The Next President is...

[FLEA]

Just now, Sua Sponte said:

Hobbes believed in complete monarchy and that government must have absolutely authority. If that’s what you’re advocating, readjust your tinfoil hat. 

Hobbes argued in complete monarchy based on the idea that people needed some form of control since they were fundamentally evil. His advocacy for monarchy should not detract from his arguments that people are fundamentally evil. You either believe in altruism, or you don't. I've seen very little evidence for altruism in the world though. Democracy is not perfect, its simply the best system we have. 

[FLEA]

7 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

That’s how they work. Whenever you point out facts of Trump and the GOP that can’t bullshit around, it always turns into “I’m not a fan of Trump” and “both sides do that” while they pull out more straw man arguments. Oh yeah, whatever happen to Hunter Biden’s laptop? I thought that was going to put a dagger in Biden’s campaign?

I'm not a tribalist though. So your assessment is immediately invalid. 

Edited November 28, 2020 by FLEA

[DosXX]

35 minutes ago, FLEA said:

That's fine, but to me you are the one making the outrageous claim. Here are 1300 proven allegations of voter fraud:

Do you believe the fraud is only on one side? If most people are fundamentally cheaters/evil then wouldn't it amount to random noise in the result since you would expect it on both sides? What do you suppose we do with the outcome of any election with your world view? 

Edited November 28, 2020 by DosXX

[FLEA]

19 minutes ago, DosXX said:

Do you believe the fraud is only on one side? If most people are fundamentally cheaters/evil then wouldn't it amount to random noise in the result? What do you suppose we do with the outcome of any election with your world view? 

It occurs on both sides and yes it's largely random noise. For the results? We just accept them because it's largely the rational thing to do in interest of one's personal security. 4 years is a limited time to cause damage to your ideology versus the perils of a civil war. The only exception to that is the ideological extremist who are so far on the parties wings. 4 years does threaten their ideological survival. Those are the agents instituting the fraud I mentioned above. 

Edited November 29, 2020 by FLEA

[busdriver]

Republicans: There is massive voter fraud!

Democrats: There is massive voter disenfranchisement!  

 

Same old story.

[Pooter]

@FLEA

1300 proven single instances of fraud is still not even close to what you need to influence the overall outcome of an election. The closest swing state in this election has 10 times that margin. And to swing the whole election you'd need fraud at least 2-3 orders of magnitude greater. 
 

No one is disagreeing with you that people suck and sometimes commit fraud. But you need real evidence that the fraud is similar in scale to the margin of victory if you want to throw out an election or declare the system a lost cause. So far, that evidence does not exist. You don't have it, and the trump legal team definitely doesn't have it or we would have seen it by now.

[arg]

So, let's talk about when Biden is POTUS. We are back in Paris Climate deal, Iran deal, Green new deal etc? $200 tax for so called "assault weapons and mags" he's flip flopped on oil drilling/fracking,Expect pump prices to be $4 a gallon. How much manufacturing will go back to China?

[Sua Sponte]

3 hours ago, arg said:

So, let's talk about when Biden is POTUS. We are back in Paris Climate deal, Iran deal, Green new deal etc? $200 tax for so called "assault weapons and mags" he's flip flopped on oil drilling/fracking,Expect pump prices to be $4 a gallon. How much manufacturing will go back to China?

https://www.statesman.com/news/20201001/fact-check-did-trump-overstate-manufacturing-job-gains-during-debate

[drewpey]

5 hours ago, arg said:

So, let's talk about when Biden is POTUS. We are back in Paris Climate deal, Iran deal, Green new deal etc? $200 tax for so called "assault weapons and mags" he's flip flopped on oil drilling/fracking,Expect pump prices to be $4 a gallon. How much manufacturing will go back to China?

Iran deal was better than no deal, which is what we currently have, despite being promised a much much better one.  That being said I think the potential for another deal died with their nuclear scientist.  Warhawks gonna warhawk.

[SurelySerious]

44 minutes ago, drewpey said:

Iran deal was better than no deal, which is what we currently have, despite being promised a much much better one.  That being said I think the potential for another deal died with their nuclear scientist.  Warhawks gonna warhawk.

