FlusteredBat
Smash Journeyman
Budget Player Cadet_
types without processing what the other person is saying then commits to it without a second thought.
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Donald Trump discuss
- Thread starter Chainz
- Start date
Budget Player Cadet_
types without processing what the other person is saying then commits to it without a second thought.
Ar first glance I was a bit confused but bpc seems to have quoted me as evidence in favor of Sanders.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Because he seemed to be making that exact same mistake.
"Sanders is a self proclaimed Socialist
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallp...ctly-what-kind-of-socialist-is-bernie-sanders
And it is true that Communism fails."
DunnoBro
The Free-est
Personally I think both Trump and Sanders are the best candidates we've had in years and I'd be satisfied with both despite disagreeing on several crucial issues with either.
The fact neither seems like they'd be chained down by undertable deals and bring a serious challenge to the two-party system's integrity.
Nothing gets done while each side elects a figurehead who's busy greasing the palms that helped him get elected.
The fact neither seems like they'd be chained down by undertable deals and bring a serious challenge to the two-party system's integrity.
Nothing gets done while each side elects a figurehead who's busy greasing the palms that helped him get elected.
Chainz
Sleepy Chainz
Aight, I see now, you just misread him.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Nothing gets done... You mean like Obamacare?
Like, I get the love for Sanders. He's got a lot of really important, really sensible policy proposals, mostly things that have been tried, successfully, in other places. He stands for a clear political position, and it's one we haven't seen enough of.
But Trump? The more I listen, the more I hear "he's going to break down the system" or "he's going to get rid of the two-party system" or "burn the government to the ground with Trump!". And I don't get it. For starters, why on earth would you assume Trump would do any of that? Sure, he's a washington outsider. He's also a prime example of the sort of corrupt washington culture, just from the other side. There's no reason to believe he's going to seriously address any of the issues people assume he's going to address. There's certainly no reason to believe he could have any effect on the two-party system, as he hasn't proposed changing how the vote works, and he's still stuck with a congress that's not quite so willing to risk their own livelihoods.
Beyond that, what are his policy proposals? I don't mean this aura of "he's gonna be the new anti-government messiah", I mean what is he actually putting forward? Well, there's his plan to deal with immigration: "Make Mexico build a wall". That's not going to happen. Seriously, it's just not. Mexico is not going to pay for it and even if we went forward with it anyways, it'd be a huge expenditure for not very large gains. Some people underestimate just how good illegal immigrants are for the economy, if not the job market. Then there's his tax plan. His incredibly conventional, incredibly expensive tax plan filled with the same magic asterisks that republican tax plans always are - "We'll make up for the massive tax cut we're giving you guys by closing loopholes, and no we won't tell you what loopholes, do the math, or offer up any real figures." Real analysis places the total debt impact at around $10 trillion. So that plan sucks.
And what else has this visionary given us? Oh right. Nothing. He hasn't offered any plans on anything else. Not even a simple "here's what I want to do, I don't know how yet or my plan for getting it done is unrealistic", like passing an amendment that limits corporate speech in government. What he does have, however, is a ton of inflammatory, often racist and xenophobic rhetoric, a complete disregard for the truth, and a really lousy comb-over. I wouldn't stoop to the low-hanging fruit, but for Christ's sake, it's Donald Trump. In a sane reality, his entire presidential campaign would be the low-hanging fruit!
And as I said above, the fact that Obamacare exists is a pretty good sign that regardless of how mired in partisan bickering our system is, we can get things done. We don't need to overthrow the government. We just need to elect better government. I mean, Bush Jr. was probably the most establishment, political-dynasty candidate we've had in a long time, but look at what he got done! Sure, almost none of it was good, but there's no denying the man made things happen. Obama also is not above politics, but his legacy is shaping out pretty damn well on a lot of fronts. Yeah, it would be nice if we switched to a more representative system. But if we let some asshole like Trump burn down what we have now, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think when we rebuild, it'll be all "Representative vote" and "Parliamentary system"? Or do you think we're just going to end up with an even more non-functional government?
Chainz
apparently I did. My bad.
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DunnoBro
The Free-est
That wasn't totally the product of Obama though. It was actually Romney's idea implemented on a national scale, and he planned on doing similar. It's likely a similar plan would've been implemented regardless of those two being made president.
Perhaps "nothing done" was inaccurate, but essentially it definitely didn't feel like the choice mattered much.
