m7e Sorry, have to disagree with you a bit there: Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” podcast is the true pinnacle of civil discourse.

@@johnathanromero9682 Amen to that brother

hebbsylicious you are a boring ass hole!!!

@@williamcabell142 that was a long standing joke for those who follow and love Ben, which I do. The fact that you missed the joke tells me a lot about you.

@@hebbsylicious even if it wasnt a long standing joke that ben has acknowledged, what about your post would categorize you as an asshole? What a ridiculous thing to say.

hebbsylicious I still don’t believe that is true

@@jordanthomas4379 luckily I don't care about what you think. Notice I didn't resort to name calling or profanity.

Haidt might be more qualified to write: "the Self-Righteous Mind" Or the "Virtue Signaling Mind," explaining the psychology of the Toxic Left

I'm about 1/3rd of the way through it now. So far I think it's spot on.

Just curious, does the book address the big/little government divide? Even when the Right and Left match up in goals and morals, they adamantly disagree on the means (gov. vs private) for achieving those goals. The middle ground seems always to be more governments, and that has become unacceptable to many on the Right.

@@friarnewborg9213 I think the book addresses classical liberalism rather than leftism which is definitely one of its shortcomings. I'm only 2/3rds through the book now so maybe I'm just not there yet. He addresses the liberal moral blindness of proportional fairness, authority, loyalty and sanctity, but so far as I've read he fails to address how this moral blindness has mutated into blatant hostility.

@@wadeenglund5095 I'm only 2/3rds through the book but he seems to be addressing more fundamental elements of morality and not so much its political effects. It does address why people vote the way they do and why they hold the values on given issues but not so much the effect regarding larger or smaller government. That's a very interesting consideration though and I'll keep that in mind as I'm reading.

I recommend his book that they talk about. Plus if you haven't seen it listen to his Joe Rogan podcast special.

Not difficult tbh :)

Setting the bar fairly low there buddy. :-)

Cap - l’Élite Thing is he has on people Left & Right that are not...well Insane. I have discovered a new divide, it isnot Left/Right, not Male/Female, not Rich/Poor, not Minority/White, it is Sane/Insane. Thing is Sane people can sit down and talk (civilly) to each other. The Insane can't....all they can do is name call.

Good point

Theodore mastermind It happens occasionally....don't worry I won't let it go to my head! :-)

I agree. If only congress had the same demeanor...

And we would be able to compromise on things so that positive things move forward.

And then we have Trump.. with the opposite demeanor. 🤪

" If more liberals had this man’s mentality and demeanour..." It's both sides, that is the whole point of what Haidt was saying. Both sides are just as culpable for this mess - remember that old saying 'there is more that binds us than separates us'! As Haidt says, tone it down.

Did u even watch the video? He clearly indicates right wingers have a distorted view of liberals

he needs to come on

I'm reading Intellectuals and Society right now. Every time I read Sowell, he manages to change my mind. I doubt there's anyone else on Earth would be able to do that.

@@tonycatman So true. I just finished Affirmative Action Around the World. What a guy

When Thomas Sowell can red pill Jonathan Haidt, that is huge.

No, seriously, if you trace the largest influence of many prominent political/cultural thinkers of the right and the centre and even centre-left ... my guess is Sowell is #1.

i agree. Ben, do a few pulling exercises or something. ya gotta fix that posture.

@@roshi_strider maybe it's how his suit fit?

@ mikexhotmail : possibly, but it looks like computer posture.

Agree , Ben trying to score points in mainstream...

Indeed. And shoulders back, like a top lobster.

He should have been America's first black president.

Haidt cites that very book in this interview.

@A Guy Er... Haidt refers to how important Sowell was to him, in this very interview?

wheelzwheela If he were elected tomorrow he still would be. Lol

@@wheelzwheela who cares about race? Cut that shit out

I feel the same way

Wow, sounds like you found one of the few, sane college teachers. 👍

Truman State?

Sign me up!! At what school??

Anyone that understands politics would say less politics would be better.

