U.S. Politics Thread

[Archon_Wing]

Never admitted any different.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Well, that's biased of you

Well, it's kind of difficult to talk about something without doing it from a point of view, even if it'S simply to put all the fact on the table.

[Irenicus]

Meanwhile, in the perennially liberally biased real world Pew Research Center:

Inequality in the USA

Originally Posted by Pew Research Center

During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.

From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.

These wide variances were driven by the fact that the stock and bond market rallied during the 2009 to 2011 period while the housing market remained flat.

...

Because of these differences, wealth inequality increased during the first two years of the recovery. The upper 7% of households saw their aggregate share of the nation’s overall household wealth pie rise to 63% in 2011, up from 56% in 2009. On an individual household basis, the mean wealth of households in this more affluent group was almost 24 times that of those in the less affluent group in 2011. At the start of the recovery in 2009, that ratio had been less than 18-to-1.

Occupy has failed. The American Dream? Prostituting herself around 4th Street. Lost her home to foreclosure, they say. Take a walk, they say. It happens.

Rising tide rises all boats. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Aliens.

[Urzu 7]

A Star Wars fan's 2 cents on Sandy Hook/the recent strict anti-gun measures.




Come now, if light sabers were real they'd be banned in the U.S.


...Unless...there was an amendment giving Americans the right to have them.

Spoiler for Click:

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Come now, if light sabers were real they'd be banned in the U.S.

Actually that's very likely. Especially when you consider just how bloody likely it is for somebody to hurt themselves while using a light saber (brush it up against anything and it cuts through it).

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

A Star Wars fan's 2 cents on Sandy Hook/the recent strict anti-gun measures.




Come now, if light sabers were real they'd be banned in the U.S.


...Unless...there was an amendment giving Americans the right to have them.

Spoiler for Click:

Actually, you should see U.S Laws on swords, knives, gravity blades etc. The ban list is LONG, even in states with very liberal gun policies. You could buy shot guns in Walmarts...but walk around with a Balisong or throwing blades? No way jose.

[Urzu 7]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Actually, you should see U.S Laws on swords, knives, gravity blades etc. The ban list is LONG, even in states with very liberal gun policies. You could buy shot guns in Walmarts...but walk around with a Balisong or throwing blades? No way jose.

I was basically just joking around with that post. But that raises a good point. We are so restricted when it comes to bladed weapons, whose to say we wouldn't be a lot more restricted with guns if there was no second amendment? We'd probably be very restricted with guns in the U.S. otherwise.

[Vexx]

Yeah, the only way I get away with my live steel DarkAge/Viking/Kelt garb in many states is people just don't process that they're actual weapons - it's just part of the costume to them.

[Badkarma 1]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

A Star Wars fan's 2 cents on Sandy Hook/the recent strict anti-gun measures.




Come now, if light sabers were real they'd be banned in the U.S.


...Unless...there was an amendment giving Americans the right to have them.

Spoiler for Click:

A novel idea that, to blame the operator and not the weapon! Art beats life at gettin it right.

[Kyuu]

Someday, ordinary guns will be powerful enough to destroy buildings.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

Someday, ordinary guns will be powerful enough to destroy buildings.

That would defeat the purpose of a sidearm. Usually when you're shooting at a particular target you don't want to destroy every single thing around it for a wide radius...

[Anh_Minh]

Maxim 34: If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.

(And no one's blaming the gun. Gun control proponents just posit that some people shouldn't be allowed to have them.)

[Ithekro]

Maxims are for Mercs and Marines.

[ganbaru]

Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/army-...ngress-insists

It's the inverse of the federal budget world these days, in which automatic spending cuts are leaving sought-after pet programs struggling or unpaid altogether. Republicans and Democrats for years have fought so bitterly that lawmaking in Washington ground to a near-halt.

Yet in the case of the Abrams tank, there's a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.

"If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way," Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army's chief of staff, told The Associated Press this past week.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/army-...ngress-insists

The defense companies behind those tanks must have some ace lobbying power. The military would prefer that the budget be used differently, but they're getting tanks. We've entered a scenario where the suppliers are determining what the government customer buys, and perhaps even how much they're spending. This is ridiculous.

[Dhomochevsky]

The army wants to 'spend it in a different way', so it's not like this would become a military budget cut anyway.
It's more likely that you'd have to pay fees for terminating already signed tank delivery contracts on top of that 'different' spending. At least that's how it usually goes with these gov deals.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

The defense companies behind those tanks must have some ace lobbying power. The military would prefer that the budget be used differently, but they're getting tanks. We've entered a scenario where the suppliers are determining what the government customer buys, and perhaps even how much they're spending. This is ridiculous.

Eisenhower was right...

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

The defense companies behind those tanks must have some ace lobbying power. The military would prefer that the budget be used differently, but they're getting tanks. We've entered a scenario where the suppliers are determining what the government customer buys, and perhaps even how much they're spending. This is ridiculous.

the defense industry spreads out the work between Red and Blue states so that everyone gets a piece of the pie.

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

Eisenhower was right...

the Last Sane Republican

[Badkarma 1]

Last time I looked, they were wantin to replace the 40yr old M-16 with somethin newer.
Spec Ops got the SCAR, Marines got a new squad automatic weapon M-27 to replace the vaunted M-249. And JSOC was testin the HK 416.
Meanwhile DHS has gotten somethin like 1.6 billion rounds of ammo stored through out the U.S. and Congress is askin "WHY?!!"
Kinda makes ya wonder where the money's going huh?

[Sackett]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

Ultimately, the argument will boil down to the Unstoppable Force vs Immovable Object. So far, that "force" is indeed stoppable -- for now; but it's gaining momentum, now that it has some strong, credible leaders like Gabby Giffords.

===

Now, with the whole Boston terrorism thing. Let's bring up some Immigration, shall we? Here's a quick background:

http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...ostcount=27864

Despite the recent terrorism -- and being a former immigrant myself -- the pathway to citizenship must be streamlined.

I don't get the constant harping about immigration. The solution is obvious:

1: Secure the border. I don't care what side of the debate you're on about immigration, we ought to have a secure border. Guns should not be smuggled south. Drugs and people should not be smuggled north.

2: Wait a year. Is the border secured? If no then go back to step 1, otherwise continue to step 3.

3: Put some effort back into assimilate immigrants. Programs to teach English, etc.

4: Decide what to do about the million or so illegal immigrants here. Obviously we can't just ship them all back to wherever. Maybe we give them some sort of penalty or fine, and they end up at the back of the line for citizenship or whatever.

Personally, my preferred step 4 would be to declare our acceptance of unlimited immigration from everywhere. The current estimate is that there 102 million people who want to immigrate to the US, about 1/3 from Asia, 1/4 each from South America and Africa, and the rest from Europe. Let them all move here. Just do it legally. And assimilate. Learn English at least. Not cause English is a great language, but because we need to have some common tongue and English fits the bill the best.