Ed Opperman, Trump, Epstein, Why Beliefs Don’t Change |399|

Could you please be more specific so I can reply. I think it is unfair to make vague accusations like that against me personally.

Thanks

I meant yours as in the USAs, I thought that would be obvious from the sentence that followed; ‘Ours is just as bad’.

Don’t get too lefty (sensitive) on me Jim. ;)
 
On this I say you’re in fantasyland. The US has not ‘wiped them (Isis) out’, if anything they’ve supported them in Syria. Russia has been fighting Isis in Syria, not the US. Who do you think the ‘moderate rebels’ are? One minute Trump says he’s withdrawing troops from Syria, but where is the evidence for that actually happening? It isn’t.

Where do you get your info on this from Jim?

I really don’t think that Trump has much input with what the military really gets up to, the CIA even less so.

You can’t be a friend of Israel if you really want peace.


Why do you persist in making personal attacks against me? You ought to be more sensitive.

I agree the CIA is out of control.

Trump tells the military what he wants done but he lets them determine how to accomplish it - rather than letting political consideration put US lives at risk.

I never said anything about moderate rebels.

Russia has been defending the bloody dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and has been attacking both ISIS, anti-ISIS, and US forces when they threaten that regime.

This article (below) cites the Defense Department, under Trump the number of ISIS fighters decreased from 35,000 to 1000.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/heres-how-much-ground-isis-has-lost-since-trump-took-over

December 23, 2017
isis.JPG
 
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Why do you persist in making personal attacks against me? You ought to be more sensitive.

Hopefully you’re either joking, or keep misunderstanding me when I use the word ‘you’ as meaning something not personal. What do you suggest I use that’s better? If it’s neither of these things, then I wonder at your support of an insensitive man like Trump your own sensitivity. That would be contradictory in my opinion.

I never said anything about moderate rebels.

Isis = moderate rebels.
The ones that the west supports.

Russia has been defending the bloody dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad and has been attacking both ISIS, anti-ISIS, and US forces when they threaten that regime.

‘Bloody dictatorship’. You’ve been drinking the MSM cool aid Jim.

I ask again. Where do you get your info on Syria from?
 
I know Trump is not controlled by Israel because everyone tells me:

  1. Trump is a racist.
  2. Trump is Hitler.
  3. Trump is directly responsible for the attack on the synagogue near Pittsburgh.
 
‘Bloody dictatorship’. You’ve been drinking the MSM cool aid Jim.

I ask again. Where do you get your info on Syria from?

Amnesty International ...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/assad-s-many-and-varied-ways-of-killing-his-own-people-1.3039001
The Syrian government has summarily executed 5,000-13,000 people in mass hangings in just one of its many prisons since the start of the six-year-old uprising against Assad, Amnesty International said in a report in February.
 
I know Trump is not controlled by Israel because everyone tells me:

  1. Trump is a racist.
  2. Trump is Hitler.
  3. Trump is directly responsible for the attack on the synagogue near Pittsburgh.

I haven’t said any one of those three things. Why bring this up?
 
I haven’t said any one of those three things. Why bring this up?
I never said you said those things.

I didn't click reply to your post or quote you, so I am not directly replying to you.

I am simply making a remark, for the benefit of anyone who might be interested in reading my posts.
 
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Amnesty International ...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/assad-s-many-and-varied-ways-of-killing-his-own-people-1.3039001
The Syrian government has summarily executed 5,000-13,000 people in mass hangings in just one of its many prisons since the start of the six-year-old uprising against Assad, Amnesty International said in a report in February.

I wouldn’t trust anything Amnesty International says. They are part of the mainstream.

http://theduran.com/amnesty-international-saydnaya-prison-report/

The MSM are totally hopeless nowadays for finding out what’s really happening overseas. While there were literally NO msm reporters on the ground in Syria in places like Aleppo the news channels were in full steam ahead with their anti Assad propaganda. They totally rubbished independent reporters such as Eva Bartlett or Vanessa Beeley. Even previously well respected journalists like Robert Fisk received this treatment.

I know a couple of Syrian people that I respect and trust. They don’t think Assad is half the evil thug that he’s made out to be. After all, the US were in there stirring things all along. The same in all these different countries. I think you underestimate how propagandised the west has become, even in the past few years.

Here’s an interview with Assad.

