Author Topic: Okay, I'm out  (Read 11602 times)

Area 10

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #30 on: June 28, 2016, 07:29:41 PM »
We are facing a very similar situation in the UK now. The same people who'd vote for Trump in the US have just voted for the UK to leave the European Union. This has led to the Prime Minister resigning (he is Conservative, our version of the GOP) and it looks like the leader of my he Labour Party (our equivalent of the Democrats) is going to be forced to resign too. There are no obvious candidates to replace either of them, and it's quite likely that any replacements will be quite unpopular with large sections of the population. The vote to leave the UK has caused our currency to tank, which means that there will be job cuts and raised taxes, hurting the very people most who voted for us to leave the EU. The promises that the "Vote Leave" campaign made to secure their votes have already been shown to be lies that the poor electorate swallowed in their economic desperation and out of a sense that their elected representatives no longer represent them. The European Union is in turmoil (the UK is the second biggest financial contributor to Europe out of all the 27 member countries), and it now looks a real possibility that the UK may break up, with Scotland and perhaps Northern Ireland leaving the UK to try and stay in Europe.

It's the most unholy mess you can imagine. The people who are going to suffer worst are those who voted for this. We are going to end up with leaders who arguably don't have an electoral mandate to be in the top jobs. The press, led by Rupert Murdoch, have legitimised what should have been fringe opinions by continual coverage in search of ratings. They have been uncritical in their coverage of the lies put forward on all sides of the "Leave the EU" debate, but especially the "leave" side. This has allowed the less well educated, less informed, and most desperate to be sold a pack of untruths and partial truths.

The result? We are worse off than ever. We still don't have representatives anyone likes - on any side of the political spectrum. It will be even easier for the rich elite to be parasitic upon the poorer workers in our country because they will no longer have the rights for workers that the EU provided - and insisted on. And Rupert Murdoch, who was only recently being investigated by our government has now masterminded the collapse of the careers of the political elite who dared to let him be challenged, so must be laughing his head off. So we still have the problem that to work properly a democracy needs a free press, but basically we don't. One person has a stranglehold on a large section of the most vulnerable members of our community, and can fool then into voting against there own interests using the politics of fear and appealing to our more base instincts.

As a consequence, we are currently in the middle of a huge domino effect. Extremist parties within Europe have been greatly encouraged by UK's example and so several other countries face the prospect of a similar thing happening to them. It is possible that the result could be the end of Europe, strengthening greatly Russia and China (and Middle East nuclear powers-to-be), as well as the end of the UK, the world's 5th largest economy. That could have catastrophic effects upon the US Dollar, and we'd all be plunged into an economic and political crisis that would make anything we've seen before look like kid's stuff.

It's a dreadful and dangerous situation, balanced on a knife edge. You guys in the US could well end up being affected greatly by it, especially militarily.

This all happened because a large section of our society didn't much like the options they were being offered, so decided to make a protest vote, in the belief that things couldn't get any worse. Well, they just did. A lot. So please think carefully when you vote. Things may be bad, but they can always get worse. And they can get worse almost overnight, as we have just discovered. This time last week we were much better off financially, and politically more secure. Now we are facing potentially the end of our country as we know it, and the biggest financial, political, and military crisis that the modern world has yet seen. Maybe it will turn out relatively OK, but equally it really might not. No-one knows, and all bets are off. The very uncertainty this is creating is panicking the markets and doing untold damage. And at the centre of this was just a couple of politicians who were until recently regarded as virtually unelectable buffoons by a majority of the population. But give them a platform, let the biased press do a lazy job, and sit back and watch the carnage that unfolds.

Please don't make the same mistake we have. If the US ends up in turmoil at the same time as Europe is in crisis, this could be very dangerous for world peace, and strengthen our mutual enemies greatly.

surf4food

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #31 on: June 29, 2016, 06:23:58 AM »
Please don't make the same mistake we have. If the US ends up in turmoil at the same time as Europe is in crisis, this could be very dangerous for world peace, and strengthen our mutual enemies greatly.

Unfortunately I will have to say don't hold your breath.

Tom

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #32 on: June 29, 2016, 07:30:03 AM »
Thanks Area 10, very informative post.

tautologies

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #33 on: June 29, 2016, 11:35:21 AM »
I don't like to talk politics much, but jeez. I'm a lifelong republican, but I'm done. I didn't know who these people were when they started getting weird about religion, but I stayed the course. Tea party? Bunch of assholes, but thtat's the fringe, I can live with that.  Then guns. I own more guns than most people, mostly sporting arms, but a few that aren't. But still, get real. Let's have some regulations. But no, that would be wrong. Then immigration. Last time I checked we were all immigrants here. Even the indians. Yeah, I said indians. Sue me. I keep hearing about the jobs we're losing. If you lose your job to some person who can barely speak english and has no understanding of our culture, then WTF? Learn to work. How is this being conservative? Then it's Obama bashing to the point that the government didn't do anything constructive for the last eight years. It's your job. If you can't do it, then step down. Now Trump. Okay, bye.

I don't know who you people are but I don't like you, I don't trust you, I'm nothing like you, I'd cross the street to avoid you. You praise jesus and then act like some money grubbing, soulless, unchariable dickhead. Fuck you. I'm voting for mickey mouse. At least he makes sense.

Don't get too excited democrats. You're full of shit too. If anything you're worse, but it's a close race. Hillary, really? Thats the best you got. Be ashamed.
.