I get the feeling this guy is a democrat apologist. He uses the lefts talking points without realizing what he is saying. Seems hes saying ,common if only the rep would move a litgle further to the left everyone would get along. The left destroys they do not compromise.

PcSpud Bruce Martinez Trump was a Democrat. He party flipped 5 times. “In a 2004 interview, Trump told CNN's Wolf Blitzer: ‘In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat,’ explaining: ‘It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn't be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats [...] But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we've had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans.’”

@@jfrigz2294 I'm not disagreeing with you at all there. He's still too far left on some issues than I'd like and I can't say that his policy choices are even based in strong conservative philosophy. I think the dems isolated and insulted him so much that he took up conservative positions to make them angry. Now he's more conservative policy wise than many republicans.

PcSpud I think he ran for president as a Republican because he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against Hilary or Bernie. Like all politicians, he lied to get votes and sadly people believed everything he said! Same goes for Hillary. Hillary was fake. Trump expressed his true feelings which is the only reason why I somewhat like him.

He doesn't understand Trump and why he got elected. Dr. Mark Blyth at Brown gets it. He has several KZfaq videos where he discusses it. The good news is that in this outstanding job market the strongest job growth is in Iowa and Wisconsin. Trump is doing what he said he would do!

That was such a great interview but I was really scratching my head on this one

Conservatives share base values across the world and Indonesia is one of the most conservative country

Conservatives like shapiro who paint rosh picture of Judeo-Christian values don't realise their values are much shared with developing world. Yet if you ask Shapiro, Church is the reason we have iPhone

I sort of agree, but I've recently come to the realization that we should be fearful of becoming politically arrogant on this matter, lets be careful to not become the people who automatically assume every woman is scheming for their own gain whenever they come out and reveal sexual assault stories. Always treat it on a case by case basis. There are people out there who did things that they should answer for, there are also people who are wrongly accused, Case by case is the only way to avoid mistakes being made.

Would that be #HimToo ?

@@Polarwhisper6 We should automatically assume every man is innocent until proven guilty. It is on the woman to prove he is guilty.

I agree fully, but better yet, lets exchange the words man and woman with accuser and accused. And I was mainly worried about the entire movement getting thrown out with bath water. Firstly however I don't think the accused should be punished according to mob rule, getting fired and having their entire lifes work at their carreer deleted i an instant, though I don't really see anything resembling a potential solution to this problem anywhere on the horizon, given how the internet, business and brand image all intermingle. I do think that women should be allowed to wander in whatever sector of society unopposed provided they have the competence to do so. That also means that society must find a solution of preventing sexual tresspasses from taking place as these women do what they set out to do, (Within reason of course, If a girl want to walk topless through a bad area then she should stfu if something happens as an, extreme example). But this is a problem society has never had to deal with, but, as Dr. Peterson explains, Women now have the birth-pill among other things that allows them this freedom, And in order to progress to the next chapter, society has to find a way to resolve the problem of women getting sexually tresspassed upon as they strive to contribute to society alongside men. IT A COMPLICATED AS FUCK problem, make no mistake. But I believe there is a solution, I don't think the solutions enacted today are it, but I believe we'll find it eventually so long as we seriously grapple with the problem, and the #metoo movement is a crucial flashpoint to start the discussion and hopefully the search for that much needed solution.

@@stonerjoe8628 So in other words we should automatically assume every woman is lying until there is an official guilty verdict? Bullshit. You are honestly going to tell me that you consider harvey weinstein innocent?

Out of Blue Pills Oh my gosh that would be hysterical

When Haidt described being educated as a liberal and unaware of how conservatives view things, what popped into my head? Oh, just like Obama.

So glad Ben said that. I was going to be so disappointed if he just let that “analysis” go.

john lewis that analysis of trump is why we have trump. He is so far off base that I don’t think he’s in the playing field. How can he not see that our “allies “ are not actually allies. Germany anyone? Good grief. This is an intellectual heavyweight?

