104 thoughts on “Thread to discuss the 3rd presidential debate

  1. William J. Murray: What difference does it make who “won” a debate if one candidate promotes policies you agree with, and the other promotes policies you disagree with?

    I wonder if WJM is mixing up policies with promises.

  2. William J. Murray: It always strikes me in these kinds of discussion how few people seem to care about policies and platforms. That’s the only reason I vote for any candidate – whether or not I support their proposed policies and platforms.

    No, it isn’t just policies. It is also about trust.

    A candidate has policies that I like. But I don’t trust him — I think he will switch to different policies once elected. Then, no, I won’t vote for that candidate.

  3. Neil Rickert: No, it isn’t just policies.It is also about trust.

    A candidate has policies that I like.But I don’t trust him — I think he will switch to different policies once elected.Then, no, I won’t vote for that candidate.

    I don’t understand the logic of this.

    Let’s say you have 2 viable candidates, one you trust more than you trust the other. Now, if they both have policies you largely agree with, then I can see using the trust commodity to determine whom to vote for.

    However, if one candidate has stated policies you largely disagree with, and the other has policies you largely agree with, I don’t see how “trust” can rationally factor into the decision of whom to vote for. If the candidate you trust more has policies you largely disagree with, you don’t vote for them because they are more likely to put in place policies you disagree with. You still have to vote for the candidate that has the policies you largely agree with, even if you trust them less than the other candidate, because you still have a better chance of getting the policies you agree with.

    What’s the point of voting for a trustworthy candidate if they’re going to be implementing policies you largely disagree with?

  4. Alan Fox: I wonder if WJM is mixing up policies with promises.

    What part of “…– whether or not I support their proposed policies and platforms.” … did you not understand, dumbass?

  5. walto:Hahaha. Policies.

    So, voting on perceived personality and media representation is better than voting on proposed policies?

  6. William J. Murray: What part of “…– whether or not I support their proposed policies and platforms.” … did you not understand, dumbass?

    *Chuckles*. C’mon, you’re not that naïve, William. Do you think Trump will deliver on the Mexican-funded wall?

  7. Alan Fox: *Chuckles*. C’mon, you’re not that naïve, William. Do you think Trump will deliver on the Mexican-funded wall?

    *Chuckles*. C’mon, you’re not that stupid, Alan. Wait. Oh yeah. You really are. I forgot, I’ve been away so long.

    What Trump may or may not actually do is entirely irrelevant, because none of us can see the future. What we have to vote on is the information we currently have; IMO, the most important information is what the candidate says they are going to do. As I pointed out in response to Neil, whether or not you trust them to do it is irrelevant given the position of the only other viable candidate.

    If things were different, the trust factor might be more important. If Hillary and Trump’s proposed policies are pretty much a wash as far as those which you think is best for the country, then trust would be a valid concern. For me, the proposed policy disparity is so wide it doesn’t matter if you trust either – you have to go with the proposed polices.

  8. William J. Murray: *Chuckles*. C’mon, you’re not that stupid, Alan. Wait. Oh yeah. You really are. I forgot, I’ve been away so long.

    You seem to be harbouring a bit of a chip on your shoulder, William. Nothing to do with your recent experiments in moderation, is it?

    What Trump may or may not actually do is entirely irrelevant, because none of us can see the future.

    What? Have your mind powers failed? That explains the curmudgeonliness! 🙂

    What we have to vote on is the information we currently have; IMO, the most important information is what the candidate says they are going to do. As I pointed out in response to Neil, whether or not you trust them to do it is irrelevant given the position of the only other viable candidate.

    You and the rest of the US electorate have my sympathy. Having gone through the Brexit débâcle,
    I know how voters can be lied to, manipulated and misinformed.

    If things were different, the trust factor might be more important. If Hillary and Trump’s proposed policies are pretty much a wash as far as those which you think is best for the country, then trust would be a valid concern. For me, the proposed policy disparity is so wide it doesn’t matter if you trust either – you have to go with the proposed polices.

    Promises, not policies. When they’re carried out, they become policies.

  9. William J. Murray: So, voting on perceived personality and media representation is better than voting on proposed policies?

    Generally, neither of them has provided anything like “policies.” Clinton would basically try to keep things (ACA, NATO, life on the planet) together, Trump would muck around trying to get richer and more famous. I guess he’d fuel xenophobic fears and violence and probably make everyone poorer by restraining trade. But maybe he’d do nothing at all.

