And K-E is a she?

You’re asking for the one thing that the internet can’t promise – back and forth conversation. It’s funny, we can choose from 36 different genders online, but when it comes to ideas, we can generally only click “like” and “dislike”. There’s a whole lot of room between those two choices.

If an article is so light on content that I can describe my reaction to it as “like” or “dislike”, then I’m not going to bother reading it.

As I said, the rule used to be politeness. It allows a person to be open to the possibility of what you’re saying, even if he doesn’t immediately agree with it. Maybe that still is the rule, at least the only rule that works, and the reason we’re kind of messed up right now is because we’re neither being polite nor trying to persuade. Our conversations are becoming like those grade-school true-or-false tests, where even one error earns the entire statement a False. We throw Falses at each other all the time, and we wonder why we’re not persuading anyone?

That being said, as you have seen from my previous comments, I find the one-way blasts from the Trumpers highly annoying.

As a suggestion I think you should require commenters to respond to questions before they are allowed to post anything else on that thread. Especially to comments that you make.

For example, in another thread “K-E” posted a bogus poll where you caught the fact that the numbers did not add up to 100%. She did not post a link and so far as I can tell has not responded with a link or tried to defend posting the partial numbers.

I would be interested in a two-way conversation with the Trumpers. I know it will be the usual changing of subjects or posting of talking points but who knows, I might learn something.

No I don’t. I mean the inalienable right to life and liberty. It seems the (highly derivative) right to choose a candidate is the only right Trump’s supporters ever mention but there is no natural right to vote. And BTW, that statement of yours is an attempt to shut other people up by conflating honest disagreement with mental abuse and as such is itself authoritarian. Sorry we hurt your feelings.

‘Donald Trump Supporters Are Less Authoritarian Than Ted Cruz Voters’

You should read what I wrote. I made no statement about whose supporters are more or less authoritarian. How could I know that? My comment was about the candidates themselves based almost entirely on their public statements and assuming they aren’t lying, acting or joking (see below).

‘people seemingly unable to differentiate what is so obviously bombastic theater (and highly amusing, and astonishingly effective in this political context’

The problem is that this let’s Trump (or any future candidate) off the hook for absolutely anything he/she might say as long as it is made to seem like theater. Politics isn’t a comedy act. Someone could incite a riot and then claim he was only kidding so long as he had built his persona carefully beforehand. Also if most of what Trump says is bombastic theater how do you tell what he really thinks?

Better to take politicians at their word and leave it at that.

artfldgr –

but its not Trump…
…mostly cause we know that his most bombastic stuff isn’t even/em remotely</b possible in the kind of government we have, and he has no army to side with him if he declares some real authoritarian point …after all, what is an authoritarian who commands and their “troops” don’t act on it

Outstanding. And on point. As usual.

And the reason you remain my fav’ “interesting commenter” (on my still, so far, fav’ blog by my fav’ blogstress …both, for all the reasons already given by the community here, yada-yada).

There is this wonderful word that Georgette Heyer made frequent use of in her many lovely romances (term used as literary genre, not her personal love life lol).

Missish.

Ms. Heyer made such wonderful rhetorical use of missish, that I – and my lovely bride – adopted it over the years as our own favored descriptor for irrational, over-wrought, emotively puerile reactions of any sort.

(Allowing us to be critical, and mildly insulting, quite openly, in public. Yes, we’re bad people. We calls it like it is.)

So much of what passes for Trump criticism from those usually worth heeding is just …so …very …missish …that I find myself quite unable to come to grips with people seemingly unable to differentiate what is so obviously bombastic theater (and highly amusing, and astonishingly effective in this political context) with their decided lack of emotional detachment (and do please explain to me just how did this lack of rational credulity become so deeply entrenched in the psyche of people otherwise so erudite? …such a mystery).
It’s so hard to take anti-Trump “arguments” seriously when they’re so lacking in recognition of this.

So thanks Artfldgr. And well put. Indeed.

FWIW: I am, have been (well, since Walker dropped out) a Cruz supporter. But I don’t view Trump as the Second Coming of either the Nazarene nor Adolph. And it’s hilarious (though disconcerting) to see those who should know better being so inane.

Trump over Hilary the only choice? And you’re going to take a pass?

Now that’s missish.

You really need to get a grip.

JuliB, you are so right about the difference between listening to learn and listening just to critique. I work with college students, and I have a phrase to describe way too many of them: “Too smart to learn anything.” Too fast with the facile criticism, not enough reflection.

****

To my mind much of what has triggered this is the “self esteem” gambit used over the last twenty-five years.

This puffs the kids up to such a degree that they ALL start out astoundingly arrogant.

The typical HS grad I’ve trained actually attained what was expect of 6th graders — a century ago.

They are that lax in true knowledge and skills.

The rest of their ‘education’ is pure indoctrination — surely off balance as the Communists or the Nazis.

This is strikingly evident in foreign cultures where we can stand afar and look askance.

( Sweden, Norway, Denmark …)

And neo, I come for the lucid prose. You have a way of breaking down issues and presenting them with clarity. I stop in every day. I’d comment more often but I’m supposed to be working.

Thanks for putting up with my TrumpTrain stuff. I know it is not what most of you want to hear on here. I thought it would be useful to share my POV, since I consider myself very conservative. I wanted to give you all the insight into a Trump supporter who doesn’t fit the ‘low-information’ or ‘uneducated’ assumptions about Trump voters.

I may be wrong but that’s what I get “most” of the time from your post.

OMG … is that what a free press is supposed to do!