@@maryharridan6970 He's a social psychologist come on. He can be an intellectual without being right about politics all the time

He calls for sweeping political reforms. But spends the first half of the show talking about the cultural issues. Shapiro sorta dispels it lightly. But John is the classic Sowell example of an intellectual who’s brilliant in a field. But is wrong on political analysis and philosophy. Johns one of the good guys. Just take what he’s good at and leave the rest.

😂👍

Did they also make a yamaka out of playdoh?

@@benb7727 No, but that would have been awesome. Of course I don't let the kiddos watch a lot political conmentary. They get enough of my ranting on the subject at the dinner table. I don't they even know who Ben Shapiro is, of course have been surprised before about the things they pick up.

Rush is a fat pos

He's a right-leaning libertarian

Saying Obama is #1 person to blame is no different than people blaming Trump or Bush on everything.

Thank you! I laughed my ass off when he said that 😂

him adopting a right wing mit romney healthcare plan suggests he knows about republican ideology

Indonesia is a very conservative country. Jonathan Haidt had his revelation that conservatives are not bad or stupid people when he lived in India. He found himself thinking: "If can can respect the culture of foreign conservatives, why do I not offer the same charity to American conservatives?" This is a common paradox on the left. For instance they will vehemently condemn christians, whilst putting muslims on a pedestal. Obama was quite a centrist on many issues and invoked conservative ideas. For instance he spoke in favour of family values, the military, and against identity politics.

Well actually, it depends on what kind of democracy you are talking. The original ancient athenian democracy wasn't mob rule.

David Kelly, Hardly.

☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️ Right on!!!

Lol you're the reason that he's writing books. Try to exit your narrative once in awhile. You'll realize there's a lot more problems than solutions with every framework. Once we realize all of the ideologies we cling to are problematic we can try to work together towards better ones.

I agree with what you and others say here about the errors in Haidt's political look back. I think he wants to hold on to the notion of the benevolent Democrat ala JFK. Sorry, that is not what they were about historically and certainly what they DO represent is proven further each passing week. JFK was some kind of blip and was taken out. Lots of material is available about where Obama was really coming from and how he saw the U.S. I do very much remember the "pen and a phone" remark!

He definitely said that. He said " I have a pen, and I have a phone"

Scott Pulver How was Obamacare not an attempt to reach out to republicans?! The hard line left wing policy on this issue is medicare-for-all, and Obama has come out and said that it is the policy he supports. The hard line right wing policy on this issue is private health insurance with no borders. Obama had a super majority in his first two years. He could have pushed through medicare-for-all and there's nothing the republicans could have done about it. Instead he tried to play nice and present a republican idea that the dems would support (which is exactly what Romneycare is). It backfired, leaving in place a horrible healthcare system while gaining absolutely no support from republicans.

I would certainly watch! But I’m not convinced he would offer anything productive or compelling with respect to conservatism, Trump, or even political discourse more generally. But I do feel bad that progressives rip him apart and call him crazy even though he has opened up about his bipolar struggles. Isn’t that “ableism” or some other made up word they always use to describe us “bigots?”

I wish some of the: getting bigger black young, hot KZfaqrs, did a roundtable like a smart, sane 'The View' ... With or without Kanye - Candace Owens, Brandon Tatum, Amazing Lucas, Hodge Twins, Antonia Okafor, Josephine Mathias... Project 21 could sponsor it...Or even if Fox had a weekend special of rotating KZfaqrs.. Like Outnumbered, there's a lot of hot conservatives, they could do a #walkaway KZfaqr special. It's a big explosion recently of people from typically Democrat groups that are slowly splintering off. I see it in my local Jewish community and on KZfaq especially it's growing...

"More proof that most leftists believe they are the center and republicans are far right" Definitely. He surprised me, how he spoke about non-partisanship and he appeared pretty even-handed, then suddenly veered into leftist territory when speaking about republicans, Trump and Obama. Leftist ideology and its distortions so deeply ingrained, even in people like this that think they're neutral

It's okay to disagree politically. Doesn't take away from any of the truth bombs he drops on a regular basis.