    There’s nothing either of them really wants to do except become president. One of the two is sane, however, and the other one is nuts. One has some understanding of government, the other has none. One wants to keep the peace, one would like to start a couple of wars. They’re both relatively corrupt, in the sense of having committed more crimes than the average person on the street. But one of them is a dangerous megalomaniac who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

    Presumably you support Trump because he’ll put another dunderhead like Thomas on the SCOTUS. Even if you’re pro-life, that’s a bad reason for voting for a dangerous lunatic who pays no taxes, files fraudulent insurance claims, has a “charitable foundation” that erects statues of himself, and has filed for a half dozen bankruptcies.

    Policies. Give me a fucking break.

  10. William J. Murray: What’s the point of voting for a trustworthy candidate if they’re going to be implementing policies you largely disagree with?

    This completely misses the point.

    If we had a crystal ball or time machine that would allow to look into the future and see what they would actually implement, then voting would be a lot easier.

    We don’t know what any candidate will actually implement. We only know their promises.

  11. Neil Rickert: This completely misses the point.

    If we had a crystal ball or time machine that would allow to look into the future and see what they would actually implement, then voting would be a lot easier.

    We don’t know what any candidate will actually implement.We only know their promises.

    It only “misses the point” if you’re an idiot. That’s exactly what I said, Neil. Jesus.

  12. William J. Murray: You seem to be harboring some resentments towards being moderated, Alan. Anything to do with sneaking in to UD under a disguise and still being recognized and treated as a trolling twit?

    Well, best of luck with getting the policies of your choice implemented. The internal politics of the US are for the elected US government to decide. I’m concerned when foreign policy threatens the rest of the world’s stability. I’m very concerned to think of Donald Trump having any kind of input in US foreign policy decisions. To put it mildly, the guy seems a very loose cannon.

    Re moderation at UD, I think there have been much more interesting developments since Aurelio Smith’s demise. Dembski severing all links with ID; perhaps UD’s last credible contributor, Vincent Torley, being effectively dismissed…

  13. William J. Murray: Actually, they both have, on their websites and (at least for trump) in speeches. But that might actually require some effort on your part to go and find out what they are instead of hoping you’ll be spoonfed such information whenever a media broadcast happens to catch your eye or ear like some paraplegic octogenarian in a nursing home.

    Ugh. Still a bunch of retards at this site.

    I don’t need to go to anybody’s website to see their promises. I’ve seen them all many times before. “I’m going to add 15 million jobs in the first six months I’m in office.” “I will cut taxes on the middle class by $3,000 per average taxpayer.”

    It’s all a bunch of bullshit aimed at rubes like you. Grow up.

  14. Alan Fox: You are in a bad mood, today, William.

    He’s also violated the rules, with his retarded retard remark, no? Looking at posts by that doofus on the main board gives me pain. Move all of his shit to guano. You might also just automatically send any future posts there too. It’s all garbage, and it will save you trouble and everybody else having to breathe in puke smells.

  15. walto,

    Yes. I’m wondering, though whether we shouldn’t be a little indulgent. No real harm done, after all.

  16. I’ll defer to phoodoo on this issue. As he has strong feelings about unequal moderation, he can have my vote.

    But really, being influenced by the propaganda on candidate websites? Jesus. How stupid can you get?

  17. walto: Move all of his shit to guano.

    I’m not going to do that. I suspect the intention is to provoke such a reaction. If you insist, I’ll move any further rule-breaking comments.

  18. Alan Fox:

    Yes. I’m wondering, though whether we shouldn’t be a little indulgent. No real harm done, after all.

    Sorry, just saw this. My indulgence didn’t extend as far as yours.

  19. walto: “I will cut taxes on the middle class by 3,000 dollars per average taxpayer.”

    Obamacare will lower your insurance premiums by 2500 dollars a year. You can keep your doctor.

    Promises, promises.

    Belief is belief, whether in religion or politics. Not a drop of evidence based reasoning in sight.

  20. petrushka: Obamacare will lower your insurance premiums by 2500 dollars a year. You can keep your doctor.

    Promises, promises.

    Belief is belief, whether in religion or politics. Not a drop of evidence based reasoning in sight.

    Exactly. Adults don’t try to decide what candidates are likely to do by looking at their websites.

  21. petrushka: The truth is out there.

    In Trump’s case the Russian intelligence community isn’t necessary to discover it, however.

