DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Politics, this board and reality. Who are we?

I blame the previous administration for omitting Saudi Arabia as well. Seems as though that rationale didn't stop 9/11 so I don't know why you would use that reasoning now.

I'm presenting this rationale because unlike a lot of what has been spewed on here, it is directly relevant to what the Order is actually about.

Look, candidate Trump was highly critical of the vetting process. Upon taking office he inherits the intel developed under the Obama admin that names these countries as being "higher risk".

So he issues a temporary stay so that they can do a review of what is in place.

He would be a fool not to review those types of things, especially considering he ran on a national security platform.

Is he being overly cautious putting something on hold that could be reviewed while in action? Possibly. And that I think could be worthy of a rational discussion (that again isn't likely to happen).

As far as Saudi Arabia. It's been 15yrs since 9/11. We've had 3/4 of the Bush Admin and 8 years of the Obama Admin to address Saudi Arabia. This 90 day thing isn't about what happened 15yrs ago, it's about what's happening these days.

Sorry but I think body count is relative.

Relevant... and from 1950-1959, not more than about 5 years after WWII was over, we were allowing over 100K German immigrants into the United States per year.

Not allowing people in because you have reasons to suspect them today is national security.. not allowing them in because of something their country was associated with 15 years ago is punishment.. and this isn't supposed to be about punishment.

Sticking up for this is absent of critical thought.

People wish to ban refugees from nations who have not killed one person on our soil while allowing refugees from a nation that has killed thousands on our soil. This is beyond excusable.

I see you are once again cutting your nose off to spite your face.

If we got the Saudi's to pay for Safe Cities in Syria for the hoards of refugees, That is an asset.

Your constant calls for vengeance to get even with them is a liability for America and the refugees of the area.

I don't wish the refugees any harm. I just don't want them for neighbors. I have no problem helping them to set up safe zones in the Middle East.

Once again, maybe you should explain that to the victims families of 9/11.

I actually felt the corpses of dead Americans had value.

I have no problem having them as neighbors as long as I have a decent level of comfort that they were properly vetted.

I have them as neighbors.

I saw this and I chuckled as I read it. It is by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon, which is one of my all-time favorites. I will just post it and then provide some comments at the end.

The Persuasion Filter and Immigration
Posted January 29th, 2017 @ 8:02am

President Trump has issued temporary immigration orders that ban citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. This is a good opportunity to test the Persuasion Filter against what you might call the Hitler Filter.

For new readers of this blog, my starting point is the understanding that human brains did not evolve to show us reality. We aren’t that smart. Instead, our brains create little movies in our heads, and yours can be completely different from mine. We see that situation now. Half the country thinks President Trump is well on his way to becoming a Hitler-like dictator. But many other Americans think Trump is an effective business person with good intentions. They can’t both be right.

I use the word “filter” to describe an optional way of looking at the world. A good filter is one that makes you happy and does a good job of predicting what happens next. Let’s use that standard to compare the Hitler Filter to what I call the Persuasion Filter.

The Hitler filter clearly isn’t making people happy. The people watching that movie are protesting in the streets. Meanwhile, the people who see Trump as a good negotiator looking out for the country are quite happy with the job he has done so far. The Persuasion Filter says Trump opens with a big first offer and negotiates back to something reasonable. If you don’t recognize the method, it looks crazy, random, and racist.

But what about predictions?

The Persuasion Filter predicting Trump would become president when the Hitler Filter thought he had no chance. Now we have another chance to test the predictive power of the Persuasion Filter.

If Trump is a Master Persuader, as I have been telling you for over a year, he just solved his biggest problem with immigration and you didn’t notice. The biggest problem is that his supporters on the right want more immigration control than he can (or should) deliver while his many critics on the left want far less. Normally when you negotiate there is only one party on the other side. But in this case, Trump is negotiating two extremes in two different directions. It’s the toughest possible situation. Best case scenario is that 40% of the country want you dead when it’s all over. Not good.

So what does a President Trump do when he is in an impossible situation?

