Print

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

[TempAcc]

Trump is backed by nippon

[nenjin]

Coulda sworn that was posted before. Maybe it was shared around here at work.

[PTTG??]

I'm still reeling over the massive flip-flopping. Was the whole idea for trump to attract a bunch of conservatives and then brainwash them into becoming more liberal?

[nenjin]

No, see, it's not Trump that flip flopped.

It was you. It's always been you.

[Neonivek]

Trump gave a big speech last night about how he's going to save america by deporting all of the illegal immigrants. He even got mothers of all the victims to come up on stage with him and tell their stories.

The problem is, statistically, illegal immigrants make up an extreme minority of violent crime, and resources for dealing with crime are limited. For every one person Trump saves from an illegal immigrant, ten others will be violently killed by registered citizens while the authorities are too busy kicking in doors and dragging little Latino girls out and carrying them halfway across mexico.

But honestly, my biggest gripe with Trump is the way he repeats everything he says, like his audiences are made up of little kids with ADD who can't bother to pay attention the first time he says something. I feel bad for his real kids having to grow up with that every day.

Actually it is even more then that. Illegal immigrants commit less crime in general (outside... you know... being an illegal immigrant) usually to keep low.

[Harry Baldman]

Actually it is even more then that. Illegal immigrants commit less crime in general (outside... you know... being an illegal immigrant) usually to keep low.

Well, technically every second they're in the country they are committing at least one crime! It all adds up to a lot of background crime in the neighborhood, far above the average dosage. Live near a sweatshop and you'll be absorbing those millicapones like nobody's business.

[Neonivek]

Actually it is even more then that. Illegal immigrants commit less crime in general (outside... you know... being an illegal immigrant) usually to keep low.

Well, technically every second they're in the country they are committing at least one crime! It all adds up to a lot of background crime in the neighborhood, far above the average dosage. Live near a sweatshop and you'll be absorbing those millicapones like nobody's business.

I do love how America takes full advantage of their illegal immigrants and in many ways encourages them...

But blames the immigrants for it...

"How DARE you work in our sweat shops!"

[misko27]

Most people don't think like that though. Business leaders were totally like "Wew, let all those immigrants in". In fact it was unions who had to be convinced to support Immigration reform (which they eventually did). In terms of actual special interest groups, most are supportive of Immigration reform. It's the exceptions that torpedoed it.

[Rolan7]

Obviously there's a big difference between violent crime and, say, abetting employers in circumventing workplace safety and payroll guideliness.

They're essentially scabs.  They don't *want* to weaken the bargaining position of American workers, but they're doing so.  It's rather selfish, even though it sucks for them too.  The corporations are the only ones winning here.

The counterpoint, that Americans aren't willing to do such jobs, is something I don't believe.  Young unemployed Americans with massive debt are willing, they just aren't willing to do it under the table for illegally low compensation.

But is all that unregulated, dirt-cheap labor supporting our way of life?  Sure, if you believe in trickle-down economics. 

(This is why the answer is amnesty of course.  Get them the wages and protections they deserve, by making them citizens, at the same time putting them on a level playing field with the rest of us)

[RedKing]

Meh...I'd be willing to bet more jobs have been "stolen" by people who never left their home countries than have been by illegal immigrants. Just harder to get riled up by folks you never see.

I've had my job offshore to India three times in my career so far. I have never lost my job to an immigrant. Albeit, blue-collar and white-collar jobs are drastically different in that respect. Though even blue collar jobs vary by industry.

If you're a chicken plucker or dishwasher, you're at risk of losing out to illegal immigrants.
If you're a textile worker or furniture mill worker, you're probably going to lose your job to offshoring.

All told, I think offshoring has a far more deleterious effect on American workers than hiring under the tables.

[Rolan7]

Oh yeah, that easily could be.  Whole industries keep moving overseas for cheaper labor and less taxes, and we keep paying them because they can undercut companies that stick with our labor.

[RedKing]

And this is where Trump had an initial advantage -- hitting offshoring and immigration reform simultaneously made for a strong appeal to workers. But you'll notice he's kinda gone silent about offshoring and corporate inversions and other assorted corporate tomfuckery, and is focusing on the low-hanging hatefruit of immigration.

[nenjin]

And this is where Trump had an initial advantage -- hitting offshoring and immigration reform simultaneously made for a strong appeal to workers. But you'll notice he's kinda gone silent about offshoring and corporate inversions and other assorted corporate tomfuckery, and is focusing on the low-hanging hatefruit of immigration.

Probably because the news keeps coming that half of his business is based on importing foreign workers.

