Trump supporters, how do you square this?

Was the weapons of mass destruction a credible threat? Because we invaded there.
All I said was invasion wasn't and isn't necessary. We now have the ability to disable Russia's military threat to Ukraine without putting anyone on the ground. It's a whole different world than it was in 1960 and 1991.
 
The biggest issue with the mass deportation idea is something almost has to be done because soooo many people have come in unvetted over the last four years. At first they were conspiracy theories about Venezuelan prisons being emptied into the US. Now there are Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes.

It's not just an issue on safety either. As much as the two party system sucks, a one party system is worse. Imagine if one party could do whatever they wanted with no fear at all of being voted out? If they just let all the new illegals stay, not only is it a huge safety concern, we are for the very long term future a one party country. The entire country will be California. I don't know what the answer is. Mass deportation using the military sucks bad. But not doing it will be the end of the republican party and democracy. God I hate the stupid end of democracy saying.

The Venezuelan gangs in Aurora, or the Haitians eating pets in Springfield, are fabricated stories. They both have kernels of truth, but they are blown so far out of proportion as to be farcical. Read local news accounts from either of those communities and see what they have to say.

Immigration and border security have been broken. The Biden administration made plenty of errors early on that exacerbated it, and then Trump killed the very conservative border security bill that was developed with bipartisan support.

Most estimates put the number of undocumented immigrants in this country between 10 - 15 million, and that number has certainly surged over the last 4 years (data from Pew):
1729893745833.png

There are downsides to this, especially as it pertains to national security and straining of community services (see the latter example in Springfield). However, immigrants, even undocumented, tend to be a net positive for the country. They commit crimes at far lower-rates than native-born or legal immigrants. They are a critical part of the workforce, often filling jobs that native citizens are not willing to take (this can have downward pressure on wages that could hurt US workers, but a lot of complex interplay going on). And they generally contribute more in the way of taxes than they use in terms of services (as non-citizens, they are not eligible for many of the things that go to citizens).

So, some good, some bad. Agree that the security thing is an issue, and we need to pass policy to shore that up. But the process of rounding up 10 million undocumented immigrants is going to cause far more harm to the country than good. Many of these people have been here for a decade+ and are important parts of communities. Some were born here and have never known anywhere else. Trump has admitted this process "will get bloody", and that some good people will be harmed in the process of getting rid of the bad people (the number of bad people is greatly exaggerated). And now he is encouraging paramilitary groups with his rhetoric. If Trump wins (a decent likelihood), hopefully more rational minds talk him out of this course of action, and instead he just goes for beefing up border security. But if he really tries to go through with the mass deportation, historians are going to look back on it like the Japanese-American internments of the 1940s.
 
Man that was a lot. Thank God I had a short day of work. Or should I say thanks Biden for the shitty economy?


That was a joke.

Man, we are all just trying to do our best out here. Hopefully we all share some stuff that makes others think and understand the world a bit better. God bless, Go Hawks, and enjoy the weather this weekend.
 
The boarder bill (and most bills for that matter) piggy backed a bunch of shit in with it. Money for Ukraine was one of the things. Also the boarder bill that got shot down had a lot more to do with giving a better path to citizenship than stopping people from crossing.

Also if the republican party is still for the ultra rich, why are all most of the ultra rich democrats now?

James Langsford, who is pretty damn conservative, disagrees:
 
I think most people are in your boat with how following this stuff affects them. For some reason it doesn't bother me at all. I'm just so interested in these topics and how people think. It does probably take up more of my life than it should. Especially when I get talking on here.

I am surprised you haven't sniffed out the BS surrounding January 6th tho. To me that one was easy.

Weren't we all watching that in real time with our own eyes? I am not even going to ask you to explain the BS as I am familiar with the conspiracy theories, but I don't know how anyone judges that as anything but a huge stain on Trump's character and legacy. Was it an "insurrection"? Not for most, but it was an unruly mob stirred up by lies that Trump did little to nothing to quell. And, there were undoubtedly elements within that big mess who did have insurrection, or at least massive chaos, on their minds. This has been adjudicated in a court of law, and convictions have been handed down. Those elements were undoubtedly motivated by Trump, even if not directed by Trump, and he bears responsibility morally, if not legally.
 
