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
So people like Trump and Cruz have been criticizing Obama for ths Iran deal, but I don't understand what's wrong with it. The Americans want to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons even though they have no legal right. Fine. From what I've read, there's no evidence that they were building a bomb, but let's assume that they were. America freezes Iranian assets and the UN Security Council members with Germany enforced crippling sanctions on Iran. The deal made by Obama gives them the right to go in and verify that Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons, in exchange for lifting the sanctions and giving them back the money they were holding hostage. Iran doesn't get a bomb, America and it's allies don't have to invade, no one has to die and all the US didn'thave to give anything up. Isn't that a fantastic deal? Do the leaders of the Republican party just want a Forever War in the Middle East?
edited 28th Jun '16 12:25:12 PM by 940131
1. Obama is the anti-Christ and therefore anything he does is automatically evil
2. Iran is evil and anything which doesn't involve bombing them back to the stone age is automatically evil
3. The GOP's only concern is discrediting Obama/Democrats and making them look bad, so even if Obama somehow brought about World Peace, they would've spun it to be a bad thing
edit: eww...terrible page topper....
edited 28th Jun '16 12:31:37 PM by nightwyrm_zero
In a word, yes. But there is also the ongoing concern that Iran will violate the terms of the agreement, costing our government international credibility.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Not a forever war so much as they just want to invade Iran and overthrew the goverment there. That's been US forign policy since the US backed dictatorship was overthrown, to try and find an excuse to put a new dictatorship in place.
edited 28th Jun '16 12:32:45 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.” ~ CyranIt's blackly hilarious that we would prefer a dictatorship in Iran to a government that at least has the veneer of having been elected democratically, but hey, nobody ever said that Republican foreign policy positions were thought through.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!""Is there no provision for lawfully seceding in US law? What about self-determination?"
No such thing. If you want to secede, you had better be prepared to bleed for it.
I'm rather skeptical of the "local group mistreated by the political center" narrative because state governments in the US are full of filth, and where the worst abuses are perpetuated. They're like a republican Feudal Overlord. With no recourse from a higher authority, these racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and corrupt kingpins would have nothing standing in their way. Without the iron hand of federal oversight and the Supreme Court's judgements forcing them into modernity by hook or by crook, progress would never occur.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Personally, I'm not hugely concerned with self-determination myself. I've joked that Texas should secede for the recent supreme court ruling on abortion (I'm very pro-life even by Republican standards), but there's no legal way for them to do that (and likely no illegal way, either).
The way I see it, unity is preferably to non-unity, but secession can be legitimized if the following conditions are true:
The larger empire must be infringing on human rights in such a manner that the means to secede justify the ends. A legitimate authority from the smaller government must be the ones to decide if secession is necessary. Finally, the new seceded regime must be able to protect rights that the larger empire would not.
Leviticus 19:34The problem with the "you can't break away" is that if you say it applies to Texas it also applies to Calafornia or New York if they wanted to break away and do something progressive. It also means that a state can't become independent because it's sick of federal budget mismanagement and wants to impliment a Keynesian economic system.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Yes, that's what it means. No taking your candy and leaving; we're all in this together. Giving states a legal "out" means they are no longer committed to the survival of the nation as a whole.
If we get a Trump presidency or worse, and things go completely to hell, then revolution will come organically and dramatically, and it will cease being a question of some soreheads who didn't get their way trying to start their own club where only the people they like can hang out.
edited 28th Jun '16 12:40:54 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Sure but do you not belive the are any legitimate reasons for a state to "nope" out of the Union? Say the US started interning Asian Americans again and California wanted to break away so as to protect its Asian American population from internment?
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI believe there would have to be dramatic and extraordinary circumstances leading up to such an event that go well beyond losing a vote in Congress or a judicial decision in the Supreme Court. But even if we did do something as crazy as interning Muslims or Hispanics, it would still be "self-determination" because everyone had a chance to vote, or vote for representatives who then made such a decision.
One can always come up with hypotheticals wherein the Federal government goes crazy, but there is no realistic path for that to happen. For example, the President could call up the police, army and National Guard, have them go to everyone's homes, search them for guns, and confiscate any found.
