U.S. Politics Thread (2017 going forward)

[Key Board]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Err... You DO realise that you will still die, right? If you are that afraid, the only option is to leave the country. It literally doesn't matter how many weapons you got, it would just be false security if the government want you dead.

What kind of scenario are you trying to envision for phase 3? You going to turn your house into a fortress? That just means they would snipe you through the window. Everyone knows that you can't really fight the government with a home arsenal, it is just an excuse to buy more guns by enthusiasts.

I know. It's just a morbid realization that laws are being rewritten to make it easier to murder people like me.
A fringe group can not overthrow the government. You need a lot of people to do that.

I'm too old and tired to leave the country. I already did that twice. Learned a new language, put up with shitty Imperial measurements, and even changed my name to "fit in more"
I'm sick of this shit

You can't outrun a nuke or WW3 anyway.

Originally Posted by frivolity

High five, you're turning into a conservative! One of the original objectives of the 2nd amendment was added to the US Constitution was to allow the people to protect themselves in case a tyrannical government ever came to power. Similarly, the whole concept of limited government was designed in order to preserve minority rights - when the government is small, the majority cannot use their status to vote away minority's rights en bloc.

Maybe people should be doing that now, but of course they'd get crushed under "obey the law" rhetoric

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by -Antares-

<snip>

Urgh. Looks like the joke reply right before going to sleep was the wrong choice of action this time around. Now that I've dug my own grave, I'll just start afresh then.

TL;DR…

better response

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[-Antares-]

Originally Posted by OH&S

Urgh. Looks like the joke reply right before going to sleep was the wrong choice of action this time around. Now that I've dug my own grave, I'll just start afresh then.
Hey, man, don't worry about it. My response (at least to you) was practically a joke. I was mimicking a documentary which is about the stupidest thing one can do.

TL;DR…

better response

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Vallen Chaos Valiant was actually the one who was irritating me more with his statements. I was under the impression he was Australian, but perhaps I was mistaken. You were mostly fine, though.

Quote

Originally Posted by OH&amp;S

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I'll repeat myself here. We know. Its practically a prerequisite to know about the US election system before posting here.

If I had to change my previous joke reply to you I would change it to this:



Smug wasn't the right word. I'm sarcastic and joking at times but never smug.

---

As for the name calling, I don't know. We might have to agree to disagree. I refer to Hillary and Trump as Shillary and Drumpf at times because I don't like either of them. If i can't at least have this one oasis of catharsis I fear I'd get crushed by the sheer anxiety of the entire situation. Because none of what is happening is a laughing matter; its pretty damn depressing for me. So I'm sorry, i can't promise that i won't namecall in the future; it really depends on how I'm feeling at the time. [/tldr]

I hate them both but I can't help but feel namecalling like that is a childish thing to do. In the bad way, since real children are actually quite kind even when they judge you.

[Anh_Minh]

Well, I'm not Australian, but I still think it's irresponsible to throw away your vote and then claim no responsibility in the outcome. I think the same of French abstentionists who use the excuse that they don't like any of the candidates. And if you think that voting for someone with zero chances of winning isn't throwing away your vote, well, I don't know what to tell you, except that change takes time, which you're also throwing away.

As for your system being terrible, well, I said as much in this very thread. But it is, also, yours. So, therefore, is the responsibility to change it to a non terrible one. And in the meantime, you also own the freaky results it produces.

[MCAL]

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/829180971962372097

Naturally this is because he shut down the comment line.

[OH&S]

TL;DR…

-Antares-

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[GDB]

Originally Posted by frivolity

First one has nothing to do with anything.

Second one is incorrect. The reason why republicans and conservatives don't like Obama has nothing to do with his race and everything to do with his ideology. Dennis Prager once did a straw poll while giving a speech in front of around 500 conservatives during an event, asking how many in the audience would support a black president who was conservative and every hand in the room went up. He went further, asking how many would support the appointments of nine female black lesbian judges to the USSC if they were conservative, and again, every hand in the room went up.

It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with values.

That may be true for the rational conservatives, but a large number of republicans (note that I'm separating those two) are not rational in the slightest. And republicans say a lot of things and then do the opposite when the time comes to put up or shut up. Just look at McCain and Rubio. Constantly barking about how they'll oppose Trump and not let him have his way, but then vote in favor of everything he wants.

