of the middle class. The upper middle class is wealthier, powerful, and more isolated from the rest of America than ever before. They are the force behind the increasing productivity of Silicon Valley, and they form most of America's political leadership. Murray estimates that this class is around 15-20%. They have stable families, decent jobs, and tend to live among their own.
See, Murray being Murray. Taking a complex problem and trying to distill it down into two camps. If you are successful it is because you have a stable family, decent job, and live among their own. I emphasize the last point, because this is the core belief of the weak minded that allow the culture war politics to continue in the United States. Murray, and people like him, go out of their way to figure ways to assign blame to those who are not like them. Murray was born into wealth, was raised in wealth, went to the best schools (Harvard and MIT), and was raised in that white enclave he so fervently defends. To him the United States is falling apart because the black woman who cleans his toilet or brown man that cuts his grass is not trying hard enough. The white guys in Washington, drafting and passing laws that favor their own already privileged class, share no responsibility in the failings of the system. The disappearance of the middle class and the widening of the economic divide in the United States is not to be blamed on those creating and manipulating the rule, it is to be blamed on those who have no power to affect the system.
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The other tribe, probably 40-50% of America, has gone the other way. In a big way. Single-motherhood, dead-beat dads, low rate of employment (interestingly, Murray states that this is voluntarily - ie. people often choose not to work) and increasingly awful levels of education.
Murray knocking it out of the park here. 40-50% of America are worthless pieces of #### because the culture they come from, and most of them choose this path!
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This tribe is falling further and further behind. Politically, they are opposed to immigration. They, somewhat rightfully see, immigration as a means for American corporate oligarchs to decrease the price of their labour. They want a strong military, partially for employment reasons (the military used to be one of the best means for social mobility) and also because they perceive America as weak.
Most importantly, they see the American government (all branches) of being incapable and unwilling of changing any of that. They see government as ineffective, and completely unwilling to listen or change priorities on their behalf.
They believe this because this is what they have been told, for generations. This is also a very fringe belief, especially among that bottom 50% of the population. The majority of that bottom 50% are immigrants, or 1st and 2nd generation children of immigrants, who are witness to the problems of the socioeconomic divide in the United States. Most of those are the melanin rich set that scare the bejeezus out of the likes of Murray. When the system is so grossly stacked against you you naturally lash out against it, usually without really understanding what you are lashing out against. This is where the majority of Americans find themselves. Desperate for change but unable to properly understand the complex issues facing them, so they willingly follow any clown, and Donald Trump is a clown, who speaks in narratives and metaphors which resonate with their cultural frame.
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This perception is the source of Trump and Sander's popularity.
This perception is the source of Trump's popularity. Do not begin to suggest that people with the same perspective you just described are supporters of Bernie Sanders. Trump is a charlatan. He is a shyster of the highest level. He has never cared for anyone but himself and the only reason he is in this race is to stoke his ego and line his own bank account. Hence him not being able to articulate a single policy position. Conversely, Sanders is career politician who has worked the majority of his like to serve others. Sanders is a political outsider and he likes it that way. He has policy positions that are designed to help all citizens fairly and provide some level of social justice for a change. There is some substance behind Sanders and his campaign, something that is sorely lacking from the Trump campaign.
Trump appeals to the Tea Party set; those that would readily vote against their best interests because a candidate used a frame that struck some chord deep in their heart. Sanders appeals to effete liberals; those who still believe that everyone should get a systemic fair shake but are too wrapped up in their own little lives to take the action required to affect change (ironically, many from what would be considered Murray's top tribe). Complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Only one of these guys has a platform that could help address the needs of the whole, but because of generations of framing and divisive politics, that platform will never be discussed or explored to its fullest.
One thing I find very interesting about the primary season is that we really get to find out what demons lurk deep in the hearts of men. The interpretations and defenses of those interpretations say a lot about the value people place on their fellow man. If you follow a nut bar, you likely are a nut bar. If you find comfort in the words of racist, you are likely a racist. If you fall for the blathering of fool... well, you get the point.
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Slimeball extraordinaire Debbie Wasserman Schultz is doing everything she can to try and secure the nomination for her buddy Hillary! Should be hilarious when the Republicans hit her hard on her shady past (a laundry list for sure!)
@New Era. I don't even know how to respond to your post. It was predictably filled with ad hominem, and in no way addressed my arguments. Have you read "Coming Apart?" The reason he focuses on whites is to eliminate the race aspect of the question. It is a cultural issue.
Furthermore, if you had read the book, you would know that a) he has done his best to remove himself from the upper white cultural enclave by raising his family in a small, poor town, b) he actually places a great deal of responsibility on the white upper middle class, and c) Murray is openly sympathetic to the failings of the bottom 50%, and actually places almost all of the blame on white Washington policy-makers.
