General Chat / 2016 Elections

You see, I'm more in the individualist camp. I believe it's totally unlawful to treat people like criminals for their country of origin, and mobility is both a freedom and innate human right. To say that Americans can decide who enters in the potential face of danger is to imply that American lives are more valuable than other lives

Well, it should naturally be the job of those in office to protect those that they serve first and foremost..  It's not that some lives matter more, I'm sure that most of those in office would completely support all lives in an idea world, but that's simply not what we live in.  Its fun to be idealistic and believe in the "greater good", but quite rarely that's possible.

 

I mean, if it was possible we'd house every refugee, but it's just not possible.  If it were, other countries would be.

 

Quite simply, not every problem can be solved by electing a different person into office.  In the end, its quite often the system that is far bigger than the person.

The fact of the matter is that you had a president that managed to get into power because people believed that he would do great things and that the lack of political background made him a person for the people.

Those people in addition to the people who wouldn't believe he'd actually do those things.

Well, it should naturally be the job of those in office to protect those that they serve first and foremost..  It's not that some lives matter more, I'm sure that most of those in office would completely support all lives in an idea world, but that's simply not what we live in.  Its fun to be idealistic and believe in the "greater good", but quite rarely that's possible.

 

I mean, if it was possible we'd house every refugee, but it's just not possible.  If it were, other countries would be.

 

Quite simply, not every problem can be solved by electing a different person into office.  In the end, its quite often the system that is far bigger than the person.

But what gives Americans the right to decide if people live or die, that's a tall order and it's not idealistic to try and treat humans as humans rather than inconvenient stats

I have to say, it absolutely blows my mind that the country is so divided right now. Lately I've been trying to engage the other side a little bit because even though I don't agree with them at all, it's crazy to me that despite the fact that Republicans and Democrats are at about a 50/50 split and opposing each other on everything (in many cases issues that have nothing to do with each other) neither side will budge on any issue no matter what, I wish we could have discussions on things and move the country forward but I only expect this to get worse and for people to become more and more closed minded over time.

 

So far, there are a few things I think the left has overreacted about and a few things that I think are very real concerns.

 

Personally, I don’t think this travel ban is really the end of the world. It was not well thought out which is alarming since Trump had made it a cornerstone of his campaign and had plenty of time to think about logistics but overall it’s far from unprecedented. People with green cards who served alongside the US military should never have been included in this. It was implemented recklessly without any real thought being put into it despite the ramifications it was bound to have. Also, to pretend that these people were allowed in without extensive background checks is a lie. If the president had said that he would like to implement a temporary ban while they examined the process and tried to make it more comprehensive that would have been better than basically lying to the public by pretending that we had “open borders” and anyone could get a visa without any real background check.

 

That being said though, President Obama did do something very similar and the left didn’t react in this way. To their credit, some people did (like the ACLU) but most remained silent. I don’t think it’s unreasonable as long as it’s temporary and they actually improve the system. I’m skeptical, but I’ll try to be fair.

 

As far as the negatives go, I have to admit I’m pretty concerned about Trump’s obsession with the media and labeling any journalist that dares to do anything other than praise him as “fake news” despite having Steve Bannon, a guy who makes a living on fake news in his cabinet. The media is absolutely biased, but there’s a difference between having a bias and being fake news. Having a bias involves cherry picking stories and using unverified firsthand accounts (though citing them as such), but it’s not “fake news”. Plus, not all news has a liberal bias. Fox for example has a strong conservative bias, but any reasonable person knows that it’s still real news. Anyone who legitimately believes that the New York Times is fake news and Breitbart is legitimate is insane, but amazingly this is actually working for him and it will only lead to a bigger divide and more of the same in the future.

