U.S.A. 2016 General Election

[Sabretooth78 808]

On 7/1/2016 at 4:52 PM, Cool_Z said:

What ????

Do you consider Sanders weak because he now tries to fight the obvious danger that Trump is ?

What would you say if he didn't take position now ?? "hey, look at that weak old guy, he can't pick a side".

Please...

I would admire him a little more if he stood his ground.  It would show him to be a rare beast in this country nowadays.  It's the media that would castigate him as being weak, much as they try to drill home the belief that a vote spent not on either of the "two" parties is wasted (rather than the other way around as it should be).

There's a severe shortage of independent thought in this country and it would seem to be manifesting itself about exactly how you would expect it to.  Nowadays, independent thought is a guy in a pickup truck with a Gadsden flag license plate and a Trump bumper sticker.  To me, that's like voting for a Hitler-Stalin ticket.  (Hint:  They are opposites.)

[matias93 7,535]

4 hours ago, Sabretooth78 said:

I would admire him a little more if he stood his ground.  It would show him to be a rare beast in this country nowadays.  It's the media that would castigate him as being weak, much as they try to drill home the belief that a vote spent not on either of the "two" parties is wasted (rather than the other way around as it should be).

There's a severe shortage of independent thought in this country and it would seem to be manifesting itself about exactly how you would expect it to.  Nowadays, independent thought is a guy in a pickup truck with a Gadsden flag license plate and a Trump bumper sticker.  To me, that's like voting for a Hitler-Stalin ticket.  (Hint:  They are opposites.)

In any case, a sane political convivence cannot be sustained if every politician were 'strong' and hold their ground no matter the circunstances. Conflict would ensure because everyone would think of themself as a clear-viewed independent and their solutions as the only right ones. Harmonic liberal democractic policy needs politicians humble enough to recognize that, even when they are right, negotiate could be the better option for the country.

[Duke87 1,070]

The issue here is contradicting ones own prior statements. A man who is on the record as saying Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president is, three months later, endorsing her.

No one reasonably expects Sanders to keep trying to fight at this point, but he didn't have to actively endorse Hillary. He didn't have to actively endorse anyone. One wonders what backroom deal was struck to pay him off for doing so.

[matias93 7,535]

2 minutes ago, Duke87 said:

The issue here is contradicting ones own prior statements. A man who is on the record as saying Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president is, three months later, endorsing her.

No one reasonably expects Sanders to keep trying to fight at this point, but he didn't have to actively endorse Hillary. He didn't have to actively endorse anyone. One wonders what backroom deal was struck to pay him off for doing so.

I think the frontdoor deal is more than enough to make Sanders change to a cooperative position, particularly with a populist menace on front. Hillary, no matter how unqualified and corrupt is, is still better than the incarnation of all liberal nightmares. The french, confronted to a very similar situation in 2002, put clothespins on their noses and "voted for a crook rather than a fascist".

What you should consider too is that primaries distort candidates' positions as much as general elections do: to be competitive, primaries' candidates have to distance  themselves from their internal competitors, but after a winner is declared, they have to embrace them to remain competitive as a party. That's pretty sordid, IMHO, but is basically the only way to choose candidates on a two catch-all party system without recurring to blatant spoiling.

I would prefer a multi-party system, with as many collectivities as needed to allow them to choose their candidates internally, by consensus. That would require a completely different set of rules, so it's only a silly wish.

[Sabretooth78 808]

19 hours ago, matias93 said:

In any case, a sane political convivence cannot be sustained if every politician were 'strong' and hold their ground no matter the circunstances. Conflict would ensure because everyone would think of themself as a clear-viewed independent and their solutions as the only right ones. Harmonic liberal democractic policy needs politicians humble enough to recognize that, even when they are right, negotiate could be the better option for the country.

I don't disagree with you, but it would be a little nice if perhaps we had something more than what probably amounts to 1-2% (I'm feeling generous) of our politicians to be "clear-viewed independents" at any given time.  I wonder how his supporters feel about his capitulation?  Will they just roll over too?  (Seeing as adherents to one side of the argument have a tendency to change their positions once the other side gets into power, maybe they will.)

