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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. |
On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example.
This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify.
Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table:
1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this.
2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option.
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On March 29 2017 23:43 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved. Ought to be dissolved? Would you have said that before Trump ran for president?
I say only that the steady arguments against 2% GDP support from the Europeans here, together with their estimated weakness of regional threats, that Europe is ready to be done with it.
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United States43538 Posts
On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option.
1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole.
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United States43538 Posts
On March 30 2017 00:44 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:43 Doodsmack wrote:On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved. Ought to be dissolved? Would you have said that before Trump ran for president? I say only that the steady arguments against 2% GDP support from the Europeans here, together with their estimated weakness of regional threats, that Europe is ready to be done with it.
Why are you in love with 2%? I don't get it. I could turn around and say "2%!??! You only want 2%?!?! Why do you hate freedom? Anything less than 5% and you just want the Reds to win!".
You can be in favour of NATO while also thinking that the deterrent value of NATO is sufficiently established by a smaller proportion of GDP than is currently spent.
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Most people didn't actually argue against 2% gdp but against getting blamed for it by the US while this situation came to be out of US interest in the first place
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The elephant in the room is that the whole "independent states" theater has no place in federal elections. Once you have a government and a house of representatives on a nationwide level, you should also have elections that are uniform nationwide and not influenced by some local governments. I see this a lot in US politics, the insistence on the "rights" of the states leads to all sorts of absurdities. (And even after that, certain Americans will happily tell us that the EU is a mess with its governance structure ....)
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On March 30 2017 00:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option. 1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole.
That's why the Electoral College was developed, yeah. In 1787. It was a political necessity of the Founding Fathers in order to get the less populous states to ratify. It's not a particularly fair or democratic system however. I don't really care about what's fair for the states, what I care about is the fact that a vote in California is worth less than a vote in Wyoming even though Californians and Wyomingites are equal humans with equal rights.
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On March 30 2017 00:49 opisska wrote:
The elephant in the room is that the whole "independent states" theater has no place in federal elections. Once you have a government and a house of representatives on a nationwide level, you should also have elections that are uniform nationwide and not influenced by some local governments. I see this a lot in US politics, the insistence on the "rights" of the states leads to all sorts of absurdities. (And even after that, certain Americans will happily tell us that the EU is a mess with its governance structure ....)
Some of us are working to change this, though it's an uphill battle to be sure.
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On March 29 2017 23:51 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:37 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 22:31 LightSpectra wrote:On March 29 2017 22:25 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 22:02 LightSpectra wrote:Here's the thing about whistleblowing: either you support it or you don't. You don't get to say "we love leaks that hurt our enemies but we need to stamp out the leaks that hurt us." Donald Trump hated Wikileaks when they revealed the "Collateral Murder" but loved them when they hurt the Democratic Party. Don't be like Trump. Daleiden did America a public service, just like Ellsberg, just like Provance, just like Kiriakou, just like Snowden. Let's be consistent and either say "we want to know ALL crimes going on without our knowledge" or "we want ALL crimes to be obscured from our vision so we can pretend everything is awesome." I know which side I'm on. On March 29 2017 21:55 Danglars wrote:
