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Ansem

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None of you understand.

Get rid of gender and race politics. Blacks (as an example) are starting to walk away from the Democratic Party in numbers unseen before (black vote for Democrats has been 70%+ since the 1930s and as high as 90% most of the time). Meanwhile, the Democratic Party wants to push farther towards Progressivism which involves the micro-control of people's lives and people are fed up with this. It really doesn't help when the base of your party acts as if they are anti-white and anti-capitalism and you decide that this is a good idea.

What you should do is to stop pretending that you have the moral high ground all the time and stop talking down to people. This has been happening for years. Just check out the absolute contempt people from the coast have for middle America.

Feel free to ignore me with contempt but it might be important to note that contempt for people is exactly what put the Democratic Party in this situation. 

Edited by Life
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I legitimately do not understand your point. Are you advocating to tone down hostile rhetoric or are you advocating to abandon a civil rights platform for gender/race politics?

I guarantee you that blacks would flee the party harder if they did not care for race politics. Much of the issue is that Democrats are such a wide tent party demographically that no matter what actions they take, they will lose a demographic for either not doing enough or doing entirely too much. This is fixable by a ranked voting system so the Democratic Party (and Republican Party) can splinter and even make coalitions in the House and Senate, and maybe even introduce an inter-coalition system between the House and Senate.

This is the fundamental issue. Mentioning and putting minor focus on those things while creating a broader, economic message that can help everyone is what's key. And, frankly, a lot of people are doing that; I can probably list quite about as many candidates doing that as you can list candidates who are anti-white or who are focusing exclusively on civil rights. Democrats need to get people excited to vote or want to vote, and ignoring a bunch of politics is not the way to do it. Besides, any vaguely nuanced discussion about this kinda thing will be written off in the form of a shitty soundbite that makes someone sound anti-white. Pretty much, the other thing you could be asking for is to put up and shut up, and that doesn't excite anyone to vote.

There's really a lot of factors to account for.

19 minutes ago, Life said:

What you should do is to stop pretending that you have the moral high ground all the time and stop talking down to people. This has been happening for years. Just check out the absolute contempt people from the coast have for middle America.

It really goes both ways. Isn't that what you're doing right now? I don't think changing tone will change people who are entrenched. The crazy part is that there's a very specific facet of this conversation which I have issue with.

Basically, what's happening is that the coastals that you mention sneer upon rural America while at the same time talking down to them and requesting politeness (in some cases, overpoliteness and PC) in rhetoric.

But then you have the anti-PC middle America who demand to not be talked down upon.

There are multiple groups refusing concessions here. There's really nobody who has a moral high ground but there is a lot of pretending amongst these demographics you are referring to. I mean, I should be able to call you a n****, but don't talk down to me when you tell me it's offensive and when you request I shouldn't do it! (This is meant to be an extreme example to convey the point.. and it really is a word that invited a ton of vitriol that I'm sure you have felt towards people at many points in your life -- there really is no winning when people take it upon themselves to be vitriolically offensive).

Edited by Lord Raven
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6 minutes ago, Life said:

None of you understand.

Get rid of gender and race politics.

So as I said, your plan for the Democratic party is them only caring about straight white men and telling literally everyone else to get fucked.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, gender and race politics are relevant topics of discussion in politics and society at large regardless of whether you personally care for them, especially when you consider that despite constantly throwing a strop over it, Republicans and Conservative media personalities very frequently engage in their own brand of gender and race politics.

8 minutes ago, Life said:

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party wants to push farther towards Progressivism which involves the micro-control of people's lives and people are fed up with this.

The Democrats moving towards more progressive policy is occurring in tandem with demands for more progressive policy from it's voting base. You say this as if the Democrats have just arbitrarily decided to become more left-wing apropos-of-nothing, which is ludicrous.

13 minutes ago, Life said:

Feel free to ignore me with contempt but it might be important to note that contempt for people is exactly what put the Democratic Party in this situation. 

Even if I were to accept that 'contempt for people' is what got the Democrats in a bind, I fail to see how snubbing women and minority populations (as you infer they should) isn't an act of contempt of people, other than the fact that it's contemptuous in a way that you don't care about.

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2 hours ago, Life said:

None of you understand.

Get rid of gender and race politics. Blacks (as an example) are starting to walk away from the Democratic Party in numbers unseen before (black vote for Democrats has been 70%+ since the 1930s and as high as 90% most of the time). Meanwhile, the Democratic Party wants to push farther towards Progressivism which involves the micro-control of people's lives and people are fed up with this. It really doesn't help when the base of your party acts as if they are anti-white and anti-capitalism and you decide that this is a good idea.

What you should do is to stop pretending that you have the moral high ground all the time and stop talking down to people. This has been happening for years. Just check out the absolute contempt people from the coast have for middle America.

Feel free to ignore me with contempt but it might be important to note that contempt for people is exactly what put the Democratic Party in this situation. 

Literally what are you saying?  What does it mean to get rid of gender and race politics?  The idea that the Democratic party is even a little anti-white or anti-capitalism is insane.  The idea that their base is anti-white and anti-capitalism (which also sort of isn't true) though implies that they should probably become more anti-white and more anti-capitalist.