Who did Ron Paul endorse in 2012?  Did Gary Johnson endorse anybody then or now?  Heck, even Ted Cruz?  Why did Bernie have to endorse anybody?  I haven't been following Cruz (or any of the self-defeating republican circus) lately but I don't recall the other two having endorsed anybody - at least no "mainstream" candidate.  If the man who "can't be bought" endorses one of the most bought-off hacks in the game today, (one who basically owes her "career" to being married to a popular then-outgoing president - and in part to Donald Trump, ironically (lol!) - but I digress,) can we really say he can't be bought?

6 hours ago, Duke87 said:

The issue here is contradicting ones own prior statements. A man who is on the record as saying Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president is, three months later, endorsing her.

No one reasonably expects Sanders to keep trying to fight at this point, but he didn't have to actively endorse Hillary. He didn't have to actively endorse anyone. One wonders what backroom deal was struck to pay him off for doing so.

Exactly.  Sanders was the singular greatest threat, the greatest unknown, in Hillary's election hopes.  This reeks of John McCain circa 2000 - i.e. back when he actually was a "maverick" before falling off his rocker.

[igotthis 12]

As a Bernie supporter, I am glad he is finally going to endorse. No, he is not a sell-out. He had a goal, he ran a great campaign, and his ideas will continue into the Convention. The Dems MUST change, they MUST adapt and they MUST update the platform. As a country, we are so behind other Western countries and that is no place for America. These Repugnicans are so behind the times that it is ridiculous. Hate of change, hate of rights (unless its a gun), hate of governance. Annoyed now.

IGT

[Sabretooth78 808]

I'm not so sure about hate of governance.  They all give that talk when they want to be elected, but there are two "inconvenient truths" that belie them.  First of all, they throw away untold resources just to be a part of said governance; and second, once elected precious few have ever reduced the net amount of authority/governance within the purview of their position.  Oh sure, they might reposition it a little (almost certainly in ways that provide personal benefit), but they sure as the atmosphere preferentially scatters blue light don't reduce it.  And therein lies my beef with today's republicans:  Greed-driven, spineless and useless hypocrites, nearly the whole lot of them.

 

(Democrats carry many of the same labels in my book, they're just not as hypocritical.  They throw the BS right at you without trying to hide behind something they're not.  Cases in point, Bill Jeff and Hilarious Clinton.)

[Delta 88 262]

13 hours ago, Sabretooth78 said:

I'm not so sure about hate of governance.  They all give that talk when they want to be elected, but there are two "inconvenient truths" that belie them.  First of all, they throw away untold resources just to be a part of said governance; and second, once elected precious few have ever reduced the net amount of authority/governance within the purview of their position.  Oh sure, they might reposition it a little (almost certainly in ways that provide personal benefit), but they sure as the atmosphere preferentially scatters blue light don't reduce it.  And therein lies my beef with today's republicans:  Greed-driven, spineless and useless hypocrites, nearly the whole lot of them.

 

(Democrats carry many of the same labels in my book, they're just not as hypocritical.  They throw the BS right at you without trying to hide behind something they're not.  Cases in point, Bill Jeff and Hilarious Clinton.)

One annoying thing about the republicans is that they attack the wrong issues. Benghazi, emails, etc. Who freaking cares? That stuff is really nothing. When I see bumper stickers of that "NEVER FORGET BENGHAZI" nonsense, I just shake my head.

[Larks2242 251]

As the 2016 RNC Convention gets underway, We hear from the victims of Hillary Clinton's failures, The mother of Sean Smith says she personally blames Hillary Clinton for the death of her son as the crowd chants "Lock her up".

Not a dry eye as the emotional speech brings reality to the shortcomings and how it costs lives.

 

 

Democrat general Michael Flynn on the danger of electing Hillary.

 

 

I really hope America is better then this, Trump may not be ideal at all, But Trump's comments will never reach the poor record, history and actions that Clinton has done while holding office.

[Jasoncw 11,946]

I've watched about 85% of the convention so far and it's just a bizarre trainwreck. 

The first night was supposed to be about security. They spent the entire time talking about Benghazi (conspiracy theory completely detached from truth). Normally at a convention you have the national security experts from within the party giving speeches, even if only broadly, on policy. Instead you have the Republican foreign policy experts writing an open letter opposing Trump. When a major faction (and historically one of the strongest and most defining parts of the party) is refusing to participate I guess you have to settle for a guy from Duck Dynasty, some other B and C list celebrities, and a few minor politicians. 