The Iran deal was about as “good” and “effective” as the Paris climate one. All facade, no substance. 

[FLEA]

1 minute ago, SurelySerious said:

The Iran deal was about as “good” and “effective” as the Paris climate one. All facade, no substance. 

Eh, regardless of the deal the real problem is the US has no framework for how to exercise power in a world where everyone has access to nuclear arms. Essentially we are just delaying the inevitable without addressing how we will affect force on countries that have obtained assured second strike capability. 

[Prozac]

6 hours ago, arg said:

So, let's talk about when Biden is POTUS. We are back in Paris Climate deal, Iran deal, Green new deal etc? $200 tax for so called "assault weapons and mags" he's flip flopped on oil drilling/fracking,Expect pump prices to be $4 a gallon. How much manufacturing will go back to China?

Things like Paris climate and Iran nuclear deals the president has the power to do, although not to the level of signing a treaty so they could be overturned by a subsequent administration. Green New Deal, assault weapons tax, banning fracking, not really within the executive’s purview. Even if Dems win the senate, margins in congress will be razor thin and I wouldn’t expect anything like a Green New Deal to be passed. As far as manufacturing jobs go, the tide has favored them leaving since the 80s. Trump’s statements on bringing them back were largely bluster. How much will go back to China? I’m in the business of moving Chinese goods to North America and I can tell you that the volume of crap coming out of Chinese factories most certainly did not slow down over the last four years. That said, I hope we do realize that there are certain manufacturing segments that the US should retain/rebuild like medical equipment & PPE. I hope congress & the new administration can work together to make that happen. 

[ViperMan]

1 hour ago, drewpey said:

Iran deal was better than no deal, which is what we currently have, despite being promised a much much better one.  That being said I think the potential for another deal died with their nuclear scientist.  Warhawks gonna warhawk.

Nah. The best deal is a simple and clear foreign policy that states "You can't have nuclear weapons. And if you build them, we'll take them away from you and destroy your government."

[drewpey]

54 minutes ago, ViperMan said:

Nah. The best deal is a simple and clear foreign policy that states "You can't have nuclear weapons. And if you build them, we'll take them away from you and destroy your government."

So you get to pick between a deal that delays their program or what is likely certain war, and you choose warhawk.

Countries act in their own self interest, and if you threaten them with destruction, and turn the cheek to Israel doing the same shit and sabre rattling then you are only encouraging them to amp up their program.

This is essentially the policy we have set with Iran and NK in the past...and how has that turned out?  Lil Kim's situation is likely looking pretty nice to Iran right now.

[SurelySerious]

19 minutes ago, drewpey said:

So you get to pick between a deal that delays their program or what is likely certain war, and you choose warhawk.

Countries act in their own self interest, and if you threaten them with destruction, and turn the cheek to Israel doing the same shit and sabre rattling then you are only encouraging them to amp up their program.

This is essentially the policy we have set with Iran and NK in the past...and how has that turned out?  Lil Kim's situation is likely looking pretty nice to Iran right now.

Your “delay” is just that...one that leads to them also developing weapons. Our position is non proliferation, make the consequences dire not soft and laughable. 

[pawnman]

39 minutes ago, drewpey said:

So you get to pick between a deal that delays their program or what is likely certain war, and you choose warhawk.

Countries act in their own self interest, and if you threaten them with destruction, and turn the cheek to Israel doing the same shit and sabre rattling then you are only encouraging them to amp up their program.

This is essentially the policy we have set with Iran and NK in the past...and how has that turned out?  Lil Kim's situation is likely looking pretty nice to Iran right now.

Li'l Kim's situation is looking good because we smashed the last regime to GIVE UP its WMD program...Libya.

Kinda ironic that you think the guy pulling troops out of the Middle East is the warhawk.  Seems to me actions like killing Iran's top terrorist demonstrate reasons why Iran should NOT poke the bear, while giving them pallets of cash encourage them to rattle the saber any time the treasury looks empty...kind of like North Korea.

Edited November 29, 2020 by pawnman

[FLEA]

37 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

Your “delay” is just that...one that leads to them also developing weapons. Our position is non proliferation, make the consequences dire not soft and laughable. 

