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On February 27 2017 11:11 TheYango wrote:
There are enough people with vested interest in Trump's fuckups that I find it hard to believe that information would stay buried for long if it exists, even if Congressional Republicans are too craven to pursue it.
That you have that attitude towards investigating Trump's ties with Russia suggests that this topic still needs to be discussed. I mean, come on, that very same "someone else with more at stake will handle it" logic is a big part of how Democrats chose Hillary and the nation chose Trump in the first place.
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On February 27 2017 11:14 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 11:11 TheYango wrote:
There are enough people with vested interest in Trump's fuckups that I find it hard to believe that information would stay buried for long if it exists, even if Congressional Republicans are too craven to pursue it. That you have that attitude towards investigating Trump's ties with Russia suggests that this topic still needs to be discussed. I mean, come on, that very same "someone else with more at stake will handle it" logic is a big part of how Democrats chose Hillary and the nation chose Trump in the first place.
Dems choosing hillary wasn't THAT bad. so I don't think that part of your case follows properly.
i'm not sure it even properly applies to trump either; as in that case it wasn't so much letting others with more at stake handle it/vote on it, as it was other errors in the process of determining who one should vote for. though I suppose that'd depend on which part of the process you're focusing on.
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So then that goes back to my original question, what is there that you consider to be worth discussing? It's not a matter of "someone else with more at stake will handle it", but simply anyone with the ability to handle it is outside the bounds of what anyone else is within reach of influencing.
Sure you can take issue with how the Republicans are approaching the issue, but beyond whining about it, there's really nowhere that further discussion will get us until new information surfaces. Hence why every discussion just goes in circles because there's simply nothing new to be gained from discussing everything again with existing information.
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On February 27 2017 11:16 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 11:14 farvacola wrote:On February 27 2017 11:11 TheYango wrote:
There are enough people with vested interest in Trump's fuckups that I find it hard to believe that information would stay buried for long if it exists, even if Congressional Republicans are too craven to pursue it. That you have that attitude towards investigating Trump's ties with Russia suggests that this topic still needs to be discussed. I mean, come on, that very same "someone else with more at stake will handle it" logic is a big part of how Democrats chose Hillary and the nation chose Trump in the first place. Dems choosing hillary wasn't THAT bad. so I don't think that part of your case follows properly. i'm not sure it even properly applies to trump either; as in that case it wasn't so much letting others with more at stake handle it/vote on it, as it was other errors in the process of determining who one should vote for. though I suppose that'd depend on which part of the process you're focusing on.
I don't care to assign a particular value to Hillary being chosen, as I supported her once she took the nomination. The point remains that "someone else will do it" is not a compelling reason to avoid discussing something.
On February 27 2017 11:18 TheYango wrote:
So then that goes back to my original question, what is there that you consider to be worth discussing? It's not a matter of "someone else with more at stake will handle it", but simply anyone with the ability to handle it is outside the bounds of what anyone else is within reach of influencing.
Sure you can take issue with how the Republicans are approaching the issue, but beyond whining about it, there's really nowhere that further discussion will get us until new information surfaces. Hence why every discussion just goes in circles because there's simply nothing new to be gained from discussing everything again with existing information.
Multiple threads on this forum contain literally dozens of posts from posters who have repeatedly insisted that any and all ties between Trump's campaign and Russia are overblown and not based in reality. Even if counter posts on the same topic are justified purely on the basis of response allowance, it is clear that many still harbor both genuine and deceptive doubts regarding the issue. Why folks interested in disputing the notion that Russia doesn't deserve our scrutiny must also now offer some kind of plan alongside their criticism is not clear from your post.
Further, I know you know that these arguments end up circular for more reasons than those of substance. For evidence, one need look no further than this conversation chain.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 27 2017 11:05 TheYango wrote:
So what do people actually expect us to do about the Russia thing?
Like okay, suppose we accept that it was a big deal. It's not clear to me the course of action here beyond "make sure there aren't people in Trump's administration that are actively colluding with Russia against US interests" and "make sure it doesn't happen again". Both of which are things that would happen anyway at this point. It's not clear to me what there is to discuss beyond that, outside of some delusional Democrats who think there's anything to be gained from overturning the election result.
