[evilgenius]

So Trump's son says, about immigration (specifically Syrian refugees), that if you had a bowl of Skittles and only 3 of them would poison you, would you eat from the bowl? Obviously, he was trying to say something that he knew would appeal to his dad's supporters, and he phrased it in a manner that would lead the question. In the aftermath, predictably or not, the left has been all about how brown skinned people are not Skittles and how much that is an insult.

What? In the first place, I'm kind of a lefty, and I am very upset with that response. Trump's son didn't make that comparison, not really.

They have managed to confuse the messenger with the message. A much better response to what Trump's son said might have been to compare it to automobile travel. It is perhaps the most dangerous thing anyone can do on an everyday basis. The death toll from the activity is pretty high compared to most other things people do. Still, knowing this, would you get behind the wheel? Immigrants probably pose even less danger than automobiles do to people's lives. The bad Skittles, if you will, on their best day, which took years of planning to pull off - and an untold amount of luck, only managed to kill about 3,000 people. If automobiles kill 40,000 people a year, then they average just under 110 a day. It doesn't even take them an average month to match the bad Skittle's most hard fought for total, which isn't likely ever to be matched given the overwhelming money and effort spent to counter them. And the carnage with cars is continual. It doesn't stop. Nobody is advocating for everyone to stop driving right now. Is it ridiculous to get behind the wheel?

I think the left suffers from a paucity of talent. They would much rather resort to the easy knee jerk response than to refute terrible people with actual answers that shut them down. The way I see it the US is laced with a certain poison, in the form of conspiracy theories which have sought, largely, to explain in primitive terms why people are less well off now than either they think they should expect to be or that they used to be. The basis of these theories is largely nonsense, but carefully mixed in with just enough truth to hit a few nails now and again. They've been around a long time, and have been successively built upon with each passing generation. In that way they seem enough a part of normal conversation as taxes or baseball. And, like taxes or baseball, most people are not experts and feel unequipped to deal with the balance of the issues pertaining to the structure of the necessary arguments. Most people watch it and accept whatever the outcome is. They rank it with candy, in the way that the left wants to be so angry over 'Skittles' most likely, until they are sitting around one day and everyone in a group is suddenly parroting the same things. But it is not candy.

[ennui2]

the US is laced with a certain poison, in the form of conspiracy theories which have sought, largely, to explain in primitive terms why people are less well off now than either they think they should expect to be or that they used to be. The basis of these theories is largely nonsense, but carefully mixed in with just enough truth to hit a few nails now and again.

And you see a lot of that reflected in what people contribute in this forum itself.

[Newfie]

The Left is just as biggoted and hostile as the right.

Now if it was a bowl of deplorables it would all have been PC.

[Subjectivist]

The Left is just as biggoted and hostile as the right.

Now if it was a bowl of deplorables it would all have been PC.

[Tanada]

The Skittle/Bowl Of Candy analogy has been bandied about for several years now, but suddenly pressure groups take notice?

Major disconnect between the 'opinion leaders' and the general public.
Or maybe panic stricken throw everything at the wall hoping something sticks to the Teflon candidate?

[Satori]

or they could be "skeezes" instead of deplorables ?

Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway called his supporters: "downright nasty" & "skeeze"

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/10 ... sty-skeeze

[ennui2]

The Left is just as biggoted and hostile as the right.

it's bigotry, not biggotry, and no, the left is not as bigoted as the right, although it IS overly PC. PC != bigotry.

[Newfie]

You get a GOLD STAR for pedantry.

An extra + for using it to divert attention when you have no point.

[ennui2]

You get a GOLD STAR for pedantry.

An extra + for using it to divert attention when you have no point.

You started it by just making a matter-of-fact accusation. Back it up first.

"This label is [fill in the blanks]."

OK, that's useful. Neeext.

[Plantagenet]

Just to make it more complicated, you can't tell in advance which skittles are poisoned.

Its more like the official government food inspectors have told you that all the skittles are OK, but then after you buy the bag at the store and take them into your house a few of the skittles read about radical Islam on the internet and turn into crazed religious fanatic skittles out to kill you and the other the unbelievers in your house.

The skittles all look good at the store---its not until you get them home that some start yelling "Allah Akbar".


Which skittle will turn into a radical islamic terrorist skittle?

[ennui2]

Where are the precogs when we need them the most?



I guess the big-data collection and crunching that people keep whining about will have to suffice.

[Plantagenet]

Where are the precogs when we need them the most?

They are sci-fi fantasies from Hollywood. They are purely fictional. They don't exist.

And Big Data isn't doing such a great job of stopping the terrorists. The NY bomber's dad told the FBI his son was a terrorist, but BIG Data said he wasn't so they didn't monitor him. Its eerily similar to the mistakes made earlier about the Orlando Killer and the Bakersfield killer and the Boston bombers and even the 911 attackers 15 years ago.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, lots of real people are getting killed in Islamic terrorist attack after Islamic terrorist attack in the EU and the USA and the middle east and Asia and Africa.

