Clint Eastwood on Presidential Candidates, and being in a P**** generation

Are there moral values you believe are superior but disagree with?

By civilized societies you really meant western civilized societies right? If not, then which non-western civilized societies are you referring to? If you do mean western civilized societies then one doesn't have to go too far back in history to learn how western societies came to be dominant and advanced.

So denying black kid apples and calling him the n word are equivalent of racial violence? Fact is you did assume just as the kids did, but for all we know the tree is Jewish and holds neither belief of white superiority (we don't know what race the tree is) nor ill will against black people but are simply holding on to its personal prejudice against black people.

Yes, all Nazis are racist but not all racists are Nazis. You get how that works right?

Where is your evidence that Politifact is a Hillary donor? Also, use a netural source, not Alex Jones or wherever you get your info from.

It's pretty funny that can somehow convince yourself into thinking that dismissing trash websites=indoctrination.

Also, how are you enjoying all the new polls? You said that the DNC would hurt Hillary and yet she's enjoying her biggest leads ever. Why do you think you were so wrong?

I really dont think he gives a damn whether a source is liberal or conservative. Unlike a certain someone, things are more than just liberal and conservative to most. Some people here actually have nuance, unlike someone I know. As for your arguments. It is worth noting that every generations has its pros and cons. Trends are a thing.

Millenials Education: http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/08/millennials-are-the-most-educated-worst-paid-generation

Millenials are the least likely to be religious: http://newscenter.sdsu.edu/sdsu_newscenter/news_story.aspx?sid=75623

Crime and Teen Pregnancy rates keep dropping.

Might not be a Hillary donor but studies have found bias in many of these "fact check" sites.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2013/05/28/study-finds-fact-checkers-biased-against-republicans

No, there aren't, but I acknowledge that I am fallible and inherently limted and that the moral debate extends beyond my own moral stances.

No, I'm not just talking about Western societies. There are civilized societies outside of Western societies. But for the sake of the argument, let's focus on Western Societies. What makes you dismiss collective morality as one of its foundations?

The term racial violence is not literal (I don't get why you're being so black and white about this). It can ecompass physical violence, verbal violence, and exclusion.

You're last point is just simplistic snark that misses the point. I didn't say all racists are Nazis. I'm saying that ideologies of racial superiority have a lot in common. Again, it's not a complicated point.

Hey, Trump is still leading, My unbiased source says as much.

https://www.longroom.com/polls/

It is so unbiased, I know because it says so itself.

Someone post one article on one very specific aspect of the millennial generation, he's bringing "balance to the conversation". I post several equally valid articles on multitude of factors with sourced stats and survey results, your response is "they are ridiculous". lol and I'm the biased one here. Very convincing argument you put forth.

That article cites one study, not multiple, and I'm not going to outright dismiss the study, but simply finding that Republicans lie more is not bias. Bias would be established by demonstrating that those results are incorrect. Just from that article, I see no credible refutiation of the results.

For example, this counter fact-check doesn't work:

"According to the Post's Glenn Kessler, Obama did in fact refer to it the next day in a Rose Garden address as an "act of terror," but did not call it "terrorism." Is this a distinction without a difference? Hardly, at least as far as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney might be concerned. It will be a long time before anyone forgets how the second presidential debate turned into a tag team match with Obama and CNN's Candy Crowley both explaining to the mystified Republican that Romney was, in fact, wrong when he accused the president of not having called the Benghazi attack a terrorist incident."

He's bringing balance to the conversation because he is not asserting that millenials are the best. He's simply saying that maybe they're not a bad as you think.

You, on the other hand, have a clear millenial-hating agenda. And the articles you posted are not attempting to tackle the issue in any reasonable way. It's just "millenials suck and I'm going to interpret these articles/stats/etc the way I want to to prove that."

My stance: millenials have their issues, but they're not as terrible as you're making them out to be and they have their positive aspects as well.

lol. Unskewed polls 2016.

Politifact is owned by the Tampa Bay Times. Tampa Bay Times endorsed Hillary. If being owned by someone who displays blatant political allegiance isn't a conflict with the concept of being politically neutral, I'm not sure what is.

Checking sources for veracity isn't his really part of his agenda. Like I said, if it's not a Hillary endorsed sourced - it's not "neutral". He'll only scrutinize the source if it's pro-Trump or anti-Hillary.

