Unwind your knickers and focus on the real outrages.
The current outrage is a guy from the EU posting photos of a guy wearing a flag because I guess that's OK in his foreign country but here it's considered quite outré. So I'm just trying to help the poor guy negotiate our arcane customs. I'm nothing if not helpful.
Yep, and the flag code doesn't brook any waffling, either.
"…any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America."
and yet these same Real Patriots™ like to interpret it as meaning "made out of an actual flag." I happen to agree with them and think some implementations of the flag as clothing are pretty cool. But there are plenty of bad examples out there so it's probably better (except for that whole first amendment thing) to say you can't do any of it.
Note that a lot of these wafflers are likely to claim to be literalists when it comes to the bible.
That would be the Flag Code in Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C. § 1)? The one voided by the Supreme Court in 1990 in US v. Eichman? That one?
If this were the worst threat Donald Trump's campaign posed to our laws and country I'd be one happy voter. Unwind your knickers and focus on the real outrages.
I always wonder about how stores get away with their crappy clothes that incorporate exact copies of our flag - and Real Patriots™ think it's OK to buy/wear it. If they're sincere about loving America, they'd never belittle the flag in such a way.
Yep, and the flag code doesn't brook any waffling, either.
"…any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America."
and yet these same Real Patriots™ like to interpret it as meaning "made out of an actual flag." I happen to agree with them and think some implementations of the flag as clothing are pretty cool. But there are plenty of bad examples out there so it's probably better (except for that whole first amendment thing) to say you can't do any of it.
Note that a lot of these wafflers are likely to claim to be literalists when it comes to the bible.
"The flag should not be used as "wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery", … or for any decoration in general"
I always wonder about how stores get away with their crappy clothes that incorporate exact copies of our flag - and Real Patriots™ think it's OK to buy/wear it. If they're sincere about loving America, they'd never belittle the flag in such a way.
While Ted Cruz had the backing of most Religious Right leaders in his now-suspended presidential campaign, Donald Trump has had his own amen corner among preachers of the God-wants-you-to-be-rich prosperity gospel, including a group who laid hands on him last fall. At that meeting, Florida-based prosperity preacher Paula White prayed that "any tongue that rises against him will be condemned according to the word of God.”
It’s not really surprising that preachers who tout wealth as a sign of God’s favor would line up with a blustery billionaire like Trump, who says his riches are proof that he’s qualified to fix what’s wrong with the country. What is a bit more surprising is the support Trump is getting from a leading advocate of Seven Mountains dominionism, which teaches that government and other spheres of influence — “mountains” like media, entertainment, business — are meant to be run by the right kind of Christians.
Wallnau has been pushing Trump for a while now. In November he declared that God has given Trump “an anointing for the mantle of government.” But why would someone who thinks Christians with a “biblical worldview” are supposed to be running the world throw his support to Trump rather than Ted Cruz or one of the other candidates who put their faith at the center of their campaigns?
Steve Strang, publisher of the Pentecostal Charisma Magazine, put that question to Wallnau in a recent podcast interview. Strang had been a Ted Cruz supporter, but after Cruz dropped out of the race he quickly declared that he has shifted his loyalty and support to Trump.
“When God wants to move in history, he doesn’t always pick the favorite evangelical,” said Wallnau. He said that God brought Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill to power at crucial moments in history, the way He is now raising up Trump for our time. And he knows this, Wallnau said, because God told him so. (...)
One thing we know about Donald Trump is that he doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t apologize when he is wrong. He doesn’t apologize when he is offensive. He doesn’t apologize for mistakes. As crazy as that sounds, I have blogged that it gives him a sort of superpower for negotiating. He creates an expectation that Donald Trump never budges even while he makes other people budge all the time.
For example, on the news this morning I heard that Speaker Ryan said he would step down from managing the Republican Convention if Trump asks him to do so. I have to assume that managing a convention is a terrible job and not something Ryan wants to do anyway. Ryan is simply being smart, practical, and reasonable. But it looks to the public that Trump can influence Ryan while Ryan can’t influence Trump. That pattern is important to Trump. It sets the table for how people deal with him in the future. Specifically, it tells people they are going to lose when they try to negotiate with him. That sort of expectation hardens into reality over time and gives him a tremendous psychological advantage. Trump knows that. (Remember that he wrote the book on negotiating, literally.)
When you are Donald Trump, apologizing is a bad strategy, even though apologizing makes perfect sense for other types of leaders. Other leaders are not emphasizing their deal-making skills. Trump is playing an entirely different game of persuasion.
Now here’s the interesting part. Given Trump’s reputation for notapologizing, he can create an unusual amount of attention if he ever breaks pattern. A sincere Trump apology – about anything – would control the news cycle for a week. So he can save that magic bullet until needed.
Just for fun, let me tell you how he could use the Apology Gambit to help solve his biggest problem – his negatives with women. Specifically, Trump could apologize for all of the offensive things he has ever said about women.
