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

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145826: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:18:29 AM

[up] He also killed an independent study on private prisons. Coincidentally, Johnson had some financial stakes in his state's private prisons.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Jasaiga Since: Jan, 2015
#145827: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:21:04 AM

You know what? I'm going to say it: If you hate Clinton soooooo much that you can't even hold your nose to vote for her to save the world from a petty thin-skinned child who wants to turn the USA into a authoritarian state, then you don't have the right to call yourself an American let alone a progressive, conservative or whatever your personal political ideology may fall into.

This is beyond Clinton Derangement Syndrome, IMO

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145828: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:23:27 AM

[up] Winston Churchill said it best: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

Honestly, I think a five second conversation with a Trump supporter would be enough.

Disgusted, but not surprised
chartoc Since: Apr, 2010
#145829: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:23:41 AM

Trump was giving his positive Gettysburg speech and says that he would sue the accusers if he was elected: https://twitter.com/Walldo/status/789868373760847873

So wish that the GOP had a bigger sane part of their party because we need to have two sane opposing parties so that both sides can strengthen their arguments instead of what we have right now. I would have voted for a GOP candidate if they would me, a black gay man alone. But no.

I'm curious if there any GOP or 3rd party candidates this thread would vote for? Me? Evan Mc Mullin would get my vote and he has a chance to get Utah's electoral votes too. Why? Because Utah is 2/3 rd GOP and Trump has one half while he has the other.

Sorry for the long post.

TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#145830: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:27:13 AM

[up] 4 scores and 11 accusers ago... I will sue them all. The Pettysburg address.

New Survey coming this weekend!
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#145831: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:29:42 AM

[up][awesome]

But wait... Eleven accusers and he only scored four times? Geez, I think even Beavis and Butt-Head have a better track record...

edited 22nd Oct '16 10:30:59 AM by sgamer82

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145832: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:34:09 AM

[up][up][up] Problem is, no sane moderate GOP politician would be able to win the primaries. Someone like Colin Powell for example would never have won over the rabid voter base that gave Trump the primaries. Which is a shame since I would have loved to see an election cycle with HRC vs. Colin Powell.

edited 22nd Oct '16 10:34:50 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#145833: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:41:09 AM

Winston Churchill said it best: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter".

There's another Churchill quote that I can't be bothered to look up now so I'll just paraphrase it: "Democracy is the worst form of government - except for all of the others that have been tried."

Sorry for the long post.

This actually makes me feel pretty silly about roughyl 70% of my posts. tongue

The thing about "big-tent" parties is that there's room for a lot of different people in the same party in theory.

Let's say you're a pacifist and you've got two policies you absolutely require your candidate to support. One, you want them to push for restrictions to gun ownership, perhaps along the line that Hillary Clinton has proposed. Two, you want the US to carry out an extremely isolationist foreign policy when it comes to military matters. You absolutely will not condone any sort of military intervention in Syria or Iraq.

If you're that voter, there's no place for you in either party. The Democrats are closer - because they'll at least agree with you on the first point - and the Republicans will have large segments of their supporters and leaders agreeing with your line about military interventions in foreign countries. You won't find a realistic candidate for both of your core policies, though. What would you do then? If those are the two most important things in a President for you, your only choice is to go third party, even if they're absolute lunatics about everything else.

Now, to be honest I don't have a lot of time for people who base their vote on just one or two - or even five - areas of politics. I simply don't think they're paying enough attention and thinking enough. So I wouldn't have a lot of sympathy for my hypothetical voter. Still, the point stands: these so-called "big tent" parties are actually pretty restrictive.

I mean, what if you're fundamentally opposed to the free market, and want there to be loads more regulation and state ownership? What if you want free education and healthcare, paid for by higher taxes on the top earners? You will never find a Presidential candidate in the US with more than 1% support for that. The best you can do, then, is try to find the one who hurts you the least - and usually that will mean something like accepting that the President you voted in will use drones to bomb funerals of civilians killed in a previous bombing in Pakistan or Iraq. Both Trump and Clinton will do this, and Obama does it already. That's what you have to accept if you want to vote against the one who would either do nothing or go all in and abolish any code of conduct for the military in a foreign country.

If you didn't have a FPTP system you'd have viable third (and fourth and fifth and ninth) parties, some of which would agree with you both on the use of the military and in economics or social policies. They still wouldn't be a 100% match but at least you wouldn't be picking between a candidate who agrees with you 10% of the time and one that's a 30% match for you. For most Americans under the current system, that's roughly the choice you're making. Maybe it's more like 20% and 50-60% but still.

