General US Politics Discussion

[Burbalade]

1 hour ago, Raavi said:

The saying is traced back to the Ancient Greek

And now it's a racial slur. When you see someone with a swastika tattoo you don't think about it's origins, you think about it's modern connotations.

[Raavi]

2 hours ago, Burbalade said:

And now it's a racial slur. When you see someone with a swastika tattoo you don't think about it's origins, you think about it's modern connotations.

The word "spade" can context depending be perceived as a racial epithet. More commonly however it is used to denote a gardening tool. Much like how the word "hoe" can either be a gardening tool or an offensive way to describe a prostitute.  Context is everything. In this instance the context had f*ck all to do with anything even remotely race-related and was used as a synonym for "calling it like it is".

 

I'm rather disappointed our exchange has devolved into pure semantical nothingness. 

[sivispacem]

It's fair to say the racial connotations of "spade" outside of the US are completely nonexistent regardless of context.

[Burbalade]

But Raavi can't admit to not knowing something about the US. He just gets mad instead.

 

If he's not from the US, and has never been to NY, I wouldn't expect him to know about it. Though it's an odd coincidence that we're discussing NY protests over race issues and he uses a phrase containing a racial slur that's typically only used in that area. And for the record, it can still be used as a racial slur even within the context of his post. 

 

Getting mad and explaining the meaning of the phrase as if I didn't know, even though:

-I assumed he wasn't aware and responded to his intended meaning

-The phrase has the same meaning regardless of whether or not it's being used as a racial slur

 

He either missed the point or dodged it, and responded as per usual in a condescending manner, telling me something that it was obvious from my post that I already knew. 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Burbalade

[Raavi]

Instead of making any effort to get back to what was being discussed before you went off on this odd tangent you just derail it further. Doubling up and throwing some more unfounded personal digs my way because why not. I am disappointed because I had a higher opinion of your debating skills. I'm going to stop entertaining this pointless sidetrack now. If you want to actually have a normal discussion then feel free to reply to any of the points made on the previous page.

[Creed Bratton]

If I had to describe Trump's latest speech, I'd say that it was very swift and swip-an, you know, that sweeping it was swift and it was sah-weeping like nobody's ever seen anything happen: https://streamable.com/nhzjrs

 

Makes sense to me.

[Typhus]

Apparently the US Supreme Court has issued a subpoena for Trump's taxes:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/jul/09/scotus-donald-trump-tax-returns-us-coronavirus-news-fauci-

Considering how reluctant he has been to divulge this information, how damaging could it be to his re-election?

[Raavi]

Don't expect to see those tax returns anytime soon. This means it goes back to a lower court again and Trump can once again present new arguments; basically he's just gonna run out the clock until past the election. 

 

The biggest takeaway of today was that Trump's musings of "absolute immunity" were struck down 9-0. 

[Bartleby]

18 hours ago, Typhus said:

Considering how reluctant he has been to divulge this information, how damaging could it be to his re-election?

Not at all, and that's even if his tax returns were to be released tomorrow.

 

At this point enough sh*t has gone down to where if someone hasn't hopped off the Trump train now, they're not gonna - even if he shoots a baby in the face on live television.

[Burbalade]

11 hours ago, Bartleby said:

Not at all, and that's even if his tax returns were to be released tomorrow.

 

At this point enough sh*t has gone down to where if someone hasn't hopped off the Trump train now, they're not gonna - even if he shoots a baby in the face on live television.

You haven't decided on a figure you think he should pay, and you don't know how much he paid.

You're judging not only the man, but also anyone that votes for him based on a comparison you made between two figures that you don't know.

 

More importantly, you're comparing "not paying as much in taxes as some people think you should" to shooting a baby in the face. 

The false equivalencies from you guys are unreal. 

[Secura]

Bartleby's argument is a valid one, even if Trump were to have yet more bad or damaging information go public it likely won't matter to anyone still part of his voter base.

 

If you were still willing to vote for Trump before, almost nothing he does is likely to change that as what he does is irrelevant. The fact he is the republican candidate is the only relevant factor.

[sivispacem]

9 hours ago, Burbalade said:

You haven't decided on a figure you think he should pay, and you don't know how much he paid.

I don't think you really need to know either of these things to have legitimate concerns about the subject. Trump at his time of election was first major party nominee in forty years not to release his tax returns, despite having repeatedly stated his intention to do so. His subsequent justifications for not doing so- that they were under audit- doesn't hold water as this in no way legally prevents them from being published. Effectively he has refused to do what all his recent predecessors have done and offered no reasonable or rational justification for doing so.

