this right here is what drives me absolutely bonkers.

you proceed from a false premise:
that "wealth" translates to being less corruptible.

blindly ignoring what wealth actual not only IS,but what it represents to the elite class in America.

power.

so could we please STOP with how much trump is actually worth,as if it has any inherent meaning in terms of power?


i do not understand wasting time with an ideologue,or dissecting his obviously conflicting comments as somehow expressing a clear and definable philosophy.these people play in the realm of cult of personality,spectacle and magical thinking.

their adoration for a particular public figure is cultish,and has very little to do with reality but more how their idol represents an ideal that they feel very strongly about.

so are we really surprised that bob will give Alexandria ocasio cortez a nod for exposing how easy it is to corrupt the system,but then conveniently excuse his idol and give him a pass based on the flimsiest of reasons:wealth.

when it was Alexandria ocasio cortez's lightning round that exposed how it is actually EASIER for the executive branch and the president to sell their influence for money.

but to bob,and how he sees things,the very idea that trump would ever engage in a breach of morality,and break his promise to the American people...is preposterous,...because trump already has money,why would he sell his integrity?

because BOB has integrity.
because BOB would never break a promise.
this is basic projection of ones morality onto a figure they admire.
we can apply the exact same metric to those who voted for Obama.same thing.same results.

you will never get bob to admonish his hero,because that hero represents the IDEA of what bob is projecting,not the actual reality.

fundamentalists engage in the exact same magical thinking.

so how can i get mad for bob,and the other trumpsters of the world?
i pity them.
because delusional dreams always crash on the shores of the real eventually.

and that is going to be a sad day for bob.

In Trig/pre calc, my teacher insisted I was a cheater because I tested great but didn't do homework or pay much attention in class, so she separated me during a test...the class average dropped significantly but not my score, I never had to do trig homework after that day. That said, don't ask me trig questions now, I haven't used it in nearly 30 years. ;-)

Kind of....they all seemed to think that there is a hidden unknowable, and they alone had the unknowable deciphered and other theories about it were just mistaken.
Some eastern religions sure seemed more like just philosophies, like Tao, but they all seemed fairly self certain that they alone had the solution to the ultimate question.....but we all know that answer is 42, and not one of them came up with that end sum, so they're all undeniably wrong and so easily dismissed as fable, fantasy, or disguised political tools.

The Love of Christ everyone. A continuing shinning example of why I hate the faith. Treat others as you'd have others treat you. Anyhow, I agree, no need for a ban, at least yet, though that is a new low, but in line with the rest of the Trump supporters. It again, just shows how evil and vile the faith is, because that's what they actually think Christ would act like, do and say, and have zero conviction in their heart otherwise. The modern right is the biggest reason cited why people leave the faith or are turned off by the faith, so the more Trump supporters dig in, the more and more people will leave the faith. Hopefully they'll turn to reason, or Paganism, anything but stick to a faith where they are happy at the death of a man who served his nation far better than the man they praise. As to Bob himself, I don't know if he's just a troll or what, my issue has never been with him, but the faith he represents. I am surrounded by people like him at home and work, and it isn't the people, it's their faith... sort of like how they say of the gays, "love the sinner hate the sin", I just hate everything about them, but I'm sure they are just fine people otherwise.

While I didn't like McCain, I at least respected his service. I respect the fact that he REFUSED to leave the POW camp when it was offered to him because there were others there before him, and he'd go on for another four plus years more of torture because of his refusal. He could have left the service long before he was even shot down, as he was injured on the deck of his ship when he was accidentally shot by another plane on the deck, an indecent that killed 134 other sailors and injured 161 others, himself included... of course many on the far right blame him for somehow being shot in that case and say he caused the deaths... As bad as he was on his political philosophy and the whole Palin thing (which I agree with what was pointed out already, was an attempt to lure the far right and women voters, and it worked on the far right, he probably wouldn't have got nearly as many votes as he did without her, because the narrative had already shifted far right on Fox and talk radio), he at least served and didn't dodge service because of a bone spur.