I don't think there's much that can be done. The obvious course of actions are as you listed. Beyond that, it's hard to actually respond. Partially because Trump's heart clearly isn't in it so it will be a VERY confused response. And partially because it's already been 8 months and it's going to be another 10-14 before we actually get anywhere with this issue, so it's going to look like a "we should already be moving past this shit" issue by then. Obama making it an issue again was already kind of pushing the envelope.
Really, it was just a very effective potshot at the weakest link in American democracy (Hillary Clinton and her vassals' incompetence) that yielded results that are well beyond what I think could have been expected.
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On February 27 2017 11:18 TheYango wrote:
So then that goes back to my original question, what is there that you consider to be worth discussing? It's not a matter of "someone else with more at stake will handle it", but simply anyone with the ability to handle it is outside the bounds of what anyone else is within reach of influencing.
Sure you can take issue with how the Republicans are approaching the issue, but beyond whining about it, there's really nowhere that further discussion will get us until new information surfaces. Hence why every discussion just goes in circles because there's simply nothing new to be gained from discussing everything again with existing information.
Sure, and I didn't bring up the subject. But since it was being discussed, it was worth noting that "well the US interferes in others' elections sometimes so nbd" is a bad, irrelevant argument.
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On February 27 2017 11:13 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 10:44 ChristianS wrote:
First, it is unprecedented. Major world powers hacking each other's elections is very different from major world powers hacking tiny fledgling countries' elections. I'd oppose both, but the former is clearly a much bigger deal with greater consequences. That's not true either. The US has never shied away from influencing other elections whoever the other country may be (plenty of instances in which Russia accused the US of meddling in elections, generally through "NGOs"). Certainly, the methods tend to be different - inciting revolt and funding opposition - but the result is the same. Arguably the biggest difference here is in how well it worked, and in the methods used. Leaking hacked information is a pretty Russian strategy; the US doesn't do that quite as much, perhaps because of how blatant it is. But whether the goal was to undermine the US political system or to elect Trump, it worked swimmingly. Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 10:44 ChristianS wrote:
Second, what's moral high ground got to do with it? The liberals criticizing it probably do have moral high ground, insomuch as they oppose election interference when we do it to. Well if you talk about how evil Russia is for breaking into the system, you would do well to acknowledge that they're just playing the same game that the US started. None of us did that personally, but the government in charge of us did it - and we are collectively responsible for that government. Bush, Trump, Obama, or anyone else. Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 10:44 ChristianS wrote:
The conservatives supporting Trump don't care about moral high ground - "America First" is completely unreconcileable with any Golden Rule- or morality-based foreign policy. So whether you're coming at it from the morality-based "countries should respect each others' sovereignty" position or the self-interest-based "America first, fuck everybody else" position, Russia interfering in our sovereignty is a big deal. The Trump people take a more "if Russia did it, then they did us the favor of exposing true documents highlighting Clinton corruption" approach to it all. That's just painful partisanship.
I didn't hear about us interfering in Russia's elections, so I guess I'll take your word for it. As for us all being responsible for what our government does, no we're not. If Trump gets in a bitchy mood tomorrow and nukes Iran, I'm not responsible for that shit. At best you could say I'm partially responsible because I could have done more to resist his election, but I didn't support him, I didn't vote for him, and actively tried to warn other voters that he was a literal crazy person. That shit's not on me.
I'm well aware that conservatives are mostly choosing the partisan route on this. I'm arguing that position is opportunistic and betrays America's sovereignty. If they truly love America and want to put her interests before everyone else's they should be more eager than anyone to combat foreign powers' influence over our elections. The present policy implication would be to do a full, independent investigation of Trump's connections to Russia. Insomuch as Republicans oppose this, they're betraying America's interests.