Interesting, because he references his own ignorance of political analysis. He even says, that it was HIS political analysis, and most likely was incorrect. Haidt is a guy who KNOWS how to think critically. He is NOT a conservative, though. He is a traditional liberal, (not a leftist, however) and his own moral compass colors his political analysis. Good thing he's not a political pundit, but a social psychologist, huh?

There is good progressive thinking, if you are talking about real progressivism.

Progressive thinking is why our schools aren't segregated anymore, progressive thinking is why women can vote, progressive thinking is why black people aren't considered two thirds of a person anymore, progressive thinking is why interracial marriage is legal. I can go on if you still don't get it.

StrickenGuide Sounds like progressive thinking’s run its course just like feminism. Great strides made, now it’s wallowing in lack of sensible purpose. Thank goodness the Reps pulled the Dems over on that race stuff huh?

Progressivism is the goal of changing society(because theres some problem) while conservatism is the goal of maintaining society the way it is(because there isnt a problem worth changing)

Best not good .

Honest question: what else does the Republican party try and do? I'm not talking about conservatives here, but Republicans.

Not far from that. The GOP is bought and sold by corporatist interests.The American Chamber of Commerce is a prime example of an entity that wields far more influence over the GOP than the voting base. Gone are the days of Gordon Gecko, large companies are not intrinsically capitalist or interested in competition. They form collaborations with other like companies, buy the competition or lobby the government to help drive their competition down or out of business. Venture Socialism

Rio: it depends if you are talking about the Republicans at the national or state level. At the national level, the only Republican achievement thus far under Trump has been the tax bill. At the state level, Republicans (not just conservatives) have expanded gun rights, tried to minimize abortion rights, reduced the power of unions, cut spending, etc. Shapiro wrote a good article a few months ago in which he argues that at the national level, both the Republicans and Democrats don't actually won't to solve problems. They want to use problems as election leverage, but then when they gain power, they don't actually move on the agenda they campaigned on.

Pat, I could agree with that. Local Democrats are often more responsible to voters as well.

