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TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#139501: Sep 21st 2016 at 1:40:10 PM

Clinton Campaign is apparently opening up an office in El Paso.

Um...

O.O

Bombshell.

New Survey coming this weekend!
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#139502: Sep 21st 2016 at 1:58:36 PM

I don't see how it's a bombshell, it's consistent with them trying to woo non-Trump Republicans.

Mr.Didact Keep Hope Alive from Winterfell Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: Naked on a bearskin rug, playing the saxophone
Keep Hope Alive
#139503: Sep 21st 2016 at 2:01:42 PM

Holy crap the comments on that Joss Whedon video. Frankly disgusting

Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#139505: Sep 21st 2016 at 2:11:38 PM

Toomey occasionally does good things, but since he's on with the obstruction of a Supreme Court appointment, out he must go (along with his fairly bonkers views on welfare and taxation).

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#139506: Sep 21st 2016 at 2:26:47 PM

[up][up] Clinton's Texas polls have her in a deadheat with Trump to the point Greg Abbott warned the rest of the Texas GOP she may win here.

She is definitely going to win the Rio Grande Valley and most of the largest cities just like every Democrat presidential candidate has before her.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139507: Sep 21st 2016 at 2:41:58 PM

The scrutiny that the security organizations get, while necessary to transparency and such, is given a vastly inflated importance in our political dialogue. Quite frankly, the important issues — our economic future, our climate policy, our state government, our civil rights, and so on — are almost completely unaffected by NSA surveillance or CIA torture programs. It's a lot of sound and fury signifying little but that the person yelling about it holds their privacy in some kind of religious regard that is vastly out of proportion to its significance. Even Guantanamo Bay, while a stain on our national soul, has affected at net the lives of a few hundred people. More people than that die of police brutality every year, and orders of magnitude more die of poverty-related causes.

Fighteer, that's an Appeal to Worse Problems. One person held in unlawful imprisonment, in GB or a CIA black prison, is unacceptable, and political force (voting) should be leveraged toward that end, including electing officials who are willing to fix such things or fire officials who perpetrate them.

pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#139508: Sep 21st 2016 at 2:44:04 PM

Going back a few pages (the thread advanced quite a bit while I was at work), there are four definitions of Libertarianism: What "you" think it is, what "I" think it is, what everybody else thinks it is, and what it actually is.

The same might be said of any political stance or viewpoint. So good luck with that.tongue

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#139509: Sep 21st 2016 at 2:52:35 PM

So funny we were talking about Anthony Weiner yesterday. Apparently he's been accused of sexting with a 15 year old. (Grain of salt: the story is mostly still circulating in the more tabloid-y sections of the news.)

In other news: Gary Johnson's Aleppo gaffe may have actually been a publicity boost for him (Also, he's got a significant upswing in Arizona, though it's likely one of the places he'd be taking more votes from Trump than Hillary, though that's also debatable.)

edited 21st Sep '16 2:54:23 PM by Elle

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#139510: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:07:01 PM

[up][up][up] Appeal to Worse Problems is not a fallacy when the insistence on action in a particular area actively or passively hinders action in an area that carries greater immediate consequence. The insistence that, for example, the Obama administration is bad because it has failed to close Guantanamo, or because NSA surveillance continued on its watch, blatantly misses the larger picture, and these issues are trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, by your logic, one person dying of hunger = one prisoner tortured extrajudicially, so we should be devoting tens of thousands of times more resources to fighting poverty than fighting torture.

edited 21st Sep '16 3:08:23 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#139511: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:12:36 PM

[up]Yes, but saying that the Obama administration could have closed Guantanamo Bay without endangering his other priorities, failed to do so, and should be ashamed of that failure, is a valid criticism.

Obama's got authority over Guantanamo and ICE - he could have, seeing the legal limbo that the Guantanamo prisoners were in (illegally imprisoned and not allowed to return to their own countries or enter the US) simply ordered the agency to issue green cards with extra "fuck you" to Congress (what's Congress going to do, cooperate with him less for it?). He didn't, and I'd argue that it's a symptom of Obama having generally been overcautious, when often a more assertive approach (or in this case, an Alexander) was needed.

And I never made that equation, you did. Hunger and torture are both flatly unacceptable - we, as a society, should not allow any person to die of hunger or be tortured in prison, and I think we have the resources to stop both within the US.

edited 21st Sep '16 3:15:51 PM by Ramidel

nervmeister Since: Oct, 2010
#139512: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:34:51 PM

It's functionally the same thing. I don't mean we all become mind-slaves to the Collective Will. But until we are all "self-realized individuals making good choices", we need authority to coerce us into behaving like a tribe.
Dude, the tribe or collective always seeks to KILL the individual to some degree metaphorically if not literally. A highly self-affirmed individual who feels little if any need to belong to any group can be an existential nightmare to an otherwise comfortable society which will then seek to "reform", imprison, or kill him/her if his/her passive influence becomes too great. For example, imagine if this individual's views were taken notice of by a massive amount of people across the country:

edited 21st Sep '16 3:40:08 PM by nervmeister

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#139513: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:40:22 PM

No, society seeks to keep individuals from harming other individuals—because that's all the collective is, an amalgamation of all the individuals in a given society.