They did have the mothers of some of those who died at Benghazi. They did the same speeches that they've been doing constantly since their sons died 4 years ago. Despite the fact that their stories are not consistent with what other victim's families and other sources have reported. They also had some soldiers there.... uhhh, promoting their book? I'm sorry that I think that it's not appropriate to cash in on this kind of stuff...

Of course earlier in the afternoon there was the kerfuffle over adopting the rules. A few weeks ago the rules committee made up the next set of rules, and the dump trump people were not able to win out and have the rules unbind them from their state's results. They wanted to have a symbolic roll call vote in order to express their displeasure. Understandable for the rnc to want to suppress them, since it showcases the dysfunction. But they knew it was going to happen and there wasn't anything they could do to totally stamp it out. The dump trump people got enough states/delegates in order to force a roll call vote, and so they did. And then the people on stage disappeared. And then there was confusing and unrest  among the delegates for 10 or 15 minutes. And then magically the people come back on stage and announce that some of the delegates/states withdrew and that there is no longer enough for a roll call, and they just ram through the rules adoption. So instead of a quick 5 minute roll call vote that would end quickly you have this dragged out confusion, and the spectacle of everyone chanting and shouting at each other, and of delegates walking out of the convention and empty seats etc.

This was (luckily ?) overshadowed by Melania Trump's speech. The message of the speech and her delivery of it was perfectly fine. The fact that the campaign is so dyfunctional that nobody caught that she had copied chunks of her speech from Michelle Obama (wife of the kenyan, muslim, atheist, communist, god-hating, america-hating, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama). Melania claims that she wrote the speech herself, and she's also claimed to be a personal fan of Michelle, so it's totally believable to me that she copied parts of the speech simply because she liked them and didn't know any better. But I don't blame her for that, she's not the one running for president and is not into the campaign. But you can definitely blame Trump and his campaign for it. Normally a campaign has a small army of people whos job it is to help write and help proofread speeches to make sure things like this don't happen. Either these people don't exist within his campaign, or they do and they just totally botched it. Either way that is not acceptable for a major party nominee in this country. 

 

Today was supposed to be about the economy but the great majority of it ended up being about, once again, Benghazi. The ratio of second rate celebrities to politicians who are supposed to be there was slightly improved but the speakers and their speeches regarding the economy were still noticeably underwhelming. There were some personal anecdote type speakers from businessmen, but there weren't politicians from the economics/small government/etc camp of the party giving detailed speeches about the rational of their ideas and outlining how those ideas would improve the economy. This is the type of thing where you'd expect a few advisors or cabinet members or department heads from previous Republican administrations, or maybe some people from high profile think tanks or advocacy groups. For some reason the NRA speech got put in with the economy theme instead of the security theme, but regardless the NRA speech was more detailed and professional than the others.

 

And another sign of dysfunction is just how empty the arena was. The entire upper bowl and about half of the lower bowl were empty during the prime time speeches, when at a normal convention the place would be jam packed with other people wishing they could get in.

 

It will be interesting to see how the Democratic convention goes. They have Barrack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, and other speakers (Liz Warren etc.) who are super popular among Democrats, and Republicans just don't seem to have the equivalents for (heck, they booed their own Senate Majority Leader). They'll have all their different experts and specialists speaking about their relevant topics instead of boycotting the event. They'll have a carefully coordinated stock of the next generation of national level politicians to give exposure to. They might try bolstering some important local level candidates. They'll dedicate time balancing the various parts of the party platform and making sure that all the different parts of the party are represented (the supposedly elusive "party unity" that Republicans have seemingly no understanding of). The event will probably be really boring like conventions tend to be, but it will do its job.

"The party of Lincoln" has been invoked a few times so far, but I don't think they really understand what that means. Not just that the early party was a far left party ("radical republicans"), but just understanding the amount of coordination and competence required to reformulate a party from the ground up after the failure of a previous party, and dedicating themselves to noble goals. All today's Republicans seem capable of is plunging the party even deeper downward when you didn't think it could possibly get any worse.

