TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

The General US Politics Thread

Go To

Nov 2023 Mod notice:


There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.

If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.

Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.

If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.


In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#56101: Jun 8th 2013 at 2:52:25 AM

Sorry; wrong in the sense of "inaccurate", not "morally".

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Thorn14 Gunpla is amazing! Since: Aug, 2010
Gunpla is amazing!
#56102: Jun 8th 2013 at 2:56:20 AM

Doesn't change the fact that they're monitoring it, even if they suck at it. tongue

GlennMagusHarvey Since: Jan, 2001
#56103: Jun 8th 2013 at 4:34:16 AM

I find the best defense against information monitoring by anyone, for any purpose, is to make sure they're preoccupied with competition themselves.

This means not giving, say, Google, enough market share to actually use your stuff.

SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#56104: Jun 8th 2013 at 7:12:15 AM

A story about neighborhood change (that starts with a little politics in the US, to be on topic.)

In Minneapolis a few decades back, K-Mart built a really big store that covered two city blocks, and as part of the deal, cut off a street thanks to some dubious zoning changes pushed through the city council. The neighborhood "behind" the K-Mart had been a lower-income one with businesses that mostly relied on the through traffic on the street for income.

But people didn't come down the street any more, because they couldn't get through there, and they could get the stuff that the neighborhood stores sold cheaper at K-Mart. The businesses slowly died off, local unemployment rose, crime went up a notch, and property values plummeted as the inhabitants moved out.

However, just as the neighborhood looked doomed, the wave of Asian immigrants who'd come to Minnesota in the wake of the Vietnam War started getting more prosperous. They'd learned enough English to get by, many had found decent jobs, the second generation was almost grown—time to move out of the cramped apartments and public housing that they'd had to take as refugees.

But they weren't wealthy, so they needed places they could actually afford the payments on. And gee, here was a neighborhood with people desperate to sell. So families started moving into that neighborhood, and businesses to cater to them started popping up. And that neighborhood became known as the place to go for "Oriental Groceries" and fine Asian restaurants and imported knick-knacks, all things K-Mart didn't have.

So the neighborhood that was dying became prosperous, and a destination instead of someplace to avoid driving through. And if there's signs in languages I can't read, well, they're not the "Closed" or "For Sale" signs that were so prevalent thirty years ago, or boarded-up windows. I can live with that.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#56106: Jun 8th 2013 at 7:23:11 AM

[up][up]

Quite. A non-American story from me, but I'm pretty sure there's a correlation between large Asian immigration to North Glasgow and areas like Maryhill undergoing a recovery.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#56107: Jun 8th 2013 at 8:40:30 AM

[up]

Thats pretty common, actually. One of the major reasons half of my hometowns downtown is dead is because of walmart sucking up all the business of the local white population. However, the result has been those stores that didnt go under have retooled into spanish groceries or whatnot.

edited 8th Jun '13 8:40:49 AM by midgetsnowman

Mr.Didact Keep Hope Alive from Winterfell Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: Naked on a bearskin rug, playing the saxophone
Keep Hope Alive
#56109: Jun 8th 2013 at 2:06:15 PM

[up][up][up][up] Heard about it yesterday, I wish the best for the families of the victims and that all the injured victims make a successful recovery.

But damn it, this just proves the current system is broken in all respects!

Bad guys get guns and kill innocents, innocents can't defend themselves. There has to be some kind of compromise.

edited 8th Jun '13 2:17:21 PM by Mr.Didact

Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together
midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#56110: Jun 8th 2013 at 2:15:43 PM

The only good one I can think of is evaluating the mental condition before granting gun licenses, but the gun commuunity will likely never let that pass even if most gun owners dont mind background checks.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#56111: Jun 8th 2013 at 2:16:53 PM

Well, until one party silences idiots who think having their gun rights restricted is a greater loss than that of losing a child, I don't think we're going to have sensible discourse about the subject. The president can't brute force gun safety laws.

@As regards change; We shouldn't be afraid of changing demographics. What we should be is prepared to make sure that those changes are economically and socially healthy.

Enkufka Wandering Student ಠ_ಠ from Bay of White fish Since: Dec, 2009
Wandering Student ಠ_ಠ
#56114: Jun 8th 2013 at 4:37:08 PM

Closest I could find to an official, recent statistic was from a Reuters article in 2008. 18.6 million vacant properties. However, I didn't read the article, so these properties may be seasonally vacant or otherwise not being used for one reason or another.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry
Pykrete NOT THE BEES from Viridian Forest Since: Sep, 2009
NOT THE BEES
#56115: Jun 8th 2013 at 4:48:01 PM

A good deal of them probably aren't up to code.

Granted, a good deal of apartments currently in use also probably aren't up to code.

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#56116: Jun 8th 2013 at 5:09:34 PM

Do we have a Poverty and Labour Issues thread? I keep on wanting to post links to stuff like this and I'm not sure this is the place.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#56117: Jun 8th 2013 at 5:14:45 PM

Welfare is a political issue. Fire it right here.