I don't know about three, but with regard to four, I consider that the way to help the poor and the unemployed is through job creation by creating jobs that they can take up and gain skills that can be used to leverage for jobs with better pay. Nobody ever became rich through welfare, but lots of people have gone from rags to riches by working their way up from the lowest-paying jobs.

That'd be great if jobs were actually being created. Real jobs, mind you, not temp jobs. It also doesn't help that corporations have basically zero loyalty to their employees, yet demand it from them. It's rather telling that most, if not all, republican run states give companies that right to fire anyone for any reason and not even disclose said reason.

I find this line of thinking is very prominent in baby boomers who don't realize that the world has changed from 40 years ago.

High five, you're turning into a conservative! One of the original objectives of the 2nd amendment was added to the US Constitution was to allow the people to protect themselves in case a tyrannical government ever came to power. Similarly, the whole concept of limited government was designed in order to preserve minority rights - when the government is small, the majority cannot use their status to vote away minority's rights en bloc.

Despite the GOP and DNC's talking points about gun rights, it's not really a conservative issue. DNC doesn't even want to take away guns, just assault weapons and near-assault weapons. And more checks because the GOP keeps harping about how guns don't kill people, mental illness does. But then as soon as the GOP can, they remove checks to keep the mentally ill from getting guns.

Originally Posted by monster

Also I only had to register once, unless I moved residence. Is that not the case across the country?

Certain government officials have a habit of purging registrars without notice.

[-Antares-]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Well, I'm not Australian, but I still think it's irresponsible to throw away your vote and then claim no responsibility in the outcome. I think the same of French abstentionists who use the excuse that they don't like any of the candidates. And if you think that voting for someone with zero chances of winning isn't throwing away your vote, well, I don't know what to tell you, except that change takes time, which you're also throwing away.

As for your system being terrible, well, I said as much in this very thread. But it is, also, yours. So, therefore, is the responsibility to change it to a non terrible one. And in the meantime, you also own the freaky results it produces.

A lot of the people you and Reckoner are assuming are throwing out their vote actually are not. My state, Minnesota, was going to go to for Clinton over Trump. No doubt about that. I wouldn't bother going out to vote at all if these two candidates were my only options. I voted for third party in a state where Trump wouldn't have a chance in the world to win. So my hope was that I could convince others to vote Libertarian because, again, I believe he's was the most likely to be able to bring people with vastly different beliefs together. It didn't turn out that way, but I tried. And I don't care about the results, ultimately. I have no regrets beacuse Clinton is horribly destructive as well but without any real chance of getting impeached, unlike Trump. My county dictactes that my state's electoral college will always vote democrat unless something insane happens, such as a third party actually making it. And for what it's worth, in the primaiies my state chose Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders. Nobody here wanted Trump or Clinton.

To me, this was my chance to finally change things instead of getting stuck in the same stupid circle of awful candidates.

And it is NOT my responsibly to change it. One person cannot change something so ingrained in our law. You're delusional if you think otherwise.

There is no part of me that "threw away" my vote. I voted for change, because I believed that now was the best chance for it. What's the point of voting for Hilary Clinton? There really isn't one, unless, again, you wield your vote like a weapon or believe third parties will never come to prominence. I chose to wield my vote as support, and believe that one day Democrats and Rebpublicans will both die off.

Furthermore, if the US explodes over this, then it never really was strong enough in the first place and should have been replaced. Those who ciriticize others for taking "idealogical stances" need to look in a mirror.

