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

FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#103251: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:26:04 PM

Might as well ask Americans to contract out to Mikoyan & Guerevich, for all the support you'd get to buying foreign for a fighter jet.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#103252: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:27:55 PM

  • Hits up Politics thread after three days offline.
  • Sees talk of guns and jets. Nods, understanding how derails go.
  • Sees scary red mod post warning everyone to get back on-topic.
  • Conversation about guns and jets immediately resumes?

...

Are we at war? Did we just declare war and I missed it?

I don't want to be that guy telling everyone to stop talking about a thing everyone's enjoying talking about and not offering an on-topic alternative to discuss. That's not what I'm trying to do. I just want to know if I missed an uber-important declaration of war.

edited 13th Oct '15 3:29:25 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103253: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:29:24 PM

It's still sorta politically related. Almost.

Oh really when?
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#103254: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:29:47 PM

@Garcon: I wasn't recommending the Raptor - I was asking why we killed the Raptor, but kept going with the F-35. It's like, what the fuck have we been doing?

@Tobias: We're talking about the complete joke of our defense budget. US political issue.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103255: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:31:42 PM

Yeah, we were talking budgets and issues with American procurement then Fighteer was asking why we're using the F-35 since it sucks so much and is so expensive and one thing led to another.

Oh really when?
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#103256: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:34:33 PM

In my own defence, I did ask if anyone had an online link to the debate tonight.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#103257: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:54:43 PM

Just go to http://cnn.com. The digression I was getting in people's faces over was the "Mexicans are Indian robots" thing.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#103258: Oct 13th 2015 at 3:59:30 PM

Stealth is becoming less and less useful though. The Russians already have ground based radars that are getting better and better at seeing stealthed craft. Soon the drawbacks to having a stealthy designed are going to outweigh the benefits.
That's a... contentious position to take. In an arms race (like the one between stealth and sensors), you can either try to win the race or else Take a Third Option. What's the third option here? You can't just ignore the fact that people are going to be shooting at you. You can't armor a plane well enough to tank missile hits, or make it so that your plane can outrun or outmaneuver a missile — those are just straight-up physical impossibilities. So if not stealth, then what?

It's almost like manned fighter aircraft are becoming obsolete in today's military environment. And we're going to have the mother of all expensive fighter aircraft ready just in time to be irrelevant!
Drones might be ready to take over for manned fighters by the time the F-22 and F-35 are being retired. Might. Right now drones are capable of providing surveillance and targeted missile strikes against enemies that aren't capable of detecting or destroying them. That's a far cry from being able to replace manned fighter planes.

We are told over and over about these superweapons that our rivals are developing that will make all our technology obsolete, so we need to get this new tech to beat them. But when simple questions are asked, everyone blinks and says, "Huh?"
You're being incredibly disingenuous. I'm not going to respond to every post individually, but basically you're asking misinformed questions, people are pointing out that the questions don't make sense, and you're saying "See! You can't even answer my question!". You're clearly taking the position that weapons development doesn't make any sense as a given and trying to justify it, rather than asking if weapons development makes sense and then looking for an answer.

The F-35 is useless but we need something up there.
No, it's not. Angeles Nox posted a good article explaining how people are overreacting about the F-35's supposed performance issues. You can read another one here. tldr version, people who don't know anything about fighter planes are reading way too much into things that don't matter (and some people who should know better have axes to grind for one reason or another).

I'm more annoyed at the massive cost overruns and delays than anything else.
This is where the focus on the F-35 program should be. The plane they've produced isn't the problem, the enormous waste of time and money that went into producing it is.

Also, in some cases the F-35 is being called in to replace 40-year-old planes that are flat-out better at whatever job it is than the F-35 would ever be. Case in point: CAS missions, which the A-10 is quite capable of handling for another generation.
The A-10 is an excellent design, but the planes are old. They're breaking down and we're literally running out of spare parts to keep them running. They've already started cannibalizing existing A-10s for parts to fix other A-10s. I'm not sure what the economics of restarting production of A-10 parts (or whole new A-10s, for that matter) would be, but in any case, it's not like we're getting rid of perfectly good planes in favor of the F-35.

edited 13th Oct '15 4:01:43 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#103259: Oct 13th 2015 at 4:06:11 PM

[up][up]I mean a link that doesn't demand my cable company.

