[Politics] Trump and Concentration Camps

[tstorm823]

So you're saying that someone doing these things is acting like Hitler?

Yes.

Save yourself the trouble of saying "Trump is just like that." It doesn't move the argument.

 

[Kwak]

The CoC here says bigotry is against the rules, but I am more likely to be punished for pointing out bigotry than bigotry is punished. I do not think the rules here are fairly followed. That defending concentration camps and child torture is more acceptable than being mad at bigotry is absurd.

But they do it POLITELY, so they win.

 

[Saelune]

So you're saying that someone doing these things is acting like Hitler?

Yes.

Save yourself the trouble of saying "Trump is just like that." It doesn't move the argument.

It does though.

 

[Saelune]

The CoC here says bigotry is against the rules, but I am more likely to be punished for pointing out bigotry than bigotry is punished. I do not think the rules here are fairly followed. That defending concentration camps and child torture is more acceptable than being mad at bigotry is absurd.

But they do it POLITELY, so they win.

According to the mod messages I have received, yes, it is literally this.

 

[tstorm823]

So you're saying that someone doing these things is acting like Hitler?

Yes.

Save yourself the trouble of saying "Trump is just like that." It doesn't move the argument.

It does though.

Nah, it just puts us right back where we started: a vague commonality between Trump and Hitler that doesn't make Trump Hitler but you'll keep acting like it does.

Trump and Hitler both used propaganda, so Trump is Hitler is basically the same bad argument as detention centers and concentration camps both hold people so detention centers are concentration camps.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Only learned of this last night, but relevant.

Oh, you have got to be shitting me.

So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA - the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?

So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.

But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you wanna hear. We lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of the hour, he's gonna win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear.
We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness. You maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing. We are the illusion. So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Last night I got up here and asked you people to stand up and fight for your heritage, and you did, and it was beautiful. Six million telegrams were received at the White House. The Arab takeover of CCA has been stopped. The people spoke, the people won. It was a radiant eruption of democracy. But I think that was it, fellas. That sort of thing is not likely to happen again. Because at the bottom of all our terrified souls, we know that democracy is a dying giant, a sick, sick dying, decaying political concept, writhing in its final pain. I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power. The United States is the richest, the most powerful, the most advanced country in the world, light-years ahead of any other country. And I don't mean the Communists are gonna take over the world, because the Communists are deader than we are.

What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some two hundred odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods.

Well, the time has come to say is 'dehumanization' such a bad word?' Whether it's good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world, not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things.

[NARRATOR: It was a perfectly admissible argument that Howard Beale advanced in the days that followed. It was, however, also a very depressing one. Nobody particularly cared to hear his life was utterly valueless. By the end of the first week in June, "The Howard Beale Show" had dropped one point in the ratings and its trend of shares dipped under 48% for the first time since last November.]

The movie begins with a news anchor about to be fired because of low ratings. He snaps and speaks truth to power, causing his ratings to skyrocket, which his networks exploit by turning it into a circus sideshow. Meanwhile, the network takes one thing said anchor quipped about while drunkenly ranting -- a "terrorist of the week" television show -- and runs with it.

When the anchor learns his network is about to be purchased by a Saudi-owned multi-national (the Saudis having caused the very economic depression about which Beale initially ranted), he launches upon a tirade and motivates his audience to speak out against it, and they do. The network's chairman of the board meets with the anchor, and browbeats him into turning his show into sanitized corporate propaganda. Because the anchor no longer speaks truth to power, his ratings fall through the basement, and the movie ends with the anchor being assassinated live on air by the terrorist group with their own show, as their second season premiere.

Do try to know what you're talking about in the future.

EDIT: In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and swing for the fucking parking lot on this one. Almost eight years ago to this day, an MSNBC anchor by the name of Dylan Ratigan had this to say, actually invoking this very movie during his rant:


It's what got his show canned, by the way. By MSNBC. You know, the "liberal/progressive" cable news channel?

 

[Saelune]

Trump and Hitler both used propaganda, so Trump is Hitler is basically the same bad argument as detention centers and concentration camps both hold people so detention centers are concentration camps.

Yes, Trump doing the things Hitler did does make Trump comparable to Hitler. Just because that bothers you, doesn't change the truth of it.

 

[generals3]

Trump and Hitler both used propaganda, so Trump is Hitler is basically the same bad argument as detention centers and concentration camps both hold people so detention centers are concentration camps.

Yes, Trump doing the things Hitler did does make Trump comparable to Hitler. Just because that bothers you, doesn't change the truth of it.

