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1 minute ago, NinjaMonkey said:

I don't think that's unreasonable. Drive-in's aren't the place to be voting, polling stations are. I do concede that last year was a special case, seeing as the 2020 General Election took place during the worst of the pandemic, but that's not the case anymore. Just because a judge said it was alright in that case, doesn't mean it would be allowed in perpituity.

Do you have any argument against drive in voting though? I must confess it seems odd to me, but if it works, it works. The only real argument I can see is security as it relies on one person carrying the vote to the actual polling station which is a window of opportunity for vote changing (someone can go with the staff member but then if that's happening with every vote it doesn't really fix the congestion issue). Still it's usually wiser to err on the side of "Do we have any proof this is actually an issue" rather than paranoia.

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13 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

I don't think that's unreasonable. Drive-in's aren't the place to be voting, polling stations are. I do concede that last year was a special case, seeing as the 2020 General Election took place during the worst of the pandemic, but that's not the case anymore. Just because a judge said it was alright in that case, doesn't mean it would be allowed in perpituity.

Then answer this. Why is it a bad thing for people to have an easier time voting? Since all these restrictions and bans the Republicans are imposing are being done in the name of making it harder to vote. They themselves have admitted that if more people vote, they can't win. Trump has admitted in sabotaging the USPS back in 2020 so mail-in voting would be harder to do, this during the pre-vaccine pandemic time.

The US is meant to be a democratic republic. Why is voting then being turned into a privilege, rather than a right?

Why can't a polling station have a drive-in option? Plenty of fast-food restaurants give you the option. So why not a polling station? And once implemented, why take it out?

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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51 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Then answer this. Why is it a bad thing for people to have an easier time voting? Since all these restrictions and bans the Republicans are imposing are being done in the name of making it harder to vote. They themselves have admitted that if more people vote, they can't win. Trump has admitted in sabotaging the USPS back in 2020 so mail-in voting would be harder to do, this during the pre-vaccine pandemic time.

The US is meant to be a democratic republic. Why is voting then being turned into a privilege, rather than a right?

Why can't a polling station have a drive-in option? Plenty of fast-food restaurants give you the option. So why not a polling station? And once implemented, why take it out?

Because some parties benifit from a low turnout and if you give those parties control over the law they'll naturally abuse that power to forcefully ensure they'll be lower voter turnout. Especially if its the people voting for the other parties who's supporters are forced to have a lower turnout. 

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So much for the slight hope of a more modern city-state surrounded by a country handed over to backwards radicals.

Can I blame the Soviets? I thought I've heard that prior to their invasion of Afghanistan, there was a tacit agreement that the federal government exerted control only over the cities, leaving the vast mountainous countrysides to more traditional socio-political groups. The Soviets so it goes broke this compromise, and it became clear ever since which side needed the pact, and which didn't.

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A lot of the hot takes over the last 20 hours have focused on who is more to blame - Trump or Biden. But that largely ignores that we're talking about a 20 year old conflict, not a one-off event. If there was one potential silver lining to come out of this war, it would have been that the new regime could stand on its own two feet against insurgencies. But they've proven they are not up to task. Leadership has fled their post, and the military we've trained and equipped have no will to fight the Taliban. The 'war' is unwinnable under these circumstances. And as long as it remains a conflict of us versus them, then anti-US resentment can only continue to grow.

Sorry if this is a tired comparison, but it's the only conclusion I can come to. This is my generation's Vietnam. A lot of good people are probably going to be hurt over there, but damn the consequences for us leaving. It's the right thing to do.

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1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Sorry if this is a tired comparison, but it's the only conclusion I can come to. This is my generation's Vietnam. A lot of good people are probably going to be hurt over there, but damn the consequences for us leaving. It's the right thing to do.

Could always give the Taliban their own slice of Afghanistan and tell them to stay over there under threat of war. This isn't going to end until they get what they want or an act of actual genocide happens. 

 

I'm telling you, these people generally don't get along with anyone who agrees with their religion, if history is any indicator.

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Imagine how fucking hated we had to be over there that after 20 years of arming, funding, and training  ‘Afghan Security Forces’ to fight for us.

Literally the second we weren’t pointing guns at them anymore—the entire country abandoned our puppet government in Kabul and welcomed the return of the Taliban Warlords.

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I've been on board with troops leaving Afghanistan since they announced that decision a couple months ago or so (I forget how long ago it was). 

Bring 'em home. It's not our fight. I just hope things get sorted out.

edit: this is buried now, but U.S. citizens are stuck in Afghanistan. Shouldn't they have gotten citizens home before pulling the troops...?

