US Elections: Groper in Chief

[Wall Flower]

3 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

 

One country's major issues are another country's minor trivia. New Zealanders have a hard time understanding Australia's often naked racism towards Aborigines and immigrants.

 Some of us Aussies don't understand it either.

[Castel]

2 minutes ago, ummester said:

Agreed, but some countries hold more sway over how the world turns than others. The countries that hold more sway, in my view, deserve more scrutiny.

Scrutiny is one thing, "lol, why haven't you all just gone with what I consider obvious" is another.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, ummester said:

Agreed, but some countries hold more sway over how the world turns than others. The countries that hold more sway, in my view, deserve more scrutiny.

And many Americans are well of this, and because of it I do not generally trust Republicans on foreign policy. They seem to me too reckless, generally too interventionist, and too quick to dismiss international norms and standards.

Democrats may not be perfect, but I trust them much more on foreign policy stuff, particularly after George Bush.

 

[ummester]

Just now, Castel said:

Scrutiny is one thing, "lol, why haven't you all just gone with what I consider obvious" is another.

Oh, so you have a problem with my writing coming off as arrogant or something? Sorry if it did, but I can't control how your emotions interpret my words - i didn't mean it to feel like 'lol - you're dumb for not realising' Was just writing as I thought.

[Altherion]

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

You've said that several times. He just won; why wouldn't he do the things he campaigned on and won with? Like, what you're saying makes sense if he hadn't won with them, but he did.

Because campaigning on something inspires one reaction and actually doing it can inspire another -- which can be quite different, especially since the consequences are not always positive. For example, consider repealing Obamacare. What exactly does that mean? Trump cannot roll back time and restore everything to the state when Obamacare was first passed. If he simply repeals all of the legislation, the insurance companies will not bring policy costs back down and some people who currently desperately need insurance will lose it. Thus, Trump will have the majority angry at him because he did not fix what makes Obamacare bad and a smaller number really angry at him because he took away something they needed. How does that help make him popular? Thus, he can't just repeal Obamacare, he has to replace it with something better.

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He still hasn't ruled out prosecuting Clinton.

What purpose would that serve? Even the people who screamed for her head have to be satisfied with this -- Clinton is finished. There's no need to prosecute her just as there is no longer a need for all of the cases against Trump (I fully expect them to go away).

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Those who think that it's a game tend to not have any skin in the game.

Almost every American has skin in the game and quite a few foreigners do too. That's what makes it exciting.

[Castel]

2 minutes ago, ummester said:

Oh, so you have a problem with my writing coming off as arrogant or something? Sorry if it did, but I can't control how your emotions interpret my words - i didn't mean it to feel like 'lol - you're dumb for not realising' Was just writing as I thought.

Understood.

[Steelborn]

7 hours ago, Liffguard said:

It's not purely anything. But I think it's definitely true that Clinton is held to a higher standard than most of her male colleagues. I'm not American, so I don't know what the actual experience has been like in America, but I don't understand the amount of hate she draws. It baffles me. She's fine. Not a leader that I'd follow into the teeth of hell. But perfectly acceptable. If she were running for office over here in the UK she'd be totally unremarkable. Private email server? Really, that's what everyone's in such a tizzy about? Either the average American voter is way more into infosec than I would have guessed (not to mention that it's hardly a mistake unique to Clinton herself) or there's some other factor at work here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-brenner/is-hillary-a-warmonger_b_10440976.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-03/why-hillary-can-t-run-on-her-state-department-record

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Hah, I don't feel remotely beaten up. Ya'll don't hold a candle to FLOW or even Dirjj back in the day, much less ConservativeRaidne. 

Most folks are taking some time out to deal. I'm using it to get some anger out instead. Today, for instance, on twitter, someone accused me of making up my son and my son's cancer so that I could make a point. And man, I really should have done that like years ago. 

Kalbear,

I've met you and much of your family.  I know you are sincere.  We don't often agree but that doesn't make you a liar.  Nor is it fair to call you a liar for effect.  

