Wizard22 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 8:14 amAs President-elect Joe Biden crafts his Cabinet and White House team of advisers, he has pledged to make it the most diverse team in history. But in his picks so far, there is one thing that most of his team will have in common: service in the Obama administration.
Duh. No Obama??
Guess he did not get a thrid term as you claim
Yes, exactly as I said.
Keep people with experience.
Now try and think for a moment.
Is it better to keep people who know how to do their jobs, who has experience and a trak record
OR
Do you think it best to treat the cabinet like a bunch of Apprentises, and have a contonually revolving door, with an inexperienced man firing people every five minutes??
Ummm???
Think that over.
Last edited by Sculptor on Sun Sep 10, 2023 9:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
Sculptor wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 9:03 amPresidents do not set the price of oil.
OPEC does and has done since the 1970s
Presidents *DO* set the price of oil, when they intentionally shut-off the faucet in the United States.
That's what your hero Biden did, and why the US economy has declined severely, for everybody making under $250,000.00 a year.
You live in a fantasy world.
Where the fuck do you get this stuff.??
People under 250k are much better off under Democrats. Always have been.
Repugs tend to loot the economy and give themselves tax breaks and end social programmes, and switch the payouts to the military and other projects they are enriched by. Deomocrats not so much, since they pander to the lower paid,
Sculptor wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 9:16 amPeople under 250k are much better off under Democrats. Always have been.
Repugs tend to loot the economy and give themselves tax breaks and end social programmes, and switch the payouts to the military and other projects they are enriched by. Deomocrats not so much, since they pander to the lower paid,
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 12:58 am
Well, NATO is the U.S. Let's not kid ourselves. The rest are about as threatening as a mean little kid with a slingshot, including the UK. Only one power is in the same league as Russia.
And Nigel Farage was warning NATO a decade ago to stop aggitating Putin by messing about in Ukraine. They didn't listen, and Putin reacted, and now the world is paying for his dictatorship and the stupidity of the politicians who made the war happen...especially those with untalented sons mysteriously given plumb positions on energy boards in Ukraine, while simultaneously selling access to "the Big Guy".
That should helpfully narrow the focus.
Meanwhile, we should all ask who's actually footing the bill for that war, and which politicians are going to end it as soon as they're elected -- and Americans should seriously consider voting for them, whichever party they come from.
That's a tangle of multiple conspiracy theories...
Well, "conspiracy theory" is exactly the favourity Leftist nullification strategy when it comes to theories they don't want aired: they just damn it as a "conspiracy theory," and hope that people will be ashamed of thinking it, and withdraw.
But it's actually pretty simple: there is no longer any need for NATO: the Cold War is over. There was no good reason for the Bidens or the US to be in Ukraine, anymore than Biden's son to be 'consulting' to Burisma, and receiving what were clearly bribes from them, for a job for which he was utterly unqualified and incapable. And there's no good reason for America to be paying for a foreign war in a place in which they have no national interest. There's no good reason for the Democrats (publicly-admitted) bio-labs to be in Ukraine. And there's no reason for Putin to be there, if NATO hadn't been threatening to absorb Ukraine in its own sphere of influence, either. And Biden's setting of "regime change" as the horizon of the war inevitably would mean a nuclear conflict...so we'd better pray that his poking of a madman does not get a whole lot of us nuked.
There are politicians who want to end this war. The people don't want this war. Ukrainians and Russians don't need to keep dying. And Americans don't need to keep paying. And the world does not need to keep suffering because millionaire megalomaniacs want to play the game of global utopianism, even if it kills us all.
I dread to think what the bio-labs bit is supposed to be, but I suspect it isn't true, or 'admitted' and very unlikely to to be something the Democrats did. It's all some conspiracy theory nonsense anyway.
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:52 pmIf the foundations are rotten enough then the tools required to destailize them don't need to be either sophisticated or strong. Wizzard and IC have been blathering over the white picket fences and Howdy Doody of some imagined lost paradise where everyone was righteous and God fearing so it was all ok. That was never true, and attempts to resurrect it are doomed.
Case in point: People like IC probably contribute significantly to the reasons why Christianity is in decline in America, they have enslaved their God to their politics and that's kind of ugly. You don't need to look to Marx to explain why Jebus is losing his value, you can look at Mannie. And I guess all those priests who touched the kiddies for decades without punishment too.
It was always true. Liberal-Leftists saw how good WASP-Americans had it...and true to your nature, rather than want it for yourselves, rather than copy it, instead you choose to attack and destroy it, replace with your Globohomo-Multi-Kulti. You are an agent of destruction, desecration, and chaos.
You are the reason that they deserve protection, and to be defended from.
Isn't that Globohomo thing something about a big Jewish conspiracy to rob the West of vitality and vigour?
Your nostalgia is for a time when wives kept quiet after a good beating and black folks had a particular side of the tracks they were allowed to live. It can't be resurrected and just wasn't as good as you like to imagine anyway.
You want to debate some point or other? I have no idea as of right now if you guys are saying that Trump should not be prosecuted because he didn't commit any crime, or that he shouldn't be prosecuted because you don't want him to be held accountable if he did commit a crime.
Wizzard made a sort of effort to argue both at once with some conspiracy theory about all the judges being Democrats including the ones on the Supreme Court that Trump appointed to it. You got some position less dumb than that?
Quit being retarded, illiterate, and incontinent, Poopants.
My arguments refuted yours entirely. Trump's court cases against the Democrats were never heard, evidence never brought forth to trial. Then you, idiotically, claimed that "all the courts ruled against him even his own appointees". So you're either ignorant, or knowingly a liar. It's hard to pick with you, since when your points are defeated, you quickly turn to Ad Hom-ing.
