Political Roundtable Part XXXII

[Zonkerbl]

I was going to post a big rant about popper not being worried but he is, in fact, agreeing with me so

IGNORE ME

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So you hate America and want democracy to be destroyed and have basically been lying this entire conversation

[popper]

I was going to post a big rant about popper not being worried but he is, in fact, agreeing with me so

IGNORE ME

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So you hate America and want democracy to be destroyed and have basically been lying this entire conversation

No. I just have a different opinion than you do. Diversity of thought is a strength of our system. Do you agree?

[dobrojim]

I was going to post a big rant about popper not being worried but he is, in fact, agreeing with me so

IGNORE ME

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So you hate America and want democracy to be destroyed and have basically been lying this entire conversation

Apparently there is no level of criminality or corruption that would lead Popper to conclude
he shouldn't continue to vote GOP. He hates Biden and democrats but hasn't really explained
why they pose the kind of existential threat that would cause someone to ignore rampant criminality
probably using the false analogy of both sidesism.

Certainly there is no evidence of the kind of institutional corruption in the democratic party one
can currently point to in the GOP.

The GOP suggests they lose elections because the Dems cheat. The truth is they lose
elections because voters have a greater preference for the policies offered by the other
side. The GOP stubbornly refuses to accept there is anything wrong with either their
policy proposals or the candidates they nominate. Other than Liz Cheaney,
the GOP thinks what they are doing is fine and Dems are the threat.

But her emails!!!!

[pancakes3]

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So you hate America and want democracy to be destroyed and have basically been lying this entire conversation

No. I just have a different opinion than you do. Diversity of thought is a strength of our system. Do you agree?

ok but why Trump over Biden?

[popper]

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So you hate America and want democracy to be destroyed and have basically been lying this entire conversation

Apparently there is no level of criminality or corruption that would lead Popper to conclude
he shouldn't continue to vote GOP. He hates Biden and democrats but hasn't really explained
why they pose the kind of existential threat that would cause someone to ignore rampant criminality
probably using the false analogy of both sidesism.

Certainly there is no evidence of the kind of institutional corruption in the democratic party one
can currently point to in the GOP.

The GOP suggests they lose elections because the Dems cheat. The truth is they lose
elections because voters have a greater preference for the policies offered by the other
side. The GOP stubbornly refuses to accept there is anything wrong with either their
policy proposals or the candidates they nominate. Other than Liz Cheaney,
the GOP thinks what they are doing is fine and Dems are the threat.

But her emails!!!!

I don't hate Biden or any other Democrat. And I have explained why I don't like D policy. I'll do so again.
(1) I don't like opening our borders to millions of poor under-educated migrants. The majority of Americans share my concern on this subject - at least that's what the polls say. However I do support a guest worker program and legal immigration that ensures we can address necessary labor shortages. (2) I'm concerned about Biden's latest 10 year budget projections which show our debt rising to $50 trillion - the IMF recently warned the U.S. about the dangers of this unsustainable imbalance.
(3) I don't support biological men participating in women's sports - again, a majority of Americans agree with me on this subject.
(4) IMO a Trump presidency would damage the republic to the X degree, whereas a Biden presidency would damage the country by 2X. I can't help it if primary voters send us these two deeply flawed candidates - blame them, not me.

I could go on and on but what's the point?

Regarding the potential criminality of Trump's action; he's been indicted, he's facing trial(s), and until a verdict is rendered he's presumed innocent. Even then, there will be an appeal process so I don't know what else to say on the matter.

Edit in (2) above - R's are just as much to blame as D's.

[pancakes3]

Joe Biden doesn't have an open border policy, Republican presidents have proven to increase the deficit more than Dem presidents, the presidency has nothing to do with sports, so what exactly don't you like about D policy?

The 5 significant pieces of legislation that the D's pushed through last year were a covid bill, the infrastructure bill, a gun safety bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

The single piece of legislation that was passed by Trump was a tax cut.

Diversity of thought is only a strength if people are willing to change their positions, and yield to the better thoughts.

and as an editorial note, you're a real piece of racist transphobic crap. you don't know jack about the immigration system, and have zero personal stakes held in the state of women's sports, and yet they're two of your leading issues going into 2024. This isn't some sort of mental exercise, where you pretend to score points in a hypothetical debate. Speak on the issues that matter to you. Is it retirement? Is it medical cost? Is it climate change? If not, it should be. These are the things that matter. That's what makes you a racist transphobe. You can't focus on things that matter to you because you've bought into the FEAR and are focused on jobless, undereducated migrants and trans swimmers. Why aren't you concerned about infrastructure, or gun safety, or climate change? Why is it always immigration and LGBTQ+ rights?

I'm blaming you.

[popper]

Goodbye gentlemen. I wish you all the best.

[verbal8]

I was going to post a big rant about popper not being worried but he is, in fact, agreeing with me so

IGNORE ME

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So if it was Kamala Harris vs. Trump - you would vote for Harris? What specific Democrat would you vote for over Trump?

If you claim not to support Trump, why not vote RFK jr?