 

What do you mean about the moral high ground and talking down to people?  It's baffling that you look at American politics and think that it's a case of specifically the Democratic party (or I guess progressives) talking down to people, and it's even more baffling that you think people on the coast have absolute contempt for people from middle america.  What I think you mean is that wealthy people from the coast have contempt for poor people from middle america, but that's mostly because of the class dynamics.

 

I'd go on, but you're really not explaining what you mean very well at all.

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7 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

I guarantee you that blacks would flee the party harder if they did not care for race politics.

While I certainly believe the Democrats are far better on that then the Republicans, the core Democrats still don't want to have anything to do with ending the war on drugs or lessening the influence of private prisons that dispropotionally affects minorities as an example, because they have big private prison and pharmaceutical donors.

The Democrats talk a lot because it's easy to do so, but they're really more interested in corporate status quo than actually helping minorities or working class voters in general. Still better than the Republicans because every once in a while they will throw a bone, but it's hard to think of them as anything else than Republican lite as a whole.

That said, walking away from the Democratic party and then thinking the Republicans are going to be better is... yeah.

Edited by Edgelord
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9 hours ago, Time the Crestfallen said:

So as I said, your plan for the Democratic party is them only caring about straight white men and telling literally everyone else to get fucked.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, gender and race politics are relevant topics of discussion in politics and society at large regardless of whether you personally care for them, especially when you consider that despite constantly throwing a strop over it, Republicans and Conservative media personalities very frequently engage in their own brand of gender and race politics.

The Democrats moving towards more progressive policy is occurring in tandem with demands for more progressive policy from it's voting base. You say this as if the Democrats have just arbitrarily decided to become more left-wing apropos-of-nothing, which is ludicrous.

Even if I were to accept that 'contempt for people' is what got the Democrats in a bind, I fail to see how snubbing women and minority populations (as you infer they should) isn't an act of contempt of people, other than the fact that it's contemptuous in a way that you don't care about.

This is the exact problem. You are not listening to me and creating a strawman.

Nobody is saying that we should enslave women and minorities. But stop viewing these people as a monolith with no agency of their own.

Let me give you a great example.

If you spend years developing a narrative that minorities are victims, what happens when two sets of minorities end up having issues with each other, especially when both are seeking power by claiming to be more oppressed? The Economist wrote a fantastic article about this where the author flat out claimed that "trans rights should not come at the cost of women's fragile gains". But that is what is going on here. If transgenders are more oppressed than women, then is it sensible to oppress women so that transgenders can get what they want?

What about quotas? If the claim is that "straight white men" are privileged and over-represented in top companies, what does that mean for Jews and Asians? Surely they are over-represented in these companies and we should make way for the under-represented... if you OK with not hiring or even firing people for being born Jewish/Asian. And this already happens to Asians regarding college acceptance. Hell, just read this paragraph from this article.

"One of Mr. Blum’s landmark cases was a lawsuit by Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who said she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin because of her race. The United States Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the university in 2016, saying that it is constitutional to use race as one of many factors in admissions decisions."

Assuming that you agree with the Supreme Court here, you should also be in favour of "white only universities" under the same logic that it is acceptable to for a university to take race into consideration (as Affirmative Action does). Which is a TERRIBLE idea but if you care about being coherent, you would support it.

You all should stop looking at people as part of a monolith and rather as individuals with individual desires, wants and most importantly, flaws. Otherwise, you will back yourself into a corner where you have to justify oppressing one group of people to "correct injustices".

For the record, this is not just my opinion. Have a look for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTq-hkR-yAc - August 6, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyOjcQnizz4 - July 12, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQccCGYJvAA - July 10, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1x80Tr0_ds

These are minorities who are saying that the Democratic Party not only doesn't respect their views but will just about treat them as race traitors because of it. And it's not hard to find this stuff.

 

Edited by Life
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Trump allies have given you: "Alternative Facts".

Now, they present to you: "Truth isn't Truth"

US Politics are at the simplest they could ever be:

Choose Democrats if you want any semblance of checks and balances, accountability on the president, restoration of social programs and possibility improved Health care and education.

Choose Republican if you're, racist you take comfort in knowing your leaders do little to nothing about Nazis joining their own party, you want to move closer to a dictatorship, you believe in trickle down economics, you want to go against all reason.

On the subject of identity politics: I think it's stupid that this is what people are choosing to vote on over what it really should be... policy. Either way, priority needs to be to get rid of the Republicans currently in power.

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1 hour ago, Life said:

For the record, this is not just my opinion. Have a look for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyOjcQnizz4 - July 12, 2018

Whatever I think of the rest, I've seen this particular guy around. If he doesn't like the Democrat party, that's perfectly fine, but some of his reasoning is stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl9bFseo6fI

In this, he states the Martin Luther King was a Republican. I'm not sure if he's referring to Jr, or his father, but Jr, who was far more famous and generally is the one people are referring to, was absolutely not a Republican, that's bogus nonsense. Nor was he a Democrat, really. It's almost like people should actually look up some of the things he said. 

Nevermind the other things he's saying about the party switch being a myth.

