The General US Politics Thread

I'm glad that the "militia" issue was resolved with only one death and no gunfight- contrary to what some people would want. And so we can add yet another incident to the list that could've been another Waco, but wasn't. Hurray for post-90s reforms!

Man what.

No, that's not even one iota more reasonable. Wow, really? I thought he was awful on foreign policy and revealed himself to be even more of a one-trick pony.

"So, who was your favorite president on foreign policy?"

Sanders: "Something something [mumbling] FDR would support my ideas to keep jobs at home [mumbling]".

edited 11th Feb '16 9:48:11 PM by Nihlus1

Well, there's the hundreds of years of genocide against Native Americans, the hundreds of years of enslaving and discriminating against Africans... the United States was founded on eradicating other civilizations to feed its growth.

Shall we get out the comparative atrocity scales? Weigh everyone's sins by ethnicity, nationality, etc.? This is the U.S. politics thread, after all; slavery is our nation's original sin and one we have yet to even come close to expiating.

edited 11th Feb '16 9:55:48 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Slavery (in the Black Market) still occurs, even in developed countries — no doubt there are even white Americans enslaved within the US.

And that's not even getting the Middle Ages and the Ancient World...

edited 11th Feb '16 10:12:12 PM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Three hundred years with much of that involving slavery and genocide is far from the worst in the world. It's bad and there's plenty to be answered for, but Jack explicitly said that it was the worst in the world, as in worse then the colonial empires that started the slave trade carried out many more genocides.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Literally impossible unless the Founding Fathers developed time travel.

Also registers as less violent civilian deaths than a single large city bombing in WW-2.

By which you mean 80 years.

No it wasn't, unless you really stretch the meaning of those words, in which case it applies to pretty much every country.

If you're explicitly going to label a specific race of a specific nationality as the worst ever, yes. Of course, the idea that a race can have something to answer for in the first place is dumb.

edited 11th Feb '16 10:15:54 PM by Nihlus1

To be fair, while the treatment of Native Americans was nothing short of ugly, most of the mass deaths are attributed to epidemics the Europeans unwittingly brought with them.

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

I thought justice by way of considering sins of the father as a crime (if only metaphysically) was not actually a good idea.

BRB. hacking off my european features to appease my poc ancestors.

EDIT: Unlearning castillian is hard.

edited 11th Feb '16 10:26:07 PM by vandro

Hoo boy, the smell of oppression olympics in here sure does stink! Could we get some air freshener?

(Seriously, that's where this is headed, so you might want to stop now.)

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I will freely admit that I only remembered about the debate in time to catch the FP section onward and will have to catch the rest later, but I do agree that Sanders seemed stronger on FP than he did in the prior debates. There were several moments when I thought Hillary looked particularly bad on FP as well, and that served to highlight Sanders' own performance. For example, her claim that Obama supports a no-fly zone, and her claim that Sanders was endorsing Iranian troops marshaling on the Israeli border. Oh, and the Kissinger thing was a nice touch.

In any case, I've long thought it foolish that the minutiae of FP are focused on so much in the contest for President, on either side. Although it's an area in which the President has great power without much need for Congress, the key is not to be some kind of genius FP wizard yourself, but to have a clear vision, surround yourself with appropriate FP wizard people once in office, and then use their input to pursue the broad vision you've laid out in combination with the national interest.

edited 11th Feb '16 11:58:25 PM by darksidevoid

GM of AGOG S4: Frontiers RP; Sub-GM of TABA, SOTR, & UUA RPs

Bringing up Kissinger was the real surprise for me in this debate, and managing to even criticize rapprochement with China (one of his more favorably looked-at achievements) by way of the ensuing economic repercussions was quite a maneuver (to the delight and anguish of two posters here, I imagine ).

edited 12th Feb '16 12:02:03 AM by Eschaton

Slavery only lasted eighty years if you count from the Declaration of Independence onwards. Likewise with the other shortened counts.

The Native Americans got oppressed for a long time. But back when the colonies were young and fragile, they too did a fair bit of oppressing. They were hardly Sainty Peaceful Mc Niceypants.

