Necronic
Staff member
Fair point. And I do appreciate that a lot of Americans wanted that wall. But that's when they were dumb enough to believe that Mexico would pay for it and it would be cheap. The question now is if they want the real wall, which we can't get Mexico to pay for the and the cost of which will gut a lot of other important programs.
Maybe you can get Cambodia to pay for it.
GasBandit
Staff member
It's been a while, but I definitely have. I credit him with the beginning of the executive branch becoming too powerful, the next big bump coming from FDR.
For example,
Suppression of traumatic experiences isn't all that rare.
You should be happy to know that was essentially the theme of my lessons this week (that Jackson was a bloodthirsty authoritarian unworthy of the title). The kids seemed to get it.
I imagine a lot of people agree with you in this case.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, not many explicitly disagree, but a distressing number:
1) Don't remember who he was
2) Might remember he was a president, but remember nothing else about him
3) Confuse him for a civil war general
And then there was one person who just started singing "The Battle of New Orleans."
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Yes. Many people in government believe Jackson had the right idea, he just didn't go far enough.
--Patrick
I can honestly say that I had never been taught the name of the President that ordered the Trail of Tears. Until this year, I was one of these people. All I knew was that he used to be President. I did know he wasn't a Civil War general, though.
Dave
Staff member
Every time you think Trump is as bad as he's going to get he says, "Hold my beer. I got this."
President Donald Trump slipped up and called the U.S. a "company," ignored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's request for a handshake, and called a German press outlet "fake news"
http://www.commondreams.org/news/20...arrassing-watch-trump-merkel-press-conference
President Donald Trump slipped up and called the U.S. a "company," ignored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's request for a handshake, and called a German press outlet "fake news"
http://www.commondreams.org/news/20...arrassing-watch-trump-merkel-press-conference
Zappit
Staff member
You know how it seems every office has that one guy who seems like he's really just trying to get fired?
I haven't heard that one for a certainty, but I have heard this: If you look around your office and don't know who the asshole is immediately, then it's you.
There's a tendency amongst idiots to not trust other people when they speak a foreign language. I'm not surprised, though I am further disappointed that this buffoon represents all of us
Wasn't that decision about how the state of Georgia had no right to request people have a permit for residing among native americans, because only the feds could deal with the natives, because they're considered a sovereign nation?
Hasn't it been "running out" for 20 years now?
Yeah, that's not how it worked, because of the logistics involved wouldn't work even now. "You no longer own it on paper, so we've achieved communism, while actually still continuing the previous pseudo-feudalist system or corrupt clientelism, but with US in charge" was more like it.
But that was besides the point, which was that if everyone actually gave willingly to charity we'd have ended up with what would be a de facto communist system (or at least for the "to each according to their needs" part), which you yourself then argued is impossible... thus validating the need for coercion when it comes to taxes.
I mean what's the difference between 70% of your income going to charity vs 100% going there, but then you get 30% of it back because it was determined that's how much you need? (we're ignoring the coercion thing for the sake of the example, we assume both are motivated the same way)
Umm, you're asking me to ignore the main point that coercing redistribution is bad. Willingly is fine, coercing is not. So how the hell am I supposed to respond "ignore your main point, and then..."?
You're supposed to reconsider what i said based on the fact that i consider your "main point" irrelevant to it.
Also, that's not what i said this time either, you're supposed to ignore it because we can compare when both are coerced vs when both are done willingly... and we can see that both are bad when coerced, while when not, we'd need to see the results.
Did you know that some people believe in deontology, rather than consequentialism?
Ya that's basically where I'm going with this, to an extent. And extremely few believe in consequentialism unfettered, as that's quite literally "the ends justify the means."
Li3n, you're trying to get me on board with the general idea that as long as the outcome is the same, the means don't matter. They do. But the scope of the problem justifies greater and greater means to solve it, but examining such, and examining just how much they work or don't work is also part of that. The main problem there is how it's perceived for the same data.
The classic example of what I mean is when looking at the Billions (or higher) of dollars put into Welfare (and related) for the last 50 (or more) years. If you compare unemployment and poverty rates, they are very un-related to the amount of money put in. But even if you accept that idea, one side will say "Look, all this money has done nothing, we should cut it/tax cut it/do something else with it," whereas another side would say "Look at all this money in, it would be so much worse right now if it hadn't been spent! We need to spend more on it to bring these people up!"
Who is right?
This article, and all those on this topic are somewhat odd in the way things are presented. Some of what's been said is that the FBI is investigating Russian interference, and that Obama did not order any wiretaps, but it's very specific in not saying if they are (or have been before) tapping Trump's advisors.
If they're investigating interference, why wouldn't they be tapping people they suspect to be targets of influence? Wouldn't that be a reasonable step? And if they're not, how ARE they investigating?
All of this kind of leaves it open for Trump to say later that the Obama administration tapped his phones, and by "his" he means "his organization's" phones. Which by my reading is reasonable to do from the FBI if you suspect Russian interference. But it'll be spun by everybody in whichever way says "they" are lying and/or fake news.
The timeline of what happened (potentially) seems like this:
- FBI suspects Russian interference in campaign (for whatever reason)
- FBI taps a bunch of phones to try and find said interference. What the chain of evidence for this is (NSA tapping all calls in or out of country by default anyways?) could be interesting.
- Whom all did they tap, and who knew what when?
Side note: why is this FBI jurisdiction? I don't understand how things work down there, but I thought FBI was domestic stuff? Isn't counter-intelligence (and that's a funny term right there) a CIA and/or NSA function? Why is the FBI looking into things related to other country issues?
https://www.justice.gov/jmd/organization-mission-and-functions-manual-federal-bureau-investigation
(bolded mine)
https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/todays-cia/what-we-do
To put it in pretty simple terms: The FBI investigates violations of law. The CIA gathers foreign intelligence. It's definitely an FBI matter because it touches on possible domestic corruption.
Thanks for answering my footnote Tin. Very clear on the counter-espionage part there. I guess I (like many others probably) thought that the CIA had that as its mandate. I've probably watched too many TV/movies that reinforce that idea.
Seems very kitchen-sink-ish for the FBI though. They investigate "everything" more or less. I'm not saying Canada's better (RCMP does even more everything), but just interesting. Makes me wonder why the DEA and ATF exist at all given the contents of that mandate, as "Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises" would seem to cover everything the DEA does and the "significant violent crime" and terrorist clauses covers everything the ATF does too.
Honestly, as an administrator, if one were looking ways to cut your government spending (which you desperately need, even if not the way your current guy is doing it), rolling those other two into the FBI would probably result in saved money and less overlapping effort as well!
Seems very kitchen-sink-ish for the FBI though. They investigate "everything" more or less. I'm not saying Canada's better (RCMP does even more everything), but just interesting. Makes me wonder why the DEA and ATF exist at all given the contents of that mandate, as "Combat transnational and national criminal organizations and enterprises" would seem to cover everything the DEA does and the "significant violent crime" and terrorist clauses covers everything the ATF does too.
Honestly, as an administrator, if one were looking ways to cut your government spending (which you desperately need, even if not the way your current guy is doing it), rolling those other two into the FBI would probably result in saved money and less overlapping effort as well!