 

[Sabretooth78 808]

I was overhearing parts of it and despite the fact that purpose of this whole circus is to gather to select THEIR candidate, it seems instead that as usual it's a platform to complain about what the other camp is doing.  Real productive.  (Not that the democrat convention is going to be any different, of course.)  Given that they're completely bereft of solutions to even the slightest nuisances, I guess there's no point even wasting time on that.

Then when I heard some hack making a speech about how our "shining light atop a hill" has gone downhill since 2008 I wanted to vomit.  Yeah, things were just so peachy back then, it's too bad we ruined it all by electing one particular man president.  There wasn't already talk about the imminent housing bubble burst nor were republican candidates scrambling to avoid the toxic current president's involvement in any of their campaigns.  Then you put a zombie and a buffoon on your ticket and wonder why you failed spectacularly (and then mounted no serious competition the following cycle, either). But no, blame it all on one man.  Lousy president, but not the cause of the current problem.  More like a symptom.

Why anybody still pays attention to this garbage is beyond me.  Do people honestly take this seriously?

[igotthis 12]

Aw, how adorable. I'm so happy the Repugnicans have finally coalesced around such a fantastic candidate. A huge, tremendous candidate.

 

IGT

[Odainsaker 2,136]

So far, it has been embarrassing and even alarming to watch...I tuned in during Duck Dynasty and watched up past General Ripper.  Along the way we got Joni loves Chachi, Trump does Rocky, Rudy Giuliani off his meds, and a fashion model who was not allowed to admit to the convention that she admired the words of the wife of that Terrorist Muslim From Kenya, and so was instead haplessly left plagiarizing her on national TV.  The cognitive dissonance was deep.  We also saw that the weaponization of the U-S-A Chant can be targeted not only against fellow Americans, but also to against disobedient fellow Republicans.  After the angry pitchforks and hanging judges of day two, I'm still waiting for the positive message and vision of America for the future.

It will be fascinating Reality TV tonight to see what Lying Ted Cruz says about the "sniveling coward" who ruthlessly denigrated his wife's face and insinuated his father conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate John F. Kennedy.  Little Marco, who had previously wailed about his party's surrender of true conservativism and the nation's nuclear codes to an "erratic" "con artist," will also appear there tonight to kiss the hand of the new godfather.

 

[Larks2242 251]

20 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

Today was supposed to be about the economy but the great majority of it ended up being about, once again, Benghazi.

The democrat convention will instead exploit the mothers of those killed by cops, The mother of Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and others which makes me think that cop hate will be the theme for them, Maybe they can even book Ice Cube to perform "F the police".

 

A DNC delegate for Hillary was arrested for attempted murder yesterday, Violence begets violence and it isn't coming from the right.

[nos.17 5,242]

It seems that the Trump campaign is "Making America Great Again" sooner than we all could have imagined. Already doing its best to improve the education system here in the states.

 

The whole campaign confuses me. From what I have heard, accountability seems to be a big (read: the only) theme: hold Clinton accountable for her "crimes." Whatever, that's fine. The part that bothers me is that it is so one-sided. Clinton is supposed to be held accountable, but Trump can do whatever the hell he wants. Plagiarism? Nah. We'll just blame the intern, force them to make some sort of apology and then fire him (her), with ZERO accountability from the higher ups who probably only had to google search phrases to figure out they had already been said. I mean, come on. The funny part is who it came from too. Trump himself has shown a brazen disregard for accountability himself. Whenever someone points out an inconsistency with something everything he says, his reaction is denial. 1) Changing your mind over the years is ok. It happens to all of us. 2) There are hundreds of sound clips that show you saying exactly the thing you never said. Which brings me to another point: nothing he ever does is wrong. Failed businesses, bankruptcies, lawsuits? I would be amazed if any business men of his stature were to build an empire without failing. The decent person would be able to say that yes, it was a failure, but from my experiences, I learned X, Y, and Z which made me a better person or business person in the long run. Not with Trump: nothing he has done has ever failed is his little mind. He is the greatest person to walk this planet. (Since Reagan, of course). His ego is about as small as those golden chairs he was sitting in during his interview with CBS the other day. He couldn't give Pence two minutes of his own time to speak without butting in for some comment. That's another story, though.