[Akito Kinomoto]

I'd like to take a minute to educate people on the 2nd Amendment. Brace yourselves, because I was surprised too

The framing that a lot of folks have bought into, is that it was created so citizens could overthrow the government in case they ever became too tyrannical. First of all, even accepting that proviso, your AR-15 ain't protecting jack when the government comes in with a Predator drone. You're outgunned, Rambo. And if that was the intent, everyone would have a right to a Predator or F-16. Second, it was designed for the opposite reason; to prevent standing armies from overthrowing the government by breaking them up into militias. Third, you wanna talk about fighting tyranny? Let's talk about how the 2nd Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery

Notice the full text:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

They specifically used the word state, not country. Pretty sure the Founding Fathers knew the difference (see also: the 10th Amendment). To the point though, they needed to find a way for Virginia to join the union so they slip this in here so they could mobilize to keep the slaves in check

Let's also look at the word regulated for a minute. Back then, they had muskets, and those things took 20 seconds on average to reload. The word regulated is still in there even as our firearms evolved beyond what the Founding Fathers had

That said, I'm actually a moderate on the issue. A universal background check is supported by most Democrats, most Republicans, and even most NRA members; what, you're gonna tell me NRA members dunno what they're talking about?

At the very least we need a universal background check. I'm also in favor of a high capacity magazine ban, because even in the argument of self-defense, you literally have no reason for that amount of rounds; if you were in a situation where you needed to fire that much, you're in a shootout as part of the military or police, killing people in a theater, or part of a gang having a dispute over drug territory (and this is why you also legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, and at the very least decriminalize the other drugs. See also: the mafia and prohibition)

Final point before anyone cites Chicago, IL having the most gun violence despite having the strictest gun laws: it's the areas arooouuund the city with the lax gun laws dude. An airtight container's gonna give when it's at the bottom of the sea

Were you surprised to learn this about the 2nd Amendment? I sure was

[Endscape]

Originally Posted by -Antares-

A lot of the people you and Reckoner are assuming are throwing out their vote actually are not. My state, Minnesota, was going to go to for Clinton over Trump. No doubt about that. I wouldn't bother going out to vote at all if these two candidates were my only options. I voted for third party in a state where Trump wouldn't have a chance in the world to win. So my hope was that I could convince others to vote Libertarian because, again, I believe he's was the most likely to be able to bring people with vastly different beliefs together. It didn't turn out that way, but I tried.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you voted third party because you felt your vote didn't actually matter since your state was a lock, but if there was an actual chance that your vote might have mattered, you wouldn't have bothered to vote at all?

If you don't mind answering this question, what made you believe that voting third party would convince others to do the same, and why was this reason convincing enough to get you to vote when you believed your state was a lock but not otherwise?

There really isn't one, unless, again, you wield your vote like a weapon or believe third parties will never come to prominence.

It's interesting that you refer to people voting rationally with negative terms like using votes as a weapon.

Personally, I see voting rationally as a tool to bring about a result that is actually reachable, but to each, their own.

Furthermore, if the US explodes over this, then it never really was strong enough in the first place and should have been replaced.

That's quite a fatalistic point of view. Nothing has ever been created that didn't need maintenance if you want it to last a long time.

[Ithekro]

For me, even if I lived in a Red state, and I have other options than Clinton or Trump, I would have voted for a third option. I can't say if I was forced into just those two, because I don't want either to be president. Except in a few states, there is always an alternative to the two major parties. About the only place I can think of that I am not sure there are more options is Virginia.

[Toukairin]

SO many things to answer from my original question. I'll try to go step by step.

Originally Posted by GDB

Two things.

First, Clinton had the audacity to break a line of Republican Presidents that began with their idol, Reagan. And with the exception of Carter, had maintained that power since 1968. This is why they have a zealot-like hatred for the Clinton family in particular.

Second, they dared to elect a black man to be President. You can tell this was the tipping point where they stopped even pretending to be bipartisan and open to compromise. From this point forward, everything was devoted to negating and nullifying everything Obama stood for.

People talk a lot of 1968 because of RFK being assassinated and what came after. However, the big "what if" remains as to what would have happened if RFK was not killed. There is a big chance that the Dems could have stayed in power for much longer, especially since the antiwar movement was growing considerably with RFK being a strong antiwar person himself. Also, perhaps the US would be more liberal and progressive today with a second Kennedy at the White House. I came across this article from 19 years ago. It's a very good read on the topic.

It's borderline crazy that the GOP almost consider themselves as the rightful kings of the country when power is something that is not eternal in a strong democracy. Any party aspiring to lead the country has to earn that power. With retrospect, we have to be thankful that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama stood well above the GOP presidents who took office since 1968. Otherwise, the country would be in a worse state of affairs by now.

