EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2861
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
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GoTuNk!
Chile4591 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:32 Chewbacca. wrote: Doesn't really seem weird that media produced in predominately western nations will focus on the western front or try to make it more important. Especially with the tension that existed between the west/east after WWII. Edit: NVM, too much derail. | ||
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On_Slaught
United States12190 Posts
Not sure how Cruz will do after this. Was shocked when he was completely at a loss for words on the torture question. Never thought the master debater would be unprepared for a question. | ||
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m4ini
4215 Posts
edit: hmph, okay. Not sure how Cruz will do after this. Was shocked when he was completely at a loss for words on the torture question. Never thought the master debater would be unprepared for a question. One that is rather easy to answer, at that. It's called white torture. And, is, in fact, torture. | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:41 xDaunt wrote: Pretty simple what happened tonight. Trump wins by default. Rubio lost hard. I doubt Jeb, Kasich, or Christie did enough to move the needle in their direction. I think Marco might fall out of second to third or maybe fourth | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:38 m4ini wrote: 5600 in germany alone (and that's not including other right-wing-extremists, just people that are registered as neo-nazi). You know, the country that is widely considered as the nowadays least nazi-friendly country. On the other hand, you didn't see "many" Nazis - how many terrorists have you seen then? Do they even exist? Because i bet you have never seen a single one. http://www.netz-gegen-nazis.de/artikel/verfassungsschutzbericht-2014-zahlen-daten-fakten-10459 And that's from the "Verfassungsschutz", Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And that's NOT including the ones that are not "registered". 5600 is basically the equivalent to the ELF or other radical environmentalists. That is the definition of success against an ideology. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23220 Posts
Kasich is the big winner. Rubio the big loser. Trump Carson and Bush flat. Christie gets a small bump. Cruz drops slightly. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:46 ticklishmusic wrote: I think Marco might fall out of second to third or maybe fourth Yeah, Christie did a number on him tonight. And Christie is right. Marco's shit is a little too canned. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23220 Posts
If Kasich finishes second that could turn the whole race to a clusterf. Christie did Kasich's dirty work for him imo maybe Christie ends up getting credit but I think Kasich benefits more. | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
Christie will likely drop out if he does bad, seems like he's favoring Kasich a bit too. Jeb will hang on out of pride I think if he breaks 10%. | ||
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m4ini
4215 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:47 cLutZ wrote: 5600 is basically the equivalent to the ELF or other radical environmentalists. That is the definition of success against an ideology. If you're okay with 5600 potential suicide bombers in a state the size of germany - sure. I certainly am not. Also, the actual number of right-wing extremists (the number we're actually would need to look at), we land at 21.000 in germany. PS: the US had a mass shooting by neo-nazis not even a year ago. Selective perception is interesting, isn't it. Anders Breivik? Remember him and what he idolized? Yeah. Face it. You made germany non-nazi, yes. Did right-wing-extremism (equivalent to islamic fundamentalism/extremism) die out? You tell me. Stormfront? 250k users, majority american? That's 300k in two countries. In fact, even the US had nazi-parties after WW2. How can you argue that it died out? | ||
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Djzapz
Canada10681 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:53 m4ini wrote: If you're okay with 5600 potential suicide bombers in a state the size of germany - sure. I checked and there's like 81 million potential suicide bombers in Germany. Be afraid. | ||
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oBlade