In short: Blue and Red politicians everywhere have always, and will always, stretch the truth to make their ideology more attractive. Never before though, has someone been able to make exaggerations and claims that are 100% false on a regular basis and not care about it one iota. Never before has anyone risen to political prominence on catchphrases and slogans (and Twitter) without actually listing any substantial details about their policies. And that bothers me. Probably more than anything else he has ever done. For me it is more about what he doesn't give: numbers & details. His website sure doesn't. Because to the average American, slogans and a mouth spewing fancy talk are enough. Forget careful thought and planning, coordination with experts, thousands of numbers computed to make sure its right. Let's just strongarm the rest world to get what we want. It has worked for the Trump Organization before, so why won't it work for America?

I never really was a fan of $hillary or Hildebeast or whatever angry people on the internet are calling her now, but right now she is looking pretty damn attractive to me.

 

 

@Jasoncw ... That has to have been the most thought out post I have ever read about this topic. Well done; I really enjoyed hearing your opinion.

 

56 minutes ago, Larks2242 said:

A DNC delegate for Hillary was arrested for attempted murder yesterday, Violence begets violence and it isn't coming from the right.

Mmm Hmm. It's the old "just blame the other side with everything that has happened" tactic. It always works. <-- Not sarcasm, unfortunately. I found this browsing Youtube the other day. Never have I seen anything truer.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Ted Cruz gave a great speech a few minutes ago!

 

He espoused American ideals, he asked the audience to vote for whom they believe will best protect their freedom and the constitution, he asked the audience to extend courtesy and respect the rights of others, including those we disagree with, he talked about American exceptionalism, briefly mentioned his parents, explained to the best of his abilities what would help the USA most, and respectfully didn't mention The Donald.

[Larks2242 251]

22 minutes ago, nos.17 said:

It seems that the Trump campaign is "Making America Great Again" sooner than we all could have imagined. Already doing its best to improve the education system here in the states.

We can play mud slinging games all day, Did they say that when Joe Biden passed class on a plagiarized essay?

 

They all do it but clearly the game plan is to ignore the bad your person does and jump on and focus on the other.

[Larks2242 251]

41 minutes ago, OcramsRzr said:

Ted Cruz gave a great speech a few minutes ago!

 

He espoused American ideals, he asked the audience to vote for whom they believe will best protect their freedom and the constitution, he asked the audience to extend courtesy and respect the rights of others, including those we disagree with, he talked about American exceptionalism, briefly mentioned his parents, explained to the best of his abilities what would help the USA most, and respectfully didn't mention The Donald.

Oh how things would be different with Ted Cruz, I sure hope he runs in 2020, He is the future of the country, Few people can bring as much energy as him, Rick Perry was good too, Texas never lets America down.

[Odainsaker 2,136]

1 hour ago, OcramsRzr said:

Ted Cruz gave a great speech a few minutes ago!

 

He espoused American ideals, he asked the audience to vote for whom they believe will best protect their freedom and the constitution, he asked the audience to extend courtesy and respect the rights of others, including those we disagree with, he talked about American exceptionalism, briefly mentioned his parents, explained to the best of his abilities what would help the USA most, and respectfully didn't mention The Donald.

I have to admit, it was a good speech, the most powerful and riveting so far in the convention such that he almost convinced even me, and then they booed him off the stage while Trump appeared from above to upstage it all!  Cruz's poor wife had to be hurriedly escorted out of the hall as the heckling mob was turning on her, and it is being reported that a delegate leader in the donor suites had to be restrained from physically attacking Cruz for being a "disgrace" and a traitor.  Remarkable and terrifying at the same time.

We haven't watched this much convention fun since Sen. Iselin in "The Manchurian Candidate."

 

[nos.17 5,242]

1 hour ago, Larks2242 said:

We can play mud slinging games all day, Did they say that when Joe Biden passed class on a plagiarized essay?

 

They all do it but clearly the game plan is to ignore the bad your person does and jump on and focus on the other.

 

We can, but I won't. Never did I say the Dems were innocent. They're just as bad, albeit in different ways. I was just commenting on a trend (well, it's more than a trend) in politics right now.

 

46 minutes ago, Odainsaker said:

Cruz's poor wife had to be hurriedly escorted out of the hall as the heckling mob was turning on her, and it is being reported that a delegate leader in the donor suites had to be restrained from physically attacking Cruz for being a "disgrace" and a traitor.  Remarkable and terrifying at the same time.