 

I don't actually think the amount of tax he pays is that much of an issue; I mean it's pretty normal for people of his economic status to play the system in such a way that they have almost no tax obligations to speak of.

 

What I think is potentially much more damaging is if his recent tax returns continue the theme of his early ones and the more recently leaked partial 1995 ones in showing huge losses and potentially questionable practices such as equity-for-debt swaps. The notion of Trump being an incompetent businessman is a far bigger threat to his chances of reelection than him engaging in tax avoidance.

[Bartleby]

12 hours ago, Burbalade said:

You haven't decided on a figure you think he should pay, and you don't know how much he paid.

You're judging not only the man, but also anyone that votes for him based on a comparison you made between two figures that you don't know.

 

More importantly, you're comparing "not paying as much in taxes as some people think you should" to shooting a baby in the face. 

The false equivalencies from you guys are unreal. 

No worries, chief, I've got you covered.

 

The recent commuting of Stone's sentence is another thing that would/should have been a bombshell with any other President. But it won't be - I expect more gaslighting, projecting and whataboutting to justify (read: deflect away from) it.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Bartleby

[Burbalade]

16 hours ago, Secura said:

Bartleby's argument is a valid one

Not really.

 

16 hours ago, Secura said:

even if Trump were to have yet more bad or damaging information go public it likely won't matter to anyone still part of his voter base.

Bartleby's failure is grouping together anything he perceives as negative (like maybe not paying too much in taxes) with things that everyone sees as inherently evil. (like shooting babies in the face) The magnitude of the "damaging" aspect here is thrown away, mixing subjectively bad with objectively bad. 

Make no mistake this was done intentionally to paint not only Trump with the brush of inherent evil using things he hasn't done, but also anyone that votes for him even if said voter isn't necessarily a supporter. 

 

12 hours ago, sivispacem said:

I don't think you really need to know either of these things to have legitimate concerns about the subject.

It's perfectly fair to have concern over what those numbers might be. It is not fair to assume you know how they compare and paint all voters with one brush based on that assumption, much less compare your assumption to shooting babies in the face. That's purely baseless slander. 

 

12 hours ago, sivispacem said:

despite having repeatedly stated his intention to do so.

A fantastic point, stated objectively. While it does bother me, it doesn't move me any closer to seeing Hillary, Biden, or Bernie as acceptable alternatives. 

 

12 hours ago, sivispacem said:

I don't actually think the amount of tax he pays is that much of an issue; I mean it's pretty normal for people of his economic status to play the system in such a way that they have almost no tax obligations to speak of.

Agreed. I think democrats saw it likely that he paid a substantially smaller percentage of income into taxes than his bracket would suggest as fair and were hoping the returns could be used to damage his image. Though I would like to point out that exemptions and credits aren't forgotten about when designing the tax brackets, and taking advantage of them doesn't make you a bad person. Nearly everyone wants to keep more of the money they earned vs giving more to the government than they are required to. 

 

12 hours ago, sivispacem said:

What I think is potentially much more damaging is if his recent tax returns continue the theme of his early ones and the more recently leaked partial 1995 ones

Maybe a 25% effective rate is low in Europe but it's not here. While I think what the 2005 return shows is irrelevant to his potential performance as president, what a 1995 return might show I find exponentially more irrelevant. 

 

12 hours ago, sivispacem said:

The notion of Trump being an incompetent businessman is a far bigger threat to his chances of reelection than him engaging in tax avoidance.

Even to those that claim good businessmen make bad presidents? 

During the last election we saw claims that his business tactics would lead to war, yet we're now seeing a decrease in hostility with nations that were previously a concern. 

If in judging his performance as president you place more weight on his tax returns than deescalating hostilities with North Korea for example, then you've lost all credibility. 

 

10 hours ago, Bartleby said:

No worries, chief, I've got you covered.

Way to back up your stances with a well thought out response. It's been a pleasure debating you but I see you'd prefer to argue like a middle schooler. 

[Raavi]

1 hour ago, Burbalade said:

deescalating hostilities with North Korea for example

He didn't actually deescalate anything. North Korea remains a wildcard, and a dangerous one at that. Trump shaking hands for a photo op with Un and saluting a North Korean General didn't result in any kind of actual notable improvement. Not to mention that talks have since stalled and relations between North Korea and South Korea soured even further.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53060620

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/beautiful-letters-dark-nightmare-how-trump-s-north-korea-gamble-n1230866

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/north-korea-sees-point-maintaining-kim-trump-ties-200612002353551.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-anniversary-dmz-fileti/timeline-threats-and-stalemate-one-year-after-trump-last-met-north-koreas-kim-idUSKBN23X06A

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/07/07/north-korea-rejects-talks-as-us-envoy-arrives-in-seoul/

[Burbalade]

You're confusing "deescalate" and "permanently resolve"

 

I shouldn't need to explain this to someone that's overeducated. Maybe you're doing it intentionally? 

