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posted by janrinok on Saturday November 19 2016, @04:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the statistics-or-lies? dept.

Scott Alexander gives a great breakdown of Trump and how the portrayal of him as being "openly white supremacist" is probably (likely) wrong.

I stick to my thesis from October 2015. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is more racist than any past Republican candidate (or any other 70 year old white guy, for that matter). All this stuff about how he's "the candidate of the KKK" and "the vanguard of a new white supremacist movement" is made up. It's a catastrophic distraction from the dozens of other undeniable problems with Trump that could have convinced voters to abandon him. That it came to dominate the election cycle should be considered a horrifying indictment of our political discourse, in the same way that it would be a horrifying indictment of our political discourse if the entire Republican campaign had been based around the theory that Hillary Clinton was a secret Satanist. Yes, calling Romney a racist was crying wolf. But you are still crying wolf.

I avoided pushing this point any more since last October because I didn't want to look like I was supporting Trump, or accidentally convince anyone else to support Trump. But since we're past the point where that matters any more, I want to present my case.

He further states: "I realize that all of this is going to make me sound like a crazy person and put me completely at odds with every respectable thinker in the media, but luckily, being a crazy person at odds with every respectable thinker in the media has been a pretty good ticket to predictive accuracy lately, so whatever."

So do his claims hold up under scrutiny, is he manipulating the figures, or is he just a 'crazy person' ?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:47PM (#429537)

    Christians killed about 100,000 muslims in the former yugoslavia during the early 1990s. So, if bodycount is what matters, christianity is looking pretty horrible.

    Where did the New Testament instruct Christians to do that? Were these actions not roundly condemned by (almost) every Western country?

    We're getting towards 50,000 human beings murdered by Islamic terrorists in the last 2 years alone. [thereligionofpeace.com] Many of these victims are muslim, as is the case of the (est.) ~275,000,000 people slaughtered in the name of Islam over the last 1400 years.

    What you should know is that I am an atheist and opposed to every single one of these murders. Stalin was wrong, loss of human life is not a statistic.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:47PM (#429570)

    > Where did the New Testament instruct Christians to do that?

    Are you really going to try to retcon the old testament out of modern christianity?
    Most christians, especially the orthodox christians who murdered those muslims believe that old testament is official christian canon.
    But don't take my word for, here's what Jesus said:

    'The Scripture cannot be broken’ (John 10:35)
    ‘the commandment of God’ (Matthew 15:3)
    ‘Word of God’ (Mark 7:13)

    And the big one:
    I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.
    (Matthew 5:18)
     

    > Were these actions not roundly condemned by (almost) every Western country?

    And ISIS has been widely condemned by muslims [google.com] too.
     

    > We're getting towards 50,000 human beings murdered by Islamic terrorists in the last 2 years alone. Many of these victims are muslim

    If everyone who is killed by muslims is killed because of religion including other muslims then the rwandan genocide puts the christian bodycount up another 800,000 and that's ignoring a couple of little wars you might have heard of - WWI and WII.

    And this is going to be my last response to you because anyone citing an islamofoe webnsite like that is not someone looking for truth, they are someone looking to rationalize bigotry. There is no honor or humanity in debating with someone doing that because there is no possibility to change minds.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @08:36PM (#429606)

      Orthodox christians say Old Testament does not matter now.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @09:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @09:03PM (#429617)

      Are you really going to try to retcon the old testament out of modern christianity? Most christians, especially the orthodox christians who murdered those muslims believe that old testament is official christian canon.

      The Ottomans didn't conquer these lands until the 15th Century and following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian situation escalated because an independence referendum was voted on in the absence of the Serbs (together with Croats, they made up around 60% of the population). It was Pakistan that violated the UN embargo on the supply of arms and turned the situation to complete shit. The KLA didn't start shooting Serbian police until the late '90s. I suggest that the the usual list of suspects get the blame. [counterpunch.org] You cannot seriously be suggesting that orthodox Christians woke up one morning and decided to start massacring muslims apropos of nothing but religious compulsion?

      the rwandan genocide puts the christian bodycount up another 800,000

      This was a post-colonial tribal war, the Tutsi comprised both Christians and Muslims. The original point of contention was not religion.

      ignoring a couple of little wars you might have heard of - WWI and WII.

      Err, no! These wars were simply not fought over religion.