Have the people who have been making "changing the system" the primary concern of this election, whether it's by voting Trump or a third party candidate or deciding not to vote at all, been supporting any independent or third party down ticket candidates in their area? Is there anyone particularly interesting that should be getting more attention, who's either still in the race or had to drop out earlier?
If there was actually any of them running, then maybe. Massachusetts has big off-cycle elections for the Senate and Governor. Theres a bunch of House seats being voted on, but some of the Democrats are running completely unopposed in their districts. The biggest topics in MA this time around are the ballot questions, particularly the legalization of weed, which has majority support in almost every poll. The other three ballot questions are around an additional casino license, how farm animals are caged, and charter schools. But as for state government, it seems have to struck a good balance with a Democratic Senate and Republican governor.
And see....I get that perspective. I really do. A vote for Hillary (not that she really needs my help in Illinois) feels like the end of an episode of a crappy sitcom where nobody actually learns a lesson and things stay the same. My problem is twofold: 1) Can anyone really anticipate the damage someone like Trump will do? 2) Who do we have that we build things back up and do so in a better way? People in the late 1700's in American wanted to remove the current establishment and replace it with a better one. The thing is, they had a group of extremely intelligent people who had put together a framework for how the new establishment should be. We don't have that. Trump's presidency strikes me is Brexit 2.0. Yeah, sticking it to those people in power sounds great on paper. But what about afterwards?
I really do like the system MA seems to fall into often: A progressive left wing legislature to push forward social progress, and a sane moderate right wing governor to keep them in check and filter out the really stupid ideas.
I haven't looked too in depth at his plan but was he talking about any of this before the past week and a half? It seems like he just took a bunch of things that people had been complaining about and decided that's his plan for reforming the system.
I've repeatedly said I understand people who are voting for Hillary because they think Trump is worse, or that he's too much of a wild card. I don't understand you guys who have been claiming in the entire thread and red dotting me that I'm racist and sexist. Funnily enough it's been the same 3 white guys over and over. One of you have posted several times about everyone in your community is deplorable. I have not seen any of you even once make a policy argument. It's just been deny reality, then call the other person and other Trump supporters racist and sexist. It's been one the most incredibly pathetic displays of knee jerk retardation I've ever seen. There are some very good reasons not to like Trump, but I guess those aren't the important ones when you live inside a mental box. Ugh, I tried voting 3rd party, but the candidates have just been so bad. The only one who interests me at the moment is Ricky De La Fuente. He's a member of the same party as Jesse Ventura and Ross Perot. I was looking through his platform and it was actually kind of intriguing, but now I think he wants to dismantle social security and medicare. I've been lightly reading up on him the last couple days and I'm more or less expecting he's going to turn out to be another nut like all the other 3rd party candidates. That is literally all he has talked about. You have to listen to him instead of the media. Apparently they don't have enough faith in their audience to follow an actual policy discussion. Even the way they're covering Hillary has been kind of ridiculous.
So how exactly is he going to get any of this done? He can promise whatever he wants; but without any sort of realistic plan for actually accomplishing these goals he's just farting into the wind.
Gone are the days of critical thinking fueled by information... today, it's all about how you feel, man. I was out for dinner last night and some old, well-dressed looking woman came up to the bar and said, "sorry for intruding, but are you for Trump or Clinton?" I told her that it doesn't really matter to us... they both suck, but for different reasons that there are gaping holes in the "real" picture. Her response was, "it HAS to be Clinton, or we'd be so screwed with Trump... it will affect us greatly!" I asked her, "how?" "We trade with the US." ... crickets... "OK... what trade would be adversely affected by having Trump in place?" "Everything!" "Can you provide me one concrete example of some form of trade? Soft wood? Energy?" "I don't know, but it would be screwed up!" "Why do you think that? Because the news you watch said so?" She then seemed to realize just how shallow her political thoughts were, got pissy, and left, but the guy who I was having dinner with (25 years in the helicopter industry, flies around the world for Bell) laughed. He talked about how he's been subjected to just about every political climate you can imagine with his work, and it never ceased to amaze him how much they all are similar. We both agreed that more and more people don't think, they parrot. They just regurgitate what they've been told without knowing the details. Even then the details are so selectively distributed within very narrow channels. What it all comes down to is that anyone trying to form some sort of logical or rational proof as to why their chosen candidate should win is going to fail at doing so. You can't. It seems like people don't get that, and take it personally. I've had a few requests from people around here to kill/lock this thread, because people aren't "getting it". My response has been consistently, "No, I'm not closing it... accept that there is no right answer, just different answers, and don't feel the need to engage and get the last word in." I'm amazed at how many people can't do that. /rambling thoughts
And here's another example of why the current political scene really blows: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article111832342.html Special interest groups are killing it for the rest of the country, and it doesn't seem like they are going away any time soon.