Trump is not like Hitler for plenty of reasons. One very important would be that Trump is a pragmatist with no ideological drive whatsoever while Hitler was driven mainly by Ideology. This can be easily seen by how quickly Trump can drastically change his stance on issues.
Everything he does is solely to serve his own personal interests. Hitler however was willing to go as far as driving himself to suicide to accomplish his dream of a pure "Third Reich". We could also point to the fact that while Trump uses racial issues to distract people from his economic policies Hitler did exactly the opposite. He didn't care about the economy and providing people with food and shelter was just meant to keep them happy while he would exterminate millions and lead the nation into numerous wars. Meanwhile Trump is pushing the US ever more to an economic nightmare for the poor and uses immigration and racist comments to deflect the discussion and keep the same poor people he's economically screwing distracted. Comparing Trump to a Nazi is playing right into his hands, it's easy to deny and ridicule and it keeps people's attention from away what he really tries to accomplish. (making the US an even greater paradise for the rich and hell for the poor)

Additionally these "concentration camps", while immoral, are more like the camps used to detain Japenese people during WW2 or "Boers" during the south african wars than the extermination camps used by Nazis. They're even closer to the Soviet camps. These concentration camps are more "Communist", "Colonial British" or "American" than "Nazi". The day these camps are used to exterminate than they will be typically "Nazi".

 

[tstorm823]

Yes, Trump doing the things Hitler did does make Trump comparable to Hitler. Just because that bothers you, doesn't change the truth of it.

It doesn't make me uncomfortable, it makes you uncomfortable. Trump and Hitler have both ate, drank, breathed, slept, and bathed too. Is that a true comparison? Sure. Does in mean Trump is primed to slaughter millions of people? Absolutely not. Most people who've used propaganda aren't Hitler. Most people who've detained people aren't Hitler. You can't find a couple points of comparison and make an equivocation, by everything in this paragraph, Trump is just as much Lincoln as he is Hitler. You have to care about why things are done and what the result is. The result of Donald Trump isn't the holocaust. It's not going to be.

And like, maybe I could concede the possibility that Donald Trump has bad intentions, though I think you're wrong to take that as a foregone conclusion. But even assuming that, you're going way too far and passing your assumptions about Trump's intentions along to multiple government agencies intended solely to care for and protect people, including migrants. Organizations that rescue people in the desert and bring them to safety, that combat human trafficking, that provide food/shelter/medical screening to asylum seekers. That you think "well, they've got people detained, and so did the Nazis. And I don't like Donald Trump, therefore concentration camps!" is completely unreasonable.

 

[Something Amyss]

When I last posted, people were justifying the physical and sexual abuse of children because they were "ill;egals" (Which not all of them are, but that's still not the part that horrifies me).

Perusing a couple of pages, it looks like little has changed.

 

[tstorm823]

When I last posted, people were justifying the physical and sexual abuse of children because they were "ill;egals" (Which not all of them are, but that's still not the part that horrifies me).

Perusing a couple of pages, it looks like little has changed.

Why bother making this post? People can read this thread and know that what you're saying isn't true. Nobody has justified any type of abuse in this thread.

 

[Saelune]

Trump and Hitler both used propaganda, so Trump is Hitler is basically the same bad argument as detention centers and concentration camps both hold people so detention centers are concentration camps.

Yes, Trump doing the things Hitler did does make Trump comparable to Hitler. Just because that bothers you, doesn't change the truth of it.

Trump is not like Hitler for plenty of reasons. One very important would be that Trump is a pragmatist with no ideological drive whatsoever while Hitler was driven mainly by Ideology. This can be easily seen by how quickly Trump can drastically change his stance on issues.
Everything he does is solely to serve his own personal interests. Hitler however was willing to go as far as driving himself to suicide to accomplish his dream of a pure "Third Reich". We could also point to the fact that while Trump uses racial issues to distract people from his economic policies Hitler did exactly the opposite. He didn't care about the economy and providing people with food and shelter was just meant to keep them happy while he would exterminate millions and lead the nation into numerous wars. Meanwhile Trump is pushing the US ever more to an economic nightmare for the poor and uses immigration and racist comments to deflect the discussion and keep the same poor people he's economically screwing distracted. Comparing Trump to a Nazi is playing right into his hands, it's easy to deny and ridicule and it keeps people's attention from away what he really tries to accomplish. (making the US an even greater paradise for the rich and hell for the poor)

Additionally these "concentration camps", while immoral, are more like the camps used to detain Japenese people during WW2 or "Boers" during the south african wars than the extermination camps used by Nazis. They're even closer to the Soviet camps. These concentration camps are more "Communist", "Colonial British" or "American" than "Nazi". The day these camps are used to exterminate than they will be typically "Nazi".

'Trump is not like Hitler cause Hitler had a mustache'


All of those concentration camps are immoral and indefensible. Your bar for acceptable evils is too low. This is seriously one of the worst defenses of Trump and concentration camps I have seen yet.

 

[Saelune]

When I last posted, people were justifying the physical and sexual abuse of children because they were "ill;egals" (Which not all of them are, but that's still not the part that horrifies me).

Perusing a couple of pages, it looks like little has changed.

Why bother making this post? People can read this thread and know that what you're saying isn't true. Nobody has justified any type of abuse in this thread.

That is just blatantly not true.