Do you think Trump has been silenced? Or any other right-wing personality? Fox is the most popular cable news station in the world. The Top 20 list of political podcasts is littered with right-wing content. One of the largest social media platforms in the world is run by someone who has endorsed Trump, spent 100s of millions of dollars supporting Trump super PACs, and is running Trump's ground game in swing states. If there is much silencing going on, it doesn't seem to be working.

True examples of silencing include things like book bans (which both sides have occasionally done throughout history, but the right has taken a particular shine to recently), or the government (i.e., FEC) threatening to pull broadcast licenses for content they don't like (which Trump has proposed), or political figures describing the free press as the "enemy of the people" (something Trump has done more times than you can count).

The press is broken right now. There are a bunch of reasons for that, we don't need to go into all of them. But even in its broken state, the press always has been, and still is, protection from government overreach. All authoritarians have to convince the populace that the free press is the enemy, so they have carte blanche to do whatever heinous shit they want without people uprising. I have seen some on the left trying to control/influence/delegitimize what the free press says: e.g., relative to Biden's decline or Trump's craziness. They justify this by stating Trump is a uniquely dangerous threat, so everyone needs to be all in on stopping him, the ends justify the means. I don't buy that shit at all...because as soon as you go down that road, you are giving permission to the other side to do the same stuff.

To summarize, I don't think either side has a monopoly on trying to silence dissent, but I definitely wouldn't say the right is being silenced in an uneven way.
Trump was the president of the United States and got banned from social media. And while you're correct that Trump hasn't been silenced completely, there is constant talk that his rhetoric is dangerous and needs to be silenced. Are you not seeing that? Harris calls for it all the time. There was some news outlet talking recently how the first ammendment is a getting in the way of what needs to be done.

As far as book banning go, I see stuff all the time about the right wanting to get sexual books out of schools. Is that what you're talking about or are there other examples too?
 
Trump was the president of the United States and got banned from social media. And while you're correct that Trump hasn't been silenced completely, there is constant talk that his rhetoric is dangerous and needs to be silenced. Are you not seeing that? Harris calls for it all the time. There was some news outlet talking recently how the first ammendment is a getting in the way of what needs to be done.

As far as book banning go, I see stuff all the time about the right wanting to get sexual books out of schools. Is that what you're talking about or are there other examples too?

Yes, you see some left-wing folks say Trump should be silenced. I disagree with that. Harris, to the contrary, says everyone should listen to Trump's rallies. She has taken to playing extended clips from his rallies at her political events.

Trump was banned because he was constantly lying about elections and fomenting violence. Should he have been banned? Probably not, that creates a slippery slope. We need to fix our information ecosystem so that when someone goes on social media and starts shouting crazy lies, the majority of the populace can at least know that he/she is a crazy liar.

Book bans from groups like Moms for Liberty target books with overt sexual content, as well as books that deal with themes of diversity or sexual identity (these latter topics have nothing overtly to do with the act of sex). That is silencing speech.
 
Yes, you see some left-wing folks say Trump should be silenced. I disagree with that. Harris, to the contrary, says everyone should listen to Trump's rallies. She has taken to playing extended clips from his rallies at her political events.

Trump was banned because he was constantly lying about elections and fomenting violence. Should he have been banned? Probably not, that creates a slippery slope. We need to fix our information ecosystem so that when someone goes on social media and starts shouting crazy lies, the majority of the populace can at least know that he/she is a crazy liar.

Book bans from groups like Moms for Liberty target books with overt sexual content, as well as books that deal with themes of diversity or sexual identity (these latter topics have nothing overtly to do with the act of sex). That is silencing speech.
Harris has said that lately about Trump rallies, but she talks alot about "dangerous speech".

Do you know Trump's last tweet that got him banned? It's the one where he conceded the election. You know the one before that? It's the one where he told the people on Jan 6th to go home. Those tweets were both lost from history until Musk bought Twitter. And the best way to counter crazy speech is to play it everywhere and discuss why it's crazy. Once you silence speech whoever is in power can silence whatever they want. There was a lot of covid misinformation that was silenced and ended up being true.

I see a big difference between keeping a book out of a school and banning a book period. There are countless reasons to ban a book from schools. There isn't a single reason I can think of to ban any book from existence. But my opinion on books in school is there should be a section where your kid has to have parental concent to get books from. Leave it up to the parents.
 