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On February 27 2017 11:04 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 10:54 GreenHorizons wrote:First, it is unprecedented. Major world powers hacking each other's elections It's this type of phrasing that led to 50% of Democrats thinking Russians hacked vote totals and is at the core of a lot of the more hyperbolic rhetoric. They hacked a major political party and that does happen with reasonable frequency. But is it the "hacking" or the interfering that's the primary offense in your view? That's a bizarre question. You mean, if they had hacked the DNC but then not leaked the info, would it be as bad? I mean, I guess not, but I don't see what's the use of the question. Perhaps I misunderstood what you're asking? No, Russia probably didn't hack vote totals. But the idea of a foreign power, particularly a hostile one, being able to play kingmaker and sway US elections toward the candidate of its choice should be concerning to anyone who values American democracy or sovereignty, which I would have thought would be damn near everyone in the country. If the US similarly interfered in some third world country's elections I expect their citizens would feel similarly concerned. I mean really, the US has assassinated/tried to assassinate foreign heads of state before. Does that mean we wouldn't have a right to be upset if Russia assassinated/tried to assassinate the president? Would we not get to call that "unprecedented?"
I mean is it the interfering or the hacking that you find more problematic? Which do you believe is unprecedented?
No, Russia probably didn't hack vote totals.
Probably? The hell?
Well if a "third world" country assassinated our president I'd probably think something to the effect of "what did you think would happen?"
If it was Russia that would be a big deal, but you seem to be operating under the assumption that we only interfere in third world countries. It was pretty well known that the US heavily intervened in the Israeli elections. We just played on both sides. But that's not the only one. We recently learned that the CIA was infiltrating french political parties prior to their 2012 election.
All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by the CIA's human ("HUMINT") and electronic ("SIGINT") spies in the seven months leading up to France's 2012 presidential election. The revelations are contained within three CIA tasking orders published today by WikiLeaks as context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series.
Source
This is what I'm getting at with the 50% of Dems think Russia hacked the vote totals. There's a lack of understanding of the actual context of the situation and it's mostly motivated by the election results/partisanship. People wouldn't be talking about it at all still if Hillary had won.
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On February 27 2017 11:42 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 11:04 ChristianS wrote:On February 27 2017 10:54 GreenHorizons wrote:First, it is unprecedented. Major world powers hacking each other's elections It's this type of phrasing that led to 50% of Democrats thinking Russians hacked vote totals and is at the core of a lot of the more hyperbolic rhetoric. They hacked a major political party and that does happen with reasonable frequency. But is it the "hacking" or the interfering that's the primary offense in your view? That's a bizarre question. You mean, if they had hacked the DNC but then not leaked the info, would it be as bad? I mean, I guess not, but I don't see what's the use of the question. Perhaps I misunderstood what you're asking? No, Russia probably didn't hack vote totals. But the idea of a foreign power, particularly a hostile one, being able to play kingmaker and sway US elections toward the candidate of its choice should be concerning to anyone who values American democracy or sovereignty, which I would have thought would be damn near everyone in the country. If the US similarly interfered in some third world country's elections I expect their citizens would feel similarly concerned. I mean really, the US has assassinated/tried to assassinate foreign heads of state before. Does that mean we wouldn't have a right to be upset if Russia assassinated/tried to assassinate the president? Would we not get to call that "unprecedented?" I mean is it the interfering or the hacking that you find more problematic? Which do you believe is unprecedented? Probably? The hell? Well if a "third world" country assassinated our president I'd probably think something to the effect of "what did you think would happen?" If it was Russia that would be a big deal, but you seem to be operating under the assumption that we only interfere in third world countries. It was pretty well known that the US heavily intervened in the Israeli elections. We just played on both sides. But that's not the only one. We recently learned that the CIA was infiltrating french political parties prior to their 2012 election. Show nested quote +All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by the CIA's human ("HUMINT") and electronic ("SIGINT") spies in the seven months leading up to France's 2012 presidential election. The revelations are contained within three CIA tasking orders published today by WikiLeaks as context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series. SourceThis is what I'm getting at with the 50% of Dems think Russia hacked the vote totals. There's a lack of understanding of the actual context of the situation and it's mostly motivated by the election results/partisanship. People wouldn't be talking about it at all still if Hillary had won.