[kairparavel]

re: women and female misogyny, trust that it's a thing even liberal women feel at times

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/10/fear-of-a-female-president/497564/

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Given the anxieties that powerful women provoke, it’s not surprising that both men and women judge them more harshly than they judge powerful men. A 2010 study by Victoria L. Brescoll and Tyler G. Okimoto found that people’s views of a fictional male state senator did not change when they were told he was ambitious. When told that a fictional female state senator was ambitious, however, men and women alike “experienced feelings of moral outrage,” such as contempt, anger, and disgust.

Women in positions of authority still rankle many among the female masses. Women pit themselves against each other constantly, using differing behaviours, attititudes and even appearance as a wedge and blame mechanism citing that X woman is ruining it for the rest of us. And Hillary Clinton certainly doesn't conform to the norms accepted for how a woman should behave, speak and look. Pantsuits. Power-hungry and ambitious. Evil. Uninspiring. Jail her. Kill her. Bitch. Cunt. The vitriol I've seen spit out surrounding her from men has been troubling, but to hear it from women is extremely troubling. And it shouldn't be ignored or dismissed. It's certainly not in my head, and the heads of many other women and men who are like WTF, I've never seen you speak about a man like that. And really, anyone who downplays it or explains it away does a disservice for the next serious female candidate who will run. She may not have a Benghazi under her belt, or a philandering former president as her husband or a dubious email situation, but there will be something used to tear her apart in a way that no male candidate will even experience. Don't think for a second that half of the female voting population couldn't lather up some serious hate for Michelle Obama if she were to run right now. Today. And that wouldn't even include racial vitriol.

President? How many women want to work for a lady boss? 

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• Both men and women prefer a male boss. More than half of men say the gender of their boss makes no difference, but those who have a preference favor a male boss by an 11-point margin. Women are more likely than men to have a preference, with higher proportions expressing preferences for each gender of boss, though women choose a male over a female boss by a 13-point margin.
• There are some differences by age, with Americans between 35 and 54 the least likely to prefer a male boss. Younger Americans are generally not more likely than average, or less likely, to prefer a male boss.
• Political partisanship significantly predicts attitudes toward the gender of one's boss, with Democrats essentially breaking even in their preferences, while independents and Republicans prefer a male boss.
• Americans of all education levels prefer a male boss, by margins ranging from seven to 14 percentage points

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165791/americans-prefer-male-boss.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All Gallup Headlines - Business

 

[ummester]

27 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

And many Americans are well of this, and because of it I do not generally trust Republicans on foreign policy. They seem to me too reckless, generally too interventionist, and too quick to dismiss international norms and standards.

Democrats may not be perfect, but I trust them much more on foreign policy stuff, particularly after George Bush.

I think, on paper, democrats represent more a more inclusive world view than republicans. In practice, I'm not sure it makes so much difference any more.

I'm not sure that, outside of the US, Obama is considered vastly different to Bush. To me he just seemed a nice guy that couldn't beat the system - if he could, he would have changed more than he did and not gotten so strongly behind things like the TPP. He just felt like a different kind of corporate stooge to Bush, but a stooge none the less.

Now, Trump may pan out to be the biggest stooge of them all - the future is impossible to judge. But he didn't sell himself like that and, right or wrong, people brought it.

I don't think that the world's masses are as opposed to or as afraid of Trump as some in the US are. Like I said, I saw polls in 2 distinctly different Ozzie newspapers (1 public owned and 1 murdochs) that had him as the preferred president form our perspective. Of course, like your media, our media ragged him and, like your political elite, our political elite ragged him - but the people, by and large, preferred him.

I do think the establishment ragging him was his greatest ally and it also shows just how fed up with the establishment not only the US, but the whole Western world, has become. The majority of Westerners no longer trust our media, politicians, business leaders, celebrities and intellectual elites - the majority are calling BS on the whole game.

