U.S. Elections: We're All Qualified To Post Here

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Except @Kalbear. He was doing some serious blaspheming at the end of the last thread. 

[Myshkin]

I was prepared to come in here and say that Kalbear is most definitely not qualified to post here, but I see you were already aware of that. Good. Shame on you Kal. 

[BloodRider]

I only post when trotting.

[Altherion]

It's really annoying to move an unfinished post from one thread to another with the new board... Anyway, this is in reply to Kalbear:

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Per your link, the US didn't give money or arms at that point; they gave communication equipment and humanitarian aid. So...no, the US didn't give the rebels money at that point.

The "humanitarian aid" was $12M. It's less money than the Arab countries gave them, but it's still money.

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Then apparently you don't know that Sanders authorized the US (with a coalition of other countries) to engage in a bombing attack in Kosovo - an attack that was actually much more condemned at the time than the Libyan attack. The two are pretty comparable in scope and value. Sanders also stated that he was against troops and a full war in Libya, but that was it - all he condemned was 'sustained US involvement'. Which...Libya was not. He has never spoken against what we did in Libya, not a single time, and given that it was in support of a UN resolution and had broad multinational support there's no reason to think he wouldn't support it, as he has supported every single military action that the US has been involved with that meets those requirements.

I'm not saying that Sanders is a pacifist and I knew that he supported Kosovo. However, while the latter had unanticipated repercussions later on, at least there was some thought given to the end game and the region itself is now in relative peace. Libya also had unanticipated repercussions (e.g. we will never, ever get a "no-fly zone" resolution past Russia and China again), but it also had the perfectly obvious repercussion of creating a power vacuum and thus turning the country into a battlefield where no single group was dominant. I believe he actually said as much in one of the debates.

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Heck, he was one of the 10 cosponsors calling for Gaddafi to be removed. The notion that he didn't support regime change seems pretty ludicrous.

He never called "for Gaddafi to be removed", he requested that Gaddafi should resign and permit a peaceful transition to democracy. There's a huge difference between those two, particularly when the "removal" involves destroying much of the state.

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I think that's reasonable, though I don't know whether or not she supports action or whether she supports a certain kind of action when action is desired. I've never claimed that she isn't willing to do intervention. But so is Sanders, so is the US, and she isn't particularly different. 

And is certainly not like Thatcher. 

 

Again, "intervention" is a word that can mean many things. There are pro and con arguments for something like what the US did in Kosovo or what Russia did in Syria. The problem is that Clinton's "interventions" in Libya and Syria are ones in which the cons rather obviously outweigh the pros.

I'm not sure what Thatcher has to do with any of this; I'd suggest everyone just leaves her out of this thread.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I hope this is helpful. 

[alguien]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Iraq Pt. 2 was unique. Iran/Contra is orders of magnitude smaller than what Obama and Clinton did -- it's notable for trying to get around Congress, but compared to the money we've spent in Syria alone, it's barely worth mentioning.

So, basically, compared to Republican administrations, Clinton's not a hawk at all. Glad you agree. 

[Altherion]

16 minutes ago, alguien said:

So, basically, compared to Republican administrations, Clinton's not a hawk at all. Glad you agree. 

No, compared to exactly one Republican administration (G.W. Bush & Cheney), she's relatively peaceful. Compared to the first Bush or Reagan, she's about the same.

[alguien]

46 minutes ago, Altherion said:

No, compared to exactly one Republican administration (G.W. Bush & Cheney), she's relatively peaceful. Compared to the first Bush or Reagan, she's about the same.

Bush the former began a full-scale ground war in Iraq. Reagan lied to Congress about arming drug dealers to support 3rd world dictators. Further back, how about Nixon and Vietnam, where he deliberately sabotaged peace talks to win an election? Or, hypothetically McCain/Palin had they won--in which case we almost certainly would have invaded Iran. To say nothing about how her policies would compare to your own favorite, Donald "Let's Torture and Bomb Terrorists' Families" Trump.

Hillary Clinton may support military intervention (as does Bernie Sanders), but to say she's hawkish pretty much ignores the last 100 years of US history and over half of the current US political spectrum.