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1 hour ago, Life said:

You are not listening to me and creating a strawman.

Currently, you're harping on affirmative action and some vague thing about bringing women down to accomodate for transpeople. Again, doesn't it work both ways?

Quote

links of people who are part of the #walkaway movement

For the record, here are the exit polls to an Alabama election.

 

Furthermore, the #walkaway movement is a viral meme perpetuated by Russia that seems to be working somewhat as intended.

 

Right now you seem to be arguing against an ideology that is not commonly portrayed in this thread (in fact, many people are doing the same). I don't like affirmative action, it was a necessary evil once upon a time but there's more work that needs to be done to curb systemic racism.

Edited by Lord Raven
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4 hours ago, Life said:

If you spend years developing a narrative that minorities are victims, what happens when two sets of minorities end up having issues with each other, especially when both are seeking power by claiming to be more oppressed? The Economist wrote a fantastic article about this where the author flat out claimed that "trans rights should not come at the cost of women's fragile gains". But that is what is going on here. If transgenders are more oppressed than women, then is it sensible to oppress women so that transgenders can get what they want?

That article is trans-exclusionary (that is, denying transwomen their identity and place in feminism), which is a problem in feminism essentially born from transphobia. The solutions to many problems facing women and trans people are not mutually exclusive-- both groups seek to be treated with equity. While there are differences between the two groups, those differences shouldn't be affecting things like being treated with respect or paid equally for doing the same work. The author of that article is picking a fight that doesn't need to be fought, and doing so ignores the real issues.

4 hours ago, Life said:

What about quotas? If the claim is that "straight white men" are privileged and over-represented in top companies, what does that mean for Jews and Asians? Surely they are over-represented in these companies and we should make way for the under-represented... if you OK with not hiring or even firing people for being born Jewish/Asian. And this already happens to Asians regarding college acceptance. Hell, just read this paragraph from this article.

"One of Mr. Blum’s landmark cases was a lawsuit by Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who said she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin because of her race. The United States Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the university in 2016, saying that it is constitutional to use race as one of many factors in admissions decisions."

Assuming that you agree with the Supreme Court here, you should also be in favour of "white only universities" under the same logic that it is acceptable to for a university to take race into consideration (as Affirmative Action does). Which is a TERRIBLE idea but if you care about being coherent, you would support it.

You all should stop looking at people as part of a monolith and rather as individuals with individual desires, wants and most importantly, flaws. Otherwise, you will back yourself into a corner where you have to justify oppressing one group of people to "correct injustices".

Look, I get that it's a complicated matter and the solutions aren't simple, but do you not get that there's incredible measurable disparity between straight white men and everybody else? The whole point of the Supreme Court decision and Affirmative Action is to prevent shit like "white only universities" by ensuring that colleges have the ability to do something about systemic racism that can hold minorities back from getting in. Nothing about the court majority opinion or AA reflect the idea of letting colleges actively discriminate.

A college or company that takes a person of color over a white person is not oppressing the white person, nor does it lead to a slippery slope where suddenly white people are underrepresented or facing grave inequities.

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15 hours ago, Life said:

This is the exact problem. You are not listening to me and creating a strawman.

You come into this thread and say that the Democrats need to, and I quote, get rid of gender and race politics and refuse to elaborate on what that means, and then complain when I point out the natural inference of the words that you do use. But fine, if you're so insistent on this then perhaps you could explain to me how getting rid of gender politics would relate to the topic of, say, abortion, in a way that doesn't involve just conceding the point and letting Republicans do whatever they want.

15 hours ago, Life said:

If you spend years developing a narrative that minorities are victims, what happens when two sets of minorities end up having issues with each other, especially when both are seeking power by claiming to be more oppressed? The Economist wrote a fantastic article about this where the author flat out claimed that "trans rights should not come at the cost of women's fragile gains".

Issues with each other like what? The 'fantastic article' using trans-women as an example you provided is written by a woman who believes that the phrase TERF is a slur and is known for making frequent trans-exclusionary takes, so not exactly a trustworthy source on that one. In general however, we reconcile these conflicts with what is called 'intersectionality'. I assume you already know what that is so I won't go into detail, but needless to say just because women have a rougher time of it than men doesn't mean that women, especially white women, are exempt from holding attitudes that aren't discriminatory in other ways.

Besides, the first half of this article is just throwing a strop over inclusive language, even though it gets the point across without denying trans-people their identity, so the only way this would be a problem is if you were specifically denying the said identities.

15 hours ago, Life said:

If transgenders are more oppressed than women, then is it sensible to oppress women so that transgenders can get what they want?

What does this even mean? In what way would helping trans people involve the oppression of women?

15 hours ago, Life said:

What about quotas? If the claim is that "straight white men" are privileged and over-represented in top companies, what does that mean for Jews and Asians? Surely they are over-represented in these companies and we should make way for the under-represented.

Asian-Americans are also the group least likely to be promoted to management/leadership roles, so there's your 'over-representation' in top companies for them.

