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CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#164776: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:30:38 PM

[up] Countries stealing and leaking embarrassing information about one another is as old as the practice of espionage; the only thing unusual about this particular incident is how public it is, and how publicized its been.

edited 30th Dec '16 8:33:02 PM by CaptainCapsase

Antiteilchen In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good. Since: Sep, 2013
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
#164777: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:33:46 PM

[up][up][up]They were installed in the post-war world, not during the war. More to the point though, you were dissing all international relations aimed at improving Human Rights aboard, not just the forceful ones. Because fuck the girls who undergo FGM or child laborers or victims of ethnic cleansing. We shouldn't have sanctioned Aparhteid South Africa either. Not our problem, stability is more important, every authoritarian knows that.

edited 30th Dec '16 8:34:09 PM by Antiteilchen

SeriesOfNumbers Since: Jun, 2013
#164778: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:38:17 PM

@164,744: If by "L" you mean liberal, I am one. My disagreements with Clinton are mostly on issues where she isn't liberal. That's one reason I voted for Sanders in the primary.

Please, give me a good reason the American public didn't have the right to know the info in the e-mails. And if you can't do that, then explain why it should matter where the leak came from or what the hacker's motives are.

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#164779: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:40:34 PM

[up] How about the fact that they violate the right to privacy? Even Politicians have that right, as long as it has nothing to do with the Actual US Government.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#164780: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:40:46 PM

[up][up][up] Human rights are completely irrelevant if the human species is rendered extinct, and in a world where a war between great powers would at a bare minimum result in about 3 billion dead, a similar principle applies. When the two do not come into conflict, by all means take steps to promote human rights and democracy abroad if that tickles your fancy. But under no circumstances can ideology be allowed to come before geopolitical realities.

regarding the pre/post war distinction, in that regard your technically right, though I tend not to consider the gap between the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War in earnest as distinct from the post-war era in several important respects.

[up] Plato (I think) would argue that a public servant cedes the right to privacy as a burden of their office, and I'd tend to agree.

edited 30th Dec '16 8:46:25 PM by CaptainCapsase

SeriesOfNumbers Since: Jun, 2013
#164781: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:44:20 PM

@164,723: I was talking specifically about whistle blowers who expose government corruption, like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Given that the latter is in prison right now and Snowden ' been driven into hiding by Russia, it makes sense that no one in those 17 agencies would speak up if the Director of National Intelligence were lying about their conclusions.

@164,748: A lot of the info leaked in this case did have to do with government. Colluding with or bullying the media to ensure a candidate for government office doesn't get asked tough questions, for example.

edited 30th Dec '16 8:49:08 PM by SeriesOfNumbers

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#164782: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:46:41 PM

[up][up] Problem is that that is not true, or no Politician would ever be allowed a Vacation, and Camp David would not exist. And the less I talk about Memoirs of Former and Current Politicians, the better.

America was clearly not founded upon Plato's Ideas.

Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#164783: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:47:01 PM

By disapproving of the leaks, you're implicitly saying that sometimes info should be withheld from the public to trick them into voting a certain way for the greater good.

Actually, I'm implicitly saying that sometimes info should be withheld from public to prevent them from being tricked into voting against the greater good. Like how they sometimes they don't tell a jury about a defendant's past crimes or shakey circumstantial evidence because it unfairly biases the jury against the defendant.

I'm also implicitly saying that when the info released is full of lies of omission that collectively paint a very misleading picture, you can't say that withholding it is tricking anyone into anything.

I also have to question the fact that you frame 'withhold the information' as the alternative to what Assange did, when in fact withholding it is exactly what he did- until the moment he decided releasing it would have the largest possible political impact.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#164784: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:50:29 PM

[up][up] Yes, but I don't think it's wrong that a politician should be held to different standards in regards to privacy than a citizen who is not involved with the government. It's obviously not practical to force politicians to be completely transparent, but I don't think it's reasonable for a politician to complain about leaks on the grounds of privacy.

edited 30th Dec '16 8:52:50 PM by CaptainCapsase

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#164785: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:57:40 PM

I would argue they do have the rights to complain about an invasion of privacy when the Leaks didn't come from a Government Source, but a Private Organization Source, and that the leaks themselves have little to nothing to do with the Government. The leaks were talking about how many hot dogs and pizza's the Democrat Party should buy for a party, not about stabbing Russian Ambassadors in the Face or planning to bomb Tehran.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#164786: Dec 30th 2016 at 8:58:15 PM

Can you name any cases in the post war world of democracies being installed by force that didn't end in disaster?

Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor are all successes. I'd also argue for Libya but I get that that's debatable. Hell its not like Somalia actually got worse, it just totally failed to improve, though it is now improving due to a foreign based intervention group. Sierra Leone was also a case of liberal interventionism, even if it didn't involve democracy being installed by force.

You can act like Iraq and Afghanistan are the sum history of liberal interventionism all you like, it doesn't make it true.

edited 30th Dec '16 8:59:48 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#164787: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:00:02 PM

Funny thing is, my only reaction to all of the email and the stuff revealed was "That's it?"

Honestly, most of it was just the DNC doing some petty shit-talking, venting about someone they didn't like (in part because his more hardcore supporters issued death threats to some of them) that didn't really amount to anything concrete. The more "damning" emails were all dated after it was mathematically impossible for Sanders to win. They were frustrated that Sanders was still leading on his supporters and wasting their time.

The only people who took that crap seriously were people already inclined to dislike the DNC and HRC. Kind of like the people who believe in "Pizzagate".

The reason it's so easy to dismiss criticism of HRC is because so many of HRC's more vocal critics are batshit insane.

edited 30th Dec '16 9:00:52 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
RBluefish Since: Nov, 2013
#164788: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:03:43 PM

I don't even care what was in the emails Russia hacked. I care why Russia hacked them.

If anybody, anybody, thinks that Russia did it because they value transparency and People Need To Know, I've got a bridge to sell you.note  The one and only reason Russia hacked Hillary's emails was to hurt her and help Trump get elected. Which granted them de facto control over the world's foremost superpower, and its longest-standing democracy. In other words, it led to a disaster of monumental proportions, one without historical precedent.

Russia did not do it to help the American people decide. They did it to fuck with us and steer the course of what was supposed to be our election. And it's not like the emails have been the beginning or the end of their meddling, either.

"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#164789: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:06:22 PM

@Silas That you're trying to argue Libya as a debatable success is pretty much all that needs to be said in response. Can you produce any examples that involve countries with a population larger than a few million? Because it seems abundantly clear to me that, while you can make it work with tiny parcels of land and people, trying to scale it up to anything that's significant on the global scale in terms of either has been disastrous.

edited 30th Dec '16 9:12:30 PM by CaptainCapsase

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#164790: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:07:08 PM

[up][up] Sad thing is, it didn't even matter what was in the emails. Just the appearance of apparent corruption was enough to turn voters away from HRC. She can't away with anything, even if she didn't do anything.

Remember, a good chunk of people in the USA seriously believe that HRC runs a child sex slave ring from a pizza shop's basement. A pizza shop that has no basement.

I'm seriously wondering if the recently revealed high levels of lead in a lot of Red States' drinking water has something to do with this.

edited 30th Dec '16 9:08:19 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#164791: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:09:05 PM

I'd note that terminology may be important here, Trump isn't a Russian agent, he's certainly a useful idiot/willing collaborator for the Russians, if he's a puppet or not basically comes down to what you mean by puppet.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
SeriesOfNumbers Since: Jun, 2013
#164792: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:09:28 PM

@164,752: Giving people factual information isn't tricking them. In a trial, it makes sense not to tell a jury about a defendant's past crimes because the trial is about determining the likelihood that be or she committed the current, most recent alleged crime. This doesn't apply to elections where any bad thing a politician has done in their political career could influence their actions in office. Plus, most of the important revelations in the e-mails happened either the same year as or one year prior to when they were leaked.

What if a leak from ISIS reveals in 2020 that Trump was calling Putin from the White House and taking orders from him while in office. Will you condemn Wiki leaks as "ISIS propogandists"? Will you be angry that phone calls were leaked because it was ISIS that leaked them? Will you wish Trump had gotten away with taking orders from Putin because the alternative was ISIS interfering with our elections? If Republicans say that people defending the ISIS leaks are treasonous, how will you respond?