ETA: that said, it's fair to say she's more hawkish than Sanders. Of course, he might be the most non-interventionist major party US presidential candidate of the last 30 years, so...

[Kalbear]

I'd immediately vote for any candidate who proposed banning baseball, and would seriously consider voting for any candidate who ran on a platform of banning publicly funded stadiums of any kind regardless of whatever else their platform is. 

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'd immediately vote for any candidate who proposed banning baseball, and would seriously consider voting for any candidate who ran on a platform of banning publicly funded stadiums of any kind regardless of whatever else their platform is. 

 Agree, and lets vote for someone who bans ice cream.  Who REALLY NEEDS ice cream? A planet without ice cream would be good.

What about tofu?  Anyone really like tofu?

[zelticgar]

Baseball is cool but publicly funded stadiums are bullshit. I get the infrastructure support but taxpayer money to fund billion dollar franchises makes no sense. As shitty as my home state of Massachusetts is I do feel some pride that we were not dumb enough to fall for the "move the franchise" con job.

 

PS - Trump is going to dominate the shit out of the NY primary and if he goes up against Hillary in the general, NY is most definitely going to be in play. It could completely reset the general election chess board.

 

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, zelticgar said:

Baseball is cool but publicly funded are bullshit. I get the infrastructure support but taxpayer money to fund billion dollar franchises makes no sense. As shitty as my home state of Massachusetts is I do feel some pride that we were not dumb enough to fall for the "move the franchise con job".

 

PS - Trump is going to dominate the shit out of the NY primary and if he goes up against Hillary in the general, NY is most definitely going to be in play. It could completely reset the general election chess board.

 

 

 True.  But will Trump lose all the purple states?  A bunch of white male voters only get you so far.

[Mr Fixit]

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

I'm not saying that Sanders is a pacifist and I knew that he supported Kosovo. However, while the latter had unanticipated repercussions later on, at least there was some thought given to the end game and the region itself is now in relative peace.

Sure, with organ thieving former Prime Minister and current President and the whole country being practically run by people with long-standing mafia connections. People who are in the know about Balkans are fully aware of the disaster that is Kosovo on every imaginable level.

It's worth noting that that war was also launched on false info and outright lies. It was in essence an attempt at regime change as well.

[Altherion]

52 minutes ago, alguien said:

Bush the former began a full-scale ground war in Iraq. Reagan lied to Congress about arming drug dealers to support 3rd world dictators.

G.H. Bush did not begin any war in Iraq. Iraq invaded Kuwait and refused to leave despite literally everyone (including the USSR and China) telling them that this is unacceptable. This was easily the most justified war the US has fought in the past 30 years (at the time, the world had agreed that this kind of invasion is not allowed). It was also absurdly cheap since the Gulf states and a few others paid the lion's share of the expenses. Also, it didn't last long (5 weeks of bombing and then a ground assault lasting 4 days) and the US deaths were reasonably low (only on the order of 150 people, with many due to friendly fire).

Reagan's actions are unique only in that he tried to deceive Congress -- the quantity of support to unsavory characters from his administration is much smaller than several actions under Clinton's watch.

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Hillary Clinton may support military intervention (as does Bernie Sanders), but to say she's hawkish pretty much ignores the last 100 years of US history and over half of the current US political spectrum.

The fact that the Republicans are hawks does not mean that Clinton is not also a hawk. The administration of G.W. Bush is an outlier; the other Republicans are pretty similar to contemporary Democrats. If you take your Nixon example, remember that the Vietnam War was escalated and prosecuted for years by Kennedy and Johnson (who were Democrats).

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ETA: that said, it's fair to say she's more hawkish than Sanders. Of course, he might be the most non-interventionist major party US presidential candidate of the last 30 years, so...

Right -- that's one of the reasons I support him.

[Mr Fixit]

1 hour ago, alguien said:

ETA: that said, it's fair to say she's more hawkish than Sanders. Of course, he might be the most non-interventionist major party US presidential candidate of the last 30 years, so...