15 hours ago, Life said:

What about quotas? If the claim is that "straight white men" are privileged and over-represented in top companies, what does that mean for Jews and Asians? Surely they are over-represented in these companies and we should make way for the under-represented... if you OK with not hiring or even firing people for being born Jewish/Asian. And this already happens to Asians regarding college acceptance. Hell, just read this paragraph from this article.

"One of Mr. Blum’s landmark cases was a lawsuit by Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who said she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin because of her race. The United States Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in favor of the university in 2016, saying that it is constitutional to use race as one of many factors in admissions decisions."

I don't particularity like Affirmative Action and I have my criticisms of it, but those criticisms are based around it not being a sufficient solution to the problem it seeks to fix; the fact remains that it is a measure implemented in an attempt to address systemic inequality in education. In light of your previous comments though, why don't you explain to me how the Democrats getting rid of gender and race politics would relate to a topic like this (bearing in mind that repealing Affirmative Action is itself, an idea rooted in gender and race politics). They repeal Affirmative Action because it has flaws as a policy and then what?

15 hours ago, Life said:

Assuming that you agree with the Supreme Court here, you should also be in favour of "white only universities" under the same logic that it is acceptable to for a university to take race into consideration (as Affirmative Action does). Which is a TERRIBLE idea but if you care about being coherent, you would support it.

There's a big fucking difference between 'using race as a factor in admission decisions' in the context of addressing systemic racism in the education system and allowing for 'white only universities' and it's disingenuous of you to say otherwise.

15 hours ago, Life said:

You all should stop looking at people as part of a monolith and rather as individuals with individual desires, wants and most importantly, flaws. Otherwise, you will back yourself into a corner where you have to justify oppressing one group of people to "correct injustices".

For the record, this is not just my opinion. Have a look for yourself.

<Snip>

These are minorities who are saying that the Democratic Party not only doesn't respect their views but will just about treat them as race traitors because of it. And it's not hard to find this stuff.

 

As Lord Raven pointed out, #walkaway is a viral meme rather than a mass-exodus from the Democratic party it claims to be. Every measurable metric available shows that the vast majority of minority populations vote for the Democrats.

Edited by Time the Crestfallen
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11 hours ago, Life said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTq-hkR-yAc - August 6, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyOjcQnizz4 - July 12, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQccCGYJvAA - July 10, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1x80Tr0_ds

These are minorities who are saying that the Democratic Party not only doesn't respect their views but will just about treat them as race traitors because of it. And it's not hard to find this stuff.

 

I've watched all 4 videos. These people are behaving like fools who are becoming Russian tools and it's no wonder the Republicans and Alt-right love this so-called movement, it's free ammo "from the other side".

Zach Hing: "People are protesting, about what?" Maybe he should look into what it is they're protesting as well as American history to see why there's protests and civil rights movement. He also speaks of "facts over feelings", what facts do the right use to do things like ban transgender people from being in the military, allow companies to discriminate on potential employees based on gender, race, etc. What fact is used when the Attorney General defends his policies using religion? You don't agree with abortion: that's fine, it is your opinion and you're entitled to it but the alternative is the right side's idea that it should be outright banned without even giving it a vote. You know what outright banning abortion instead of letting states and the people choose it is betraying? DEMOCRACY.

Mike Nificent: "The left lies" and the right is SO honest? You're going to demonize a side over some issues you find in 1 news network "The left is too radical" and yet Obama is basically a conservative in the eyes of countries that are better off than the US in terms of health care and quality of living for the common people. "I personally haven't seen any effect on my own life", what do you say to black families that have been losing their loved ones because police in the US are trained to shoot first and they'll inevitably execute that more often on minorities because of the systemic racism in the country? What is Trump doing to address this? What is Trump doing to address the surge of Neo-Nazis he's brought forth who believe you should be a second class citizen because of the color of your skin?

Tumi Yukii: "Maxine Waters called for violence" is a talking point from the right and each and every time they use a video to demonstrate that, it fails to show how she's advocating violence on people. "The left is doing nothing for black people" because the right is currently in control and the establishment democrats that take money from corporations aren't actual left. There's a push to bring a $15 minimum wage, health care for all which WORKS in other countries and more affordable education. Who's pushing for this? The left. What is the right pushing for? More money for the rich and neo-nazis from joining their party if it looks like they won't win. At least the democrats are SAYING they want to fight for equality for everyone, the right doesn't even say it and they have no intention of ever making that possible. They're already killing policies Obama put into place to protect people from such injustices.

Lynzee: So much for facts over feelings. "It's scarier to come out as a conservative" and yet you have neo nazis running for office and costing millions in taxpayer money to hold a celebration of the rally where they killed an innocent woman. They're still alive and they're the alternative to the people saying LGBTQ should not face discrimination.

Common: "SJWs are terrible" yeah, they are but if you're going to label the left as "too radical" because of SJWs, then what is the right when you use Neo-Nazis in the same way you're using the SJWs to demonize the left? "Democrats were the party of slaves if you look at history" Yes but if you look at how things stand today, which is the party where Neo-Nazis are rallying behind and which is the party where their platforms consists of policies that are benefiting the common people? Do the Democrats of today have any semblance of wanting to be slave owners? Do the Republicans of today have any semblance of seeking equality for people or are they trying to suggest that whites should be in charge and "demographic changes to the country are bad". Trump once asked "Why don't we get immigrants moving in from Norway?" because they're better off in Norway unless they're rich and greedy

 

Former Neo-Nazi's story

Colorado school district shifting to 3-day weekends due to low funds. #WalkAway will play a part in more of this crap if it continues.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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Regarding the claims that I did not explain how to get rid of gender/identity politics, none of you were listening. So let me explain in bold.