As to electing a black man into presidency... what did the GOP expect? It had to come sooner or later that someone who descends directly from a foreigner or from an ethnic minority would become US president. Heck! Even France elected a man whose father was Hungarian into presidency. Mentalities change over time.

Originally Posted by ganbaru

It's almost funny, given than red state do get more money from the federal than blue state. It's even worse if one would look about how much corporation get ( directly and indirectly) from the gouvernment compared to the so call lazy Fuck cityzens.

Very much this. It is barely justifiable that so much money is poured into those poorer red states that keep on failing, and yet the GOP have the balls to call people from economically prosperous blue states as lazy fucks. If anything, they better watch how their investment provides little to no return whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Also Gun Control. That was a major thing that rubbed people the wrong way during the Clinton years.

That debate had to start at one point or another because mentalities, society and technology change. Whoever thought things could stay as they are indefinitely was fooling oneself.

Originally Posted by milan kyuubi

Military wants to move into Trump Tower

SMH! Can we just throw Melania and the kid in isolation at Camp David, and settle the case once and for all? Military personnel in the middle of New York, really?

[MrTerrorist]

Trump attack on judges 'demoralising' says Supreme Court pick

Trump under fire in Nordstrom Ivanka row

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by -Antares-

A lot of the people you and Reckoner are assuming are throwing out their vote actually are not. My state, Minnesota, was going to go to for Clinton over Trump. No doubt about that. I wouldn't bother going out to vote at all if these two candidates were my only options. I voted for third party in a state where Trump wouldn't have a chance in the world to win. So my hope was that I could convince others to vote Libertarian because, again, I believe he's was the most likely to be able to bring people with vastly different beliefs together. It didn't turn out that way, but I tried. And I don't care about the results, ultimately. I have no regrets beacuse Clinton is horribly destructive as well but without any real chance of getting impeached, unlike Trump. My county dictactes that my state's electoral college will always vote democrat unless something insane happens, such as a third party actually making it. And for what it's worth, in the primaiies my state chose Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders. Nobody here wanted Trump or Clinton.

To me, this was my chance to finally change things instead of getting stuck in the same stupid circle of awful candidates.

No. Your "chance", as you call it, will never come in the form of a single election. Change will come either in the form of a bloody revolution, or years and years of consistent effort.

And it is NOT my responsibly to change it. One person cannot change something so ingrained in our law. You're delusional if you think otherwise.

I debated saying it explicitly, but decided it wasn't necessary: of course not you alone. Democracy (or Republic, for you American nitpickers) is a collective responsibility. Just because you share it with millions of other citizens doesn't mean you don't, in fact, have your share.

(That's a common abstentionist argument: "if I don't get to decide the election alone, what's the point?")

As for what's ingrained... Here, for example, centuries ago we had kings. We'd have kings for much longer than the lifetime of the USA. And now we don't. And there's been many, many other examples of change everywhere, before and since.

There is no part of me that "threw away" my vote. I voted for change, because I believed that now was the best chance for it. What's the point of voting for Hilary Clinton?

She's much better than Trump, and the only realistic alternative.

There really isn't one, unless, again, you wield your vote like a weapon or believe third parties will never come to prominence. I chose to wield my vote as support, and believe that one day Democrats and Rebpublicans will both die off.

I wield it like a responsibility.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by Akuma Kousaka

I'd like to take a minute to educate people on the 2nd Amendment. Brace yourselves, because I was surprised too

The Constitutional interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was considered by the USSC in the case of District of Columbia v Heller, with Scalia J giving the majority judgment.

The framing that a lot of folks have bought into, is that it was created so citizens could overthrow the government in case they ever became too tyrannical. First of all, even accepting that proviso, your AR-15 ain't protecting jack when the government comes in with a Predator drone. You're outgunned, Rambo. And if that was the intent, everyone would have a right to a Predator or F-16. Second, it was designed for the opposite reason; to prevent standing armies from overthrowing the government by breaking them up into militias. Third, you wanna talk about fighting tyranny? Let's talk about how the 2nd Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery

The 2nd Amendment drew influence from the pre-existing rights of English people, which included many of the early settlers to the US. This English right originated as protection against tyrannical kings and governments. Per Scalia J [emphasis added]:

We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.