But to be persuasive, here’s the best form:
Example Trump Apology Gambit:
Trump: I have said a lot of offensive things about both men and women.
(This frames the issue as Trump insults everyone.)
Trump: But today I would like to apologize to women.
(There’s your news juice. He EXCLUDES men from the apology. What???)
I apologize to women for all the offensive things I’ve said in the past. I’m an equal-opportunity offender, but I understand the sensitivity when it crosses gender, and I apologize to women for that. No one respects women more than Donald Trump.
(Sincere apologies are persuasive.)
Trump: And I call on Hillary Clinton to do the same, and apologize for her mistreatment of the women her husband abused.
(That’s the trap. In this hypothetical, Trump reframes the gender issue so we see that Trump is an equal opportunity offender, but only withwords, whereas Clinton has an alleged history of mistreating women with actions. And Clinton can’t apologize for her alleged actions without admitting they are true.
Apologies are like catnip to the media. Journalists would make Trump repeat his sincere apology a hundred times in different interviews and debates, and they would prod Clinton to apologize as Trump suggested – which won’t happen. So the apology and the non-apology would become the dual headlines.
I’m not suggesting that Trump apologize to anyone. That is a political calculation. I’m only viewing this hypothetical example from a persuasion perspective, so you can see how some of the persuasion methods work. In this case you see several blended techniques:
1. Reframing (Trump reframes as an equal-opportunity offender, not a sexist.)
2. Sincere Apology (Apologies influence people because they demonstrate empathy.)
3. Pattern Violation (The media prefers man-bites-dog stories. Any break in pattern will control the news cycle.)
4. Deputizing the Pundits (Omitting men from the apology creates a men-versus-women contrast in which men don’t seem to need apologies. What? This would create lots of pundit chatter in which everyone competes to say some form of “Trump is an equal opportunity offender.” That’s what Trump wants you to know. Pundits will make his case for him so long as he only apologizes to women.
5. Redirecting Energy (Trump could move the energy – the public’s attention and interest – to the question of Clinton’s non-apology.)
Persuasion is a lot like engineering. It has a lot of moving parts that have to fit together just right. The complexity of it is completely invisible to the untrained. Trump’s persuasion is almost always tightly engineered, right down to his Linguistic Kill Shots (his insulting nicknames).
And when would be the perfect time for a Trump Apology Gambit? You already know the answer to that question because Trump primed you for it. Trump could do the apology during his upcoming Megyn Kelly interview.
Bam.
For new readers of this blog, please note that my political views do not align with Trump or with any of the other candidates. My interest is in Trump’s persuasion skills, the likes of which I have never seen.
You really can't tell when something makes your candidate look like an idiot, can you? Trump is complaining because the interview began with a question.
Of course he had no intention of discussing anything; that was just his excuse to sit on the TV screen and be a dick. Voters love that, I guess... it's been an extremely successful strategy so far so why change?
That first question was very much on point & relevant, but if it was the start of the interview, I suppose Cuomo could have led into his questions with some sort of welcome and congratulations so it didn't seem like he was in attack mode right off the bat.
The Donald really is extremely thin-skinned. I saw an episode of Bill Maher the other day, which included a clip from My Fair Lady, and the whole joke was that Trump is essentially whiny, temperamental, irrational, etc. - exactly the way women are portrayed by Rex Harrison in the scene.
Here it is... I think the skit is hit & miss, but the interview with Cuomo immediately made me think of it.
You really can't tell when something makes your candidate look like an idiot, can you? Trump is complaining because the interview began with a question.
Of course he had no intention of discussing anything; that was just his excuse to sit on the TV screen and be a dick. Voters love that, I guess... it's been an extremely successful strategy so far so why change?
He was objecting to starting with a hostile question, something he'd better get used to.
His point about CNN being politically biased isn't wrong, but it isn't relevant either. He's playing to his audience, once again showing how well he can manipulate people and steer a conversation to avoid answering hard questions.
This, apparently, qualifies him to lead the executive branch of government..
Trump stumps Chris Cuomo at the Clinton News Network.
You really can't tell when something makes your candidate look like an idiot, can you? Trump is complaining because the interview began with a question.
Of course he had no intention of discussing anything; that was just his excuse to sit on the TV screen and be a dick. Voters love that, I guess... it's been an extremely successful strategy so far so why change?
The Trump organization's desperate, ultimately futile search for a rational person to convince the reality-based voting bloc in the US to consider voting for Trump continues . . .
So why is the singer not pledging a vote to Hillary Clinton? "Hillary has been GROOMED for the presidency. She's another one of the establishments robots here to carry out an agenda," Banks tweeted. "Hillary talks to black people as if we're children or pets. i can't stand herrrrrrr."
So why is the singer not pledging a vote to Hillary Clinton? "Hillary has been GROOMED for the presidency. She's another one of the establishments robots here to carry out an agenda," Banks tweeted. "Hillary talks to black people as if we're children or pets. i can't stand herrrrrrr."
