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On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head.
It's incredibly annoying. I don't understand why people faithfully engage with doc. They aren't here for a discussion they are here to "win" arguments
EDIT: On topic: I'm not sure what the best response to Russia is to be honest. Purely sanctions probably won't deter Putin and he will probably keep annexing other countries without some kind of military conflict, but military conflict will be bloody and destructive and might suck us into a greater conflict.
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On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head.
I think you are overreacting to a single sarcastic question.
On February 12 2022 11:43 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head. It's incredibly annoying. I don't understand why people faithfully engage with doc. They aren't here for a discussion they are here to "win" arguments EDIT: On topic: I'm not sure what the best response to Russia is to be honest. Purely sanctions probably won't deter Putin and he will probably keep annexing other countries without some kind of military conflict, but military conflict will be bloody and destructive and might suck us into a greater conflict.
There is nothing out of the ordinary about my discussions here. I am arguing with people I disagree with, and they are arguing with me.
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On February 12 2022 12:15 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head. I think you are overreacting to a single sarcastic question.
It’s not a reaction to one post. I was reacting to your general style of posting here. You need to understand no one is keeping score. This is just people discussing politics. You treat the situation very differently than most people here. It’s weird and annoying.
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I don't see your point in the absence of examples other than that sarcastic question.
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On February 12 2022 11:43 StasisField wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head. It's incredibly annoying. I don't understand why people faithfully engage with doc. They aren't here for a discussion they are here to "win" arguments EDIT: On topic: I'm not sure what the best response to Russia is to be honest. Purely sanctions probably won't deter Putin and he will probably keep annexing other countries without some kind of military conflict, but military conflict will be bloody and destructive and might suck us into a greater conflict.
I think people underestimate the power hard sanctions could get on Russia. Taking them off international banking and shutting off their gas exports to Germany would cripple their economy overnight and banning them from the upcoming world cup would do a lot to damage them.
People see sanctions as appeasement with nazi Germany but they should be looking more at south Africa and Rhodesia for examples of how extensive sanctions can work.
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On February 12 2022 13:32 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 11:43 StasisField wrote:On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head. It's incredibly annoying. I don't understand why people faithfully engage with doc. They aren't here for a discussion they are here to "win" arguments EDIT: On topic: I'm not sure what the best response to Russia is to be honest. Purely sanctions probably won't deter Putin and he will probably keep annexing other countries without some kind of military conflict, but military conflict will be bloody and destructive and might suck us into a greater conflict. I think people underestimate the power hard sanctions could get on Russia. Taking them off international banking and shutting off their gas exports to Germany would cripple their economy overnight and banning them from the upcoming world cup would do a lot to damage them. People see sanctions as appeasement with nazi Germany but they should be looking more at south Africa and Rhodesia for examples of how extensive sanctions can work.
If sanctions bring Russia to their knees, and they know that would happen, why would they still go for Ukraine?
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On February 12 2022 14:14 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 13:32 Sermokala wrote:On February 12 2022 11:43 StasisField wrote:On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head. It's incredibly annoying. I don't understand why people faithfully engage with doc. They aren't here for a discussion they are here to "win" arguments EDIT: On topic: I'm not sure what the best response to Russia is to be honest. Purely sanctions probably won't deter Putin and he will probably keep annexing other countries without some kind of military conflict, but military conflict will be bloody and destructive and might suck us into a greater conflict. I think people underestimate the power hard sanctions could get on Russia. Taking them off international banking and shutting off their gas exports to Germany would cripple their economy overnight and banning them from the upcoming world cup would do a lot to damage them. People see sanctions as appeasement with nazi Germany but they should be looking more at south Africa and Rhodesia for examples of how extensive sanctions can work. If sanctions bring Russia to their knees, and they know that would happen, why would they still go for Ukraine?
Arrogance, pride, Putins getting old and running out of time, they don't think the west is willing to actually do anything about it after crimea Georgia and the border regions. Some people want to be immortal and etch their name into the history books. Some people might just be true believers.
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There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it.
