"The Left" and "Liberals" are comprised of multitudes of people who subscribe to all manner of different beliefs and go about expressing them all manner of different ways."
You can say that, but that's not what myself or anyone else is seeing out there in the world today. I KNOW this is true because I
was a liberal and I watched as the people around me and the general message of being good to each other and fighting for civil and individual rights became way to extreme and negative towards others. Its a hive mind mentality now in that group that over time just eroded into having nothing to say at all and just devolved into calling everyone racists, bigots, homophobes, xenophobes, sexists, misogynists, religious discriminators, and evil.
As far as I can tell, the only people being reasonable are Libertarians, which is what I would probably consider myself, and they have some traction within the Left, but are generally seen as outsiders because they challenge some traditional Left and Liberal views.
The problem is no one on the Left holds their side accountable for anything and the radicals have been left do as they please and speak for everyone, ultimately giving that entire side a bad name and causing people like myself to bail. And if someone tries to speak out of turn they get called all those names as well because the Left will even cannibalize their own if they step out of line.
Yes, there are always going to be outliers in any group and on any side, but I can tell you the Right is way more diverse and divided than you think. Donald Trump just shattered the Republican party and there are many who did not support him or vote for him on this side at all, and he still won! What does that tell you? This should be a plus for those of you on the Left because guess what, you kinda got a more liberal minded Republican president. You don't know it yet, but I'm calling it now.
Just a small example from today:
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/04/21/donald-trump-says-transge...This is pretty much my view of things. Let people use whatever bathroom they want. It was never a problem before, but the Left needed a new victim to look out for so they could seem morally righteous, so they crafted a false narrative.
"My argument was more that police departments themselves should be actively recognizing the problem and working to improve their training. Or really, there should be an independent investigation into their training. I have heard great things about police body cameras though."
I don't think anyone disagrees with any of that. I certainly don't. Honestly though, I don't have any family or close friends that serve in the police department so I have no knowledge or first hand experience of how they hire people, the training they go through, or how to make it better. I don't have any nuanced solutions to this problem, but I do know that the media distributing false information and creating unrealistic narratives of the racial problems in this country and then blowing it all out of proportion did more to harm black people, white people, and police officers than it did towards helping them.
Perfect example of what I'm talking about:
However, black people need to take responsibility for their own part in this. If black lives matter then they need to start looking at their own. Here is a list of statistics that show why, maybe, black people get get a little more attention by police:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7441/7-statistics-you-need-know-about-black-black-...Huh, so a race of people who's shitty culture that glorifies being criminals and gangsters makes up most of the crime in the US despite being a minority group gets racially profiled and singled out by cops? Makes sense to me. When I'm walking down a dark street at night and I see three black guys coming my way, forgive me if I'm a bit nervous. That isn't my fault, that's black peoples fault for continuing to dress, act, and behave in a manor that perpetuates these stereotypes.
Of the handful of cases of black people getting shot by cops this year, at least among the high profile ones on television, at least half or more were justified shootings--still looking for the exact statistics--but people just blew it out of proportion. Sure, you could say that even one life is too many but when you don't comply with the police officers requests then sadly, you take your chances at that point. But no one wanted to wait for facts and instead react like fucking lunatics.
"My "starting point" will be those last questions - what do you think he will do, and how do you discern when he's saying what he actually believes?"
Well I think he's going to take a look at healthcare, government spending, taxes, and immigration. All things I care about.
Sure he said some wild things in the beginning, again to whip up support from the people (some of them maybe a bit racist and some that aren't) that are actually concerned about who and how many people we just let keep rolling in to our country. There is nothing wrong with taking another look at who we let in here. If an illegal mexican comes over here and falls off a ladder and goes to the hospital guess what? He gets free health care because its both cruel and illegal (in some states or cases) not to treat him but he doesn't actually have to pay for any of it because hes not an actual citizen with a social security number that we can go track down for payment later. So guess what, you foot that bill now. But that's just one small example.
Islamic terrorists are just happily strolling in to any and every country all over the world now killing people. No reason why we shouldn't be more cautions because the US is overdue for another major attack and I believe ISIS or someone else will attempt another attack on US soil in the next five years. Trump isn't going to start shipping muslims back over seas, he's just saying that to sound strong and in control, when in reality all I hear is "maybe we should pay closer attention".
I have more to say but I've been debating liberals for days at this point and I can't even make great points. If you've got some specific things Trump as said that you would like to me to consider and give you my take on it I will. I'm just sort of distracted and just pulling random things off the top of my head right now.