 

 What has this world come to? It truly is sad that in a country where we tout our freedoms of expression above all else (except guns), that this could happen especially among supposedly "respectable" delegates and supporters. Petty.

I have noticed that many (obviously not all) of Trump supporters support his independence and that he will not bow to other's pressure. However, when somebody does just that, albeit against Trump, they raise all hell. An interesting double standard...

[krbe 193]

8 hours ago, Larks2242 said:

We can play mud slinging games all day, Did they say that when Joe Biden passed class on a plagiarized essay?

I don't know if you noticed, but:

• Mr Biden's wrong happened 22 years prior to his campaign. Mrs Trump's happened immediately during the campaign.
• Mr Biden, at the time a one-man show, claimed to have 'misunderstood' the rules and conventions for quotation's. The Trump campaign allowed such 'mistakes' to proceed or decided to disregard them, despite having staff and software to prevent it.
• Mr Biden did acknowledge the source of plagiarism within the plagiarising work --  the Trump campaign (and supporters) denied the very existence of the plagiarised work.
  • That despite the fact that Legal English is very much narrower than American English and hence, it is more difficult to avoid quoting directly when writing about the law than a general subject.
  • Melania Trump is a Communist Yugoslavian Atheist; the Trump campaign is deploying the same tactics as Vladimir Putin did when he invaded Crimea. The difference between Vlad and Donald? Vlad knows what he's doing.
• Mr Biden had to immediately excuse and take the consequences of his plagiarising. There will be no consequences for Mrs Trump at all, nor for the person who offered to take on the role of the scapegoat.
• Most importantly, Mr Biden did not pass with the plagiarising work. He was required to retake the course. Mrs Trump has passed and need not retake anything.

[Sabretooth78 808]

8 hours ago, Larks2242 said:

Oh how things would be different with Ted Cruz, I sure hope he runs in 2020, He is the future of the country, Few people can bring as much energy as him, Rick Perry was good too, Texas never lets America down.

Do LBJ and GWB mean anything to you? (lol)  Also, Rick Perry couldn't even beat Mittens O'Romney.

I hope Ted is decent, because the great Lone Star State owes us a bit in the presidential department.  Let's hope there's an America worth governing in 2020 after either of these buffoons get done with it.  They ought to just consolidate and run the same ticket.

[Larks2242 251]

2 hours ago, Sabretooth78 said:

Do LBJ and GWB mean anything to you? (lol)  Also, Rick Perry couldn't even beat Mittens O'Romney.

I hope Ted is decent, because the great Lone Star State owes us a bit in the presidential department.  Let's hope there's an America worth governing in 2020 after either of these buffoons get done with it.  They ought to just consolidate and run the same ticket.

In the grand scope of things, Let's be honest GWB was not nearly as bad of a president as he was made out to be, It is onlty that the history is very recent, Let's look at the first job a president has which is the protect the people, After 9/11 do you recall another terror attack? Gas prices went up because the left refused to allow use to become self dependent, Yes, the war took it's toll, but with Hillary's vote for the Iraq war, Would we have seen a different outcome?

LBJ I cannot defend, He was a racist, He did not want to see the civil rights act of 65 passed but he saw a political move to counter Goldwater and make more lifelong democrats even though prominent ones such as Robert Byrd and Al Gore Sr. tried to filibusterer it.

 So tired of hearing the party that freed the slaves called the racist party when you had Hillary Clinton an ardent Goldwater girl who believed segregation was important to defend, This country forgets so easily, No one looks at history but rather the countries attention span is more like 6 months.

[igotthis 12]

16 hours ago, Larks2242 said:

Violence begets violence and it isn't coming from the right.

No blanket statements, please. That is just wrong.

IGT

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I doubt there would ever be a fully functioning USA after The Donald is elected president, if he is elected (unlikely) without [near] immediate impeachment (uncertain likeliness).

 

That is much easier to write in Spanish using subjective mood and conditional tense!

 

Anyway, the most recent bout of violence was instigated by the left. Sure, many of The D'ump's speeches were provocative but the violence began with the Left (and was hardly intensified by the Right).