[RedKing]

H1Bs are a whole nother ball of wax -- the growing trend of "offshoring onshore". That's another area in heavy need of reform.

[Starver]

He's not even that good of an orator. But I guess he has the skills for the demographic he's targeting. It's sad but true that his style actually works for a certain segment of the population. Possibly the segment that watches a lot of infomercials.

Trump loves the poorly educated.

He said that, not me. I would actually feel sorry for repeating this, but having forced myself to watch his badly-composed (presumably entirely off-the-cuff) rally speeches and compared them to his opponents (both internal and external), I can only assume he has some sort of 'je ne sais pas' (beyond the "if you're at my rally (and not a comspicuous protestor who gets thrown out), of course you're gonna cheer everything I say" thing) that attracts people.

Spoiler: And the next bit I wrote ended up being *long*! (click to show/hide)

Not that I like Hillary/Cruz/Sanders/Rubio/etc much more (again, it's rallies full of supporters, and they'd cheer their candidate if they did a poop onto a dollar bill, if stage-managed in the right way with the right build-up) and their language is carefully honed into the political form that Trump decries but at least stops the leap from 'boring' into 'batshit crazy'.

But it seems that "not your normal politician" does something for some people. For the EU Referendum, over here, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump¹ were identified as two of the very few politicians whose message is on record as not actually having nudged more voters away from their stance than towards it. Which conceivably counted for a lot, given the eventual underwhelming majority of the result in that.

I dislike politicians. Given a choice between a Clinton and most normal people I think I'd find even good ol' Bill a bit of a stretch, but I at least trust Hillary to moderate her spoken opinions without serving the very lowest common denominator. I have no problem with those who are against the politics of Hillary for actual good reasons, despite her best attempts to cover all those bases, but for some it seems sufficient to believe Batshit Trump's every little oft-repeated innuendo ("Crooked Hilary") without question (c.f. the "£350 million" referendum claim²) because it panders to their hearts even though that means bypassing their heads.

And it cuts both ways. Hillary is picking up #NeverTrump support from the 'unintelligencia' who are somehow repelled by ("The") Donald, as well as those mugwumps who actually have a genuine grievence with Trump's slapdash approach. How that will balance out with the #NeverHillary deserters from the registered Democrats (of whatever degree and nature of (dis)motivation) and the swing amongst the neutrally-inclined³ where they don't already intend to send their message in the form of the 'middle-ground' or 'off-to-one-side' party candidates.


I known my critique from outside the system is probably unwelcome, but as I am hardly witbout precedent I do feel I have a certain limited licence to do so. And it appears that of all the US citizens who I met last weekend (numbered well into double digits) and who expressed an opinion about Trump (I would certainly have had to have started to count on my toes, having exhausted my fingers and not started off with finger-bones from the start) were very much not Trumpeters. But then they were self-selecting against being insular, and at least wise enough to consider avoiding Trumping out of context (whilst the vocal anti-Trumpers might have been gambing upon a sympathetic audience, and probably came up quids-in).

¹ And if Trump actially complains about international commentaries against him/for his opponent(s), I hope somebody reminds him of his own views, freely given, on the various non-American affairs that he similarly has no direct involvement in.

² Which incidentally has the same effect as the email server situation. Side A know that whilst it's nowhere near as bad as Side B is continuously claiming it to be, the only way they can head-on argue about it is by saying that it's really only a little bit bad, which obviously they'd still prefer not to say too much. They'd much rather just not respond and hope that the outright lies from Side B get forgotten or buried under something else.

³ I still marvel at the US system. Being put on the electoral register with your originally intended party affiliation recorded, long before any opening hustings even occur (never mind pre-polling day hustle and bustle to react to topival issues) seems just one step away from stating that you'll "always vote $PARTY$, like my father always voted $PARTY$ and his father before him - and I'd disown in an instant any of my kids who didn't vote for $PARTY$!!!" Now, I know that in many states the party college systems only allow their 'own' registered voters (or, slightly more sensibly, anybody not registered as a voter of another party) to vote in the Primaries, and this solves the problem of apathy of actual party subscription that we have by inbuilt into our nation's system (give or take the Corbyn Effect), but I think it's a system whose time (once useful) has passed, in this modern and highly news-responsive world with communication across the mighty American plains (and hills and waters) no longer restricted to the speed of horses of flesh or iron (or mules or ships, likewise).  But this is by way of a meandering diversion from my original point, and I'm in no way accredited as an expert on US electoral reform...

(If you reply to a snippet, you're free to snip the containing spoiler out, too... That's just to reduce the wall-of-texticity.)