Such an act, were it to occur, would be so grossly unconstitutional and illegal that it could only signify the failure of representative government, and we would no longer live in a democratic society, so all bets would be off.
edited 28th Jun '16 12:47:40 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Sure it would be self determination of a national level, but it would also be tyranny of the majority, should people have to accept such a tyranny because it was voted for?
You say it would be illegal but the US has done internment before, do you feel that the US stopped being a democracy when it interned Asian Americans in WW 2?
edited 28th Jun '16 12:51:12 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.” ~ CyranYes. That is why we have representative democracy. If Congress and the President agree on a policy, and the Supreme Court judges it constitutional, then that is the law of the land, whether everyone likes it or not. The remedy is to get enough people interested in changing the law to override it with your own majority.
To your second point, the nation was broadly in favor of internment when it was voted into law. Now, one can, in hindsight, call it a gross failure of democracy, but that's the nature of such things.
Besides, it's seldom as clear-cut as "Wyoming through Louisiana all say we should intern the Japanese, but California and Maine are 100% opposed".
Heck, the current argument over gun control legislation is as clear-cut a case of Congress overriding the will of the people as one can imagine: 90% public support for universal background checks and we can't get anything passed. But we can't all secede, can we? The question makes no sense.
Ultimately, we have only ourselves to blame for the failure of our system, because we voted for the yahoos that are doing this shit.
edited 28th Jun '16 12:55:02 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There is a loophole in Texas Vs. White... "except through revolution or through consent of the States." I would assume that if the federal government was doing something as bad as interning Asian-Americans again, and California already went through all the other channels to get it overruled, then they would have the moral right to secede regardless of what the Federal Government thinks because the United States would truly be a tyrannical government that should be seceded from by that point. For all of what the Constitution is, it is still just a piece of paper written by people over two centuries ago. Ultimately what makes secession illegal in the United States is that the United States has the military power to back up that piece of paper.
Wizard Needs Food Badly@Fighteer: The reason the US tends to oppose democracies in the middle east is because the population generally doesn't like the US. A big part of the reason why the population there doesn't like the US is because of the US coming in and throwing their countries into chaos. Such is the vicious cycle of middle eastern geopolitics.
![]()
Truly, if a sufficient majority of all states voted to allow Texas to secede, then it would be legal. Also, if Texas decides to hold a revolution and wins the resulting war, then its secession is legal by law of the jungle. But Texas is not allowed to hold its own vote and expect that to be binding on the entire nation.
I'm not contesting that, just pointing out that it's largely Republican interventionism and military diplomacy that gave us our present situation, and they clearly want it to continue because of how abjectly they decry any attempt at diplomatic solutions.
edited 28th Jun '16 12:58:06 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
To be fair, it is more likely for a majority of states to vote Texas out than for Texas to win a war against the United States.
No, what would cost the US credibility was if Iran broke the deal and the US didn't bomb the shit out of them, as they themselves agreed to in the deal.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Sure it's often not along state lines, but if you're abusing a specific minority it may well end up with certain areas not agreeing with said abuse.
You seem to be saying that tyranny is okay if it gets 50% +1 of the vote. That's very dangerous, because it means that half the population can vote to remove the rights of a quarter of the population and kill or enslave them.
Would escaped slaves not have had the right to form their own nation of freed slaves separate from the US if they'd managed to?
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
When the majority are in favor of a thing, it passes Congress and the White House, and the Supreme Court says it's okay, then it is legal by definition. Whether it is morally correct is a distinct issue, but moral righteousness makes for a fancy epitaph if you can't back up your cause with either votes or sufficient force.
I, looking back, would say that the slaves had the moral right to flee from their enslavement, but slavery was wrong for the very reason that it denied self-determination. We aren't comparing apples to apples here.
If Trump wins, gets Congress to vote for the wall, and stacks the Supreme Court to rule it constitutional, then up goes a honkin' big wall. It's our fault; we obviously voted for the situation to happen, or didn't care enough to vote against it in sufficient numbers. Our recourses at that point are two: wait for the next election to vote him out, or hold a revolution. Of course, if we lose (which is likely), we're essentially conceding the nation to Trump.
edited 28th Jun '16 1:06:52 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't think anyone has been advocating for that.