 

However, Drumpf's supporters are territorial and defensive and will gladly provoke progressives verbally and decend themselves when violence arises. Claiming self-defense works every time (from a legal standpoint) if the "defender" never threatened or insulted the "attacker" and the attacker was armed and initiated violence (such as by preparing to attack with a firearm, blade, or blunt object or by causing harm with a blade or blunt object, or miraculously shooting first without injuring the defender).

 

Then again, Donny T's supporters aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the box and have been known to openly insult and threaten progressive liberals.

[Larks2242 251]

3 hours ago, igotthis said:

No blanket statements, please. That is just wrong.

IGT

Well yeah, I guess it is blanketed, But I'm going off the riots and the social experiments along with personal experience.

 I realize there is not statically way to prove it either way, But it is clear both sides need to work to be more accepting, As Lincoln once said, A house divided cannot stand.

[Jasoncw 11,946]

18 hours ago, Larks2242 said:

The democrat convention will instead exploit the mothers of those killed by cops, The mother of Eric Gardner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and others which makes me think that cop hate will be the theme for them, Maybe they can even book Ice Cube to perform "F the police".

The difference is that their stories will be purposefully emotional, but will also more or less be factual retellings of the events that took place (admittedly these events are simpler to explain/understand). These personal stories will segway into a discussion of how frequently and why these types of events happen, likely citing numbers and facts, and this will further continue into specific policies for addressing the problems, like body cams, improved training, separating miconduct cases from the courts that the police essentially work for, etc.

On the flip side, the mothers' stories about Benghazi are inconsistent and have been contradicted by other sources, and the entire Republican story about Benghazi has been outright debunked.

If the party was sensible they wouldn't have entertained conspiracy theories or narratives that are so far divorced from the truth in the first place, but even if they chose to go on about Benghazi they would have first used the mother's stories to make emotional connections between the real life impact of ineffective bureaucracy and international turmoil, and they would have explained their ideas for how the various procedures that lead to the problem could be improved for the future. And the argument would be made that Clinton had her chance as a leader to make improvements and didn't, and that Republicans have the answers to this problem and will implement them if given a chance.

And in a reasonable and functional party they would have dropped the whole thing by now and would instead be focusing on Clinton's decisions as SOS. They could have outlined the differences between the democratic and republican approaches to foreign policy and explained how republican leadership would have gotten better results. Unfortunately republicans can't actually do this on most of those cases because a lot of the things they're demonizing clinton over are things that they were pushing for when it was actually happening, and vice versa. And because ultimately it's difficult to discuss the middle east without eventually coming back to the fact that ISIS and this other stuff are the longterm consequences of invading Iraq. (which Trump fully supported, despite his claims otherwise). And you also can't do any of this stuff when the foreign policy experts of your party are in open revolt and are boycotting the convention.

 

But instead it's just "Benghazi" over and over. I don't think Trump's campaign has the capacity to speak about many subjects, and it's probably impossible to give positions on topics that wouldn't have one segment or another of the party booing. His anti-trade stuff is at odds with much of the party so he can't talk about that. Saying that we need to weaken the dollar and reduce wages to increase exports and improve the trade deficit is at odds with the anti-trade people. His campaign positions are so contradictory and so upsetting to various parts of the party that actually bringing them up would cause unrest in the audience. 

But ALL Republicans have a passionate hate for the Clintons, so it's probably one of the only things they can "unite" over. 

 

More convention highlights include:

While going on endlessly about how Obama/Clinton's weakness has lead to allies not trusting or respecting us or believing that we have their back (despite polling and direct quotes from around the world saying the opposite), Trump is LITERALLY giving an interview at the same time, saying that if one of our NATO allies were invaded that we wouldn't help them unless they "fulfilled their obligations to us". In other words US allies can only count on support conditionally, depending on how Trump feels about that country. 

They let Ted Cruz talk, which is frankly a mistake to begin with (and historically when defeated candidates refuse to endorse, they're not invited to speak). Cruz was very explicitly NOT endorsing Trump during his speech and encouraged voters to "vote their conscience" in the fall. But not only that, the Trump people already knew he was going to do that and encouraged their delegates to boo him, while timing a personal appearance of Trump in the audience to stare Cruz down. So instead of simply avoiding the situation altogether, Trump not only allowed it but encouraged it. Instead of highlighting how great your new VP pick is, instead you have delegates getting into screaming matches with each other, ruckuss and booing, and a major figure of the Republican coalition getting booed off the stage, all on prime time tv. The irony is that the arena was noticeably less empty than before, but it turns out the people were probably there to participate in the Cruz spectacle.