    Yesterday, I heard a story on NPR’s “Marketplace” about orchard owners and their inability to find any non-migrant workers who will put in more than a couple of days of work–even when they pay several dollars over minimum wage. It’s awful work, and U.S. workers don’t want to do it. (In its awfulness, it’s reminiscent of the “bucking” work that Lenny et al. had to do in Of Mice and Men.) Anyhow, the orchard owners used to get illegals from Mexico to do it, but as border security has been beefed up, all that has been available is a program that requires them to pay about $1500 per worker for their transportation and visas and to house them–as well as pay their wages. Many of them can’t afford that and will go out of business–at least until robot-tractors are marketable that will automate the picking process. That’s expected to happen around four or five years from now. In the meantime, orchards will go out of business and apples will get more expensive. That, obviously, is bad for everyone–the workers who want the work, the people (especially poor ones) who want apples to eat, and the orchard owners who don’t want to lose their investments.

    But Hillary’s dream of the free movement of labor and open borders is something she has to lie about mentioning in a speech. Why? Because trade is bad according to Trump and Sanders, and so it must also be bad according to Clinton. How often has Trump now said that NAFTA was the worst agreement every signed by anybody in the world? Somebody should have stopped him from using the illegally dumped, Chinese steel he used for his hotels. As they didn’t, ha ha on the world, because trade was good for him and bad for them. But, you know what? It was good for the Chinese workers and the people who want to stay in the hotels too.

    People want the sort of manufacturing jobs their parents had in the 50s and 60s, and if we close our borders (and our eyes) and open the wallets of the poorest among us we can have another generation of factory workers subsidized in that regressive fashion. It’s an absurd dream fostered by labor.

    The only real solution to the problem of cheap foreign labor and automation of jobs is to be found in distribution. (My preferred one is through a geoist tax on economic rent–but that’s irrelevant.) The point is that America is now such that you have to promise fantastical walls against foreign hordes to be a viable candidate. Everyone must now be anti-trade. Or, I guess, Libertarian and completely fine with the idea of 1% of the population owning 99.9% of the earth.

  22. walto,

    Well, I certainly don’t think that just because a candidate says they are going to do something, that one should assume it is true-particularly if they display an inordinate tendency to lie about any thing they think they can. So I disagree with William about this.

    If we read what others who have known Trump over the years says, the universal themes are that he is vengeful, thin skinned, lacking any real sense of humor or humility, spiteful and dishonest. This doesn’t just come from one or two sources, it comes from many many sources, formal colleagues, his biographer, his tax accountant, celebrities who have known him, business men, shows he has appeared on…the stories about what a terrible human being he is are pretty endless.

    So why in the world should we believe something that he says that he believes will help get him elected.

    If one believed that ultimately he is going to try to do what is best for the country, that is one thing. But why in the world would anyone believe that, as opposed to him doing what is best for him-which is his entire history on this planet?

  23. Phoodoo, what I was wondering about was what you thought about the moderation choices on this thread.

  24. As one-percenters are wont to say, without illegals, where would be our children’s nannys, and who would wait on tables? (Actual paraphrase)

    I find that so uplifting. I think I’ll break out into song.

    Perhaps we could fund a revolution against the corrupt Mexican government. That would supply us with an influx of legal refugees. Problem solved.

    Worked in Syria.

  25. walto,

    I didn’t see which posts were moved, so I guess I don’t really know.

    But let me guess, some posts by theists were moved, and none by atheists?

    Just a hunch.

  26. Is this an election news thread? The FBI is reopening the email case based on new evidence.

  27. You know, I’m old enough to remember when it was shocking to hear a candidate for president say “I am not a crook.” It was laughable, the sort of thing that could lose an election for you. I remember thinking at my TV, “Hah. OK, well then, I guess we should vote for you. I mean, you’re not in jail!” But in this fucking election, both candidates have to say this again and again and again. And when they do, their backers cheer.

    The other day, my daughter had, as a homework assignment, to listen to an Obama speech called (something like) “The New Nationalism” on youtube. I don’t know the date or the venue and only heard about ten minutes of it myself. It was about the importance of continuing Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy of progressivism. Made the case for a connection between regulation of the economy and American democracy. It was passionate and well-argued. Beautiful.

    Hillary Clinton will never make a speech like that. In fact, she won’t do a fucking thing except (hopefully) prevent some dangerous megalomaniacal asshole from becoming president and show that a female can gain the U.S. Presidency, even if over half the electorate has no use for her at all.

    I hate this election so much.

  28. walto: In fact, she won’t do a fucking thing except (hopefully) prevent some dangerous megalomaniacal asshole from becoming president and show that a female can gain the U.S. Presidency, even if over half the electorate has no use for her at all.

    I hate this election so much.

    Agreed.