In regards to the Romney's smashing of the status quo, I agree the hopes for that are too high. But they're still higher than past candidates. And frankly his flaws don't really strike me as deal-breaking, unless he plans on being purposely malicious to the american people/act in his own monetary self-interest (which seems unlikely considering his salary) I don't see how he'd fail helping the Economy.
I don't like his stance on immigration, probably other things, however the economy is my main concern, which is why I'd be fine with him or sanders due to their background/understanding in Economics.
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Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
What are his economic policies?
DunnoBro
The Free-est
This doesn't seem to be where I first read up on it but it seems adequate for here: http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/28/news/economy/donald-trump-polls-taxes-wages/
The main point of appeal for me is appointing "Wall Street Pros" to run the economy, though I do hope he clears up a few things before I have to vote.
DunnoBro
The Free-est
That's part of the "few things I hope he clears up."Because that's working out so amazingly well already?
I want "Run the economy" to mean more than "Advise how to run the economy" (Also government affiliation with companies in general is a big issue I hope Trump solves. Though Sanders is more likely of doing that)
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
...I'm not sure why that would be a good thing, honestly. "Wall Street Pro" is not the same thing as "economist", let alone "policy wonk". They have their own biases and interests, often interests heavily opposed to main street. There's simply no reason to believe that Carl Icahn is somehow a better economist than, say, these guys. Yes, he's a successful businessman, but these skillsets, while related, are not as close as you might think.
Beyond that, his economics are not all that impressive. A thoroughly wishy-washy and incomplete picture on international trade, but what little is there is unlikely to achieve much good (and the article even states that). Massive tax cuts for the rich, which you'd think we'd eventually figure out is not great for the economy. Stay the course on the minimum wage, which doesn't have much effect on anything, but proves he's at least not as insane as Karen Handel or any of the other nutters who think doing away with the minimum wage is the best option. Repeal Obamacare, which is not an important economic issue, no matter how he wants to paint it as one.
The only good thing in there is the tax cuts for the poor, but they're tied to a tax plan which is absurdly expensive and hands a huge chunk of money back to those who don't need it and who aren't spending it.
Really? I mean, if economics is your policy issue, let's compare what either party has proposed:
Republicans wanted to slash government spending, give more money to the rich, and see if the market self-corrects.
Democrats wanted to increase government spending, give more money to the poor, and attempt to pull us out of a nosedive.
Only one of those two things is a good idea right now. When the economy is stuck in a liquidity trap, cutting government spending is a terrible idea. And we see that the democrats did, repeatedly, propose stimulus programs to bolster the economy, which were, repeatedly, blocked by the republicans. There's a pretty obvious "wonk gap" here. And even then, there's still all manner of other important issues - AGW (Democrats want to do something about it, Republicans largely deny it exists), gay marriage and civil rights issues (stuff the court with Scalias and see if gay marriage is still going to happen), health care (talk about a republican alternative to Obamacare all you want, the fact is that you literally cannot get universal health care more conservative than Obamacare, and the fact that not a single republican has proposed a viable alternative really hammers this point home)...
The choice does matter. Maybe not as much as you might like, but it matters.
...Really? The republicans fought the ACA tooth and nail both before and after it passed. I'm sorry, but if you think that we would have gotten a similar health care plan regardless of who won, then you haven't been paying attention.
DunnoBro
The Free-est
Very good points overall, it appears I may have been too easy on Trump. I was always leaning towards Sanders but it seems I still have some homework to do.
I will however note on one thing...
While a bit of a conspiracy theory, though it was fought it wasn't outright rejected and the reason being was that I believe the ties to major companies were the driving force, i.e certain companies wanted deals cut in their favor. (Which is likely why a lot of the arguments didn't make sense and appeared to put on airs... Though politicians aren't as adept with facts as we would hope)
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Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
I'm not sure what you mean by "it wasn't outright rejected". The democrats were in favor, the republicans weren't. It passed, but it passed without a single republican vote. They rejected it, they were just so far in the minority at the time that it didn't matter.
I think you missed the irony.
My point is that the ecomony is already being run by the "wallstreet pros" - as it has always been.
Foxus
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2015
- Messages
- 620
- NNID
- Greatfox1
I remember when a supporter of Trump's was interviewed after the second debate.I find the idea that a presidency of Donald Trump could change anything [let alone for the better] incredibly naive. I don't know about the expectations of his supporters but if they think that there'll be anything but the same old then they'd surely find themselves disappointed sooner rather than later.
He said he didn't think Trump for his policies, but his attitude, Are you kidding me? Might as well elect Jesse Ventura if that's gonna be your logic.
While Sanders may be a great alternative, it looks like Clinton is sitting nicely for the nomination. Quite sad.