The clue's in the job title, isn't it? Economists. It's been proven well enough that immigration benefits the economy of a country. Whether it's a long term net positive depends on so many other factors that are beyond the remit of economic analysis, which in any case tends towards short term predictions because long term economic predictions are not feasible, and for many of the precise same reasons that it's not possible to predict the long term impacts of high levels of immigration from poor countries into rich ones. It's just not possible to know exactly how things will pan out in such complex systems, and to try to is somewhat of a fool's game. Immigration is not at all an easy issue to address, because a simplistic empirical analysis of the likely impact (drawing on data from history and the present day) will commonly lead to roughly the conclusion you've arrived at - It might be beneficial economically (for the GDP of a country), but whatever benefits there are would be outweighed by the much more difficult to account for sociocultural costs (difficulties with cultural integration, gradual erosion/devaluation of the host culture/national identity, displacement of existing workers and so on), and there exists a tipping point at which all of those factors can contribute to a shift in attitudes and behaviours - politically or socially, which can lead to risk of civil unrest, rise in extreme political positions and so on. All of which can result in a crisis in confidence in the markets, which is the worst possible thing for an economy, because all economies are fundamentally built on confidence and trust. The possibility that all of the above may be true notwithstanding, it's crucial that it be weighed up against the alternative outcome, as it's by no means obvious that the alternative is better. That's why most Governments are stuck on this issue. Let's say you ban all immigration besides a very limited selective intake of exceptionally high skilled workers and you direct the necessary education/funding towards filling the roles immigrants would have filled with local workers, what do you do if the economy then starts to tank? Finding enough locals to work low skilled farm/factory jobs in a world where university level education is increasingly the norm and everyone with a phone reckons they're the next big celebrity waiting to happen is not going to be an easy task and would probably need to be run at a loss through Government subsidy - Farms already get subsidised a lot as it is in most developed countries. Any Government willing to enforce a serious anti-immigration policy will also need to be considerably right wing, because you just couldn't get a policy like that through with a left, centrist, or even centre right Government. It's considered to be a toxic position, and the resistance, within the party and within it's voter base, would prevent that sort of policy coming about. That toxicity is completely irrespective of the economic or social realities, it's a matter of perception. It's about how it makes people feel. I know that's a shitty way to determine policy, but in politics feelings have to be accounted for, because feelings drive behaviour, attitudes, votes, etc. A bold enough Government who is firm enough in their convictions can theoretically say 'fuck your feelings', but it's a very high risk strategy, and the stakes are high. There's something viscerally unpalatable for many people with good hearts and consciences, in privileged nations, to tell people from less privileged nations that they can't come there, for reasons which boil down to 'you're too poor, stupid and culturally backwards, and we don't need more poor stupid, culturally backwards people here, thankyou!' Because really once you put all the politics aside, that's what it comes down to. It's a very offensive position, and it's particularly offensive due to the extent to which it's true. The question then becomes, how do you best address the issue of there being many poor, stupid and culturally backwards people in the world? Once you look at the question in those more direct and honest terms, it becomes easier to conceptualise the answer in terms more specific than 'shut them out' and 'let them in'. It's only by reducing it to the somewhat euphemistic concept of 'immigration', (implying that the issue is really one primarily of physical transition as opposed to transition in the much broader sense that is reflected in reality, from 'low education pre-enlightenment agricultural society' to high education post-enlightenment industrial society'), that it can be discussed conveniently in politics without causing widespread offense and uproar, but I feel this sells the issue short, especially insofar as it carries with it the implication that travelling from one physical location to another is the optimum solution to address the problem which is posed, and I actually don't think that is the case. You can travel an infinite distance without leaving your home town, especially in the modern, Internet connected world. Connecting the whole world to the Internet and conducting the first stages of integration and bridge building between nations and cultures in the virtual domain would appear to me the logical first step before attempting to conduct it in the physical domain. Why jump straight into the stage performance when you could run a dress rehearsal? I believe that's already happening to some degree. It's just going to take a few decades for the communication/data transfer channels to really burn in to the global consciousness. There are battles taking place in the minds of everyone, and everyone connected to the Internet is engaged in at least some of the same battles as everyone else. Some have described this as the 'culture war', and I don't think that's an entirely unfair way of describing it. The values and practices of the world's various cultures and societies are being pitched against one another in the global milieu, and they're reacting, sometimes strongly and in a way that we can measure, other times subtly and in ways that we don't notice until later. Thankfully I think we've learnt enough from the horrors of the 21st century to not allow this war to erupt to a state of mass physical violence (that life globally right now is pretty good and getting better also helps), but I do think that nonetheless there will be sides that progressively 'win' and 'lose'. It would help if the winners don't get too cocky and the losers don't get too sore, being mindful of the fact that whatever happens we're all still going to need to continue to share this world together, in the virtual and the physical space. If any group feels they come out of this losing too harshly and unfairly, that will be no good for anyone, and equally it's no good for any group to win too much ground for their interests and to get cocky along with that. That a bright light is shone on the behaviour of everyone now through social media seems to be doing somewhat of a reasonably job of keeping these extremes in check, so that's good, but there's always a risk.

Just to close, I'll expand briefly on what I mean about winners and losers with a simple example: Imagine the arrogance of a culture that thinks it can literally 'win' in it's entirety and force another culture to accordingly 'lose' on the grounds of what they see as being their objective virtue and superiority. We saw this played out during the Clinton and Bush years, and to some extent under Obama, on both sides of the West/Middle East divide. To me this was the precursor of what we see playing out more broadly in attitudes between the West and other cultures which are considered to be backwards relatively to their values (and in many cases, clearly are in a very objective sense, backwards - child brides, polygamy, head chopping, that sort of thing), but you take that too far when you put a faith held by more than a billion people in the firing line and say 'that's a bad thing, and the world would be better without it'. Even if you could find a way of arguing the definitive objective truth to that statement, it wouldn't be productive to do so, because the only sensible course of action to address that on the face of it would be tyranny and oppression, and that's most likely to lead to consequences which would ultimately be counterproductive. It's one thing to rationally shine a light on why one set of values may be better than another set of values, and hope that people will see that light and move towards it, but the hope should ultimately be that everyone progressively become more like winners, in the most agreeable and expedient way possible. In the case of culture and belief, that should take the form of an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process. If you've ever tried to argue someone with a firmly held conviction out of that conviction by telling them why they're wrong, you'll know that approach doesn't work very well. Much more effective is to find the points on which they're a little bit right, but could be more right, where they're already on roughly the right track but could be further on that track, then help them to capitalise on that through your own contributions and insights that are agreeable to them, and hope that by doing that with sufficient care and dedication, that the light of their accumulated proficiency in those areas would then cast a shadow over those parts of their value systems that you find objectionable. Then the decision to change comes from within, which is by far the most effective and efficient way for such a decision to come about in any case. (some would say the only way, and there's a case to be made for that for sure)

There's one factor which I discounted in what I wrote about immigration, which is that the people who actually make the effort to immigrate to an advanced first world country are not typical of the countries they emigrate from. They're generally, at least on average, better educated and more culturally advanced/open minded than the norm, which in part is what gives them the wherewithal and motivation to make the journey in the first place, so there is a clear divide between the perception and reality of what an immigrant represents, which pro-immigration politicians are always at pains to stress, however, true at this may be, this brings with it an associated issue, which is that a country that has a exodus of it's brightest and most able young people risks becoming locked in a poverty trap. How can it advance effectively as a nation if all of it's most advanced citizens are leaving? Then even more difficult questions come up, like should every nation even be expected to advance effectively or would it be better if some remained less advanced? It's not a position I advocate for, but that's the reality for any nation whose citizens aren't able or willing to sustain to modern standards of civilisation. The Internet can help with this quite extensively, but no amount of data or virtual resources can be effective without a baseline of confidence, passion and talent within local communities. Vision can be provided without cost - spreading ideas costs nothing - but the vision has to be executed, and any vision worth pursuing needs a commitment that can only be achieved where sufficient competence, energy, and hope are available to fuel it - if too much of that leaves a nation, then that nation is in trouble, so people need to think very carefully about that before supporting the plight of immigrants coming from shitty countries - *especially* economic migrants. War is another matter but shouldn't be a universally accepted excuse. As I wrote previously though, the decision to change should come from within, so the idea of simply dispensing vision to downtrodden nations is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Even an idea of unmitigated good will be met with intense resistance if it's sufficiently alien to it's recipients.

@@hemipemi Wow. There's a lot there to address. I have several concerns when it comes to immigration, a major one is the last you touched on. I do not wish to 'brain drain' other countries that are in sore need of the intelligent and resourceful people who would likely come to the US. I find nothing of intrinsic value in diversity. In just a short couple of years my neighborhood in Silicon Valley has gone from a mixture of black, white and hispanic middle class folks to about 80% Asian and Indian, most of them engineers and programmers. In and of itself this isn't a bad thing, but the influx of "best and brightest" has illuminated the housing shortage and made home prices skyrocket. We live in what were 1970s low-income homes and they're selling for over a million dollars. Not to mention that they are incredibly unfriendly and anti-social or don't really speak English. If that sounds xenophobic, so be it. It has been proven that social cohesion and trust declines the more multicultural an area becomes. Because these folks work for the big tech giants and some come from countries with more corruption, they tend to be less freedom oriented and will likely vote democrat or as left as possible. My main issue is people immigrating for material gain as opposed to opportunity or love of our values (if anyone could even accurately name them anymore). If we have a massive welfare state and give our jobs to foreign nationals because they are willing to work non-stop for less, then we have no way to know their true motives. I don't see even legal immigration as a net gain for anyone except corporations and democrats. The truth is, we have something like 20,000,000 illegal immigrants here. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-75% of Hispanics are on some sort of government subsidy. Until we can sort out what to do about this problem that has been the proverbial can kicked down the road since the 60s, we need to cease immigration of any kind other that possibly people fleeing genocide. As far as farming goes, let them fail. The farms that go to the gov. are the farms that are under water and private lenders have refused them, and the government doesn't care if they gamble with our money. The reason the optics would be so bad if we were to halt immigration is because no one dares break the truth to the public. We are in debt, social cohesion is at an all-time low and we need to virtually end the welfare state. If people knew true facts and figures about these things, many might feel differently. Yet, we've had decades of propaganda that makes people believe we should be responsible for the welfare of the world-that we should continue to throw out a rope to the drowning ignoring the sinking ship. We will not remain powerful enough to help anyone if we maintain this course.

