"My great and unmatched wisdom..."

dianaiad said:

and self mockery...than that he was serious.

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Why would a president in all seriousness engage in self-mockery? I mean can you explain this to me logically?

lewisnotmiller said:

At best it's in bad taste. Thousands will die, and whilst I'm not trying to attribute that to Trump pulling US troops out, it doesn't seem the time for self-aggrandizement/Twitter jokes.

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I saw it more as 'I'm getting roundly criticised for the decision and don't want to look like a sucker so am trying to make it look like I'm still in control'.

lewisnotmiller said:

You seem to be begging the question a little here.

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The idea is that voting decisions are made under uncertainty: we have no idea what they will do in office or if this will be effective. We are voting on what we think will happen.

If I believe candidate X is better for the economy, I believe that this will result in tangible benefits for many people, including raising people out of poverty.

Choosing to vote for a candidate I think is worse for the economy means I'm voting for more people in poverty.

Voting for the candidate you think will put more people in poverty can legitimately be called immoral.

There are many moral dimensions in voting which can only be ranked subjectively, and the point I was replying to suggests there is a 'correct' answer on how people should rank them.

ImmortalFlame said:

Because A is a bigot and will naturally enact laws based on bigotry, and most likely any benefit of their office will only be derived from a detriment to other people. The dichotomy is more like:

a) A President who is a bigot, but will raise 100,000 children out of poverty at the expense of 100,000 minority children who they will disadvantage or likely enact discriminatory legislation against.
b) A President who isn't a bigot, and doesn't do that.

Now, a cold, unfeeling machine might say "Well, the people who will suffer won't be me or my family, and I will likely benefit, so I will choose option a", but a moral person would categorically reject option a, and should do this every time.

That's not even up for debate. The moral option is never to side with putting a bigot into power regardless of what personal benefit you may derive from it, because said benefit WILL ALWAYS COME AT A COST TO OTHERS. It seems absurd to me to suggest it can ever be moral.

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There's no certainty they will enact laws that will do that. The President isn't an autocrat, they don't have free reign to do whatever they like and have to deal with certain political realities. You can believe in checks and balances that will mitigate this issue.

Voting decisions are full of uncertainty and moral dilemmas. You make a judgement without full information or foreknowledge.

If you think:

Candidate A uses 'bad' words but will help more people
Candidate B uses 'good' words but will help fewer people

A moral person can vote for A as it is a subjective value judgement that using 'bad' words is more immoral than keeping more people in poverty.

Just for fun - What if:

Candidate A is definitely a bigot and will definitely be bigoted in office
Candidate B has a record of warmongering and you think this could lead to serious global military conflict

Who does the moral person vote for?

voting for the person that's going to raise min wage is the best thing for the poor, most of the improvement under trump is liberal states raising their min wage.

Augustus said:

There's no certainty they will enact laws that will do that.

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Nor is there certainty that they will enact legislation that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty. If we have only their words and actions to determine their future policies, we can just as easily assume that their bigotry means that they will enact bigoted policies as we would assume their fluency in economics would mean that will enact economically sound policies.

Augustus said:

The President isn't an autocrat, they don't have free reign to do whatever they like and have to deal with certain political realities. You can believe in checks and balances that will mitigate this issue.

Voting decisions are full of uncertainty and moral dilemmas. You make a judgement without full information or foreknowledge.

If you think:

Candidate A uses 'bad' words but will help more people
Candidate B uses 'good' words but will help fewer people

A moral person can vote for A as it is a subjective value judgement that using 'bad' words is more immoral than keeping more people in poverty.

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But again, you're couching this merely in terms of "using good or bad words". We're not talking about mere language, we are talking about actual, evidenced bigotry. To soften that by simply calling it "bad words" seems disingenuous.

Someone who degrades an entire race of people by calling them thieves and rapists isn't engaging in "bad words". They are engaging in bigotry, and are therefore a bigot. The presumption that they will "help more people" has no more (perhaps, even less) basis that the presumption that someone who has DEMONSTRATED bigotry will carry out actions based on that bigotry.

Augustus said:

Just for fun - What if:

Candidate A is definitely a bigot and will definitely be bigoted in office
Candidate B has a record of warmongering and you think this could lead to serious global military conflict

Who does the moral person vote for?

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Impossible to say, since both can be warmongerers. I would say that the warmongerer who has demonstrated bigotry is vastly more dangerous than a warmonger who has not.