Stop assuming that if you are part of X identity group (woman/black/whatever) that you think or SHOULD think the exact same thing. You need to look at the fact that the smallest minority is the individual who has their own desires, goals and flaws.

9 hours ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

I've watched all 4 videos. These people are behaving like fools who are becoming Russian tools and it's no wonder the Republicans and Alt-right love this so-called movement, it's free ammo "from the other side".

I was going to take you seriously but then I actually read the first paragraph and this popped to mind. And I really can't take anyone here seriously anymore.

You guys are so far down the rabbit-hole. Well, when it turns on you, I'm just going to laugh and say "told you so".

 

DZ0BC9zU0AEilvy.jpg

Edited by Life
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17 minutes ago, Life said:

Regarding the claims that I did not explain how to get rid of gender/identity politics, none of you were listening. So let me explain in bold.

Stop assuming that if you are part of X identity group (woman/black/whatever) that you think or SHOULD think the exact same thing. You need to look at the fact that the smallest minority is the individual who has their own desires, goals and flaws.

Funny how you went from complaining about being strawmanned to this. Nobody here is saying that, never mind the fact that when I say 'explain what getting rid of identity politics entails', I'm was directly asking for concrete examples like changes in a) rhetoric and b) policy, and yet the only thing you've offered up is statements like this, which only indicate what you personally think identity politics involves.

31 minutes ago, Life said:

I was going to take you seriously but then I actually read the first paragraph and this popped to mind. And I really can't take anyone here seriously anymore.

You guys are so far down the rabbit-hole. Well, when it turns on you, I'm just going to laugh and say "told you so".

Cute. How you can make statements like this and say that you can't take us seriously at the same time is beyond me.

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1 hour ago, Life said:

I was going to take you seriously but then I actually read the first paragraph and this popped to mind. And I really can't take anyone here seriously anymore.

You guys are so far down the rabbit-hole. Well, when it turns on you, I'm just going to laugh and say "told you so".

Did you only come here to strawman and trash talk?

I thought you were turning the corner in terms of this but you really didn't, huh. You're still highly ideological instead of reasonable and you still only really like to preach instead of discuss. You only really care about left wing vs right wing any time you venture into this thread and you only care about shitting on "the left" instead of trying to discuss things. I do agree posters here enjoy shitting on "the right" far too much, but your purpose here seems to be to stir shit up. You're actually hilariously steadfast to refer to yourself as a right winger, which is no different from identity politics.

Instead of saying, "you guys still don't get it," why don't you just clarify? And if nobody gets what you're saying, then you need to do a lot better of a job instead of assuming we know what you're trying to say. A lot of people didn't know what you meant until you mentioned something about demographic monoliths, which nobody here is arguing in favor of in any way, shape, or form. You can keep arguing "This is why Trump won," but again it goes both ways -- something you completely and utterly failed to address.

Regardless, the #walkaway movement is heavily rooted in Russian interference. There are some legitimate people who said #walkaway on their own -- and it didn't actually even spawn from Russia -- but it was co-opted and perpetuated by Russia. This doesn't invalidate those people, but I have shown that special elections have shown near-monolithic voting of blacks and that the #walkaway movement is another example of Russian co-opting and interference, and you really just latch onto the guy you can insult the quickest. Come on man..

Edited by Lord Raven
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On 8/17/2018 at 2:56 AM, Edgelord said:

Cutting the military is still a good idea, considering a) waste of resources in many areas and b) less intervention presence from US military around the world, something the American people generally want too.  The US has 800 military bases around the world in 80 countries that cost $100 billion annually to maintain.

We do not know which areas there are wastes in, how much waste there are, whether or not the waste is just a corrupt few or inefficiency due to over staffing, etc. While it is easy to just cut funding and massively reduce intervention, I do not think that is good for global security or the economy if it is done blindly. Until the audit is finished, or at least mostly complete, I prefer to maintain the current level of spending and not do anything too hasty.

I think we should step up our presence in the world and embrace our position rather than step back. While we should not intervene recklessly, we do need to at least be out there to protect our allies and patrol trade routes. China and Russia are beyond the point of being nipped in the bud, so the best we can do now is to contain them. Anyone who prefers Chinese or Russian leadership over American leadership is delusional and really takes our status as a superpower for granted.

While it does cost a lot of money to maintain our bases, the security helps facilitate trade and more trade is good for everyone. Piracy is a threat to shipping, and in my opinion, Russian and Chinese navies are a bigger threat, so I rather have us do most of the anti piracy job than let them handle it.

On 8/19/2018 at 1:04 AM, Life said:

None of you understand.

