The Trump Presidency

Hawk said:
Well, good; it wasn't a pejorative jab. It was just kind of surprising to see you make such an erroneous claim, and then turn around and zealously re-highlight the same position from an even more questionable angle.
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I obviously don't find the initial claim erroneous—at least any more so than the claim that "communism has killed 100 million in the 20th century". Those are the parameters, whether useful or not.

Hawk said:
In terms of invalidating your argument, I'd suggest that pre-industrial (or 'industrializing') capitalism isn't actually even capitalism to begin with, to start.
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This is a potentially very interesting discussion that I don't really feel like having to its sufficient depth. Suffice to say I don't entirely disagree with you, but I also don't think they're entirely incommensurable or disjunctive. Certainly nineteenth century industrializing economics in the Global North has a hell-of-a-lot in common with twentieth century industrial capitalism.

Hawk said:
Well, it entirely depends on the kind of statement you are trying to make and how into the weeds you are willing to go to demonstrate your point. The numbers can be twisted any number of ways, but the most obvious derivations here are the ones that I find instructive.
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And what are those "most obvious derivations"?
 
Hawk said:
Why?
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Presumably for similar reasons that you object to the word "nativism."

It's a loaded term that is used, mostly by people who have no good-faith intent to address the issue, to obfuscate the facts that surround it.

In the context of DACA, it's a bit of a sleight-of-hand to obscure the fact that those subject to the program are essentially being given a pardon for their parents' crime of illegal residency.. Folks who have, its worth noting, been granted the legal right to remain in the meantime. Even at that, it's placing the burden of achieving citizenship on the individuals, and not granting them, en masse and without qualification, the status of citizens.

It's a conditional process, not a lightswitch. "Amnesty" is a lazy shorthand used as a pejorative by opponents of a process that you say that you support. Immigration reform is not "comprehensive" without some kind of policy to address certain subsets of residents (call them "undocumented" or "illegal"), and no proposal that has even sniffed a vote has offered them "amnesty"...yet the word persists.
 
sturg33 said:
I get a little tired of being the only one to ever answer direct questions. I guess since I asked first, I don't feel the need to answer your follow up because it inevitably leads to your responding to that, and thus never answer my original questions. I'm trying to be better about not letting people off the hook. To date, you still haven't answered my questions
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Rich from you, considering you have very often refused to directly or satisfactorily answer questions from me.

sturg33 said:
I honestly think you've gone off the deep end if you think this is some sort of meaningful or good point.

You're basically saying you are being coerced to live. If you have a problem with the above scenario - what is your alternative? I've asked several several several times so maybe we'll get the answer this time. Specifically, what is your ideal "system."
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The point is man is a political animal; we must live socially. Participating in socialized contexts ("society") is going to involve coercion, in some formulation. So your grand "aha!" that socialism is basically invalid because it "involves coercion" is even less a "meaningful or good point".

As for "ideal"—and broad strokes, taking "ideal" to mean "workable optimistic alternative" and not what it really should connote ("optimal; perfect; imaginary")—I'd like to see, in the near-term, with no means-testing: single-payer healthcare, fully subsidized college, abolition of blanket sales tax, fully subsidized local public transportation, partially subsidized (and much better funded/run) national rail system, pervasive public wifi à la Estonia, net neutrality, something an every-citizen food and utilities stipend, and/or possibly even a UBI if measures are in place to ensure costs don't dramatically rise alongside the UBI. These measures would be accompanied by more progressive income and windfall taxation; greater corporate tax rates—but also greater tax-based carrots for legitimate, non-greenwashing environmental/conservation and labor protections, as well as protections for startup and smaller businesses; and a sovereign wealth fund, for starters.

But I'm a flexible guy. I'm willing consider various avenues to ensure basic necessities and dignities to every member of our population. And I want a reasonable, firm floor more than a rigid, draconian ceiling.

As for real ideal, long-term, utopian ****: hope that **** like fusion and advanced hydroponic arcologies work out, and we become a resource-unlimited arts&sciences species.
 