[ennui2]

They are purely fictional. They don't exist.

Yeah, just like those republicans who give a crap about AGW you think exist.

[ROCKMAN]

"...and only 3 of them would poison you, would you eat from the bowl'". Lots of discussion about a "logical" argument that doesn't EVER WORK. Doesn't matter left, right or middle of the road: who ever uses it will see the same "logic" slapped against their head like a brick. One easy example: a 2nd amendment living conservative using that anti-anything could be asked: if X number of legal gun owners out of Y number of legal gun owners murder someone with a gun you woudn't support legal gun ownershhip, would you?

Doesn't matter what the circumstances there will always be relatively rare negative outcomes. What do they say: the perfect is the enemy of the acceptable. Or something like that.

[Ibon]

Irony folks...... Evil genius opens a thread with a very good analysis as to how the political debate has to be dumbed down to a very low common denominator. And the following posts after his opening post seem to mirror exactly that!

I may be following Pops soon.......there isn't much really that merits hanging around here anymore.

[Hawkcreek]

It looked to me that EG did what everyone does....gave his argument about a political comment, and made fun of anyone that might disagree with him. Everyone is stupid that thinks Skittles are equivalent to Muslims. The important questions were not asked.
I remember a few years ago when someone poisoned some Tylenols in stores. Those were only a few pills that were poisoned, but they still took all of them off the market and destroyed them. Not skittles, but the skittle analogy still may give a bit of the view of what the average person thinks, or may want to see.
Sure Skittles aren't Muslims, but we use analogy all the time to help us model points that have nothing to do with one another.
What the whole thing comes down to is our views on allegiance to, and control of, territory and tribe. Should we support borders all all? Should we cheerfully allow those who avow that they hate our way of life to enter our borders?
Life in the ME has been about killing one another over religion for thousands of years. I grew up in a place that might ostracize you if you were a Methodist (Southern Baptist town), but you didn't have to worry about being be-headed if you used a different hymnbook. I like our way better, even though I think all religion is crap to keep the masses more under control.
So maybe we should forget about making the argument about the skittles. Just state your position on the importance of maintaining territory and tribe. Just how inclusive should we be?
As we get further along the Long Descent, how hard should we struggle to get, or keep, that extra share of resources that may allow our tribe to survive?

[SeaGypsy]

Since it is a fact that Jihad against the west has become a standard article of faith in Islam, it seems only reasonable to take precautions. To ask Moslem entrants to sign a document & make a testimony rejecting Jihad against the host society seems justifiable. I also think any relidious institution which can be proven to be preaching violence against other religions or seculars should be forced to close.

[regardingpo]

Plantagenet is nothing like Hitler.

OH MY GOD I COMPARED PLANTAGENET TO HITLER!!!

By the way, this whole Skittles thing started after Obama said he'll admit more refugees (or someone from his administration, whatever). They should've waited until after the election.

[ennui2]

It can't just be about borders because we've got too much homegrown terror as it is. It's about, like I said with the precog reference, trying to predict and prevent crime before it happens. Everyone has freewill. That means everyone's capable of going on a murderous rampage. The odds of any of us doing that are low, but it's possible. Every single skittle has that capability because it's a universal human trait.

[Tanada]

It can't just be about borders because we've got too much homegrown terror as it is. It's about, like I said with the precog reference, trying to predict and prevent crime before it happens. Everyone has freewill. That means everyone's capable of going on a murderous rampage. The odds of any of us doing that are low, but it's possible. Every single skittle has that capability because it's a universal human trait.

True as far as that goes, but people who deliberately attend events that call for violence against others is kind of a warning sign is it not? I have been to a variety of religious services from different faiths over the years, particularly funerals and weddings, but also by invitation of friends. None of the ones I have attended urged the congregants to do violence, and if they had I would have been very concerned for my friends who attended such regularly. There are whack job preachers at least of the Christian and Muslim faiths, that do preach violence, or so we are told by the MSM. Where is the line between free speech and inciting others to commit criminal acts of violence drawn? If you stand on a street corner and excoriate a crowd or mob to do these things you are subject to arrest and fines/prison time if people listening to you behave the way you urge them too act. Why are people in religious settings allowed to make the same kind of violent 'suggestions' and then be held blameless if some unbalanced person takes them seriously and does harm to others? I am not talking about secret societies where things are said in private behind closed doors, I am talking about public venues where a leader urges criminal activity. It seems incredibly easy for law enforcement to blend in with a crowd in a public event and record what type of sermon is being disseminated.

In point of fact I have heard recordings of Louis Farrakan saying things that would get me arrested if I were urging a mob to do them. Yet somehow because he is a 'religious leader' it is viewed as perfectly acceptable behavior. The same is true for those white robed KKK types who preach violence against African-Americans, Catholics and Jewish people. Nearly all the time they are able to say whatever they want under color of religion and claim to be exempt from the consequences. I am not talking about civil disobedience, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi advocated. Is not advocating violence the same as shouting Fire in a crowded theater?