The Mayo Clinic explains "Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism." They add that "a narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of life." The sufferer "may be generally unhappy and disappointed when you're not given the special favors or admiration you believe you deserve."
Clinical psychologist George Simon said that Trump is "so classic that I'm archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there's no better example of his characteristics." He conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior exhibited by narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths - all related Anti Social Personality Disorders. "Otherwise, I would have had to hire actors and write vignettes. He's like a dream come true."...
Carol Caldwell notes, in D.J. Trump, Psychopath, that "it's been attested to by psychologists and neurobiologists who study psycho- and sociopaths that the deadly syndrome can be seen in their eyes."
She observes that "the eyes are described as affectless, what we would call cold, or eerily blank in one-on-one or televised exchanges. The sociopath is described as charming, out-going, intelligent, cunning, winning without warmth, but adaptable to whatever human kindness you telegraph to them. As we well know, many of them ascend to top positions in major industries, I might mention Wall Street and banking, heads of Hollywood studios, and members of Congress. On the street levels of everyday life, they work their wiles into all kinds of jobs, by falsifying resumes to fit the careers they are after. One area of human endeavor they seem less adaptable to is refined senses of humor."
Your article is a recap of a Vanity Fair piece. The VF article ends with the most significant quote:
But for at least one mental-health professional, the Trump enigma, or should we say non-enigma, is larger than the bluster of the man whose own Web site calls him “the very definition of the American success story, continually setting the standards of excellence”—to this mind-set, Trump may be a kind of bellwether. Howard Gardner (a developmental psychologist and professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education) said, “For me, the compelling question is the psychological state of his supporters. They are unable or unwilling to make a connection between the challenges faced by any president and the knowledge and behavior of Donald Trump. In a democracy, that is disastrous.”
And the Saudis have been financing the spread of Wahahabism thruout the world with their oil wealth. They are the root cause of today's terrorism.
Wikipedia:
Wahhabism ) is a religious movement or branch of Sunni Islam. It has been variously described as "ultraconservative", "austere", "fundamentalist", "puritanical" (or "puritan") and as an Islamic "reform movement" to restore "pure monotheistic worship" (tawhid) by scholars and advocates, and as an "extremist pseudo-Sunni movement" by opponents. Adherents often object to the term Wahhabi or Wahhabism as derogatory, and prefer to be called Salafi or muwahhid. Many Sunni and Shia Muslims disagree with the Wahhabi movement, and believe in a conspiracy theory blaming the British secret service for the founding of the Wahhabi movement. A Al-Azhar scholar has referred to Wahhabism as a "Satanic faith".
Wahhabism is named after an eighteenth-century preacher and scholar, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792). He started a revivalist movement in the remote, sparsely populated region of Najd, advocating a purging of practices such as the popular "cult of saints", and shrine and tomb visitation, widespread among Muslims, but which he considered idolatry (shirk), impurities and innovations in Islam (Bid'ah). Eventually he formed a pact with a local leader Muhammad bin Saud offering political obedience and promising that protection and propagation of the Wahhabi movement mean "power and glory" and rule of "lands and men." The movement is centred on the principle of Tawhid, or the "uniqueness" and "unity" of God. The movement also draws from the teachings of medieval theologian Ibn Taymiyyah and early jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
The alliance between followers of ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad bin Saud's successors (the House of Saud) proved to be a rather durable alliance. The house of bin Saud continued to maintain its politico-religious alliance with the Wahhabi sect through the waxing and waning of its own political fortunes over the next 150 years, through to its eventual proclamation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and then afterwards, on into modern times. Today Mohammed bin Abd Al-Wahhab's teachings are state-sponsored and are the official form of Sunni Islam in 21st century Saudi Arabia.
Estimates of the number of adherents to Wahhabism vary, with one source (Michael Izady) giving a figure of fewer than 5 million Wahhabis in the Persian Gulf region (compared to 28.5 million Sunnis and 89 million Shia).
With the help of funding from petroleum exports (and other factors), the movement underwent "explosive growth" beginning in the 1970s and now has worldwide influence.
Wahhabism has been accused of being "a source of global terrorism", inspiring the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and for causing disunity in Muslim communities by labelling Muslims who disagreed with the Wahhabi definition of monotheism as apostates (takfir), thus paving the way for their execution for apostasy. It has also been criticized for the destruction of historic mazaars, mausoleums, and other Muslim and non-Muslim buildings and artifacts. The "boundaries" of what make up Wahhabism have been called "difficult to pinpoint", but in contemporary usage, the terms Wahhabi and Salafi are often used interchangeably, and considered to be movements with different roots that have merged since the 1960s. But Wahhabism has also been called "a particular orientation within Salafism", or an ultra-conservative, Saudi brand of Salafism.
So I'm just trying to help the poor guy negotiate our arcane customs. I'm nothing if not helpful.