Edited by indigoasis
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17 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

A lot of the hot takes over the last 20 hours have focused on who is more to blame - Trump or Biden.

The fact that the conversation now is "how did we lose and whos to blame" and not "what were we even doing over there in the first place" shows that we've learned nothing.

The Afghanistan Campaign was wrong from start to finish. And in full retrospect its time to confront the reality of what we were really doing over there.

We. Weren't liberators.
We. Weren't nation builders.

We were an invading army that came in. Overthrew the local authorities.

Installed an occupation government that the locals never accepted or saw as legitimate authority.

Bribed the most corrupt people we could find to work with us.

Had our soldiers securing opium fields and protecting drug money. (which just so happened to coincide with a massive domestic spike in heroin distribution and opiate addiction, because of course it did)  

Sparked a civil war between the factions we were arming and paying to be pro-American + the loyalists of the old government.

And never once the entire time we were there believed what we were doing had sufficient support from the Afghans themselves that they would keep supporting our people and fighting for our government if we left.
__
The mistake wasn't how we got out.
It was going in and staying there in the first place.

We didn't belong there and have nothing of value to gain from staying.

Biden made the right call.


 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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21 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

A lot of the hot takes over the last 20 hours have focused on who is more to blame - Trump or Biden. But that largely ignores that we're talking about a 20 year old conflict, not a one-off event. If there was one potential silver lining to come out of this war, it would have been that the new regime could stand on its own two feet against insurgencies. But they've proven they are not up to task. Leadership has fled their post, and the military we've trained and equipped have no will to fight the Taliban. The 'war' is unwinnable under these circumstances. And as long as it remains a conflict of us versus them, then anti-US resentment can only continue to grow.

Sorry if this is a tired comparison, but it's the only conclusion I can come to. This is my generation's Vietnam. A lot of good people are probably going to be hurt over there, but damn the consequences for us leaving. It's the right thing to do.

"It's Trump's fault!" - The left

"It's Biden's fault!" - The right.

"It's Obama's fault!" - Racists...probably.

"It's Bush's fault" - The enlightened.

4 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

__
The mistake wasn't how we got out.
It was going in and staying there in the first place.

 

We didn't belong there and have nothing of value to gain from staying.

Biden made the right call.

I agree, I've always been anti American intervention, but when you see people literally clutching onto a plane one can't help but feel the exit could have been more graceful. I remember when Trump also pulled troops out of Syria and people critiszed him for it because of how it would affect the Kurds, this isn't altogether different.

Edited by Jotari
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https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texas-scotus-sides-with-gop-allowing-arrest-of-absent-house-democrats/

Think they will actually try? Who knows about the ones out of state, but I think some are still within the state, or returned during the brief time it was declared they couldn't be arrested. It's not like they need to get them all, just enough to have quorum.

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3 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

As threatened to be done in places like Florida, Arizona joins too in withholding funds from schools with mask mandates:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/arizona-school-funding-mask-mandate/index.html

To make it so bad, there's supposed to be a new strain or two of Covid floating around.

 

Hopefully nobody is stupid enough to enforce a mask-free zone.

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5 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

If Florida was its own country it would be an international banlist from entry into the United States right now 

Isn't Florida one of those borderline "might vote either way" states? I doubt there's much homogeneity in opinion there.

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Three US senators (so far) have contracted COVID.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senator-wicker-mississippi-tests-positive-covid-19-2021-08-19/

They're currently in recess so nothing will be disrupted, for the time being at least. That said, for all three to test positive not long after they adjourned, think it was spread right there in the Senate floor?

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50 minutes ago, UNLEASH IT said:

Isn't Florida one of those borderline "might vote either way" states? 

Allegedly, allegedly, allgedly.

Its been behaving pretty red lately. 

I think what happened is that it use to be much more of a swing state. But it became the go-to retirement spot for all the boomers with money looking to spend their retirement years boating and golfing and showing off their beach houses.  

And they all vote Republican. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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4 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Allegedly, allegedly, allgedly.

Its been behaving pretty red lately. 

I think what happened is that it use to be much more of a swing state. But it became the go-to retirement spot for all the boomers with money looking to spend their retirement years boating and golfing and showing off their beach houses.  

And they all vote Republican. 

Also, the state has a sizeable Cuban-American population, which also votes heavily Republican. Mostly since Republicans pull the "Democrats are communists/socialists!" card, but also, they're the target of disinformation campaigns:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-disinformation-413923

Edited by Acacia Sgt
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