 
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Don't believe it? Consider this:
  • TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership - Aisa trade deal): withdrawn
  • Paris Accord: withdrawn
  • Iran Deal (which allowed European corporations to trade with the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism): withdrawn.
  • NAFTA: Replaced
  • Taxes: Cut
  • Federal Government:
    • Hiring frozen
    • Regulations: cut
    • Non essential components: shutdown
  • Manufacturing Jobs: Up
  • Pharmaceutical Industry
    • prescription drug prices: down.
    • Right to try: threatens the pharmaceutical industry by giving alternative treatments a chance to be tried.
  • ISIS: Obama's policy allowed them to thrive, Trump wiped them out. Why? Who benefits from War? Multinational arms merchants. Who benefits from peace? You and I, ordinary folks.
  • Immigration:The US accepts over a million legal permanent migrants every year. No other country accepts more. The US also allows many hundreds of thousands of people to become full US citizens every year. However this does not satisfy corporations' need for cheap labor which is why congress and past presidents have conspired to produce the current US immigration law which incentives people to come to the US illegally creating an exploited under class who do not have full rights. This harms the immigrants themselves and the poorest of US citizens who can't find jobs or who's wages are lower as a result. Trump wants to fix US immigration law.

Iran is the "world's largest state sponsor of terrorism"? Really? What about the USA? Israel? Saudi Arabia?

And... Trump has ultimately publicly digraced and morally destroyed himself in my eyes by immediately and ethusiastically approving and supporting yet another imperial regime-change operation, now in Venezuela. Maybe you will say that he did this because the Deep State thugs were pointing a gun at his head in the moment... yet, I suspect, he was rather partying toghether with these very thugs at this moment.

I can say the same about Alex Jones and his followers. Jones has long lost respect in my view, yet I still tolerated him to the extent, despite all his antics, hoping that his apparently anti-authoritarian stance provides us with some small remaining political ground of solidarity despite all our other notable and severe differences. Yet, Jones' willful support for the imperialist USA-initiated regime-change in Venezuela, as well as the new Fascist* ruler of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro - both under pretense that this is a fight against the Evil Commies - has burned the last seeming veneer of anti-authoritarianism. As I see it now, he is eager to accept and praise warfare and dictatorship, as long as it helps to destroy the "Lefites". I hoped that he is sincere in his will to freedom, even if being badly misguided in many of his perspectives and torn apart by barely controllable passions; but, as for now, I perceive him as being so consumed by fanatical beliefs, deep phobias and blind enmity that he is lost to the genuine work of liberation.

*I use the word "Fascist" very cautuiously, being disappointed by the inflation of the term that is common for the modern (Libertarian) Left; for some people with political views relatively close to mine, "fascist" is everyone who is more Right than them. Yet Bolsonaro are one of the few who deserves such description quite fully - unlike, say, Trump.
 
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One of the things Jonathan Haidt has been speaking about and writing about is that the differences between liberals and conservatives are not very large. They both agree that certain things are important and, in fact, these priorities are common to all human cultures world wide. Where liberals and conservatives differ is on which of the priorities are more important.

I would say that the differences between our liberal and conservative politicos have been non-existent, since most believe in something that has gone by several different names over time. I'm thinking Social Darwinism, Capitalism; sometimes Free Trade and Globalism. Certainly no one of them has disputed the basic premises (well, at least until recently).

I agree with Haidt's conclusion, but not his premises. which are an admixture of science and politics that create kind of a political religion.
 
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Well, this thread has already gone political... So it won't hurt if I ask: what everyone here thinks about Tulsi Gabbard, a new 2020 Presidental race candidate? As for now, she seems very sympathetic to me in her Left-leaning anti-imperialism, yet her being part of the mainstream elite circles leaves me a bit cautious. However, the same circles now defame and denigrate her from all sides for her public refusal to support the imperial war agenda, and this is a good sign in my eyes.

So, is she a genuine opposition figure (I hope so)? Or just a fabricated distraction (I hope she is not)?
 
I know Trump is not controlled by Israel because everyone tells me:

  1. Trump is a racist.
  2. Trump is Hitler.
  3. Trump is directly responsible for the attack on the synagogue near Pittsburgh.

Well, some (more than) a bit unhinged SJW-like parts of the Left (whom I considered to be a disgrace) really hope Trump to be all of the above, still this is what they want to believe and thus like to see.

In fact, Trump is worse: he is Business-As-Usual, Deep-State-Friendly, Undrained-Swamp Crocodile.
 
Well, some (more than) a bit unhinged SJW-like parts of the Left (whom I considered to be a disgrace) really hope Trump to be all of the above, still this is what they want to believe and thus like to see.

In fact, Trump is worse: he is Business-As-Usual, Deep-State-Friendly, Undrained-Swamp Crocodile.

Business as usual?

