The flagging and conversation are fine. The inflammatory post was nuked because it added nothing but islamophobia. Conversation moved on without it.
Please stay on topic.
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Agree 100%.
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Holy crap folks.
I just cleaved out something like a third of this topic which was nothing more than off-topic bickering.
@Willis_Eschenbach you’re newish here, so I’m going to explain this clearly, once - we have a set of community guidelines here. They don’t allow personal attacks, or topic derailing, especially rules lawyering. you want to discuss moderation, use the moderation topic or PM me, you don’t do it here. (but frankly, I think the guidelines are pretty clear if you take a moment to read them).
To everyone else: Debate the topic. Don’t attack your fellow members. Bigotry is not permitted (I mean, I really have to say that?) If this topic is further derailed I’m just going to, at minimum, lock it. Don’t make me do that.
On-topic: investigating credentials makes complete sense when those credentials are used for personal gain. It’s not an attack on a person who, for example, releases a paper under the auspices of having a PhD, if his credentials are proven false. Compare this to our fair United airlines traveller, who’s credentials had nothing to do with what happened to him, yet his credentials were called into question.
Thanks.
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Thank you as usual, orenwolf. “Holy crap” sums up what was going on there.
Agreed. It also makes sense in the context of critiquing hiring decisions. If an organisation’s new management is claiming that they will only hire the best people going forward, appointing someone to a critical position who has dubious credentials calls into question management’s ability and willingness to vet new hires and/or alternately calls into question management’s prioritisation of credentials (and the scholarship and experience that they imply).
I tend to think it’s a combination of the two with this regime: they share Gove’s disdain for “experts,” preferring ideologues and cronies; and they’re also incompetent when it comes to vetting their appointees by normally understood standards (e.g. subject-area experience, education, commitment to department’s core mission).
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Orenwolf, thank. My point was specifically that almost ALL of this thread was an ad hominem attack on Gorka. You say:
On-topic: investigating credentials makes complete sense when those credentials are used for personal gain. It’s not an attack on a person who, for example, releases a paper under the auspices of having a PhD, if his credentials are proven false. Compare this to our fair United airlines traveller, who’s credentials had nothing to do with what happened to him, yet his credentials were called into question.
Gorka was not hired because he has a PhD. That makes no sense at all. He was hired because of his IDEAS, ideas that you folks are refusing to debate. Instead, you’re all making ad hominem attacks on the quality of his PhD.
But instead of censoring that list of ad hominem attacks, you’ve censored my comments.
I’m sorry, but this is not a conversation. For example, a man accused me of saying something I never said, and I was unable to defend myself because my response had been censored. This is fairness on your planet, allow him to accuse me and prevent me from defending myself?
If this is what passes for conversation here, I’ll leave you to it. I had hoped that it would be an interesting discussion, but you’ve got the Antifa sickness where you censor opposing views you don’t like, and prevent people from speaking.
Enjoy your echo chamber …
w.
You don’t get it. The Donald doesn’t hire people because he likes their credentials. He’s a builder, he doesn’t care about titles on the wall. He hires people because of their ideas and their ability.
Credentials are rarely a good guide to who can get a job done on time and under budget … they may be important to you, but not to the President.
w.
Or to put it another way, Trump said he’d hire the BEST people … not the BEST CREDENTIALLED people.
w.
It’s interesting how you keep saying that the debate should be about the validity of gorka’s ideas rather than his credentials; but then you seem to have completely ignored the numerous critiques of his ideas that the other users have posted in response to your point… why is that?
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His position that Muslims comprise 98% of terrorists on American soil is wrong, just going off the facts.
The Bible is no better (particularly the Old Testament), and this country has seen its share of Christian terrorists. If we went by that rubric, we’d be better to build a wall around North Carolina.
Here’s a Pro-Gorka article, even:
It is imperative to recognize the enemy is motivated by a religious narrative, but that does not mean it is a war on a religion, maintains Gorka.
Yup, that’s what literally every administration has been doing since I’ve been alive. The phrasing, however, is key, because as Bin Laden himself said the narrative of Islamic terrorists is that the west is in a war against Islam itself, and not just the jihadists. That’s how they recruit. It’s very cut and dried stuff, and supported by the various missteps in the region.
