How does the World view America these days?

[Alcofribas]

i think you're failing to realize that you're not just calling out liberals you're also defending right-wingers. don't forget that you entered the thread not only calling liberals "morons," "scummy," "childish," and generally characterizing them as lazy uneducated voters but you also stood up for ted cruz against people calling him a "moron" and you characterized him as a brilliant academic. you're not just calling out liberals, you're also lending your support to ted cruz.

 

the vast majority of right-wing bashing on this forum does not also include a corresponding support for a particular liberal politician and you can be sure that when it has i have often been one of the few dissenting voices in such instances. i fondly recall being one of just a couple people on this forum during obamas first presidential campaign who called him out at all. in fact, the only other person i can recall criticizing him was hot legs' brother.

[MisterE]

im pretty sure that the people here who are bashing on right wingers generally are fairly left wing and want to see more left wing politicians elected. i dont even get what youre trying to accomplish here. and your saying that you were one of only a few people who called out obama, pretty much supports what i'm saying, doesn't it? personally i don't really actually care about you or whether you are being 'fair and balanced' with regard to which politicians you tear into. my main thing is to say that people here are constantly slamming right wingers, and yes those people do tend to support left wingers, and i've even seen people state things like that they will vote on left wing politicians only. you're trying to deny something that is so plain and blatantly obvious. and again, i've never seen you criticize those people for their one-sidedness or lack of nuance. which to me says something about you when you always go out of your way to say that kind of crap to me.

Edited April 10, 2015 by MisterE

[Alcofribas]

the difficulty i have with your position is that while you may have perfectly valid points about the failures of liberals (e.g. hypocrisy, uneducated rejection of opposing politicians and blind adherence to their party, indoctrination by the media, etc.) your characterization of these as distinctly liberal issues is completely off the mark. pretty much all of your criticisms can be made about republicans, mutatis mutandis. so it is always frustrating when you appear in a thread to bash liberals not because of any particular political position or policy but just in such generic terms that are so interchangeable between adherents to either political party. sure, a bunch of liberals just watch jon stewart and make fun of republicans without ever really doing their own homework or take a hypocritical posture on multiculturalism...but exactly the same problem persists amongst conservatives who stare at fox news and make fun of obamer and pretend there is a war on christmas. so, whenever you come in denouncing liberals on this ground it's all kind of a moot point really.

 

what remains to be seen is the actual substance of your political support for the republican party or a particular politician. so ted cruz has a nice college cv but so do countless liberals that you might be inclined to bash. what are the actual policies of his that you support and how are they irreconcilable with what is being offered from the liberal perspective? how do you address some of the various criticisms addressed at him not just from the left but also from within his own party? basically, aside from his good grades in college why might he be a worthy candidate for president?

 

the point here is that one can only get so far just bashing liberals for...well, bashing republicans. they call cruz a moron, you call liberals morons. that's about as far as that's gonna get you. i think both luke and chen provided some perfectly intelligent issues they have with cruz's politics and i personally find that a more interesting line of reasoning.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Alcofribas

[Adieu]

On another more productive note, I think the attacks coming after Rand Paul show how much of a threat he actually is. Barring a good democratic candidate coming out of the left I would support Rand being our president even though I don't fully agree with all of his positions. I can respect his views on abortion. I can respect his desire to balance the budget, shrink the federal government, reform education, punish congress if necessary, and many more. Any thoughts? (wondering if my position is going to make Mr. E short circuit?)

[MisterE]

i'd *maybe* vote for rand if he gets the rep nomination, and i'd prob agree that they're attacking him because they are afraid.

i've liked some things he's said. i have questions about how sincere he might have been when he said them but i don't know. like when he did the filibuster i saw him talking about drones as if he totally disagreed with them, then i saw when he said this:

"If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and $50 in cash, I don't care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him,"

 

there's more to that than just the idea that someone who robbed a liquor store (let's assume it was at gun point and could've easily resulted in innocents being killed) is killed, there's the fact that for the drone to be the thing that carried out the execution, implies so much more about how they'd be deployed and used. him saying that totally blew my mind.