According to the Hitler Filter, he does more Hitler stuff, such as being more extreme than anyone expected with his recent immigration declarations. That filter accurately predicted that he would be “worse” once elected. Sure enough, his temporary immigration ban is more extreme than most people expected. If things never get worse from this point on, we would have to question the Hitler Filter. But if things get worse still, the Hitler Filter is looking good.

Compare to the Persuasion Filter. This filter says Trump always opens with an extreme first offer so he has room to negotiate to the middle. The temporary ban fits that model perfectly. On the immigration topic alone, both the Hitler Filter and the Persuasion Filter predict that we get to exactly the point we are at today. Let’s call that a tie in terms of predictive power. The hard part is predicting what happens next.

The Persuasion Filter says Trump is negotiating with his critics on the extreme right at the same time as he is negotiating with his critics on the left. He needed one “opening offer” that would set up both sides for the next level of persuasion. And he found it. You just saw it.

The left sees Trump’s executive orders on immigration as pure Hitler behavior. That gives him plenty of room to negotiate to the middle. The initial orders are too broad, and clearly target too many of the wrong people. As he fixes those special cases he will be moving away from the Hitler model toward the middle. And people are more influenced by the DIRECTION of things than the absolute position of things. As long as he is moving away from the Hitler analogy, people will chill out, even if they think he was too close to that position before. Direction matters.

Trump’s temporary immigration ban set a mental anchor in your brain that is frankly shocking. It will make his eventual permanent immigration plan (”extreme vetting”) look tame by comparison. The Persuasion Filter says that’s his strategy. Because that’s ALWAYS his strategy. He acts the same way every time. He wrote a book about it. He talks about it publicly. Then he does it right in front of us, over and over. And no matter how many times he does it, half the country still thinks the opening offer is the real one.

I’ve mentioned in this blog a few times that persuasion works even when the subject of the persuasion recognizes all the techniques as they happen. This is a perfect case. The left has been watching Trump make big offers and dial them back for the past year. And yet they still think this time it will be different. The Persuasion Filter says that 70-year old Trump will act the same way today as he has for the past several decades: Big first offer, then negotiate.

But what about Trump’s critics on the far right who want more extreme immigration? Trump needs to negotiate with them too. And he is. He did that by showing them that his temporary offer was so extreme that people took to the streets. The system (America) is actively trying to eject Trump like some sort of cancer cell. And the worse it gets, with protests and whatnot, the more leverage Trump has to tell his far right supporters that he has gone as far as the country will let him go. He needed that. The protests are working in his favor. He couldn’t negotiate with the extreme right without them.

Are Trump’s temporary immigration plans chaotic? Yes. Do they hurt innocent people who were minding their own business? Yes, temporarily at least. Did he scare the pants off of half the country? Yes. Will there be lots of unintended damage from Trump’s immigration orders? Yes. No honest person should deny the cost component of the equation. It’s ugly. But don’t stop with a half-pinion. If you want a full opinion on immigration you have to compare those costs to the potential benefits that include fewer terrorist acts and avoiding Europe’s refugee problems. Are people making that comparison?

No.

On Twitter I am seeing lots of well-meaning liberals tweet charts showing that no one from the banned countries has ever been a terrorist in the United States. But Trump isn’t trying to solve the PAST. He’s trying to reduce risks in the future. And the future has risks that are unlike the past.

If you want your president to solve only problems that have already happened in the past, we can ignore any potential climate change issues too. Human activity has never warmed the planet too much in the past, so why worry about it in the future? The point is that we try to stop problems before they happen, not after. Terrorism and climate change are similar in that one narrow way. They are both problems of the future, not the past. You can’t look to history to figure out how to solve either one of them. Dinosaurs didn’t drive cars and ISIS didn’t always have hobby-sized drones that can drop bombs.

On a related topic, President Obama and past leaders have gone out of their way to avoid labelling Islam as the problem behind terrorism. That makes sense on a rational level because only a tiny percentage of Muslims are terrorists. Obama wanted to avoid causing a religious war that pitted Christians against Muslims. So he avoided saying “radical Islamic terror,” for example. One could make a good case that Obama’s approach was the wisest path. It allowed us to stay on good relations with our Muslim allies and it probably depressed recruitment for the terrorists, at least a little bit. Smart, right?

