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

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#171926: Feb 1st 2017 at 3:58:53 PM

[up]Don't feel that way. As long as you express your opinion in a civil and open way, inviting honest debate, there's nothing wrong with speaking out.

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#171927: Feb 1st 2017 at 3:58:58 PM

I believe in the ideal of capitalism, but not necessarily the way it's being conducted, but I believe that something similar to the current system could work if 1) regulations could be put in place to ensure a level playing field and 2) companies are held accountable for their actions. Otherwise, I think that if the incentives are aligned correctly, it could work. Granted, this would still leave some inequality issues, and I'm pretty short on ideas for solving it besides progressive taxation.
Pfft, that's not right-wing. You're downright commie scum. tongue

"Capitalism" is not, and should not, be a right-wing exclusive ideology.

Unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism, on the other hand, is. And has a long history of exploitation, oppression, and death.

higherbrainpattern Since: Apr, 2012
#171928: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:06:28 PM

Trump is going to focus a counter terrorism program to focus solely on Islamic terror. No more focusing on white supremacists who carry out domestic terrorist attacks as well.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:08:05 PM by higherbrainpattern

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#171929: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:09:31 PM

[up]Oh joy. If it wasn't for the fact that I have to show up at drill every month, I'd probably move out of the country for the next four years. Then again, depending on whether or not Trump gets us sucked into some stupid, pointless war I may end up resigning my damn commission anyway, and that's not a statement I make lightly.

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#171930: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:10:09 PM

[up] You're in luck.

The phone call between the leaders was intended to patch things up between the new president and his ally. The two have had a series of public spats over Trump's determination to have Mexico pay for the planned border wall, something Mexico steadfastly refuses to agree to.

"You have a bunch of bad hombres down there," Trump told Pena Nieto, according to the excerpt seen by the AP. "You aren't doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn't, so I just might send them down to take care of it."

http://time.com/4657474/donald-trump-enrique-pena-nieto-mexico-bad-hombres/

Estevez said she "obtained confidential information" corroborating the content of the discussion.

"I don't need the Mexicans, I don't need Mexico," Trump reportedly told the Mexican president. "We are going to build the wall and you all are going to pay for it, like it or not." ... "He even complained of the bad role the [Mexican] army is playing in the fight against narco trafficking," Estevez, who writes for Forbes and is close to Mexican journalist and anchorwoman Carmen Aristegui, said during an interview with Aristegui's eponymous news outlet. ... Trump "even suggested to [Peña Nieto] that if they are incapable of combatting [narco trafficking] he may have to send troops to assume this task," she said.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/01/report-in-a-humiliating-and-threatening-tone-trump-lambast/21705130/

We're going to invade Mexico and fight Iran and China. Anyone feel good about that?

edited 1st Feb '17 4:11:02 PM by MadSkillz

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#171931: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:10:57 PM

[up]Hold on, let me get started on typing up that letter of resignation.

LinkToTheFuture A real bad hombre from somewhere completely different Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
A real bad hombre
#171932: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:11:23 PM

@HBP: Trump could at least try to make the bigotry less obvious.

Also, I don't know if this has been posted here already, but Flynn has apparently said that they've put Iran "on notice" over the ballistic missile test.

[up][up]Holy shit wtf

edited 1st Feb '17 4:12:23 PM by LinkToTheFuture

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#171933: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:11:54 PM

[up][up][up] Jesus Christ. To our tropers in Latin America, I am deeply sorry that we appear to be headed straight back to cold war level fuckery in the hemisphere.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:12:08 PM by CaptainCapsase

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#171934: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:14:07 PM

Dunno how those wars are gonna reflect on Trump's middling popularity. Like, fascism runs on having an "enemy" to rally behind, and on the premise of fighting that enemy anything is justifiable, but isn't the american public tired of wars? Aren't people going to get pissed seeing their sons die because of Trump's petty ego and malice?

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#171935: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:14:08 PM

Trump can't go to war with anyone unless he wants to be a guaranteed one-term President. America is still burnt out on the Iraq War (which even Trump says he was against). If we go to war, especially a war he starts, he will literally lose the next election he's in. Although, he could start a war in his 2nd term and suffer only losses in Popularity, but I doubt he'll get one.