[MisterE]

Must say that I love the recent white house tweet with this pic. It's the white house saying "FU Bibi!". And with a good sense of humor as well, imo. Pretty sure bibster thinks otherwise. (Which makes the joke even better!) =D

 

that was a pretty bomb ass tweet, but how does the ayatollah feel about it?

[goDel]

 

Must say that I love the recent white house tweet with this pic. It's the white house saying "FU Bibi!". And with a good sense of humor as well, imo. Pretty sure bibster thinks otherwise. (Which makes the joke even better!) =D

 

 

that was a pretty bomb ass tweet, but how does the ayatollah feel about it?

It's all (schoolyard) politics. Underlying issue here, imo, is: are we going to keep on crying we have a problem which can only be solved by bombing our way out of it, or are we going to try to fucking grow up, and have a dialogue and come to a deal?

The other context is that in a ( political) world where there are bibi's ( or rather, people whose thoughts are represented by bibi), there always needs to be some counterbalance on the other side of the spectrum to even things out. Here Khamenei fits the shoe. This is not to put the blame entirely on bibi, btw. Lots of stupid/immature stuff has been said in the past from both sides. And that stupid stuff always seems to be followed with more stupidity. And bibi needs to keep on cater the right wing powers. ( cant help but to think about cruz at this point as well. Even summa cum lauda graduated people can say/do crazy stupid stuff... Effortly, because he's so smart, apparently)

But here it's nice to notice what came first and second. In this instance it's bibi acting first (crying about a bad deal), so obviously, there needs to be some kind of iranian response to counterbalance. But does khamenei response actually means there wont be a deal, or that iran wont keep to the deal when its finally there? Behind all the political smoke and mirrors the factual actions of the parties involved (exclude israel and american congress here, btw) behind the deal show a more positive side, imo.

 

Also, point of view from an outsider on some vaguely tangential issue, the idea that american state representatives need to have a say ( read: actual executive powers) on international issues is pretty ridiculous. And either shows a complete lack of respect for the executive branch, or a complete lack of self-awareness about how little people at the state level understand about international politics. Prolly both.

 

And the beautiful thing about the tweet is that it diffuses the political smoke and mirrors with a good sense of humor. Imoooooo

Edited April 10, 2015 by goDel

[MisterE]

but godel, aren't the criticisms people have with the deal, which include things such as 'can iran be trusted to follow this deal' kind of entirely validated by ayatollah khamenei saying that obama is lying and has devilish intentions? basically the gist i'm getting from you is that even if the deal is never made it's still 100% ace all the way (esp since it sticks out its tongue and says 'nyanya' to bibi). i mean it's not like how good of a negotiator you are has anything to do with whether you can actually get the other side to go along with your deal, it's all just about what your demands are and whether they annoy bibi?

 

"Also, point of view from an outsider on some vaguely tangential issue, the idea that american state representatives need to have a say ( read: actual executive powers) on international issues is pretty ridiculous. And either shows a complete lack of respect for the executive branch, or a complete lack of self-awareness about how little people at the state level understand about international politics. Prolly both."

 

i would say that paragraph really just shows how little you understand about american politics, since you're clearly talking about the senators, who aren't at a state level but a federal one (just like the executive branch you mentioned), and who are commonly involved in international affairs. for one thing, senate must ratify any treaties and are even supposed to be involved in deals that aren't quite treaties, which alone pretty well makes them involved in and means they must be knowledgeable of international affairs. there are state versions of both branches but, the senators you were talking about are at a federal level.

 

it's also kinda funny (to me anyway) that obama himself on the 10th of last month said that what those senators were doing is not a "role that our Founding Fathers envisioned for Congress to play when it comes to foreign policy." but then just 20 days later he said:
"What if we carried ourselves more like Ted Kennedy? What if we worked to follow his example a little bit harder?". he also called him "the greatest United States Senator of our time" at his funeral.

maybe he's just not aware of this?