Here in Finland, when I vote, I've got about 3 or 4 parties that agree with me on about 60% of the time, two that agree with me 80% of the time, and about 4 or 5 that I agree with less than 30% of the time. All of these parties are represented in Parliament, and normally about 4 or 5 of them will be in the government coalition. Doesn't that sound nicer?

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#145834: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:41:28 AM

"Trump now says the United States WILL pay for the Border Wall between Mexico and the USA, with the full understanding we will be reimbursed over a set period of time."

hahahaha

[lol][lol][lol]

New Survey coming this weekend!
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145835: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:42:33 AM

[up] Good luck with that Trump.

Mexico is never going to pay for that wall.

edited 22nd Oct '16 10:43:08 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#145836: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:48:23 AM

I don't know how the hell anyone could believe for one minute that Mexico could be convinced to pay for it. Why would Mexico do it? It would probably be the largest single investment ever made by Mexico - or, for that matter any North American country other than the US (or maybe including the US, depending on what sort of wall you want).

Why?

I mean, why? How?

Why?

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145837: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:51:48 AM

[up] And Trump supporters wonder why everyone else thinks they are batshit insane.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#145838: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:53:02 AM

@ M84:

Scrub that. It was Wesley Clark, not Powell.

edited 22nd Oct '16 10:56:42 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On
nervmeister Since: Oct, 2010
#145839: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:54:24 AM

[up][up]They're cripplingly insecure, not insane.

edited 22nd Oct '16 10:55:40 AM by nervmeister

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#145840: Oct 22nd 2016 at 10:59:53 AM

Wait, can a sitting POTUS legally sue a private citizen personally? I mean, I know it would be political suicide but is it technically possible?

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145841: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:00:52 AM

[up][up][up] No, I meant Colin Powell as a hypothetical example. I know he didn't actually run.

[up][up] Whatever their motivations, they are still willing to back, with varying degrees of fanaticism, utterly insane and immoral agendas.

edited 22nd Oct '16 11:02:13 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
OrionAurora Constellation from Andromeda Galaxy Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: Abstaining
Constellation
#145842: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:01:01 AM

..."War with Russia, folks" guaranteed. Well, if there was any time to ask my question, now's my chance. What is the likelihood of Clinton going to war against Russia? I ask this after having a small discussion with one of my friends who thought that Clinton would try to start a war against Russia. His justification was something about the Syrian no fly zone thing being enacted which leads to Russian retaliation which, in turn, gets us into WW3. Like I said, the talk was short lived and I didn't bother to press for details. I'm not inclined to believe that it will happen, but I want some info from people who may know better.

We are all made of star stuff. Very, very weird star stuff.
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#145843: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:01:28 AM

[up][up][up]Yes, assuming it's not for anything like defamation or libel, as the bar for public figures is ridiculously high.

edited 22nd Oct '16 11:01:40 AM by TacticalFox88

New Survey coming this weekend!
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#145844: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:02:36 AM

Don't go to war with Russia. You don't want to set the world on fire.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Jasaiga Since: Jan, 2015
#145845: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:03:23 AM

[up][up][up] Clinton won't start a war with Russia. We'd all be dead within 72 hours of the war being declared.

Your friend is an idiot, to put it bluntly.

edited 22nd Oct '16 11:05:02 AM by Jasaiga

Memers Since: Aug, 2013
#145846: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:03:38 AM

[up][up][up][up] It's not likely at all. The only thing that might start up is Cold War III, which honestly we are at the proxy wars state in that right now.

edited 22nd Oct '16 11:04:05 AM by Memers

nervmeister Since: Oct, 2010
#145847: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:04:07 AM

[up][up][up]But I do want a Shotgun Power Fist,

edited 22nd Oct '16 11:04:51 AM by nervmeister

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#145848: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:04:38 AM

[up][up]'Cold War III'? When did Cold War II happen?

edited 22nd Oct '16 11:04:51 AM by kkhohoho

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#145849: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:04:38 AM

Your friend acts like we aren't already in a proxy war and cyber war with Russia.

Disgusted, but not surprised
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#145850: Oct 22nd 2016 at 11:05:38 AM

Hell, I'd argue that the Cold War never ended, it was just postponed and rebranded, while Russia got its political situation straightened out.

New Survey coming this weekend!

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