Haha explicit. Tell me, are you referring to explicitly asking for cyberwarfare against the Clinton camp ... incite to commit them with promises of reward? Why the hell do you keep bringing the Clintons up? Nobody cares about them anymore, they have no power. I'm concerned about our POTUS being compromised. Please drop your odd obsession with the Clintons. They are totally irrelevant at this stage. If you want them to be prosecuted for any crimes, fantastic, but that's not the pressing concern for anybody else right now. If you were explicit in your hypothetical all this would be avoided. You might recall one accusation of conspiracy that involved the Clinton camp, or do you need me to find you a couple links? Seriously, I'm having trouble understanding you. Sorry, just realized I misread your post. It would certainly be a smoking gun if it were found out that the Trump campaign explicitly asked for Russian cyberwarfare. But it doesn't have to be that explicit. Surely you're aware that proof of a conspiracy doesn't require a total reconstruction of the entire crime in question? Your hypothetical revolved around "the Russians allegations were right all along" so it does matter what the allegation is, and the proof being absolute. A conspiracy to hack Clinton campaign emails? Certainly, I condemn the criminal that pays for that service. But for some intangible influence, I say Obama did as much for the Israeli elections when he disliked Netanyahu, without much ado, and surely it would matter (as it didn't in that case) of money changing hands, favors promised, a witness saying an understanding was reached. Otherwise, an authoritarian favors one who likes authoritarians and no conspiracy enters into criminality nor is likely to have occurred. Are you capable of talking about Donald Trump for five seconds without the whataboutism? Personally I think what we know about Manafort, plus the panicked attempts from the WH to hit the brakes on any investigation, is already enough to impeach Trump, but sadly the GOP profits too much from having such a moron at the helm to sign off on their agenda while soaking up all the media criticism. So we need just a bit more evidence before the case is overwhelming. Yes, a genuine smoking gun would be that. But I doubt the Kremlin's dumb enough to leave one of those around, so we'll have to settle for more and more lies being uncovered by the day until the situation becomes totally untenable. Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved. Just curious, which TL Europeans have decried NATO but haven't also explicitly endorsed Le Pen/Wilders? Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:41 zlefin wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 LightSpectra wrote:On March 29 2017 23:05 zlefin wrote:
I would certainly not recommend the american system, most places in europe have a better overall setup in terms of user satisfaction/results; though as always there are issues. I'm pessimistic and doubt that we'll ever have UHC in America. Unless you're talking to an unusually well-informed American, most of the time when you say "Every developed country's government spends less per capita on healthcare but have nobody without insurance, also they have less infant mortality, less preventable deaths, higher life expectancy, nobody in insolvable debt from their bills, etc." And then they'll respond either with "yeah but that's socialism and we all know socialism never really works" or "but I read a comment on a blog post from a guy who watched a news segment about a girl in England who had to wait a week for a mammogram, once you look past the stats America's still #1." Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_system#International_comparisons never is a long time. I agree it won't be easy; but it's hardly impossible for it to come someday. and there's plenty of precursors and known data about it. I could see a good chance in the next hundred years; or even a whole lot sooner. Our government enacting rational policies is never going to happen so long as: 1. Major media outlets can brazenly lie their asses off without penalty (legal or social). 2. Politicians can pretty much take any corporate donations they want without penalty (legal or social). Anyone can spend five minutes on Wikipedia and realize UHC is a fantastic idea, but the idea to do so is never going to cross a third of the country's minds.
Whataboutism? I might well ask you if you can consider Trump's actions as if he were not the beginning of American history and the only person standards were meant to be applied. I think partisanship guides the actions here, such that meeting with Russians with no accusation of crime matters and illegally leaking and possible improper declassifying of names gives no cause for concern. I think Trump has thrown his opposition into the nuthouse.
Impeachment is for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors, not for accusations of impropriety in talks. There is no case, only the hope for a future case, and good luck.
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On March 30 2017 00:46 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option. 1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole.
It doesn't undermine the electoral collage. California still has the same number of delegates regardless of who they are pledged to. States are allowed to choose their own process of selecting the electors.
You can't simultaneously cry about state representation and propose stripping said states of their own rights by preventing them from picking their own method of nominating electors.
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United States43538 Posts
On March 30 2017 00:51 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:46 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option. 1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole. That's why the Electoral College was developed, yeah. In 1787. It was a political necessity of the Founding Fathers in order to get the less populous states to ratify. It's not a particularly fair or democratic system however. I don't really care about what's fair for the states, what I care about is the fact that a vote in California is worth less than a vote in Wyoming even though Californians and Wyomingites are equal humans with equal rights.
That's not really true. Electoral college votes are linked to population and neither California nor Wyoming are swing states. A vote in either is pretty much worthless, simply running up the scoreboard or pissing into the wind for the same amount of national value. The votes that really matter are in Florida.