Aprilla Since: Aug, 2010
#103260: Oct 13th 2015 at 4:29:00 PM

I know this is from a few days ago, but I'd like to highlight these:

From Le Garcon:

Well lets put it this way, if it wasn't a gun free zone there would be literally nothing anybody could do about that kid bringing the gun from home to settle a dispute until he's already put a bullet in his victims head.

From Silasw:

Actually on a level it does, because it makes them much more likely to get caught before they can do anything.

Think about it, if guns are allowed then if you see someone with a gun you ignore it, they probably have a CC licence after all, they're just carrying it for whatever reason, it means nothing. But if guns aren't allowed, you spot someone with a gun and there's no question or doubt, that person is up to no good and you need to run like fuck and raise the alarm.

As for how often spur of the moment fights/attacks occur and who tends to be part of them, that I don't know. Though it's a fair question.

Oh and I'd just like to note how crazy it is that you guys will let an 18 year old walk around with a concealed deadly weapon, but you won't let them drink.

These are both interesting points. I'm quite ambivalent about this and I heavily sigh almost every time I see the debate about guns on college campuses. On one hand, the presence of firearms by faculty, students, the administration and mainstay security would indeed act as a deterrent for would-be shooters. Say what you want about the Fort Hood shooting, but there's a good reason why shooting sprees tend to not occur on armed facilities, especially in the presence of people who are trained to use them. Blue Ninja might have more to say on this matter.

Where I take issue is this idea that liberals are so dim-witted that they think a "No Guns" sign on a campus is going to keep terrorists and disgruntled young men from opening fire on people. There's a political cartoon from a right-wing website asserting precisely that point.

Most of the left-wing arguments I've heard for not wanting guns on campus have more to do with the emotional sensitivity of the people on the campus and the already-established presence of armed security on many campuses. Something the Columbine, Newtown, Virginia Tech, Jonesboro, etc. incidents have in common is that armed police officers (particular tactical response teams) responded in under 10 minutes, so this is starting to feel like we're trying to find ways to make the sun less hot note . Gun violence can be curbed through immediate, short-term measures like armed security and screening processes, but addressing our cultural shortcomings seems like it's the best deck on the table right now. While philosophically contentious, we currently lack the tools to change human nature on a fundamental level, but we can and should address cultural values and social practices that lead to harmful behavior.

The other problem is that we have reached a point in our society where gun violence (like police brutality and terrorism) is just a cosmological inevitability. We view gun violence as some sort of force of nature that can't be stopped with anything other than lots more guns or no guns because we've bizarrely resigned ourselves to the notion that the human psyche can't be challenged. It can and it should. As I've said before, most of the shooters we've seen are perfectly healthy men with poisonous ideologies, not people with mental illnesses. Bigotry is not a mental illness.

Last comment here. I think it's a bit contradictory and disingenuous when the same people who mock millennials for wanting trigger warnings in the classroom (and who mock professors for being liberal brain washers) are the same people who think it would be a good idea to arm those very same millennials and professors when the average American, regardless of age or political standing, has an emotional episode every time they so much as get cut off in traffic when another person merges without using their turn signal. You think kids these days are lazy, entitled and hypersensitive, yet you want them to be their own personal law enforcement officer with the ability to use lethal force at a moment's notice?

Maybe having armed classrooms will make angry would-be shooters think twice about trying to blow everyone away. Or maybe we're going to see a lot of professors get their brains blown out because of students who didn't get the grade they think they deserved. I don't know.

edited 13th Oct '15 4:38:56 PM by Aprilla

AngelicBraeburn from Eccentric California Since: Jan, 2015
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#103262: Oct 13th 2015 at 4:53:35 PM

[up][up]The problem with that, though, is that "poisonous ideologies" are even harder to control than mental illnesses.

Leviticus 19:34
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103263: Oct 13th 2015 at 4:55:23 PM

I'm not necessarily opposed to more guns in the hands of staff on campuses and other locations.

As long as those staff are trained security professionals. Random nobodies like teachers and students have no business carrying firearms.

Oh really when?
Aprilla Since: Aug, 2010
#103264: Oct 13th 2015 at 5:25:59 PM

[up][up]Of course they are, but you don't need pills and therapy to tell someone to lay off the Klan rallies and rape apologia. The difference between mentally ill people and bigots is that one group has been killing a lot of people and one group hasn't. That we conflate the two without further inquiry is part of the problem.

edited 13th Oct '15 5:27:17 PM by Aprilla

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#103265: Oct 13th 2015 at 5:46:02 PM

The thing is, when it comes to spree shooters showing up, I'm going to trust the cops and security guards to handle it a hell of a lot better than some random other student/person who is there on account of cops and security guards being trained to handle that sort of thing. Just because you have a gun doesn't mean you know how to handle emergencies; enjoying spending time at the shooting range or hunting or whatever else you do with guns doesn't mean you know how to handle some guy intent on murdering as many people as possible.

