US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2406

On October 15 2015 01:48 IgnE wrote:


And life is great. Just play video games, masturbate, and work.

On October 15 2015 02:06 Mohdoo wrote:
With regards to the debate,

I think Biden is officially out. Last night's debate was Sanders hoping that Clinton would do poorly enough that he or Biden could take over. Clinton did great. She was energetic, got a lot of great points in and overall conveyed a ton of confidence and capability. She has such a solid image of being the "stable, strong, reasonable" candidate that it was gonna take a lot for her to lose to the more wild Sanders. Biden has no opening at this point. He's officially out IMO.

I also can't list a single person who I have talked to who supports the idea of free college. Clinton comes closest to being reasonable by saying with 10 hours per week of work. I think free college is a really silly thing to prop up. Democrats need to jump off that boat real quick. Shut the fuck up about it, Sanders.

On October 15 2015 01:12 KwarK wrote:

I earn less than the median wage, I've only been in America for 18 months and I struggled with immigration issues for over half of that, I didn't inherit a house and I have separate finances to my wife. I'll openly acknowledge my privilege, I'm white, male, intelligent and I look the part, when I interview for a job I look pretty much like the guy they planned to hire. Not everyone has that but other people have advantages, like not having to fight for the right to work, that I didn't have.

Ultimately though the system is not set up to give you a free ride if you weren't born to one. While it's unfair that the American system has effectively created an aristocracy that doesn't mean you have to accept a position at the bottom. The system isn't perfect, in many ways it's very dysfunctional, but life isn't going to wait for you while you fix it. You have to do what you can to work the system as it is while you try and improve it and for the vast majority of people struggling in America today there is more that you can do.

Hell, my wife and I knew an online nerd through video games who had been homeless (squatting with one friend or another until they kicked him out) and unemployed for the better part of a decade. He also had pretty crippling health issues. We fronted the money to get him to our state and help him restart his life and it turned out that 95% of his problems were self inflicted due to learned helplessness. Problems like being unable to get government aid due to no state ID, no state ID due to no fixed address and so forth, unable to get VA medical care due to lost DD214 and unable to get new one due to no valid ID, no bank account all could be fixed. It took a day or so of me calling around the various organizations that were involved, speaking to higher ups and finding out exactly what documents they needed and I successfully hacked the system. We used the expired documents we had to get the first document, the first to get the second, the first and second to get the third and so forth. He's now working and paying for himself and while it's unlikely I'll ever get the money that I fronted him back, and to be honest I resent the hell out of that because he could change that if he really tried, I was able to turn around a decade of learned helplessness, homelessness, unemployment and government aid in about 2 weeks.

The system is fucked. But this isn't a new system. You know the system is fucked. Everyone knows the system is fucked. The question is what are you going to do to work within the fucked system.

On October 15 2015 01:59 frazzle wrote:

I was just scrolling through here to see if anyone was commenting on Huckabee's debate tweets, and came across this and just felt I need to mention this. While the US has drawn down dramatically from Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems a poor choice of words to cite an American "withdrawal". The US still maintains a very significant military presence in the area that allows it to mess with players in the region to great effect, and that won't change anytime soon. See here: en.wikipedia.org, not to mention that this includes the might of the 5th fleet.

On October 15 2015 02:28 xDaunt wrote:

What would you call it then? The US effectively left Iraq and has refused to assert any leadership in Syria. Hell, the US is barely working with Iraqis to kick ISIS out of Iraq, which is resulting in Iraq being pushed into the arms of Russia and Iran. There simply is no denying that the US has created a huge power vacuum in the Middle East. If that's not "withdrawal," then I don't know what is.

On October 14 2015 23:52 Plansix wrote:

This was the same assessment Obama got when he ran against Hilary the first time and he did fine. But a lot of people thought he stood no chance if he didn’t start attacking her. There is this theory that if they are not assaulting the propertied leader that the second place runner is not gaining any ground.

On October 15 2015 02:06 Mohdoo wrote:
With regards to the debate,

I think Biden is officially out. Last night's debate was Sanders hoping that Clinton would do poorly enough that he or Biden could take over. Clinton did great. She was energetic, got a lot of great points in and overall conveyed a ton of confidence and capability. She has such a solid image of being the "stable, strong, reasonable" candidate that it was gonna take a lot for her to lose to the more wild Sanders. Biden has no opening at this point. He's officially out IMO.

I also can't list a single person who I have talked to who supports the idea of free college. Clinton comes closest to being reasonable by saying with 10 hours per week of work. I think free college is a really silly thing to prop up. Democrats need to jump off that boat real quick. Shut the fuck up about it, Sanders.

On October 15 2015 02:28 xDaunt wrote:

What would you call it then? The US effectively left Iraq and has refused to assert any leadership in Syria. Hell, the US is barely working with Iraqis to kick ISIS out of Iraq, which is resulting in Iraq being pushed into the arms of Russia and Iran. There simply is no denying that the US has created a huge power vacuum in the Middle East. If that's not "withdrawal," then I don't know what is.

