LogFAQs > #931860074

Mr Lasastryke posted...

damn these topics move so fast

but then you're applying mental gymnastics to say that the letter is "completely reasonable." you can state that what trump is trying to say with the letter is reasonable or whatever but the letter itself is still filled with insane statements.

also, i'll never for the life of me understand that with every single insane thing trump states, you always point out "what he ACTUALLY meant." but you demand that hillary apologizes for her "deplorables" comments, even though she literally stated that she was being grossly generalistic. perhaps corrik was right about "people in this topic always taking things out of context" after all - he's just accusing the wrong people of doing this!

To me it's just good reading comprehension. I think at this point, taking Trump literally is just abdicating one's ability to read and comprehend meaning. Trump has made it absolutely clear that any statement he makes cannot be relied upon for its literal truth.

Of course Hillary was being grossly generalistic. Her statement itself was generalistic (one-half of Trump supporters is a very vague and general figure) but removing the generalism doesn't change the meaning and doesn't remove the insult. Whether it was 50% or 52% or 48.796% really doesn't change the meaning. It's still insulting a very large portion of the American electorate.

Now, if Hillary had been exaggerating rather than generalizing - say, she multiplied all her statements by a factor of 10 - then the statement would need to be read as saying 5% of Trump supporters are deplorable - which sounds reasonable. But Hillary does not have a history of exaggerating, gave no sign that she was exaggerating, and didn't even say so after the fact. So I think it's fair to say that Hillary meant a number somewhere more in the ballpark of 50% than 5%.

And yeah, if DJT made the exact same statement, you can apply the 90% rule and assume he means 5%. Because if it was really 50% he would have said 100%.


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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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