[OldGimletEye]

13 minutes ago, ummester said:

I think, on paper, democrats represent more a more inclusive world view than republicans. In practice, I'm not sure it makes so much difference any more.

You don't think there is a big difference between Bush sending thousands of American Troops into Iraq and Obama's aim of drawing down American involvement in the Mid East? Or how about his reluctance to intervene in Syria?  

Or how about his declining to get involved in the Ukraine, when a lot of people were on his case to do so.

13 minutes ago, ummester said:

I'm not sure that, outside of the US, Obama is considered vastly different to Bush. To me he just seemed a nice guy that couldn't beat the system - if he could, he would have changed more than he did and not gotten so strongly behind things like the TPP. He just felt like a different kind of corporate stooge to Bush, but a stooge none the less.

Obama may not have been perfect, but to claim he was anywhere near Bush is just wrong.

13 minutes ago, ummester said:

I don't think that the world is as opposed to or as afraid of Trump as some in the US are. Like I said, I saw polls in 2 distinctly different Ozzie newspapers (1 public owned and 1 murdochs) that had him as the preferred president form our perspective. Of course, like your media, our media ragged him and, like your political elite, our political elite ragged him - but the people, by and large, preferred him.

Well, for one they should be a little worried. For one, nobody really knows what in the hell Trump's world view is or what his foreign policy views are, to the extent he even has them.

And he has said some truly nutty things about foreign policy. And, he wants more military spending, but nobody knows what he plans to do with those extra military resources.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

As I said in this discussion with Shryke in the lead up to the election where he suggested the only viable government for the US is one party government that the idea scared the shit out of me.  At that time it was implied that would be the Democratic Party.

Well, we've got one party rule coming and it's the Republicans.  It still scares the shit out of me.

[ummester]

3 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

You don't think there is a big difference between Bush sending thousands of American Troops into Iraq and Obama's aim of drawing down American involvement in the Mid East? Or how about his reluctance to intervene in Syria?  

Are there more or less US troops abroad now than there were in 2007? I don't know - I'm genuinely asking. It seems to me that, globally, the US still has troops deployed everywhere though. Also, I don't like that drone stuff - I know it's not entirely Obama's doing, but I just don't like the idea of fighting war with drones.

6 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Obama may not have been perfect, but to claim he was anywhere near Bush is just wrong.

I'm not claiming he was anywhere near Bush - I think Obama was a much nicer person. Don't think it makes a difference though - he was a figurehead, the machine behind him - corporate, financial and military - superseded the politics in front of it and called the real shots. The real shots remained the same, or worsened, from the Bush era.

[Castel]

21 minutes ago, ummester said:

Are there more or less US troops abroad now than there were in 2007? I don't know - I'm genuinely asking. It seems to me that, globally, the US still has troops deployed everywhere though. 

I don't know that that's the relevant question. The US having troops or a base in say....South Korea or Germany is not the same as having troops in Syria or Iraq the way Bush did.

The former doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the latter

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Also, I don't like that drone stuff - I know it's not entirely Obama's doing, but I just don't like the idea of fighting war with drones.

 

 

 

Why? 

 

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I'm not claiming he was anywhere near Bush - I think Obama was a much nicer person. Don't think it makes a difference though - he was a figurehead, the machine behind him - corporate, financial and military - superseded the politics in front of it and called the real shots. The real shots remained the same, or worsened, from the Bush era.

Obama's foreign policy was not like Bush's. It is in fact, defined by Bush, in the sense of "we're not doing that again". That's why he was elected. 

Arguments can be made that it has its own serious problems (America wants to call shots but not actually commit) but those are not the problems of Bush.

On things like Syria and the "red line" he clearly pushed his own path. Cheney and Bush  would have hit them. "Don't  talk to evil" and all.

