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Demonic_Braeburn Yankee Doodle Dandy from Defective California Since: Jan, 2016
Yankee Doodle Dandy
#119826: Apr 22nd 2016 at 4:20:42 PM

[up] He also recently said he'd be increasing taxes on the wealthy.

Conservatives aren't happy about this. Trump is supposed to wait until he snatches the nomination before he pivots to the center.

edited 22nd Apr '16 4:26:37 PM by Demonic_Braeburn

Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.
DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#119827: Apr 22nd 2016 at 4:24:09 PM

One wonders if Trump is actually trying to posit himself as a leftist alternative to Clinton in the general election.

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
#119828: Apr 22nd 2016 at 4:37:38 PM

Left and right are becoming less and less important terms at the moment, keep in mind that one of Clinton's big attacks on Sanders is her coming at him from the left on guns.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#119829: Apr 22nd 2016 at 4:57:53 PM

It'll be interesting to see if she keeps that up now that she's basically a shoe-in.

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
#119830: Apr 22nd 2016 at 5:13:47 PM

She's always been part of the "ban guns, don't don't ban bad people from getting guns" crowd, back to the original assault weapons ban with its limit on cosmetic features.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Bat178 Since: May, 2011
#119831: Apr 22nd 2016 at 5:15:20 PM

[up] Which was stupid, because most of the guns banned by the assault weapons ban would never be used by criminals. Criminals tend to stick with AR-15s and handguns, same as most Law Enforcement.

edited 22nd Apr '16 5:19:07 PM by Bat178

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#119832: Apr 22nd 2016 at 6:02:55 PM

Trump isn't a career Republican, so considering his positions in those terms is often useless. Even more so considering he's reversed his position on some hot button issues literally a hour later. He's basically succeeded at saying literally whatever he wants and getting away with it, regardless of its sensibility.

He'd have a hard time with the taxes thing, though, I'm pretty sure he'd have to get that past the Congress.

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#119833: Apr 22nd 2016 at 6:33:36 PM

Trump is a showman who knows how to play to the audience. He's also reading the base much better than the GOP. Most of his base do want higher taxes on the wealthy. They just don't want the tax money going to the non-white people.

edited 22nd Apr '16 6:33:58 PM by nightwyrm_zero

AngelusNox Warder of the damned from The guard of the gates of oblivion Since: Dec, 2014 Relationship Status: Married to the job
GameGuruGG Vampire Hunter from Castlevania (Before Recorded History)
Vampire Hunter
#119835: Apr 22nd 2016 at 6:46:39 PM

Trump is supposed to wait until he snatches the nomination before he pivots to the center.

Trump's the only one who could get the Republican nomination without a contested convention. Under normal circumstances, every other Republican would have dropped out and Trump would have the Republican nomination by default. He is completely within his right to pivot to the center for the general election and treat Cruz as a sore loser.

Wizard Needs Food Badly
desdendelle Hooded Crow from Land of Milk and Honey (Sergeant) Relationship Status: Hiding
Hooded Crow
#119836: Apr 22nd 2016 at 6:48:30 PM

[up][up]YGB-what?
EDIT: realised this right after posting: "you gotta be kidding me", right?
EDIT 2: It's an Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres under the Could've Been King, that article.

edited 22nd Apr '16 6:50:11 PM by desdendelle

On empty crossroads, seek the eclipse -- for when Sol and Lua align, the lost shall find their way home.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#119837: Apr 22nd 2016 at 6:57:39 PM

[up][up][up]The problem, ultimately, is that it deals with counterfactuals. Indeed, they even admit this.

1. Not necessarily. Keep in mind that the northern states abolished slavery pretty early on and the #1 reason why slavery wasn't abolished in the US outright much was due to the economics of the south. These economic problems would have probably have dragged the UK down if they had kept the Southern states.

2. Because the British never engaged in imperialism or colonialism, either. Again, counterfactuals come into play-we can't say with any remote certainty that the British wouldn't have just done the same thing.

3. "If you believe in redistribution"-I'm not particularly fond of it, no. Also, what it points out is exactly why the US government isn't especially likely to fall into tyranny. To refute them with their own words, the UK is able to create a tax basically on a whim that'd be much harder for the US to pull off. It arguably makes our nation somewhat more susceptible to fall into anarchy (which is not good either), but my point remains.