On October 15 2015 01:57 KwarK wrote:
It's pretty great when you're married, two incomes no kids in a low cost of living area. It lowers the already low cost of living, makes cooking your own meals better and you get an awesome roommate. Would recommend.

On October 15 2015 02:39 WhiteDog wrote:
My problem is who believe in Hillary ? I have a hard time understanding this. Those kind of politicians, like Hillary, who have years and years of experience, are usually so mainstream they lose all support (at least in my country). Yet Hillary, after losing the primaries already in 2008 I believe, is still running and still having support and some kind of dynamic.
Is it because of Bill, who is still recognized as a good president, or is it due to her own personality ?

On October 15 2015 02:52 oneofthem wrote:

move to new york

On October 15 2015 02:39 WhiteDog wrote:
My problem is who believe in Hillary ? I have a hard time understanding this. Those kind of politicians, like Hillary, who have years and years of experience, are usually so mainstream they lose all support (at least in my country). Yet Hillary, after losing the primaries already in 2008 I believe, is still running and still having support and some kind of dynamic.
Is it because of Bill, who is still recognized as a good president, or is it due to her own personality ?

On October 15 2015 02:06 Mohdoo wrote:
With regards to the debate,

I think Biden is officially out. Last night's debate was Sanders hoping that Clinton would do poorly enough that he or Biden could take over. Clinton did great. She was energetic, got a lot of great points in and overall conveyed a ton of confidence and capability. She has such a solid image of being the "stable, strong, reasonable" candidate that it was gonna take a lot for her to lose to the more wild Sanders. Biden has no opening at this point. He's officially out IMO.

I also can't list a single person who I have talked to who supports the idea of free college. Clinton comes closest to being reasonable by saying with 10 hours per week of work. I think free college is a really silly thing to prop up. Democrats need to jump off that boat real quick. Shut the fuck up about it, Sanders.

On October 15 2015 02:28 ShoCkeyy wrote:


Kwark, this is one of your posts that I really respect and want to throw in my two cents on how this system is fucked, but exactly what are you going to do about it?

I've been on TL for a VERY long time and most of the mods here or posters know who I am and what I used to post around here. Obviously I was young and just posted a bunch of shit - but there were very troubling issues behind it. From birth to around age 11, I grew up in a six figure family, but the money brought a lot of issues in the house. My mom first took abuse from my father until I was able to realize at the age 11 we needed to leave and went from being six figure to $30k a year with my mother making the most of it. I grew up poor afterwards and didn't really care much for school (I worked under the table to help support the house), but I still had the joy of learning and experiencing new things which brought me to web development at an early age. I didn't go to college because my mother passed away after high school (I was homeless for quite a while with no real family around).

I met a friend through SC a year prior to this, but he did not know the issues I was going through until I told him (needed to just vent) but he offered me a place to stay for free when he found out I was actually near him. This changed my life around completely, a random person from the internet offering me help? It might have been sketchy, but obviously I made sure I was safe prior to meeting and moving in. During this whole time, I did have a job (25hrs a week + side money from shitty graphic design jobs), but the money wasn't good enough to put me up into even a shared room. Rent is extremely expensive where I live, but this person turned it around for me. He gave me a place, where I was able to sleep and was able to shower daily.

Because of this person, it opened my eyes on how I can better myself and really improve. I stayed with him only a month because that one month gave me enough time to get my shit together. I started pushing my old web development skills back up to be my trade. I now run two business and just joined a great company in order to grow their development department.

What I've learned from people that are poor and or are always having some kind of issue, is the fact that they don't want to leave that lifestyle. Only you yourself can push yourself to be better and maybe with just a tap of a friend. I have so many friends from high school who always did better than me and now they're the ones with the dead end jobs because they choose that lifestyle. The system is fucked, but in reality you just need to learn on how you can fuck the system and become the person you want to be.


EDIT: I actually came to talk about the democratic debate, who enjoyed it? Lol.

On October 15 2015 03:15 GreenHorizons wrote:

Clinton supporters are tired of having to defend "scandal" after "scandal", so knowing Sanders isn't that type, but has all the good views Hillary purports to have without the baggage, he will become a more and more attractive option for them.

On October 15 2015 03:20 Danglars wrote:


The costs of college have skyrocketed, that's part of the new "bubble" of student debt. All this at a time when a host of majors can't deliver on employability (blame the economy, the deficit of jobs for the liberal arts, or computer/robot automation). I'm expecting more to buy into taxpayer-funded college simply as a remedy to the out of control costs. Demonize the rich and corporations in rhetoric, stick the price tags on them. Maybe, because of the reticent like Mohdoo, they'll start with programs of assisted payment or student debt forgiveness. I think the Democrat base will eventually support the idea. I don't see them inventing other means of controlling the cost.

On October 15 2015 03:05 KwarK wrote:

New York is a choice. If life sucks in New York then the answer isn't that life must inevitably suck, it's that you should leave New York. Come to Albuquerque, I'll buy you a drink.