Trump has done the following:
  1. pulled out of NAFTA,
  2. pulled out of TPP negotiations,
  3. pulled out of the Iran deal,
  4. pulled out of the Paris climate accord,
  5. he wants to repeal obamacare,
  6. he shutdown the government because
  7. he wants to build a southern border wall.
  8. he froze government hiring
  9. he told his agency heads to cut regulations
How is that business as usual?
 
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The problem with "following the data wherever if leads" is that these days you can literally search for and choose your own data. A man who wants to beat a dog will always find a stick...
What you say is entirely true and problematic. But if you REALLY try, you can be more objective than most. But it’s really hard, and involves a willingness to be wrong and to change. That’s hard for most. But we should strive for it. And I think that’s what Alex meant.
 
I get your point, and I'm to blame for using the term data so loosely.... then again, I love the catch-phrase

Alex I’ve stolen and actively use two of your catch phrases all the time when discussing these topics with people. Both “The data” and “extended consciousness realms” are very handy terms and have served me well. Thank you lol.
 
This is the bit I really do not understand (sorry for quoting myself).

To expand slightly, if even 1 minute of the podcast discussion about Trump could actually be proved, I'd have thought he would be toast. MSM reporters scoured the globe for sleaze on Trump, and had to make do with a 10-year old recording of him describing his (rather impractical) seduction technique.

Are you sure you are not being had, Alex - can you verify any part of it properly?

David
It's worth adding that it is not clear from the audio clip that Trump is actually describing a "a seduction technique" or even something he has actually done. Taken at face value, he is describing groupie behavior. On that level, he is right, and anyone who knows anything about celebrity groupies could have said the same or worse. I do think it is fair to infer that Trump has experienced groupies given his celebrity status and wealth at the time, so he probably is speaking from experience. Again though, a key phrase in the audio is "let you". In other words, "with permission". The way this tape has been treated by the press is out of proportion to the content. I've read of rock stars talking about groupies and it isn't much different, though their comments tend to contain much more lurid detail.
 
Thanks Michael. A key focus of my philosophical research this month has revolved around this issue of the objectivity of evil. As an ignostic, I disavow that definitions exist which can be introduced into science, for the terms 'God', 'spiritual', 'good', 'heaven', etc. Science (and therefore epistemological knowledge) require Wittgenstein definitions before any claim to follow the 'research', 'evidence' or 'logic' can be made. So, any assertion that 'There is a God' or 'There is no such thing as God(s)' constitute ridiculous implicit boasts as to knowing the definition of the word to begin with. They are no different from claiming 'I am God' in terms of the praedicate calculus employed. My purpose in broaching this is not to prima facia address that worn out conflict between Theists and Atheist itself, rather to demonstrate the criticality of understanding the role of logical object (objective) versus non-object (subjective) constructs.

Evil is an object, however Good cannot be one. Evil can be placed into a Popper sentence. Good can only be addressed as a construct and not a logical object.

Two rationale underpin my thoughts on this - and the first one relates to your excellent point:

1. Evil embodies an intent and a set of consequences called 'scienter'. Scienter is a legal definition which stipulates that 'the entity which caused harm, did not do so by accident, nor though a reaction to an unexpected condition - rather entered into a set of cause and effect knowing in advance that it would likely serve to result in harm, as the primary goal or outcome of the action.'​
1a. A second legal term stemming from this principle of evil as an object is called 'fraud'. Fraud is also a legal definition which stipulates that 'harm was disguised under a pretext or structure of harmlessness or benefit.'​
Fraud with Scienter in most states, will result in more than a doubling of the damage awards in a civil tort. In murder, it is the difference between First and Second Degree Murders. For this reason - we as a society have chosen to establish evil as a logical and legal object.​
Enacting harm is not evil. A shark is not evil. The cosmos is not evil. Evil is knowing in advance that harm is your primary objective, with no counterbalancing consideration, and concealing such intent from its intended victims inside a presentation of neutrality, acceptableness or propriety - or allowing such events to transpire and inure to your benefit.​
3. Good therefore, in contrast, once it is forced to be made objective (such as a large church, or the fake skeptic movement, might serve to precipitate) - is forced therefore from subject and into logical object; i.e. it is forced to bear a definition. Once that definition is socially adopted, regardless of whether or not it is Wittgenstein sufficient for knowledge development or not - Evil then can appropriate its objective methods or appearances - and masquerade as good, to conceal its fraud and scienter.​
Hence the oft heard quote I have loved, to whom I cannot find an authoritative ascription (perhaps someone knows this):

"Give unto a good man, all the tools he needs to fight evil, and you will soon find that evil has switched sides."