 

As far as the issues where I think the president is truly insane, the wall is up there. Part of me hopes he builds it though because a 20% tariff on Mexican imports will cripple the same working class, paycheck to paycheck people that voted for him when they see grocery bills / the cost of living skyrocket. I don’t like rooting for things to fail, but given the way he’s painted the media the only way people will ever turn on this guy is if they personally feel the negative impacts of his policies. That’s one of the reasons why I think the left is overreacting about Obamacare. He’ll never repeal it because taking away someone’s healthcare and not giving them a reasonable replacement option is political suicide. I’m really expecting Republicans to make slight changes to Obamacare and pass it off as their idea. Honestly, Obamacare is flawed in many ways so it might actually be a good thing. Maybe I’m being stupid but I’m actually optimistic about what the Republicans will do with Obamacare.

 

Back to the wall though, this is asinine. It’s a ridiculous idea on multiple levels…

 

1) Building a wall will not keep illegal immigrants out. They’ll just come in legally and overstay their visas like they do now. This entire thing is pointless and only serves as a cosmetic solution to an over hyped problem.

 

2) We already have millions of illegal immigrants here and deporting all of them will be insanely expensive and they’ll never be able to justify the cost of doing it. They know this, and I expect them to blame democrats and sanctuary cities for their failure to go through with this plan even though in reality the real issue is money.

 

3) As I said before, a tariff on Mexican imports is not “making Mexico pay for the wall”, It’s making Americans pay for the wall. It will hurt Mexico’s economy, but it will also hurt Americans… mainly the ones living paycheck to paycheck in places like the rust belt who made up the majority of his base. It will also cripple out relationship with Mexico. This is a lose-lose for everyone.

 

4) And finally it’s ridiculous from a moral standpoint. I can respect the idea that we should encourage people immigrating to the country legally and crack down on illegal immigration but the right has convinced people that illegal immigration is a bigger problem than it actually is. Illegal immigrants are not the cause of all of your problems, they’re a convenient scapegoat.

 

That didn’t really come off as unbiased as I wanted it to sound, but I am open minded on some issues. As far as things like the wall and climate change I think Trump is a disaster (especially climate change, what an embarrassment) but as far as the travel ban the right does have a point that we didn’t have this type of outrage when president Obama did it and I’m still optimistic about Obamacare.

 

As a whole though, I really do view this as a national embarrassment. If anything good comes out of this I hope it’s that our neighbors to the north realize that this can happen to them and rally behind Justin Trudeau despite his imperfect policies so they don’t end up with Prime Minister Kevin O'Leary.

 

But what gives Americans the right to decide if people live or die, that's a tall order and it's not idealistic to try and treat humans as humans rather than inconvenient stats

 

It's not about the right, its just about the natural way.  Those in power have always often made decisions that directly effect the lives of others for thousands of years, its just the way the world works. 

 

Should that right be "taken" away?  Well, again, in an ideal world sure, but that's far from what we live in.  In any matter, I think that's impossible to truly accomplish.   

I'm not talking about ideally. Preventable deaths are occurring currently and we are acting like it's just too much work to even try. I mean, if you look at it that way, don't pass laws because none of them can ever be ideally achieved.

Can any of the american guys here explain me, why people are actually defending the "muslim ban", as it's an act of agression that confines the freedom of many people all around the globe and as it's not helping at all against terrorism?

 

I mean, i'm not getting this whole Trump thing at all, since his suggestions will never work in a country such weak as the is US compared to other great nations. It looks like he'll metaphorically also build a wall around America itself, and it seems like Americans are gonna pay for it.

Can any of the american guys here explain me, why people are actually defending the "muslim ban"

 

america is a nation compelled by, and founded upon a bedrock of, white supremacy

 

america is a nation compelled by, and founded upon a bedrock of, white supremacy

 

 

This is maybe a more aggressive reading than I'd agree with even if it's true.  