Clearly, you have partisan sympathies for Sanders, and this colours your perception of the similarities of Sanders and Trump. I never wanted to talk about policy for precisely this reason. That is why I chose to focus on electoral appeal. You clearly haven't read the book, and probably haven't even read "The Bell Curve." For the record, I found the hypothesis of the book very interesting, but ultimately flawed based on his simplistic interpretation of intelligence. That said, it is widely understood that intelligence is mostly inherited.
@New Era. I don't even know how to respond to your post. It was predictably filled with ad hominem, and in no way addressed my arguments.
Ad hominem? Where? Discussing the predilections of the author is not an ad hominem. Exposing his biases and theoretical flaws is not an ad hominen. It's not like calling someone a hack because they took your source to the woodshed. Also, on a serious note, have you made an argument? All I have seen is you making a lot of comments without much connection to the actual issues or race. Was this intentional, hoping to appear a deep thinker on the subject of the race? I've re-read all of your stuff but find you never really saying anything with any true clarity or meaning. A great example is the Trump/Sanders comparison. I mean, if you honestly think that Trump and Sanders are appealing to the populace because of the same perceptions, then you clearly don't understand the United States or our political system. You cannot find two candidates more different from each other in every single way.
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Have you read "Coming Apart?" The reason he focuses on whites is to eliminate the race aspect of the question. It is a cultural issue.
No, I haven't read Coming Apart, but I was forced to read The Bell Curve for a graduate poly-sci class, then for some reason started down the same rabbit hole with Murray by starting Losing Ground, but stopped after a few chapters. He is very repetitive and espouses the same theories over and over again. I have continued to be exposed to his thoughts through his involvement with the American Enterprise Institute and the never ending flood of citations attributed to his work by conservative students. So you could say I have a pretty good idea about Charles Murray and his thoughts.
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Furthermore, if you had read the book, you would know that a) he has done his best to remove himself from the upper white cultural enclave by raising his family in a small, poor town,
When you say a small, poor town, you mean Fredrick County? I just want to be clear here. The poor town where Murray lives in Virginia, 82% of the people are white and the median household income is $84,570, well above the $53,046 average in the US? He paints a very flattering picture of himself, but the facts don't agree with what he says.
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b) he actually places a great deal of responsibility on the white upper middle class, and c) Murray is openly sympathetic to the failings of the bottom 50%, and actually places almost all of the blame on white Washington policy-makers.
The only reason that Murray pins the blame on policy makers is because they don't go far enough to instituting his #######ized libertarian perspective of every man for themselves. And when you say openly sympathetic, you mean moving to a small town filled with some of the richest people in Washington, and claiming to be salt of the earth kind of guy himself?
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Clearly, you have partisan sympathies for Sanders, and this colours your perception of the similarities of Sanders and Trump. I never wanted to talk about policy for precisely this reason.
I actually have no sympathies towards either, especially Sanders, hence calling his supporters effete liberals. But given a choice between a clown like Donald Trump and a quasi-socialist like Bernie Sanders, well I will hold my nose and pick the person that has an actual series of policy positions. I can also understand you wanting to stay away from policy positions. When you get right down to them they are usually very complex and can't be pinned down with philosophical trappings. This is why Washington is as useless as it is, because today's politicians are cornered into those philosophical trappings and can't take the pragmatic approach to solving complex issues that affect all people, not just the ones that agree with your dogma.
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That is why I chose to focus on electoral appeal. You clearly haven't read the book, and probably haven't even read "The Bell Curve." For the record, I found the hypothesis of the book very interesting, but ultimately flawed based on his simplistic interpretation of intelligence.
Hey, we can agree that Murray has a very simplistic view on things! Great! Now let's talk about actual politics and qualified candidates rather than trying to shoehorn two diametrically opposed candidates into the same dixie cup.
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That said, it is widely understood that intelligence is mostly inherited.
Widely understood by who? Psychologists and neurobiologists will argue this point to the death. You inherit a certain genetic make up providing a predisposition to intelligence, but environment plays a massive role in establishing the neural networks that allow for high levels of cognitive ability. You could be the genetic offspring of two Nobel laureates, but if you are raised in the back woods of West Virginia by Clem and Ethel, and never have the opportunity to expand your knowledge base, the likelihood of you exploiting that intelligence is minimal at best. We are all born with great intellectual potential, and yes, some have an advantage in having neurons packed closer together, but intelligence and increased cognitive capacity only happens when those neurons connect and form neural networks. That is all environmental, helped along through nurturing, peer interaction and education. This can also be negatively affected by biological influences such as poor nutrition or exposure to harmful substances that affect brain chemistry. Or so the leaders in fields of developmental psych and neuropsych seem to indicate.
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Don't be such a hack.
Well, don't be such a dupe. Don't rely so much on the philosophical or on what one theorist has to say on matters. Try the practical every now and then. Try and actually take a walk through the middle of the fray and try to understand the complexities of the issues. Seriously, suggesting Trump and Sanders have any similarities just makes you look silly. You're better than that.
