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US Politics: compromising positions


DanteGabriel

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One thing liberals and neoconservatives share, Bolton suggested, is an irrational, “theological” attachment to principles—the principle that treaties and alliances are good (in the case of internationalist liberals) or that democracy must be spread at the expense of all else (in the case of neoconservatives). By contrast, he thought treaties and alliances needed unsentimental evaluation. One of the Russians on Putin’s team told him, “You strike me as a pragmatic diplomat.” “I said, ‘That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about me for a long time.’ ” Bolton recalled, “Even in the Bush 43 administration, when we were most accused of unilateralism, I didn’t get up every morning thinking, What act of unilateralism can I accomplish today? I got up thinking, What interest of the United States are we going to advance today?”

The 2016 candidate who most embodied this pragmatism, he said, was Donald Trump. “Pro-American,” Bolton ventured, is the real meaning of Trump’s “America first” line. Pay no attention to the fact that “America first” was the slogan of Nazi sympathizers during the 1930s, and that the present-day version evokes racism and xenophobia. He calls the historical echoes “obviously controversial” but argues that the substance of the slogan today is different. “I talked with the president during the transition and several times afterward,” he says. “I thought his views were in the mainstream of Republican national-security thinking. Remember John McCain’s slogan in 2008—‘Country first’? What country do you think he was talking about?”

 

Will John Bolton Bring on Armageddon—Or Stave It Off?
The national security adviser could be our best hope for protecting the world from Donald Trump’s impulses.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/john-bolton-trump-national-security-adviser/583246/

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28 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Will John Bolton Bring on Armageddon—Or Stave It Off?
The national security adviser could be our best hope for protecting the world from Donald Trump’s impulses.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/john-bolton-trump-national-security-adviser/583246/

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At Yale, he resented the “smug, self-satisfied” campus leftists who cut classes to protest the Vietnam War while he focused on his studies. He was already plotting revenge for his fellow conservatives. In 1970, he told the audience at his Yale commencement, “If we do not make our influence felt [on campus], rest assured we will in the real world.”

My question is why didn't he drop out of Yale and join the Army or the Marine Corps? Was he afraid people might shoot back, the fuckin' chickenhawk.

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@Cpl. Tunny

I wouldn't worry about the extreme/middle thing too much at this point. We're in an across-the-board political realignment. A lot of the pieces are moving around and it's accelerating quickly. Not really not clear yet where anything will land. It'll get bumpier, maybe very bumpy, but it'll set out. 

Also, there's a feature on the forum that allows you to ignore users if you find their conduct inappropriate for whatever reason. Take a look! :thumbsup:

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My concern is this: the adherents of each 'side' (conservative/liberal) comprise substantial numbers of the populace - well into the tens of millions.  Continually hammering away at each other is not going to result in 'total victory,' instead it creates an endless feedback loop of (thinly) disguised vengeance.  Either come to some sort of genuine accommodation or the country devolves into a third world hellhole.   

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1 hour ago, Lollygag said:

I wouldn't worry about the extreme/middle thing too much at this point. We're in an across-the-board political realignment. A lot of the pieces are moving around and it's accelerating quickly. Not really not clear yet where anything will land. It'll get bumpier, maybe very bumpy, but it'll set out. 

It always does... right up until the point when it doesn't. :) There's a lot of anger out there and I'd guess something like 40% of the population (roughly split between the two major camps) who believe their opponents to be Evil with a capital E. It's not obvious how we walk back from that -- especially since practically all of the factors that are driving the division are still present and the organizations dedicated to fanning the flames keep growing stronger.

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14 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It always does... right up until the point when it doesn't. :) There's a lot of anger out there and I'd guess something like 40% of the population (roughly split between the two major camps) who believe their opponents to be Evil with a capital E. It's not obvious how we walk back from that -- especially since practically all of the factors that are driving the division are still present and the organizations dedicated to fanning the flames keep growing stronger.

I also don't think we're walking anything back for the reasons you say. We'll get something new. Just what that might be yet is pretty debatable. 