United States5582 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:38 m4ini wrote: 5600 in germany alone. You know, the country that is widely considered as the nowadays least nazi-friendly country. Earlier you were suggesting that there are more neo-Nazis than radical Muslims... but you (I don't mean a general "you," but rather you personally have applied this double standard) have much more stringent criteria before you consider someone a radical Muslim, which is that they have to be killing people, whereas to be a neo-Nazi you just have to be registered. ISIS alone is considered to have a strength of about 200k fighters if the top of my head is to be considered reliable. That seems to dwarf your stat of neo-Nazis, which, while it's unfortunate there are people who identify with those beliefs, it's a rather small number, not enough to justify thought crime, and those people aren't organized on that scale in systemic rape, torture, and murder, nor are they carving out a country out of other sovereign countries. On the other hand, you didn't see "many" Nazis - how many terrorists have you seen then? Do they even exist? Because i bet you have never seen a single one. Okay, then do Nazis exist...? What was your point in trying to exploit this colloquialism? They're both bad ideologies. But they are not just concepts. If you survey current events, we can conclude that one of them is a far higher priority problem in the world right now. I would like to suggest that you might personally be under the influence of a kind of national guilt which has compromised your objectivity on this. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11505 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:47 cLutZ wrote: 5600 is basically the equivalent to the ELF or other radical environmentalists. That is the definition of success against an ideology. However, i don't think it is reasonable to attribute that success only to "carpet bombing". Nazism was basically eradicated in Germany due to multiple factors (Not necessarily an exclusive list): -The fact that nazism had lead Germany into a war that it utterly lost (And there was no uncertainty here, as opposed to after WW1). The bombing campaign has a minor influence in here, as it made sure that the German population saw the war and was involved in it, once again different from WW1 where there was basically never war on German soil, so it was all very removed for civilians, and open to interpretation. -The confrontations with the actual horrors of the concentration camps, which the occupying forces were very good at making sure that they were made public throughout Germany in a way that could not be dismissed. -Generally pretty good aftercare by the occupying forces, especially the western ones. This was obviously not completely altruistic, there was an interest in having Germany as a strong ally in the cold war, but it was very effective at showing the German population the advantages of a free society through a massive influx of wealth. -An open way of dealing with the major war criminals, without criminalising the whole German population, thus leaving them a way out to distance themselves from things like the concentration camps by distancing themselves from nazism instead of pushing all of the Germans together against "the occupiers" which a more harsh treatment of the population would have lead to. Now, this is quite obviously not a very good way to deal with ISIS. You simply don't have an even remotely similar situation, thus the same strategy is bound to fail. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23220 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:53 ticklishmusic wrote: I think Kasich might come in second tbh. He's tied with Cruz in third, and Marco (2nd) and Cruz are both probably gonna drop a bit. Christie might pick up a bit of support but I think the beneficiaries of his attacks might be Kasich and Jeb!. Christie will likely drop out if he does bad, seems like he's favoring Kasich a bit too. Jeb will hang on out of pride I think if he breaks 10%. Christie stays with 10% for sure. Don't think he gets there but if he does that's bad for the establishment lane because Kasich is probably going to get second with a shot at getting close to Trump. But Kasich won't be competitive in SC even if he won in NH. So if Cruz does very poorly in NH it's possible he bleeds lots of support toward Trump further putting out of reach a viable alternative to Trump. Think we have Trump, Bush, Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz hanging on into super Tuesday which means everyone is forked. They consolidate their delegates if they want, but they will piss off at least a 1/3 of the party and guarantee a loss in November. If it's all leverage for Trump to make a deal at the convention, he'll play the RNC like a fiddle and blame them for the inevitable failure while still forcing them to honor their side of the deal for him giving some bullshit endorsement. | ||
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m4ini
4215 Posts
On February 07 2016 12:55 oBlade wrote: Earlier you were suggesting that there are more neo-Nazis than radical Muslims... but you (I don't mean a general "you," but rather you personally have applied this double standard) have much more stringent criteria before you consider someone a radical Muslim, which is that they have to be killing people, whereas to be a neo-Nazi you just have to be registered. ISIS alone is considered to have a strength of about 200k fighters if the top of my head is to be considered reliable. That seems to dwarf your stat of neo-Nazis, which, while it's unfortunate there are people who identify with those beliefs, it's a rather small number, not enough to justify thought crime, and those people aren't organized on that scale in systemic