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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 4456973 times)

Sergarr

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8685 on: July 01, 2017, 02:39:32 pm »

Just making election day a national holiday where everyone has to get off work would do so much.  Or maybe if you want retail and hospitals to keep working that day require employers to provide pre-paid mail in ballots for anyone working that day.  Fill in your ID information, toss it in the mail.  Government posts pictures of the ballot and envelope on the internet and in the local DMV so employers can't pull shenanigans like addressing the envelope to the wrong address or whatever.
Or just carry out elections on Sundays, like literally every other democracy on the planet does. The only reason why that has yet to happen is because Constitution is an atheistic Bible to one third of the population and an instrument of tyranny and suppression for the second third one.
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Descan

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8686 on: July 01, 2017, 02:52:14 pm »

dumbass SJWs in fedoras.
you're mixing your metaphors, bruh :V it's the dumbass alt-right MRAs in fedoras, enlightened by their own intelligence that they are, not the dumbass s-jews.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8687 on: July 01, 2017, 02:54:14 pm »

The power to set election day is with Congress, it is not set by the Constitution. The only constitutional reference to election day is Article Two, Clause Four. It used to be in the spring instead of the fall, and incidentally was the same week cherry trees blossom, leading to Japan giving a bunch of the trees to the US.

And no matter how much the rest of the world likes to sling shit about it, constitutional democracy is not a "religion" any more than evolution is.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2017, 02:56:41 pm by MetalSlimeHunt »
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Starver

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8688 on: July 01, 2017, 03:15:14 pm »

Or just carry out elections on Sundays, like literally every other democracy on the planet does.
UK habit is to do Thursdays.

(I've never seen it seriously suggested that this majorly inconveniences the Working Man™, although it probably does cause a bit of "can I come in late/leave early?" negotiations.)

Forcing entire sectors of workers to stick to postal ballots seems to me ripe to (say) butter up the nurses (ooeer!) up until a couple of days beforehand, then launch the carefully prepared disappointing climb-down announcement (to grab other sectors) once those votes are set in stone.  Make voting day a half-day working environment, perhaps, to be arranged so as to have entire (arbitrarily organised) shifts for the morning switching off as the other shifts comes in after having had their Voting Time. Or just have more accessible polling stations.

(On the last election, I had stayed the night away from my constituency for variousmreasons and as I walked the last bit home that morning I passed by two polling stations (about 500 steps apart) servicing a subset of two entirely different parliamentary seats, and neither of them mine.  I knew I had opportunity to go to my actual designated voting place later that day, as it happened, but I could have easily made it the triple, rather than working at home first.)
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MrRoboto75

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8689 on: July 01, 2017, 03:52:05 pm »

I'd help greatly if absentee ballots were actually counted most of the time.
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Frumple

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8690 on: July 01, 2017, 04:06:57 pm »

Or just carry out elections on Sundays, like literally every other democracy on the planet does.
UK habit is to do Thursdays.

(I've never seen it seriously suggested that this majorly inconveniences the Working Man™, although it probably does cause a bit of "can I come in late/leave early?" negotiations.)
It's another barrier that doesn't have to be there, and another practice that specifically depresses turnout for chunks of the US demographic, particularly younger ones. That early/late negotiation even strikes you as a meaningful issue/possibility indicates it's something you're not terribly familiar with :P

Polling station accessibility is indeed something of an issue in a number of places. Not a very large one, usually (save where some bastard is being a bastard and intentionally setting things up so certain communities get fucked over; fortunately we're actually not entirely terrible about catching that particular brand of bullshit before it lingers too long), but... again. Every barrier is a barrier. The easier it is to vote, by and large the more people vote, at the absolute least up to a point that the US very much has not yet reached. If there's actually a problem with campaigns switching tracks hard after absentee stuff is in, just make sure there's a way to change your vote, or don't announce anything except maybe participation until election day (and iirc, it's mostly like that already).

Still, I don't think anyone's suggesting forcing any sector of workers to use postal ballots (though the system as is strongly incentivise it to the extent it doesn't just cause people to not vote). Just make the stuff easier so voting gets in the way of work et al less and move election day to a less troublesome part of the week. The only thing we particularly "gain" from having the thing during the work week is voter suppression.
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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8691 on: July 01, 2017, 06:42:35 pm »

[Voting Day/Work Conflicts[Polling Station Accessibility[Voter Suppression[Resisting Electoral Reform[Gerrymandering]]]]]
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Egan_BW

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8693 on: July 01, 2017, 11:36:50 pm »

Ah, so rather than actually funding the space agency we have, we'll create a new space agency but with more shooting things. Genious.
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Baffler

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8694 on: July 01, 2017, 11:37:51 pm »

So...they're redoing the NASA split?

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As fucking awesome as both of those things sound, I kind of agree that it seems a bit much to create an entirely new branch of service off of the Air Force just to run strategic satellites and a handful of ground-based missile installations. Sure their mission could expand, but with everyone still opposing putting weapons in space I don't see anything coming up anytime soon other than 'build/launch more satellites and anti-satellite missiles.' Certainly nothing that warrants a whole parallel command structure where the Air Force is handling it just fine.
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Neonivek

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8695 on: July 01, 2017, 11:47:25 pm »

Ok this is interesting but YouTube keeps suggesting this one guy's videos to me.

His ENTIRE series is basically taking Steven Colbert segments and spin doctoring them to be how great Donald Trump is.

One was about how the world hates Donald Trump, but Donald Trump is undefeated (Undefeated in what way video?)

---

Did President Obama have as much blind support as Trump does?

I mean to my knowledge he was heavily criticized... But to my knowledge no one was going "Well President Hillary would have blown up the country. The only reason people have criticisms against Obama is because of bias!" (maybe I didn't see it because the ROCK STUPID criticism of Obama was louder "He is a Middle Eastern Spy!")

Goodness guys I am tired of the ROCK STUPID support of Trump...

Can I have a source of ROCK STUPID criticism of Trump? Something based off of pure hearsay and stupidity? Like him having more than two children means he is against Religion or something.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2017, 11:51:15 pm by Neonivek »
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sluissa

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8696 on: July 02, 2017, 12:09:17 am »

So...they're redoing the NASA split?

Sounds like this is different, although poorly thought out. NASA was created when it was clear there was a legitimate civilian interest in space exploration. That's not to say it was an entirely cut and dry split either, they still work closely together. The Shuttle program was notable in that to get it funded it was also partially a military project and thus had to meet certain requirements set forth by the Air Force. (Requirements, which honestly hindered it in some ways for its civilian purposes, but that's another story.)

I won't say it can't be done well, but as it stands the Air Force does a more than sufficient job of dealing with space. There's also the fact that a lot of what they do would likely still be connected closely to a separate space branch. It would have to be to avoid serious costs with doubling up on efforts. The other alternative is to gut the Air Force so completely that they would no longer do ANYTHING other than fly planes. That would mean breaking off the ballistic missiles and missile defense. Communications and Spy satellites. Certainly other things as well. Given that most other branches already fly their own aircraft it almost leads to the question of what is the Air Force even there for if you take space from them?

It also completely throws out the window the current facade of space as peaceful place of international cooperation. While it's obvious all spacefaring nations have been more than happy to use space for military purposes, at the very least with communications and surveillance if not more, and in at least a few cases demonstrating force in space with destruction of satellites. It seems like it would be yet one more step, and a bad precedent to set up an entire military branch dedicated to militarizing space.

Now here's my 100% conspiracy theory nutjob idea:

NASA was ordered to stop studying the earth itself and focus outward. Trump wanted to heavily cut funding from other government science agencies especially those studying the environment. That leaves the military as the last uncontrolled government group really focusing their eyes on the earth. The navy and the air force in particular do spend significant money on atmospheric and oceanic observations, often with satellites. Any congress, but a republican controlled one especially is going to have a hard time cutting funding for the military... but if they were to instead... perhaps... break off some stuff they wanted to control into a new branch, with a new rule book written to their tastes. Military spending would go up as a whole, while at the same time funding for certain projects, namely environmental science related ones, can go down.

EDIT: Awkward wording.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2017, 12:19:42 am by sluissa »
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Neonivek

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8697 on: July 02, 2017, 12:25:07 am »

So what is the justification given for basically knee capping environmental protection anyhow?

Typically it is that the money to make by not protecting the environment leads to advancements to shut down pollution AND demand for less pollution works better than government constraints.

But that wasn't brought up... So what is it this time?
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8698 on: July 02, 2017, 12:25:29 am »

I am absolutely and unequivocally against the creation of a Space Force. All practical benefits of space exploration will be lost to us, perhaps forever, if space is allowed to be militarized. Should we break down the relatively stable way space exploration has gone so far, it will become yet another killing field for humanity.
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sluissa

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Re: AmeriPol thread: Comey testifies in front of Congress
« Reply #8699 on: July 02, 2017, 12:55:56 am »

So what is the justification given for basically knee capping environmental protection anyhow?

Typically it is that the money to make by not protecting the environment leads to advancements to shut down pollution AND demand for less pollution works better than government constraints.

But that wasn't brought up... So what is it this time?

Jobs... unnecessary regulations... poor coal miners... I doubt Trump is even 100% sure of the reasons, but his friends tell him this is what will make America great again.
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