This concept was a big part of the debate during the framing of the Constitution. The debate was not about whether or not it was a right, because it was considered a settled issue that it was indeed a right. Instead, the debate was about its necessity, because some of the framers thought that the right was so well-entrenched that government could not take it away anyway.

Scalia J [emphasis added]:

The debate with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution. During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. See, e.g., Letters from The Federal Farmer III (Oct. 10, 1787), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist 234, 242 (H. Storing ed. 1981). John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s “command of the militia” could be used to create a “select militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a separate concern, that “[w]hen a select militia is formed; the people in general may be disarmed.” 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508–509 (M. Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). Federalists responded that because Congress was given no power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people. See, e.g., A Pennsylvanian III (Feb. 20, 1788), in The Origin of the Second Amendment 275, 276 (D. Young ed., 2d ed. 2001) (hereinafter Young); White, To the Citizens of Virginia, Feb. 22, 1788, in id., at 280, 281; A Citizen of America, (Oct. 10, 1787) in id., at 38, 40; Remarks on the Amendments to the federal Constitution, Nov. 7, 1788, in id., at 556. It was understood across the political spectrum that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down.

Notice the full text:

They specifically used the word state, not country. Pretty sure the Founding Fathers knew the difference (see also: the 10th Amendment). To the point though, they needed to find a way for Virginia to join the union so they slip this in here so they could mobilize to keep the slaves in check

The word "state" is used here to refer to the country, such as in the phrase "separation between the state and the church". It does not refer to individual states in the US.

Scalia J [emphasis added]:

b. “Security of a Free State.” The phrase “security of a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security of each of the several States as the dissent below argued, see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10. Joseph Story wrote in his treatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community.” 1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference to the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause: “The militia is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” and close variations seem to have been terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a “ ‘free country’ ” or free polity. See Volokh, “Necessary to the Security of a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1, 5 (2007); see, e.g., 4 Blackstone 151 (1769); Brutus Essay III (Nov. 15, 1787), in The Essential Antifederalist 251, 253 (W. Allen & G. Lloyd eds., 2d ed. 2002). Moreover, the other instances of “state” in the Constitution are typically accompanied by modifiers making clear that the reference is to the several States—“each state,” “several states,” “any state,” “that state,” “particular states,” “one state,” “no state.” And the presence of the term “foreign state” in Article I and Article III shows that the word “state” did not have a single meaning in the Constitution.

Let's also look at the word regulated for a minute. Back then, they had muskets, and those things took 20 seconds on average to reload. The word regulated is still in there even as our firearms evolved beyond what the Founding Fathers had

The word "regulated" was used in the context of "well regulated militia", implying that it applied to the training of the people and not to the weapon itself.

Scalia J:

Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training. See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights §13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).

That said, you have a point about the changing technology since Justice Scalia did mention in an interview that he considered cannons to be outside the 2nd amendment, yet certain weapons such as handheld rocket launchers were blurring the distinctions between handheld weapons and cannons.

[-Antares-]

Originally Posted by Endscape

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you voted third party because you felt your vote didn't actually matter since your state was a lock, but if there was an actual chance that your vote might have mattered, you wouldn't have bothered to vote at all?

If you don't mind answering this question, what made you believe that voting third party would convince others to do the same, and why was this reason convincing enough to get you to vote when you believed your state was a lock but not otherwise?

It's interesting that you refer to people voting rationally with negative terms like using votes as a weapon.

Personally, I see voting rationally as a tool to bring about a result that is actually reachable, but to each, their own.

That's quite a fatalistic point of view. Nothing has ever been created that didn't need maintenance if you want it to last a long time.

A vote for Trump or Clinton, at least, would have been pointless in my state. Hence, I wouldn't have gone through the effort if there weren't so many third parties available to vote for in my state. I didn't just silently vote on my own and hope everyone else could read my mind. I told others about their other options. I told them about what Johnson and Stein believed in, and yes, I did succeed in convincing quite a few people. A tiny amount in the large scale of things, but it's not like I just fantasized about this. I made an effort. For the record, I also informed people on the internet (not my state) that they should consider the third parties.