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On March 30 2017 00:01 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved. NATO is fine but the military obligations of the United States and the military obligations of her NATO allies are not the same and it's crazy to assume that they are. What benefit does Germany get from the fleet guarding Taiwan from China? Or the garrison in South Korea? A straight percentage of GDP comparison is meaningless. If all NATO allies had to set aside a specific amount of their GDP for the defence of the North Atlantic, and US numbers spent in spheres outside of the North Atlantic were discounted, I suspect the numbers would be different. At present the US is insisting that all military spending it does is on behalf of NATO and that NATO allies should feel indebted for every dollar and that's just bad thinking. Argentina invaded the United Kingdom and the UK didn't get shit from NATO because it was in the South Atlantic. NATO is doing fine at keeping the peace in Europe and the North Atlantic and given the current economic strength of the NATO nations could probably do so with significantly decreased resources than it currently has.
If the military obligations have gotten so entangled, are you not also advocating its dissolution to be replaced with one of more limited aims? I think you'd be wise enough to know the difficulty of repurposing it when he US funds almost three quarters of it, a nation with worldwide interests. Europe defends Europe with arms treaties to purchase for itself the very little it requires from ththe bUS?
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On March 30 2017 00:48 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:44 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:43 Doodsmack wrote:On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved. Ought to be dissolved? Would you have said that before Trump ran for president? I say only that the steady arguments against 2% GDP support from the Europeans here, together with their estimated weakness of regional threats, that Europe is ready to be done with it. Why are you in love with 2%? I don't get it. I could turn around and say "2%!??! You only want 2%?!?! Why do you hate freedom? Anything less than 5% and you just want the Reds to win!".
Well, when you're right, you're right. The threshold for NATO needs to be raised accordingly. There should also be a "high maintenance NATO member" status which is given to nations which have a tendency to disproportionately start shit which could potentially lead to security conflicts. Those high maintenance members have an additional percentage point of GDP required of them.
US crosses that 3% threshold, the other high maintenance members need to do the same.
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On March 30 2017 00:49 opisska wrote:
The elephant in the room is that the whole "independent states" theater has no place in federal elections. Once you have a government and a house of representatives on a nationwide level, you should also have elections that are uniform nationwide and not influenced by some local governments. I see this a lot in US politics, the insistence on the "rights" of the states leads to all sorts of absurdities. (And even after that, certain Americans will happily tell us that the EU is a mess with its governance structure ....)
The us is a governing mess but it's at the least a well reasoned and we'll thought out mess that's worked fine and still does to many extents. Compare this to the EU where there's a mess between officials that don't actually win any elections (and no allotting funding to ukip to function) and yet have no real power and a bunch of unelected officials that make laws that effect everyone. Not even getting into the whole thing about it not being a real government with the nation's in the union being tied to the same currency but can make uncontrolled financial decisions that effect the whole.
I mean for all the power the ec gives to small states it's a heck of a lot better then the Greek German dynamic in the EU and you can't really argue that.
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On March 30 2017 00:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:51 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:46 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option. 1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole. That's why the Electoral College was developed, yeah. In 1787. It was a political necessity of the Founding Fathers in order to get the less populous states to ratify. It's not a particularly fair or democratic system however. I don't really care about what's fair for the states, what I care about is the fact that a vote in California is worth less than a vote in Wyoming even though Californians and Wyomingites are equal humans with equal rights. That's not really true. Electoral college votes are linked to population and neither California nor Wyoming are swing states. A vote in either is pretty much worthless, simply running up the scoreboard or pissing into the wind for the same amount of national value. The votes that really matter are in Florida.
They're linked, but it's not properly proportional because of the 3 electoral votes each state gets for their senators + at least one representative a state like Montana is almost double it's population in representation (.3% of the population, .6% of the electoral votes).