Not that it matters, because you can simply vote for neither, or instead vote for a candidate that doesn't monger any wars.

lewisnotmiller said:

It's not a binary world. It's quite possible to see this as being in bad taste, and to think he's demeaning the importance both of the decision he's made and the post he has held through it.
This doesn't require hating him, nor being a 'political opponent's.

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Oh...bad taste? Certainly. The man has absolutely no 'couth.'

I'm reacting to those (and believe it or not, the folks here in RF are not the only ones) who actually took those words literally,

Epic Beard Man said:

Why would a president in all seriousness engage in self-mockery? I mean can you explain this to me logically?

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I dunno, but most, if not all, of them have. It's a very human thing....and as a literary device, it's quite common. Making fun of oneself is not just for the introverted (who do it less than anybody, actually). The process goes:

"I'm godlike in my powers, with all the best virtues !"

(By saying that you know that I know I'm not....I'm mocking myself...and doesn't that make me someone who understands that I'm not perfect, don't have all those attributes, and because I know that about myself, and by mocking, am laughing at myself, doesn't that make me someone to respect?)

In THIS culture, that's what it means.

There are,and have been, of course, other cultures in which such statements should be taken at face value and seriously.

However, neither Trump nor the rest of the world understands the required bragging of the Celtic warriors of the dark ages.

Somehow I don't think Trump has read Beowulf since high school.

ImmortalFlame said:

Nor is there certainty that they will enact legislation that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty. If we have only their words and actions to determine their future policies, we can just as easily assume that their bigotry means that they will enact bigoted policies as we would assume their fluency in economics would mean that will enact economically sound policies.

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That's the point, you support politicians based on incomplete information, not objective certainty.

If you believe candidate A will better the economy, but vote for candidate B because of their nicer personality why is that necessarily the most moral decision?

Seeing as you vote based on your own subjective confidence, there must come a point where perceived, but limited, bigotry becomes outranked by perceived economic good.

You don't agree there is a hypothetical crossover point?

ImmortalFlame said:

But again, you're couching this merely in terms of "using good or bad words". We're not talking about mere language, we are talking about actual, evidenced bigotry. To soften that by simply calling it "bad words" seems disingenuous.

Someone who degrades an entire race of people by calling them thieves and rapists isn't engaging in "bad words". They are engaging in bigotry, and are therefore a bigot. The presumption that they will "help more people" has no more (perhaps, even less) basis that the presumption that someone who has DEMONSTRATED bigotry will carry out actions based on that bigotry.

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Humans across the board don't take people's words at face value, they contextualise them and interpret the degree to which they should be taken literally.

Trump is known for hyperbole and fabulism so, rightly or wrongly, many people don't take what he says seriously.

[He also didn't say what you are claiming - at least in the most famous incident not sure about other times]

ImmortalFlame said:

Impossible to say, since both can be warmongerers. I would say that the warmongerer who has demonstrated bigotry is vastly more dangerous than a warmonger who has not.

Not that it matters, because you can simply vote for neither, or instead vote for a candidate that doesn't monger any wars.

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It's always impossible to tell as you vote without complete information, that's the nature of the game. The non-bigot could later turn out to be a far worse bigot so why bother voting for them just in case?

Some would say refusing to back the lesser of 2 evils increases the chance of the greater of 2 evils winning though. The problem is, identifying the lesser of 2 evils isn't as black/white as you are presenting it.

Based on uncertainty and incomplete information, different people can legitimately have differing opinions on what is more/less important without it making them bad people. For an ethical voter, you are always weighing up moral dilemmas for which there is no 'correct' answer.

For any moral person, there must be crossover points between the variables in ethical dilemmas that involve things like degree of bigotry, economic success, warmongering, immigration, etc. and these crossover points are often based on subjective judgements made under uncertainty.

Augustus said:

That's the point, you support politicians based on incomplete information, not objective certainty.

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True, voters can't predict the future, but they can determine qualities based on what information that they have to hand. If an individual has sufficient information to determine that candidate A is a bigot, morally they should not vote for them.

Augustus said:

If you believe candidate A will better the economy, but vote for candidate B because of their nicer personality why is that necessarily the most moral decision?

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That's not my argument. I'm arguing that making a decision to actively vote for someone you identify as a bigot just because it benefits you personally (or you believe it will) is not a moral action. In fact, it's highly immoral, regardless of the second candidate.

Augustus said:

Seeing as you vote based on your own subjective confidence, there must come a point where perceived, but limited, bigotry becomes outranked by perceived economic good.

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Only to an immoral person.

Augustus said:

You don't agree there is a hypothetical crossover point?