I believe I made it clear that Minnesota would not vote outside of Democrat unless there were extenuating circumstances, such as two horrid people to vote for in the two "main" parties. Hint, hint, the third parties exist on our ballots.

That voting strategy IS a weapon. They just want to give Clinton all the power in the world because you cannot stomach Trump being president. That is not how it should be, and I highly doubt the founding fathers would have ever wanted things to end up this way. It's a rational way of voting only from someone who has no desire for change. There is no reason the third parties can't win if people would stop sticking to Democrats and Republications. Absolutely none. But no, they see voting third party as a waste of a vote to the point where we will never make a breakthrough and will be stuck with this abhorrent system until the US finally collapses.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

No. Your "chance", as you call it, will never come in the form of a single election. Change will come either in the form of a bloody revolution, or years and years of consistent effort.

Why do you think that? It seems to me that third parties had the best chance of getting more votes than they ever had in my lifetime thanks to the nominees the Republicans and Democrats ended up going with.

I debated saying it explicitly, but decided it wasn't necessary: of course not you alone. Democracy (or Republic, for you American nitpickers) is a collective responsibility. Just because you share it with millions of other citizens doesn't mean you don't, in fact, have your share.

(That's a common abstentionist argument: "if I don't get to decide the election alone, what's the point?")

I don't want to decide the election alone. I want as many people in this country to be pleased with their leader, even if that doesn't incude me. But what more do you expect me to do? I already told you that I got people to vote for third paries to avoid the worst case scenarios.

She's much better than Trump, and the only realistic alternative.

I wield it like a responsibility.

Trump is too incompetent to be any different from Clinton, and Clinton is a snake in the grass. There are realistic alternatives to incompetents and snakes that will bite you. That's the third parties, if you would only allow them a chance by not bitching people out every time someone admits to voting for one.

Hilary will only be the realistic alternative to Trump as long as you live in a fantasy world where there truly are only two people to vote for. Get out of that mindset and the US is going to change a good deal. If we don't, the US is screwed and it deserves its collapse. I say that as an American, by the way. If this country can't get its shit together, then screw it. Personally, I can always go to Canada when the shit hits the fan because the vast majority of Americans (thanks, Democrats, for being just as worse as Republicans!) can't get out of this idiotic mindset.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by GDB

That may be true for the rational conservatives, but a large number of republicans (note that I'm separating those two) are not rational in the slightest. And republicans say a lot of things and then do the opposite when the time comes to put up or shut up. Just look at McCain and Rubio. Constantly barking about how they'll oppose Trump and not let him have his way, but then vote in favor of everything he wants.

We've only had a few votes in the Senate about Trump's decisions, so I'm willing to wait for more policies to come in before making a judgement call on how willing the GOP are to oppose Trump. If you're referring to accepting Davos' nomination, then I for one am very happy with the choice, so I'm not going to pin any blame on McCain and Rubio on that regard.

That'd be great if jobs were actually being created. Real jobs, mind you, not temp jobs. It also doesn't help that corporations have basically zero loyalty to their employees, yet demand it from them. It's rather telling that most, if not all, republican run states give companies that right to fire anyone for any reason and not even disclose said reason.

I find this line of thinking is very prominent in baby boomers who don't realize that the world has changed from 40 years ago.

Reducing taxes creates jobs while also increasing the incentive to work. The latter is not a knock on anyone, and I'm not imputing a supposed "laziness" attribute either. I for one would immediately cut my labour if my marginal tax rate ever goes above 50%.

Neither corporations nor employees have a right of loyalty from the other, although it is often in both sides' best interests to show loyalty. Corporations that want to retain their best workers benefit from being loyal to those who do their jobs well, and workers who want to keep their jobs at a good company benefit from being loyal to the ones that treat them well.

I agree with a policy of not requiring a reason for firing workers, because such a policy is always going to be very difficult to monitor. It is very easy for companies to come up with all sorts of reasons to fire someone. Anyone who has been fired before will know of the dreaded "poor cultural fit" or "poor performance" excuse. In addition, such a policy will end up having disproportionate impact on low-skilled workers, since it makes companies less willing to hire people due to the additional risks involved. Part of the reason why there has been mass outsourcing and casualisation of labour is because making the wrong hire has become too costly since firing them has become a lot more difficult.

