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CNN - distasteful wishful thinking

It's a video.
There's a video included in the article, yes. Perhaps you didn't see the text accompanying it. Here's where your reading comprehension failed:

CNN has been criticized for airing a report which revealed that an Obama appointee would become president if Donald Trump was killed during an attack on the inauguration tomorrow.

Entitled Disaster could put Obama cabinet member in Oval Office, the report admits that there is no specific threat targeting the inauguration, but goes on to speculate about “who would be in charge if an attack hit the incoming president….just as the transfer of power is underway”.

An individual named the “designated presidential successor” will not attend the inauguration as a security precaution, “but it won’t be a Trump cabinet secretary….it will be an Obama appointee,” reports CNN.


The report emphasizes that “a president from the prior administration” will take power if there is an attack due to the fact that none of Trump’s cabinet secretaries have been confirmed yet.

According to CNN, the designated presidential successor is likely to be Tom Shannon, the Under Secretary For Political Affairs, and an Obama appointee.

The report teases the potential for an attack on the inauguration by asserting it would create “chaos” and “high theater,” before airing clips from ABC’s Designated Survivor show in which Kiefer Sutherland plays an obscure cabinet secretary who is “unexpectedly thrust into the presidency after an attack at the capitol during a State of the Union address.”

Given the huge number of death threats leveled at Trump – including one family friend of Hillary Clinton who was arrested after he threatened to assassinate Trump at the inauguration – is CNN irresponsible in drawing attention to this issue?

Respondents to the video on YouTube, which was heavily thumbed down, slammed CNN for almost encouraging a violent attack against Trump.

“Totally not suggesting anything here, huh CNN?” commented one.

“So leftist terrorists know who they need to take out, so that dems can stay in power? This is irresponsible journalism,” added another.

“I flagged this video as dangerous to the president elect, and that it might foment violence,” wrote another.

The charges are not without precedent. After Thomas DiMassimo tried to rush the stage to violently confront Trump during an event in Ohio last year, CNN gave him a platform to denounce Trump as a “bully”.​
 

Arkady

President
so, anyway.. my omission aside.. were there such cool musings when Obama took office? i cant recall..
I'm not sure. Their archives aren't very searchable that far back. However, I suspect this is being driven by pop culture. A depressing trend in news is that news coverage angles are based on whatever memes are bouncing around in entertainment offerings at a given time. For example, CNN gave a lot of air time to the idea that Bill Clinton was "wagging the dog" when he used missile strikes to try to take out Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda facilities in the 1990s, and I think that was largely due to the fact that a movie had just come out called "Wag the Dog," where a president tried to distract from a sex scandal with a phony war. Well, in this case, there's a new TV series called "Designated Survivor," where an attack results in the head of HUD becoming the president, because he was the "designated survivor" at a time when everyone more senior was gathered at an event that was attacked.
 

Arkady

President
There's a video included in the article, yes. Perhaps you didn't see the text accompanying it. Here's where your reading comprehension failed:

CNN has been criticized for airing a report which revealed that an Obama appointee would become president if Donald Trump was killed during an attack on the inauguration tomorrow.

Entitled Disaster could put Obama cabinet member in Oval Office, the report admits that there is no specific threat targeting the inauguration, but goes on to speculate about “who would be in charge if an attack hit the incoming president….just as the transfer of power is underway”.

An individual named the “designated presidential successor” will not attend the inauguration as a security precaution, “but it won’t be a Trump cabinet secretary….it will be an Obama appointee,” reports CNN.


The report emphasizes that “a president from the prior administration” will take power if there is an attack due to the fact that none of Trump’s cabinet secretaries have been confirmed yet.

According to CNN, the designated presidential successor is likely to be Tom Shannon, the Under Secretary For Political Affairs, and an Obama appointee.

The report teases the potential for an attack on the inauguration by asserting it would create “chaos” and “high theater,” before airing clips from ABC’s Designated Survivor show in which Kiefer Sutherland plays an obscure cabinet secretary who is “unexpectedly thrust into the presidency after an attack at the capitol during a State of the Union address.”

Given the huge number of death threats leveled at Trump – including one family friend of Hillary Clinton who was arrested after he threatened to assassinate Trump at the inauguration – is CNN irresponsible in drawing attention to this issue?

Respondents to the video on YouTube, which was heavily thumbed down, slammed CNN for almost encouraging a violent attack against Trump.

“Totally not suggesting anything here, huh CNN?” commented one.

“So leftist terrorists know who they need to take out, so that dems can stay in power? This is irresponsible journalism,” added another.

“I flagged this video as dangerous to the president elect, and that it might foment violence,” wrote another.

The charges are not without precedent. After Thomas DiMassimo tried to rush the stage to violently confront Trump during an event in Ohio last year, CNN gave him a platform to denounce Trump as a “bully”.​
So, the text confirms there was no "doomsday wish" expressed.
 

