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When will lack of training have consequences for the ones in charge?

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mudpuppy:
Intruding with a few facts that don't get through the bias-confirming prog-press people seem to watch and read exclusively some times.
Trump has been far harder on Putin than Obama or any other previous president. He reestablished tougher sanctions on Russia. He recommitted the US to installing missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic that Putin demanded canceled and Obama subsequently complied. He supplied Ukraine with Javelin anti tank missiles when Obama refused any lethal aid while eastern Ukraine was being swallowed up by Putin allies and Putin himself was swallowing the Crimea. He has sent our troops to eastern Syria to secure Syria's oil fields because part of Russia's deal with Syria was they would intervene and be paid in Syrian oil, which Trump has now cut off. The Kurds continue to be supplied and were given space to move back from the border prior to Turkey doing anything. Moreover the people complaining most loudly about his "insane" actions in pulling our troops back are pretty much the same ones who told us five ten and fifteen years ago the sending of troops into those countries was a horrible mistake and another Viet Nam and all the rest of the incessant anti war drumbeat. Trump then does just that, as he said he would, and all of a sudden the give-peace-a-chance crowd has their tomahawks out and war bonnets on. It's so bizarre it's kind of funny.

It was Obama and Hillary who sent tons of weapons from Libya to the lunatics in Syria some of who would eventually become ISIS and who turned a relatively small war into the conflagration that consumed the place without getting rid of Assad. It was during Obama's presidency in 2015 that Russia intervened militarily in Russia and Obama's feckless response was a bunch of redlines that Russia and Syria laughed at. It was the sainted Hillary Clinton who went to Russia with a big stupid red Reset button in order to play footsie with Medvedev and Putin. And it was Obama who told Medvedev when an errant mic picked it up, that after the 2012 election how much more flexible he could be without those pesky voters to worry about anymore. When Sarah Palin feared Russia would invade Ukraine years before it happened, she was laughed at. When Mitt Romney said Russia was a major threat Obama joked about how the 80s wanted their foreign policy back because we were so over worrying about Russia.
  Probably most damaging to Putin, Trump has reduced energy regulations which has increased our energy output and lowered the price of oil and deprived Russia of hundreds of billions of dollars as the price of oil has inevitably moderated with the new supply.
  Short of an actual war, Trump has done virtually everything he could in our interests, virtually none of which have been in Russia's interests, and virtually all of which reversed soft, pitiful and weak policies of Obama that Putin favored. If Trump's critics want him to start a war with Russia then why not just come out and say so? There doesn't seem to be anywhere the former peaceniks now don't want us to intervene, so why not Russia too, eh?

  If you get your information from only those people who tell you what you already believe there will be an entire world of events and motivations you have no clue about. CNN and the NYT have openly stated they are advocates for one view of the world. Do you think you will get a real view of the world if it is piped into your head by people who openly admit they are acting more as propaganda organs than a free press? If you only access information the producers of which have already acknowledged they serve it up through a funnel are you not simply volunteering to be a sheep led hither and yon by the propaganda purveyors? Do you ever read with an open mind any resources other than ones that tell what you already believe and want to hear?
What ever happened to skepticism and critical thinking and open mindedness and going out of ones way to hear, especially, the people you disagree with? Whatever happened to having a political philosophy that is rational and reasonable and humble enough to allow it's just possible it might be wrong once in awhile and the opposition are not werewolves with bloody fangs or drooling imbeciles as opposed to a political ideology that is close minded, intolerant of any idea not its own, that only sees in black and white and dehumanizes and yes tries to shout down and render voiceless its perceived enemies?
Here's an exercise worth considering. Compare Trump's policies to JFK's. If you're honest you'll find Trump's rather to the left of JFK's. And yet JFK is a Dem hero while Trump is literally Hitler. Here's another; compare the beast Trump's treatment of women to the sainted JFK's. You'll also find Trump a mere babe in the woods by comparison and yet JFK is still the sainted JFK and Trump is still Hitler. Why is that? Don't tell me the answer. I already know why. Tell it to yourself.
The saddest thing is Trump's most vehement critics don't even realize that their irrational hostility has them dancing on the end of Trump's strings like his own little puppets. Give this a try; look past the bombast and stop reacting to whatever Trump does with an automatic kneejerk. Go out of your way to look from and read different perspectives and then...dum ta da dum...think for yourself using your own critical and skeptical facilities to look at everything, but most specially the things you already believe. As Richard Feynman put it about science, but it applies to pretty much everything; "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
Have a good day. :)