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On February 12 2022 11:12 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 10:23 mierin wrote:
Voting Trump over Biden is not the issue. It's voting for "who can we get who is the most conservative who isn't Trump" vs. electing Trump (or someone similar). If someone campaigns to give me cat food for dinner vs. arsenic, of course I'd rather have the cat food. I'm not going to passionately go to the voting booth for that option though. Talk about voter suppression... At the primary the question is whos the best of the options, at the election it is also who is better of the options, and at this point one of the options was and likely is Trump amd you only have 2. So while you would hope for better, better than Trump is all you need, even though I agree that is a incredibly low bar. At the other levels of government you choices come down to better or not than the various Rep representives, whos current loudest voices are the Greene "gazpacho" police, Geatz "is it a federal crime to a bring 17 year old girl across statelines and pay them for sex?" Bobart the "QAnon congresswoman" and so on. Shouldnt the big question not be why do the Dems only end up with "Better than Trump" or "Better than Greene". It should be, why do the Rep voters put and continue to support people that set the bar so incredibly low?As for the two party system being shit, I do not think you will get much if any resistence in here, but that is a whole different discussion.
This is the main point.
A two-party system is pretty shit, but for it to work in any way, people need to be willing to change their vote if their party is worse. In the US, republican voters should be the ones springing ship hard. Their party is full of idiots, crazypeople and fascists. And they keep voting for them. This is the core problem. Democrat voters don't really have a choice, exactly because the republicans are that absurdly bad. So they have to vote for the non-republican, because voting republican would only make stuff worse, not better.
For things to improve, republican voters would need to stop voting for the republicans. Which they don't, they think this is fine.
If that happened, there would be pressure on the republicans to be better, which might make them a viable alternative, which would put pressure onto the democrats, and so forth. Two sides pushing themselves up trying to be better than the other side.
But here we have one side which digs deeper into the mud and still keeps getting votes, and one party which tries to be slightly above the ever lowering other side. One side simply has inverted the scale, which means that both sides are now dropping ever further down into badness.
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It seems like most of the things that are meant to drive things towards being better for people wind up doing the opposite. Not regulating corporations will allow innovation to encourage competition! Reduced prices, and increased quality! Two parties will have to compete for your votes! They'll have to fight hard to out do each other in helping peoples lives improve!
Turns out its all the opposite, when you let power concentrate everything just gets worse as the people in power drain everything from the people without power.
I don't really have faith that changes without tremendous violence at this point though.
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I think a fundamental issue is that the US has been doing just fine (or even great) over the last 100 odd years so there is little appetite for making big changes to the system. Obviously, the US has not been doing fine or great when it comes to under-represented groups, but for 70-80%+ of the population, things were just peachy (GH will cut in here saying that it is all based on the exploitation of the less fortunate and I would agree). It's only recently that things have started getting worse for a larger number of people, but there is a large amount of inertia in the system. This is also why I think messages such as 'make America great again' resonate so well with a large fraction of the population.
Basically, I'm agreeing with Zambrah to an extent, you're unlikely to get big changes to the system unless some major disaster occurs.
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I think its also a general American ignorance of what could be. When I lived in China being able to just... go to the fuckin' hospital and not go bankrupt was pretty crazy to me. I tried to tread a grisly leg burn at home and my coworkers looked at me like I was suicidally insane or something, eventually they made me go to the hospital, the hospital did their job and helped me, and I was out of pocket like 20 bucks. In America? I would've let the leg wound fester til god knows how bad it got or I wouldve been immediately fucked over for an immense amount of money in medical debt.
But most people arent going to be able to leave the country and see any greener grass, all they'll ever know is the US and they're told its the best so surely nothing compares.
Its a "Life may not be perfect but its the best humanity is capable of doing so thats just how it is," sort of mentality.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 12 2022 19:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
I think a fundamental issue is that the US has been doing just fine (or even great) over the last 100 odd years so there is little appetite for making big changes to the system. Obviously, the US has not been doing fine or great when it comes to under-represented groups, but for 70-80%+ of the population, things were just peachy (GH will cut in here saying that it is all based on the exploitation of the less fortunate and I would agree). It's only recently that things have started getting worse for a larger number of people, but there is a large amount of inertia in the system. This is also why I think messages such as 'make America great again' resonate so well with a large fraction of the population.
Basically, I'm agreeing with Zambrah to an extent, you're unlikely to get big changes to the system unless some major disaster occurs.
