The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

heh, I sort of understand, and at the same time everyone else to me seems even worse, except Bernie. Poor you americans. So few reasonable candidates.

I find it hard to believe that a supporter of Bernie Sanders would jump over to Trump. They're both sort of extreme candidates, but from totally different sides.
Well I guess for people who just want to vote for somebody extreme that jump might make sense. Not to somebody who voted for Bernie because of actual believe in the values Bernie stands for or wants to stand for.

Its funny how I always thought that politics could be interpreted as a spectrum, hence "choosing sides". It appears more like a circle now everyday. Those that are trapped in the center can't escape.

Besides Bernie, the only other candidate that appears to share a solid set of principles appears to be Kasich. Granted, he is non existent now, but it was nice to see someone on the Republican party that didn't go to extreme measures like some of the other candidates.


Side note: Trump swept the mid Atlantic. It may not mean a lot with respect to delegates, but the headlines will have future primary voters reconsider their views. Everybody likes a winner

Pretty much this, yea. If they vote for the underlying beliefs, then they won't switch. But if they vote for a change/equal opportunities and what not, then they will likely switch.

I'd like to point out (again) that trump is actually a moderate. Ted Cruz is much more conservative.

Also Trumps foreign policy speech is going to win him a lot of friends here among the middle class. If he sticks to that speech during his presidency, things will be just peachy for the US.

Funny I read multiple articles how inconsistent his speech was, but sure the kind of people Trump gets his most votes from dont care about that.
So you say he should actually stick to that chaotic concept?

Well trump IS winning so far, so i guess the answer is yes?

In the voting process, but I was asking about this:

And obviously what wins him the presidency might not be what makes everything "peachy" for the US.

You talking about the guy from slate and the left leaning news organizations who would much rather see Hillary elected?

Because the guy(s) from slate (http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...rump_s_foreign_policy_speech_were_brutal.html) came off as ignorant to me. You can't want to ease tensions with Russia but also say we won't help people who aren't already our friends? What? Those two aren't mutually exclusive.

As usual, Trump's speech isn't something you can take at face value. From what he's said, it's obvious that he is playing this for the long term. He wants to:

A) Cut down on rushed or untenable wars. War needs to have a goal. War to show strength is a bad decision.
B) Address the growing problem of China, and finally 'deal' with North Korea.
C) Get the Russians to put the past behind them (seriously, the cold war was over 25 years ago.)
D) Deal with ISIS
E) Fix the economic trade deficit.
F) Protect Israel, our closest friend and ally in the MidEast.

Probably missed something. I've only read the transcript once. Lol.

EDIT: The whole thing about our allies? He's right. Pull your own damn weight. You want defense? Build defense and stop depending on the USA to save your country from possible impending doom. I think the guy from slate's response to this was 'BUT THATS ABANDONING YER ALLIES NURRR"

I lol'd, because there's a caveat: Pull your own weight and we'll back you up. It's not abandonment. It's time to stop cutting the military for political points, EU. That was the message I took away from that speech, personally.

I was referring to German press. Mainly spiegel.de and tagesschau.de I've not seen any German press that wasn't going "lol Trump".
I don't even know what "slate" is. Our world views are different and so are our news sources.

IIRC he was talking more so about South Korea and not Europe when mentioning allies pulling their weight.

American media is extremely biased, the polls and the elections rigged and the system corrupt as hell. Shame to call yourselves democratic.

And the EU is any better? Really? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

He was speaking about both. Last I checked, South Korea and Japan both spend significant portions of their GDP on defense due to their proximity to China and NK. The EU (in general) doesn't.

Idk, just the news site I posted. Lel.

The fcc doesnt regulate media broadcasts, thats why you guys have the bias. There is only one country in Europe that doesnt have regulation and that is.. guess it? Italy. Berlusconi owns most of the media there and we see how that works.

Does't America spend more than the other top ten militaries combined on Defence? EU countries spend our GDP on better things.

Like what? Free handouts to make your people lazy?

The US has a better track record when it comes to corruption than the EU.
You are naive if you think no war will happen. That's ******* retarded.

Obviously the world is out to get you and your country.

Seriously a war with CHINA?!
lol. If they stop trading with us we're screwed and they're screwed as well. Everyone would be screwed. So no. Not happening. Nobody has any interest in this.

A war with north korea? If some US president want's to follow Bush footsteps and play war hero then I guess NK might fall victim to a random attack.
But the north korean government would never start a war for real. A lot of pseudo-aggresion sure, but not more. If they do it'll be a very short war, since not even china would support them and NK vs an alliance of everyone else would be pointless for NK.
Yes if they go completely insane and actually manage to drop a nuke somewhere that would be bad, but the government in NK know that if they do that they'll be invaded the next day and that would be it. NK isn't gonna manage to mass produce nukes on a level that would prevent an invasion.

You sound like a politician, what's this track record? 11 of the 12 first EU members rank better than America in the least corrupt countries. And the one that doesn't is Italy, which as I mentioned in an earlier post doesn't regulate the media as the rest of the EU.

It may be naive to think no war will happen. Again a politicians answer. Will a war in which a country starts a war with America happen in the next 20 years is a better question.

War or no, I'm for a well funded military.

During a war, it provides a means of defense. Outside of a war it provides jobs, research, and a deterrent for actual war.

I don't see the downsides of having a gigantic military aside from shipping tax dollars to ungrateful friendly nations with our bases. And I'm willing to put up with that.

Yeah cause that money can't provide jobs in other areas.

Shipping tax dollars to ungrateful nations? Who asked for help? Don't let Trump talking numbers deter you from the fact of the strategic locations you people appear to be protecting. In my lifetime America has caused more tensions in the world than any other country by a long way.

Not those types of jobs, no. The military pumps money into research that nobody else does, and the results get re purposed for civilian use whether or not they see conflict. The ******* internet started with funding from the defense department. Our highway system was developed in a way that planes could land in the event of an invasion. We now have a bunch of extremely useful roads.

Every aspect of life is important for the military besides entertainment. The military provides jobs and training of all types and qualities. And it does that really, really well. They need doctors, they need engineers, they need transporters, they need manual labor.

I do not believe society would have advanced as it has in the last hundred years without military advancement being at the forefront. And I firmly believe that the military structure is the best way to continue advancing it.

EDIT: better wording

You see, your mileage varies quite a bit with this. I live in a trade nation where it's our best interest to stay friends with people, and as a tiny country of 17 million, there's not many countries within range that we can actually beat. More European countries have such problems (well unless you're one of the biggies like Germany or the UK) which is why we often cooperate with other nations.

It's America that made it's army big, and it's America that decided to intervene across the world to stop things like commies. It's fine if you cut military spending, it's your money. But spending so much was also your own idea.

Generalizations about Europe are a bit weird considering we're not all that alike. Unlike america which has a history that fits on the back of an envelope, each European nation has about 2000 years of significant history, with many wars, alliances and "it's complicated" relations. Not to mention WWI and WWII which gave every single European nation an "it's complicated" relation.

Saying America is less corrupt than Europe seems especially weird, considering "Europe" has both countries like Ukraine and places like Germany, France, UK.