Get rid of gender and race politics. Blacks (as an example) are starting to walk away from the Democratic Party in numbers unseen before (black vote for Democrats has been 70%+ since the 1930s and as high as 90% most of the time). Meanwhile, the Democratic Party wants to push farther towards Progressivism which involves the micro-control of people's lives and people are fed up with this. It really doesn't help when the base of your party acts as if they are anti-white and anti-capitalism and you decide that this is a good idea.

What you should do is to stop pretending that you have the moral high ground all the time and stop talking down to people. This has been happening for years. Just check out the absolute contempt people from the coast have for middle America.

Feel free to ignore me with contempt but it might be important to note that contempt for people is exactly what put the Democratic Party in this situation. 

That is a lot of accusations there.

As far as I am concerned, Republicans, especially the Christian Right, are the ones who want to control our lives, dictating who I sleep with and banning drugs and porn. I am not in favor with the far left wanting to ban guns, but Republicans and the NRA are not exactly Second Amendment friendly either since they recently found common cause with Democrats wanting to ban 3D printed guns.

Talking down to people? Do you hear yourself? What has middle America done for me? I pay my fucking taxes and California is the biggest source of revenue for the federal government and middle America takes most of it. Where is the fucking thank you to the subsidies and handouts that California provides? Libtards and feminazis are some of the pleasantries that California and I are getting (just online of course, Republicans in real life are much nicer). I pay my taxes in the hope that infrastructure gets built throughout America, especially in rural and middle America who needs it the most, and that asshole in the White House wants to throw that money on a stupid wall. And you know what is worse? When that asshole wants to subsidize middle America for the trade war he is screwing up, the Republicans fucking opposed it! How fucking hard is it to just say that protecting the agricultural industry is not about socialism but about national security?

Talk about being ungrateful and rude as hell.

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13 hours ago, Life said:

And I really can't take anyone here seriously anymore.

If that leads you to stop posting garbage, then great

1 hour ago, XRay said:

We do not know which areas there are wastes in, how much waste there are, whether or not the waste is just a corrupt few or inefficiency due to over staffing, etc. While it is easy to just cut funding and massively reduce intervention, I do not think that is good for global security or the economy if it is done blindly. Until the audit is finished, or at least mostly complete, I prefer to maintain the current level of spending and not do anything too hasty.

I think we should step up our presence in the world and embrace our position rather than step back. While we should not intervene recklessly, we do need to at least be out there to protect our allies and patrol trade routes. China and Russia are beyond the point of being nipped in the bud, so the best we can do now is to contain them. Anyone who prefers Chinese or Russian leadership over American leadership is delusional and really takes our status as a superpower for granted.

While it does cost a lot of money to maintain our bases, the security helps facilitate trade and more trade is good for everyone. Piracy is a threat to shipping, and in my opinion, Russian and Chinese navies are a bigger threat, so I rather have us do most of the anti piracy job than let them handle it.

Well, this might be a start

From a global power standpoint, I'm not necessarily sure that increasing raw military force is going to do us too much good, especially when we're not exactly demonstrating any effort to defend ourselves from cyber threats. Of the classic DIME hard power concept (diplomacy, intelligence, military, economic), Trump is personally ruining 3 out of the 4 and doesn't have any concept of how the 4th one actually works.

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39 minutes ago, Johann said:

Okay, that is a problem. I read this more recent article on how difficult it was to audit the military because there was not proper documentation in place and the lost track of $800 million, and I did not know there was a prior internal study that was covered up. I assumed the $800 million waste was unintentional and I did not realize they were trying to cover stuff up.

I prefer the savings to be invested in more research instead, but I guess if they really need more weapons and troops, I guess that is fine too.

Work's comment about never being as efficient as a commercial organization sounds like complete bull shit though.

19 minutes ago, Johann said:

From a global power standpoint, I'm not necessarily sure that increasing raw military force is going to do us too much good, especially when we're not exactly demonstrating any effort to defend ourselves from cyber threats. Of the classic DIME hard power concept (diplomacy, intelligence, military, economic), Trump is personally ruining 3 out of the 4 and doesn't have any concept of how the 4th one actually works.

I know military force is not the only solution and it should be more of a last resort to back up the other three, but it should still be used visibly as a deterrent to enemies and as a symbol of solidarity for our allies. Even if we are not using our stick to hit somebody, we should still carry it prominently and wave it.

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2 minutes ago, XRay said:

Okay, that is a problem. I read this more recent article on how difficult it was to audit the military because there was not proper documentation in place and the lost track of $800 million, and I did not know there was a prior internal study that was covered up. I assumed the $800 million waste was unintentional and I did not realize they were trying to cover stuff up.

I prefer the savings to be invested in more research instead, but I guess if they really need more weapons and troops, I guess that is fine too.

Work's comment about never being as efficient as a commercial organization sounds like complete bull shit though.

There are a few issues with the military wanting more new equipment, the first being that wars today are far different from how they were fought in previous decades-- Afghanistan and Iraq were nothing like Vietnam, with threats like IEDs posing a more realistic threat than the enemy having an air force or whatever. I do think having defensive equipment (such as Kevlar gear) is extremely important, but I don't think this is the bulk of the budget. The military industrial complex is an extremely powerful lobbying force due to how much money is behind it, and a significant portion of the arms being made are sold to foreign countries. Supplying arms with other nations is one of the reasons our opponents in the Middle East had been so well armed during our wars there (since we wanted them to defend against Russia beforehand).