    The Republicans spent eight years learning that they can simply refuse to govern without paying any political price. They can simply thwart every single proposal or policy that her administration comes up with. In the end she’ll have to govern by executive orders and the GOP will cry “tyranny!” And in four years we’ll have to do the same thing all over again. Maybe the Republicans can get Howard Stern to run.

  29. walto: In fact, she won’t do a fucking thing except (hopefully) prevent some dangerous megalomaniacal asshole from becoming president and show that a female can gain the U.S. Presidency, even if over half the electorate has no use for her at all.

    If you don’t like either candidate perhaps it’s better if Trump wins.

    He is hated by Republican politicians as much as by Democrats so pretty much any anything he attempts to do will be resisted by both sides. On the other hand Clinton if she knows anything knows how to grease the skids of government.

    As for me I’m not going to vote for either of the clowns.

    peace

  30. fifthmonarchyman: If you don’t like either candidate perhaps it’s better if Trump wins.

    He is hated by Republican politicians as much as by Democrats so pretty much any anything he attempts to do will be resisted by both sides. On the other hand Clinton if she knows anything knows how to grease the skids of government.

    As for me I’m not going to vote for either of the clowns.

    peace

    No. Presidents can do tremendous damage withou the assistance of Congress.

  31. walto: Presidents can do tremendous damage withou the assistance of Congress.

    I agree but they need to know how to do it.
    Clinton has more of this knowledge than Trump. Trump has shown that he is pretty clueless as to how the government works except perhaps in the area of avoiding taxes and regulations on his personal business interests.

    peace

  32. fifthmonarchyman: I agree but they need to know how to do it.
    Clinton has more of this knowledge than Trump. Trump has shown that he is pretty clueless as to how the government works except perhaps in the area of avoiding taxes and regulations on his personal business interests.

    There are plenty of people who will be glad to help.

  33. walto: I hate this election so much.

    Probably not as much as you will hate it at the end of this week. My 30 percent comment is still operative.

  34. newton: There are plenty of people who will be glad to help.

    I suppose that is why I’m not voting for him. My hope is that those who are apposed to him from both sides would make it difficult for him.

    I think that Clinton would have much more “help” in that regard than Trump could muster. She literally has spent her entire life learning how to make the system work for her IMO.

    Not to mention she has Bill to show her the ropes if she has forgot something

    This pretty much sums up my take on this thing

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/30/hillary-clinton-email-investigation-trump-president-glenn-reynolds/93006320/

    peace

  35. Sorry, but the two candidates are not at all alike. Hillary Clinton will do absolutely nothing. She’s safe as milk. And as useless as dirty water.

    Trump is a fucking lunatic, and nobody has any idea what he will do.

  36. I’m willing to be wrong and be humiliated on this, but I’ll post it anyway.

    The Anthony Weiner computer/email scenario has been known about since at least August of 2015. We know this because Trump tweeted it in August 2015.

    So without invoking ESP, we can be pretty certain that someone hacked into Hillary’s email server a long time ago. The plausible ways of knowing about Weiner’s computer include 1. him telling people, and 2. someone reading the Exchange server Pop3 logs. I go with someone reading the logs.

    Now, we might ask, who did this. Certainly the Russians and Chinese have the technical capability. It doesn’t take much to hack people who think p@ssw0rd is a good password to protect classified documents.

    But the person having both the technical ability and the white hot passionate desire to hurt Hillary is Kim Dotcom. We know this because he says so. Kim has connections to Wikileaks.

    All this is plausible to sane people who have an elementary knowledge of Exchange servers. The tinfoil conspiracy part is trying to figure out how Trump got involved. I haven’t seen any discussion of this. All the people who might be interested in finding out have been too busy denying there is anything worth finding out.

  37. petrushka:
    But the person having both the technical ability and the white hot passionate desire to hurt Hillary is Kim Dotcom. We know this because he says so. Kim has connections to Wikileaks.

    There are at least hundreds and possibly thousands of people with the technical ability to hack an unprotected Exchange server and a desire to see Clinton in prison. Kim Dotcom is a plausible candidate, but I suspect that there may have been more intruders than valid users on that server.

    The fact that she allowed her desire to avoid the FOIA to override her obligation to protect classified information is one of many reasons why she should never be president.

  38. Patrick: is one of many reasons why she should never be president.

    No. It’s one of the reasons she should never have run or never have been nominated by a major party. But now, because of the alternative, she should definitely be president.

    Politics is the art of the possible.

  39. walto: Politics is the art of the possible.

    Good luck.

    Since this is a debate thread, it seems on topic that Donna Brazile was fired today from CNN, for giving Hillary debate questions in advance. From time to time.

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