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[smjjames]

some videos explaining the tax plans of various candidates. basically Hillary stays the seam Sanders taxes the rich and Cruz and trump cut all the taxes so much the government ceases to be able to function and the rich make bank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml5RFrVzArk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlr0taBZIlk

Plus some wierd stuff like Trumps plan resulting in people identifying as corporations rather than humans (Yo, corporations are people, yo! We eat, breathe, defecate, have sex, and have opinions like real living organisms!).

[Frumple]

Man, if I'm a corporation I'd really like to know who else has stock in me, so I can hunt up the board of directors and kick all the bastards out for never showing up to meetings.

I mean, part of that is because I don't have board of directors meetings for the corporation of I, but that just means the buggers have been failing in their duty as stockholder to arrange such events!

Also I haven't actually seen anyone paying for stock, so the whole investment thing is... well, very badly documented if nothing else. How the hell do you even audit the fiscal contributions of what are apparently unnoticed split personalities?

[mainiac]

Either of them have more political experience in their little finger than basically our entire political system put together,

Really?  Palpatine, mister "I can't bother to run a government so I will dissolve it?"  The guy who created a civil service that was more terrified into inaction then the Soviet officer corps after the great purge.  The whole damn galaxy was running on autopilot the whole time he was in charge, no one did anything except the Jedi.  He ran a dictatorship for 20 years and had no accomplishments to show for it except for "defeating" the separatists.  He could only accomplish that because he was running them the whole time.  He littered the galaxy with secret projects that were full of flaws and created redundant government departments all over the place that were duplicating each others work, badly.

And Palpatine was the brains between the pair of them.  Vader was even worse!  Vader went around making arbitrary commands, killing senior officers and fostering resentment in the ranks by constantly playing favorites.  Vader taught his officers that the way to succeed was to sabotage your boss but avoid any and all personal initiative yourself, just be an unthinking rubber stamp.

The American system might be prone to inaction because of the separation of powers but I would take any of the presidential candidates over that pair of bunglers.  Heck, I'd take a random person off the street.

[Frumple]

He ran a dictatorship for 20 years and had no accomplishments to show for it except for "defeating" the separatists.

Well, defeating the separatists, massive scientific and economic development (even in the face of what you're calling mismanagement!), great strides in controlling crime in core worlds (if admittedly because he basically ran the major criminal organizations through patsies, but still ), maintaining overall peace for a long period despite regular terrorist attacks and insurgencies, tremendous (though definitely mishandled on the PR front) strides towards core and rim world security against outside threats... there's just a sundry list. Guy managed to direct that "autopilot" towards getting a helluva lot of work done.

As for vader... he had his problems, and definitely some of the extent propaganda tried to paint him as incompetent, but I think the results show more than the screentime. He still managed to organize and maintain coherency for massive amounts of military force, and was by and large able to keep them incredibly effective, to the point that even after the successful terrorist coup that killed the emperor (well, the first time, anyway), those "rubber stamps" were able to direct, organize, and maintain splinter governments for substantial chunks of the existent galaxy. He was a lot better at what he did than you're giving him credit for, yeah.

[smjjames]

Should we make a 'star wars politics' thread? lol

Also, Trump is going to make a foriegn policy speech tomorrow sometime.

And, that Kasich-Cruz pact thing is rapidly disintegrating already: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/john-kasich-ted-cruz-indiana-pact-222498 Plus the Kasich campaign screwed up with Oregon and ended up not being on the ballot.

[Strife26]

Didn't the Empire manage to lose cloning technology?

[Wolfhunter107]

Didn't the Empire manage to lose cloning technology?

The genetic material they used to make clones lost its quality, iirc.

[smjjames]

Didn't the Empire manage to lose cloning technology?

The genetic material they used to make clones lost its quality, iirc.

Plus the origional was killed and young Boba Fett went into hiding. There's probably a million reasons why though.

And we're really going offtopic with Star Wars.

[Cruxador]

Didn't the Empire manage to lose cloning technology?