 

However - re: GForce I'm largely in alignment with Bill up there.  I don't think you're far off base, you've got just the political fatigue and no prior left-leaning that would turn Trump stumbles into apocalyptic crisis.  I think the part Bill and I are seeing is that Trump's stuff isn't the pendulum swinging back the other way - we didn't go from -2 in Obamaland to +2 in Trumpland.  We're well outside normal swings, in large part because Trump is a "Washington Outsider" who ignores convention.  I know some of this feels like - eh, the next republican in office would have done this anyway.  That's not the case, and that's the issue I take.  Jeb Bush or Rubio or whoever would have repealed TPP, would try to repeal Obamacare, would have tried to up Visa requiements, but they wouldn't have outright lied about inauguration attendance in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary, wouldn't have dropped the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from the national security council in favor of Bannon, etc.

 

That's the only part of what you posted that really concerns me, by the way.  Describing Bannon as a Washington Outsider sure is a nice way to say NeoNazi - no hyperbole. like actually a goddamn white supremacist.  The dude runs Breitbart.  He is not in any way a "normal advisor appointment."

This is maybe a more aggressive reading than I'd agree with even if it's true. 

 

dropping 26,000 bombs on the middle east while not actively engaged in a war is also "aggressive" but good point i shouldnt be too mean to the flag online

I think we all get that the country was built by wealthy white christian dudes, but I feel it's a little reductive to try and capture that as just "white supremacy is why the muslim ban is happening".  There's much more to it than that.

[ntamin22' timestamp='1485803746' post='714412']

 

 

 

This is maybe a more aggressive reading than I'd agree with even if it's true.  

 

However - re: GForce I'm largely in alignment with Bill up there.  I don't think you're far off base, you've got just the political fatigue and no prior left-leaning that would turn Trump stumbles into apocalyptic crisis.  I think the part Bill and I are seeing is that Trump's stuff isn't the pendulum swinging back the other way - we didn't go from -2 in Obamaland to +2 in Trumpland.  We're well outside normal swings, in large part because Trump is a "Washington Outsider" who ignores convention.  I know some of this feels like - eh, the next republican in office would have done this anyway.  That's not the case, and that's the issue I take.  Jeb Bush or Rubio or whoever would have repealed TPP, would try to repeal Obamacare, would have tried to up Visa requiements, but they wouldn't have outright lied about inauguration attendance in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary, wouldn't have dropped the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs from the national security council in favor of Bannon, etc.

 

That's the only part of what you posted that really concerns me, by the way.  Describing Bannon as a Washington Outsider sure is a nice way to say NeoNazi - no hyperbole. like actually a goddamn white supremacist.  The dude runs Breitbart.  He is not in any way a "normal advisor appointment."

 

He's a normal advisor appoint in the sense that President's always nominate advisors from their staff to the council.  Weather he himself is normal, well, like I said, just about everyone on the fringe side of politics is pretty unfavorable.  Would I rather him be replaced with someone more moderate, obviously.  But the removal of the CotJCoS from the regular member list is far from a catastrophic event, I mean Bush did the same thing, to likely zero opposition. http://www.washingto...ganization-cop/

 

 

Just to be clear, I didn't vote, I couldn't bring myself to it.  I was a Johnson leaner for a while but some of his dialogue near the end of the race really turned me off and came of a whiny,  It ruined the whole idea of voting for a 3rd party candidate that I though would be a better person in the office despite knowing he'd never win.  Hillary has always been deplorable to me, even before the election and emails, combined with the pathetic campaign she ran I was honestly just glad to see her and the Dems fail for their pathetic management of the race. I had a slight motivation to vote for Trump, simply due to the amazing negative language people were using to describe those with more conservative views, combined with the idea of a political outsider getting into office.  Combined with the Anti-Media angle, as I've always hated almost all political media for quite some time, has it gone to far at some points, yes, but at the same time a lot of the actions and reporting's of the media are just as big of a crime to me.  Which is partially why I don't believe I'm as informed as I should be on a lot of issues, as I just despise so much of the language and rhetoric used by the media to "inform" the people on these issues. 