 

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, ummester said:

I'm not claiming he was anywhere near Bush - I think Obama was a much nicer person. Don't think it makes a difference though - he was a figurehead, the machine behind him - corporate, financial and military - superseded the politics in front of it and called the real shots. The real shots remained the same, or worsened, from the Bush era.

George Bush though didn't make his biggest foreign policy blunders under a bunch of corporate guys. His worst mistakes came when he fell under the influence of a bunch neo-con zealots that believed they could install liberal democracies by force in regions of the world that had no tradition of liberal democracy. The neocon mode of thinking had little to do with corporations.

Obama rightly rejected their worldview.

[The Marquis de Leech]

9 minutes ago, ummester said:

I'm not claiming he was anywhere near Bush - I think Obama was a much nicer person. Don't think it makes a difference though - he was a figurehead, the machine behind him - corporate, financial and military - superseded the politics in front of it and called the real shots. The real shots remained the same, or worsened, from the Bush era.

Utter tripe. I may sound like a broken record with my False Equivalency accusations, but given the idiocy coming out of this thread, I need to.

Obama has presided over the most dovish Administration since Carter. The point with drones was to explicitly avoid boots on the ground.

[Yukle]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

One country's major issues are another country's minor trivia. New Zealanders have a hard time understanding Australia's often naked racism towards Aborigines and immigrants.

New Zealand are an excellent example of what Australia should do but doesn't. Its active promotion and celebration of Maori cultures is outstanding. I have only been there once and I loved how wonderfully Indigenous cultures were embraced.

Australia is flat out appalling on matters of race. Say what you like about Trump saying he'll build a wall - Australia has pretty much done this. All refugees arriving by boat are immediately imprisoned indefinitely (even children) and banned from getting visas, even after their refugee claims have been processed.

So yeah... U.S.A. may have voted in Trump but in matters of immigration, Australia is already where his rhetoric is headed.

[Yukle]

23 minutes ago, ummester said:

Are there more or less US troops abroad now than there were in 2007? I don't know - I'm genuinely asking. It seems to me that, globally, the US still has troops deployed everywhere though. Also, I don't like that drone stuff - I know it's not entirely Obama's doing, but I just don't like the idea of fighting war with drones.

I agree with this. It might seem okay now but remember that what is cutting edge now can be bought in a hardware store in twenty years.

That means soon enough all armies will be fighting with drones. With no soldiers to shoot, the only targets are civilians.

[Dr. Pepper]

3 minutes ago, Yukle said:

New Zealand are an excellent example of what Australia should do but doesn't. Its active promotion and celebration of Maori cultures is outstanding. I have only been there once and I loved how wonderfully Indigenous cultures were embraced.

Australia is flat out appalling on matters of race. Say what you like about Trump saying he'll build a wall - Australia has pretty much done this. All refugees arriving by boat are immediately imprisoned indefinitely (even children) and banned from getting visas, even after their refugee claims have been processed.

So yeah... U.S.A. may have voted in Trump but in matters of immigration, Australia is already where his rhetoric is headed.

Not that this is the exact same, but the US has a huge problem with immigration detention centers that also hold children which has only grown in population in the last 8 years.  This has all been a huge stain on this administration and something that we progressives have sadly and hypocritically ignored and overlooked in recent years. I know Trump brought it up but considering how much the GOP is all about "immigrants bad lock them up", I'm surprised that it didn't become a bigger topic of discussion in the election.  I don't even think a lot of average voters know about it. 

[ummester]

14 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Obama has presided over the most dovish Administration since Carter. The point with drones was to explicitly avoid boots on the ground.

And have robotic warriors that cause greater collateral damage.

14 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Utter tripe. I may sound like a broken record with my False Equivalency accusations, but given the idiocy coming out of this thread, I need to.

False Equivalency is only a relevant argument when looking at the US internal or domestically, or from an opinionated political bias.

Is the US still the world's reigning superpower? Is the world in a better place now than it was in 2007/2008? Who cares how dovish he was, nothing has improved globally, arguably it's worse. This is a true equivalency.