"US has been doing fine" as specified seems like really fluffy and generic language, so it's not clear in what dimension you mean that, but the most meaningful one is probably economics. In which case it's more like the 75 years since 1945 rather than 100 years, because before the 1940s it was the Great Depression. And without bringing in specific metrics, it's more like the past 75 years have been 30 years of really clean and historically exceptional growth (40s-70s), 20 years of rocky growth that is still overall quite stable (through the 90s), and then the current period of around 25 years that has been a more visible decline to the point that people start to have other-country envy.
Inertia is a powerful thing, and you'll find an endless number of mainstream politicians (and their mainstream disciples in the population at large, really) that take a general view of "things worked really great for us mid-century, we just have to recapture that same success and all will be well." The message of "make America great again" is kind of along those lines - keep in mind that it was controversial at the time because it implied America wasn't currently great, and previous users of that line have had mixed success - but you won't see bigger fanatics of that approach than among the liberal mainstream (your Clinton/Biden types).
The cracks are showing, but the people who believe in this kind of thing are the ones who hold power and who have the right connections in the establishment to snuff out serious challengers. Still, it's been a long time since the US has actually been "doing fine" economically - it's just starting from the top of where it's ever been and the decay has been so gradual that most people don't realize it slipping away until crisis becomes the norm.
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On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross.
To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that).
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On February 12 2022 18:54 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 11:12 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 10:23 mierin wrote:
Voting Trump over Biden is not the issue. It's voting for "who can we get who is the most conservative who isn't Trump" vs. electing Trump (or someone similar). If someone campaigns to give me cat food for dinner vs. arsenic, of course I'd rather have the cat food. I'm not going to passionately go to the voting booth for that option though. Talk about voter suppression... At the primary the question is whos the best of the options, at the election it is also who is better of the options, and at this point one of the options was and likely is Trump amd you only have 2. So while you would hope for better, better than Trump is all you need, even though I agree that is a incredibly low bar. At the other levels of government you choices come down to better or not than the various Rep representives, whos current loudest voices are the Greene "gazpacho" police, Geatz "is it a federal crime to a bring 17 year old girl across statelines and pay them for sex?" Bobart the "QAnon congresswoman" and so on. Shouldnt the big question not be why do the Dems only end up with "Better than Trump" or "Better than Greene". It should be, why do the Rep voters put and continue to support people that set the bar so incredibly low?As for the two party system being shit, I do not think you will get much if any resistence in here, but that is a whole different discussion. This is the main point. A two-party system is pretty shit, but for it to work in any way, people need to be willing to change their vote if their party is worse. In the US, republican voters should be the ones springing ship hard. Their party is full of idiots, crazypeople and fascists. And they keep voting for them. This is the core problem. Democrat voters don't really have a choice, exactly because the republicans are that absurdly bad. So they have to vote for the non-republican, because voting republican would only make stuff worse, not better. For things to improve, republican voters would need to stop voting for the republicans. Which they don't, they think this is fine. If that happened, there would be pressure on the republicans to be better, which might make them a viable alternative, which would put pressure onto the democrats, and so forth. Two sides pushing themselves up trying to be better than the other side. But here we have one side which digs deeper into the mud and still keeps getting votes, and one party which tries to be slightly above the ever lowering other side. One side simply has inverted the scale, which means that both sides are now dropping ever further down into badness.
The thing is that in a choice between a republican and Democrat, Republicans are mostly going to disagree strongly with the policies preferred by the Democrat. So they are not going to vote for that Democrat just because Trump pushed the election fraud lie and Greene & Boebert are crazy. They're going to vote based on the policy they prefer. Which means, the Republican party is not going to die out or be destroyed.
I'd prefer to see the people in congress and the president actually compromise with each other. As in, let the other side have some of what they want, even if you disagree with it, in exchange for getting some of what you want. I'd like to think there was a yesteryear where that actually happened, though I'm not sure.
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On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that).
Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course.