Now we see Trump doing exactly the opposite. His words and actions seem to be intentionally mixing the Muslim “brand” with the terrorist “brand.” How does that make sense with the Persuasion Filter? I’ll tell you how.

President Obama’s approach was to give a free pass to Islam in general and to any Muslims that were just minding their own business. But the unintended consequence is that Muslims have less incentive to police their own ranks. Trump changed that. Now if you want to stay out of the fight against terrorism it will cost you.

So Trump has created a situation – or will soon – in which the peaceful Muslims will either have to do a lot more to help law enforcement find the terrorists in their midst or else live with an increasingly tainted brand. Trump is issuing no free passes for minding your own business. His model makes you part of the solution or part of the problem. No one gets to sit this one out.

I’m not smart enough to know whether President Obama or President Trump have the best strategy in this regard. But both strategies are rational.

—

Scott Adams

Scott Adams - Dilbert

Ok, I enjoyed reading it and it does make a lot of sense. My big question is this.. if this is, in fact, Trump's plan, is he even aware he's doing it or is it just the business model he sort of grew up and just does it by instinct? I read the whole thing thinking, "This dude is giving Trump far more credit for being the negotiating genius than I would."

Anyway, I thought it raised some interesting points to ponder and we can see how it works out.. if he starts backing off or what. If his next issue starts with a big, bold, shocking offer, then he backs off.. we shall see.

I think the article is brilliant!

It is DawgTalkers, over the last year, wrapped up in a nutshell!

We managed to cover all these issues from both sides with a lot of yelling in between but man, to see it wrapped up like this is great.

Trump, as a young man was sent to work in construction where he did all the dirty work. Dad wanted it that way. He learned how to work and be responsible.

Next dad introduced Trump to some of the wisest, most sophisticated, smartest, New York City men from the world of business and law. Trump soaked it all up and became the billionaire businessman we all know. He is 70 now and he does this stuff like you and I put on our shoes in the morning.

Personally I don't think anyone but his closest allies know just how savvy this guy is. We are only beginning to learn.

Again, Great Post!

Something more that fits Trump to a tee...

He would go into a negotiation with someone like the Atlantic City government. BAM! He needed a 60 story casino and nothing else would do! They would try to reason with him that they had a 200 year old law that you could not exceed 20 stories. He went crazy, I am bringing you these jobs, I will use New Jersey Union workers and local contractors! But you don't want these jobs for your people?

In the end, the best the government could do was allow 42 stories and Trump would agree but he would say why don't we make it 40 stories instead, this will leave you looking even better.

The Truth was that Trump really only wanted a 36 story building all along. Everybody came away slapping high 5's and looking good.

The art of the deal.

Hard to believe he will be President for 2 weeks come Friday.

Seems like 2 years!

Yes, finally, because all of the light on the the Middle East and African migration has been thus far manifest on the Muslims.

Lest we, GOD forbid, forget that this was once the cradle of Christianity and has now been all but Waldensiansed.

I never heard of, or whitnessed a true Christian have malicious intentions to anyone of another belief.

Prayers do not kill.

Well there was the spanish inquisition, the witch hunts, and the crusades so it's not like christians are always docile little lambs. I know lots of meanspirted and nasty old christians too. We are far from perfect =)

However Christianity is a deep part of our culture and the roots of our country. Muslims will never acclimate but just endure until they can change the culture or bide their time till they are ready. It's not like its weird for a muslim who is a perfectly normal person to wake up with a call to action and all of a sudden it's their time to create mayhem.

There are plenty of nice people among the muslims. They problem is you never know when they will be activated after being imbedded. Just ask the French and Germans how well its gone for them letting in so many. There is a reason they are now kicking them out.

Learn from other people's mistakes has always been my motto.

Catholicism is not Christianity imo.

Thats not to say that God has no true followers in that denomination, I'm talking about the system. Also there is enough evidence that supports them as creating Islam for the reasons mentioned above.

