US Politics -- Where Candidates Fall like Leaves

[all swedes are racist]

 

I guarantee you that most Americans would be hesitant to vote for a Muslim. Are most Americans are bigots or xenophobes? 

ummm... Yes? Is this a trick question or something?

[Prosesskrift]

EDIT: I recall being called a "xenophobe" here just for saying I'd prefer to live by people who mostly share my racial and cultural background. You guys have a really low bar for using these terms

English is not my native language, but that seems to me a textbook definition of xenophobia.

[Ser Reptitious]

EDIT: I recall being called a "xenophobe" here just for saying I'd prefer to live by people who mostly share my racial and cultural background. You guys have a really low bar for using these terms

I guess you think that deep down inside everyone feels this way and that's why labelling you a xenophobe for merely voicing what everyone secretly feels is ridiculous (because by logical extension that would make everyone a xenophobe)?

Have you ever considered the possibility that a lot of people (particularly liberals) don't feel that way?

[Biglose]

I guess you think that deep down inside everyone feels this way and that's why labelling you a xenophobe for merely voicing what everyone secretly feels is ridiculous (because by logical extension that would make everyone a xenophobe)?

Have you ever considered the possibility that a lot of people (particularly liberals) don't feel that way?

And by accident liberal cities like New York rank rather high on racial segregation in the US?

And it is the same thing in europe as well...

It is a funny thing, that the people who scream the loudest for and against multiculturism both tend to live in nearly all white (christian) neighborhoods...

[Shryke]

And by accident liberal cities like New York rank rather high on racial segregation in the US?

And it is the same thing in europe as well...

It is a funny thing, that the people who scream the loudest for and against multiculturism both tend to live in nearly all white (christian) neighborhoods...

This is a rather strange jump you are making between "New York" and "people who scream the loudest for multiculturalism".

And by "strange jump" I mean "ridiculous stretch to desperately attempt to make your silly argument not seem so silly"

[Biglose]

This is a rather strange jump you are making between "New York" and "people who scream the loudest for multiculturalism".

And by "strange jump" I mean "ridiculous stretch to desperately attempt to make your silly argument not seem so silly"

Due to the current situation we have this test nearly daily. Oh, I am so multicultural, refugees in my high end neighborhood, a very bad idea...

[DanteGabriel]

It's cute that you snark about substance when your post has no substance at all.

Only someone who hasn't followed the race at all would deny that Trump has made immigration a major issue. His popularity (which is mostly due to his immigration stance) has forced the other candidates to respond, and elaborate on their own immigration philosophy/proposals. Kinda like how Terraprime outlined what he'd like to see done about illegal immigration, in this very thread. 

Posts like this are enough to make me consider voting for him. 

Oh, did I deny that Trump has made immigration a major issue? Go re-read the post. He's got them talking about it, all right, just not with any realistic solutions. Border wall! Round them all up! They're all lining up to demonstrate how much distrust of foreigners they can express without going Full Bigot like Trump. Have they clarified anything? Terra Prime in five minutes came up with more effective immigration solutions than the three hundred hours of Republican debate have come up with. So -- no credit given for "clarifying positions" when what he's done is create a race to the bottom on immigration rhetoric.

And -- let's not kid ourselves -- it was never going to be hard to make you consider voting for a dim, boner-waving xenophobe like Trump, once your boy Rand Paul started playing along with the rest of the Pandering Asshole Chorus in those debates.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

He has ideas

Ramsay is right guys. He does have ideas:

Build a 2,000 mile wall in the desert.

Make a foreign government pay for it.

Round up and deport 11-30 million people.

But it will be humane, so don't worry.

Deport U.S. citizens in the process.

Pay for it by confiscating their wealth.

Indiscriminately bomb innocent brown people.

See, he has ideas. Really freaking bad ones.

[The guy from the Vale]

"Deport people and finance the entire thing by confiscating their wealth" rings a bell... if I could only remember which one? I guess I need to concentrate a bit more. On camps. preferably. There'll be camps, right? Where those to be "deported" will be concentrated? Thought so.

[DanteGabriel]

"Deport people and finance the entire thing by confiscating their wealth" rings a bell... if I could only remember which one? I guess I need to concentrate a bit more. On camps. preferably. There'll be camps, right? Where those to be "deported" will be concentrated? Thought so.

We might as well make members of a religious minority who are getting blamed for the world's problems register with the government, too.

[Commodore]

fences/walls are an unproven technology, will never work...

US is lucky Mexico is not Islamic, otherwise we'd have the same problem as Europe. Mass migration leading to thousands of radicals inside their borders that can't be easily located/removed. 

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

fences/walls are an unproven technology, will never work...

US is lucky Mexico is not Islamic, otherwise we'd have the same problem as Europe. Mass migration leading to thousands of radicals inside their borders that can't be easily located/removed. 

