Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Owlbread]

That's not really a good thing to be doing. If people start playing devil's advocate we'll lose track of the actual debates.

I thank you for your advice sir, but I shall not take it. If it prevents you from discussing things like GlyphGryph's concerns over the US government's handling of wikileaks and now US reporters, then of course I won't go down that route, it just seemed like a reasonable point to begin radical debate. Abstract debate is fun.

So I don't bury Mr. GlyphGryph's post:

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/05/virtually-everything-government-did-wikileaks-now-being-done-mainstream-us-reporters

Hard as it is to believe, I desperately wish I had not voted for Obama. I can't imagine much different would have happened on the fronts that actually matter (what has he accomplished that isn't merely symbolic? The healthcare reform clusterfuck? The one that started as a Republican proposal?)

[misko27]

On that, would it be better under a Republican? Voting for Obama is a lesser of two evils. Seriously, do you genuinely think, that voting for a non-libertarian conservative would make the situation better?


I mean you could not vote, but then you lose your power to change things.



Also, I shudder to imagine a alone and cornered Israel, fearing for it's survival. But Nuclear war is fun amirite?

[SalmonGod]

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/05/virtually-everything-government-did-wikileaks-now-being-done-mainstream-us-reporters

Hard as it is to believe, I desperately wish I had not voted for Obama. I can't imagine much different would have happened on the fronts that actually matter (what has he accomplished that isn't merely symbolic? The healthcare reform clusterfuck? The one that started as a Republican proposal?)

He's taken some good, small steps.  Some culturally aggressive progressive appointments and public statements.  Other than that, though, I think he's been as bad as, if not worse than, Bush Jr.   More than any other president in history, as far as I can tell, he's been rabidly corporatist (practically handed the FDA over to Monsanto with finality), advanced the surveillance state and militarization/lawlessness of the police, and fanatically defended government secrecy to comical extremes (federally prosecuted twice as many whistleblowers as all administrations before him combined).

Edit:  Fixed a really bad typo

[Leafsnail]

No, it won't. Radical Islamists do not seek peace. They'll keep fighting the West just because of who we are. That we do not bow to them and believe in their god is reason enough for them to try to kill us.

This is true of their leadership, but what we tend to see is their rank and file members are people angry about losing their families to dronestrikes and having their towns destroyed and stuff (this applies particularly to the Taliban).

[MetalSlimeHunt]

No, it won't. Radical Islamists do not seek peace. They'll keep fighting the West just because of who we are. That we do not bow to them and believe in their god is reason enough for them to try to kill us.

This is true of their leadership, but what we tend to see is their rank and file members are people angry about losing their families to dronestrikes and having their towns destroyed and stuff (this applies particularly to the Taliban).

I'm sure that some of the rank and file are like that, but I'm just as sure there are plenty of true believers. We should be using more precision strike weapons, but other than that their reasons don't really change anything. Once you've gone as far as to join the Taliban, the only way it ends is in death, sooner or later.

[Owlbread]

I'm sure that some of the rank and file are like that, but I'm just as sure there are plenty of true believers. We should be using more precision strike weapons, but other than that their reasons don't really change anything. Once you've gone as far as to join the Taliban, the only way it ends is in death, sooner or later.

I think precision strike weapons need to be developed a bit more before you can support them like you do. US drone attacks have killed nearly 200 children and between 400 and 800 civilians overall since 2004, the bulk of the drone attacks having taken place during the Obama administration (i.e. since 2008). Way back in 2009 the United Nations Human Rights Council criticised US tactics, saying that the US government has failed to keep track of civilian casualties of its military operations, including the drone attacks, and to provide means for citizens of affected nations to obtain information about the casualties and any legal inquests regarding them.

Obama has shed no tears publically, even though he's killed more children through authorised drone attack collateral damage than Adam Lanza or Thomas Hamilton ever could. Who cares anyway? They aren't even white or American.

[Leafsnail]

I'm sure that some of the rank and file are like that, but I'm just as sure there are plenty of true believers. We should be using more precision strike weapons, but other than that their reasons don't really change anything. Once you've gone as far as to join the Taliban, the only way it ends is in death, sooner or later.

This just isn't true.  There are plenty of ex-Taliban members out there.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm sure that some of the rank and file are like that, but I'm just as sure there are plenty of true believers. We should be using more precision strike weapons, but other than that their reasons don't really change anything. Once you've gone as far as to join the Taliban, the only way it ends is in death, sooner or later.

This just isn't true.  There are plenty of ex-Taliban members out there.

This would be the first time I've heard of it.

[kaijyuu]

Simple logic could've brought it to your attention before this.

Reality doesn't have faceless mooks.

[Owlbread]

US drone attacks in Pakistan are a bit like the UK in Northern Ireland (which the US government was quick to criticise them over) blowing up Gerry Adams in his house and killing his entire family just because he's a target. Can you imagine the outrage? Obama doesn't care about the kids whose death warrants he's signing though, they're just Arabs or Pashtuns or whatever. We don't know their names.