Weren't we all watching that in real time with our own eyes? I am not even going to ask you to explain the BS as I am familiar with the conspiracy theories, but I don't know how anyone judges that as anything but a huge stain on Trump's character and legacy. Was it an "insurrection"? Not for most, but it was an unruly mob stirred up by lies that Trump did little to nothing to quell. And, there were undoubtedly elements within that big mess who did have insurrection, or at least massive chaos, on their minds. This has been adjudicated in a court of law, and convictions have been handed down. Those elements were undoubtedly motivated by Trump, even if not directed by Trump, and he bears responsibility morally, if not legally.
Are the congressional hearings where the FBI director refused to answer if they had agents in the crowd a conspiracy theory? What about the whole Ray Epps deal? I assume you really think that's a conspiracy theory. But my question about that is if they arrested literally everyone and their grandma who had anything to do with that day, and if they arrested people who weren't even there because they instigated it, and they have him on video saying "we need to go into the capitol" then why does everyone who wants the book thrown at every single person there defend him? He should have gotten a way bigger sentence than most people but he was instantly defended by the left. It was a really weird deal. Are the videos of the cops shooting rubber bullets into a crowd that hadn't gotten violent yet a conspiracy theory? What about the dude with the horns who got thrown in prison and then released as soon as the video came out of him peacefully getting escorted around by a cop? And how many of the Capitol Police have killed themselves in the months after that day? That's really really weird. What about Nancy Pelosi denying Trump's request for extra security? There's a video of her talking about it herself. How can that be a conspiracy theory too?
 
James Langsford, who is pretty damn conservative, disagrees:
Once again, I don't think party affiliation has anything to do with anything. But I did know that a lot of Republicans wanted to pass that bill. I'm curious to know if it has as much stupid stuff in it as people say.
 
Did they really just pass a new law allowing the right for the military to use lethal force against American citizens? The Google says it's just a new version that simply restates that the military can use lethal force on civilians. Either way, what a crazy time to do that considering the worry now that Trump will use the military on civilians. Rewriting a law dealing with military on civilians while you're fear mongering about Trump using military on civilians would be like prosecuting your political opponent while fear mongering that your political opponent is going to prosecute you.
 
This whole idea that all politicians are liars and untrustworthy, therefore all politicians are equally bad, frankly, is probably not the best way to look at it, although I can understand your cynicism.

Whenever a candidate applies for a job, usually the employer does a background check and the candidate is supposed to provide references and employment history to the employer. And if the candidate does not pass the background check, or if his references don't vouch for him, that candidate usually is not considered for the job.

If voters think of themselves as the hiring employer, do they have an obligation to make sure the candidate they are voting for, has passed the background check?
 
Did they really just pass a new law allowing the right for the military to use lethal force against American citizens? The Google says it's just a new version that simply restates that the military can use lethal force on civilians. Either way, what a crazy time to do that considering the worry now that Trump will use the military on civilians. Rewriting a law dealing with military on civilians while you're fear mongering about Trump using military on civilians would be like prosecuting your political opponent while fear mongering that your political opponent is going to prosecute you.

That is a really easy fact check:

Our zone is being flooded right now by disinformation from Russia (favoring Trump) and China and Iran (favoring Biden). Use the fact checkers, they are not perfect, but much better than foreign influence campaigns.
 
That is a really easy fact check:

Our zone is being flooded right now by disinformation from Russia (favoring Trump) and China and Iran (favoring Biden). Use the fact checkers, they are not perfect, but much better than foreign influence campaigns.
I'm not surprised to read something like this. It was a pretty long article I tried to read while my kid is subbed out of a soccer game. I didn't see where it got into the specifics of exactly what was updated. Was it in there and I missed it?
 
What you are saying is probably what worries me the most...the idea that everything is F'd up and nothing matters. I think that is hard for us to recover from. I think the @Bordone is hinting at the answer...the electoral system needs to be fixed to try to restore some faith in the system.

The candidate who has the Most Votes should be the winner

This system is certainly archaic
 
The candidate who has the Most Votes should be the winner

This system is certainly archaic
The United States is not a democracy and never has been. It is more of a republic and the electoral college aligns with that. It also prevents the largest 5 States from overwhelming elections.
 

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