There are other anthill controversies made into mountains that happened with Trump that probably affected the polls, but people will forget these things. Living in one of the most far left places in the USA (Seattle Washington), I'm just not seeing Hillary winning under any circumstances. The only people who want to vote for Hillary are people that want to stop Trump - but you can't rally up an entire nation to go out and vote for someone based on the idea that "we have to stop the other candidate!". It's simply not going to happen. Abstract polling methods aside, Trump has much more attention and momentum on the internet, which I'd argue is more of an unfiltered look at popularity of each candidate.

Reddit, for example, is a huge internet community. One of the largest internet forums. The Hillary subreddit has 25k subscribers. The Trump subreddit has 198k. Hillary for Prison has 55k. Reddit isn't a bastion of conservatism. If anything, it's one of the more liberal/progressive websites on the internet. Even on Facebook, Trump has twice as many followers as Hillary. If you take a second and step outside of the media bubble, you'll realize there's practically nobody in the Hillary camp. There are tons of people in the anti-Trump camp, and those people are competing with the Trump camp, but the anti-Trumper votes are going to be dispersed among 3rd party candidates (or they'll just stay home).

Haha. So no evidence that Polifiact.com donates to Hillary? Gotcha.

Polls>your anecdotal evidence. Who cares where you live and what you're observing there? Completely irrelevant.

Polls>What you're seeing on Reddit. Reddit is not represenative of the population at large.

Polls>What you're seeing on the internet. Winning the internet election/=/winning the election. Sanders had a far greater internet prescence and still lost.

Polls>Your wishful thinking

Why can't you wrap your head around simple things like this? What is happening in your thinking process that causes you to think that Reddit somehow is a good place to get a read on the electorate?

There you go, how convenient that your own morality is the superior one. You admit your own limitations but yet when it comes to morality you are certain of its superiority? Seems contradictory to me...

How about you don't dodge my question about those examples of non-western civilized societies?

I'm sorry but "verbal violence"? lol Is that like distinct ambiguity? None the less, the point is there's nothing to indicate the tree has any sort of leaning toward white racial supremacy.

If you accept the fact that some racists are not Nazis and the story explicitly stated that tree don't consider itself to be a Nazi sympathizer, then not sure what you're arguing about; the critical part of the story rest on the fact that the children were wrong in labeling the tree as a nazi. Had the children correctly accused the tree of racism then the story would have a very different theme. The point goes back to the clich ends justifying the means: as long as we get to a point where no one is offended and people pretent to be color, gender, sex orientation etc- blind then that's utopia.

Actually agree with Clint on a lot of things here particularly the PC generation and how boring and pointless a lot of the crap out there is. Politics in general is boring. If stuff was working people wouldn't need to talk about but the media needs to fill air time and talk about something and end up brainwashing people on mindless garbage. I'm not even a republican either.

Thing is I don't even agree with most of the people Trump is preying on for votes and those who have become outcasts in society. His policies aren't very good and neither are the democrats. It's just nonsense all the way around.

Something lost on people in general. Clint is saying a lot by saying basically nothing here himself though imo.

Did I deny that there are positive evidences on millennials side? How bad do you think he thinks I think millennials are? lol

You speak as if I'm the one setting the context here, when in fact I'm not, I was only another contributors in the back and forth between millennial haters and millennials themselves.

"Millenial-hating agenda" lol, you sure you just don't have a "Millenial-apologist agenda"?

Personally I do think majority of millennials are entitled through my experiences leading teams of them both in the military and in civilian jobs. Are the baby boomer to be blamed? Maybe, someone raised them in environments that made them believe that they are special. So when they came out into the working force, there's a general culture of entitlement, that they should be rewarded based on their potential and not what they've actually accomplished. There's also an overwhelming sense of moral pomposity without having experience the trials and tribulations outside their sheltered world. One vietnam vet once said in a documentary "don't be so smug of your own morality until it's been tested". With exception of a few early millennials I've served in Afghanistan and Iraq with, majority of them have not had theirs tested, but yet they are confident that they know enough to try to shape the world according to their moral outlooks.

Are they the worst generation? I don't know, but they are worse than my parents generation and mine. lol starting to sound like ol' Clint.