We don't need more, as we have so many already, is that your point?  Of course ours are home grown radicals, they simply are not, for the most part, Islamic. As of October 1, we had 294 mass shootings, where 4 or more people are killer or injured by gunfire (including the shooter).

I really don't hear many non-liberals speaking out about what causes these shootings or who to reduce them, or better yet, prevent them

[DanteGabriel]

fences/walls are an unproven technology, will never work...

US is lucky Mexico is not Islamic, otherwise we'd have the same problem as Europe. Mass migration leading to thousands of radicals inside their borders that can't be easily located/removed. 

What do you suppose we should do about the Christian terrorists that North and South Carolina are exporting to the rest of the country?

[TrackerNeil]

I feel sorry for the conservatives and the Republicans who are represented by this group of clowns. I also feel sorry for the overall tenor of our political process, which is being lowered and mangled by the indiscriminate spewings of hateful, fact-free, and vile ugliness. The people of America, regardless of their political leaning, deserve to be represented by people who are not proud of their racism and their xenophobia. We should expect, and demand, more and better from our politicians. I am angry at the sane, non-racist conservatives for not being strong enough to take control of their own party and movement, and saddling the rest of us with this collective pile of human rejects grotesquely mimicking functional politicians.

I agree, and I am saddened that the reaction on the part of many Americans is to disengage from politics when the solution involves the opposite. Hucksters like Trump and Carson thrive because not enough of us stand up and tell them to go the hell away. If what Trump is selling wasn't being bought, he'd either have to find something of substance to say or else slink back to his lair and count his millions. These people exist because Americans, on some level, tolerate them.

[aceluby]

He has ideas

Maybe you can go a little further on this?  Hopefully typing out these 'ideas' will prove to you my point.

But maybe not since you're already willing to vote for this asshat.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

"Deport people and finance the entire thing by confiscating their wealth" rings a bell... if I could only remember which one? I guess I need to concentrate a bit more. On camps. preferably. There'll be camps, right? Where those to be "deported" will be concentrated? Thought so.

FTFY

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

What do you suppose we should do about the Christian terrorists Freedom Fighters that North and South Carolina are exporting to the rest of the country?

FTFY

[Paladin of Ice]

A look at the most trigger happy police department in the country.

Seventy-five years after Kern County’s leaders banned The Grapes of Wrath from their schools and libraries, complaining that John Steinbeck’s new book portrayed their policemen as “divested of sympathy or human decency or understanding”, officer Aaron Stringer placed his hands on the body of James De La Rosa without permission.

De La Rosa had just been shot dead by police officers in Bakersfield, the biggest city in this central California county, after crashing his car when they tried to pull him over. He was unarmed. Now the 22-year-old oilfield worker lay on a gurney in the successor to the coroner’s office where Tom Joad’s granma awaited a pauper’s funeral in the 1939 novel.

Stringer, a senior Bakersfield officer whose plaudits for once saving a colleague in peril had been overshadowed by his arrest for a hit-and-run while driving under the influence of prescription drugs, reached under the bloodied white sheet and tickled De La Rosa’s toes. Then, a junior officer reported to commanders, he jerked the head to one side and joked about rigor mortis.

“I love playing with dead bodies,” said Stringer.

It was only the most remarkable act in recent times by a police officer in this rugged territory, where law enforcement officers have this year killed more people relative to the population than in any other American county recorded by The Counted, a Guardian investigation into the use of deadly force by police across the US in 2015.

In all, 13 people have been killed so far this year by law enforcement officers in Kern County, which has a population of just under 875,000. During the same period, nine people were killed by the NYPD across the five counties of New York City, where almost 10 times as many people live and about 23 times as many sworn law enforcement officers patrol.

The deaths span from January to the early hours of last Sunday morning, when a man accused of firing at officers during a foot chase in downtown Bakersfield was shot and killed. One senior Bakersfield police officer has been involved in at least four deadly shootings in less than two years. Another officer separately shot dead three people within two months in 2010. Other law enforcement officers in Kern County have meanwhile been involved in deadly beatings of unarmed men, sex crimes against women and reckless car crashes resulting in criminal convictions.

...

Six of the people killed this year in Kern County died from shots fired by officers of Bakersfield police department, who have been behind a string of controversial homicides over the past several years, including that of De La Rosa.

A couple who witnessed the 22-year-old’s death last November told police investigators a similar story: they watched officers shoot De La Rosa after he exited his car and “threw up his hands”, keeping them outstretched. It appeared he was saying “What’s up?” or even “I’m here, come arrest me,” one of the witnesses said.

The officers were quickly cleared of wrongdoing by an inquiry carried out by their own commanders, as has long been standard for fatal shootings by the Bakersfield police department and the Kern County sheriff’s office, the two biggest law enforcement agencies in the county.