[popper]

I was going to post a big rant about popper not being worried but he is, in fact, agreeing with me so

IGNORE ME

Yes. Trump was a bad choice for the R's in 2020 and he'll be a bad choice this year as well. Unfortunately I'll have to vote for him again if Biden is his opponent.

So if it was Kamala Harris vs. Trump - you would vote for Harris? What specific Democrat would you vote for over Trump?

If you claim not to support Trump, why not vote RFK jr?

I'm finished with this thread verbal. Carry on.

[Fairview4Life]

It is very odd to me to suggest you are a serious person and then write just demonstrably false things about open borders or think that Joe Biden is going to be worse for the national debt than Trump when we have the actual example of the Trump presidency (and quite frankly every other R presidency) that shows otherwise. Or being worried about trans women competing in women’s sports as a top 3 issue? That affects a minuscule portion of the population. There are like 3 kids per state that do that or some negligible number. How could you possibly pretend to be an objectively serious person and give two **** about that? Drowning yourself in far right media is no way to go through life. Diversity of thought has the word thought right there in the sentence.

[Wizardspride]

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[closg00]

Very disappointing about Cuellar, he was well-respected, but turned-out to be yet another dirtbag politician.

Noem, seriously, WTF!

[dobrojim]

Cuellar (and his wife) appear(s) to be a flat out crook(s). I wonder how much jail time that old man will get.
I don't get why they 1. do it in the first place or 2.think they can get away with it

[dobrojim]

I wonder if Hick's emotional 'breakdown' comes from any sense of remorse for having
helped a monster become POTUS when she knew better. I wouldn't be shocked if
Golfy had hit on her at some point although she probably quickly put any ideas he
had to rest if he did. But she did say she liked his border policies.

[montestewart]

Cuellar (and his wife) appear(s) to be a flat out crook(s). I wonder how much jail time that old man will get.
I don't get why they 1. do it in the first place or 2.think they can get away with it

They do it for money and perhaps more get away with it than get caught.

[dobrojim]

We've seen quite a few things like this before but here's another set of examples
of Golfy acting like he's smarter than everyone by offering these toupee brained proposals,
which he believes would be helpful to US workers and our economy.
Among other fallacies, he appears to think tariffs are paid by the country that does the
importing when they are actually paid by consumers of the goods
imported. None of them could be described as 'conservative'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/02/trump-federal-reserve-independence-inflation/

The former president and his advisers keep finding new ways to outdo themselves on bad economic ideas. Should Trump be granted a second term, he plans to slash the labor supply by ratcheting down immigration (including legal, work-authorized immigration). He wants to devalue the dollar. He’d levy worldwide tariffs of 10 percent or higher, plus perhaps a 100 percent tariff on some Chinese goods, apparently failing to notice that the costs of his previous tariffs fell almost entirely on American consumers.

Over the years, researchers have found that central banks with greater independence have better inflation outcomes. There are also lots of counterexamples, illustrating what happens when the money supply is left to politicians whose punch bowls overfloweth. Inflation-plagued Argentina and pre-euro Italy are notorious poster children of this problem. For other examples, look to Turkey (current annual inflation rate: 68.5 percent) or Venezuela (last year, nearly 200 percent).

[Zonkerbl]

Here's another interesting article. Trigger warning: Contains critical race theory

Posting this mainly because it contains the idea that when a black person objects about certain words or phrases or ideas being used by white people, it's not because the words are "offensive." The words are terrifying, since they are part of a larger ideology that says it is ok to beat and murder and rape black people.

There are other interesting ideas in here, if you have the courage to read them in good faith.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com

[Zonkerbl]

What I hate the most about the world right now is how disagreeing with incontrovertible facts is considered by some to be a mere opinion. It significantly reduces my hope for a better future. Turns out, human beings are easily manipulated into being evil, and it's not just the dumb ones, everybody's susceptible. A small number of billionaires can underwrite propaganda outlets that can advocate for the end of democracy, and as long as you appeal to our underlying racism cleverly enough it's just a question of time before democracy ends. We can delay the inevitable, but the end of the democratic experiment in the US is coming.

Fox News was launched in 1997, it won't even have been a whole generation before it succeeded in tearing down democracy in the US. In one generation we've transformed from a country where a large majority begrudgingly respects the rights of people we don't agree with to a totalitarian "my way or the highway" dictatorship of a minority of wealthy anti-woke racists. Where the majority has to fight against all odds just to preserve their existing freedoms, and every four years it's a coin flip whether those rights will continue.

[dobrojim]

Here's another interesting article. Trigger warning: Contains critical race theory

Posting this mainly because it contains the idea that when a black person objects about certain words or phrases or ideas being used by white people, it's not because the words are "offensive." The words are terrifying, since they are part of a larger ideology that says it is ok to beat and murder and rape black people.

There are other interesting ideas in here, if you have the courage to read them in good faith.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com

trauma can be inherited. Growing up as a biologist, I was skeptical of this but there is evidence
that it is true.

[Wizardspride]

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