[chenGOD]

Lol to compare what Kennedy did (a discreet, private message, that outlined some options that might help Soviet-American relations) to what Tom Cotton and his group of motley fools did (an open letter that basically tells the world America can't be trusted in international deals) is really clutching.

If you really want America's status to decline in the world, by all means elect people like Cotton, who thinks military action in Iran would last a few days, or would like to muzzle the press even more than the Obama administration (who don't score well on that point).

This guy actually makes Cruz look intelligent.

[goDel]

Wrt to the last paragraphs: thx for the lecture.

 

Wrt the first: isn't it weird that the criticisms people have with the deal came before the ayatolla had even opened his mouth, but yet are entirely validated by what he said? that's convenient! and does the fact that the ayatolla opened his mouth in such a way represent irans actual intentions, or rather, as i was arguing, is it another form of political smoke and mirrors? imo, the fact that the ayatolla opened his mouth in a specific way does not validate the criticism toward the deal. words mean shit in politics (politicians will openly argue the world is flat if their constituents think so/ want him to think so - even if they - said politicians - personally think otherwise), so it's all about the actions. most important actions: 1. piece of paper with deal (smart!) signed by involved parties; 2. actual measurable progress made due to deal (in terms specified inside deal). These two points should negate what any party involved said at any point in time - past or future.

 

obviously there are lots of parties who don't trust the opposite party. whether they represent israel, the gop, americans in general, or iran, or some hawkish conservative/religious wing in the iranian power structure, both sides lack trust. which leads me to argue that it doesn't really matter what the content of the deal is.

 

As long as those parties (who lack any form of trust in the other side) arent satisfied, it doesn't even matter whether it would actually be a realistic deal. note that odds are those parties can only be satisfied by some extreme/impossible kind of deal which isn't even realistically possible. Or in other words: any (political) deal which is realistic in any kind of way leads to a set of compromises. And as is often the case: when trust is completely lacking, compromises are pretty much impossible.

 

So, imo, it's not really a case of being a good negotiator (negotiations imply compromises, silly!), but rather about people showing some trust, or in some cases maturity/self-reflection to understand that some compromises need to be made to break through the status-quo and get some positive developments.

[Rubin Farr]

This is all kinds of fucked up. The family has been labeled as somewhat of a "cult" for being Christian street performers, but they had way more problems than that to deal with, like attacking a crew of cops, or pulling a cop's gun and shooting him with it.

 

http://youtu.be/2Z2DB5rjeW8

 

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/04/294313-christian-performers-arizona-walmart-get-brawl-cops-now-one-person-dead-reaching-gun/

[cwmbrancity]

Going to San Diego soon, gonna be a maximum chill, cant wait, might even get some sea fishing done

[Rubin Farr]

Philly woman abandons quadriplegic son in the woods to starve to death, so she could see her boyfriend.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-left-quadriplegic-son-woods-philadelphia-police-005040630.html

[ambermonk]

I hope that bitch gets locked up for a long time

[chenGOD]

On another more productive note, I think the attacks coming after Rand Paul show how much of a threat he actually is. Barring a good democratic candidate coming out of the left I would support Rand being our president even though I don't fully agree with all of his positions. I can respect his views on abortion. I can respect his desire to balance the budget, shrink the federal government, reform education, punish congress if necessary, and many more. Any thoughts? (wondering if my position is going to make Mr. E short circuit?)

 

Carrying on from the discussion in the cops murder unarmed civilian thread:

 

In a flat tax percentage rate doesn't matter - it inherently favours higher earners. He also will make investment earnings tax free - guess where the rich make most of their money. Estate tax, gonzo. How many mansions do you have kicking around? Corporations also feature heavily in Paul's budget - I guess you could incorporate yourself, corporations certainly come out better in his budget.

 

Cut the department of education completely - blerg who needs education anyways. You can just look up everything on the internet amirite? Assuming you have a place to live, where you can put your desk, with your laptop on it. In other words, hope you're not poor and are thinking of trying to get a house - cause bye bye department of housing and urban development. Yeah, fuck you poor people, you don't deserve a house.