rape, torture, and murder, nor are they carving out a country out of other sovereign countries. Okay, then do Nazis exist...? What was your point in trying to exploit this colloquialism? They're both bad ideologies. But they are not just concepts. If you survey current events, we can conclude that one of them is a far higher priority problem in the world right now. I would like to suggest that you might personally be under the influence of a kind of national guilt which has compromised your objectivity on this. No, you're not able to read. Obviously nazism is bad. But they certainly are "concepts". Ideologies. There is no 3rd reich anymore, so where do those people come from? Who's recruiting them? What do they resonate with and flock to? I don't feel any guilt for the 3rd reich btw. Maybe you would like me to, but no, not at all. Why would i? Neither my parents nor myself did anything to make me feel bad about it. I certainly acknowledge what nazi-germany did, but as a saying goes, the son of a murderer is not a murderer. PS: 200k ISIS fighters is pretty much considerably less than right-wing extremists in the US. I just said a couple of times now, just because they're less violent (most of them anyway, queue Breivik), doesn't mean they don't exist in big numbers. They do. It's just that nobody gives a shit about them (in fact, they're not prohibited in any country but germany), because usually they don't bomb "us". Explain to me. We can't stop growing neo-nazis (and yes, the numbers grow, even in germany - constantly, and they're potentially dangerous too), how do you expect to stop growing terrorists with the same method? I checked and there's like 81 million potential suicide bombers in Germany. Be afraid. Yeah, that kinda missed the point, considering how likely it is for a islamic extremist to go poof compared to a normal person. | ||
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cLutZ
United States19574 Posts
The problem is, you are conflating definitions. By some estimates there are over 500 Million Muslims who believe in the implementation of Sharia law and that the 9/11 attacks were justified. Your definition of Neo-Nazi, necessarily validates that statistic. | ||
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m4ini
4215 Posts
And no, obviously not - at least not in the exaggerated form you present. They certainly do kill people, and not just a few. That's not even the point though - my point is, you have an ideology (which the ISIS or what it stands for clearly is, there's no argument even under experts - just arguments about the relevance to it). You try to eradicate that ideology. Did you eradicate nazism? The question is not, what a nazi can do or how much better or worse he is. The question is, does "surgically carpet bombing ISIS territory" improve the situation in western countries, in regards to things like bataclan or san bernadino? I say you need some extensive mental gymnastics to come to that conclusion. Especially considering, as i said, that bataclan and san bernadino weren't even inherently planned, funded, executed or anything by the "country" you want to bomb. The problem is not the 200k ISIS members in the caliphate. They're mostly hated down there. It's what they stand for, and what they propagate - and about the people that look at what they're preaching, and somehow "see the light" - and go ham. You have to fight what ISIS stands for, not ISIS itself. If you can't do that, in fact, if you can't assure that, don't try it. Because in the end, if you fail, the only thing you did was legitimizing the stupid shit ISIS preachers (or salafists etc) puke into the world. And that certainly won't get rid of self-radicalized cells. Which are the actual problem, because you can't trace them. edit: and then there's the slight problem of the two things still actually not being comparable, considering one of them is "un-erasable" in the first place. You can bomb ISIS controlled cities - what about al nusra, which split of al quaeda? Bomb them too? What we gonna bomb next? Or who? Do we go up the chain, targeted assassination on salafistic preachers, you know, one of the things that spawn extremists? It just doesn't work. What would work though, is someone who isn't inherently an enemy to those people (pretty much all of us westerners), taking the lead. Someone who isn't controlled by the US, not a puppet. Now i know that this won't work, obviously - but that's the only way i'd see it work. edit2: Simple question for you two. Imagine we bombed ISIS to hell in their caliphate last year. Do you think that would've prevented san bernadino and the bataclan-attack? I'm actually curious. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States44276 Posts
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/6/10929066/republican-debate-ben-carson-backstage I can only imagine... Ben Carson was probably sleepwalking through the hallway, heard his name, woke up, and just stopped and looked around for five minutes. Not wanting to be outdone, Trump then decided to try to win at standing around aimlessly. Unfortunately, he only got second place. | ||
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