US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6698

On January 30 2017 10:12 LegalLord wrote:
...
Turning a blind eye to the fact that Islam has spawned a lot of the morally reprehensible things we find in the Middle East is foolhardy at best.

On January 30 2017 10:12 LegalLord wrote:
By no means are Muslims bad people as a blanket statement regarding all of them. It is perfectly possible to coexist amongst many of them peacefully and successfully. But such a coexistence doesn't come from turning a blind eye to the many problematic things that Islam and its followers who claim it as their motivations came up with. The way that many have tried to normalize terrorism as if it's just something that happens or something we just have to get used to (in pursuit of a project we weren't on board with in the first place) is simply not ok. Turning a blind eye to the fact that Islam has spawned a lot of the morally reprehensible things we find in the Middle East is foolhardy at best.

On January 30 2017 10:58 ChristianS wrote:

If the goal is to effectively draw a distinction between some of the morally reprehensible products of Islam and its practitioners, a ban on all Muslims seems like just about the worst way to pursue that goal. The proxy Muslim ban we got isn't much better.

On January 30 2017 11:12 biology]major wrote:


Really the main benefit is just the conversation about islam and it's problems entering into mainstream dialogue. This would absolutely not be a topic of conversation had it not been for Trump's initial announcement of a muslim ban. No republican would have dared even approach this issue. It is because of Trump that people are openly able to go on live tv and defend these policies. It would be political suicide at any other time. We will just have to wait and see what type of vetting improvements are implemented after the 90 days.

I think the green card thing has been fixed.

On January 30 2017 11:12 biology]major wrote:


Really the main benefit is just the conversation about islam and it's problems entering into mainstream dialogue. This would absolutely not be a topic of conversation had it not been for Trump's initial announcement of a muslim ban. No republican would have dared even approach this issue. It is because of Trump that people are openly able to go on live tv and defend these policies. It would be political suicide at any other time. We will just have to wait and see what type of vetting improvements are implemented after the 90 days.

I think the green card thing has been fixed.

On January 30 2017 09:53 GreenHorizons wrote:


He's already talked about that, but nothing on the pretty regularly occurring mass murders committed by young white men.

On January 30 2017 11:12 biology]major wrote:


Really the main benefit is just the conversation about islam and it's problems entering into mainstream dialogue. This would absolutely not be a topic of conversation had it not been for Trump's initial announcement of a muslim ban. No republican would have dared even approach this issue. It is because of Trump that people are openly able to go on live tv and defend these policies. It would be political suicide at any other time. We will just have to wait and see what type of vetting improvements are implemented after the 90 days.

I think the green card thing has been fixed.

On January 30 2017 11:28 zlefin wrote:

I'm not seeing any actual productive discussion, just one side's idiots yelling stupid things, then the other side's idiots yelling stupid thing back at them.
and some people upset at the general nonsense, and trying to correct the idiots from both sides, with facts they'd already known and discussed ages ago.

and you're still making the utterly unfounded assertion that anything was even wrong with the old vetting system, or that the new system would in any way be an improvemetn (which you can't do without even understanding what the old system is, you can't say it's better if you have nothing ot compare to)

and ofc the nation being made to look bad because of a poorly thought out plan.
there's FAR better ways to have had a major public conversation on the topic than this.

On January 30 2017 12:22 On_Slaught wrote:
At least 4 dead at a Mosque\Islamic center attack in Quebec. There was also the Mosque burned down in the US hours after the immigration ban was signed.

Starting tom I'm going completely media\tv silent until Saturday, so i wont be following breaking news. Hopefully things don't get more violent between now and then.

On January 30 2017 11:12 biology]major wrote:


Really the main benefit is just the conversation about islam and it's problems entering into mainstream dialogue. This would absolutely not be a topic of conversation had it not been for Trump's initial announcement of a muslim ban. No republican would have dared even approach this issue. It is because of Trump that people are openly able to go on live tv and defend these policies. It would be political suicide at any other time. We will just have to wait and see what type of vetting improvements are implemented after the 90 days.

I think the green card thing has been fixed.

On January 28 2017 05:01 xDaunt wrote:

Here's the point that so many of you miss: every country has the right to pursue its own best interests. America is no different than anyone else in this regard. The US is neither a charity nor a global buffet line. Mexico has unequivocally abused our good will. A debt is owed, and the US has the ability to make them pay for it. Any rational actor pursuing his best interests would do what Trump is doing. Your useless moralizing has no place here.

On January 28 2017 05:33 xDaunt wrote:

Trump is absolutely right that we should have taken their oil if we were going to bother to invade in the first place.

On January 30 2017 08:41 xDaunt wrote:
Y'all need to read some Huntington. He has done a pretty good job predicting the course of the 21st Century so far.