 

I truly believe that the mass majority of people are so miss-informed on the majority of issues, including myself, that often times the whole system is completely rigged against the majority of the public.  The issues that are faced every day are so amazing complex and multifaceted that developing agreeable solutions that work and can be implemented is almost impossible, especially because research into what type of policy's is almost impossible to conduct, because of the diversity of every situation and the depth of the issues.  I generally would like to see the WH take a more moderate and soft approach to things in the future, but at the same time people are so accustomed to expecting things to be done in a certain way in Washington that anything else drives them away.  To truly change the system people need to accept a different process and different action, which is probably impossible given the depth of mass media and the entrenched values of the political establishment.  Eh... but enough ranting.

 

But honestly, I don't believe I have no basis to complain about the actions of the WH, sure I'll disagree with it a lot of the time, but not voting doesn't give me the right to complain about the actions of those in office, so I'll stop.

 

It's an odd situation, is it the end of the world, well obviously not yet, but I think at this point we need to wait a bit longer until we actually condemn every breath the WH takes, let's see what kind of policies they enact and their effects first.  Nothing good can come easy, especially in politics, we've got the not easy part, so let's just wait to see the effects of these things.

^That's an interesting point of view, however I think the whole rhetoric of "let's wait and see" is wrong. If the Women's March protesters were to wait and see what Trump will do, there's no telling how easily he would have swept away reproductive rights, funding for Planned Parenthood, the equal pay initiative, etc., but now that he's been met with opposition from the largest protest our country has ever seen, things are going to be rough for him. If the #NODAPL protesters and the Sioux Nation were to wait and see how Trump resolved the conflict in North Dakota, they would have been trampled and destroyed (not saying that can't still happen), but since the thousands of protesters have stood up steadily on their rightfully owned sacred land, he and the pipeline companies are going to have a much harder time getting through. If I were to wait and see what Trump was to do about the situation in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, etc., there's a chance that a draft could be reinstated, under which I could be sent to the front line to die alone in a country that I have no basis nor family in. If the world were to wait and see, President Donald Trump would have a walk in the park with the destruction of numerous federal programs, scientific research firms, the national education system, and pretty much the rest of the country that wasn't utterly desecrated by the recession in 2008. And if you look at a timeline of all the recessions and depressions that have slowed and reversed the USA's growth over the last 70 years, recessions tend to come every ~6.67 years (median of 7 yrs, range of 9), so I'd say we're overdue, and what better time than now, to have the most unpopular president in history make all the choices that will lead us there. I think it's more important now than ever, to mobilize against him, and to show him all that the citizens of the United States are capable of.

 

Is it the end of the world? Well, maybe not right now, but the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have moved the atomic doomsday clock forward thirty seconds, which is the closest it's been since the 1980s in tense times with the USSR. He plans to completely defund NASA's climate research initiative, making it fair to say that our government won't make any significant progress in the realms of climate science, especially since he promises to bring back coal. His stripping of the Affordable Healthcare Act will surely kill thousands of Americans who cannot otherwise obtain the care they need (coincidentally, microbes are becoming more and more resistant to the things that used to kill them, including antibiotics).

 

I think it's fair to say that waiting to see the effects of his presidency would be a warm welcome to all of the terrible things I listed above. I think it's also fair to say that an ad hominem argument against the face of a country is not wrong (though I try to refrain from it), as long as the argument contains facts about Donald Trump's (sketchy) history as a businessman, his personal beliefs that directly contrast with the party that he "represents", and certain sexist comments about women, that are irreversible and undefendable. In my honest opinion, a man should not have the power to tell a woman what to do with her sex organs and what come out of them. No man should have the power to take away constitutional rights that were granted when the goals of this country were to escape tyranny. No man, not even the president, should have the right to disembowel any of the programs that millions of Americans rely on, without a proper plan for replacement or enhancement.