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@Cpl. Tunny - AOC isn't remotely extreme; she has sensible moderate positions like raising the top marginal tax rate back to the level it was less than 40 years ago, to help address the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. An extreme (but not unreasonable) position would be to immediately nationalise the power and transport industries and confiscate all personal wealth in excess of $10m, and direct all those resources into reducing carbon emissions ASAP.

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Trump got played:

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Satellite images appear to show that North Korea has begun rebuilding a portion of a facility previously used to test long-range missile engines, analysts said Tuesday, raising potential questions about the future of US-North Korea negotiations.

The Center for Strategic Studies' Beyond Parallel project and 38 North, both respected North Korea monitoring websites, each said it had observed activity at the Tongchang-ri satellite launch facility, which has been dormant since about August of last year.
 
Tongchang-ri is one of the few known missile component development facilities inside North Korea.
 
38 North found that efforts to rebuild the site's launch pad and missile engine test stand began sometime between February 16 and March 2, meaning work began either in the days before, during, or immediately after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump abruptly ended their second summit in Hanoi on February 28 without signing a deal.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/05/politics/north-korea-satellite-images-intl/index.html

Shocking news!!!!!

Not....

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9 hours ago, felice said:

AOC isn't remotely extreme;

Not only is AOC not remotely "extreme," neither is the GND, which many cite as primary evidence for her extremism:

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A plurality of respondents — 43.7% — agreed with the Green New Deal proposal as a whole, with 16.3% strongly agreeing, 13.9% agreeing, and 13.5% somewhat agreeing. Just 14.7% disagreed with it, and about 24.3% said they didn't know enough to say. [...]

Of the seven separate planks INSIDER surveyed, 30% said all seven were extremely or very important, 17% said six of the seven were important, and 12% said five of the seven were important. For comparison, 15% said none of the seven polled policies were very or extremely important.

And adding in those who said the priorities were at least somewhat important, 66% of respondents went seven-for-seven, saying that each and every component of the plan was somewhat, very, or extremely important. That seems to back the notion of bundling these policy proposals.

 

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7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm still waiting to hear how you compromise with a party that seeks to negate or delegitimize you at every turn, lies constantly, and refuses to ever act in good faith.

Doing so doesn't make you a "reasonable moderate". It makes you a sucker.

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23 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm still waiting to hear how you compromise with a party that seeks to negate or delegitimize you at every turn, lies constantly, and refuses to ever act in good faith.

You forgot a key word: humiliate. The politics of Newt Gingrich have taken over the Republican party, and his goal was to not only win, but humiliate his opposition in the process.  

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3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The politics of Newt Gingrich have taken over the Republican party, 

If I recall correctly it was Puke Gingrich that said conservatives and the Republican Party need to be in a state of permanent offense.

I think it's about time liberals and Democrats do the same.

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30 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

If I recall correctly it was Puke Gingrich that said conservatives and the Republican Party need to be in a state of permanent offense.

I think it's about time liberals and Democrats do the same.

If you want to go on the offensive, here’s a good place to start economicsman!:   

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The US trade gap with the rest of the world jumped to a 10-year high of $621bn (£472.5bn) last year, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump's deficit reduction plan.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47472282

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you want to go on the offensive, here’s a good place to start economicsman!:   

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47472282

Let's all remember on one hand he wants to reduce the trade deficit, yet on the other hand the Republican Party corporate tax cut was supposed to bring all this foreign investment into the country.

What a confused mess.

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13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Let's all remember on one hand he wants to reduce the trade deficit, yet on the other hand the Republican Party corporate tax cut was supposed to bring all this foreign investment into the country.

What a confused mess.

Hasn’t much if not most of the Republican platform been a mess for the last few decades? Talk about cognitive dissonance on steroids.    

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5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Hasn’t much if not most of the Republican platform been a mess for the last few decades? Talk about cognitive dissonance on steroids.    

It would be one thing if they just fucked up the small stuff. But, really, they always seem to blow it on the big stuff. They mishandled one war, botched a financial crises, and now they are set to blow it on one the biggest challenges facing humanity.

If you need a bomb defused, don't call the Republican Party or the conservative clown crew.

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