mud

CB123:
Wow, Mud.
Quite a blast and not a welcome one from my vantage point.
Sorry to see this.

CB

lighter:
Hi, Mud:

Do you consider Ben Shapiro and Fox News part of the give-peace-a-chance crowd advocating for only the Dems?  If so, then ya....I get my news only from biased Dem media outlets.  I know you're frustrated, but do you really feel these irrational partisan issues? 

We left our Kurdish allies....abandoned them.   

Trump's history of sexual assault is something Trump brags about.  The hot mike incident was shocking.  Were you shocked?  I was appalled.  The first thought I had wasn't....JFK got away with it....Trump should too.  Take a breath, Brother Mud.

Perhaps consider how the news media you consume affects your critical thinking skills.

I hope you're doing OK. Mud.
Lighter

sKePTiKal:
Meh. ALL so-called news & social media are selling an agenda these days. I refuse to give them my eyeballs or a place on my screen, more & more & more these days. I scan headlines only, until I see something that MIGHT have a nugget of useful information; I won't read/keep reading if it doesn't, or it's got manipulative emotional devices embedded in the language, or worse - "othering" whole groups of people based on only one or two non-personal characteristics. (That's stereotyping; identity politics; and honestly - it's really how the Nazi's did what they did, and got away with it. And that's historical fact; not opinion.)

I've been a media student since the 60s. So what I'm finding the most alarming (albeit fascinating too) is that the information overload isn't so much data, actual information, or anything "new" - people are beating the same old dead horses, exaggerating & magnifying one tiny piece of data (often without context) into a "confirmation validation" of an opinion. My rational mind tells me there has to way more "news" that is being crowded out of the public media sources. I've turned to trade journals, scientific journal and even fiction - looking for information about what is really going on in the world. And finally, only having what I can verify in my own world, being the "final word".

It is an evil in life, that from time to time, politics consumes all the air in a room... and people choose to make a political stand a life or death matter (in many different hyperbolic ways). What a waste of the limited moments allotted in finite quantity to each of us.

:shakes head and retreats to studio to make something functional, useful, that will put a smile on a certain someone's face:

Hopalong:
Brother Mud,

What I think matters more than excoriating those "on the other side of the aisle" or raging at them is to remember who we are.

We are all human, we are all influenced by family upbringing, education, media, life experience, region, trust or suspicion, critical thinking or lack thereof, faith or belief, community or its lack, experience of other cultures, health and personal histories, on and on....

Given all of those ways to diverge, for me the primary answers, although politics matter to me profoundly, are compassion, goodwill and vigilant self-scrutiny.

Something I read/saw years ago made a big impact on me. It was a scientific long-term study of what causes divorce. The researchers videotaped couples while interviewing them, and focused on multiple factors, including either physical/facial or verbal expressions of contempt. They followed these subjects for years, and the eventual results shocked them. In every single case, those couples within which one (or both) displayed clear contempt for the partner, wound up divorced. It was the single most striking factor. Contempt is the relationship killer.

America is going through this. Since I can't out-argue those with appetite for conflict, I've decided my position has to be respect and compassion. While I'll defend what I'm called to, I won't sneer or use sarcasm to convince anyone else. That's it.

I have thought of you often, Mud. I hope your health is good, your business is going well, your family is fine, your faith is comforting, and most of all, that you've found love.

Peace,
Hops

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