 

I voted for Hillary, not because I liked her, but because I was a Bernie supporter that got fucked by the DNC. I didn't want to take that shit, and it hurt for a good long while, but in the end, I would have taken old-fashioned corruption over a totally new unpredictable monster that gained political weight on fearmongering and scapegoating. I understand the value in voting third party, and I cannot bring myself to tell any of the third party voters they were wrong. It was their choice, and in the end, at least they voted. As an American, one of your many rights is to have a voice. Nearly 2.9 million Americans would have rather had Hillary as president, but it seems the electoral college was willing to take the bet against the shady politician with heaps of experience, and for the shady businessman who has filed for bankruptcy four times.

 

I don't want to see my country go to shit. But I can't hope that Trump won't be the man to make it so. Therefore I will fight every step of the way with my fellow citizens in order to save this country.

[ntamin22' timestamp='1485807761' post='714423']

I think we all get that the country was built by wealthy white christian dudes, but I feel it's a little reductive to try and capture that as just "white supremacy is why the muslim ban is happening".  There's much more to it than that.

 

class, race, gender, imperialism, etc etc- it's all intrinsically intertwined. they are all structures of the same power. when i say "white supremacy" i am not simplifying something to race. i do admittedly have a penchant for dangerous sloganeering because i do not have the patience to write reams on a message board

dr dude is the most hardcore person on this forum

 

also morganfan, that was a great post. shame no more than like 10 people will read it! love the perspective on the point of the protests, as we've been having plenty of our own here in australia

It's almost as if people believe that immigration to the US is a right.

Yes I do. It should be a right for everyone to travel to and settle wherever they want, and countries should do everything in their capabilities to welcome these people and make it as easy as possible for them to do so. It's the 21st century and we live in a global society. Things like circulary migration exist and it is proven that there are (almost) only advantages for everyone involved.

Plus the US is made almost entirely of immigrants. The only people that aren't immigrants in the US are the ones the land was stolen from and that are continually being screwed over. I mean I know that was years and years ago, but compared to the rest of the world, the US has almost no history.

Great posts by MorganFan and ][ntamin22. I'm too tired from everything to add anything else.

There's been some real garbage congressional shenanigans going on with the cabinet nominee process that really does emphasize how strongly the system relies on everybody at least pretending they're playing nice for the cameras.  The republican rule adjustment votes to to push nominations through and everything aren't unexpected at this point, and the democratic resistance is noisy and futile and isn't raising the kind of eyebrows it should because they make this kind of noise about everything at this point.  

 

I think my only ray of hope through the Devos nomination clusterfuck is that the swing state republicans who toed the party line will have to really scramble to win back public opinion.  I can only assume seeing something like this  scares the crap out of them.

The system has been broken for a long time, and Trump, weather its direct or indirectly, is exposing many of its issues.   At least till this point, he's getting people to care, or at least appear like they care.

 

Which in the long run is theoretically a good thing as you'd expect people to act on it and vote to change.  The problem is the next elections are 20 months away, and people have short memories, especially with a news vein that is a flooded as this one seems it will be for at least the near future.  The problem I guess is that Democrats and Independents have been absolutely horrendous at managing mid-term elections for the past 25 years, if that's the direction you support.

 

But as far as DeVos goes, I don't like her personally or agree with the course of action that got her nominated, but as the BoE is basically an administrative body at this point, she's theoretically not the worst choice, though I disagree with many of her personal policy.  She will at least get people to care, for the moment, about these sort of issues which weren't really discusses much during the race, which hopefully will be a good thing.

 

Ultimately, I hope in the long term that this signals the beginning of a move back away from ideology depended political parties, as many of the issues with the system are abused as the result of this in my opinion.  Not that its really possible, as the parties probably have to much control and influence to allow for that to happen, at least willingly.  I think that many of the issues, and hostilities, today are a result of this which goes way back to the 70s and the end to the "blue south" which finally fell apart in the 90s.