I am not quite clear on the language being used. In every other country around the world, when their politicians advocate wars and invasions, such policies are usually called "nationalistic" or "aggressive", and that's putting it mildly. It's only in the US that it's called "hawkish" or "interventionist". Invading countries on false pretenses, contributing to deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and destabilizing whole regions is not an intervention. And neither are people who do that hawks. I believe they have a different term for them in the Hague.

[lokisnow]

On April 9, 2016 at 5:21 PM, zelticgar said:

 

PS - Trump is going to dominate the shit out of the NY primary and if he goes up against Hillary in the general, NY is most definitely going to be in play. It could completely reset the general election chess board.

 

 

Is New York in play? 7,081,000 votes cast in 2012 which was 59.2% of registered voters so there are 4,880,000 voters who didn't participate for a total of 11,961,000 registered voters in the state.

Population growth means there's probably at least 5,200,000 who won't vote in 2016, though I just made that number up, but that is basically your pool of available voters from which Trump could try to put New York "in play" in the general election, since most people who voted in 2012 will vote in 2016 and vote the same way.

in 2012, Obama earned 4,486,000 votes 63.35%

in 2012, Romney earned 2,490,000 votes 35.17%

So Trump needs slightly less than 2,000,000 additional votes to win outright.  True his ceiling could be as low 3,545,000 votes, so he may only need 1 million more votes, rather than 2 million more, but that is still a massive number.

Now, 59% turnout is very good for the United States. realistically you can't expect all 5 million voters to turn out. At best you can probably expect 70% turnout, which would be another 1,196,000 voters. If we give all of these new voters to Trump, he'd still only have about 3,700,000 votes to Clinton having 4,500,00 votes. so he is still 800,000 votes short. Let's say Trump flips some Obama voters to voting for him, five percent of the electorate flip from Democrat to Republican. That's 350,000 less for Clinton and 350,000 more for Trump and he is still 100,000 short.  and that is with Trump not losing a single Romney voter.

These sort of changes are utterly unheard of in elections in the United States, none of this would happen.

TLDR, New York is not in play.

 

 

 

[alguien]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

G.H. Bush did not begin any war in Iraq. Iraq invaded Kuwait and refused to leave despite literally everyone (including the USSR and China) telling them that this is unacceptable. This was easily the most justified war the US has fought in the past 30 years (at the time, the world had agreed that this kind of invasion is not allowed).

It was also absurdly cheap since the Gulf states and a few others paid the lion's share of the expenses. Also, it didn't last long (5 weeks of bombing and then a ground assault lasting 4 days) and the US deaths were reasonably low (only on the order of 150 people, with many due to friendly fire).

Right, so Bush ordered the US to go to war, sending boots on the ground in Iraq. And I believe he did so at the advice of Margaret Thatcher. That seems fairly hawkish and interventionist, at least by the standards you seem to be applying. In fact, it seems like you're arguing that it's not the intervening itself that is the hawkish, but the cost. 

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The fact that the Republicans are hawks does not mean that Clinton is not also a hawk. The administration of G.W. Bush is an outlier; the other Republicans are pretty similar to contemporary Democrats. If you take your Nixon example, remember that the Vietnam War was escalated and prosecuted for years by Kennedy and Johnson (who were Democrats).

It's a good thing I'm not arguing that, then. I'm saying, for the given value of current US politics, and also on the scale of US presidents, from hawkish Andrew "Genocide" Jackson on one end and Jimmy Carter on the other, Clinton's policies are not on the warlike side. MW defines hawkish as: one who takes a militant attitude and advocates immediate vigorous action; especially : a supporter of a war or warlike policy

John McCain is hawkish. W was hawkish. Donald Trump would be even more so. I don't believe Bernie Sanders is hawkish (though still supports some intervention). And, while more likely to intervene internationally than Sanders, I don't think Clinton is either. 

[Altherion]

24 minutes ago, alguien said:

Right, so Bush ordered the US to go to war, sending boots on the ground in Iraq. And I believe he did so at the advice of Margaret Thatcher. That seems fairly hawkish and interventionist, at least by the standards you seem to be applying. In fact, it seems like you're arguing that it's not the intervening itself that is the hawkish, but the cost.

