Donald Trump and US politics

In another amazing about face from liberals, they are now decrying an item in Trump's budget that would stop sending military equipment to the police. I thought black lived mattered? What happened?

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鬼殺し wrote:

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Disrupted wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

Man, I wish I had your life.

I can help ya with that. Money is an immediate obvious difference that is impeding you from living a life such as his.

Yeah, I'm sure it was a financial reason that made him dedicate so much of his life to trolling strangers on the internet.

Just because something's a big target doesn't mean it's the real one. I know, subtlety isn't something we liberals are renowned for, what with our bragging about how great our country is and how great we're going to make it and oh wait SHIT THAT'S YOU LOT.

Anyway, I was lying. I don't wish I had his life. Sorry, was the sarcasm not quite clear enough?

Here, just for you.

/s

Now I'm off to swim in my pool full of money. /s

Oh hey, this is fun. /s

I should have used this little bugger sooner! /s

Love and kisses! /s

Dude, Charan, calm down. It was a complete joke-post just taking advantage of the phrase out of context. are you going to go an a tirade next time I_NO makes a dinosaur post as well? jeebus.

I apologize if it seems that I was making fun of you, I wasnt. I didnt intend to be mean.
If that was my intention it would be something far worse, I dont like pulling punches.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Bee tee dubs: Smiley, stop gardening troll alts. I'm not saying any particular account is a Smiley alt or anything, based off of factors such as join date, forum of choice, or a history of short, shitty "SJW" posts. At least, not explicitly saying it's a Smiley alt.

these threads would be amazing if it was all a single person talking to himself.

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soneka101 wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Bee tee dubs: Smiley, stop gardening troll alts. I'm not saying any particular account is a Smiley alt or anything, based off of factors such as join date, forum of choice, or a history of short, shitty "SJW" posts. At least, not explicitly saying it's a Smiley alt.

You see, after he told his story I had my suspicions, but I dismissed because there is no way to prove it. But then you brought it up again, and I decided to check it out, and both accounts were made in almost the same day, but it's still hard to believe, after all he wouldn't be doing that for 4 years right? That would be too sad...

I didn't mean that one, actually. But I was just noticing on how much of a caricature the account you're talking about is.

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The essence of the Right — the true Right — is loving parts of who we are and not wanting those parts to change; the core of the Left is hating parts of who we are and wanting those parts to change. It's no wonder that people naturally move from left to right as they age: not only does their increased proximity to death give them a shorter-term view on the benefits of change, but they wish to see the improvements made during their lifetimes, the changes from the old status quo that have become part of a new status quo, preserved rather than torn down. A victorious Left is supposed to become the next generation's Right as the Overton Window shifts away from the old.

Yet this isn't what's happening. The true Right is dying because any kind of respect for what we now are is dying. Political discussions are between extremists who both aim to drag the Overton Window so far from the present that the "Right" doesn't represent the status quo anymore — instead, it's like two competing Lefts, each in a tug-of-war about which direction we'd like to go from here. The one thing in common is: no one wants to stay here anymore.

The reason is simple: our government is corrupt. We know it. That the swamp should be drained isn't much debated; how to do this, and who has the moral authority to do it, are the points of contention.

This corrupt establishment then offers two solutions, both of which they've co-opted. We know they've been co-opted, because the Left doesn't become the Right anymore.
1. The Noam Chomsky variety says that the working class, the everyday people, have been crushed under the boot of big business, and that the solution is more regulation, higher taxes, and movement towards the welfare state — policy that, in practice, makes it more difficult for small businesses to establish themselves as viable alternatives to the giant corporations, furthering their hegemonic dominance and giving the common people less choice.
2. The Reaganomics variety says that the small businessperson and entrepreneur, the individual who employs dozens of people who all depend upon him economically, have been crushed under the boot of excessive government, and that the solution is tax breaks for the richest of the rich and the removal of regulation that reins in the acceptable behavior of businesses — policy that, in practice, makes it more difficult for small businesses to establish themselves as viable alternatives to the giant corporations, furthering their hegemonic dominance and giving the common people less choice.

I can sit through Chomsky's documentary Requiem for the American Dream and nod to most of the description of the problem, albeit not the implied solutions. But I appreciate that, in said documentary, Chomsky was intellectually honest enough to point out that the government favoring "too big to fail" institutions with taxpayer-funded bailouts was not capitalism, but its opposite. The reason why free markets are of immense benefit to people is that competition between producers ensures the best, cheapest product for consumers. What we have is not capitalism nor the welfare state; it is a system which projects a mixed-economy illusion to placate the greatest number, while being fully an oligopoly economically and an oligarchy politically​... one which further concentrates money and power in the hands of the few by co-opting every populist movement which attempts to move against it.

The two political parties aren't quite two sides of the same coin, so much as two competing services. If you're an oligarch and you desire previously enacted regulations removed so you can exploit the people and your competitors unhindered (ex: big oil, big tobacco), you side Republican; if you're an oligarch and you fear competition from upstart small businesses which may find a better way than you have (ex: silicon valley), you pursue regulation against them by siding Democrat.