57Brave said:
Jeff Flake
- US Senator Arizona (R)
........
You knew that though.
Right?
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There's no way Jeff Flake composed that tweet. Flake isn't comparing Trump to Stalin, he's making the argument that Trump's attack on the press is something Stalin might do.

As for the tweet, there's actually a little bit of truth to it, just not necessarily with the connotation provided. We cry out about certain people voting "with" Trump, but I'm not seeing all that much actual legislation that would have anything to do with the GOP's objections to Trump. Even if you do think Trump is Stalin (and you shouldn't), you're going to vote for the vision of America you want. I might personally think it's abhorrent, but I'm not in the US Senate.
 
i look forward to the blame somehow being put on democrats if the gov't is shut down

just like it was somehow Obama's fault that the republican congress shut it down last time
 
Moving on to a story that impacts much more people. The stock market looks poised for another big day. There are some economists who are projecting US GDP to be closer to 5% as opposed to 4 in 2018. They are the outliers but it goes to show just how smart this administration is when it comes to growing the economy.
 
thethe said:
Moving on to a story that impacts much more people. The stock market looks poised for another big day. There are some economists who are projecting US GDP to be closed to 5% as opposed to 4 in 2018. They are the outliers but it goes to show just how smart this administration is when it comes to growing the economy.
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Still clinging to those “30 pieces of silver” I see...
 
thethe said:
Moving on to a story that impacts much more people. The stock market looks poised for another big day. There are some economists who are projecting US GDP to be closed to 5% as opposed to 4 in 2018. They are the outliers but it goes to show just how smart this administration is when it comes to growing the economy.
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What? I was told by so many that the economy would collapse under trump
 
And those people can still come as long as they don't expect to live off of the American peoples hard work.
 
mqt said:
There's no way Jeff Flake composed that tweet. Flake isn't comparing Trump to Stalin, he's making the argument that Trump's attack on the press is something Stalin might do.

As for the tweet, there's actually a little bit of truth to it, just not necessarily with the connotation provided. We cry out about certain people voting "with" Trump, but I'm not seeing all that much actual legislation that would have anything to do with the GOP's objections to Trump. Even if you do think Trump is Stalin (and you shouldn't), you're going to vote for the vision of America you want. I might personally think it's abhorrent, but I'm not in the US Senate.
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In excerpts provided by his office, he is poised to blast Trump’s “unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press” that he will call “as unprecedented as it is unwarranted.”

“It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies,” Flake will say, according to the excerpts. “It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase ‘enemy of the people,’ that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of ‘annihilating such individuals’ who disagreed with the supreme leader.”

Flake will add that Trump “has it precisely backward — despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot’s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him ‘fake news,’ it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...dia-attacks-to-stalin/?utm_term=.474111f21b77

This story is two days old --
and frankly i am not surprised the usual suspects have given editorial blow back.
By even stating how far wrong the (D) are for making such a comparison
Keep up people

Unless - loyalty to all things Trump now decides who is and isn't ...
which furthers Sen Flake assertion.

Of course I could be mistaken thinking people actually understand what Stalin was and what Stalinism represents
 
goldfly said:
i look forward to the blame somehow being put on democrats if the gov't is shut down

just like it was somehow Obama's fault that the republican congress shut it down last time
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I ****ing love government shutdowns. These bureaucrats bitch and moan about not having money to do this or that but they somehow still have the money to incarcerate people for victimless crimes. Dont have the money but I bet SWAT raids on drug houses arent shutting down. I bet the cops will still be out in poor black areas looking to write jaywalking tickets.They expect my heart to bleed because an 80 year old grandma aint getting her meals on wheels at the same time turning down billions in tax revenue from legalized drugs. They can all cry me a ****ing river. What they call a shutdown I call a half measure. These jackoffs will purposely cut from the useful things as a scare tactic to try and show you how much you need them. Just because 10% of my tax money is used for good **** does not justify using our tax money on all that other stupid ****.
 
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