@@mrsclevermoniker Just to be clear my comments were written from a Western European perspective, I should have pointed that out though I guess the repeat references to Islam probably did the job! The difference between immigration in America and immigration in Europe is huge, although there are a lot of parallels. The reality you need to contend with though is that there simply isn't enough policing power in the world to enact most theoretical radical policies (whether on immigration or anything else). There isn't enough policing power to enact most policies period, for that matter, and this doesn't generally cause a problem, because there's enough trust in the system to ensure that this policing power is never actually needed. You could say that governance, policing and authority in general operates on a system not unlike fractional reserve banking, where the bank on paper has a certain amount of money deposited in it, but only retains a tiny fraction of it in a form that could be delivered to it's customers if they ever tried to withdraw it, because that's all it's ever expected to need - people don't withdraw all their money from the bank, as a rule, and the bank relies on that. That's why authoritarian states are run more on fear than anything - on the fear of force rather than on the force itself. Fear costs nothing, force is expensive. There's always a lot of smoke and mirrors involved. Better not fear in a civilised society of course. Better trust and respect for authority, but respect is earned not given, and when trust in and respect for authority breaks down, you've either got to rebuild that or expect either increased levels of anarchy or a system based on fear. Better on balance to try and rebuild the respect, but that's the most difficult route. So the Government has to be very careful around any policy which is likely to encounter a lot of resistance/civil unrest. It has to be able to justify it to it's citizens sufficient that the enforcement costs wouldn't outweigh the benefits, and regardless of if you think it's a bad thing, 20 million people living in a country are still living in that country, and they will be one or two degree of separation (family/friends) away from something like half the country, and so this counts in a very practical way towards the considerations of enforcement/civil unrest, especially when ideas of selective, let alone indiscriminate deportation come into the mix.

"Me and kim jung un fell in love" "President for life, hey maybe we'll try that one day?" He praises Putin, Jinping, Kim, Erdogan and Duterte more than he does the leaders of our closest liberal democratic allies. How the fuck is that not troubling to you?

Daniel Vincent Because I primarily care about policy, and there has not been a single shred of policy that reflects any of that. How does disregarding policy, and only considering ultimately inconsequential, off-the-cuff remarks not trouble you?? This is the crux of how political correctness has harmed this country. People like yourself use the ability of a politician to be politically correct as the primary benchmark for job performance. Trump is a great illustration of why this metric is absolutely useless.

@@VoorTrekker88 I am not disregarding policy. Trump's policies on the environment are a global embarrassment, and another step towards catastrophe. Trump's policy of separating undocumented children from their parents is a complete inhumane travesty. Trump's economy has been robust, sure, but the debt isnt shrinking and neither is the deficit. I think the idea that rhetoric (especially trumps) is inconsequential is completely wrong. Look at history: what was more influential on the russian revolution of 1917- some legislation passed in the prior years, or the revoltionary rhetoric that had been building up for decades? Same with the nazis (and dont just screech that im mentioning nazism)- rhetoric was hugely consequential in Germany's conversion to nazism. The cost of trump's rhetoric has already become clear, and the effects are going to get worse and last a long time. The 2016 election will probably go down as one of the most important historical events in the 21st century- partly because of policy changes, like the trump administration's disregard for the environment, but potentially even more so because of how trump's rhetoric is decaying the intelligence and morals of America.