FlusteredBat
Smash Journeyman
Vote Democrat if you like having your children's future pilfered by illegal immigrants.
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Skywalker
Space Jump
- Joined
- May 7, 2006
- Messages
- 2,317
Surely you realize that the opinion of one person does not represent the opinion of his voter base as a whole.
For any campaign, even with candidates with more established records (not having that outside attitude appeal), there will certainly be voters with relatively unsophisticated viewpoints.
You would have to research voters through methods such as systematic polling to make the claim you just did.
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Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Sure, but why do people want Trump? So far, I really can't get a handle on it. His economics are shaky at best, his only real policy proposals are unrealistic and/or probably not particularly good (plus the tax plan is basically as orthodox republican as you could get), and what I keep hearing is "he's going to destroy the government" or "I'm scared of brown people" or "I just like his attitude". Not a whole lot of actual reasons why he'd be a good president. Really, more reasons he'd be a lousy one.
You do realize that a half-hour video by a total nutjob is not the best citation, right?
Sucumbio
didn't we have this discussion not too long ago, about citations and long videos?It's especially bad when it comes to such a simplistic, jingoistic, and wrong statement. I mean, really? "Pilfered by illegal immigrants"? Here, have a real cite:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/07/24/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/
Whoops. The number of illegal immigrants has dropped, then leveled off in the last 5 years. Why is that? Well, partially it's because less are coming over, and partially it's because Obama is really on top of things when it comes to deportation.
Whether or not that's a good thing is debatable, but what's not debatable is that the current democratic administration has deported more illegal immigrants than any other in history, and is the first in 25 years to stem the tide.
And seriously. Stefan Molyneux? The "we have to hold women accountable for choosing assholes" guy? The "mental illnesses aren't real and psychiatry is a government conspiracy" guy? The "homosexuality is caused by child abuse" guy? The "Intellectual Property law is an unjustified use of force, you should shun family members who aren't anarcholiberterians, I'm going to illegally abuse IP law to try to shut down your channel because you're critical of me" guy? I could do this for days, the point is that if you insist on citing half-hour videos as sources (which you shouldn't), you could do a hell of a lot better than the "Physicists kind of piss me off, 'cause they've always got their ****ing pale hands in my goddamn wallet, and stealing from my child's future, indebting her" "You know, go be a ****ing engineer, you lazy, pasty ********. Go do something useful that people wanna buy" guy.
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FlusteredBat
Smash Journeyman
User was warned for this post
Budget Player Cadet_
Vitriol does not compensate for the emptiness of your pitifully ignorant non-arguments.The only reason you've even heard of Stef is because he managed to piss off a bunch of Left-wing ideologues which you obviously subscribe to. Manipulative and dishonest character defamation is the preferred tactic of the Left because they're incapable of reconsidering their self-centered dogmatic outlook. You guys are unable to rationally justify your position so appeal to the sentimentality of idiots who far outnumber the intelligent.
Conservatives aren't free from subjectivism either, though such immaturity in the face of contrary evidence is characteristically progressive.
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Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
User was warned for this post
EDIT: DNFTT.
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Your children's future if going to be pilfered regardless of whom you vote during the "election". Immigrants are just a convenient punching-bag because they can't fight back.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Care to elaborate?
Where do you think the money spent on leading two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan come from? Or the trillions of dollars the Obama administration spent on "refunding" Goldman Sachs after the Lehman Brothers fiasco? Charity?
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
No, but calling an increase of the national debt a "pilfering of our children's future" is a gross oversimplification. We owe about 40% of that debt to foreign investors. The rest is either the government owing itself money (that accounts for around 30%!) or the government owing us money. What's more, the question of "how much is too much" when it comes to debt is quite hard to answer. Our debt-GDP ratio is pretty standard, compared to the rest of the world. There's no particular need to pay down those debts, particularly while other financial institutions are in such a precarious situation (people are still buying government bonds despite really low interest rates). It's perhaps even too simple to say "our children will have to pay down our debt" - we don't know that. We certainly aren't paying down the last generation's debts, and they weren't paying down the debts of the previous generation either.Where do you think the money spent on leading two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan come from? Or the trillions of dollars the Obama administration spent on "refunding" Goldman Sachs after the Lehman Brothers fiasco? Charity?