 

Maybe you meant cuts to the defense program - yeah I could get behind those - you guys in the US spend an awful lot on the military (and frankly, don't get a great return).

Too bad Paul is already pandering to the GOP faithful and pledging to increase spending.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rand-paul-abandons-his-pentagon-plan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rand-pauls-delicate-balancing-act/2015/04/05/6e38af6c-d946-11e4-8103-fa84725dbf9d_story.html

 

So you'll still pay income tax under Paul, the divide between rich and poor will grow, you'll get fewer services for the income tax you do pay, and your health care will cost more.

Great deal all around I'd say.

 

Just out of curiosity - three questions.

 

What's wrong with a central government, who do you fund that considers themselves royalty, and why shouldn't you pay income taxes?

[doublename]

I don't know what it is about Philly, but it seems like heinous child abuse stories are more common there than anywhere I've ever lived.

[LimpyLoo]

 

 

On another more productive note, I think the attacks coming after Rand Paul show how much of a threat he actually is. Barring a good democratic candidate coming out of the left I would support Rand being our president even though I don't fully agree with all of his positions. I can respect his views on abortion. I can respect his desire to balance the budget, shrink the federal government, reform education, punish congress if necessary, and many more. Any thoughts? (wondering if my position is going to make Mr. E short circuit?)

Carrying on from the discussion in the cops murder unarmed civilian thread:

 

In a flat tax percentage rate doesn't matter - it inherently favours higher earners. He also will make investment earnings tax free - guess where the rich make most of their money. Estate tax, gonzo. How many mansions do you have kicking around? Corporations also feature heavily in Paul's budget - I guess you could incorporate yourself, corporations certainly come out better in his budget.

 

Cut the department of education completely - blerg who needs education anyways. You can just look up everything on the internet amirite? Assuming you have a place to live, where you can put your desk, with your laptop on it. In other words, hope you're not poor and are thinking of trying to get a house - cause bye bye department of housing and urban development. Yeah, fuck you poor people, you don't deserve a house.

 

Maybe you meant cuts to the defense program - yeah I could get behind those - you guys in the US spend an awful lot on the military (and frankly, don't get a great return).

Too bad Paul is already pandering to the GOP faithful and pledging to increase spending.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rand-paul-abandons-his-pentagon-plan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rand-pauls-delicate-balancing-act/2015/04/05/6e38af6c-d946-11e4-8103-fa84725dbf9d_story.html

 

So you'll still pay income tax under Paul, the divide between rich and poor will grow, you'll get fewer services for the income tax you do pay, and your health care will cost more.

Great deal all around I'd say.

 

Just out of curiosity - three questions.

 

What's wrong with a central government, who do you fund that considers themselves royalty, and why shouldn't you pay income taxes?

Libertarianism to me is like the Three Laws of Robotics: on the first level its tenets might seem reasonable enough, but what you eventually get is nightmarish.

 

(See Chomsky for details)

[cear]

[cwmbrancity]

Libertarian's should watch Death of a Salesman

 

Objectivists should be shot

[azatoth]

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

[Rubin Farr]

Philly woman abandons quadriplegic son in the woods to starve to death, so she could see her boyfriend.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-left-quadriplegic-son-woods-philadelphia-police-005040630.html

She has been arrested, and charged with the following:

 

aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment, neglect of a care-dependent person, unlawful restraint, kidnapping and false imprisonment.

[Rubin Farr]

Manhole explodes during interview. I've read this happens all the time and people are regularly killed by them.

 

[chenGOD]

Article on it: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2015/02/severe_winter_conditions_set_off_manhole_explosions.php

 

Seems like a fairly straightforward issue - infrastructure needs upgrading.

[olo]

I don't know what it is about Philly, but it seems like heinous child abuse stories are more common there than anywhere I've ever lived.

 

come to detroit homey. If you want to be desensitized to heinous acts of your fellow man against children, old folks, animals, basically anything that breaths, this is your town.

[Rubin Farr]

Arizona cop thinks he's playing GTA, fully runs over suspect without even slowing down.

 

http://youtu.be/K8KWyEa5NNs