It can be extremely unnerving to learn how nearsighted or even sometimes callous the people with power to make these transactions can be. Paul Manafort & Roger Stone used to own and run a lobbying firm, taking on outright dictators for clients and lobbying the US government to provide them with arms.

2 minutes ago, XRay said:

I know military force is not the only solution and it should be more of a last resort to back up the other three, but it should still be used visibly as a deterrent to enemies and as a symbol of solidarity for our allies. Even if we are not using our stick to hit somebody, we should still carry it prominently and wave it.

I generally agree, though I'm far more reserved about having the big stick and waving it around. It's used against us in propaganda (particularly in the Middle East and Russia) to decry us as an empire come to pillage or lay waste to anyone else. Not to mention, since our primary threat right now is through constant cyber attacks (which can have a more precise and subtle effects than classic warfare), I don't think it's really helping all that much to brag about our big guns.

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16 hours ago, Life said:

Regarding the claims that I did not explain how to get rid of gender/identity politics, none of you were listening. So let me explain in bold.

Stop assuming that if you are part of X identity group (woman/black/whatever) that you think or SHOULD think the exact same thing. You need to look at the fact that the smallest minority is the individual who has their own desires, goals and flaws.

 

it's unfortunate that nothing has changed since i've started coming here less.

but anyway, i'm not going to tear your posts apart because i no longer find it useful or entertaining. i will say this, though: the democratic party, as an entity, does not do this. people on twitter do this. people on tumblr do this.

i have to let you know that individual people have very little potential to illuminate the strategies or operations of the party itself. analyzing the behaviors of fringe party members isn't useful lol. you've always felt that it was and i don't understand why. you actually understand so little about the democratic base, which is why your positions and insights are stupid. (seriously--you're gonna bitch about affirmative action? you obviously do not understand the very basic philosophies behind the democratic party.)

i'm not listening to you because it's obvious you are ill-informed and arrogant, not because you're right-wing.

16 hours ago, Life said:

You guys are so far down the rabbit-hole. Well, when it turns on you, I'm just going to laugh and say "told you so".

DZ0BC9zU0AEilvy.jpg

what the hell are you even talking about here? this is a child's mentality. ("laugh and say, 'i told you so'"? really? lmfao.) rabbit-holes don't 'turn' on anything. this reads like an un-ironic version of this.

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17 hours ago, XRay said:

We do not know which areas there are wastes in, how much waste there are, whether or not the waste is just a corrupt few or inefficiency due to over staffing, etc. While it is easy to just cut funding and massively reduce intervention, I do not think that is good for global security or the economy if it is done blindly. Until the audit is finished, or at least mostly complete, I prefer to maintain the current level of spending and not do anything too hasty.

I think we should step up our presence in the world and embrace our position rather than step back. While we should not intervene recklessly, we do need to at least be out there to protect our allies and patrol trade routes. China and Russia are beyond the point of being nipped in the bud, so the best we can do now is to contain them. Anyone who prefers Chinese or Russian leadership over American leadership is delusional and really takes our status as a superpower for granted.

While it does cost a lot of money to maintain our bases, the security helps facilitate trade and more trade is good for everyone. Piracy is a threat to shipping, and in my opinion, Russian and Chinese navies are a bigger threat, so I rather have us do most of the anti piracy job than let them handle it.

Let's keep it real here: the increase in military spending of the US in the last year for around $100 billion dollars is higher than the entire Russian military budget. If the US cut its military spending in half, it would still have more than Russia and China combined annually (and with much to spare). The American military budget is absolutely absurd, so that's the first thing to make clear. Even if they want to accept their role as the world police.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/pentagon-500-million-f35-2016-11?r=US&IR=T

The F35 went over its budget by more than 50% and still cost like $1.5 trillion dollars for 300 fighter planes. This is just one example of what the military spends their money forking over huge amounts of money to defense companies like Lockheed Martin (who often are some of politicians biggest donors, funny how that works, right?)

A lot of the money pumped into the military doesn't actually help regular troops. If you really want to support the troops, you should support military spending not being a major money pit that furthers the military industrial complex and defense contractors.

The other part of this, is of course:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-usa/u-s-forces-to-stay-in-iraq-as-long-as-needed-spokesman-idUSKBN1L408A

Really? Does anyone support the war in Iraq anymore? Fucking Trump talks about how bad a decision the war in Iraq is and then he's still got fucking troops there when he actually has power.

Edited by Edgelord
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1 hour ago, Edgelord said:

Let's keep it real here: the increase in military spending of the US in the last year for around $100 billion dollars is higher than the entire Russian military budget. If the US cut its military spending in half, it would still have more than Russia and China combined annually (and with much to spare). The American military budget is absolutely absurd, so that's the first thing to make clear. Even if they want to accept their role as the world police.

