The General US Politics Thread

He's also the one who included the "under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance. And boy has that made things complicated.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the coups in Guatemala and Iran, at least.

The pledge of allegiance is super creepy and needs to go away.

Yeah, I'm not especially fond of the tradition of making students recite that.

A bit strange considering it's from the same country that reportedly outlawed a central government ID system (which IMO would be far more useful as ID then your fucking NRA membership card or driver's license) because they thought it was too totalitarian. Maybe it's not my place to judge, but the voter ID traditions in the US really don't make sense to me.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 5th 2018 at 12:55:48 PM

Well for what it's worth it has do with Americans generally consider "the nation" and "the government" to be very different things. This is why, for example, many Americans are extremely nationalistic but also distrustful of the government.

One can be loyal to their country, even if they disagree with their government.

The danger comes when both are seen as inextricable. At that point, well....history is an instructive lesson.

Coming here and having missed the talk on GOP Presidents, I’ll say this makes for a refreshing break from seeing Tankies frequent the scene. A question I have considering the economy is usually a debating point is what’s the real end goal for socialist and communist economies vs a capitalist one. Naturally there’s lots of reasons why capitalism is a negative force, but I’m a little confused when I see talking points from left critics for communism or socialism how that would work. Is the incorporation of socialism meant to lead to a communist government by the end? If that’s not the point, then what’s the objective of a socialist democracy vs a plain old one? Some good reading points would help, as running into Tankies has left my head spinning trying to make sense of it.

To put it simply, the idea is that some sectors of the economy should be socialized (health care is the big one), while others remain in the free market.

this may be the wrong thread. Economy might be better.

And generally, arguing with Tankies is useless.

In general the idea of Social Democracy is the enact of Social Policies (Health Care, Support for the Poor etc) through diplomatic means instead of the overthrow of the system to enact a new more social one as was the goal of a lot of early last century socialists.

Another big idea is that the Market, while free, should not be unrestrained. Because that's a lot of "Free Market" calls actually want. Corporations doing whatever the fuck they want. A blind trust in the Free Market like a AI Car running on the cheapest parts available.

Edited by 3of4 on Dec 6th 2018 at 9:55:43 PM

Remind me what a "tankie" is.

Apologists for Communist regimes. Think Stalin or Mao apologists. Among other things.

They've got a black and white view of the world where Communism is good and Capitalism is evil.

People who claim "USA bad, Soviets good" IIRC. Name given to those people as a referene to how anti-Communist demonstrations were put down in the Cold War in a way of arguing with them.

by M84.

Edited by HallowHawk on Dec 6th 2018 at 7:50:09 PM

I mean I am getting bored of all the "you need to let the free market do whatever it wants because the free market only wants what's best for you" shit.

"but you can't regulate the free market,its f-r-e-e therefore it's free from government interference!"

"Then how do you enforce the law then?"

"You don't!"

"whaaat?"

I still think the Soviet Union is alive. In spirit. Thanks to Putin.

@Commander Ace: That’s going to be difficult since most most socialist don’t even fully agree on how all of that is supposed to work, but on the subject of Social Democrats as others are not actually socialist (at least not anymore).

Social Democrats use regulation, the welfare state, and some publicly owned enterprises to alleviate some of the problems of capitalism while leaving it more or less intact. Most publicly known “Far-Left” politicians in the US are Social Democrats as opposed to being out and out Socialist despite what they and others might say.

Eeeeh. While the modern Russian state is by no means a pushover, even if you account for its PPP rather than GDP, it's only an economy roughly the size of Germany. The Russia of 2018 does not have the geopolitical, economic or institutional reach of the Soviet Union. That Russia exists as an existential threat has more to do with the Western poisoning of the public discourse in some mealy-mouthed gesture towards 'free expression' that could be appropriated and exploited by bad-faith actors than it does a return of Russia to a Soviet-esque world power.

As for the question re: Socialism vs. capitalist 'end-goals.' While there is the old dividing line between socialists (who want to abolish capitalism through various means) and social democrats (who largely favor keeping capitalism intact and instead performing extensive social reforms), the ultimate end-goal of most socialist states is the establishment of a classless society. That is, one where there are no stratified capital holders, and the people who produce are the ones who own the means by which to produce. Labor working for labor, rather than labor working for capital.

Such as it is, capitalism doesn't really have an 'end state' like that. There's no ultimate end goal in which capitalism is 'perfected.' It's about accumulating prosperity, as much as possible, generally on behalf of holders of capital.

Edited by math792d on Dec 6th 2018 at 2:35:18 PM

The goal is endless unbounded economic growth. With a dash of individualistic "everyone gets a shot at winning" mythology.

With the Russia being very much the shadow of the soviet union in strength and stability,is it any wonder other countries have held out for so long against retaliation?There's a real fear of what could happen to Russia's nuclear weapons if Russia fragments,it's already happened once before with the fall of the soviet union and a bunch of newly formed states getting their hands on the remains of Russia's arsenal is enough to make anyone jittery.

Did Trump finally wrestle his phone back?

The last few have very obviously not been written by him, but this one seems like a return to form.

Edited by megaeliz on Dec 6th 2018 at 10:31:22 AM

Someone probably disabled his data or locked his account for the duration of Bush's state funeral.

The putting down of the Russian Federation due to its weak economy is kind of a "what are you smoking?" element for me. It still is a nuclear power, controls a massive chunk of the world, and is able to intervene in individual conflicts up to and including pushing smaller nations around or making them puppet states (see Syria).

Plus the whole UN Security Council thing.

The dismissing of the country is kind of like, "Oh they only have last years porsche."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 6th 2018 at 7:38:30 AM

No one is doing that.

Their point was that the Russian Federation is not as powerful as the old Soviet Union, which is not at all the same thing as saying they're irrelevant.

Obviously, they're still a credible threat just not as credible as the Soviet Union. It's a question of degrees instead of a binary between "threat y/n".

Their nuclear arsenal is aging, their ability to affect an intervention is incredibly limited, and their economic and political sway is minimal outside of a few bordering countries. I think it’s fair to say they’re diminished.

There's a reason the Useful Notes page on the modern Russian Military is called Russians with Rusting Rockets.

Really, Russia's biggest advantage is their legacy Intelligence Service, and tactics.

Edited by megaeliz on Dec 6th 2018 at 11:24:10 AM