[Underdog]

Originally Posted by MavzMan

Again, this may be the case, but "taking my ball and going home" is definitely the more childish attitude to take.

The POTUS getting on Twitter and attacking private citizens over a difference of opinion is FAR more immature than said citizens choosing not to let that president mug it up with them for a photo op... It's not like they're going to talk policy -- sports teams visit the White House as a PR move, and this team doesn't want to give Trump the publicity... Not to mention that the protest is working because we're talking about the issues surrounding it -- that's how protest works.

I have several friends that are police officers. I would literally bet my life that they are not "killing black people". Would you bet your life that they do? This kind of statement is a huge part of the problem. Are there bad cops? YES! But I also believe that is the vast minority of them. I also give them a ton of leeway to deal with "work situations". If I have a bad day at work, I come home in a grumpy mood. If they have a bad at work, they go home in a body bag ... for $50-70k a year including overtime. There are bad people in every single profession. But I will never condemn all officers, fire fighters, or teachers. They all are grossly underpaid for what they do and deal with on a daily basis. If you want to come up with ways to figure out the bad ones and get them out, that's different. But to blanket make statements like "cops kill black people" is flat out wrong.

No rational person is saying ALL cops are killing black people, but the *bad* ones certainly are, and nobody is convicting them... This is an institutionalized problem that needs to be addressed, hence the protests (and the protests started when Obama, a black man, was president, so this certainly isn't just a Trump problem)... But Trump attacking people who are asking for an open dialogue about what they perceive as a problem only makes it look like there's an agenda against black people. At best, it's shitty optics -- at worst, it's state-sponsored racial oppression... This issue requires a delicate touch that Trump has proven himself incapable of, and it's only escalating tensions.

This is another one of my pet peaves .... "You Trump supporters". You must live in a 100% black-and-white world. Do I think Trump is an idiot? Do I wish he would put down the twitter crack pipe? Do I wish we had a different president? Yes, yes and yes. Do I wish Hillary was president over Trump? No. There is your black-and-white. I was given exactly 2 choices: Trump or Hillary. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I have more on this topic but I'll save it for the end which I hope you make it to before clicking on the reply button.
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I'd like to come back to the "You Trump supporters". I know I'm on a basketball forum and not in any semblance of official debate, but this is exactly what turned lots of people away from Hillary and even Trump that were somewhere in the middle. When using phrases that denigrates ... like "sons of *****es" or "basket of deplorables" ... you may as well forget winning any arguments because you just proved that you have zero interest what is actually being said. If you want to have a serious discussion which is usually what goes on in these forums and why I've been here for nearly a decade now, it's the fact that most of time its reasonable argument for/against topics in an adult-like manner. Politics is an extremely difficult and touchy subject. Even though I'm hiding behind an internet wall and not face-to-face, I still respect the seriousness of this discussion. If all I wanted to do was rant and rave, then there are plenty of other places to do that. I also realize that being anti-republican (see the black-and-white reference there as well as the negative connotation?) is definitely the norm in here, but I just thought I would try to state something from a different perspective.

See, I completely understand voting against Hillary -- she was a shit candidate and you can erase her from existence right now and I wouldn't lose any sleep over it (I might even buy you a drink if you can find a magical, non-violent way to do it)... What I don't understand is why people keep supporting all the awful shit Trump says/does by saying "Hillary would have been worse" while ignoring the fact that Trump is the guy in the White House currently tearing this nation apart... Calling him out on his bullshit isn't going to put Clinton into the Oval Office -- that ship has sailed... Focus on NOW, focus on the FUTURE, let the past go... There's absolutely no reason to bring up Hillary Clinton at this point, her political career is over. Using her as an excuse to act like hypocrites isn't moving the dialogue forward.

And you guys need to stop defending this maniac just because he as an (R) next to his name... He has yet to follow through on any of his pie-in-the-sky promises, but you guys are still buying his campaign lies wholesale... He has the Presidency, Senate, House, and SCOTUS on his side, yet he can't actually get anything done because he has zero understanding of the law or his powers -- it's not like the Democrats can cockblock him without help from across the aisle... He's about to fail at repealing Obamacare AGAIN because he doesn't actually have a decent plan to replace it, he's scaled back The Wall talk because he doesn't actually have a decent plan to build it, he's escalating military aggression like he warned Hillary would do, he filled the swamp with Goldman-Sachs like he warned Hillary would do -- hell, at this point, he's guilty of pretty much everything that he accused Hillary of (not to mention Kushner, Ivanka, Manafort all caught using private email servers for government business)... And to make matters worse, he's going after private citizens who are expressing their 1st Amendment Rights instead of addressing the current crisis in US territory, Puerto Rico, or the brewing NUCLEAR WAR with North Korea.

Right now Donald Trump is the biggest threat to America and you guys are still talking about Hillary like she has any power... Maybe focus on the actual problem?