So it's just dog eat dog business as usual... until you start babbling about all men being created equal, with the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, justice for all, and all that jazz. Isn't there where the cut-off point is, where Might Makes Right fails?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Why are you arguing about which historical atrocities are more atrocious in the politics thread?

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

I give Sanders points for rejecting Kissinger, but I still won't vote for him. That being a hawk for hawk's sake is stupid doesn't mean I want a dove either. Balance is what I seek and Hil and Jeb are probably the closest to it, even if they fall off the mark in absolute terms.

I want nothing but perfection and would only vote for someone who could go into a time machine and punch hitler in the face

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Is there any scenario, beyond Trump, Rubio, Cruz and Kasich all totally imploding at the same time and never recovering, where Jeb(!) manages to carve out a voting niche and actually get some delegates?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

A right-wing website wants to raise 1 million dollars to get an anti-Hillary themed IndyCar on the grid

The EPA wants to implement new laws that may result in the outlawing of modifications that affect pollution control mechanisms on race cars, and particularly road cars converted for racing purposes.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

I wouldn't completely discount Jeb yet. Remember, Romney was the perpetual also-ran for basically the entire primary race, and he ended up with the party nomination in the end. Anything can happen until the votes are in.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It aint over until the fat lady sings.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Rubio is already weak, and Kasich needs to seriously up his national game if he has any chance at all. Jeb has money and organization, and if he can consolidate the establishment vote, coupled by his increase in performance lately, I think he could do it. Easier to take on Cruz (who is hated beyond his particular constituency) than Trump, but Trump isn't immune either.

Not counting him out unless he delivers a Rubio-level performance in one of the next debates.

Thing about that comparison is that Romney was the consensus choice of the establishment while everyone else was taking turns as the flavor of the month and then flaming out. Trump has managed to avoid flaming out so far, Trump and Cruz both have large portions of the voting bloc locked down, (Trump has the white nationalist/angry poor whites that have been stewing at the Republican establishment for 20 years, and Cruz has the hardcore bible thumper/anti everything government related crowd) and the Establishment is split. Plus contempt of Jeb is practically a meme among Republicans in a way that I don't recall it being with Romney. Whatever establishment or semi-establishment candidate (as I think the latter is the best description of Rubio) winds up fighting it out with Trump and Cruz, I tend to doubt it'll be Jeb.

We'll see how it goes, but right now, it seems like 2012 was a year when the ship of the Republican establishment was taking on water, but they were able to bail it out quick enough to stay afloat. In 2016 the ship may already be listing too much to recover.

edited 12th Feb '16 7:24:25 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

The interesting thing about the Republican candidates is whether any of them are actually electable. The ones that are on the table are either too far to extreme for the general electorate (Trump, Cruz, etc), or hopelessly bland or hampered by image problems (Jeb, who is not only incredibly bland but also hampered by being a Bush when nobody has pleasant memories of the previous Bush's administration). Romney was as much of an establishment, 'moderate' conservative as can be and he still got wrecked by Obama in 2012. And I don't think the GOP base has an appetite for someone like him anymore, which is leading to the possibility that the GOP establishment may have to gamble on betting on the devil they don't know (Trump) rather than let the devil they both know and utterly despise (Cruz) get the nomination.

When Sanders comes off as being blatantly reasonable compared to the extreme right but also far more exciting than the likes of Jeb, the GOP clearly has a huge problem on their hands.

edited 12th Feb '16 8:00:08 AM by Cronosonic

Thats if Sanders is the nominee. If it's Clinton, then even a bland candidate could do well because she doesn't excite people like Obama did or like Sanders is doing now.

Rachel Maddow recently reported on something odd in Sanders' narrative. In his New Hampshire victory speech, he made the claim that the scope of the win was due to high voter turnout; that is, in fact one of the pillars of his campaign: the idea that he can energize voters who haven't gone to the polls before. However, that wasn't at all true in NH. Or, more specifically, it wasn't true for the Democrats. Caucus turnout was lower in NH than in 2008 on their side, but higher on the Republican side than in 2012.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Your laugh of the day: Cruz pulls an ad due to it having a porn actress in it.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

Oh, so using children is campaign ads is ok, but the "wrong" kind of adult is a no-no? What a sack of shit.