Despite the GOP and DNC's talking points about gun rights, it's not really a conservative issue. DNC doesn't even want to take away guns, just assault weapons and near-assault weapons. And more checks because the GOP keeps harping about how guns don't kill people, mental illness does. But then as soon as the GOP can, they remove checks to keep the mentally ill from getting guns.

The GOP removed the check specifically on people who were mentally ill in terms of not being able to manage their money, since there was no correlation between money management and gun violence. The policy was not about removing checks from psychopaths or people with other mental illnesses that made them more at risk of gun violence.

-----------------------------------------

@antares: This Australian agrees with your rationale, though I would have reached a different outcome because I assess the third parties differently than you do.

My assessment was: Romney >>>>>>> Trump >= Hillary >> Stein and Johnson. On this basis, my first choice would have been to not vote at all, and second choice would have been to grudgingly cast a vote for Trump.

Had the third party candidates been better though, I would have voted for them too for the same reasons that you talked about. Voting on the basis of a 1v1 contention may be beneficial in the short term, but it would be very harmful in the long run. Doing so would mean that the recent conundrum of having to vote for the lesser evil will continue to perpetuate in future elections, since both parties know that their supporters would not defect anyway.

The only way to break the chain is for each person to start making their own independent assessments. This means criticising bad policies, even if they're being suggested by one's preferred candidate, and giving credit for good policies, even if the one who came up with it was the opposing candidate. In the earlier thread, I was very surprised that others started heavily criticising me just because I as a person who considered Trump marginally better than the other candidates actually pointed out the flaws of Trump's policies. I would have thought that a willingness to criticise the bad policies of one's preferred candidate is going to be welcomed

Voting for third parties if they're the best candidate will of course create short term pain if it causes the third-best candidate to be elected over the second-best one, but the long term impact of the loss of votes from the two main parties is a positive one since only then will both parties finally get their heads out of their butts and acknowledge that they're not listening to the people. In my view, the political system in the US is sufficiently robust to prevent a maverick president from causing irreparable damage to the country, such that the long term benefit of always voting the best candidate over a lousier one from the party you're affiliated with is always going to be greater than the cost.

[Akito Kinomoto]

Originally Posted by frivolity

The Constitutional interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was considered by the USSC in the case of District of Columbia v Heller, with Scalia J giving the majority judgment.

The 2nd Amendment drew influence from the pre-existing rights of English people, which included many of the early settlers to the US. This English right originated as protection against tyrannical kings and governments. Per Scalia J [emphasis added]:

We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.

This concept was a big part of the debate during the framing of the Constitution. The debate was not about whether or not it was a right, because it was considered a settled issue that it was indeed a right. Instead, the debate was about its necessity, because some of the framers thought that the right was so well-entrenched that government could not take it away anyway.

Scalia J [emphasis added]:

The debate with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution. During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. See, e.g., Letters from The Federal Farmer III (Oct. 10, 1787), in 2 The Complete Anti-Federalist 234, 242 (H. Storing ed. 1981). John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s “command of the militia” could be used to create a “select militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a separate concern, that “[w]hen a select militia is formed; the people in general may be disarmed.” 2 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 508–509 (M. Jensen ed. 1976) (hereinafter Documentary Hist.). Federalists responded that because Congress was given no power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people. See, e.g., A Pennsylvanian III (Feb. 20, 1788), in The Origin of the Second Amendment 275, 276 (D. Young ed., 2d ed. 2001) (hereinafter Young); White, To the Citizens of Virginia, Feb. 22, 1788, in id., at 280, 281; A Citizen of America, (Oct. 10, 1787) in id., at 38, 40; Remarks on the Amendments to the federal Constitution, Nov. 7, 1788, in id., at 556. It was understood across the political spectrum that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down.

The word "state" is used here to refer to the country, such as in the phrase "separation between the state and the church". It does not refer to individual states in the US.