Daniel Vincent I am likewise not a fan of deficit spending, and I do not know enough to comment on environmental policy. However, where are the policies that reflect the points you made in your original reply? Also, the separation of families at the border is a policy that the media has been so disingenuous about that it’s sickening. The policy, although not as widespread, dates back to the George W. Bush, and Obama administrations, although no one ever complained back then. Regardless, do the parents of these children carry any culpability in your mind? They are the ones who chose to violate US law by sneaking into this country. Do you complain about any other class of criminal losing their parental rights? And the loss of rights for these criminals is only temporary! These parents expose their children to far worse risks by bringing them on illegal border crossings than they ever face in any ICE detention centers. Do I need to bring up the rape rates among border crossers? These illegal aliens are the ones exposing their children to human rights violations, not the people who are trying to enforce the laws and borders of the United States. If you don’t believe in borders then you are beyond reason, in my opinion. Lastly, anyone who has studied the Russian revolution or the rise of the Third Reich will tell you that the driving factor was hardship brought on by war and economic instability. When you try to say that President Trump’s “rhetoric” puts us in danger of a Soviet/Nazi style authoritarian take-over, you unknowingly parody your own position. Just because a lot of otherwise intelligent people are suffering from similar delusions does not make it true.

@@VoorTrekker88 You don't have to be an expert on the environment, just trust the experts on the topic, the same way we do on so many things, instead of buying into corporate funded anti-science propaganda from conservatives. My proof for my original claim? You mean that trump has praised dictators and insulted our allies? Is a citation really necessary? These are events that happened, and if you have been paying attention then you noticed them. As for the separation of families, no. The policy was not the same under previous administrations. www.factcheck.org/2018/06/did-the-obama-administration-separate-families/ So right off the bat you are misinformed and directing your outrage in the wrong direction by blaming the media and deflecting culpability onto bush and obama. Do i think parents are culpable in this? No, not really. The threat of rape when crossing actually speaks to this point. The threat of rape, kidnapping or death is well known to anyone who is going to try crossing, so don't you think they must be pretty desperate to risk it all? Don't you think they must be fleeing truly awful circumstances? And so they seek a better life in the idealistic country to the north, and now you want to tell them that if they wanted to keep their kids they shouldn't have come to America? What kind of dark, gloomy message are you trying to send about our country? "Do you complain about any other class of criminal losing their parental rights?" Yes, OF COURSE. Its a misdemeanor to be in the united states illegally, so you must be arguing that all people convicted of misdemeanors should lose their kids, right? For trespassing, possession of marijuana, for reckless driving, for getting into a fight, for being publicly intoxicated? If yes, then wow. If no, then admit your error. And btw, ICE are no saints. www.pbs.org/newshour/show/while-in-ice-custody-thousands-of-migrants-reported-sexual-abuse We need to be holding law enforcement officials of the united states to a higher standard than some scumbag coyotes. "If you dont believe in borders then you are beyond reason" not only did i never say i dont believe in borders, but this is a strawman against the left in general. The obama adminstration deported more illegal immigrants than any other administration in history. Is that what you call an open border policy? I said nothing about trump's rhetoric leading to a soviet or nazi style take over, i was citing examples of how rhetoric is consequential, and the point went totally over your head. The categorical distrust of media, fear and bigotry against immigrants, the belief that the opposing political side is evil and going to destroy the country and must be defeated, the willingness to side with a foreign power over the other political side as well as U.S. intelligence agencies, and the blatant promotion of anti-intellectualism, are all products of trump's rhetoric that will stay in our country's DNA long after he is dead

No.

Wow, okay! Thanks for your 'advice'! I'm half-way through by the time I get to your instruction. I'll now click 'back' to save myself from further being fooled that I'm learning stuff. You're a real time-saver Beale!

You sound like a leftist who refuses to engage with speakers or ideas you disagree with. Pretty ironic tbh

Siegfried Braun - Keep trying; with adult guidance you'll become "one" with yourself.

Ironically enough, it's an adult who'll say 'f*ck YOU!' to someone who tries to direct their actions for stupid reasons. Good luck in your quest for maturity, Beale.