Does anyone else think ISIL amongst others will pose as Christians to get into this country? Since they banned Muslims?

Christians and Jews and Atheists from those 7 nations are also not allowed in.

I'm wondering how many Syrian refugees have been accepted by Israel?

If only there was a way to look that up.. some kind of interconnected source of information where you could just type in a question and get a whole bunch of information almost instantaneously... somebody should invent that.

Yeah I was fishing. The answer is none.

But did you see where Israel is allowing injured Syrians in to be treated in first class Israeli hospitals? They aren't allowed to stay after they recover, but they are at least healing them... and I dare say, that is probably far more than those countries would do for Israel if the situation was reversed.

After reading the blog post, it seemed like he was making excuses for the fact the initial immigration order was not well thought out to begin with. When you make an executive order then spend days having to rework all of the details, it would have been wise to work out the details before giving the order.

Maybe they had to pass it to see what was in it?

No. Nobody passed it.

Probably so. Taking the highroad is required for any change nowadays, especially in the Middle East.

I would think that countries like Israel, that had it's beginnings with refugees colonizing there after WWII would recognize the necessity to accept refugees from Syria now.

I think his point was that it was well thought out, that it was intentionally over the top, that it achieved it's objective which was to pacify the extreme right and infuriate the left... and from there he will negotiate back, ironing out the details..

I'm not saying I agree with that but I'm pretty sure that is the point he was trying to make. According to his article, everything Trump does is well thought out and a means to putting him in position to negotiate to end he actually wants.

And if you follow the logic through, then reports that Bannon is actually running things and Trump is a figurehead are completely backwards.. Bannon is the scariest guy in Trumps inner circle, so if you follow the logic, the first time Trump needs to buy some political capital and offer a sacrifice to the left, it will be Bannon, then he will go get a more moderate advisor..

I believe this was agreed upon by Trump and Bannon from day one.

Well the blog did say it seems he doesn't mind hurting people in the process. That begs to question his process to me. To me, it seems that he simply doesn't think things through before he acts then has to backtrack.

I mean a theory could be made that it's purposeful but it seems like quite a stretch from what appears to be the obvious.

It's quite possibly an effective way to run a real estate deal, but it's one scaryazz way to run foreign policy. It relies upon the assumption that foreign leaders will act/react like western businessmen.

My basic personality type is careful/studious/risk-averse... so this strategy will always come off as borderline reckless. Not saying it's wrong in a blanket-indictment sort of way, but it's unsettling as hell for me.

If Bannon does something that requires him to be dismissed, so be it.

However, if Trump fires Bannon just to throw him under the bus, bowing to pressure from the left, I would be very disappointed in Trump. At some point you just have to tell liberals to buzz off and then get on with business.

Don't think for a minute Trump would sacrifice Bannon unnecessarily!

It would have to be a choice between Bannon and eating a Nuke.

But the key for Bannon will be loyalty. Trump is unforgiving in that case. Can Bannon stay inside the box? Time will tell.

This is my own naivety with respect to Bannon and everybody else with and around the President... their loyalty should be to us and if that means telling the President he's out of line, then they have to do it. I know it usually doesn't work that way because those folks don't want to sign their own political death certificate but that's the way it SHOULD work.

No, by loyalty I was talking about not going rogue and doing a number on Trump.

Trump has brought in people with varying opinions and many don't agree with his own. We saw this when they were in front of the Senate being questioned. Telling the President you disagree is why you are there, to help him make the final decision.

Speaking of helping the President with advise, I see where the CEO of Uber has resigned from Trumps CEO advisory panel due to pressure he is receiving from the Left for being on that panel.

CNBC also reported that Elon Musk has been under tremendous pressure for helping Trump.

+1

I saw something about that.. totally stupid.

I mean, I understand why the CEO of Uber would step down, he has a business to run, his business is located in bigger cities, bigger cities have more liberals, the bulk of Uber users are younger, also tend to be liberal. From a business perspective, he can't afford to tick off the snowflakes..

But Trump invites more successful liberals to be involved and provide their influence and they won't allow them to participate... then they will complain about having right wing ideas shoved down their throat... smh