The narrative Gorka (and the President) advocate is that one of the major problems is that Obama was a P***y and couldn’t say the words “Radical Islamic Terror”. Which even back in the Bush years when I leaned more right, was pretty self-evidently wrong. Not even Dick Cheney made that misstep.
Eagerly awaiting your response,
AAR.
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[quote=“Willis_Eschenbach, post:93, topic:99880”]
The Donald doesn’t hire people because he likes their credentials. He’s a builder, he doesn’t care about titles on the wall. He hires people because of their ideas and their ability.[/quote]
Strictly speaking, he was hired because of Gorka’s support from a major Trump donor, Thomas A. Saunders III.
Credentials make you plausibly worth listening to. Many people are worth listening to without them, but: if you don’t have them, and if you misrepresent your expertise – for example by getting a strip-mall diploma and then making a big deal about it – that is practically prima facie evidence that you are a confidence trickster and therefore full of crap.
We’ve seen this a lot in other areas, for example climate change deniers masquerading as scientists, or Holocaust deniers pretending to be historians. They don’t have any new ideas, just old rubbish dressed up with some purported credential.
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[quote=“ActuallyARegular, post:96, topic:99880, full:true”].
The Bible is no better (particularly the Old Testament), and this country has seen its share of Christian terrorists. If we went by that rubric, we’d be better to build a wall around North Carolina.
[/quote]
And Louisiana…
American terrorism is and always has been overwhelmingly white and Christian. And very often with at least partial government support.
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How do you know that? You think all he needed to get the job was to be “a guy with ideas”?
Damn right. The BBS is heavily censored. “The rude will be eaten first”. things can get pretty heated here but we pride ourselves on the ability to discuss opposing views with civility. You’re welcome to do that. From your responses though, I question if you are up to the challenge.
Once again, though (and for the last time), this topic isn’t about your personal feeling of persecution. If you wish to discuss the topic itself in a civil manner, have at it. Do you want to talk about moderation further? Have at it in the moderation topic. Otherwise, things are going to end badly.
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I LOVE this! 
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Of course, when looked at without Trump-colored eyeglasses, Trump’s advisers and cabinet picks mostly display stale or false ideas, and a conspicuous lack of ability.
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You forgot to mention the near universal corruption, treachery and fascism. Flynn, Gorka, Tillerson, etc.
And then there are the assorted reports that Trump primarily chooses underlings based upon superficial appearance…
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trump-cabinet-candidates-looks-bolton-2016-12?r=US&IR=T
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I guess the short form of what I was trying to say is that Gorka and his ideas are problematic in all sorts of ways, and we should focus on those. You and I might not respect his PhD very much, but let’s not give his supporters the chance to distract from his flawed ideas with an argument over the validity of his qualifications (see, for example, comments from @Willis_Eschenbach). I’m not sure anyone except the man himself give much weight to his doctorate. Can you really imagine Trump being impressed by qualifications?
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The British Empire had an entire theory of “martial races”, including the Gurkhas, the Sikhs and the Pathans (Pashtuns).
It is said that the Pakistani army continued to believe in the idea of martial races and convinced themselves that they could defeat india’s superior numbers with superior badassery.
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This makes me very glad. I love NOLA and those statues are part of the landscape, but it’s way past time for them to retire to a museum, and for them to put up some statues to the real heroes of the city… Endless statues of Louis Armstrong and Marie Laveau (among others).
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Meanwhile, in Virginia.
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Not sure what your knowledge of Hungarian is but:
Uborka can also be Ugorka see first line of Hungarian Wiki
Az uborka vagy népiesen ugorka (Cucumis sativus)
In Hungarian the U without an accent is silent, so Ugorka sounds like Gorka!
Furthermore, gurke is the Jiddisch (and German) word for gherkin a staple of the Hungarian diet (especially Kovaszos (U)gorka). Hungarian speakers commonly use loads of Jiddisch words, especially when it comes to food things: e.g. Kalàcs, Sòlet.
Gurke might not be “high Hungarian” it is a word widely recognised by Hungarian speakers. I am fairly confident that I am not the only Hungarian speaker for whom Gorka brings up associations of fermented gherkins.
All you need to do is turn on google.hu, put in gurka, and see what the image search throws up.
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