I dont think Nett's comment was meant for spinning in either direction. It can be extrapolated and applied to both sides of any issue.
In that Peter Theil link you posted, there was mention of Zuckerberg discussing his position internally at Facebook. He actually wrote: “We care deeply about diversity. That’s easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It’s a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post visible only to Facebook employees. (a photograph of it was shared on Hacker News.) “We can’t create a culture that says it cares about diversity and then excludes almost half the country because they back a political candidate,” Zuckerberg continued. “There are many reasons a person might support Trump that do not involve racism, sexism, xenophobia or accepting sexual assault.” And, the same could be said that there are plenty of reasons a person might support Clinton that do mean the person supports lying or deleting secret emails or whatever. Also, I think Clutch's comment should really be in Serious Thread rather than Elephants and Jackasses. Two cents.
This makes me interested to hear what you make of the generally conservative ideas that the common core is bad and merit based teacher pay is good.
That would require a Congress that supports his plans. Certainly the Democrats aren't going to support him, and I keep getting told in this thread that Trump's main selling point is how he's not representative of business as usual for the GOP, so that rules out the Republicans as well. So I'll ask again. How is he going to get his policies enacted?
Ok, that's kind of awesome. I think there is right and wrong in some things. If you think your religious beliefs on gay marriage gives you the right to suppress the rights of others you're just wrong. If you're one of those people who call our civil liberties into question every time something bad happens you're just wrong(not referring to the triviality of this thread). However, most policy disagreements are a trade off. It's about opportunity cost, not usually a clear cut 'correct' course of action. Maybe one side can make a stronger case, but it eventually comes down to what you want. I like having my beliefs challenged, and that's one of the major reasons I'm interested in politics. To you guys wanting the thread closed - frantically throwing feces and trying to turn every discussion away from policy and towards ad hominems is not how mature people have conversations. Eventually the people you're talking with get cunty too and we're all just swimming in a pile of shit. Also, if you're hitting the panic button you don't really need to yet. Hillary is still a favorite to win, the difference is Trump actually has a chance now. FYI, if NAFTA gets reworked or repealed that will affect trade for Canada. That said the impact will probably be felt most significantly in the United States and Mexico. If any of you guys up north are worried about it the US is still going to be the world's biggest whore for oil; so you can rest a little easier knowing that.
There are two things I want to point out: 1. There's a big difference between excluding or trying to silence someone because of their political views and excluding or silencing someone because of their identity. Equivocating the two is intellectually dishonest. 2. The nuance in his second statement is that while you may support [candidate] for reasons other than the candidate's flaws, you're still sending the message that those flaws are of lesser importance than the reasons you're supporting the candidate. That's going to piss a lot of people if those things you dismiss are very important to them.
The problem I have with common core is that I think education's primary focus should be on developing critical thinking skills and mentoring youth talent. The constant focus on standardized testing is a classic example of the cobra effect. Finland is a great example of how moving away from 'standardizing' education benefits the system. Merit based teacher pay is directly related to common core as well, which is why the traditional GOP view on education is so weird to me. As far as making education more local I have mixed feelings. In states like Minnesota and New York I view that to be a good thing. In places like Kentucky and Mississippi I'm not so sure.
As a general rule, I’d agree. But this election is different. Forget presidential, one candidate can’t even act like an adult. From a PR standpoint, one of the most important things a president does is let half the country detest and say horrible things about them, and brush it off. Donald can’t help bringing up Rosie fucking O’Donell during a debate. Everything gets to him. He lies way more than a typical politician, which is quite the achievement. Often it’s not even a lie, just a flat out refutation of reality (“Never happened”, “I didn’t Tweet that”, “Hilary started birtherism, I stopped it.”) This is how a child who’s in trouble reacts. Hilary, like most adults, at least acknowledges reality when she lies. Yes that’s a low bar, but that’s not a reason to stay under it. Who cares that most economists believe he’ll fuck the economy, or that no White House Economic advisor from eight presidents will endorse him? There’s no reason to think he’ll be able, or even care to do the things he says – good or bad. I don’t think he actually thinks the election is rigged, or that he thought the Emmy’s were rigged either. That’s just his knee-jerk reaction because he can only think in terms of a zero sum game, which along with an unbelievably thin skin, is possibly the worst quality a president could have. He also doesn’t care about his supporters, beyond the fact that they support him. You think he’d ever associate with them outside of his rallies? That’s why he’ll question the legitimacy of the entire democratic system on a whim, without thinking or caring about any of the possible ramifications: it doesn't affect him, just other people. Oh, and he sees ten year old girls and imagines fucking them. Openly. So there’s that. Like Louis CK said: “If you vote for Hilary, you’re an adult. If you vote for Trump, you’re a sucker. If you vote third party, you’re an asshole.”
I can't help it. You do realize you just did exactly what he was talking about. And - No she doesn't. She just redirects the blame. She only owns up to a lie if it's facile or inconsequential.