Why are you not registering basic points? My point is that I'm NOT sure that my own morality is the superior one because I am fallible. I think I've come to solid moral conclusions, but I cannot be certain of that. However, I do think that one can rationally argue that one moral stance is superior to another. My own moral stances are beside the point.

You're the one that's dodging the question because you're asserting that the success of Western societies is not based on collective morality, yet you're not backing it up with anything. I'm allowing you to debate this on the terms you want: Western societies (my own stance is that all civilized societies owe their existence to collective morality). So how can you dismiss collective morality in regard to them?

No, verbal violence is not ambiguous at all. It's pretty obvious what that is. Terminology has been a frequent weapons of those who espouse racial superiority.

The children may be technically wrong in labeling the tree a Nazi, but the label is not without basis. The children are making the connection between Nazism and racism based on the fact that both of them arise from ideologies of racial superiority. The tree can be upset all it wants, but its ideology does have plenty of common ground with Nazism.

Your final sentence is a misrepresentation: nobody expects utopia or complete colorblindness. Actually, faux-colorblindness is a tool of the right to sweep racial injustices under the rug. Rather, what is hoped for is that racist/sexist/homophobic ideologies become as marginal as possible. Like it or not, peer pressure is part of that. Racists should be protected by law, but they should not be free from ridicule.

No I don't because many millenials annoyed the shit out of me this election with their blind Bernie Sanders worship and there were times I was tempted to make a snarky anti-meillenial remark. But that doesn't mean I'm going to adopt a ridiculous "millenials suck" attitude. Generation warfare is petty as **** TBH. Millenial bashing is no better than when people falsely claim that the Baby Boomers destroyed everything.

I don't know how bad he thinks you think millenials are, but he was clearly counter-balancing your view.

You may not have a millenial-hating agenda IRL, but that's how you're coming across in this thread. You cannot blame someone for thinking you highly dislike millenials based on this thread.

Society is trending in certain ways. Some trends are definately for the better. Others are for the worse. Some, are a double edged sword.

• Millenials are more academically inclined. No doubt about that, and I dunno how it is in the US, but here Millenials have to spend an extra year in university. Simply because of the expansion of knowledge. But they are also less politically inclined.
• New Age cults are as silly as the religions they replace. Replacing one bit of voodoo with another is not the solution.

When a bunch of misisonaries knocked on my door a while back, they asked me, if I thought the world was being a better or a worse place. My answer was "In what way? The world has improved in some regards, but is worse in others." A question which they couldnt answer. I like nuance, and I like to look at each issue with its full complexity. I dont think any generation is much better than another, like Greyseal said, these generation wars are silly as ****. There is too much complexity and nuance and too many variables factoring into the various things to make a good say on which generation is better than any other. To say that any particular generation is awful, is just being extremely simplistic and quite frankly, shallow.

I am reacting to bmanva based on his actions in this thread... and in another thread where he expressed dislike towards people born in a certain decade.

Others have already addressed the other comments, so I'm going to limit my response to this.

We don't disagree with what Libertarians believe. As you said, Libertarians believe the businesses don't inject their own moral opinion into the operations of a company and they do what nets them the most profit. Disregarding the fact that this is patently false (look no further than occurrences during the current administration), Libertarians tell me that this is why government regulation such as the Civil Rights legislation was unnecessary - the social forces would have resulted in (eventually) fair treatment for black people anyway.

I agree it's BS, but that's the argument that has always been posited to me by Libertarians. If you agree that it's BS, then hooray, we've found common ground. Then it becomes a matter of what forces can/would change that social fabric (or, I guess, you could argue whether or not it SHOULD be changed).

Man, I can't wait until I reach the age where I can shake my fist at the younger generation and be some crotchety old man. Wonder if they'll still ride skateboards, not on my sidewalk!

@bmanva:

You're confusing Nazism with the Holocaust. Nazism was much more than just the Holocaust. The Holocaust was merely Nazism's "Final Solution" to the "Jewish problem", but the Nazi ideology itself consists of far more than just the Holocaust.

In the years leading up to the Holocaust, the Nazi Party had not yet called for the extermination of Jews and other "untermensch". Up until that point, Nazism was "merely" promoting racial superiority and discrimination against Jews, which is the same thing that America was doing to blacks. That was the first stage of Nazism. The Holocaust was the final stage of Nazism.