On a side note, it also ignores any positives that may have come out of the US becoming independent. For example: Would the UK have put a man on the moon if they had kept the US?

edited 22nd Apr '16 6:58:42 PM by Protagonist506

Leviticus 19:34
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#119838: Apr 22nd 2016 at 6:59:19 PM

[up]I think history would have been so different that asking if the UK would have put a man on the Moon is irrelevant. We have no way of knowing what the world of the 1960s would have looked like in that scenario.

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
#119839: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:14:16 PM

[up][up][up]Yep and yep. It is pure wishful thinking and what ifs under the assumption that the US would be Europe if it never got its independence.

Inter arma enim silent leges
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#119840: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:16:30 PM

We'd probably still get our independence eventually. Might end up as part of the commonwealth like Australia or Canada.

Oh really when?
Bat178 Since: May, 2011
#119841: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:17:58 PM

[up] The US would possibly be part of Canada if it did secede peacefully like they did.

edited 22nd Apr '16 7:25:24 PM by Bat178

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#119842: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:21:26 PM

[up]The Horror!!

On a side note, didn't the US's independence inspire a lot of reforms worldwide, including the UK?

edited 22nd Apr '16 7:21:54 PM by Protagonist506

Leviticus 19:34
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
#119843: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:24:16 PM

[up]IIRC it was the testbed for democratic governments and moving away from centralized authorities like the Crown or autocracies like Napoleon in France.

Inter arma enim silent leges
storyyeller More like giant cherries from Appleloosa Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
More like giant cherries
#119844: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:32:59 PM

IIRC, the American revolution also helped inspire the French revolution although it would have happened anyway.

edited 22nd Apr '16 7:34:21 PM by storyyeller

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#119845: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:34:03 PM

[up][up] Yeah it also inspired a lot of the independence movements in Latin America, hence their adoption of the Presidential system.

[up] Don't tell the French that

edited 22nd Apr '16 7:34:23 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#119846: Apr 22nd 2016 at 7:56:26 PM

Since this keeps popping up everywhere...have a link to the alternate history thread.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#119847: Apr 22nd 2016 at 8:44:44 PM

A lot of areas in Canada actually threatened to defect to the US, which prompted London to give them concessions.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#119848: Apr 22nd 2016 at 9:48:51 PM

I have problems taking that article seriously. (And it's been linked here before, sometime in the last few months.)

First of all, this is all speculative. Great when you want to discuss alternate histories, not great for discussing real life current situations and what's to be done about them. You can't turn back the clock, after all. And there's no fucking guarantee that we wouldn't have ended up with a Civil War for the same exact reasons, because Great Britain apparently didn't abolish slavery in the rest of its territories until a few decades before the Civil War, and I see no reason that the Southern States wouldn't have fought the Crown just as hard as they did in Congress.

Second, he links at least once to another article of his where he basically gushes over the monarchy and his last points are clearly running on "holy shit I love this thing" rather than on any merits Britain's monarchy and parliamentary system may have. It's a piss poor thing to do in what is supposedly a serious article. He's clearly got some fanboyism going on about the Royal family, which I don't get in Americans because it's not like they're OUR royal family.

And third, when your arguments boil down to "it wouldn't have been AS bad" for some group of people when Great Britain is basically where the US gained all their ability to be horrible from (After all, Canada has its own issues with "midnight rides" with First Nation members) and that it probably would have, in fact, being just that bad if only in different ways, then you've got what is probably a bad misunderstanding of the history of British colonialism. Or colonialism in general.

There's little in this that actually strikes me as anything other than just getting wanky about the fact that we have a less than perfect history as a country. And Royal family fanboyism. Couldn't take him seriously after those last couple of paragraphs.

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#119849: Apr 22nd 2016 at 9:58:49 PM

I do get a feeling that the Vox writer has quite the Foreign Culture Fetish going on.

Leviticus 19:34
shimaspawn MOD from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#119850: Apr 22nd 2016 at 10:11:59 PM

The VOX article is not on topic. Please take it to the Alternate History thread.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

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