And this video just goes to show how gullible people are, "he's a Muslim" and he has to refute it. He has to keep saying how good Obama is as a man, and how true to himself he is, but they boo him. They are so wrapped up in the Fox and talk radio narrative, and their little social media bubbles, they don't know how to vet things they see and hear... they may do a quick Google search, not realizing that Google changes its search results to match what you'll find most agreeable... and then even if they do see a link they disagree with, they'll ignore it, find ones they like and coddle their bias.... I should know, I was among them for far too long. Up until basically this 2008 election, where I moved from Republican to supporting Paul, to supporting Obama, then loosing my faith shortly after the election because of the far right's actions...

"We are all just tubes with some fancy bits attached"

Philosophy at its best.

While it's all great fun mocking the old guy from Up crossed with Statler and Waldorf, it really doesn't gain anything.

People who hate him and Trump will laugh, people who support them will use it as evidence of the vast media conspiracy.

The real trick is actually getting through to people like him. Make him understand why the things he's done are wrong, why housing immigrants in a tent city without adequate protection and little to no recourse for the crimes committed there (including rape) is illegal. He'd probably just point out that the very fact the men are raping the women in an unregulated tent city goes to show how bad the Hispanic gene pool is, never understanding that any large enough group, regardless of ethnicity, upbringing etc. would commit similar crimes if placed under similar circumstances. Hell he defends his pussy-grabbing President out of the opposite corner of his mouth.

Educate your young people, America. Not just in math and science, but in Philosophy. That's the only way to create a morally advanced society. People shouldn't just judge right and wrong by what they're told, they should have an adequate education to figure it out for themselves. He was told (many times) what he was doing was right, so it doesn't matter that a judge came along and handed him a sentence. He believes he's right, simply because he lacks the mental capacity to understand otherwise.

Isn't that right, @bobknight33 ?

I disagree. Pinpointing the problem isn't very hard if you have some idea of where to look.

As someone who was 'coming of age' in my profession when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its successor the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), I can provide some insight into how these policies have been enacted and how both have been detrimental to the public education system as a whole. The former is a GWBush policy, and the latter is an Obama policy meant to mend the original law, so both liberals and conservatives are to blame to some degree, but both are based on the same philosophy of education and teacher-accountability.

There are some other mitigating factors and outside influences at work that should be noted: gun violence, the rise & ubiquity of the internet, and universal cell phone availability, all mostly concentrated in the past 10 years that play a large role. Cell phones, for example, are probably the worst thing to happen to education ever. They distract, they assist in cheating, they perpetuate arguments which can lead to physical altercations, and parents themselves advocate for their use "what if there's an emergency?!?!"

The idea of "teacher accountability" is the biggest culprit though.

Anecdotally, I've caught people cheating on papers. A girl in my honors English class basically plagiarised her entire final paper that we worked on for close to a month. The zero tanked her grade, which was already floundering, and the parent wanted to meet. I'd rather not go into detail to protect both the girl and my own anonymity, but suffice to say, all of the blame for this was aimed directly at me. How? Well I (apparently) "should have caught this sooner and intervened." Now, the final in that class is 8 pages long, I have ~125 students all working on it at the same time. but my ability to check something like that and my workload are beside the point. I'M NOT THE ONE WHO COPY PASTED A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE AND DOCTORED IT UP SO IT COULD SQUEAK BY THE PLAGIARISM DETECTOR (shows she knew what she was doing, IMHO). Yet, I'm still the one being told that I was responsible for what happened.

Teacher-accountability SOUNDS like the right thing to do, but consider the following analogies

--Students are earning poor grades, therefore teachers should be demoted; put on probationary programs; lose some of their salaries; and if they do not improve their test scores, grades, and attendance; be terminated from their positions.

as to

--Impoverished people have poor oral hygiene/health, therefore their dentists should be forced to take pay cuts from insurance companies. If the patients continue to develop cavities and the like, the dentist should be forced to go for further training, and possibly lose his practice.

I have no control over attendance.
I have no control over their home life.
I have no control over children coming to school with holes in their shoes, having not eaten breakfast.

@Mordhaus the part about money grubbing could not be further from the truth.

