Symptomatic...

Another article about Trump's proposed wall. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/us/politics/donald-trump-immigration.html

Mr. Trump has suggested he will flesh out his ideas in a forthcoming speech. But experts across many fields who have analyzed his plans so far warn that they would come at astronomical costs — whoever paid — and would in many ways defy the logic of science, engineering and law."

...

“I can’t even begin to picture how we would deport 11 million people in a few years where we don’t have a police state, where the police can’t break down your door at will and take you away without a warrant,” said Michael Chertoff, who led a significant increase in immigration enforcement as the secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush.

...

John Sandweg, who led ICE for seven months under Mr. Obama, said wholesale deportations could make it easier for immigrant gang members and drug traffickers to escape detection. “If the agents are looking for volume, they won’t spend the time to do the detective work tracking down the high-value bad guy who has fake documents, the hardened criminals in the shadows,” he said. 

...

Most deportations must be approved by judges. But backlogs in the 57 immigration courts are already severe, with waits as long as two years for a first hearing. The federal government would have to open dozens of emergency courts and hire hundreds of judges, shortcutting the painstaking selection process.

The millions of immigrants from Central American countries, China, the Philippines, India and other noncontiguous nations would have to be flown home at the federal government’s expense. Arranging flights would in itself be a huge and very costly task.

...

(emphasis is mine):

By any tally, the costs would be enormous. The American Action Forum, a conservative-leaning research group, calculated the federal outlay to be at least $400 billion, and then only if the deportations were stretched over 20 years. 

...

(emphasis mine):

But the proposals’ main flaw, former officials said, is that they are unrealistic. “Unless you suspend the Constitution and instruct the police to behave as if we live in North Korea,” Mr. Chertoff said, “it ain’t happening.”

(As for the actual construction of the wall...)

“There’s a lot of logistics involved in this, and I don’t know how thoroughly they’ve thought it out,” said Todd Sternfeld, chief executive of Superior Concrete, a Texas-based builder of walls. “The resources alone would be astronomical.”

Mr. Sternfeld, who has led major wall projects across the country and approached the Trump family last summer, suggested that Mr. Trump was overly optimistic about the cost and was underestimating the complexity of the undertaking.

Running the numbers, Mr. Sternfeld said a 40-foot-tall concrete wall using a “post and panel” system that went 10 feet below the ground — to minimize tunneling — would cost at least $26 billion. The logistics would be nightmarish, including multiple concrete casting sites and temporary housing for a crew of 1,000 workers if the job were to be completed within Mr. Trump’s first four-year term.

Maintenance would be an additional recurring expense, said Walter W. Boles, an engineering professor at Middle Tennessee State University who specializes in concrete construction.

...

Setting aside the need for congressional approval and a likely fight with Mexico over financing, many who study borders doubt that a mass of concrete would accomplish its purpose. From the ancient Great Wall of China to Israel’s modern security barrier, walls rarely prove totally impervious to people set on traversing them.

Walls tend to be crude solutions to complex problems and are evidence of geopolitical failure, said Michael Dear, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in the border with Mexico.

“People always find a way to go above or below or through a wall,” said Professor Dear, the author of “Why Walls Won’t Work.” “It’s just political window dressing and rabble-rousing of the worst order.”

...

Complicated environmental science and a fraught diplomatic history await anyone seeking to determine how to build a wall that cuts off the flow of people without violating the nation’s water treaty obligations.

Experts on those subjects, in interviews, were skeptical that one would ever be built. They speculated that the financial and political challenges were too great, among other reasons.

 

 

 

 aflanigan wrote:
Not everyone can read either, or will if they can. You can't fix ignorance by appeasing the ignorant.

 My sides.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Not everyone appreciates the fact that it's not really appropriate to invoke Godwin's law if you are talking about aspects of Nazi Germany (eugenics, racial superiority, fascism) that are relevant to current political or other discussions.

 R_P wrote:
See how difficult communicating an idea is when perfectly good words with perfectly good definitions get misused?

I rest my case.

 aflanigan wrote:
Um, no. Godwin's Law was a description of the phenomenon I'm objecting to. Avoid hyperbolic comparisons to mass murderers and you don't fall afoul of Godwin's Law.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
You still run the risk of Godwin's Law getting invoked when you do.

 Lazy8 wrote:
It's almost a truism that politics, in whatever guise, tries to transform society in small or large ways. Paradoxically, even if it would like things to stay the same (transforming a society, by law, so as not to be affected by, or impervious to, change) or worse reverting back from the current state.

FWIW, the use of that capital (or a supporting link) might then have helped a bit. As most of us know, living languages, as opposed to dead ones, are characterized by new words and changed meanings. See the notorious "decimate", where the pedant may on occasion point out that its current meaning (and general use) is opposite to the original, but that's neither likely to change back any time soon, nor going to get you to be understood when used in the original meaning. There are numerous examples just like that. C'est la vie.