As for Assange, even if we have evidence of when he obtained which e-mails (something you need to prove he held on to them until he could release them at the right time for maximum impact), I'd still rather the info be released eventually than not at all. How would any of us respond if the CIA torture report had been leaked by Iran in 2004 and Republicans condemned the leak for being from Iran and influencing the election but didn't condemn the torture itself?

If Assange did hold on to the e-mails before releasing them for political reasons, then shame on him, but it's still anti-democratic to argue that they never should've been released at all.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#164793: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:11:10 PM

[up] The drip feeding of emails was blatantly political. If he'd dumped them the moment he got them, it would be far easier for him to claim he didn't want to influence the direction of the election, unless his source was drip feeding the leaks, in which case it's blatantly obvious that they wanted to influence the election.

edited 30th Dec '16 9:33:48 PM by CaptainCapsase

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#164794: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:12:44 PM

Yeah i dont nevessarily think that people were implying that trump was in on the whole thing from the beginning. They just mean that it's quite transparent that trump is buddy buddy with russia and is content to further their interests while lining his pockets.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#164795: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:15:12 PM

That you're trying to argue Libya as a debatable success is pretty much all that needs to be said in response.

No it shows that I consider it a success when we stop a bloodthirsty madman from slaughtering his own people, even if we fuck up the end game and don't properly stabilise the nation afterwards due to our post-Iraq commitment issues.

Can you produce any examples that involve countries with a population larger than a few million?

Not yet, Somalia is very slowly becoming a success and it's got 12 million people, if you consider former Yugoslavia as a whole you get a large population, so it comes down to how you consider examples.

But hell I'll even give you that one, let's say that liberal interventionism can be successfully argued to only work in relatively small nations, both geographically and when it comes to population. That somehow makes it a total failure?

You can't dismiss examples of successful liberal interventions because they sucesseded and you only want to focus on the failures.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
Warder of the damned
#164796: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:19:39 PM

@ Series Of Numbers Except those factual information are irrelevant information that got drowned in fake news and false conclusions made to incriminate HRC and the DNC.

There wasn't anything incriminating, as in showing actual illegal activity, in the emails leaks it was a very prolonged Poison the Well campaign against Hillary to make the public turn against her, the worst thing the email revealed was how the DNC didn't really like Sanders and they favored Clinton over him.

Same thing when Comey stated the FBI would be investigating the emails for illegal activities only to release a statement declaring that there wasn't anything illegal on the emails or their leak just a couple of days short of the actual election.

Besides, there are no guarantees the leaks from the Russians and Assange aren't compromised either, since both Russian agencies and Assange have a long history of editing information or releasing out of context information to create disinformation for their own goals.

edited 30th Dec '16 9:21:17 PM by AngelusNox

Inter arma enim silent leges
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#164797: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:20:45 PM

Guys, when someone first tries to argue that Clinton would start a war with Russia, then turns around and argues that she, rather than Trump, is owned by Russia, I don't think there's much point in debating with them. At the very least I would suggest the person making those claims straighten out which accusation they want to proceed with before the discussion goes forward.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#164798: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:22:54 PM

Yeah the discussion may just be untenable due to disagreement on sources, if someone is unwilling to accept the organisation responsible for representing US intelligence agencies as a legitimate source for what US intelligence agencies think it's hard to have a discussion.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#164799: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:24:04 PM

He's already mentally come to his conclusion, and basically seeking out "evidence" to support those claims.

What's known as confirmation bias.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#164800: Dec 30th 2016 at 9:25:22 PM

We know that Assange held out to the emails until the most political convenient time because he announced ahead of time that's that what he was doing. With stuff like adding a countdown to drum up media attention and saying stuff like 'tick tock, bitch', and then releasing them piecemeal to make sure the news cycle stayed on it. I'd have a lot less of a problem with the leaks if he'd just released them as soon as he got them. Then I could take the idea that he did it for ideological reasons seriously and it probably wouldn't have affected the election as much.

As for your example: the difference is that I can't defend ISIS or Trump. But since we're taking about analogies via extremes, if it later turned out the what ISIS leaked had strategically cut out all the parts where Trump and Putin had furious and heated negotiations what had appeared to be Trump taking orders was actually just him confirming what they'd finally decided to compromise with, after they both talked it over with their respective cabinets, then I'd absolutely be condemning ISIS over Trump.


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