Okay, to be clear, the likelihood that Russia hacked vote totals is, in my estimation, vanishingly small. And seriously, if any foreign nation (third world or no) assassinated the president, you would say "what did you expect?" The implication being that we should have expected that to be a likely, predictable outcome? You tend to be into the "cult of savviness" mentality but I don't believe that even you wouldn't be surprised and upset at another country killing our president.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 27 2017 11:37 ChristianS wrote:
As for us all being responsible for what our government does, no we're not. If Trump gets in a bitchy mood tomorrow and nukes Iran, I'm not responsible for that shit. At best you could say I'm partially responsible because I could have done more to resist his election, but I didn't support him, I didn't vote for him, and actively tried to warn other voters that he was a literal crazy person. That shit's not on me.
It's a very diffuse and collective responsibility. But if you said "I didn't vote for going into Iraq, I opposed it, so it's not our mess to clean up" that would be roughly equivalent. Similarly, if our government did stuff to cause another country to retaliate, our government will receive the response, and part of that will trickle down to us - and we can't say "no fair, we the people weren't responsible for that action!"
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On February 27 2017 12:32 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 11:37 ChristianS wrote:
As for us all being responsible for what our government does, no we're not. If Trump gets in a bitchy mood tomorrow and nukes Iran, I'm not responsible for that shit. At best you could say I'm partially responsible because I could have done more to resist his election, but I didn't support him, I didn't vote for him, and actively tried to warn other voters that he was a literal crazy person. That shit's not on me. It's a very diffuse and collective responsibility. But if you said "I didn't vote for going into Iraq, I opposed it, so it's not our mess to clean up" that would be roughly equivalent. Similarly, if our government did stuff to cause another country to retaliate, our government will receive the response, and part of that will trickle down to us - and we can't say "no fair, we the people weren't responsible for that action!"
And that means we're not allowed to protest interference in our elections? Again, if some foreign power assassinated the president we're supposed to shrug and say "well i guess we had it coming?"
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On February 27 2017 14:24 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 12:32 LegalLord wrote:On February 27 2017 11:37 ChristianS wrote:
As for us all being responsible for what our government does, no we're not. If Trump gets in a bitchy mood tomorrow and nukes Iran, I'm not responsible for that shit. At best you could say I'm partially responsible because I could have done more to resist his election, but I didn't support him, I didn't vote for him, and actively tried to warn other voters that he was a literal crazy person. That shit's not on me. It's a very diffuse and collective responsibility. But if you said "I didn't vote for going into Iraq, I opposed it, so it's not our mess to clean up" that would be roughly equivalent. Similarly, if our government did stuff to cause another country to retaliate, our government will receive the response, and part of that will trickle down to us - and we can't say "no fair, we the people weren't responsible for that action!" And that means we're not allowed to protest interference in our elections? Again, if some foreign power assassinated the president we're supposed to shrug and say "well i guess we had it coming?"
I wasn't going to bother but since you pressed this.
There's plenty between "Well I guess we had it coming" (which could be a reasonable response depending on the circumstances). and the "Russians hacked the election in an unprecedented attempt to install a puppet dictator." type of rhetoric that's become so common.
So if Narou had sent assassins to kill Obama that would be pretty surprising and seemingly unmotivated by US actions. If a faction in some country where we've installed dictators/puppet governments tried to kill a president, then I'd probably be closer to "what did you think would happen?"
Of course what I felt would depend on a whole host of factors, but that's circling back to my original point, you and plenty others (based in no small part to the rhetoric like "Russia hacked the election") clearly had more contempt than context and that colored your view.
I would expect a variety of people to react in a variety of ways to event like an assassination of a world leader, but that's not even in the ballpark of trying to get a political result you think would be favorable to your national interests by infiltrating a political party. That we even went there is indicative of the whole blowing things out of proportion point I've been making.
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At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
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On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote:
At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
you're not equating the two, but you are putting our reaction to them in the same basket. Suggesting that we should react to an assassination from a foreign entity like we should respond to a foreign political trolling. All the while discovering context about what America has done.
One thing we can agree on is that this does expose more republicans as being full of it.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
My point is kind of somewhere in GH's: sure, you have a right to be upset about it. But there's no real justification for hysteria of the form of the rabid "Russia is destroying democracy with UNPRECEDENTED meddling" variety that is plenty common here. They saw a fragile situation and thought it would be funny (in a nation-state to nation-state trolling humor sort of way) to help things reach a breaking point. I doubt even the people who planned the operation could have expected that the result would be quite as significant as it was (in getting Trump elected and bringing partisan/intra-party tensions to a boil), but the intent to create trouble was obvious.