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#171936: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:16:04 PM

If he tries to start a war now, forget one term, he'll (hopefully) be impeached. His supporters can only lie to themselves so much, but once their friends and family are in danger of going into the grinder because of his policies, they'll turn on him just as quickly as the rest of us. Especially if we go to war with Mexico. Americans have forgotten what it's like to actually fight a war with a peer or near-peer nation that's literally right next door. I can assure you Texas will remember pretty quick.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:17:25 PM by danime91

LinkToTheFuture A real bad hombre from somewhere completely different Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
A real bad hombre
#171937: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:16:28 PM

I'm also really uncomfortable with not only the prospect of an unjust war, but an unjust war right on our doorstep.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#171938: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:16:33 PM

How does one figuratively lose an election?

Leviticus 19:34
danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#171939: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:18:32 PM

[up]Running on a metaphorical platform designed by Escher.

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#171940: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:18:51 PM

Lose the electoral while winning the popular? It maybe the other way around?

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#171941: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:20:27 PM

@Dingo: I wish that were the case, but as the Bush administration and more recently Putin shows, aggressive foreign policy and inflaming jingoism are good ways to prop up weak electoral mandates.

Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#171942: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:20:29 PM

By losing the popular vote but winning anyway, I'd assume.

But yeah, declaring war on Mexico would be a good way to turn the states on the Mexican border blue.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#171943: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:21:41 PM

[up] Which is why Trump wouldn't declare war on Mexico, he'd goad them into shooting first as happened in the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, or he'd just use the CIA to install an American puppet.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:22:33 PM by CaptainCapsase

FergardStratoavis A Fluff Ringer from Bellveins (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: A gay little love melody
A Fluff Ringer
#171944: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:21:46 PM

I don't really know about that.

In case of an armed conflict, isn't U.S Army vastly more powerful than that of Mexico? Hasn't that always been the case? A war that's going to be over in a month or two, with a complete American curbstomp might not be seen as good by more restrained voters, but the radical right and various Trumplings would be nothing short of ecstatic.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#171945: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:23:21 PM

[up] It would be a curbstomp, and unlike in Iraq and Vietnam, since its right on our doorstep it would be easy to project power into Mexico, and relatively cheap, and especially if a far left anti-Trump demagogue ends up being elected, it would probably be surprisingly easy to goad Mexico into doing something that the United States could claim was an act of war.

That's assuming this happens overtly rather than covertly as was typically the case in the many, many, many cases of the United States fucking with Latin America in the past.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:24:42 PM by CaptainCapsase

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#171946: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:24:09 PM

Taking a country is one thing. Holding it is another.

And invading a non failed state with a passable democracy would ruin what's left of America's reputation.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#171947: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:24:24 PM

Conquering another country means that you're now on the hook for that country. It's one of the reasons that the Crimea thing kind of backfired, because Russia is now paying Ukraine for the electricity and water since basically none of it comes from Crimea.

If Mexico is conquered and added to the US, the US economy is guaranteed to take a massive hit. And that's not even counting everyone slapping sanctions on the US. Invading Mexico like that also kind of ruins the ability to use Mexico as a scapegoat. You can't say "those damn Mexicans and their drug cartels!" because, guess what? They're now in the US. They're your problem.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:25:23 PM by Zendervai

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#171948: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:24:58 PM

Hell, the US could still strike first, but if Mexico ever struck back, you'd see calls for genocide faster than you say "war crimes."

danime91 Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
#171949: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:25:00 PM

[up][up][up][up], [up]"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions." -Robert Wilson Lynd

And honestly, false flag operations may have worked in an earlier age, but with social media and nigh-instantaneous news coverage, it would be a lot more difficult to pull off.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:25:45 PM by danime91

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#171950: Feb 1st 2017 at 4:25:29 PM

I wish that were the case, but as the Bush administration and more recently Putin shows, aggressive foreign policy and inflaming jingoism are good ways to prop up weak electoral mandates.

But as the Bush Administration shows, doing so (at least in the States) ultimately leads to large backlash from anyone who wasn't particularly Jingoist, and results in not only the Party of the Administration losing Bigly, but also results in the Administration becoming deeply hated, so hated that even the Party of the Administration eventually realizes "Yeah, this was a bad idea". Same thing happened to the Johnson Administration.

And honestly, if you think Mexico would be stupid enough to shoot at Americans for whatever reason, then you must have lower opinions of the Mexican Government then you do of Trump.

[down] Again, that would require you to think that the Mexican Government is worse then Trump himself. The Mexican people aren't stupid or aggressive, and they know damn well that attacking any American, for any reason real or not, would result in a Curbstomp war with the USA annexing the Baja Peninsula. No Soldier, that doesn't have some huge grudge with the Government, would ever think of doing anything like that, and the Mexican Government would never ever allow a Soldier like that anywhere near an American to try.

edited 1st Feb '17 4:31:53 PM by DingoWalley1


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