In addition to that it's been announced that Trump people will run a primary challenger to Cruz in Texas in response to his endorsement snub... which I'm sure will endear Texan Republicans to campaign hard for Trump in November...

You have regular "LOCK HER UP" chants, and a prime time speaker saying that Clinton is a satanist. Both of those things are completely insane to begin with, but in terrible taste at a convention, especially when Republicans are trying to make the case that they're uniters and that the Democrats are dividers.

Pence's speech (which is supposed to be the 2nd most important speech of the convention and the most important event of that day) was well put together and executed. To be honest I think there's going to be a problem on the campaign trail of Pence making Trump look bad. 

But even Pence's speech had weird details in it. If you're trying to convince Republicans that Trump is truly conservative and not a liberal in disguise, having Pence start off his speech saying that his political idols were JFK (coastal elitist, coming from a political family, with youthful anti-traditional charisma, untypical religious beliefs, and a strong liberal agenda) and MLK (enemy #1 of conservatives during that time), and that he was a democrat into his 20s, is imo not the best way to start. A little more googling you find out that he was even a youth coordinator for the Democratic party of his county. He's obviously a Republican now, but highlighting those details is not helpful. 

There were some more B list actors. More of Trump's family spoke, but despite literally being his family they didn't have any details or anecdotes about how Trump is a good person, and Trump's business friends also totally lacked any stories about why he's a good businessman. They just stated he was. And most of Trump's son's speech was just a generic Republican speech that had almost nothing to do with his unique insight on his father. I know that the heartfelt stories about politicians are highly contrived but still.

 

Also I highly recommend anyone watching the conventions to watch on C-SPAN. Conventions are really hard to watch in general (I'll try my hardest to watch all of the Democratic convention, and as excited of a Democrat as I am it'll still be tough), but they're even harder when you have to endure all of the talking heads blabbing on the other cable news channels. There haven't been any commercials and I haven't even seen any of C-SPAN's famous phone call-ins, they just leave the cameras rolling.

[matias93 7,535]

Well, once the polarization begins, there is little that can be done to stop, or even to slow its growth. Eventually, this could render all chance of dialog unfruitful and force the policial conflict to sheer force, be it institutional or even brutal, with riots and clashes between rival groups.

Note that even apparently objective ways of argumenting are been taken as a way to choose a side: the resource to numbers and facts is now a mark of liberal opinions, and instead of discussing them, conservatives just assume they are somehow rigged by some interested liberal scientist or statistican; in response, liberals tend to dismiss any conservative argument (be it based in significative experiences or not) as baseless for not being built around hard data, instead of thinking critically and self-critically on those ideas.

For the new liberal way of argumenting, Emmett Rensin wrote a very interesting article on April, precisely about this so-called smuggery, and you can see how the conservative arguments have evolved as its exact opposite, depending on shared emotions and experiences.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

2 hours ago, matias93 said:

Well, once the polarization begins, there is little that can be done to stop, or even to slow its growth. Eventually, this could render all chance of dialog unfruitful and force the political conflict to sheer force, be it institutional or even brutal, with riots and clashes between rival groups.

Right? Right! Politics have become a circus! Just wait until Americans run out of bread, that's when the real fun begins! 

Spoiler

 

Further on topic: It is entirely possible for the USA to stop and even reverse the trend of polarization but that would be difficult, probably more difficult than Venezuela avoiding insolvency. It would be really good (great & beneficial) if we could all stop our squabbling and make the world a better place and it isn't too late yet. However, I lost all hope that will happen in the current system.

[matias93 7,535]

For polarization to reverse, there are only two effective ways: to find an internal conflict that divides both parties in the middle and bonds former enemies on new sides (class struggle is the best candidate, but Sanders' primary defeat was the signal that that won't happen in this electoral cycle); or to find an external enemy that threats uniformly all US people, and whom enemisty to the US cannot be attributed to any partisan issue (so forget about terrorism or whatever US politics has destroyed in the world on the last 50 years).
 

As you can see, both options don't stop violence, but only redirect it, or to a more disorganized conflict, or to the outside.