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
#139514: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:47:32 PM

[Thomas Hobbes Intensifies]

Inter arma enim silent leges
Perian Since: Jun, 2016
#139515: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:49:45 PM

No, it's completely called for, especially since I didn't specify Republican propaganda; it comes from the left way more than it comes from the right. It's part of the "sore loser" club, who wish to pin their defeat on anything other than the failings of their ideology. In that, it does sharply mirror right-wing politics.

You didn't address any issue I raised, but simply stated that people who are opposed to the superdelegate system - which include me, I suppose - are just brainwashed by propaganda, and have a kindergarten mentality. That's not the kind of debate I wish to engage in. I've said why I think the superdelegates have given Clinton an unfair advantage during this year's primary race as well - feel free to provide counterarguments, but please don't insult me in the process.

You made this exact point already and I addressed it already. I'm not sure if you disagree with my response or just don't think I really covered it, but I don't see the point in recovering the same territory without some more specific question/response/clarification/etc to go on.

Then let me just rephrase what I think is your opinion, so that you can address it if I understood you incorrectly. You say that the choice that the majority of people make is not always necessary the best one, which I agree with. You mention that superdelegates can be used for good and bad reasons, so clearly, they can only prevent a popular madman who is disliked by the party's establishment from getting the nomination - and additionally, can prevent a popular sane candidate who is disliked by the party's establishment as well. So how does this exactly solve the problem, unless you assume that most candidates who are disliked by the party's establishment, are, in fact madmen?

But, you say, the party should also be able to have a say in who they are going to nominate. Is it because of the above-mentioned reason - in which case I'd argue that the superdelegate system simply prevents a candidate who is disliked by them from getting the nomination, whether it's a sane or a mad candidate - or just a practical concern, since the party needs to devote resources to this candidate, they become the 'face' of the party, and the candidate's loss has an effect on the party as a whole? Then I'd say that this would be a valid concern, if the two main parties had not made it next to impossible for anyone outside these parties to compete with them in elections.

nervmeister Since: Oct, 2010
#139516: Sep 21st 2016 at 3:55:12 PM

[up][up][up]One's approach to living doesn't necessarily have to harm people in order to existentially shake the established social order. It just needs to be jarring enough in the minds of thousands if not millions of people for them to start losing grip on what they once unquestionably thought made sense

edited 21st Sep '16 3:55:53 PM by nervmeister

Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#139518: Sep 21st 2016 at 4:13:12 PM

Failure to close Guantanimo is one of the things I frown at Obama for but I do understand that part of the problem is what to do with the detainees: proposals to relocate them anywhere on American soil have been met with strong "not on our backyard" opposition.

Amusing anecdote: Saw someone with a Trump bumper sticker (unfortunately not novel by itself in this area)...with the T and the P scribbled out.

edited 21st Sep '16 4:13:46 PM by Elle

nervmeister Since: Oct, 2010
#139519: Sep 21st 2016 at 4:19:46 PM

[up][up]Yeah. It may be nigh undoable in this age. After all, if society could recover and more or less remain the same after 2 Girls, 1 Cup, then god knows how far people's mental horizons can stretch before their very foundations require "restructuring".

edited 21st Sep '16 4:21:09 PM by nervmeister

LogoP Party Crasher from the Land of Deep Blue Since: May, 2013 Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
Party Crasher
#139520: Sep 21st 2016 at 4:23:24 PM

OK, so I read a rumor recently that Tom Cotton, that one Republican Senator who was the ""brain"" behind sending a letter to Iran and torpedoing the nuclear deal behind the President's back, has allegedly thrown his support behind Trump.

Anyone knows if that piece of info is legit?

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.
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
#139521: Sep 21st 2016 at 4:23:26 PM

Part of the Gitmo problem is that while the detainees posed no threat to American when they were out in there and had done nothing wrong, after years of torture and abuse their opinions may have changed on if carrying out terrorist attacks against the US is a good idea.

Now all of that anger and rage is understandable but it also gives the US in a security dilemma, now that's it's made enemies out of innocents can it let them go? Especially as it's not like backlash attacks are going to only target the people responsible for the tourtue, false Imprisonment and abuse.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#139522: Sep 21st 2016 at 4:27:19 PM

Separate from the detainees themselves (I wasn't even thinking of that as an issue) is public fear of being targeted for retaliatory attacks by those not in Gitmo if the prisoners are relocated to anywhere near them..

edited 21st Sep '16 4:28:12 PM by Elle

nervmeister Since: Oct, 2010
#139523: Sep 21st 2016 at 4:46:23 PM

A good way to dissolve terrorist cells in the Middle East with the least amount of violent force, civilian casualties, or torture is best. Unfortunately, my idea of how to do it requires tools and knowledge that are still in their infancy. Also, the operation which utilizes them absolutely must be kept secret.

edited 21st Sep '16 4:53:10 PM by nervmeister

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#139524: Sep 21st 2016 at 5:03:42 PM

Best way to do it is to just sit down and do some proper goddamn nation building. Decades long infusions of cash, infrastructure and jobs.

Oh really when?
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#139525: Sep 21st 2016 at 5:04:50 PM

David Duke declares his love of Putin's Russia. Not sure if he's come out and said that before or not, but regardless, I think you guys should give some thought to shipping him there.


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