US and NA Politics (General)

[Disciple of Fate]

Jul 29, 2019 20:27:23 GMT -5 dusa said:

The audition in the House of Reps went well and we got ourselves a new candidate for Trump’s Staff.

Must have been a hard choice for Trump, with so many fondli... fighting for the honor that day.

[steelmage99]

The despicable sub-human "Senator" Mitch "Moscow" McConnell stood on the floor of the Senate....and whined like a little bitch and a precious little snowflake, that some media (and therefore Left wing politics as a whole, in his opinion) has suggested that he was un-American and a Russian asset.
Like the pathetic dishonest Republican that he is, he of course completely forgot about all the times other media outlets, and the President, has made the same suggestions about Left wing politicians.

I guess that is an indictment of the entirety of Right wing politics.....right, Senator?

[Disciple of Fate]

And on the same day as Mitch whined, it came out that his 'esteemed' colleague Rand Paul spoke with Breitbart and said that he would buy racist America's favorite target a plane ticket to Somalia so she can see how good she has it.

What a terrible white man's burden it must be to have to keep pointing out that America is so amazing and you should shut up.

[steelmage99]

What is simply amazing, is the insistence that America is a great country, that should be held up as a shining example, instead of the horrible warning that it actually is.
American isn't great. There is PLENTY of room for improvement.

What do we look at when determining whether a country can be considered "great"?
We look at things like;

Press freedom/Internet freedom
Economy
Crime rate per capita
Life expectancy
Infant mortality rate
Corruption
Healthcare
Education system
Literacy
Standards of living
Average wages
Electricity/Internet availability
Political diversity
Religious influence
Death penalty
Food quality assurance and safety (FDA)
Environmental protections (EPA)
Citizen happiness
Clean drinking water
Racism
Consumer protections
Medical drug safety
Medical drug prices
Teen pregnancies
Violent crimes
Sexually transmitted diseases
Homeless
Poor
Public trust in government
Abortion/gay marriage

What we DON'T consider indications of greatness include;

Gun rights
Having a huge army
Putting people on the Moon

......Doing that, the US isn't that "great".

This is of course before we address the state sanctioned torture, the religious theocratic bend and the aggressive wars all over the world

[Least censored on the planet!]

Jul 30, 2019 3:03:52 GMT -5 steelmage99 said:

What do we look at when determining whether a country can be considered "great"?
We look at things like;

[...]
What we DON'T consider indications of greatness include;

[...]

In bully nation what they consider for greatness is:
- Ability to hurt foreigners economically
- Ability to hurt/kill foreigners with weapons
- How good the ultra-rich have it

So sure they think America is great. Greater than countries with better standards of living ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[Disciple of Fate]

Yes, how great America is is directly related to the wealth you have. Of course this is not unique to the US, but on average the US is middle of the pack for regular citizens. For the people with a considerable amount of money, the US is probably the best country in the world for their own standards of living.

Also by great I'm pretty sure they mean good old fashioned 1950's racism being acceptable again, seeing as that seems to be the only aspect of making America great and now keeping America great in 2020.

Unless we count nuclear NK as greatness and/or fudging a new title for NAFTA.

[Disciple of Fate]

As a historian I had to laugh at the stupidity of this opinion piece:
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-father-was-wrong-about-nazi-germany-i-am-right-about-america/2019/07/29/53a981a2-aeea-11e9-a0c9-6d2d7818f3da_story.html?utm_term=.1671d6e0fe75

In it the author says the US has internment camps and not concentration camps. Then he says there were indeed bad internment camps such as those in the Boer Wars.

You mean the British concentration camps during the Boer War that basically popularized the term concentration camp for later iterations? SMH, maybe do some reading before making such dumb statements... Just the sheer ignorance and the terrible appeals to authority that have gone into writing the piece just makes me cringe. When you need to engage in historical revisionism to argue something isn't what it actually was, maybe its time to take a long and hard look in the mirror.

[semipotentwalrus]

I'd just like to chime in and kindly ask that the "sub-human" shit go to hell. Such comments have no place anywhere and degrade the one using them as much as the target.

Plus, y'know, the whole history of the term "Untermenschen"...

Edit: And yeah, the lack of understanding just how bad the Boer war camps were is rather telling, as is the idea that being descended from survivors of Nazi camps gives you some sort of unique authority on the subject.

[Emblematic Wolfblade]

Walrus, you can keep trying to take the high ground, and I understand the desire to do so, but that doesn't work. It's a failing of the dems for decades now, especially when (for example) the turtle is an actual piece of shit that's caused more harm to America than almost any other single person.

Taking the high road only works if the other side feels shame, and I think it's obvious that they don't. Republicans do not give a flying fuck because they have a block of ~36% of America that will support them no matter what.

[CommieCanUCK]

It's not "the high road" to ask that we not sink into toxic and dehumanizing language. We can be absolutely and resolutely against the treasonous actions of the GOP without employing other-ing tactics. Routinely using such disgraceful tactics are yet another objective reason why the current GOP are unfit for office.

[Emblematic Wolfblade]

And it's great to hold that ideal, but it doesn't work very well. The GOP's willingness to go for low blows is one of the reasons they keep getting back into power. Dems shouldn't be taking that and just accepting it. The Dems are so scared of the GOP demonizing them further or giving them more points to rile up their base that it took months (iirc) for them to call trump's lies, lies instead of "assertions" or whatever. It's taken even longer for them to call out his racist rhetoric as "racist" instead of "divisive" or similar soft pedaling.

[semipotentwalrus]

The end does not justify the means. Getting society to where we want it to be cannot be done in a manner that undermines its legitimacy, no matter how much we want to cut corners.

Compromise the process and you open the door to future abuse even if you achieve your short-term goals. As the Republicans may yet learn in the years to come.

[CommieCanUCK]

"Sub-human" is the first step in the long, gradual road to death camps. The GOP is already several miles down that road. Let's not follow that.

[Emblematic Wolfblade]

In the mean time, the GOP will continue to consolidate power, and abuse the system however they can while blaming the dems for every problem they create.

You might not like the term "subhuman", so use a different one instead. Call them shitbags, a waste of oxygen, whatever. Don't just roll over so you can say you took the high path while the GOP actively ruins country and slowly rigs every election.

[CommieCanUCK]

I don't think that dehumanizing language is the key to victory for the Dems.