Scalia J [emphasis added]:

b. “Security of a Free State.” The phrase “security of a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security of each of the several States as the dissent below argued, see 478 F. 3d, at 405, and n. 10. Joseph Story wrote in his treatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community.” 1 Story §208; see also 3 id., §1890 (in reference to the Second Amendment ’s prefatory clause: “The militia is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” and close variations seem to have been terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a “ ‘free country’ ” or free polity. See Volokh, “Necessary to the Security of a Free State,” 83 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1, 5 (2007); see, e.g., 4 Blackstone 151 (1769); Brutus Essay III (Nov. 15, 1787), in The Essential Antifederalist 251, 253 (W. Allen & G. Lloyd eds., 2d ed. 2002). Moreover, the other instances of “state” in the Constitution are typically accompanied by modifiers making clear that the reference is to the several States—“each state,” “several states,” “any state,” “that state,” “particular states,” “one state,” “no state.” And the presence of the term “foreign state” in Article I and Article III shows that the word “state” did not have a single meaning in the Constitution.

The word "regulated" was used in the context of "well regulated militia", implying that it applied to the training of the people and not to the weapon itself.

Scalia J:

Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training. See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights §13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).

That said, you have a point about the changing technology since Justice Scalia did mention in an interview that he considered cannons to be outside the 2nd amendment, yet certain weapons such as handheld rocket launchers were blurring the distinctions between handheld weapons and cannons.

That constitutional interpretation only proves how some folks have pushed and bought into that framing, and the dissonance between them and the story behind this. Nor does one man's reading rewrite the correspondence between James Madison and Patrick Henry and dictate what the word regulated means (why not both). Concede an F-16 to a civilian for defense against tyranny, or stop sidestepping point

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by frivolity

We've only had a few votes in the Senate about Trump's decisions, so I'm willing to wait for more policies to come in before making a judgement call on how willing the GOP are to oppose Trump. If you're referring to accepting Davos' nomination, then I for one am very happy with the choice, so I'm not going to pin any blame on McCain and Rubio on that regard.

You did watch the absolute disaster that was her hearing? Betsy Devos has proven herself that she does not have the understanding required for that position. Not only does she know next to nothing about public education, she also has no experience in any post regarding that field. It speaks volumes when just yesterday republican Deb Fischer, who voted for Devos, made a statement that she would need to be exposed to public schools to see their success. It's like hiring a school bus driver without license on the pretense that he will figure out the vehicle while he transports the kids on the interstate.

[-Antares-]

@antares: This Australian agrees with your rationale, though I would have reached a different outcome because I assess the third parties differently than you do.

My assessment was: Romney >>>>>>> Trump >= Hillary >> Stein and Johnson. On this basis, my first choice would have been to not vote at all, and second choice would have been to grudgingly cast a vote for Trump.

Had the third party candidates been better though, I would have voted for them too for the same reasons that you talked about. Voting on the basis of a 1v1 contention may be beneficial in the short term, but it would be very harmful in the long run. Doing so would mean that the recent conundrum of having to vote for the lesser evil will continue to perpetuate in future elections, since both parties know that their supporters would not defect anyway.

The only way to break the chain is for each person to start making their own independent assessments. This means criticising bad policies, even if they're being suggested by one's preferred candidate, and giving credit for good policies, even if the one who came up with it was the opposing candidate. In the earlier thread, I was very surprised that others started heavily criticising me just because I as a person who considered Trump marginally better than the other candidates actually pointed out the flaws of Trump's policies. I would have thought that a willingness to criticise the bad policies of one's preferred candidate is going to be welcomed

Voting for third parties if they're the best candidate will of course create short term pain if it causes the third-best candidate to be elected over the second-best one, but the long term impact of the loss of votes from the two main parties is a positive one since only then will both parties finally get their heads out of their butts and acknowledge that they're not listening to the people. In my view, the political system in the US is sufficiently robust to prevent a maverick president from causing irreparable damage to the country, such that the long term benefit of always voting the best candidate over a lousier one from the party you're affiliated with is always going to be greater than the cost.

Thank you. We clearly have different ideas of who would make a good president and who would not, but seriously, thank you. I absolutely cannot believe the vitriol democrats are getting from their own people just because they chose not to vote for someone like Clinton. They are so short-sighted that it's just unbelievable. Count me out of that party henceforth.