Print

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

[Flying Dice]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-al-shabaab-recruitment-video-217286

rofl, turns out Clinton was partially right, Trump did end up in a terrorist recruitment/propoganda video, just not ISIS or one of their affiliates.

And, as predicted, Trump's supporters are already claiming everything from Clinton giving them the idea to Clinton's people making the video themselves. 

[TheBiggerFish]

:facepalm:

[Powder Miner]

And then we developed dipoles...

There's a reason Washington warned about partisanship...

I actually disagree with Washington here -- every time we've had a one-party train, they've gone and dive-bombed themselves right into the ground. Era of Good Feelings the now opponent-less Rep-Dems held the entire government and felt good about themselves until they imploded into the ground from a severe economic panic, Andrew Jackson's Democrats proceeded to immediately thereafter ride Jackson's crazy power train into the ground with ANOTHER panic (I'm Andrew Jackson and SCREW BANKS), later on we have McKinley (POP) and Teddy Roosevelt, who did well... and then the MOMENT, basically, they try to continue it past TR they implode in the most spectacular fashion ever (it makes the current Republican party) and THEN post WW1 we have another pure Rep streak, kaSPLAT Great Depression.

I like having the country not being united under the same agenda or such, because the parties provide pretty nice obstacles for each other fully implementing their wishlist and then riding it right into a wall of pain -- the parties get SOME of what they want in, but they have to pick and choose their battles and in the end it becomes a more metered process, and the effects of each thing actually get felt out. The stalling of certain legislation just has to get dealt with... and being libertarian as I am I'm not exactly weeping over it

[TheBiggerFish]

No.  Washington meant not one party, but NO parties.  Every politician for themselves...Possibly on a deserted island...

[WealthyRadish]

A system without parties would be great if it wasn't impossible, but I'd much rather see proportional representation in the US. The barrier for a 3rd party to break in is massive without one of the entrenched parties collapsing, or a populist movement exploding in popularity. Even if proportional representation means that the nutty parties win a few seats, that's better than the stupid game of voting for whichever you fear less, until one party grows too incompetent to survive.

An interesting counterexample to this would be the Sanders campaign though, since he's been able to get some success running as a democrat. Even when if he loses, it shows there's at least some possibility for independent or third party reform candidates in the system. Trump qualifies at this point too I guess, and there is the occasional third party that influences one of the other two, like the tea party.

[FearfulJesuit]

A very merry New Year's message from Ted Cruz. I sure love me a good cringefest.

[smjjames]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trump-al-shabaab-recruitment-video-217286

rofl, turns out Clinton was partially right, Trump did end up in a terrorist recruitment/propoganda video, just not ISIS or one of their affiliates.

And, as predicted, Trump's supporters are already claiming everything from Clinton giving them the idea to Clinton's people making the video themselves. 

It's entirely plausible that they got the idea from Clinton. But regardless of whether they got the idea from Clinton, the point she was making still exists.

[hector13]

The question being why jihadists would listen to someone (Clinton) they purportedly hate (the West in general) for recruitment advice.

[Sheb]

Guys, shots of Westerners being islamophobic are a ;mainstay of jihadis videos. They need to convince Muslims that the West is their enemy.
They do it all the time. They didn't "listen to Clinton"

Jeez, it's like I'm the only one watching Islamist videos here.

[smjjames]

Guys, shots of Westerners being islamophobic are a ;mainstay of jihadis videos. They need to convince Muslims that the West is their enemy.
They do it all the time. They didn't "listen to Clinton"

Jeez, it's like I'm the only one watching Islamist videos here.

*stares at sheb*

jk

[Rolepgeek]

I just wish we could have like five or seven parties. More viewpoints can be represented that way, at least. Doesn't have to be 'you either support all of this or none of it'. :/

[Spehss _]

I just wish we could have like five or seven parties. More viewpoints can be represented that way, at least. Doesn't have to be 'you either support all of this or none of it'. :/

I feel like having absolutely no parties would put more emphasis on the candidates' policies. There would be no voting for a candidate just because the candidate is that party's nominee. No "I vote republican so I'll vote for the republican candidate" or "I vote democrat so I'll vote for the democrat candidate". Also maybe there'd be less stalemates in Congress. Maybe.

[hector13]

I just wish we could have like five or seven parties. More viewpoints can be represented that way, at least. Doesn't have to be 'you either support all of this or none of it'. :/

I feel like having absolutely no parties would put more emphasis on the candidates' policies. There would be no voting for a candidate just because the candidate is that party's nominee. No "I vote republican so I'll vote for the republican candidate" or "I vote democrat so I'll vote for the democrat candidate". Also maybe there'd be less stalemates in Congress. Maybe.

Campaigning is expensive though, so chances are it would only be open to those who can afford it in the first place. Not sure how likely it is to get a wide range of stances in that instance.

[smjjames]

I just wish we could have like five or seven parties. More viewpoints can be represented that way, at least. Doesn't have to be 'you either support all of this or none of it'. :/

I feel like having absolutely no parties would put more emphasis on the candidates' policies. There would be no voting for a candidate just because the candidate is that party's nominee. No "I vote republican so I'll vote for the republican candidate" or "I vote democrat so I'll vote for the democrat candidate". Also maybe there'd be less stalemates in Congress. Maybe.

Campaigning is expensive though, so chances are it would only be open to those who can afford it in the first place. Not sure how likely it is to get a wide range of stances in that instance.

It already is only open to those who can afford it, or those that can develop a good fundraising network or PACs.

Still, having like five or six parties would at least give more choices.

Though with the way our system works, it would end up coming back around to the 'two major party' system anyway.

[Spehss _]

Campaigning is expensive though, so chances are it would only be open to those who can afford it in the first place. Not sure how likely it is to get a wide range of stances in that instance.

Yeah. It's easy to say "Washington warned no parties so we shouldn't have parties" but Washington was president 200 years ago -not to mention he was pretty much unanimously chosen with little to no competition during his two terms- and the process of campaigning for presidency has changed tons since then.

In a perfect idealistic world I'd argue that party-less campaigns could be funded primarily by small donations from people rather than PACs or parties, but this is not a perfect idealistic world where everyone votes, much less keeps up with politics or is willing to give money for politics.