With Clinton, the co-opting was blatant. With Trump, the American people made the oligarchs work a little bit harder; we deprived them off a little time they'd otherwise spend on their collective ass. But they've co-opted him too by now, and if you can't see this you're not really paying attention. If we want to move forward, we're going to have to stop making this about small businesses + big corporations vs the common worker + the welfare state, and start making it about the common worker + small businesses vs big corporations + the welfare state.

https://www.propublica.org/article/preet-bharara-fired-investigating-tom-price-hhs-stock-trading?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1489774506

Drain the swamp?

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https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/842815659591524352

Fox News: "Nononono, we don't have anything to do with this sh*t!"

Doesn't that worry people? Now is wire-tapping, but what if he somehow "find" WMDs in another country?

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pneuma wrote:

Criticizing Trump with "he's threatening to uphold the law" is extraordinarily counterproductive. Challenge the laws directly.

IMO, the should be re-examining the immigration laws, determining a sustainable rate of people we can take in per year (and perhaps set up a model based off of the economy to help adjust that rate for future years)and then go from there. They *may* need trade penalties for nations that don't make efforts to stop illegal emigration to the US. They may need some very stiff penalties (including prison) for those that hire illegals. They may need to look at how many are here illegally now that the economy needs and should be given an opportunity to stay. They most definitely need to add in some specific guidelines for humanitarian reasons for letting people in, so that our laws have compassion as well as reasonableness.

Had Rubio or Cruz or even Jeb ever been serious and made some efforts toward reforming our immigration mess, I think they could have won. We don't want to start turning people away, but we need a better, fair process for determining who gets in, and we need that process enforced by all legal bodies.

Until we have that in place and working, the wall will still need to be built. It's a black eye on America's face, but the current situation is poisoning our economy (estimated around 2.2 Trillon plus)

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sarahaustin wrote:

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diablofdb wrote:

Democrats calling for the respect of democracy etc etc.... and you see their people such as Snopp dogg and Madonna making death threat at Trump.


Imagine the outcry if anyone would have made a death threat at Hillary or Obama....



That's why I lost any sort of respect for the left politic.

There were death threats on Obama...

From Celebrities?

I wouldn't want to be rich, from what I can tell it's very stressful

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鬼殺し wrote:

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Disrupted wrote:

Dude, Charan, calm down. It was a complete joke-post just taking advantage of the phrase out of context. are you going to go an a tirade next time I_NO makes a dinosaur post as well? jeebus.

I apologize if it seems that I was making fun of you, I wasnt. I didnt intend to be mean.
If that was my intention it would be something far worse, I dont like pulling punches.

Normally I'd respond with the usual 'oh, look at the troll backpedalling of 'it was just a joke!' but since I'm fairly sure it actually was, I'll clarify: so was mine. I get that tone's a bitch to convey on here, which is why I resorted to those /s thingies. There wasn't any other way to respond really, because the fact is I am well-off and it is VERY easy to go at that as an explanation for why I am the way I am. Even though I've repeatedly stated I wasn't raised well-off and spent the better part of my 20s in borderline poverty because 'love' makes us do stupid shit.

And hey, that was so not a tirade. You've seen my feedback rants. They're tirades. This is just a typical-length post. I'm fairly sure if someone with absolutely no fucking life could go through all my posts and calculate the average length to be well over a paragraph.

Hey, maybe Smiley could do it.

PS there is one time when pulling punches is worth the effort. It's when you're punching down. Not saying you were doing that in this case, because there really isn't a punching-down when it comes to attacking This Magnificent Being That Is Me (/s?), but it's worth keeping in mind. I've been seeing a LOT of punching down on here lately.

Yeah, I expected it to be that kind of answer, I was even gonna reference to the same thing I told dalai in first spoiler, but had to leave, see pic.



actually a failure cause I thought it would save post version and I could show the time, but that seems reserved to things actually posted, I should have posted then edited it out just for proof of stupid forum hijinks
And yeah, you are known to be able to write a lot when you truly wish to. An habit that will turn some people off but what can we do.

@Bolded: hahaha, that's the spirit.

For pulling punches and punching down I'd say you got a point (but then again I dont think anyone should be immune from criticism), Im just too lazy and too short-tempered to do it (that and I know that some wont ever improve so why even waste my time). So I'd rather stay out of this for now. Especially not gonna spend the next 4-8 years talking about Trump. I'm sure the media got that covered (not with honesty, but seriously when I see shit like TRUMP HAS A RED TIE TOO LONG, HE'S THE DEVIL on the news is when I feel like "aight, I am not gonna waste my time with these people anymore)

It's all about relativity. I get stressed out about stuff that people less well off than me would consider an odd thing to get stressed about haha

Not exactly about Trump, but.. This woman has balls and more importantly a spine:

U.S. Congresswoman Calls Iraqi, Syrian Leaders Most Sincere in Fighting Terrorism

That's why she will never become a serious presidental contender in the super-corrupt Democrat party.

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“I believe the most genuine people in their efforts to fight terrorism right now are the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the Syrian President Bashar Assad. We cannot ignore the great efforts of the Russian President Putin in supporting these two countries in fighting terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Nusra,” claimed Gabbard.

Oh, I guess that makes her a Putin's agent now, according to neolibs.