No, it's not the cost, although that typically makes the war less popular as it increases. It's the reason for the war. It's not hawkish to defend one's self or an ally when attacked. Kuwait was not quite a US ally, but by 1990 (when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait), we had a treaty with them. The US was in a sense enforcing international law.

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It's a good thing I'm not arguing that, then. I'm saying, for the given value of current US politics, and also on the scale of US presidents, from hawkish Andrew "Genocide" Jackson on one end and Jimmy Carter on the other, Clinton's policies are not on the warlike side. MW defines hawkish as: one who takes a militant attitude and advocates immediate vigorous action; especially : a supporter of a war or warlike policy

John McCain is hawkish. W was hawkish. Donald Trump would be even more so. I don't believe Bernie Sanders is hawkish (though still supports some intervention). And, while more likely to intervene internationally than Sanders, I don't think Clinton is either.

 

She supported military "intervention" in both Libya and Syria. I feel fairly confident in calling her a hawk.

2 hours ago, Mr Fixit said:

I am not quite clear on the language being used. In every other country around the world, when their politicians advocate wars and invasions, such policies are usually called "nationalistic" or "aggressive", and that's putting it mildly. It's only in the US that it's called "hawkish" or "interventionist". Invading countries on false pretenses, contributing to deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and destabilizing whole regions is not an intervention. And neither are people who do that hawks. I believe they have a different term for them in the Hague.

Well, the US is a hegemon (or, if you accept an oligarchy in place of an emperor, possibly even an empire) with a strong streak of exceptionalism. Even electing Sanders will not change that. I'm just hoping that he'll reduce the number of "interventions" and only go for the ones that are a sure bet rather than continue the recent string of disasters.

[alguien]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

No, it's not the cost, although that typically makes the war less popular as it increases. It's the reason for the war. It's not hawkish to defend one's self or an ally when attacked. Kuwait was not quite a US ally, but by 1990 (when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait), we had a treaty with them. The US was in a sense enforcing international law.

I don't see how Clinton's support for ally-requested interventions (not boots full-scale boots-on-the-ground invasions) to protect people about to be slaughtered is any less the US enforcing international law or somehow more hawkish. Kuwait was not an ally, as you say. 

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She supported military "intervention" in both Libya and Syria. I feel fairly confident in calling her a hawk.

You must think the same of Sanders then, since he supported and still supports the same types of intervention Clinton does. 

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Well, the US is a hegemon (or, if you accept an oligarchy in place of an emperor, possibly even an empire) with a strong streak of exceptionalism. Even electing Sanders will not change that. I'm just hoping that he'll reduce the number of "interventions" and only go for the ones that are a sure bet rather than continue the recent string of disasters.

That's a sound reason to vote for him, if the degree of US international intervention and it's financial cost is an important issue to you. What I'm confused by is your claim that if this choice is denied to you in the general, you will instead vote for someone who espouses the exact opposite rationale--an actual hawkish candidate. 

[Altherion]

51 minutes ago, alguien said:

I don't see how Clinton's support for ally-requested interventions (not boots full-scale boots-on-the-ground invasions) to protect people about to be slaughtered is any less the US enforcing international law or somehow more hawkish. Kuwait was not an ally, as you say.

There is a subtle difference between enforcing international law (as in the Gulf War) and using international law as a cover for regime change (as in the 2011 Libya intervention). It is generally possible to distinguish these in at least two ways. First, the latter has way more protests from nations outside of one's hegemony (in Libya's case, Russia, China, India and many lesser nations all criticised the intervention). Second, when enforcing international law, one does the minimum necessary whereas when using it as a cover, one generally doesn't stop short of regime change.

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That's a sound reason to vote for him, if the degree of US international intervention and it's financial cost is an important issue to you. What I'm confused by is your claim that if this choice is denied to you in the general, you will instead vote for someone who espouses the exact opposite rationale--an actual hawkish candidate.

I do not believe that Trump is more likely to intervene than Clinton (despite any of the things he has said). Of course, this is not as sure a bet as Sanders which is one of the many reasons I would prefer Sanders to Trump.