 

1 hour ago, Edgelord said:

The F35 went over its budget by more than 50% and still cost like $1.5 trillion dollars for 300 fighter planes. This is just one example of what the military spends their money forking over huge amounts of money to defense companies like Lockheed Martin (who often are some of politicians biggest donors, funny how that works, right?)

I am of the opinion that we should maintain as much advantage and technological edge as possible. Having a military that can be matched by rivals is not a great idea. When two sides are roughly similar, like World War I and World War II, there will be lots of casualties on both sides. On the other hand, conflicts like the Spanish conquests of America and Desert Storm showed that the casualties for the victor is miniscule compared to the loser when the victor is substantially more well armed than the loser. While I am not in favor of the increase when there is still so much waste to eliminate and some of that should be diverted back into the economy and infrastructure, I am not opposed to the idea of having a large military budget.

The F35 program did went over budget by a lot, but if it helps maintain American superiority, I am fine with that. I do think there needs to be procedures in place to discipline contractors for inaccurate estimates and going over budget though.

1 hour ago, Edgelord said:

Really? Does anyone support the war in Iraq anymore? Fucking Trump talks about how bad a decision the war in Iraq is and then he's still got fucking troops there when he actually has power.

Going in was a mistake, but so was pulling out early. If we maintained our presence instead of leaving a giant power vacuum, ISIS would not have risen up like it did.

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Try asking the families of civilians bombed by the US what they think of US superiority, including bombing school buses in Yemen now. This is how radicalisation happens.

But really, it's whatever at this point. If the prevalent opinion in America is that it truly believes that they need to make the military stronger despite being the strongest military already by a huge margin with now the combined budget of 15 countries below it, most of which are US allies, then the US probably doesn't deserve healthcare.

Edited by Edgelord
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1 hour ago, Edgelord said:

Try asking the families of civilians bombed by the US what they think of US superiority, including bombing school buses in Yemen now. This is how radicalisation happens.

That is a tragedy and there are a lot of similar cases with civilian casualty, but I think our contribution to the world far outweighs our mistakes.

1 hour ago, Edgelord said:

But really, it's whatever at this point. If the prevalent opinion in America is that it truly believes that they need to make the military stronger despite being the strongest military already by a huge margin with now the combined budget of 15 countries below it, most of which are US allies, then the US probably doesn't deserve healthcare.

The margin is not huge enough in my opinion. Our economy dwarfed Japan's during World War II and we still took tons of casualties. It was not until we got the nuke that we managed to convince them to surrender.

With Russia and China both having nukes, and China having a really large economy and population, we need a much larger lead in other areas to truly have minimal casualties.

I do not expect the current generation in power to achieve universal health care. I believe my generation can achieve that in the future while still being able to balance the military budget.

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Regardless of your views on military might, you should still consider whether or not the allocation is proper or could use some tweaking to re-allocate funds to other areas such as Science and research which will benefit all aspects of the US can boost our military advantage. You already have the documented wasteful spending and there's areas in clear need of more funding such as Education. If Education keeps sinking and we continue getting more Betsy Devos' like people in the country, decades down the line, will we continue to hold the advantage in terms of technology? If we lose said advantage, how do we address potential threats in the future such as the missile simulate that Putin taunted this year claiming he could hit Florida with this missile and it is "invincible to nato's defence systems". Didn't congress recently approve an obscenely high defense budget with several more aircraft than what was requested? Will this surplus of fighters be useful or more wasteful spending? Most likely the latter unless we're definitely going to war. Also, there's always talk about the blasted deficit but before the Tax Cuts for the rich, the deficit probably could've been better managed with reduced spending on Military in a few years... but the deficit is never in-scope when discussing certain subjects and Military is one.

In other news, Manafort is found guilty on 8/18 counts, "mistrial" on 10/18 counts.

Michael Cohen has entered a plea deal. Details are still developing and it is weird since he's going to face jail time as things stand the plea deal currently suggests that he isn't required to provide full cooperation with the feds. Why's he settling for jail time?

47 minutes ago, XRay said:

That is a tragedy and there are a lot of similar cases with civilian casualty, but I think our contribution to the world far outweighs our mistakes.

And how long will this remain "true"? Why not contribute more good instead of deaths? I mean what's the death toll quota we need to be a part of to be as big of a problem as Nazi Germany? They don't "hate us cause they hate us" as the elite want to claim and we've already got a president echoing Hitler since that was his reading material

I agree with Edgelord on this one. The suggestion isn't to do away with the US' military, it's to cut on the wasteful spending in it, specially when it goes to corporations and not the people. Just look into the pay increase that the republicans are touting, "2.4%, the biggest in EIGHT YEARS".

 

Lastly: As Lord Raven has mentioned in the past, If there's a candidate you believe the people in your county or state could vote for, talk to people who are willing to listen. I live in Austin TX which is considered liberal but even with that in mind, I met 2 co-workers today with similar opinions on Trump and Republicans and it hadn't even occurred to them to vote in the midterms because they weren't aware of how close the Beto vs Ted Cruz race is and one of them thought "it'd just be like the presidential election" when it's definitely not the same thing, Beto can win the vote of even Trump supporters.

Edited by Dr. Tarrasque
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