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On March 30 2017 00:52 Danglars wrote:
Whataboutism? I might well ask you if you can consider Trump's actions as if he were not the beginning of American history and the only person standards were meant to be applied. I think partisanship guides the actions here, such that meeting with Russians with no accusation of crime matters and illegally leaking and possible improper declassifying of names gives no cause for concern.
Who says there was no cause for concern? I'm not going apeshit over Obama right now for the same reason I'm not going apeshit over Hillary Clinton or Benedict Arnold or Marcus Junius Brutus: because they're not in power, but Trump is.
Impeachment is for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors, not for accusations of impropriety in talks. There is no case, only the hope for a future case, and good luck.
One could argue that there's currently enough evidence of bribery for a nonpartisan court. Just not enough for the GOP.
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United States43538 Posts
On March 30 2017 00:53 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:46 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option. 1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole. It doesn't undermine the electoral collage. California still has the same number of delegates regardless of who they are pledged to. States are allowed to choose their own process of selecting the electors. You can't simultaneously cry about state representation and propose stripping said states of their own rights by preventing them from picking their own method of nominating electors.
I'm not sure you understand what the electoral college is for friend. And sure, a state is entitled to choose to award their electoral college votes based upon what the voters in another state rather than their own voted for. That doesn't mean it's in line with the purpose of the electoral college.
Nor have I said that I would prevent states from doing anything. I was actually the one who brought up that states have the ability to reform the electoral college independently of a constitutional amendment. You're arguing against something that is the opposite of what I said. All I have said is that by doing so they reduce their own importance in elections and limit the representation of their own voters. It is a case in which the interests of the ruling party and the citizens of the state are directly opposed. The people of California would strongly benefit from awarding electoral college votes proportionally to the votes as California Republicans would suddenly exist as a voting block larger than a number of other states and worth catering for. The ruling party in the state wouldn't benefit from increasing the representation of the minority, but it'd certainly be more democratic.
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United States43538 Posts
On March 30 2017 00:55 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:01 KwarK wrote:On March 29 2017 23:41 Danglars wrote:On March 29 2017 23:34 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, will reiterate Donald Trump’s demand that allies ramp up their military spending, a senior State Department official said.
Tillerson’s message will echo comments by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who pressed the spending issue on a visit last month, and may test the patience of allies who are looking for evidence of the Trump administration’s professed support for NATO.
So far, they’re not getting much.
Tillerson initially declined to attend the spring gathering of NATO foreign ministers, citing a conflict with a visit to Washington by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a planned trip to Moscow. While critics said that Tillerson could have attended the Brussels meeting given that he travels on a U.S. Air Force jet, NATO nonetheless rescheduled the meeting for Friday so that Tillerson could attend.
But even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has worked aggressively to address Trump’s priorities, the White House has not put much focus on NATO and has still not nominated a NATO ambassador.
Briefing reporters ahead of the trip to Brussels, the senior State Department official said that along with the spending demand, Tillerson would press allies to increase NATO’s role in counter-terrorism efforts.
NATO allies have formally committed to allocating at least 2 percent of annual economic output for military spending but only five NATO allies — the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Poland — hit the target in 2016, according to NATO statistics.
“It’s essential that the allies honor their commitment from the last two previous summits to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, and of that defense spending, 20 percent needs to go for capacity building, for investment in capabilities and military equipment,” the senior official told reporters on Tuesday.
Beyond spending and terrorism, the official said Tillerson “will also be consulting with allies about our shared commitment to improve the security situation in eastern Ukraine, and the need for NATO to continue to push Russia to end its aggression against its neighbors, and to fulfill the Minsk commitments with regard to Ukraine.”
Mattis, during his first trip to NATO since joining the Trump administration, said last month that allies would need to increase spending or risked seeing the U.S. “moderate” its support for the alliance. Mattis repeatedly declined to say what consequences might flow from a failure to meet the targets, citing clear efforts by allies to ramp up expenditures.