The comparison between white-supremacists and Nazis is very apt, since white-supremacists are preaching racial superiority and racial discrimination just like what the Nazis were preaching before and during their rise to power.

I can imagine it now: "Back in my day we browsed the internet on iPads, not through neural projectors! This generation is all about instant gratification!"

you already sound like crotchety old men. Good job.

Sounds like Clint has pulled a Heston and gone from being an admired actor and filmmaker to a cranky old coot shooting at squirrels in his front yard.

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control."

-Inscribed in some 6000 year old egyptian tomb.

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"

-Plato

"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint ... As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behaviour and dress."

-Peter the Hermit

Then there was that quote from some portuguese poet that AND1SALTTAPE made a while back. A quote I found laughably stupid, I made 7 posts in that thread or so commenting on how stupid it was.

We have a term for this, its called ephebiphobia. And this has been the case with EVERY generation, and the rhetoric has been the same with every generation. But alas, how the human memory works and nostalgia tends to make one forget the nasty bits of one's youth.

Edit: Hell, I have seen some millenials now rip on Generation Z for having no self control. My response to that is "And the cycle continues".

why wait?

I remember writing a post very similar to this on SW years ago...

One response I remember getting is (I don't remember who it was)... "I wouldn't trust a guy called Peter the Hermit, lol."

Wouldnt surprise me. A post like that one is very much in your style. Heavy emphasis on facts.

Even when we do disagree (such as in old school jRPGs vs cRPGs), I always respected your opinion for being rooted in objectivity. Compariviely speaking, I do not hold as much respect for most other opinions, such as bmanva's (in this thread) who used logical fallacies to try to justify their positions.

Did I suggest that anti-semitism is encompassing Nazi ideology? Go back and re read the context, the comparison isn't white supremacists and nazis but racist and nazis. Claiming that racist is an essentially a nazis is saying that non-white people can't be racist.

How is that "patently" false? What economic occurrences are you referring to? True libertarians (those who understands the concept economic liberalism, which is the central principle of American libertarians) wouldn't make such an argument. Whether society is progressing toward "fair treatment for black people" is irrelevant to the topic of economy since again social equality is a moral issue and market by nature, is amoral. It wouldn't be a issue of "necessity". Again, as far as majority of the consumers are concerned, social and moral effect of the companies don't really affect their decision; they care that the business' products/services are relatively good and prices are cheap.

You are going to have to clarify what you're agreeing is bullshit, because I'm confused to what you're arguing against. Again if the debate is the direction societal morals SHOULD take, then that's another topic that should be engaged entirely free of the economy. At least that would be the case for libertarians.

And I was "clearly" counter-balancing another view that millennials are wholly not responsible for their situations. Again, you are responding as if I initiated the offense unprovokingly when again I was simply "counter-balancing" another's opinion.

You may not have a millennial-apologist agenda IRL but that's how you're coming across in this thread. Because you are hardly "balanced" in your choice of which side to response to.

Clint Eastwood is a perfect example of why we shouldn't ask old people for their opinion. Out of touch with modern society.

Did you not claim knowing which set of morality is superior? And that those superior morals are inclusive of your own morals? Please, you want to call out moral absolutism as bullshit then maintain a moral rationalism view and question why I'm not registering your inherently self conflicting points? That's like Trump level of philosophical consistency lol

Oh, we're throwing in the "no u" argument. Nice. BTW still waiting on example of non-western civilized societies. By your steadfast refusal to address my question directly I think both of us know where I'm headed with that line of logic. Advancement of western societies are not based on collective morals but rather system of exploitation and brutality. Externally stability of those societies are maintained as such whilst internally, they are sustained by the illusion of moral superiority. I find it ironic that you would criticize Burnies supporters for naivety but failing to recognize the duality of civilized societies.

Any definition of violence involves physical force. Therefore verbal violence isn't real violence. While instigative, racial epithets are not a form of racial violence. There's a huge legal difference there.

The kids were wrong period. People are born with inherent racial prejudice, so by your logic we are all born as Nazis. This type of blurring of differences is end justifying the mean at the microlevel.

So your argument is ridicule based on generalization of race should be confronted by ridicule based on generalization of views or political alignment?