On January 30 2017 12:48 kwizach wrote:

I'll start by quickly pointing out that your argument that "any rational actor" would "do what Trump is doing" is utter nonsense. Your idea of what a rational actor would do is based on a complete ignorance of diplomatic practices and negotiations, of the functioning of trade relations, of what a balance of trade is, of the contents of the NAFTA, of the internal political workings of Mexico, etc. Mexico owes no "debt" to the US and has not abused the US' "good will". It's not that the US should not pursue its best interests, it's that it already does and that the course of action promoted by Trump is not in the slightest in the US' best interest, due to the economic, diplomatic and political fallout that would result from it (in addition to the fact that the stated objective is unreachable). It's a reckless and ill-advised course of action based on a profoundly nonsensical campaign promise that was itself based on a lack of understanding of the issue of Mexican immigration to the US. Let's focus our attention, however, on this other gem:

This sentence denotes both an ignorance of the historical record and a staggering lack of understanding of what the consequences of "taking their oil" would have been. First, many in the Bush administration did hope to fully privatize the Iraqi oil sector after the invasion, yet it quickly became apparent that there were major obstacles, in particular strong Iraqi opposition to the plans, that would have made fully implementing these ideas incredibly difficult, costly and counterproductive with regards to US objectives in the country and region.

Second, the idea that the U.S. should simply have taken over the oil fields territory and "taken their oil" is rubbish on every level. It would have been indisputably illegal, as a clear breach of the Geneva Conventions' provisions on the use of local natural resources during an occupation. It would have led the US allies which supported the invasion to turn their backs to the US, therefore isolating it on the international scene and in the region. It would have substantially weakened the Bush administration domestically, with a strong revival of the "no blood for oil" movement. It would have forfeited any possibility of working with new emerging Iraqi authorities, therefore turning the entire country against the US and strongly bolstering insurgent movements from the start. This would have forced the US to deploy considerably more troops in the country, and cost many more human (including American) lives. The logistics of transporting the oil in such an environment would have been a nightmare as well. In short, it would have destroyed the U.S.' reputation and alliances, dealt a significant blow to the international order the US has contributed to building and which ultimately serves it incredibly well, cost a very substantial amount of human lives, military resources and money, prevented most of the stated objectives of the Iraqi intervention from being met, etc. -- the costs would have by far exceeded any gains from the oil production. This is why the overwhelming majority of experts working on the politics and energy issues of the region agree that it would have been a major mistake then, and even more so now, to "take their oil": see here, here, here, here, here, and here (for example).

Honestly, it blows my mind that nonsensical ideas like that are even being discussed seriously. And as usual, just like when you were wrong on the effectiveness of the large-scale killing of civilians to pacify a region and on the conclusion one should reach from the historical record of torture, you argue that you're the one with a clear view of what's in the national interest of the US because of your casting aside of moral considerations. Yet once again, you fail to understand both how the moral and legal aspects of those issues do in part have to be taken into account even from a purely selfish, costs-benefits, point-of-view (notably because of the benefits the US reaps from the existence and continuation of the current global order it contributed to building to a significant extent), as well as how even if moral and legal considerations didn't matter, you still would not be right, because your fundamental ignorance of the reality of those issues leads you to completely miss the mark in your analysis. The same is true of Trump -- and since you both go way beyond any reasonable skepticism in outright dismissing pretty much every expert analysis that doesn't agree with your preexisting views, your simplistic, distorted and uninformed understanding of international security issues doesn't evolve in the face of contradictory evidence and arguments.

No, Trump is not "absolutely right that we should have taken their oil". Trump doesn't know what he's talking about, and he's utterly uninformed and wrong on the issue.


I've read Huntington, and no, he hasn't.

On January 30 2017 11:12 biology]major wrote:


Really the main benefit is just the conversation about islam and it's problems entering into mainstream dialogue. This would absolutely not be a topic of conversation had it not been for Trump's initial announcement of a muslim ban. No republican would have dared even approach this issue. It is because of Trump that people are openly able to go on live tv and defend these policies. It would be political suicide at any other time. We will just have to wait and see what type of vetting improvements are implemented after the 90 days.

I think the green card thing has been fixed.

On January 29 2017 22:27 TheTenthDoc wrote:


Even the Bush admin included Saudi Arabia in their Middle Eastern immigrant registration program and Bush was golfing buddies with the House of Saud.



The act which allows them to reassess countries annually so that Trump could have added additional countries to the list? And doesn't restrict dual citizens or multiple other aspects of Trump's act? Sorry, throwing hissy fits over drastically altering an Obama decision doesn't make this any less pants on head retarded.