[GlyphGryph]

On that, would it be better under a Republican? Voting for Obama is a lesser of two evils. Seriously, do you genuinely think, that voting for a non-libertarian conservative would make the situation better?

I do, actually, at this point. Because then the Democrats would have been cast in the role of the opposition, and the outcry could have potentially ended with them putting forward an actually decent candidate. Instead, we have the Republicans having to fill the role of the voice of reason, which is going about as well as you'd expect. For all their flaws, they AND the democrats all tend to be far more reasonable when a Republican is in power, because the Republican radicals lose a lot of their rhetoric and ability to influence the party, and the Democrats have a reason to exhibit a tiny bit of backbone and stand against poor legislation (rare as it is for them to actually do so even then).

I don't know anymore if Obama was the lesser of two evils. As far as I'm concerned, he's effectively declared war on the concept of democratic government, because without an informed populace there is no Democracy, only a farce. And he has fought at every turn to leave the American public unenlightened and powerless, while attempting to placate them so they don't complain about it.

I mean you could not vote, but then you lose your power to change things.

What power to change things? Because it's not that often that votes change much of all, and even rarer that you can actually tell in advance what kind of change your voting for. What I need to is get involved in politics - but I'm afraid I wouldn't survive the experience, hah.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Simple logic could've brought it to your attention before this.

Reality doesn't have faceless mooks.

Extreme religious cults do not tend to have a high defection rate, especially not undeveloped regions. I figured the Taliban would kill anybody who tried to leave on top of that, leaving ex-members a severe minority.

[10ebbor10]

I'm sure that some of the rank and file are like that, but I'm just as sure there are plenty of true believers. We should be using more precision strike weapons, but other than that their reasons don't really change anything. Once you've gone as far as to join the Taliban, the only way it ends is in death, sooner or later.

This just isn't true.  There are plenty of ex-Taliban members out there.

This would be the first time I've heard of it.

It's not suprising. The Taliban, and many other "terroristical" organisations (Little differnce between terrorists and freedom fighters. Just depends on whose side you're on) are not all religious extremists. In fact, religious extrimism has less to do with it than the socioeconomical situation, and the recent history. (which, in many cases is gruesome enough to support their antipathy for the West).

I negotiate with terrorists.

Then I most sincerely question your moral compass.

As I question yours, if you sincerly believe that the only way to solve the terroristical problem is what will amount to the eridication of entire ethnic minorities/majorities.

Violence only perpetuates itself that way.

Globalization is partly reversible. The world's affairs do not have to be the USA's, one can look at nations like North Korea or Turkmenistan that have effectively retreated from the world stage into their own little worlds. They are bizarre, insane states of course, but that doesn't mean a neutral USA would have to be.

Yes it would, dude. We are locked in, both by population and everything that has been set up over the last century, to a globalized scenario. Isolationism in such an environment is, by definition, insane and demonstrably bad.

Don't be so sure, my fine fellow. Radical Islamism (of the sort that targets the USA specifically) is often tied in with a kind of confused extreme "Islamic" nationalism that involves hatred of the Jews and Israelis by extension. If you offered to stop supporting Israel as a bargaining chip, it would be interesting to see the Islamist reaction.

What part of "guaranteed genocide and probable nuclear war" is not getting across here?

I wouldn't be so sure of that. The entire mess down their in the Middle East is a direct result of meddling of Western nations. Destabilizing governements, triggering wars, The entire Palestinan-Israelitic conflict,  ecetera ecetera.

Adding to that, the US has made little progress doing humanitarian things in the regio. In fact, they probably did more bad than good.

Besides, the unilateral worldpolitical system died some time ago, and is no longer feasible.

Simple logic could've brought it to your attention before this.

Reality doesn't have faceless mooks.

Extreme religious cults do not tend to have a high defection rate, especially not undeveloped regions. I figured the Taliban would kill anybody who tried to leave on top of that, leaving ex-members a severe minority.

The taliban isn't an extremely religious cult. It's a nationalistic fundamentalist movement, reacting to experiences of the past. Many have left the Taliban, and they're not prosecuted. Unfortunately, the recent radicalization of the Taliban puts their lives at risk, as younger, more fundamentalistic members see them as traitors.

Besides, the Taliban is a loose collection of groups and warlords. They don't have the power to kill everyone who leaves.

[Nadaka]

Simple logic could've brought it to your attention before this.

Reality doesn't have faceless mooks.

Extreme religious cults do not tend to have a high defection rate, especially not undeveloped regions. I figured the Taliban would kill anybody who tried to leave on top of that, leaving ex-members a severe minority.

Apostasy is a crime punishable by death even in what we normally consider to be moderate Islamic countries.

[GlyphGryph]

But the Taliban isn't a religion, and leaving it is not considered to be leaving Islam.