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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
This
is a pretty good article, written by a former friend and protege of West's.
edited 5th Jun '16 2:39:24 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Insisting on ideological purity gets you nowhere, as you've insisted. Given the size of the committee (~40 people), Sanders' appointee is nothing more than a symbolic gesture, West effectively has no say on the actual platform, something he's been rather vocally pointing out. Sanders associates with rabid critics of Obama who bought into the who "Obama is the messiah" thing. Clinton surrounds herself with actual mass murderers like Kissinger other cold-war era foreign policy experts.
There isn't a politician in the world whose a good person. Up to and including each and every one of your personal political sweethearts.
edited 5th Jun '16 2:53:20 PM by CaptainCapsase
Luckily I don't have any personal political sweethearts, thanks all the same. These attempts at reading my mind are getting old. As to the notion that all politicians are innately bad people—I'll be sure to pass that along to the former math teacher at my school who ran for office last year.
Anyway, your Kissinger comparison fails, because Clinton hasn't appointed Kissinger to the platform committee. Or to any official post that I'm aware of. Nor has she, for that matter, acted like a Kissinger protege in any meaningful way. At no point in her time as Secretary of State did she act like Henry Kissinger, despite the accusations of some on the radical left. If she had, the USA would have set up a few more Latin American, African, and Middle Eastern dictatorships by now. Citing Henry Kissinger as an influence is old hat at this point, due to his depressingly high approval ratings from some foreign policy wonks. It disgusts me that that is the case, but that is sadly the reality. When Clinton gives him a job, you can complain about it in greater detail.
West having little influence on the committee doesn't change the fact that it's giving a high-profile position to a deeply obnoxious guy whose criticism of Obama has descended into the racist. Sanders could have appointed people with real ideas. He didn't.
edited 5th Jun '16 3:00:22 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Well, not having DWS appointing the platfrom com may be a good thing by itself if all the complaints about her are true. Wonder who Clinton did appoint, thinking of it...
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman"There isn't a politician in the world whose a good person"
I don't know how to respond to this tautology.
I'd tend to think the exact opposite, because people generally go into politics out of a desire to do good (whatever they consider to be good) and disagreements about policy =/ not being a good person.
Not to mention that this is a democratic republic (going off of my post from a few pages back), so we are the politicians. Or to put it another way, while I'm not completely sure whether or not Bernie Sanders is a good person (although I'd lean toward Yes as I would for Hilary Clinton), it's not like he had some quality as a community organizer that he lost when he became a Mayor or Senator.
I'd certainly consider President Obama to be a good person. I mean you could certainly have a political discussion about Just War and whether one can be a good person and be responsible for authorizing military actions/killing, but that's rather more complex than "Politicians Are Bad, Amirite?".
edited 5th Jun '16 3:19:06 PM by Hodor2
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Oh, most definitely. He's the exception that proves the rule.
What's interesting with him though, is that although he at least seems like a much worse person ever since going into politics, one of his issues is that he lacks the public service intentions of most politicians and is instead self-interested, like a businessman.
edited 5th Jun '16 3:26:49 PM by Hodor2
How about no.
Fun fact, we have people on this forum who've run for political office, I know of at least one and I suspect there are more, so how about you take your throwing personal insults at members of this forum and go away?
Edit:
Agreed, so why insist on Sanders appointing a supporter of his?
edited 5th Jun '16 3:35:34 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.” ~ CyranMeanwhile, on assholes:
Every single politician has done something stupid/immoral/questionable/offensive/whatever in their life. This happens not because they're politicians but because they're people. Some are worse than others but a large number do have some desire to help people even if it's partially motivated by self interest.
@Hod: That's what people claim of course, and for people at the local level, I'd almost be willing to buy that, but I've long since come to the conclusion that it's impossible for a person to acquire significant power without becoming a monster in the progress. Which is precisely why I have absolutely no interest in having it.
edited 5th Jun '16 3:58:03 PM by CaptainCapsase
The thing is that, while all powerful people inevitably do something terrible, it isn't because power corrupts per say. It's just that power magnifies any mistakes they make. In addition, it also magnifies the good decisions, as well.
Leviticus 19:34

West is not someone I'd entrust foreign relations with, that's for sure. If he's an anti-drone wonk as I remember.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman