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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Dec 26, 2019 11:08:06 GMT -6
My point is that your “intelligent voters” may be a minority. There are enough blind loyalists on both sides to hopefully cancel out if turnouts allow. |
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Post by okie on Dec 26, 2019 12:48:02 GMT -6
Along those same lines.... It takes a very different set of skills to get elected President than it does to be a good President. Good policy won't get you elected President. That's how we got the term "electibility". Gabbard, Yang, Buttigieg, Klobuchar are all good candidates with strong policy but they do not have the strong presence required to get elected. Cletus is going to stick by Trump. The question is whether that will be enough to get him re-elected. We are starting to see some small cracks in his base that might leave him with only the 35% that really would let him slide if he shot someone on 5th Ave. And while only the votes of the impartial jurors count in the trial, they all have to run for re-election some time and those votes are going to follow them forever. Plus, according to the polls, the number of people who favor impeachment and removal is higher than the number that voted for Scrotus. Even when you count the 5 million illegal votes for Hillary in CA. Trump’s approval rating remains above the average of his term at 42.7%. His approval rating has grown significantly in the last 3 weeks. |
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Post by okie on Dec 26, 2019 12:49:08 GMT -6
My point is that your “intelligent voters” may be a minority. There are enough blind loyalists on both sides to hopefully cancel out if turnouts allow. Hopefully a third party will emerge from conservatives. |
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Dec 27, 2019 18:29:13 GMT -6
Skip to the 14 minute mark to hear Milton Friedman advocate for, essentially, a guaranteed minimum income.
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Post by daneaux on Dec 30, 2019 9:25:11 GMT -6
“Anarchism has the advantage as regards liberty, Socialism as regards the inducement to work. Can we not find a method of combining these two advantages? It seems to me that we can. […] Stated in more familiar terms, the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income – as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced – should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful…When education is finished, no one should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free.”
Bertrand Russell
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Post by x on Jan 2, 2020 22:35:22 GMT -6
Well. Cheeto certainly is taking some eyes off of impeachment for a bit.
No worries, he'll remind us how great he is for hitting Iran and then go back to tweeting about impeachment tonight.
He can't help it.
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Post by drlefty on Jan 3, 2020 8:37:48 GMT -6
So did the idiot start WW3?
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Jan 3, 2020 9:10:05 GMT -6
Nah, Iran will fall faster than Iraq if they try to start a proper war. They will likely increase their terrorist operations and we will continue drone attacks.
Interesting how we have fully accepted assassination now. There was a time when that was anathema. See Executive Order 12333.
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Post by daneaux on Jan 3, 2020 9:38:42 GMT -6
I wonder how a war with Iran might work.
They're certainly not going to attack us here (outside of terrorist strikes which WILL happen), so I would guess that a full blown attack on the Baghdad Embassy followed by an invasion of Iraq and mixed in with attacks on US interests in the Persian Gulf area.
I don't think we will be able to defend the Embassy and the Iraqi forces are not going to take on the Rev. Guard to protect our Embassy. Both sides proved how it's going to be between the US and Iraq this week. The US didn't even notify Iraq of the airstrikes and then criticized the Iraqis for not jumping up to defend our Embassy from what should have been a very predictable act. It wasn't a good sign for a cooperative effort to contain Iran.
I don't think there are any substantial obstacles to an Irani takeover of Iraq except Israel and the US. And we would be fighting from a long way from home. Carrier groups and air force bases aren't enough to stop an armed invasion. It would eventually take hundreds of thousands of troops, I'm guessing. They have substantial standing armed forces and can invade more quickly than we can assemble a traditional fighting force of the size it would take. The Quds forces have a job opening, though.
I'm afraid that unless someone backs down we might be heading for a major conflict. I don't see either side as likely to back down. Trump would see it as an admission of the weakness of our position in the Middle East. He's not going to do that no matter how many lives it costs, though. Even though it's true. Or especially because it's true.
I think we're all over the draft age, but if I were 18-30 I'd sleep a little less soundly.
I wish that the discussion of Iran/USA relations wasn't limited to the period of 1979 to the present. A little knowledge of the events on the early to middle 20th Century might prove very enlightening to some.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Jan 3, 2020 10:01:27 GMT -6
It will be terrorism and cyber attacks. Standing army? Like Saddam's?
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Post by drlefty on Jan 3, 2020 11:06:37 GMT -6
Nah, Iran will fall faster than Iraq if they try to start a proper war. They will likely increase their terrorist operations and we will continue drone attacks. Interesting how we have fully accepted assassination now. There was a time when that was anathema. See Executive Order 12333. Its hilarious how Trump tweeted about Obama trying to start a war with Iran, and then he starts a war with Iran. |
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Post by daneaux on Jan 3, 2020 12:58:01 GMT -6
I'm not saying we couldn't win a war with Iran. But it will take hundreds of thousands of troops and will stress our military to do it. Plus, I'm just not sure that there is a ready willingness on the part of the people to go into yet another war in the middle east. We've already ceded influence to Russia and China. If we enter into a war with Iran, we risk drawing either or both of them in, and when you add them to the mix with our good friends the Saudis and the Israelis and the Turks (NATO member) and the Syrians....the regional conflict turns into something bigger.
EO12333?
That's the same thing that made the stupid DNI so powerful. It created the Deep State. Trump told me.
He also said Reagan was a fag.
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Post by x on Jan 3, 2020 21:32:52 GMT -6
I blame the Pope slap for all of this.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Jan 4, 2020 9:26:45 GMT -6
Russia and China are not interested in fighting us directly. I'm not worried about a WWI domino effect.
Iran will be very patient and will use proxies. Russia will also be content to use proxies for the dirty work and then creep in at an opportune moment.
Iran plays a long "long game" that we don't really understand in our fast moving news cycle and political cycles.
The only way I see this getting out of hand is if there are attacks at Hormuz and Trump decides to protect the strait by force. That could get dicey because you have to invade and hold land to do it effectively, although I suppose you could do it with just ships.
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Post by Mahatma__Ganhdi on Jan 4, 2020 9:28:39 GMT -6
I blame the Pope slap for all of this. The Pope slapped that beetch because she was grabbing at him. I support the slapping of grabass beetches. #metoo |
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