12th October 2016, 7:06 AM
The determination for who "won" a debate is pretty silly. The pundits and news heads basically decide it entirely based on who they think "looked better". They don't judge the facts, they don't judge the character even, they just judge who seemed to "dominate" the other more, and thus appear more "Presidential". Someone can be completely right on every point, but if they say it in a way that stutters or lacks conviction, they "lost".
It's why I don't bother with debates. Nothing about any of the past three debates has changed my mind on anything.
The recent trouble for Trump has been those horrible remarks he made on a live mic. What gets me is that, while for any other candidate yes, that would ruin their chances, for Trump that was just another day at the office. Why was THIS the thing that "will ruin him" when none of the other terrible racist, sexist, xenophobic, tyrannical remarks didn't? Heck, the one thing that most interested me during that last debate was Trump's promise to get a "special hearing" to toss Hillary in JAIL if he's elected. You know who puts together special hearings to arrest their political enemies after becoming leader of a country? Dictators, that's who. Considering just how much he talks about other world dictators in glowing terms, I don't think that's an unfair interpretation.
But...
But.
And I hate to point this out (remember ABF, this in no way makes Trump out to be better, he's still worse and I'll get to that), Trump is probably right about Bill Clinton's rapey past.
Now, to be clear, Bill isn't Hillary, but Trump IS Trump. So, Donald's best gambit is to say HIS rapey past is fine because someone Hillary KNOWS also has a rapey past. I also don't for one second think he actually cares one bit about those poor people he's parading around to paint Bill in a bad light. HOWEVER, the fact is, if we're at a point in our society where we've decided we can't ignore claims of rape and abuse just because there hasn't been a court conviction, we MUST take the, unfortunately, numerous claims of Bill sexually assaulting people seriously. To do anything otherwise would be hypocritical. I mean anything. No excuse a Bill supporter can come up with is any different than the ones that people supporting the OTHER Bill (Cosby) didn't also try to use. "They don't have absolute proof! They're all just trying to get money or be the center of attention! They're just trying to ruin a good man's name!" We've all decided those excuses aren't valid, so they can't be used here.
The sad truth is, if we take the accusations against Bill Cosby seriously because it's about time we started listening when multiple women come forward making such claims, we MUST take the accusations against Bill Clinton seriously. Does this mean we can't vote for Hillary? It does not. It DOES however mean she should be very wary about putting Bill in charge of anything once she's in the white house. The worst part of all of this is that it's TRUMP of all people to bring it to national attention. He's doing it for all the wrong reasons, but even a broken Trump is right twice a day.
And again, this doesn't make Trump better. As a candidate, he's still not one to be taken seriously. He isn't qualified to run his own business, much less the entire country. He's exposed his own ignorance about how ANYTHING actually works too many times to be trusted with anything. Even if it WAS Hillary that was "doing the raping", and I was here having to pick between two RAPISTS for president, I'd still have to make that choice, and it would be for Hillary. The third party candidates, well, I still don't believe a third party candidate is "throwing your vote away". That's a self fulfilling prophecy, when you get right down to it. That said, neither 3rd party candidate sounds good even if they had a good chance of winning. One's a libertarian, which is a worldview I briefly flirted with before ditching it as completely lacking in compassion or empathy. The other rejects science in favor of Hollywood pop notions of what makes people healthy (and anyone who is against vaccines is too dangerous to be president I think). That leaves Hillary, to whom I will say "GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY!". http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/demo...tting-way/ As flawed a candidate as she is, the last option of staying home on election day just isn't a choice.
It's why I don't bother with debates. Nothing about any of the past three debates has changed my mind on anything.
The recent trouble for Trump has been those horrible remarks he made on a live mic. What gets me is that, while for any other candidate yes, that would ruin their chances, for Trump that was just another day at the office. Why was THIS the thing that "will ruin him" when none of the other terrible racist, sexist, xenophobic, tyrannical remarks didn't? Heck, the one thing that most interested me during that last debate was Trump's promise to get a "special hearing" to toss Hillary in JAIL if he's elected. You know who puts together special hearings to arrest their political enemies after becoming leader of a country? Dictators, that's who. Considering just how much he talks about other world dictators in glowing terms, I don't think that's an unfair interpretation.
But...
But.
And I hate to point this out (remember ABF, this in no way makes Trump out to be better, he's still worse and I'll get to that), Trump is probably right about Bill Clinton's rapey past.
Now, to be clear, Bill isn't Hillary, but Trump IS Trump. So, Donald's best gambit is to say HIS rapey past is fine because someone Hillary KNOWS also has a rapey past. I also don't for one second think he actually cares one bit about those poor people he's parading around to paint Bill in a bad light. HOWEVER, the fact is, if we're at a point in our society where we've decided we can't ignore claims of rape and abuse just because there hasn't been a court conviction, we MUST take the, unfortunately, numerous claims of Bill sexually assaulting people seriously. To do anything otherwise would be hypocritical. I mean anything. No excuse a Bill supporter can come up with is any different than the ones that people supporting the OTHER Bill (Cosby) didn't also try to use. "They don't have absolute proof! They're all just trying to get money or be the center of attention! They're just trying to ruin a good man's name!" We've all decided those excuses aren't valid, so they can't be used here.
The sad truth is, if we take the accusations against Bill Cosby seriously because it's about time we started listening when multiple women come forward making such claims, we MUST take the accusations against Bill Clinton seriously. Does this mean we can't vote for Hillary? It does not. It DOES however mean she should be very wary about putting Bill in charge of anything once she's in the white house. The worst part of all of this is that it's TRUMP of all people to bring it to national attention. He's doing it for all the wrong reasons, but even a broken Trump is right twice a day.
And again, this doesn't make Trump better. As a candidate, he's still not one to be taken seriously. He isn't qualified to run his own business, much less the entire country. He's exposed his own ignorance about how ANYTHING actually works too many times to be trusted with anything. Even if it WAS Hillary that was "doing the raping", and I was here having to pick between two RAPISTS for president, I'd still have to make that choice, and it would be for Hillary. The third party candidates, well, I still don't believe a third party candidate is "throwing your vote away". That's a self fulfilling prophecy, when you get right down to it. That said, neither 3rd party candidate sounds good even if they had a good chance of winning. One's a libertarian, which is a worldview I briefly flirted with before ditching it as completely lacking in compassion or empathy. The other rejects science in favor of Hollywood pop notions of what makes people healthy (and anyone who is against vaccines is too dangerous to be president I think). That leaves Hillary, to whom I will say "GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY!". http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/demo...tting-way/ As flawed a candidate as she is, the last option of staying home on election day just isn't a choice.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)