 

[tstorm823]

Why bother making this post? People can read this thread and know that what you're saying isn't true. Nobody has justified any type of abuse in this thread.

That is just blatantly not true.

Nobody has had any problem condemning the actual instances of abuse that have occurred.
The things that have been defended aren't abuse. You're just insisting that detention centers exist to torture immigrants, and you're wrong.

 

[generals3]

'Trump is not like Hitler cause Hitler had a mustache'

Now that's arguing in bad faith: drawing a parallel between arguments based on personality, agenda and drive with an argument based on differences of physical appearance...

All of those concentration camps are immoral and indefensible. Your bar for acceptable evils is too low. This is seriously one of the worst defenses of Trump and concentration camps I have seen yet.

"Immoral" is exactly what I called them. It's not because I want to stop this constant revisionist Nazification of Trump related discussions that I'm defending these internment camps. Pointing out something is not "Nazi" =/= defending something. By continuously equating the mere denial that something is nazi with the moral acceptance of that "something" you're the one who's setting a very very low bar of what is moral and what is not.

PS: off course my so called "defense" was the worst one ever. Because it wasn't a defense. I was pointing towards the shittiness of both Trump and the internment camps while arguing against your blatant revisionism.

 

[Saelune]

This is where we are now. People literally defending concentration camps and torture and claiming it is not bad.

I am sure people who thought segregation was good felt there was nothing wrong with it either.

 

[Saelune]

Why bother making this post? People can read this thread and know that what you're saying isn't true. Nobody has justified any type of abuse in this thread.

That is just blatantly not true.

Nobody has had any problem condemning the actual instances of abuse that have occurred.
The things that have been defended aren't abuse. You're just insisting that detention centers exist to torture immigrants, and you're wrong.

The things that have been defended ARE abuse and it is insane that anyone could claim otherwise.

Detention Centers = Conentration Camps. Just like Wife beater and Spouse Abuser are the same thing, just like Tyrant and Despot are the same thing.

You're insisting that torturing immigrants is ok and you're wrong.

 

[Saelune]

'Trump is not like Hitler cause Hitler had a mustache'

Now that's arguing in bad faith: drawing a parallel between arguments based on personality, agenda and drive with an argument based on differences of physical appearance...

All of those concentration camps are immoral and indefensible. Your bar for acceptable evils is too low. This is seriously one of the worst defenses of Trump and concentration camps I have seen yet.

"Immoral" is exactly what I called them. It's not because I want to stop this constant revisionist Nazification of Trump related discussions that I'm defending these internment camps. Pointing out something is not "Nazi" =/= defending something. By continuously equating the mere denial that something is nazi with the moral acceptance of that "something" you're the one who's setting a very very low bar of what is moral and what is not.

PS: off course my so called "defense" was the worst one ever. Because it wasn't a defense. I was pointing towards the shittiness of both Trump and the internment camps while arguing against your blatant revisionism.

Abusing entire populations is doing what Hitler is doing. Poor, Jews, Blacks, Gays, Women, doesn't matter. Different flavors of Hitler are still Hitler.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Why bother making this post? People can read this thread and know that what you're saying isn't true. Nobody has justified any type of abuse in this thread.

That is just blatantly not true.

Nobody has had any problem condemning the actual instances of abuse that have occurred.
The things that have been defended aren't abuse. You're just insisting that detention centers exist to torture immigrants, and you're wrong.

I guess it depends on what you mean by torture, and which immigrants the camps are meant for.
Trump and ilk are already on record saying the camps are meant to deter more immigrants. Meaning from a certain point of view the camps aren't necessarily meant to inflict torture as much as look so horrifically bad from the outside that other immigrants in other nations won't risk going to the US for fear of being interred.
but they are not literally torture camps, ie the dungeon of every Fantasy villain with pain racks, torture wheels, iron maidens and torture masters with knives and bone breakers. They're just horrifically run and overcrowded camps meant to be so bad you'd rather stay in Bolivia than risk Texas.

 

[tstorm823]

I guess it depends on what you mean by torture, and which immigrants the camps are meant for.
Trump and ilk are already on record saying the camps are meant to deter more immigrants. Meaning from a certain point of view the camps aren't necessarily meant to inflict torture as much as look so horrifically bad from the outside that other immigrants in other nations won't risk going to the US for fear of being interred.
but they are not literally torture camps, ie the dungeon of every Fantasy villain with pain racks, torture wheels, iron maidens and torture masters with knives and bone breakers. They're just horrifically run and overcrowded camps meant to be so bad you'd rather stay in Bolivia than risk Texas.

By torture, I mean deliberately inflicting pain on people. Sure, detaining people is theoretically more of a deterrent than not detaining people (not that evidence suggests this actually pans out in practice, people are increasingly showing up and turning themselves in to CBP in the Trump era, so clearly those people don't think it looks horrific). But there's a grand canyon of middle ground between something being torture and something being less inviting than "welcome to America, be sure to make your court appearance, we're holding you to the honor system."