US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5144

On September 26 2016 03:20 zlefin wrote:

i'd say it's more a method of selecting a leader who will do the best job.

On September 26 2016 03:20 zlefin wrote:

i'd say it's more a method of selecting a leader who will do the best job.

On September 26 2016 03:21 RealityIsKing wrote:


Decided by people.

On September 26 2016 03:25 zlefin wrote:

yes; but the goal is to pick who'll do the best job; not just to make a majority happy. also the goal is to try to make everybody happy/content/better off.
happy from listening to their words is rather less important than happy because their policies are effective at achieving desirable goals.

also, mine is a better defitinion of an election

On September 26 2016 03:25 LegalLord wrote:

The comparison was made. The analogy was well-liked by a lot of the anti-Trump crowd, including those in this thread. It's not just being partisan, it's the narrative that was actively pushed by a lot of people. Incidentally a lot of those people, in fact the vast majority, come from the left; acknowledging that isn't partisan.

The entire idea of Trump, about NATO being obsolete and that the US should be more protectionist, touched as many nerves as his more aggressive plans for scaling down the alliance. Not so much with the population, which is largely sympathetic to that viewpoint, but with those in power who stand to gain from the further existence of NATO in its current, aggressive and interventionist, form.

On September 26 2016 03:27 RealityIsKing wrote:


The ballot doesn't ask you why you ask a certain candidate.

You just cast your vote to whoever that can make you happy.

On September 26 2016 03:28 zlefin wrote:


i agree the comparison was made; but quite a few noted the inaptness of it; and most agreed it's nowhere near hitler level. they weren't pushing a narrative of it being the second coming of hitler; they were making comparisons to some troublesome aspects.


The problem with NATO is that Trump, instead of saying something reasonable on the topic; pushed for oath-breaking.
also, nato isn't that aggressive or interventionist.

On September 26 2016 00:33 Gorsameth wrote:

The solution has been given repeatedly.
Train your cops properly so they know how to deal with a dangerous situation without shooting first.
The vast majority of these high profile shootings could have been prevented with proper training.

Heck how long ago was it, 1-2 weeks?, where we had a cop getting fired for not killing a man who was a danger to no one but himself.

The rest of the Western world manages to properly train their police force. Even if you take into account the increased gun violence in the US.
Train your officers and stop accepting 'shoot first, never ask questions' as an acceptable stance.

On September 26 2016 03:27 RealityIsKing wrote:


The ballot doesn't ask you why you ask a certain candidate.

You just cast your vote to whoever that can make you happy.

Big players in the alcohol business are pushing back on a major marijuana legalization initiative.

Massachusetts is one of five states with a ballot initiative this year that could legalize recreational use of marijuana, and the alcohol industry is leading the charge to stop the initiative. In Massachusetts, a political action committee that represents 16 of the state's beer distributors is among the top three donors to an anti-legalization group, The Intercept's Lee Fang discovered.

Boston Beer Company (the folks behind Sam Adams) are also worried about the potential for Massachusetts cannabis legalization, Fang pointed out. "Certain states are considering or have passed laws and regulations that allow the sale and distribution of marijuana. It is possible that legal marijuana usage could adversely impact the demand for the Company’s products," the company noted in an SEC filing back in February.

There's a crucial difference between the former group and the latter — beer distributors are the middle-men of the beer world, acting as the go-between for brewers and retail. Both distributors and brewers (in the case of Boston Beer) are worried about a negative sales impact, though it's surprising to see the distribution side of the beer industry negative react.

In other states considering legalization this November, such as California, beer and alcohol distributors are part of the conversation about marijuana legalization.

So the logic goes: After legalization, state government will regulate the marijuana industry similarly to the beer and alcohol industry, with distributors acting as middle-men between brewers/wholesalers and customers. After all, they've already got the trucks, routes, employees, and established systems.

Even more bizarrely, in Colorado, beer and alcohol sales are up alongside marijuana legalization. "Tax records show that alcohol sales have continued to grow in Colorado despite the rapid rise of recreational marijuana," The Guardian wrote in August 2015, roughly one-and-a-half years after it became legal in Colorado. "Even as tax revenues from marijuana nearly tripled between June 2014 through May 2015, alcohol sales continued to steadily increase as well, with alcohol excise taxes rising 2.1%, the same increase as the year prior."

Though the worries from alcohol and beer groups in Massachusetts are inspiring financial pushback, it's not clear that the fears driving that pushback are based in logic.

On September 26 2016 04:12 Plansix wrote:

The appeal the majority fallacy is not a compelling argument.

On September 26 2016 03:55 FiWiFaKi wrote:


Yeah, I agree here. I know on the surface Trump seems crazy with how he says things...

But I really do wonder how another candidate could pull the stuff he's pulling out, and getting people to fight for these issues.

To me it just seems tough to run a campaign that is against free immigration and free market economies with a "stronger together, coexistence, leave nobody behind" type of message. Either way, what I see as absolutely true is that Trump has done such an amazing job uniting all his supporters behind him.

On the other hand, Hillary has some seems to have many different kinds in high quantities, from Bernie bros, SJW type, anti-Trump, fiscal conservatives, and many different minority communities that have completely different interests.

Meanwhile to me Trump has two groups - people like me, and most of us here that support him on TL, and then the very traditional and religious population. Of course he has some trouble groups, like racists and whatnot, but Hillary has her fair share as well.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Sunday told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if elected, the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the campaign said, marking a potential dramatic shift in U.S. policy on the issue.

[...]

During the closed-door meeting, the campaign said that Trump agreed with Netanyahu that peace in the Middle East could only be achieved when "the Palestinians renounce hatred and violence and accept Israel as a Jewish State."

According to a readout of the meeting from the campaign, the two discussed "at length" Israel's border fence, cited by Trump in reference to his own controversial immigration policies, which include building a wall on the U.S.- Mexico border and temporarily banning Muslims from entering the country.

On September 26 2016 04:38 FiWiFaKi wrote:


We support the same position, but I do want to say where I disagree with you.

Like you said, almost every candidate that wins is a change candidate. Obama was running on the hope/change campaign, the Liberals in Canada were doing the same, Brexit in UK, etc.

Reality is that change is not by definition good. With Hillary in my eyes we will stay the same, or go one or two units back. With Trump we might go five or ten units back according to some, but many of us also see the benefit it could bring. So it really depends on how you see his change, because just by looking at this thread, we see most Hillary supporters don't like Hillary (though to an extent you could say the same for Trump supporters)... They just think the change from Trump will bring a lot more negative than positive, and they're free to reach their own conclusions.

On September 26 2016 03:55 FiWiFaKi wrote:


Yeah, I agree here. I know on the surface Trump seems crazy with how he says things...

But I really do wonder how another candidate could pull the stuff he's pulling out, and getting people to fight for these issues.

To me it just seems tough to run a campaign that is against free immigration and free market economies with a "stronger together, coexistence, leave nobody behind" type of message. Either way, what I see as absolutely true is that Trump has done such an amazing job uniting all his supporters behind him.

On the other hand, Hillary has some seems to have many different kinds in high quantities, from Bernie bros, SJW type, anti-Trump, fiscal conservatives, and many different minority communities that have completely different interests.

Meanwhile to me Trump has two groups - people like me, and most of us here that support him on TL, and then the very traditional and religious population. Of course he has some trouble groups, like racists and whatnot, but Hillary has her fair share as well.