The senior official refused to speculate on consequences but insisted that the current imbalance in spending was unsustainable. Source Progress towards next campaign promise fulfilled, perhaps. Though from what I've been seeing from the TL Europeans, it has outgrown its usefulness to want funding and ought to be dissolved. NATO is fine but the military obligations of the United States and the military obligations of her NATO allies are not the same and it's crazy to assume that they are. What benefit does Germany get from the fleet guarding Taiwan from China? Or the garrison in South Korea? A straight percentage of GDP comparison is meaningless. If all NATO allies had to set aside a specific amount of their GDP for the defence of the North Atlantic, and US numbers spent in spheres outside of the North Atlantic were discounted, I suspect the numbers would be different. At present the US is insisting that all military spending it does is on behalf of NATO and that NATO allies should feel indebted for every dollar and that's just bad thinking. Argentina invaded the United Kingdom and the UK didn't get shit from NATO because it was in the South Atlantic. NATO is doing fine at keeping the peace in Europe and the North Atlantic and given the current economic strength of the NATO nations could probably do so with significantly decreased resources than it currently has. If the military obligations have gotten so entangled, are you not also advocating its dissolution to be replaced with one of more limited aims? I think you'd be wise enough to know the difficulty of repurposing it when he US funds almost three quarters of it, a nation with worldwide interests. Europe defends Europe with arms treaties to purchase for itself the very little it requires from ththe bUS?
The military obligations of NATO aren't particularly complicated. Defend any member state from an attack within the North Atlantic and European sphere. The problem is when one NATO member in particular insists that every dollar they spend in any sphere is for the benefit of the alliance as a whole and that all other alliance members should be grateful for that spending and reciprocate.
NATO is fine. Europe has seen an unprecedented era of peace and it looks like that will continue for as long as NATO lasts. And I'm sure if Europe starts heating up the NATO allies will respond with increased commitments.
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On March 30 2017 00:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2017 00:51 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:46 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2017 00:41 LightSpectra wrote:On March 30 2017 00:35 Nevuk wrote:
The issue is that system would reduce the power of the individual state in question relative to the ones who hasn't changed their system. It would be illogical for any state to do it. The ones who already have some form of it only have 3-4 electoral votes, convincing California to go from a guaranteed 54 for the winner to like 40-14 would only result in really pissing off Democrat votes for example. This conversation is mired in confusion right now, so let me clarify. Firstly, the EC delegates have to pick the POTUS by simple-majority according to the Constitution, so that can't be changed. There are several proposals on the table: 1. States pledge their EC delegates to whichever POTUS wins the popular vote across the whole country. The weakness in this plan is as you stated, there's no incentive for those states that benefit from the EC to do this. 2. People vote for the POTUS via preferential voting instead of FPTP (i.e. the EC delegates have to go with whoever is the Concordent/runoff victor). This is what I think is the most viable option. 1 undermines the whole point of the electoral college. The point of the electoral college is that all the states matter. Running up the scoreboard in California won't help you win Montana etc. If you imposed 1 then a policy that would win you 3% more support in a high population state would justify fucking over 50% of the people in a low population state because only the absolute number matters. Any state that does 1 abdicates their representation to the country as a whole. That's why the Electoral College was developed, yeah. In 1787. It was a political necessity of the Founding Fathers in order to get the less populous states to ratify. It's not a particularly fair or democratic system however. I don't really care about what's fair for the states, what I care about is the fact that a vote in California is worth less than a vote in Wyoming even though Californians and Wyomingites are equal humans with equal rights. That's not really true. Electoral college votes are linked to population and neither California nor Wyoming are swing states. A vote in either is pretty much worthless, simply running up the scoreboard or pissing into the wind for the same amount of national value. The votes that really matter are in Florida.
In 2016, California had 55 EC delegates and a population of 39m. Meaning that each EC delegate is representing approximately 709k people. Only 14.2m people voted, so each EC delegate is representing 258k voters.
Wyoming had 3 EC delegates and a population of 580k. Meaning that each EC delegate is representing approximately 193k people. Only 256k people voted, so each EC delegate is representing 85k voters.
A voter in Wyoming is worth about 3x as much as one in California.
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EPT