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#56118: Jun 8th 2013 at 5:26:03 PM

The Harlem + hipster franchises example is one that has very real and horrible consequences for current residents of the area. Those kinds of establishments aggressively moving into poor areas tends to be a herald of dramatically rising property values, which forcibly uproot poorer residents as landlords charge more.
Isn't that what rent control is for?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Sledgesaul Since: Oct, 2011
#56120: Jun 8th 2013 at 6:30:30 PM

Illegal to annoy a police officer?

Which means they'll deny any right for us to video tap them, or in the case of Apple, use our camera app to record them.

Apple is a pretty big company. Do they dare go against a corporation?

Barkey Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#56121: Jun 8th 2013 at 6:32:13 PM

On the Santa Monica Shooting:

California has ridiculously tighter gun control than the rest of the country. Handguns are registered, 10 round magazine limits, and that guy had an illegal AR 15, not a legal one, as it didn't have a bullet button or fixed magazine, otherwise he would have needed a tool to drop the magazine out to reload it. The shooter was a criminal who didn't care about gun laws, what the fuck do you guys suggest? Our tight gun control didn't particularly do anything to help keep him at bay.

The only good one I can think of is evaluating the mental condition before granting gun licenses, but the gun commuunity will likely never let that pass even if most gun owners dont mind background checks.

I'm only ok with this if a gun license also means I can carry. That would be my compromise "I've proved I'm sane, now let me conceal carry." Maybe if someone had been carrying when that dude went on his little rampage, it could have ended sooner. The school being a gun-free zone didn't keep the shooter from going onto school grounds, but it sure meant that nobody there was armed. One of the guys in my unit is a student at that school, and is a civilian cop. He is a police officer and wasn't carrying his off-duty gun, because the school doesn't even let cops carry at this school. So his gun was sitting in his glove box being useless.

I'm ok with gun control, but let me prove by reasonable means that I am of sound mind to buy the guns I want and carry so that I can protect other people.(hypothetical, I have a CCW, the only thing is I have to re-apply to keep it every year, and in California that means I never know how long I'll have it before we get some new Sheriff or a new law and they go "nope!")

^

On the one hand there are good reasons to videotape a police officer, on the other hand I think it's absolutely fucking annoying to have a bunch of smartphones materialize whenever I'm just talking to someone, and I'm not being an asshole. I get really sick of that.

edited 8th Jun '13 6:33:49 PM by Barkey

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#56122: Jun 8th 2013 at 6:59:11 PM

Psst, Barkey. While I agree with you as far as mental health checks allowing full gun rights, one: the record for heroes with CCW stopping shootings is really sad, and two: seriously, aside from the mental health thing even you support no one was talking about making Cali gun laws more restrictive on this thread.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
Barkey Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#56123: Jun 8th 2013 at 7:06:31 PM

^

If there wasn't anyone around with a CCW in that situation, how can we know?

And my comment about California laws was in response to Ace of Spades saying this:

Well, until one party silences idiots who think having their gun rights restricted is a greater loss than that of losing a child, I don't think we're going to have sensible discourse about the subject. The president can't brute force gun safety laws.

In the course of incidents happening in the places where gun laws are at their most restricted(New York, California, Illinois, DC) nobody ever says "Hmm, maybe their brands of gun control don't work." the response is always "Well it's obvious then that they just need more gun control."

It's like whenever a shooting happens in a "gun-free zone" in a state or location where gun control is at one of the highest levels in the country, the attitude amongst liberals seems to be that they just aren't hitting the square peg into the round hole hard enough, and that a bigger hammer is the answer instead of a different peg. That just seems counter-intuitive to me, and that anyone with half a brain cell would say "Maybe we need to look at gun control from a different angle, and that what we're doing right now isn't working or helping and needs to be done away with, and that perhaps different ideas need to be tried out."

I'm not saying that whenever a shooting happens in these places it illustrates that we should just not even attempt gun control period, just that maybe what we're doing now is silly, inneffective, and only hurts honest citizens, and that maybe we need to get some folks together to really examine statistics of gun violence and the methods of distribution to try to come up with a different method which can be a happier medium between preventing firearms related crime and not bending over our civil rights and raping them.

edited 8th Jun '13 7:09:05 PM by Barkey

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#56124: Jun 8th 2013 at 7:14:54 PM

I have to agree with Barkey. The constant "evil Republicans" argument also reads like Ace's comment, "Well clearly those nuts have to be silenced."

How about the liberal Democratic idiots that refuse to see the facts? The areas with the most relaxed gun control laws are also the ones with the lowest instances of gun violence. The gun violence is happening in New York and Chicago and DC in the big cities. Hell in New York, Fuhrer Bloomberg passed the gun bill making it an automatic 3-year sentence to be caught with one.

But let's talk gun control and not talk about the poverty, racial profiling, problems with illegal immigration, and all the real issues that lead to people getting shot left and right.

It was an honor
RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#56125: Jun 8th 2013 at 7:17:59 PM

For the record, I still believe in poverty mitigation and municipal right to set gun restrictions. And you can't accuse left-wingers of not banging the "schools and SNAP, not private prisons" drum hard enough.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Total posts: 417,856
Top