For a self-declared hyper-pragmatist, you have a distinctly idealistic view of how institutions behave in changing circumstances. I'll leave it at that.
I didn't declare myself a hyper-pragmatist. What I said was that I'm not emotionally involved in this issue. I'm very open about the fact that I have bipolar disorder, which means that my emotional state fluctuates wildly and how I feel about things on an emotional level can also vary wildly based on nothing more than the chemicals my brain has decided to barf up today. When I make the decision to put my emotions aside to consider a topic more rationally, it's a conscious, difficult, and uphill battle to do so. I'm not just pragmatic by nature. I'm emotional by nature, and probably more naturally emotional than anyone else in this thread. I just think that the topic is too important for me to base my decisions in emotion.
I watched how my dad's paranoia impacted his beliefs about governments and politics and I saw how it made his life
and my own life far worse than it had to be. On a lot of topics, I'm more than happy to let my emotions get the better of my judgement, and I'm more than happy to make decisions based on my emotions. Do I emotionally stuff my face with ice cream or do the pragmatic thing and eat some vegetables? Do I lie in bed all day or make an effort to take a shower? Do I watch shit TV or read a book? These are all things that I don't mind answering emotionally because choosing the emotional path only adversely effects me. When there is someone else who would suffer as a result of my emotional state, I work very hard to make sure that the answer I give is a pragmatic one, not an emotional one. I may also use emotions, but I do my best to make sure that my answer isn't just emotional.
When we're dealing with something like the international politics, I think it's very important to think about it pragmatically and not just emotionally. My emotions aren't going to effect whether or not a Syrian child is safe tonight. My emotions aren't going to effect whether or not Donald Trump is president tomorrow. My emotions aren't going to effect whether or not Angela Merkel's open borders policy is resulting in migrants increasing the rape and murder rate in Germany by several dozen percent.
My emotions will not change any of the facts, any more than prayers, twitter hashtags, or blog posts will. So instead of just throwing my emotions at the problems, I have to make the effort to throw my intellect at them. I have to try to find ways to work with the existing systems to fix the problems. Then, when I've given it some thought, I can call my politicians and tell them what I think and ask that they do things my way, or I can run for government office and try to convince other people that I've got the best ideas, or I can donate to a non-profit or lobbyist group that helps fund or garner political support for the things I think are helpful.
For example, if I felt that fighting Donald Trump's policies in court should be my #1 priority, I would donate to the ACLU. If I felt that keeping America's crime rate down and preventing rapes and murders would best be served by more people having guns, I would donate to the NRA. If I felt that America's interests would best be served by opposing the TPP, I would call my congressmen. If I felt that abortions needed to be protected from a conservative government, I would donate to Planned Parenthood. These are all ways I could affect actual change and none of them require or demand that I am overly emotionally invested in the cause.
The left are the ones who will stand up for you if you are "Muslim looking" and have a "Muslim sounding" name which causes you to be targeted by these policies.
I'm not sure that's true. Not only have Democrats, like Bill Clinton in the clip I posted in my last comment, pushed the same agendas while they were president, they have also continued or expanded drone strikes, no-due-process indefinite holding facilities like Gitmo, interventions in countries like Libya that directly resulted in ISIS gaining a foothold there, racially discriminatory policies like "Stop and Frisk" and the three strikes rule, and other disastrous miscarriages of justice and equality. I think that the only thing that the left has been better at from a purely facts-based point of view is presenting itself in a more positive light. In spite of that, I voted for Obama both times, and had he been running against Trump, I would probably have voted for him again. As much of a corporatist as he has proven himself to be, his economic policies were at least slightly better, even if he wasn't much better on an international politics front. If Trump manages to defeat ISIS or at least to contain it until it defeats itself, or if Trump manages to not start any new wars, or if Trump manages to stop bombing some of the countries we are currently bombing for no reason, I might consider voting for him in four years. As the 2016 election was, however, I could not vote for Hillary Clinton. I believe she is unprincipled, that she does not have a conscience, that she cares more about her own financial interests than she does the country, that she has (probably illegally, certainly immorally) taken millions from both from countries like Saudi Arabia and international corporations like Goldman Sachs to influence her politics, and that she has knowingly and proudly endorsed international actions that benefit her donors at the expense not only of the American people but of people in foreign countries--such as her policies in Libya, her push for a no-fly zone over Syria, and most of the stuff she did as secretary of state.
It is their democratic right to protest.
In the United States, this right is granted by the 1st amendment clauses "to peacefully assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." If the protests are not peaceful, then they do not have the right to hold them. If there is no particular grievance or the grievance is the result of the democratic process, then they are not petitioning for a redress of grievances, they're just being entitled brats. I hate how many times I've had to appeal to the constitution in this thread. I'm not a constitutional lawyer, I took one course on it in 10th grade and that class wasn't taught by any kind of law expert, it was taught by an evangelical Christian interested in "making America Christian". (The story of that was: my parents paid people to pretend that I was in school when I wasn't, and the only real condition they placed on them before I could get a diploma was that I attend this "Jesus Camp" type indoctrination seminar where I could learn "how to influence the government for Christ." Their goal was to infiltrate the government with tons of young people who believed in their ideology so they could make America the country that they wanted it to be.)
Topic: Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from America