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No. Enabling or empowering bigotry for personal gain is immoral.

Augustus said:

Humans across the board don't take people's words at face value, they contextualise them and interpret the degree to which they should be taken literally.

Trump is known for hyperbole and fabulism so, rightly or wrongly, many people don't take what he says seriously.

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Then we are talking about people who don't believe he is a bigot. In which case, we're probably not talking about immoral people.

Foolish people, perhaps.

Augustus said:

It's always impossible to tell as you vote without complete information, that's the nature of the game. The non-bigot could later turn out to be a far worse bigot so why bother voting for them just in case?

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Sure. But the scenario you presented gave the upfront information. People are supposed to make informed decisions beforehand, and if somebody who gave no impression that they were a bigot later turns out to be a bigot, you cannot say that the decision to vote for them was wrong or immoral - they made the right call based on the information they had at the time.

If some of that information is "Candidate A is a bigot", then that information SHOULD factor into the decision to vote for them.

Augustus said:

Some would say refusing to back the lesser of 2 evils increases the chance of the greater of 2 evils winning though. The problem is, identifying the lesser of 2 evils isn't as black/white as you are presenting it.

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But it is in the scenario you presented, where Candidate A expressed bigotry and Candidate B did not. That's the point.

Augustus said:

Based on uncertainty and incomplete information, different people can legitimately have differing opinions on what is more/less important without it making them bad people. For an ethical voter, you are always weighing up moral dilemmas for which there is no 'correct' answer.

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Again, the scenario you put forward gave the necessary information. Candidate A was a bigot, Candidate B was not.

Augustus said:

For any moral person, there must be crossover points between the variables in ethical dilemmas that involve things like degree of bigotry, economic success, warmongering, immigration, etc. and these crossover points are often based on subjective judgements made under uncertainty.

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Accepting any degree of bigotry for personal gain is not an ethical decision.

ImmortalFlame said:

Accepting any degree of bigotry for personal gain is not an ethical decision.

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Painting avoiding wars and national economic strength as 'personal gain' seems a bit of a stretch.

You genuinely don't agree with the following though?

For any moral person, there must be crossover points between the variables in ethical dilemmas that involve things like degree of bigotry, economic success, warmongering, immigration, etc. and these crossover points are often based on subjective judgements made under uncertainty.

lewisnotmiller said:

At best it's in bad taste. Thousands will die, and whilst I'm not trying to attribute that to Trump pulling US troops out, it doesn't seem the time for self-aggrandizement/Twitter jokes.

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Yeah. It's weird, and it's not even funny.

I'm having a hard time laughing from Trump's jokes. Maybe they're funny to some people, but not to me. And that joke about having China investigating Biden... well, there's some evidence Trump talked privately with Xi months ago and suggested it then too, which makes you wonder how far the "joke" really is going.

Augustus said:

There are many moral dimensions in voting which can only be ranked subjectively, and the point I was replying to suggests there is a 'correct' answer on how people should rank them.

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I agree with your broad point on that.

Augustus said:

Painting avoiding wars and national economic strength as 'personal gain' seems a bit of a stretch.

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But that's how you've presented the dichotomy. And personal values, such as being against bigotry, should outweigh financial concerns every time when it comes to voting someone into power.

Augustus said:

You genuinely don't agree with the following though?

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I definitely don't agree that you can justify voting for a bigot for financial reasons, no.

Augustus said:

For any moral person, there must be crossover points between the variables in ethical dilemmas that involve things like degree of bigotry, economic success, warmongering, immigration, etc. and these crossover points are often based on subjective judgements made under uncertainty.

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There really isn't much room for ethical consideration when talking about voting for bigots for economic reasons. History shows that this is never a good trade, and no moral person would ever make it.

I feel quite justified in stating that.

ImmortalFlame said:

I definitely don't agree that you can justify voting for a bigot for financial reasons, no.

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I'd guess that 95+% of people would vote for someone mildly bigoted if they believed it gave them a much better chance of being able to feed their family, pay the bills and keep a roof over their head, even if they believed that person was bigoted against their demographic.

I don't think you could criticise them either.

ImmortalFlame said:

There really isn't much room for ethical consideration when talking about voting for bigots for economic reasons. History shows that this is never a good trade, and no moral person would ever make it.

I feel quite justified in stating that.

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Why do you keep refusing to answer if there is a point at which you would consider it more ethical to vote for a mildly bigoted politician if you perceived the alternative choice was more likely to badly damage the economy, start a war, etc?

Also, does history show that all mildly bigoted politicians have been terrible leaders? Really?