Anyone who expects Russia to play nice in such a situation even though they have every moral justification (since, you know, international rules only apply to countries that aren't the US) to give the US a taste of its own medicine... well that's not something that can be guaranteed. Certainly, this was quite bold and rather blatant, but it's not anything more insidious than the way the US meddles with other nations' elections to try to get desired results. Doesn't make Russia an unprecedented attacker of democracy, but merely an unfriendly nation responding with a tit-for-tat of sorts in a brutally effective moment. And as I said before, the US has and continues to meddle in Russian elections so it's not without justification.
But again, Russia provided the leaks, Democrats provided the DNC. What actually made all of this work is simply that the leaks were just too good not to read and use as proof of what people like GH were saying all along.
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On February 27 2017 14:59 ChristianS wrote:
At no point did I equate the two, so I think you might be reading more hysteria into my tone than I'm actually experiencing. Russia hacked the election. Not in the sense of directly hacking voting machines. But it did influence the result, quite possibly singlehandedly changing the outcome. That's not liberal hysteria, it's just a thing that happened.
That it was the candidate I supported that was hurt by this is a bit difficult to separate from the fact that even if it wasn't, I'd still feel this type of intervention was unacceptable and that every measure should be taken to prevent it in the future, and find and punish any Americans that might have colluded with the Russians on this operation. I'm not losing sleep over it though. There are aspects of Trump's presidency that I legitimately think could be a threat to our democracy, but this isn't one of them. It's just a bad thing that happened, and I'd expect the party that made months of ruckus about Obama's hot mic with Putin in 2012 to take this a little more seriously instead of letting their eyes get wide thinking how many policies they could get through in the chaos.
says who?
+ Show Spoiler +
Wikileaks seems to claim that their intel came from a disgusted democrat who wanted bernie sanders to win the primary.
The CIA claims that John Podesta falling for a phishing scam? The CIA certainly can't be trusted and the DNC have a vested interest in saying that Russia is the badguy.
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I mean, if you're judging the veracity of someone's statement by what they stand to gain politically, you're pretty walking into confirmation bias central, right?
Also my impression was the concern about Trump's Russia ties had less to do with the election results and more to do with what might happen in the future if Russia has leverage over the US president. I'm not all that taken with doomsday scenarios, but there are plenty of international situations where a passive US would stand to benefit Russia's geopolitical situation (the two I can think of offhand being Ukraine and Syria). Which is anathema to some Republicans as well as Democrats - didn't John McCain recently add his voice to the list of people who think they need to conduct an investigation? Maybe I'm misremembering.
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On February 27 2017 11:18 TheYango wrote:
So then that goes back to my original question, what is there that you consider to be worth discussing? It's not a matter of "someone else with more at stake will handle it", but simply anyone with the ability to handle it is outside the bounds of what anyone else is within reach of influencing.
Sure you can take issue with how the Republicans are approaching the issue, but beyond whining about it, there's really nowhere that further discussion will get us until new information surfaces. Hence why every discussion just goes in circles because there's simply nothing new to be gained from discussing everything again with existing information.
To me the point is to make sure new information is found at all.
Trump (obviously) tried to ignore it.
Congressional Republicans tried to ignore it.
Many Republicans in this thread tried to ignore it (some to their credit did not)
Without the continued pressure from 'the people' this would have been buried and forgotten only for 25 years from now to turn up that Russia was blackmailing or controlling the government for 4 years (note this is an example and does not necessarily reflect reality)
We are discussing it because some people are still trying to deny that there is anything worth looking into the first place.
not bothering to discuss topics is how alternative facts become beliefs in peoples minds.