So again, I don't buy the whole "Allowing CC on campuses and such will act as a deterrent". For fuck's sake, one of the places was an elementary school. These guys target places they don't think people will be able to defend themselves. And quite frankly, just being able to take a gun to a college doesn't mean that people actually will in greater numbers, or even think to draw their gun when fired on, which functionally means that colleges will be as vulnerable as they ever were.

CC on campuses does nothing to address the problems that cause these types of shootings to begin with.

@Protagonist: There needs to be another cultural push to punish said poisonous ideologies, but the problem is the fringiest parts that go so far as to think shooting people is ok is already pushed far away and keeps itself apart from the rest of society in may ways. And a lot of the poisonous ideology is actually quite mainstream, which makes it difficult to address and be believed.

edited 13th Oct '15 5:50:10 PM by AceofSpades

Gabrael from My musings Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Is that a kind of food?
#103266: Oct 13th 2015 at 5:51:31 PM

To build on what Aprilla pointed out, we can legislate until the cows come home. But having new rules are meaningless if we do not change our culture to accompany the laws.

And as someone with a diagnosed mental illness, I would really appreciate it if we could get away from blaming an obvious bigot for their obvious malice by claiming they are mentally ill.

I would love our mental health system to be reformed. But I dont want that to come at the cost of people thinking citizens like me are just jumping at the bit to blow them away.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103267: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:00:26 PM

People just shove it onto a mental illness thing because they know nobody will ever actually do anything about those issues and it serves a great way of ignoring the fact that our country has really toxic cultural values.

Oh really when?
Aprilla Since: Aug, 2010
#103268: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:05:23 PM

And a lot of the poisonous ideology is actually quite mainstream, which makes it difficult to address and be believed.

Quite.

darksidevoid Anti-Gnosis Weapon from The Frontiers (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Robosexual
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
#103269: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:31:55 PM

Debate debate debate debate debate.

I'm glad that this is considerably more substantive than the Trump debates, even if some of the responses and questions are imperfect.

GM: AGOG S4 & F/WC RP; Co-GM: TABA, SOTR, UUA RP; Sub-GM: TTS RP. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#103270: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:32:47 PM

The perfect is the enemy of the good. This applies as much to politics as to anything else in life.

majoraoftime (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#103271: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:35:07 PM

Anderson Cooper is on fucking fire. I'd vote for him.

edited 13th Oct '15 6:35:23 PM by majoraoftime

darksidevoid Anti-Gnosis Weapon from The Frontiers (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Robosexual
Anti-Gnosis Weapon
#103272: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:36:32 PM

Oh, certainly. I just mean that it's a huge pain when candidates regularly ignore the moderator and so forth. If only we could have regular order during these things.

GM: AGOG S4 & F/WC RP; Co-GM: TABA, SOTR, UUA RP; Sub-GM: TTS RP. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new Empire.
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
#103273: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:46:50 PM

Maybe having armed classrooms will make angry would-be shooters think twice about trying to blow everyone away.

Aren't most school shooters suicidal? I mean they generally die fighting don't they? Plus lets logic this, you've got a bunch of people in a classroom facing forward, the kid in the middle pulls a gun and opens fire, the kids around him do nothing in panic and fear, as untrained people tend to in such a situation pull their guns and open fire, where do all the bullets go?

The reasons hooting sprees tend to not happen on armed faculties is because they are both well guarded and have armed and trained personnel on them. Untrained people are just going to end up hurting other innocents, like that guy did at that Church shooting ages ago.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Tangent128 from Virginia Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
#103274: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:47:21 PM

Running impressions so far:

O'Malley is not really distinguishing himself.

Webb is doing a good job touting his experience, but showed a severe lack of groking solidarity / intersectionality with that affirmative-action answer.

Chafee is doing best of the minor-league candidates, but it feels like he's leaning on Sanders a lot.

Sanders is doing a good job not slotting into that "crazy socialist" box, and actually sounded downright moderate on gun control.

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?
majoraoftime (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#103275: Oct 13th 2015 at 6:53:16 PM

[up] I think Clinton can hammer him on the gun thing, though. The base isn't looking for moderate on that issue.

edited 13th Oct '15 6:53:35 PM by majoraoftime


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