If we're going to redefine reactionary as simply meaning "a chronologically backward reference" then there are few things that aren't reactionary in some way or another. But it too has a specific meaning, it's still in use and understood as such, and it has a conservative connotation (arguably then progressive has a liberal one, where liberal is used in the US context).

aflanigan wrote:
We dilute the term "Fascist" at our peril. There are still actual Fascists. They need to be called out as such, but that fails when you've diluted the word.

You fight that dilution by using the word as defined, by avoiding hyperbole, and by calling it out when you see it.

 R_P wrote:
In Trump's case he does want to retreat to some time when America Was Great, but the broader movement he is part of has a goal of not just taking power for a political agenda but transforming society (where the word "progressive" as applied to politics originally came from). The Progressive (capital P) movement in the US adopted the term with the implication that the transformation they sought was positive, but social transformation can be good or bad. Bernie Sanders harks back to the FDR era; this is clearly backward chronologically, but would you call him a reactionary because of it?

It's hard to get across a point with precise language when the words you need keep having their meanings changed, which was my original point.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Yes, I know, it's one of those "trigger" words for some people. 

It's a fact of life that certain words which started with one meaning get co-opted, and sometimes (in the case of words like Fascism) turned into trite pejoratives. Yet another addition to Orwell's list of "meaningless words", perhaps?

So how do we reclaim words, reinvigorate them consistent with their original meaning? Or some relatively consensual meaning? 

 Lazy8 wrote: 
FYT. The idea is always to get back to the place where things were supposedly better, i.e. making "it" great again. The yearning for the status quo ante.

 aflanigan wrote:
A good piece spoiled by the dramatic use of the term "Fascism". I've already said what I need to about the dilution of that term, but I'll admit it's more succinct than "authoritarian progressive nationalist".

Op ed by Republican Neoconservative (co-founder of PNAC) Robert Kagan. Interesting that a published historian uses the term fascism; he actually addresses the term about midway in, presumably to explain why he thinks it applies.

This is How Fascism Comes to America

 rotekz wrote:

I watched the first half of that interview but turned it off (perhaps prematurely) when I concluded that nothing of substance was going to come from the conversation. I thought Kelly did a good job of trying to push Trump to consider that his words have come across as bullying and hurtful, but he danced away from that issue by saying that he hits back hard when attacked.

1. I fully expect that Trump can demonstrate sanity and modulate his behavior. Trump likely realized that the blustering, attacking style of a stadium speech would make him look ridiculous in a 1-on-1 setting. And he's right, he wouldn't have gotten as far in this campaign as he has if he hadn't blustered and attacked in his speeches.

1a. So yes, during the first half of the interview he seemed calm, polite and somewhat reflective.

1b. The problem is that Trump has done little or nothing to show that he fully understands what it takes to be a successful president or that he has fleshed-out, realistic policies to address the nation's  problems. The politico.com article I pointed to shows that Trump's tax plan would have a drastically negative effect on the economy, and that Trump doesn't seem to grasp even the basics about global warming. 

Trump held it together for what, a 10-15 minute interview? Sorry, not impressed. Hitler could whip crowds into frenzies that Trump can only dream about. Hitler could also be quite charming and composed when he chose to be. Check out Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts": Hitler's conversations with US Ambassador William Dodd were quite reasonable and respectful. 

2. Back to Trump and Kelly. You wrote 

"A real apology would have weakened Trump’s unapologetic brand. But an “excuse me” issued in person, combined with a hint of humility and some genuine professional respect feels…sort of…almost…like an apology? No, definitely not. But, well, maybe?" 

Trump owed Kelly an apology, full stop. She's a reporter, doing her job of asking hard, probing questions. Calling her a "bimbo" implies that she has loose morals but Trump only called Kelly that because she asked him hard questions. 

2a.  If you think Trump came away looking good by preserving his "unapologetic brand" and coming up with a pseudo-apology, I'm sorry but no. You seem fixated on campaign-focused appearances and image, so chew on this: that non-apology and other half-assed attempts at sincerity aren't going to sway female voters, many of whom have to put up with sexist crap from egotistical clods like Trump. 
Finally:  Not sure what you mean by Megyn Kelly making lemonade out of lemons, stylewise. Every time I've seen her she looked quite stylish and poised and struck me as intelligent. She's also quite telegenic.  

 rotekz wrote: 
If you're just interested in the table, you'll note that Taleb provides no evidence to back up his conclusions. 

via

 rotekz wrote:

IT’S OFFICIAL: DONALD TRUMP Breaks Bush Record With Most Votes Ever for Republican Primary Candidate