A review by the Guardian identified 54 fatal shootings over the past decade by Bakersfield police and Kern County sheriff’s deputies. At least 49 of the 54 were publicly ruled justified by panels of senior officers from the same department as the officers who fired. Four others appear to have been ruled the same, but no records could be obtained. An inquiry into the fatal shooting on Sunday is under way.

...

Rick Wimbish, a Bakersfield native described by one person who worked with him as “a cop to his marrow”, is a department veteran of almost a quarter of a century. For several of those years, his father Mack, a retired state highway patrolman, was the sheriff of all Kern County. Both declined to be interviewed.

Wimbish, who receives a total pay and benefits package of almost $200,000 a year, instructs other officers and leads educational classes with young children in the county on the role of a police officer in the community.

Studies have found that most American police officers make it through entire careers without firing their service weapons. But Wimbish, 54, has been involved in at least four fatal shootings in two years, including that of De La Rosa, during which Wimbish deployed his Taser. None of the four men killed in these confrontations were armed with a deadly firearm themselves. One, a violent criminal, had a BB gun; another was holding a tire iron.

First, Wimbish was the most experienced officer to open fire during an operation to capture a fugitive one night in September 2013, which was bungled to deadly consequence in the parking lot of Bakersfield’s Four Points Sheraton hotel.

As they hunted for Justin Harger, a shooting suspect, Bakersfield police turned to Jorge Ramirez, who knew him. Ramirez, a 34-year-old former amateur boxing champion, had some criminal convictions but had begun to find a better path, according to his family. He had children now.

“For the first time in more than a few years, I saw him change,” said his father, Jorge Sr. “He was trying to be an example for his kids – to learn from his mistakes and be a working man.”

When authorities suggested Ramirez would receive favourable terms on a pending drugs charge in return for working as a confidential informant (CI), he agreed. He was directed by his police handlers to set up a dinner with Harger, the fugitive, who was nicknamed “Joker”.

Internal police files show Ramirez and a Bakersfield officer exchanged 34 calls and missed calls on the day of the meeting, along with multiple texts. As the hour approached, the messages became more furtive. “Yes no more texts,” Ramirez said at one stage, apparently concerned Harger would grow suspicious. Later still he said: “Were headed there now on frwy getting off California exit”. About 15 minutes later, they showed up as promised.

Then things fell to pieces.

Ramirez and Harger got out of their car. Taken aback by officers pouring on to the scene, Harger drew a pistol. In an intense gun battle that ensued, Harger struck one officer and was blown away by police fire. But the storm of bullets also swept up Ramirez. The officers he was assisting shot him 10 times – three times in the chest, three times in his left leg, and once each in the face, buttocks, hip area and shoulder. Then he was handcuffed and left face-down on the pavement.

Subsequent interviews conducted by Bakersfield police investigators suggest there was a lack of preparation and coordination among the police, who apparently had no plan for a confrontation. Three officers refused to answer questions about what happened.

Wimbish told investigators “he had heard that somebody had a CI that was passing on information but he did not know who that was.” He conceded that “he did not actually know why but he was assuming that Harger was going to be the passenger in the vehicle” rather than the driver.

Asked by investigators to rate Ramirez’s status, the officer who had exchanged dozens of messages with him in the hours before the shooting, insisted he was “definitely not a confidential reliable informant” and “more of a citizen informant”. Sergeant Eric Lantz even claimed he had been of the view that Ramirez “was playing us”.

Explaining why he had opened fire, another officer claimed to investigators that Ramirez, too, had reached for his waistband, despite his later being found to have no weapon.

Chief Williamson allowed three weeks to elapse before admitting that Ramirez had been working with the police. By then, the 32-year-old had been dismissed on the local TV news as merely the second man in a “suspect vehicle”. Even as he confirmed the true nature of Ramirez’s participation, Williamson blamed him for his own death. “He could easily have moved his hands above his head,” he told reporters.

The chief also assailed Ramirez for not warning his handler that Harger, who had been described as “armed and dangerous” during the “Most Wanted” segment on the previous night’s local TV news bulletin, would have a gun. “I don’t know that we had all the information that we would with a reliable informant,” said Williamson.

Shortly before Christmas, all the officers were again exonerated by an internal investigation.

[Wise Fool]

 

Posts like this are enough to make me consider voting for him. 

It's nice to know you vote according to which internet forum post leaves you the most unable to reply.

[Shryke]

Due to the current situation we have this test nearly daily. Oh, I am so multicultural, refugees in my high end neighborhood, a very bad idea...

But you aren't testing this daily either since now you are making another large leap to try and make this silly point work. You haven't shown any connection between "wants to be multicultural" and this behaviour you are claiming exists.

And you are also, funnily enough, providing an alternate explanation for the phenomenon you first complained about.