The question is therefore begged: 'Possibly this is why the other side appears to be prohibited from intervening on our behalf, while evil entities in contrast, run slipshod intervening into to our realm, with parlor tricks, influences, lies and threats?'

TES
:)
I get your point, but just for fun let me play around with the other side of this. God, good, evil are no more undefinable then a lot of the other stuff science has meandered into. we measure pain. we measure depression. we measure happiness. of course, we don't measure them very well, and some would say the science we generate is junk science, but we measure them none the less.

And I'd go one step further and suggest that the greatest contribution materialistic science has made is to point out that we can't really measure anything without factoring in Consciousness / spirituality. maybe it's not that we can't measure God, but that we can't measure anything without God :)
 
‘Following the facts’ has led us to totally different conclusions.

This is always interesting to me. Almost all of my friends disagree with me on a number of issues. I don't care and I get along with them anyway. My impression is that they believe the things they believe for honest reasons, as I hope is the case with me. We have, however, come to opposite conclusions on some things. Psi is one of those, politics is another.

With politics, I am just now beginning to see Republicans and Democrats as more similar than I ever expected. This is largely thanks to Trump, who has shown conclusively that Democrat and Republican politicians will reverse their positions for political expediency, meaning that few among them can be described as representative of their respective political platforms. As far as the way the respective sides view each other, I am fascinated by the way Democrats believe Republicans are Republican because they are the demonized form of a Republican that they imagine. In the same way, Republicans view Democrats as being Democrats because they are the most radical demonized form of a Democrat.

In practice, this can be simply represented by the statement "Republicans think of all Democrats as criminals and Democrats think of all Republicans as racists." The attributes either party associates with the other are, at least in my experience, very hard to find among real people of either party. I know Republicans that I would never describe as racist (including Trump, by the way), and Democrats that cannot be credibly associated with criminal behavior. There are individuals that can be described either way, but they come from both parties. Even walking back from those positions a little, such as thinking perhaps that Democrats support criminal behavior in their zeal for equal opportunities for everyone (including criminals), or that Republicans support a platform that, unbeknownst to them, is disadvantageous to specific ethnic groups, I don't see that either. I do see people claiming these things all day long, but very little in the way of supportive evidence. The so-called "evidence" provided is often so many steps removed from the claim that it is worthless.

An example of this is the statement, "Trump is a racist because he wants a wall." Since when does the desire to protect a border with a wall constitute racism? Never mind that Democrats asked for one a few years ago, the argument is too far removed from the claim. A wall with points of entry designed to funnel people through a vetting process is not inherently discriminatory. The vetting process is discriminatory, but not necessarily by race. The goal of vetting migrants is to discriminate based on danger of oppression in their home country, ability to work, lack of a criminal record, infected with a contagious disease, and so on. When I hear the racist wall statement, it immediately rings false to me because the purpose is not to bar entry to the US by people of a certain race, but to bar entry at any location that cannot vet the people who attempt to enter. It does discriminate between those who try to enter at a legal point of entry and those who try to enter anywhere else, but as we know, those people come from a variety of countries and races. Therefore, the wall itself isn't racist. One could argue that most of the people trying to cross the southern border are Hispanic but if the aim was to prevent entry to people with a Hispanic background, then they would also be denied access at the legal point of entry, and that isn't happening unless they also fail one of the other tests.

I have a friend who is just about my opposite when it comes to politics and every other belief I have. I do not think of him as a bad person, nor do I think he supports his positions because he is evil, retarded, or in any way embodies the worst attributes of his political party. From my point of view, he does his best to be reasonable and fair with his political opponents, though I think almost everything he says on those subjects is wrong. Bottom line is that we can be honest, good people, regardless how we interpret the data we have been exposed to--even if we are wrong. It is a pity that this view isn't more widespread, it might calm down a political landscape that is too prone to melodrama. In what job interview situation outside of politics do you have the two candidates accuse each other of awful crimes? "Vote for me because my opponent is a rapist and pedophile!", "My opponent is lying! He's a Russian spy!" I have hired a number of people in my career and can say this: if I had two candidates going at each other like that, I wouldn't hire either one. It would be too much trouble to sort out. In real life though, how many Russian spies, rapists, pedophiles, and bribe-takers do we know? I don't know any but if we are to believe our politicians, every single candidate comes from one of those, or similar, categories. And that, I do not believe.
 
Alex I’ve stolen and actively use two of your catch phrases all the time when discussing these topics with people. Both “The data” and “extended consciousness realms” are very handy terms and have served me well. Thank you lol.
hey, I hereby give you full license :-) I only wish I could remember who I should credit for them :-)
 
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