I'm not a republican, but I'm not a democrat either. Your post give me hope that the republican party can get back to its roots, because it is certainly needed. The mix between ideology, pragmatism and empathy needs to be readjusted.

On a separate note..obviously this is a complex issue that has many many facets, but perhaps the parties have awoken a part of the electorate that are uneducated about the political process and have little understanding for how policy making works. You see people complaining about the election process and how it was rigged against Sanders..fact is that nothing really has changed for this nomination, just that people behaves like 3 year olds when things do not go their way. TeaParty representatives gets elected on NOT NEGOTIATING. How do they think the political process works?

I think there is a clear line from Bush (maybe even Reagan) to TeaParty to Trump, and its infamously dubbed the race to the bottom...ahh ehh this will be long now so I will just stop.

Long term the solution is educating people.

SUP Leave

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #34 on: June 29, 2016, 03:01:11 PM »
I follow what you are saying tautologies. I have a great disdain for Bush, not for what he did in office, but who he invited into the party in order to win the nomination.

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PDLSFR

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #35 on: June 30, 2016, 08:33:21 AM »
Now here's a Dude we could all stand behind as Leader of the Free World !!
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PonoBill

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #36 on: June 30, 2016, 08:36:37 AM »
Yeah, but Cierce would kill him. Or maybe Aria.
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TEX_SUP

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #37 on: June 30, 2016, 05:42:15 PM »

In fact, you could say the reason the current Democratic and Republican candidates are both so unappealing to so many people in their own parties is because too many people were reluctant to "waste their vote" in the last few elections.

I would place the blame more on the party primary system.  Low turnout early elections can easily give us a choice between two candidates no one really wants, but are more palatable than "that SOB" from the other party.

PonoBill

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #38 on: June 30, 2016, 06:26:30 PM »
I just made a donation to and idigogo campaign to fund Kahn Academy's new course on American Government and Politics. Might be too late to help much this election cycle I suppose, but it would be nice if a few million kids (and me, I love Kahn academy) understood how american government works, if only so the could brutalize their parents who seem to have no idea.  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-khan-academy-create-lessons-on-us-government/x/10393425#/
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pdxmike

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #39 on: June 30, 2016, 09:28:35 PM »

In fact, you could say the reason the current Democratic and Republican candidates are both so unappealing to so many people in their own parties is because too many people were reluctant to "waste their vote" in the last few elections.

I would place the blame more on the party primary system.  Low turnout early elections can easily give us a choice between two candidates no one really wants, but are more palatable than "that SOB" from the other party.
You do have a point there.  The primary system seems to weed out the candidates who might have more appeal in a general election.  Having all primaries open might help that.


I'm unaffiliated, so can't vote in primaries, so am at the mercy of voters in the parties to come up with someone I can stand.  But Independents are becoming a huge percentage of all voters now, so that means more and more people are going to be left out of the primary voting, and the ones leaving the parties are the more moderate voters.  So that means the people left in the parties who can vote in the primaries are going to be at the extremes, meaning this could all spiral downhill.  More extreme candidates, leading more people to drop out of the parties, meaning even more extreme candidates next time, meaning more people leave the parties...

PonoBill

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #40 on: June 30, 2016, 10:16:44 PM »
Which might kill the parties alltogether, or create a thrid party system that becomes more open. The primary system is an artifact of the parties themselves. How the parties select their candidates is not part of national policy, it's more party policy. that's why they get to do what they want. A change there might be a good thing. I do worry that all this backlash could be more destructive than constructive, though it's easy to see the benefit of disruption in business. It might create local pain, but the end result is progress.
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TEX_SUP

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #41 on: July 01, 2016, 04:15:07 AM »

You do have a point there.  The primary system seems to weed out the candidates who might have more appeal in a general election.  Having all primaries open might help that.

I'm unaffiliated, so can't vote in primaries, so am at the mercy of voters in the parties to come up with someone I can stand.  But Independents are becoming a huge percentage of all voters now, so that means more and more people are going to be left out of the primary voting, and the ones leaving the parties are the more moderate voters.  So that means the people left in the parties who can vote in the primaries are going to be at the extremes, meaning this could all spiral downhill.  More extreme candidates, leading more people to drop out of the parties, meaning even more extreme candidates next time, meaning more people leave the parties...

Or perhaps ditch the primaries altogether and go to multistage elections.  First round is wide open, candidates who get more than 20% move on to next round, candidate who receives more than 50% wins. 

PonoBill

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #42 on: July 01, 2016, 06:26:44 AM »
Way too logical and not as easy to fiddle.
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Admin

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #43 on: July 01, 2016, 06:36:34 AM »
Its not just you old righties.  Seems that some lefties are coming out as well, or at least are GOPcurious.  "22% of Sanders supporters switching to Trump".

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ryu5fc/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-bernie-or-bust--why-bernie-sanders-supporters-turn-to-donald-trump

PonoBill

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Re: Okay, I'm out
« Reply #44 on: July 01, 2016, 06:41:09 AM »
Republicurious seems better to me. GOPcurious has an ugly ring. I think there's a lot of younguns that resent what the Dems did to their guy. Thought Bernie's recent actions are pretty yucky.
Foote 10'4X34", SIC 17.5 V1 hollow and an EPS one in Hood River. Foote 9'0" x 31", L41 8'8", 18' Speedboard, etc. etc.

 


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