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Iceweasel
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2015
- Messages
- 855
Budget Player Cadet_
Speaking of bad citations, RationalWiki. It's basically Conservipedia, but for lefties.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Hmm. See, the thing that's really notable about Conservapedia isn't so much "it's right-wing", but rather "it's wrong and stupid to the point of self-parody" (indeed, RationalWiki's "best of Conservapedia" page is good for quite a few laughs). What is RationalWiki so consistently wrong about? I mean, just to be clear about what you're comparing it to, Conservapedia denies both anthropogenic climate change and the theory of evolution. As of note, I'm not really aware of anything where RationalWiki is considerably outside the ballpark. They lean a little liberal, but they tend to stick to a rational interpretation of the facts. It's sort of right there in the name.
More to the point, the Molyneux article I linked to is really straightforward: each of the claims is stand-alone and clearly delineated, and most of the claims are cited directly to Molyneux's own videos. The former issue makes it an excellent source for use in debate. You don't need to understand a whole lot of backlog, you can spend 10 seconds reading, say, "Oh, that's a thing," and then go back to the conversation. No half-hour-long diatribe, no mini-novel meandering back and forth between "having a point" and "not having a point", just clear, concise statements: "X is true, here's how I know it. Y is true, here's how I know it." So it makes no sense to attack it as a source - even if RationalWiki is an unreliable source, it's not unreasonable to ask someone to read a short paragraph. It is unreasonable to ask them to watch a half-hour video, be that video from Answers in Genesis or NASA.
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Iceweasel
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2015
- Messages
- 855
RationalWiki features cherry-picked information for the majority of its articles, and anything not related to hard science (mostly sociology and social issues) are so incredibly biased towards an extreme left point of view that I can't take the website seriously. This is coming from someone who considers himself politically left on most issues.
That said, I didn't actually click on the article. I just hovered over it to see where it was from, because I clicked on one or two of Flustered Bat's other video links and it was more of that nutjob talking nonsense.
FlusteredBat
Smash Journeyman
How about paying attention the message instead of who's saying it? Apparently that's too much to ask. Do you think insults refute facts?
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Iceweasel
Smash Ace
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2015
- Messages
- 855
I was paying attention to the message, which is why I called your source crazy. Before this thread, I had no idea who Stefan Molyneux was. If you had mentioned the name, all I would be able to come up with would be a guess that he was related to the infamous game designer Peter Moluneux. However, I watched the videos you posted and decided that, while he occasionally did bring up a few good points, the dude was overall completely bonkers.
FlusteredBat
Smash Journeyman
Oh really? If the "overall" evidence, reasoning and conclusions are so astoundingly incorrect then why do you immediately resort to insults instead of explaining it for us? Enlighten me.
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Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
I would have done this if it wasn't a half-hour long video.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
So what is the point you're making?Totally besides the point I'm making.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Oh, okay... Sorry, I thought you were agreeing with Flustered Bat that our children's future is getting pilfered. Because that's exactly what you said.That's the gist of it.
Wait which is it, that illegal immigrants are becoming welfare cases thus draining the future economy or that illegal immigrants are a convenient scapegoat for all the problems in America, or both? Can they even be both?
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Oh. See, that's what I was asking about. Let's look back for a moment:Yeah that's what I'm actually saying.
Your children's future if going to be pilfered regardless of whom you vote during the "election". Immigrants are just a convenient punching-bag because they can't fight back.
...At which point I brought up debt, trying to understand where you were coming from, and you said that that was all besides the point, and that your point was just about immigration. So which is it?Where do you think the money spent on leading two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan come from? Or the trillions of dollars the Obama administration spent on "refunding" Goldman Sachs after the Lehman Brothers fiasco? Charity?
Jim Jam Flim Flam
Smash Apprentice
The man is a joke. He has some strangely excellent ideas on a select few issues, but in general it seems he is doing this as a publicity stunt. He says we can BUILD A WALL across the entire Mexican border, and that mexico will pay for it, and posits this as a legitimate plan. If you go to his website, that is the only policy he lists - nothing on the economy, foreign affairs, wars, political issues, nothing. I know he has addressed numerous issues with speeches and such, but his main focus is on a bogus idea that he can stop all brown people from entering our glorious haven of the United States by building an incredibly expensive and unnecessary wall between the U.S. and one of its partners in NAFTA. I don't know about you, but I see better ways to spend billions of dollars. This is all without mentioning he has zero political experience. Now, I wouldn't say that those with zero political experience should be denied the choice to run for president. However, Trump shows a remarkable ignorance of how both American and foreign politics work, and clearly would be unfamiliar with the intricacies and details of being the President. Even with this said, there are still crazier candidates out there. I can't believe in the 21st century there are people who would vote for a man with hair that looks that bad.