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On February 27 2017 15:53 LegalLord wrote:
My point is kind of somewhere in GH's: sure, you have a right to be upset about it. But there's no real justification for hysteria of the form of the rabid "Russia is destroying democracy with UNPRECEDENTED meddling" variety that is plenty common here. They saw a fragile situation and thought it would be funny (in a nation-state to nation-state trolling humor sort of way) to help things reach a breaking point. I doubt even the people who planned the operation could have expected that the result would be quite as significant as it was (in getting Trump elected and bringing partisan/intra-party tensions to a boil), but the intent to create trouble was obvious.
Anyone who expects Russia to play nice in such a situation even though they have every moral justification (since, you know, international rules only apply to countries that aren't the US) to give the US a taste of its own medicine... well that's not something that can be guaranteed. Certainly, this was quite bold and rather blatant, but it's not anything more insidious than the way the US meddles with other nations' elections to try to get desired results. Doesn't make Russia an unprecedented attacker of democracy, but merely an unfriendly nation responding with a tit-for-tat of sorts in a brutally effective moment. And as I said before, the US has and continues to meddle in Russian elections so it's not without justification.
But again, Russia provided the leaks, Democrats provided the DNC. What actually made all of this work is simply that the leaks were just too good not to read and use as proof of what people like GH were saying all along.
Since this is not unprecedented please provide evidence of a major first world country actively spreading illegally gained information in an attempt to sway the election of another major first world country.
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On February 27 2017 11:37 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 27 2017 11:13 LegalLord wrote:On February 27 2017 10:44 ChristianS wrote:
First, it is unprecedented. Major world powers hacking each other's elections is very different from major world powers hacking tiny fledgling countries' elections. I'd oppose both, but the former is clearly a much bigger deal with greater consequences. That's not true either. The US has never shied away from influencing other elections whoever the other country may be (plenty of instances in which Russia accused the US of meddling in elections, generally through "NGOs"). Certainly, the methods tend to be different - inciting revolt and funding opposition - but the result is the same. Arguably the biggest difference here is in how well it worked, and in the methods used. Leaking hacked information is a pretty Russian strategy; the US doesn't do that quite as much, perhaps because of how blatant it is. But whether the goal was to undermine the US political system or to elect Trump, it worked swimmingly. On February 27 2017 10:44 ChristianS wrote:
Second, what's moral high ground got to do with it? The liberals criticizing it probably do have moral high ground, insomuch as they oppose election interference when we do it to. Well if you talk about how evil Russia is for breaking into the system, you would do well to acknowledge that they're just playing the same game that the US started. None of us did that personally, but the government in charge of us did it - and we are collectively responsible for that government. Bush, Trump, Obama, or anyone else. On February 27 2017 10:44 ChristianS wrote:
The conservatives supporting Trump don't care about moral high ground - "America First" is completely unreconcileable with any Golden Rule- or morality-based foreign policy. So whether you're coming at it from the morality-based "countries should respect each others' sovereignty" position or the self-interest-based "America first, fuck everybody else" position, Russia interfering in our sovereignty is a big deal. The Trump people take a more "if Russia did it, then they did us the favor of exposing true documents highlighting Clinton corruption" approach to it all. That's just painful partisanship. I didn't hear about us interfering in Russia's elections, so I guess I'll take your word for it. As for us all being responsible for what our government does, no we're not. If Trump gets in a bitchy mood tomorrow and nukes Iran, I'm not responsible for that shit. At best you could say I'm partially responsible because I could have done more to resist his election, but I didn't support him, I didn't vote for him, and actively tried to warn other voters that he was a literal crazy person. That shit's not on me. I'm well aware that conservatives are mostly choosing the partisan route on this. I'm arguing that position is opportunistic and betrays America's sovereignty. If they truly love America and want to put her interests before everyone else's they should be more eager than anyone to combat foreign powers' influence over our elections. The present policy implication would be to do a full, independent investigation of Trump's connections to Russia. Insomuch as Republicans oppose this, they're betraying America's interests.
You, and so many other people nowadays mistake blame for responsibility. You make a good case for having no blame in the election of Trump. You have a continuing responsibility towards the future direction of your country. Trump starting a nuclear war with Iran is not something you have any blame in (but you'll face the wrath of Russia and China, and the alienation of the rest of the world regardless of that blame), but you will have (part of) the responsibility for repairing the damage such an attack will do.
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EPT