Trump was unable to present any court with any credible evidence in any of his cases. The Supreme Court didn't hear his cases because they were desperate and bad and lacked evidentiary basis.
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 10:24 pmI STILL have no idea as of right now if you guys are saying that Trump should not be prosecuted because he didn't commit any crime, or that he shouldn't be prosecuted because you don't want him to be held accountable if he did commit a crime.
Maybe try suppressing your urge to Ad Hom, and ask us directly?
Did I not already answer, with my previous question, which you balked? How many times have former US presidents been indicted and/or imprisoned?
Remember that question? Remember that answer?
Zero, so how is this not purely political motivation, alone?
I've askled you directly a lot of times and still you don't answer. No, a question about other presidents isn't even close to an answer.
So ... Are you saying that if Trump is guilty of multiple felonies, he still shouldn't be prosecuted for them?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 10:05 pm
If the topic is IC’s political stance — I would say he is Liberal-Conservative (slightly right of center) — then my opinion doesn’t change. But political categories seem to be in some upheaval generally. And it is confusing.
Wow, he's quite the man of opposites, in your imagination at least. But if he was, as you described him... "quite classically Liberal" he would definitely criticise trump for the classically illiberal trade policies if nothing else. These include (off the top of my head) his multiple impsitions of mercantillist tariffs; his similarly mercantillist reasons for assaulting the WTO and NAFTA (trade liberals think the rules based system of international free trade is a huge net positive for humanity at large); all of the wall stuff. Not to mention all of the immigration stuff, especially that Islamic immigration "shut down" he promised. Such a classical Liberal would also criticise Biden for maintaining too many of those illiberal trade policies.
IC challenges people to come up with anything bad Trump has done. As you can see, an actual classical Liberal would have no difficulty finding genuine objections to Trump.
I leave it to others to consider whether a real conservative would find it difficult to criticise a man who has cheated on each of his three wives.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 10:05 pm
If the topic is What is the cause of “the mess” we find ourselves in, then I am still inclined to place more emphasis on progressive- and radical-leftism. So his statement (with qualification) makes sense to me.
My take is that these Liberalisms functioned sanely (if that is the word) because culture generally was grounded in conservative principles.
That's a bit of a bromide, can you illustrate with any specifics?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 10:05 pm
There seems to be a point where Liberalism becomes Hyper-Liberalism because it has altered or destroyed those bases in defined values that allowed Liberal flourishing. Then it seems to move in perverse directions and to call forth reaction.
If you start with some Hegelian assumptions I suppose you can assume that too. But if you attempt to clumsily naturalise "good" into "tradition" on a philosophy forum somebody should have enough knowledge to make that difficult for you.
Where were you self-proclaimed "liberals" when all Republicans-Conservatives were getting silenced across social media the last 8 years, or during the covid pandemic?
I thought you "liberals" were supposed to be Free-Speech...?
No, wait, it's a matter of Convenience...free speech for you, but not your political opposition. Right?
The social media is full of conservatives whining openly and loudly every day that they had been silenced. Loudest fucking silencing I ever heard.
A privately held platform such as Facebook or Twitter is entitled to set rules for joining in the thing that they privately own. Trump got banned for breaking Terms of Service on those platforms. That's not a free speach issue, it's you demanding to trespass on private property.
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 11:40 pmI feel you have some different takes to me on what good and bad are, but whatever...
He's done a pretty decent job mending various alliances, but that's mainly NATO and Putin made it suddenly vital again in a way that mere diplomacy never would have, nonetheless, decent work. Similarly his diplomatic outreach in Asia is going well with some free trade agreements and good work in Hanoi and Tokyo. For all the people who worry a lot about the rise of China, that's all good stuff.
The Inflation Reduction Act is much too protection oriented for my tastes, but it creates jobs and promotes investment in growth sectors and all the people who stress about where manufacturing happens should like it (unless they are Germans, in which case they will have to lump it).
He managed to get a Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal through a brutal recidivist Congress which is something of an achievement by itself. It contains funding to end the problem of America still having lead water pipes, which is something that really should have been dealt with in the 1970s not the 2020s. That alone (exclusive of the other trillion dollars for repairing dangerous infrastructure) should count as a good thing even to the most absurdly rabid partisan...
If he commits any felonies, I see no reason why a fairly ok economic performance should save his from going to jail though.
Nobody has done more for Putin and the CCP, than the Biden Administration, which directly caused the formation of BRICS.
BRICS would not exist, without a weak, Democrat dement--...I mean"leadership".
The original acronym "BRIC", or "the BRICs", was coined in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill to describe fast-growing economies that he predicted would collectively dominate the global economy by 2050.
You can't really say that Biden has done lots for Putin but also complain that Biden has supplied the weaponry that has demolished Russia's reputation as the world's second best military.
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 12:12 amBut presidents don't have any influence over inflation anyway.
Wrong, the US Dollar is still hinged upon price per barrel of oil.
One of the first things the Biden Administration did, was to end gas & oil leases across the US, causing a spike in gas prices. High gas prices per gallon pressurizes inflation forces by how everybody in the country needs to spend more.
Secondly, his FED appointee, Janet Yellen, has printed more money than ever before, in the shortest time.
That's wrong in all sorts of ways.
The price of the dollar is set by supply and demand same as the prices for most things. The dollar is far too big and important to hinge on some commodity price like a third world country.
Quite admirable, Flash, but the points I made about IC’s centrism still stand. And that Liberal societies of the past were ‘sanely so’ because of a general social conservatism.