The genetic material they used to make clones lost its quality, iirc.

Plus the origional was killed and young Boba Fett went into hiding. There's probably a million reasons why though.

Also, the clone army was devised for a very specific reason, and isn't necessarily economically viable in different situations.

[TheDarkStar]

Also, Trump is going to make a foriegn policy speech tomorrow sometime.

I'll be curious to see if he can out-do Cruz ("bomb the middle east until the sand glows").

[mainiac]

massive scientific and economic development (even in the face of what you're calling mismanagement!)

Great scientific and economic development?  If anything the galaxy regressed.  Space traffic plummeted.  Alien groups like the Mon Calamari and Bothans were driven out of business, Kuat was militarized, turning one of the biggest drivers of economic activity into a tax burden.  Even prosperous human planets in the core like Corellia and Chandrilla were driven into resistance.  And of course he blew up Alderan which is a massive freaking waste.

great strides in controlling crime in core worlds (if admittedly because he basically ran the major criminal organizations through patsies, but still

Crime was rife!  The empire just gave up the pretense of even having a government on the out rim and let the syndicates rule worlds openly without even the pretense of government.  The entire corporate sector was just written off.  That's about one twentieth of the empire!  Imagine if the Michigan state government just collapsed and it was taken over by a mix of drug lords and an anarcho capitalist cartel.  That is not keeping crime under control.

maintaining overall peace for a long period despite regular terrorist attacks and insurgencies

You mean despite the regular terrorist attacks and insurgencies against his oppressive government?  Seems a bit daft to treat that as an excuse rather then a failing.

Guy managed to direct that "autopilot" towards getting a helluva lot of work done.

Literally name one accomplishment that was not a military boondoggle.  The dude didn't give a shit about civic government, he just wanted to pour money into the military so he could kill the Jedi.

those "rubber stamps" were able to direct, organize, and maintain splinter governments for substantial chunks of the existent galaxy. He was a lot better at what he did than you're giving him credit for, yeah.

The imperial remnent was gathered together by Paelleon and Thrawn.

Paelleon was a man of talent and charisma who came out of the military establishment of the old republic.  The Empire got this capable leader of men and what did they do with him?  They passed him over for promotion in favor of mad scientists who build doomsday weapons.  It's like if the Nazi's had regulated Manstein to commanding a garrison regiment in Norway while giving Himmler unlimited fund to build an Amerika bomber.

Thrawn?  Capable.  Non human.  Everything the empire can't use.  Send him off to the outer rim without any support and leave him to fend for himself.

They only rose to the top because all the useless deadwood that were put in positions of power was completely freaking useless after the emperor and vader were dead.  If a star destroyer captain proves to be a better choice then every single moff and admiral, you have really messed up promotion choices!

[Aklyon]

And we're really going offtopic with Star Wars.

Its more interesting than other politics though.

[Frumple]

Didn't the Empire manage to lose cloning technology?

They actually managed to further develop cloning tech (see: Palpatine and force-capable clones, and how palpatine didn't die when he was killed, repeatedly.), they just toned back the usage fairly significantly. From what I recall they were still using cloning to a degree to supplement stormtrooper numbers, among other things, just not on nearly the same scale the Old Republic did during the separatist wars, and greatly preferred non-clone troops/officials/etc.

Which is fairly understandable -- the two biggest movers and shakers of the Empire were both veterans to varying degrees of the clone wars, and very much familiar with the repercussions and complications of wide scale clone usage, which were fairly significant. So they cut back, developed a effective standing army using many of the remaining clones as a backbone (Vader's primary military/elite group -- the 501st Legion, colloquially known as Vader's Fist -- actually had a fairly substantial amount of clones vader had commanded during the wars remaining in it.), and worked from there.

[Shadowlord]

This is entertaining, but you know all this non-canon stuff you're saying is non-canon, right?

P. sure Thrawn doesn't even exist.

[Frumple]

Lies and slander. Clearly the best blue skinned thing to come out of a sci-fi franchise in the last thirty years exists.