I don't see that condemnation is even necessary. A dog isn't responsible for getting rabies. You have to put it down anyway.
You know the difference that really freaks me out? I feel unambiguously sorry for Barron. He's a kid, none of this is his fault. But because of the life he's having, he is very probably going to grow into an adult as terrible as his brothers, and then I'll hold him responsible. I feel very weird about that.
2: I felt that way some years ago when there was a story about an extended family using its own (young) kids to make porn.
I don't actually feel very bad for them. They left home for college. Lots of people manage to overcome deficiencies in their upbringing by college or otherwise getting into an environment where they are surrounded by different people.
I'm often struck by something Yggles said years ago, that when he was at his ultra-fancy private HS, everybody tried to get near Jared and/or Ivanka* when they showed up at parties. That is, here's a room of rich, ultra-elite twits, and those two got treated as royalty/celebrities.
To some extent, that's just a story about how every HS is the same, but it's also about how fucked up the NYC media was wrt Trump.
To 4, more or less. These dickheads have never been outside this bubble.
*I don't recall the relationship specifics at the time, but both were involved in the telling
4 is where I stand, too. They decided that they preferred the power and riches and shittiness lifestyle to anything else.
The difference between Trump's kids and some kid brought up under poverty and abuse is that Trump's lifestyle, as an adult, was attractive to them and they felt an affirmative pull to perpetuate it because they get to enjoy the spoils. An alcoholic abusive adult who was raised by alcoholic abusive parents is not perpetuating the patterns because they're reaping millions of dollars and unchecked power. They're doing it mostly because they don't have the skills/wherewithal/options/etc to do anything else.
I just watched The Breakfast Club for the first time and then listened to a podcast about it from a year and a half ago I'd been saving up. They noted that it's true many people get abused and/or twisted by their parents, resulting in lots of stuff to work out, but most people's "stuff" does not include being irredeemable assholes, which can and should still be abominated.
Is that about Judd Nelson or Kavenah?
But the law aside, we can see that being raised by Donald Trump (or Fred Trump, apparently) was not a winnable hand.
Hahahaha! Winning? How am I not winning? I'm the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Do you know how many women I've screwed????
My kids aren't me, but they are still doing so much better than you losers!
Or the Trumps, who I guess are closer to Emilio.
In this particular case, I think it's relevant that the three Derphins were raised mostly apart from him, and reunited as adults because of the money.
I think 7 is wrong. People tend to behave like their parents because that's how they were trained, not because they made some kind utility-maximizing calculation. The Trumps may have been taught that bad behavior is virtuous in that it produces money, but abused children may similarly be taught that abuse is virtuous in that it instills discipline; and abusive parents may well enjoy being abusive just as much as the Trumps enjoy being rich. I don't think there's much difference. Further, behaving like Trump isn't a particularly good way to make money. I imagine all the Trump children could actually have made more if they'd used their connections to get Wall Street jobs (granted they aren't the smartest bunch, but they must have lots of peer role models to show them the way and the payoff).
I think it's relevant that the three Derphins were raised mostly apart from him
Yeah, but in terms of providing a psychologically healthy and stable child-rearing environment, I'm not sure being raised by Ivana Trump scores much better than being raised by Donald Trump.
But being raised by Marla Maples apparently does. Or is using Tiffany as a control going too far?
[I apologize in advance for the somewhat intemperate nature of this comment]
Oh please. This is complete upper-class-twit-of-the-year enabling. Look: the only reason I would ever wish to know the location of my male progenitor's grave, is so I could go there and piss upon it. I spent 1.5 years literally not speaking to my family, and a good part of it with them not even knowing where I lived. LOTS people have awful, awful, awful childhoods. And yet, we do not go on to be traitors to our country, enabling a traitor, and fraud, a rapist. When you combine that with ALL the material benefits the world has to offer, it is ridiculous to excuse these imbeciles' moral and criminal iniquity.
@1 "der Wolf kann auch nicht dafür, daß er von Gott geschaffen ist, wie er ist, und man schießt ihn doch dafür totd, wenn man kann."
Perhaps I really shouldn't complain when the Pater wants to drop some knowledge on me, at length, St. John Chrysostom-style.
I will bet you one hundred million genuine American smackeroos that Eric has a Stormfront account. Please, somebody find it.
Counterpoint: If such an account existed, Ashley Feinberg would have uncovered it already.
19: I remember back when I was intimidated by you smarty-pants types, but Google translate is the great equalizer.
I wish I could remember the book that made the point in 1 at greater length but with more, like, theoretical grounding. I can't even remember the name of the author, and I keep thinking it's Agnes Callard, but it isn't. She (the actual author) went to Stanford. Her name maybe started with a J?
(It was Nomy Arpaly in Unprincipled Virtue.)
22 was me.
I think ogged poses a version of the college sophomore-type debate: Would I liberate my slaves if I were a plantation heir in the antebellum South?
Back when I was actually a college sophomore, I'm quite certain I would have argued that my inherent virtue would have prevailed. As an adult, my best guess is that this is almost certainly incorrect. Giving up that kind of wealth and social position probably never would have occurred to me. (Honestly, how is eating meat defensible for an enlightened person? But bacon is the world's most glorious food, with the possible exception of tacos.)
So yeah, I am compelled to concede that people are products of their time and place, but Eric and Don Jr.? Or Don Sr.? Give me a fucking break. They have opportunities to be pretty much anything they want to be without any personal cost. Being assholes was a choice.
That goes for Ivanka, too. (Because I'm a feminist.) And Jared! Christ, what an asshole.
Yeah, okay, I suppose there is a continuum of moral culpability that is affected by circumstances beyond these douchebags' control, but they all reside pretty far on the asshole side of the continuum.
Has anyone here seen the HBO show Succession? I feel like it does a great job portraying Trump-kid-esque characters in ways that generate both sympathy and contempt.
If they ever make a show about the actual Trump kids, they should call it Keeping Up With The Lard-Ass Scions.
There may be hope yet for Barron, if his formative years are spent as an eye-witness to his father's downfall.
"a version of the college sophomore-type debate: Would I liberate my slaves if I were a plantation heir in the antebellum South?"
AIMHMHB an ancestor of mine was, and did, which may possibly have something to do with why so many Jamaicans have the same surname as me.
Nah. You're just real chill.
Woot! Way to go ajay-cestor.
Common Jamaican last names, per Google: Brown, Williams, Smith, Campbell, Johnson, Thompson, Clarke, Reid, Gordon, Grant
(Purely accidental, of course, if any of those happen to be yours. That list could also be labeled "common English-language names.")
Honestly, how is eating meat defensible for an enlightened person?
Maybe I don't know enough enlightened people, but I feel like "being vegetarian is the most destructive thing you could possibly do!! topsoil loss!!! quinoa-racism!!!! phytoestrogen-driven-public-health catastrophe!!!!!" is not even contrarian anymore.
How does being vegetarian hurt topsoil compared to eating meat? I guess if you compared eating grass-fed organic beef with being a vegetarian who insisted on never buying food from contour-plowed fields.
How does being vegetarian hurt topsoil compared to eating meat? I guess if you compared eating grass-fed organic beef with being a vegetarian who insisted on never buying food from contour-plowed fields.
By... gentrifying the topsoil? Salting it by crying oversensitive tears? It was in a strident book I flipped through. I may not be 100% doing justice to the argument.