Mr. Friscus

Governor
No. Why would you think that? Did you miss the recent post where I said Trump is one of the few people I'd probably take a bullet for?
No, I didn't see that. However, I find the claim very admirable, as when taking the political clothes off, I would wish health and good fortune to a Hillary Clinton, or any PJ leftist poster, before I would receive it.

The Litany of Humility is a beautiful work that really punches any Christian (or anyone else IMO) consumed with their lives and agendas in the face with a reality check:

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
Fromthe desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
Fromthe fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

I'm not sure if you would wish such things for Conservatives before yourself, but considering the dark ramifications of socialism, an ideology you hold in high regard, I'm glad and impressed to hear you'd sacrifice for Donald Trump in that way.
 

Arkady

President
No, I didn't see that. However, I find the claim very admirable, as when taking the political clothes off, I would wish health and good fortune to a Hillary Clinton, or any PJ leftist poster, before I would receive it.

The Litany of Humility is a beautiful work that really punches any Christian (or anyone else IMO) consumed with their lives and agendas in the face with a reality check:

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
Fromthe desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
Fromthe fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

I'm not sure if you would wish such things for Conservatives before yourself, but considering the dark ramifications of socialism, an ideology you hold in high regard, I'm glad and impressed to hear you'd sacrifice for Donald Trump in that way.
My analysis was more utilitarian than that. If Trump were to be murdered, it would be a huge windfall for the far-right. As I pointed out in my other posts, political assassinations tend to create enormous political capital for the allies of the target. For example, without Lincoln's assassination, it's not clear the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments could have been pushed through. Without JFK's assassination, it's not clear we could have had the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and Great Society programs. Even Reagan getting shot probably had a role in the Democratic Congress going along for the ride with his radical agenda. The last thing I'd want to see is what a deeply evil man like Mike Pence would do with the bonanza of political capital he'd get from Trump being killed.
 

Mr. Friscus

Governor
My analysis was more utilitarian than that. If Trump were to be murdered, it would be a huge windfall for the far-right. As I pointed out in my other posts, political assassinations tend to create enormous political capital for the allies of the target. For example, without Lincoln's assassination, it's not clear the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments could have been pushed through. Without JFK's assassination, it's not clear we could have had the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and Great Society programs. Even Reagan getting shot probably had a role in the Democratic Congress going along for the ride with his radical agenda. The last thing I'd want to see is what a deeply evil man like Mike Pence would do with the bonanza of political capital he'd get from Trump being killed.
Wow, and here I thought I had broken into some valuing of humanity on your account. Sadly, I was mistaken.

Just treating the masses as chess pieces to further achieve your ideology.

Here's a theoretical:

Suppose if a president were to be killed, then another election would take place.

Now, suppose there would be no martyrdom of Trump if he died.

Would you either kill, or support his killing, for the greater good?
 

Arkady

President
Wow, and here I thought I had broken into some valuing of humanity on your account.
It's valuing humanity that causes me to think in a utilitarian way. It's about the good of many humans against the good of one.

Here's a theoretical:

Suppose if a president were to be killed, then another election would take place.

Now, suppose there would be no martyrdom of Trump if he died.

Would you either kill, or support his killing, for the greater good?
I have trouble picturing any scenario where killing a bad president would make things better. The scope for backfire is just too great. Better to let a bad president discredit himself and his ideas than to take him out and make it easier for people to imagine how great things would have been if he'd been able to execute his plan fully. However, if we're talking about some sci-fi scenario where I could see the future and say with certainty that killing a particular person would save lots of other lives and make the world a better place, then I think the moral thing would be to kill the person. It's just that we never have that kind of perfect knowledge of the future, so we're better off following rules of thumb against killing, rather than just assuming that our own limited foresight is adequate to assume what's in the greater good. And that's true not just when it comes to things like killing presidents, for example, but when it comes to things like using our military to bring about regime change abroad. The Bushies, for example, were confident that conquering Iraq would be for the greater good, despite the inevitability of killing a lot of individual people on both sides. It turns out they were dramatically wrong about that, and the invasion backfired horribly.
 

Mr. Friscus

Governor
It's valuing humanity that causes me to think in a utilitarian way. It's about the good of many humans against the good of one.
I'm glad we can have this conversation. It's good to bring clarity.

Suppose there were a theoretical village, who lived off of vegetation and produce, such as milk from Cows, and Eggs from Chickens. Now, imagine a severe drought occurred, killing all vegetation. The food produced from the animals wasn't enough to feed the population of the village, and people began to starve, as did the animals.

In a utilitarian sense, would you feed the animals to keep them alive before certain humans, thus condemning these people to starvation, and valuing the animal's lives over the humans?
 

Arkady

President
I'm glad we can have this conversation. It's good to bring clarity.

Suppose there were a theoretical village, who lived off of vegetation and produce, such as milk from Cows, and Eggs from Chickens. Now, imagine a severe drought occurred, killing all vegetation. The food produced from the animals wasn't enough to feed the population of the village, and people began to starve, as did the animals.