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On February 12 2022 20:28 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 19:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
I think a fundamental issue is that the US has been doing just fine (or even great) over the last 100 odd years so there is little appetite for making big changes to the system. Obviously, the US has not been doing fine or great when it comes to under-represented groups, but for 70-80%+ of the population, things were just peachy (GH will cut in here saying that it is all based on the exploitation of the less fortunate and I would agree). It's only recently that things have started getting worse for a larger number of people, but there is a large amount of inertia in the system. This is also why I think messages such as 'make America great again' resonate so well with a large fraction of the population.
Basically, I'm agreeing with Zambrah to an extent, you're unlikely to get big changes to the system unless some major disaster occurs. "US has been doing fine" as specified seems like really fluffy and generic language, so it's not clear in what dimension you mean that, but the most meaningful one is probably economics. In which case it's more like the 75 years since 1945 rather than 100 years, because before the 1940s it was the Great Depression. And without bringing in specific metrics, it's more like the past 75 years have been 30 years of really clean and historically exceptional growth (40s-70s), 20 years of rocky growth that is still overall quite stable (through the 90s), and then the current period of around 25 years that has been a more visible decline to the point that people start to have other-country envy. Inertia is a powerful thing, and you'll find an endless number of mainstream politicians (and their mainstream disciples in the population at large, really) that take a general view of "things worked really great for us mid-century, we just have to recapture that same success and all will be well." The message of "make America great again" is kind of along those lines - keep in mind that it was controversial at the time because it implied America wasn't currently great, and previous users of that line have had mixed success - but you won't see bigger fanatics of that approach than among the liberal mainstream (your Clinton/Biden types). The cracks are showing, but the people who believe in this kind of thing are the ones who hold power and who have the right connections in the establishment to snuff out serious challengers. Still, it's been a long time since the US has actually been "doing fine" economically - it's just starting from the top of where it's ever been and the decay has been so gradual that most people don't realize it slipping away until crisis becomes the norm.
Sure, it's fluffy language, but you get my point. The US has been the biggest economy in the world and has shaped international politics. For a long time the US was the land of opportunity, the beacon of success, etc. It wasn't that long ago that you had to be in America to get the latest tech and so on. When I was a kid, my dad had a serious crush on the US and kept saying how he wished Spanish politics resembled more what was going on over there.
I think this is why the country is so unusually conservative for a modern democratic society. The US just hasn't had to deal with a rock bottom situation and the soul searching that goes with it.
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On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that). Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course.
Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway.
EDIT: Justin Amash might be reasonably close to this description.
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On February 12 2022 14:14 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 13:32 Sermokala wrote:On February 12 2022 11:43 StasisField wrote:On February 12 2022 11:32 Mohdoo wrote:On February 12 2022 10:06 Doc.Rivers wrote:
Odd that Putin waited until after the term of the president with whom he colluded to invade Ukraine huh? Why in the world do you treat this thread like we’re political talk show hosts trying to get zingers in? It’s incredibly obnoxious and also weird. You aren’t running a campaign and neither is anyone else here. Just be normal and have conversations with people rather than pretending there is some score board floating over your head. It's incredibly annoying. I don't understand why people faithfully engage with doc. They aren't here for a discussion they are here to "win" arguments EDIT: On topic: I'm not sure what the best response to Russia is to be honest. Purely sanctions probably won't deter Putin and he will probably keep annexing other countries without some kind of military conflict, but military conflict will be bloody and destructive and might suck us into a greater conflict. I think people underestimate the power hard sanctions could get on Russia. Taking them off international banking and shutting off their gas exports to Germany would cripple their economy overnight and banning them from the upcoming world cup would do a lot to damage them. People see sanctions as appeasement with nazi Germany but they should be looking more at south Africa and Rhodesia for examples of how extensive sanctions can work. If sanctions bring Russia to their knees, and they know that would happen, why would they still go for Ukraine? Think you are overestimating the possible sanctions here. It's unlikely for example that Germany will just accept shutting down gas imports from Russia and if Crimea wasn't enough to restrict dollars and involvement in Russia as Iran style, it's doubtful Russia officially annexing the Ukrainian areas under current Russian "rebel" area into Russia proper as done in Crimea will do so. You are assuming that the aim of a Russian invasion will be the compelete annexation of Ukraine. That is rather unlikely. If the last few years are any indication, Russia is looking for a quick and "easy" media win, not a grand conquest.
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EPT