I'll be brief b/c I know this is already too long for this forum, but Houton Mifflin, McGraw Hill, Etc. Book Company is facing a shortfall of sales in light of the digital age. It may be difficult to blame one entity, but that's a good place to start. They don't sell as many books, but guess who produces and distributes the standardized tests and practice materials? Those same companies who used to sell textbooks by the boatload.

When a student does poorly, they have to retest in order to recieve a diploma. $$$ if they fail again, they retest again and again there is a charge for taking the test and accompanying pretest materials. Each of which has its own fees that go straight to the former textbook companies. See: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/testing/companies.html

In short, there is an incentive for these companies to lobby for an environment where tests are taken and retaken as much as possible. Each time a student has to retest that's more $ in their pocket.

How can they create an enviorment that faccilitates more testing? Put all the blame on the educators rather than the students.

That sounds a little tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory-ish, but the lobbying they do is very real: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/30/report-big-education-firms-spend-millions-lobbying-for-pro-testing-policies/?utm_term=.
9af18f0d2064

That, combined with exceptions for charter/private schools where students have the option to opt-out of said testing is skewing the numbers in favor of all of these for-profit companies: http://sanchezcharter.org/state-testing-parent-opt-out/ << one example (you can't opt-out in a public school, at least in my state)

@bobknight33 idk if i'd call business-minded for-profit policies "liberal"

Confusing may have been a poor choice of words.....conflating?

It seems to me that your definition is actually mired in your philosophy, not reality, since every dictionary available disagrees with your definition.

Of course you're welcome to speak as you please, but if we can't even agree on the definitions of words, we'll have little chance of making progress, imo. I'll stick with Mirriam-Webster's and Oxford over personal preference.

Discussions often move away from the video topic. Is that something that calls for apologies? If so, I owe the sift dozens of them.

Fair point.

Not that I'm confused, it's just I guess my definition of racism is mired in reality, rather than philosophy.

I apologize to the rest of the Sift for continuing on this thread. It's really off the rails from the video content.

OH, he's just enamoured with with sophomoric philosophy and "spirituality". how pedestrian.

I completely disagree with you about being inspired by her is like being inspired by Hitler. Hitler's philosophy was a complete sham on every level, and contradicts itself numerous times. Objectivism's foundation works well on many levels. Personal aspiration, bettering yourself, valuing logic and knowledge over emotions, those types of things are valuable to an extent.

Objectivism is ultra-logical in the end, very much the same as Social Darwinism. Fundamentally, those ideas have value in some situations and settings. A business for example, in the end, if an employee is not doing his or her job, it's not necessarily the business's job to figure out why unless it's within their self-interest to do so, and they shouldn't have to think that stuff through in every single instance. They should have the flexibility to fire someone in that instance without a second thought about the social ramifications.

It ultimately is a societal problem though that this employee be taken care of as a member of society, which is where Objectivism falls on its face, among other areas. Another one is Objectivism really has terrible implications in many aspects of parenting, to put it mildly.

I was personally inspired by Ayn Rand in high school quite honestly. She made me care about philosophy, about achieving the most I could achieve via hard work and self-determination, to learn how to critically think and use reason, to be OK to not conform necessarily to group think, etc. Just like every ideology, it's not perfect, and following it to a T just doesn't work, just like any other ideology and philosophy we may encounter and blend into our own as we age and grow. But it made me want to learn more, achieve more, and think more.

You can do a lot worse than that, IMO, you know, like Fascism. :-)

Like any extremist philosophy Rand's writings contain elements of truth. The problem is that they offer a philosophical fig leaf for the rich and powerful to fully exploit their situation in business and politics without regard to the negative effects they may have on the rest of society.

A successful civilisation needs to understand the limitations of both sides of the argument and take the best of both worlds.

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There are some core philosophies withing homeopathy that have some merit for some cases (e.g. treat like from like, stop unhealthy activities to heal...) but it is mostly practiced and promoted by charlatans.

Most of the good ideas that homeopathy came up with were adopted by mainstream medicine anyway.

Man, existential philosophy is depressing.

This is "starve the beast" philosophy of governing, from within supply-side (trickle-down) economics.