In a utilitarian sense, would you feed the animals to keep them alive before certain humans, thus condemning these people to starvation, and valuing the animal's lives over the humans?
This reminds me a bit of "The Cold Equations" -- a sci-fi story where an artificial situation is set up by the writer where the choice is basically between tossing an innocent girl out the airlock of a spaceship, or dooming the ship to a crash and also dooming to starvation some colonists relying on resupply from the ship. If you accept the artificial restrictions on the hypothetical so there are no other alternatives than those two, and imagine perfect knowledge, then the right moral decision is to kill the innocent girl. In the same sense, you could have a theoretical village where the way to save the maximum number of people who can be saved is to feed the animals and let some people starve. Or, to take a more realistic scenario that has played out in the real world, a sinking ship or submarine may create a situation where a section has to be sealed off to save the ship, even though that condemns those in that section to a swift death, when the alternative is a near certainty of a lot more people dying.

Some people get hung up on whether the person making the choice has to act to bring about the deaths, or merely has to refrain from acting, but I believe those are morally identical situations. For example, two scenarios:

(1) A bus barreling towards a cliff it doesn't see, but there's also a person in the road between them and the cliff. If you warn the person about the bus, he'll dodge it, but the bus will barrel over the cliff killing thirty people. If you don't warn him, he'll be hit and die, but the bus will stop and nobody else will be killed.

(2) Same scenario, only this time the person is next to the road, not in it, and the only way to get the person in front of the bus is to call him over to you (if you don't call, he doesn't get hit, and the bus goes over the cliff, if you do call, he gets hit while coming to your call, and the bus stops, saving everyone else).

These scenarios are artificial and in real life we almost never have much certainty of the trade-offs, and there are nearly always other options. But if we accept them as built, I believe the moral dilemma in each scenario is the same, and the moral choice is to sacrifice the one person for the thirty. Some disagree, though, and see a moral difference between merely allowing the one person to die and actually taking an active step to cause him to die, even with the same outcomes. They think it's morally acceptable to just let him die, in scenario one, but morally wrong to actively kill him, in scenario two. Even if the scenarios are unrealistic, I think they're useful for thinking about morality.
 

Drumcollie

* See DC's list of Kook posters*
That question is implicitly built around a non sequitur. There's nothing about greeting Scalia's natural death as a positive event that implies supporting murder. I would, of course, denounce murder.
Ok he denounces murder...Now the Russian has to define murder.

Does the Russian denounce Bill Clinton's rapes or go into denial mode, like I would suspect if Trump were assassinated?
 

Mr. Friscus

Governor
This reminds me a bit of "The Cold Equations" -- a sci-fi story where an artificial situation is set up by the writer where the choice is basically between tossing an innocent girl out the airlock of a spaceship, or dooming the ship to a crash and also dooming to starvation some colonists relying on resupply from the ship. If you accept the artificial restrictions on the hypothetical so there are no other alternatives than those two, and imagine perfect knowledge, then the right moral decision is to kill the innocent girl. In the same sense, you could have a theoretical village where the way to save the maximum number of people who can be saved is to feed the animals and let some people starve. Or, to take a more realistic scenario that has played out in the real world, a sinking ship or submarine may create a situation where a section has to be sealed off to save the ship, even though that condemns those in that section to a swift death, when the alternative is a near certainty of a lot more people dying.

Some people get hung up on whether the person making the choice has to act to bring about the deaths, or merely has to refrain from acting, but I believe those are morally identical situations. For example, two scenarios:

(1) A bus barreling towards a cliff it doesn't see, but there's also a person in the road between them and the cliff. If you warn the person about the bus, he'll dodge it, but the bus will barrel over the cliff killing thirty people. If you don't warn him, he'll be hit and die, but the bus will stop and nobody else will be killed.

(2) Same scenario, only this time the person is next to the road, not in it, and the only way to get the person in front of the bus is to call him over to you (if you don't call, he doesn't get hit, and the bus goes over the cliff, if you do call, he gets hit while coming to your call, and the bus stops, saving everyone else).

These scenarios are artificial and in real life we almost never have much certainty of the trade-offs, and there are nearly always other options. But if we accept them as built, I believe the moral dilemma in each scenario is the same, and the moral choice is to sacrifice the one person for the thirty. Some disagree, though, and see a moral difference between merely allowing the one person to die and actually taking an active step to cause him to die, even with the same outcomes. They think it's morally acceptable to just let him die, in scenario one, but morally wrong to actively kill him, in scenario two. Even if the scenarios are unrealistic, I think they're useful for thinking about morality.
The scenario I made compared to the scenarios you presented have one major difference:

Mine is a structural decision of value, and yours is a spontaneous accident or occurrence.

I'm talking about making a thought-out plan for your theoretical village with the conditions I gave. You are the dictator. Do you enforce death onto those who don't want to die to feed the animals?

It's usually a major difference between a socialist and a Conservative, especially a Christian one.
 
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