To be fair though, we don't have the power to take nuclear weapons from nK, never did, and we probably don't have it to take them from Iran. So its sort of a poor strategy unless you're willing to sacrifice 51 million souls on the pyre of an unreasonable strategy. Nuclear weapons are 80 year old technology. Its a pandoras box and you wont keep it closed forever. 

[dream big]

10 hours ago, arg said:

So, let's talk about when Biden is POTUS. We are back in Paris Climate deal, Iran deal, Green new deal etc? $200 tax for so called "assault weapons and mags" he's flip flopped on oil drilling/fracking,Expect pump prices to be $4 a gallon. How much manufacturing will go back to China?

Yeah, that’s all on the wishlist for Biden’s puppet masters.  Hopefully the Republican Party will find their sack again and prevent most of those radical proposals from going through.  I think the Green New Deal is virtually impossible considering the fact that the infamous hated AOC keeps parroting it...Paris climate accord and Iran deal may return and neither is in the best interest of this country. 

[SurelySerious]

56 minutes ago, FLEA said:

To be fair though, we don't have the power to take nuclear weapons from nK, never did, and we probably don't have it to take them from Iran. So its sort of a poor strategy unless you're willing to sacrifice 51 million souls on the pyre of an unreasonable strategy. Nuclear weapons are 80 year old technology. Its a pandoras box and you wont keep it closed forever. 

May be 80 years old, but still severe enough most of our National security strategy is built around countering countries that possess them. It’s probably best to have less countries to defend against, aside from the pandoras box of gulf nations that will try making them if Iran has them and some weak agreement where they “don’t make any efforts toward weapons” isn’t going to cut it. 

[FLEA]

8 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

May be 80 years old, but still severe enough most of our National security strategy is built around countering countries that possess them. It’s probably best to have less countries to defend against, aside from the pandoras box of gulf nations that will try making them if Iran has them and some weak agreement where they “don’t make any efforts toward weapons” isn’t going to cut it. 

Not really. You already live under several nuclear umbrellas. Russia for certain, but also China, likely North Korea in a few years. Just because a state has nuclear arms doesn't mean they have the will to use them. States act rational on their own interests. Most fledgling nuclear powers seek an assured second strike capability which is a basic means that ensures their offset to major powers. It's very very unlikely smaller states would develop nuclear weapons to a full warfighting capability. The simple truth is that capability is extraordinarily costly, and requires advanced command and control that requires tactical commanders to have access to make nuclear decisions. Small autocratic dictatorships are unlikely to ever give that level of control to a military commander. We still find ways to protect interest from China, Russia, and North Korea, and even Pakistan when they are against us. All of them are nuclear armed states. 

[SurelySerious]

5 minutes ago, FLEA said:

Not really. You already live under several nuclear umbrellas. Russia for certain, but also China, likely North Korea in a few years. Just because a state has nuclear arms doesn't mean they have the will to use them. States act rational on their own interests. Most fledgling nuclear powers seek an assured second strike capability which is a basic means that ensures their offset to major powers. It's very very unlikely smaller states would develop nuclear weapons to a full warfighting capability. The simple truth is that capability is extraordinarily costly, and requires advanced command and control that requires tactical commanders to have access to make nuclear decisions. Small autocratic dictatorships are unlikely to ever give that level of control to a military commander. We still find ways to protect interest from China, Russia, and North Korea, and even Pakistan when they are against us. All of them are nuclear armed states. 

It doesn’t seem like you understand our nuclear umbrella that we promise to our allies. 

[FLEA]

Just now, SurelySerious said:

It doesn’t seem like you understand our nuclear umbrella that we promise to our allies. 

No I do. However extended assurance isn't garunteed and our allies know that as well as we do. 

[FLEA]

Our nuclear strategy was built in the cold war. It was never going to last forever. At which point did you think it would end? 

[SurelySerious]

1 minute ago, FLEA said:

No I do. However extended assurance isn't garunteed and our allies know that as well as we do. 

I think this demonstrates that you don’t. 

[FLEA]

23 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

I think this demonstrates that you don’t. 

In retrospect forget it. It's opening a pandora's box. You have your opinion and I have mine. Ill presume they are both informed. 

Edited November 29, 2020 by FLEA