[Bartleby]

7 hours ago, Burbalade said:

Way to back up your stances with a well thought out response. It's been a pleasure debating you but I see you'd prefer to argue like a middle schooler. 

Putting words in people's mouths is a pretty middle-school debate tactic, but you do you. I'm actually giving you credit here by assuming you're too incompetent to read and understand the post, rather than presuming dishonesty.

 

Cute that you attempted a "debate" with such a massive whiff on the point of my post. I talked about apples, and here you are straw-manning my views on cauliflower.

[sivispacem]

11 hours ago, Burbalade said:

Even to those that claim good businessmen make bad presidents? 

Good businessmen making bad presidents doesn't mean that bad businessmen make good presidents. Personally I don't think there's any connection between one's ability to command a boardroom and one's ability to command a country, but then again I wasn't the one who made my apparent success as a businessman a front-and-centre characteristic in why you should vote for me.

 

11 hours ago, Burbalade said:

During the last election we saw claims that his business tactics would lead to war, yet we're now seeing a decrease in hostility with nations that were previously a concern. 

I would question the veracity of this statement. In fact, I would go as far as to say both overt and covert hostility from many competitor nations has dramatically increased as a direct result of the indecisive and confused nature of US foreign and strategic policy. 

 

 

 

Trump's ambivalence to NATO and characterisation of European partners as hostile, plus his apparent desire to start a trade war with the EU, have been hugely damaging to Western unity. One net outcome of this plus his (absence of) policy vis-a-vis Russia has been an enormous increase in tensions throughout the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and particularly the Caucuses. The SVR and GU have been more aggressive in their pursuit of Active Measures operations in the last four years than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union. We've reached a point where direct electoral interference, overt assassinations, propaganda operations and attacks on international institutions have become de rigueur and the US has done precisely nothing to counteract growing Russian expansionism focused at aspiring NATO member in the South Caucus and current ones in Eastern Europe in particular. Response to Russian territorial claims in the Arctic? Nonexistent. Response to aggressive espionage against international organisations and repeated penetration of the US and international energy and communication infrastructure? Lacklustre.

 

 

 

Then we have the hot mess of sabre-rattling and abject idiocy which comprises US-Iran relations. Withdrawal from the JCPOA is without a question or shadow of doubt the worst US foreign policy decision made since the Vietnam War, vastly surpassing the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in sheer ignorance. I have no doubt that it will have as long lasting and severe impact as Ajax or the Bay of Pigs in both damaging US reputation abroad and creating a thorn in the side of future US, regional and global administration's for decades to come.

 

I'm not sure what shaped Trump's policy on Iran- the chickenhawks in the Republican party, AIPAC or his obsession with denigrating any deal made by his predecessors in order to "enbiggen" his own abilities/ego. Probably some combination of all three. But the facts at the time of his withdrawal were thus:

 

> Iran had the most moderate president in recent history who had succeeded in, if not containing, then at least placating, hard-line voices within the IRGC and begining to return Iran to the international community.

> Iran was abiding by the conditions of the JCPOA and had opened facilities previously kept secret to inspection by the IAEA.

> Whilst still an influential and destabilising force regionally (notably in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen) Iranian activity outside their direct sphere of influence was confined to limited IRGC/SAVA espionage against sectors like defence and aviation.

 

Not content with simply withdrawing from a multilateral agreement with little to no factual justification and effectively reversing what progress had been made in normalising Iran's global relations, threatening European states looking to uphold the deal with sanctions and owners of Western businesses trading with the country long federal prison sentences, giving an enormous boost to hardliners and further empowering the IRGC, Trump then places atop this glistening turd the piss-soaked cherry of an egregious violation of international law by assassinating a senior IRGC commander. An act every bit as reprehensible as the Salisbury poisonings, which in comparative terms would be akin to Russia or China dropping a laser-guided bomb on General Mark A. Milley's diplomatic car in downtown DC. 

 

 

 

And  that's before we even approach the subject of China, where Trump is far more interested in having tit-for-tat trade wars than dealing with aggressive military expansionism and effective hegemonic domination of the nine-dash line, preventing a complete neutering of US regional influence in South-East Asia, addressing clear violations of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or ensuring and maintaining the rights of global commerce to operate safely in international waters.

 

 

 

I could continue- failure over Turkish aggression towards Kurdish democratically controlled Syria and Iraq which has led to a resurgence in IS activities in the region and multiple human rights abuses focused on US allies who bore the brunt of combat against IS in the first place, failure to address the growth of IS in Afghanistan, failure in the proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, inflaming or Israeli-Palestinian relations by rubber-stamping illegal occupation of Arab lands.

 

 

 

And then we have DPRK...

 

11 hours ago, Burbalade said:

deescalating hostilities with North Korea for example

The notion that Trump has managed to de-escalate hostilities with North Korea at all simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Whilst the public rapprochement made for some great photo ops, the reality is exactly nothing has changed. Relations between the South and North are at an even worse state right now than before he took office, with the two countries basically having cut all lines of communication. DPRK maintains its nuclear capability and had made further strides in enhancing its ability to deliver nuclear payloads globally. North Korean cyber espionage and cybercrime is more widespread, more aggressive and far more advanced in capability than ever before. I genuinely hand on heart wish there was reason to be optimistic but photo ops with the Kim dynasty don't stop the RGB from raiding global financial institutions or the KPASRF developing submarine launched ballistic missiles that makes them both a first strike and counterforce capable nuclear nation.

[Creed Bratton]

Where's that feller who said that cops in the US are not racists and there' no institutional racism in the US?

 

https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/seattle-police-department-says-theyll-fire-most-of-their-non-white-officers-if-the-city-cuts-police-budget/

 

Asking for a friend.

 

 

[Raavi]

9 hours ago, Burbalade said:

You're confusing "deescalate" and "permanently resolve"

How exactly did he deescalate anything?

[Svip]

You'd think the politics of a regime on the verge of collapse would be more entertaining.  Maybe the 1780s were similar in France, because no one had any idea what was about to hit them, and for our retelling, we only highlight the good parts.

[Smith John]

Probably the first "regime" I've ever heard of that allows its media to frequently and tediously lambast its leader.

[Eutyphro]

13 hours ago, Yokelsson said:

Where's that feller who said that cops in the US are not racists and there' no institutional racism in the US?

 

https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/seattle-police-department-says-theyll-fire-most-of-their-non-white-officers-if-the-city-cuts-police-budget/

 

Asking for a friend.

What kind of libtard first yells "defund and abolish the police because they are RACIST", and then starts crying when this disproportionately affects non white police employees, and then starts yelling "the police is racist for firing minorities boo hoo"? Probably the kind of moron who gets informed from Twitter is what I'm guessing. Asking for a friend though.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Eutyphro

[Smith John]

6 minutes ago, Eutyphro said:

What kind of libtard first yells "defund and abolish the police because they are RACIST", and then starts crying when this disproportionately affects non white police employees, and then starts yelling "the police is racist for firing minorities boo hoo"?

It really is a mind-pickle with this lot.

[Eutyphro]

I'm fundamentally far more liberal than conservative myself but some sh*t is just f*cking dumb really.

[Smith John]

What constitutes modern liberalism to you, Euty?  Genuinely interested mate. 

[make total destroy]

behold the two intellectual titans of our age as they engage in a philosophical battle against the army of the libtards

[Eutyphro]

19 minutes ago, Smith John said:

What constitutes modern liberalism to you, Euty?  Genuinely interested mate. 

Liberalism is about the protection of life, liberty, and property. Liberalism is about human rights. Liberalism is based on the fundamental dignity and autonomy of every human being. That's genuine liberalism, classical liberalism.

What I think you mean by "modern liberalism" is what the rest of the world calls progressivism, which is similar to "social liberalism". Social liberalism has turned into a regressive grievance politics. It's original intent to liberate people from oppression was right and good but it has strongly deteriorated. This grievance politics and the resulting insanity will lead people to think more deeply and will lead people to find out the left right divide is in itself moronic and schizophrenic. It will ultimately lead to better things I believe, but currently the political consciousness in the USA is bordering on insanity.
 

7 minutes ago, make total destroy said:

behold the two intellectual titans of our age as they engage in a philosophical battle against the army of the libtards

It's really missing those Max Stirner memes I guess though am I right?

[make total destroy]

2 minutes ago, Eutyphro said:

It's really missing those Max Stirner memes I guess though am I right?

yes

[Smith John]

14 minutes ago, make total destroy said:

behold the two intellectual titans of our age as they engage in a philosophical battle against the army of the libtards

Settle down Henry. Your day in the fun 'Kommie Kewl' sun is over.

 

Euty, I've literally set up camp, so I'll get back to you tomorrow.