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Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)


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7 hours ago, clnicholsusa said:

Our public memories are short, so I'll remind everyone that the NDAA has been signed into law. The government has the authority to assert that ANYONE is a terrorist and have them captured and detained by the military without recourse to any court system, and therefore free of habeas corpus.

This nibble at your civil liberties came directly from the senate, please be sure to let them know how you feel about it.

 

Do you mean the Patriot Act rather than the NDAA?  AFAICT, the NDAA mainly covers funding the military.  Or am I missing something in there?

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On 11/1/2018 at 9:49 PM, Sociotard said:

That's a possible interpretation, because it is in the section that set up Congress, but it doesn't explicitly say that. All it says is that it can't be suspended unless there is an emergency threatening public safety. Presidents have suspended it in the past.

 

Article I Section 8 is a list of powers which are granted to Congress.

 

Article I Section 9 is a list of things which Congress is prohibited from doing or which Congress can only do in certain circumstances.

 

Trying to argue that the leader of the executive branch is able to do something which is specifically included in the list of things which Congress can do but only under certain circumstances...that's a crap argument from a Constitutional standpoint.

 

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the civil war. Lincoln deported to foreign countries various newspaper editors who editorialized against him even though they were natural born citizens of the United States. And you shouldn't be able to find the ability to do that in the Constitution either whether by the president, congress, or the courts.

 

If we're going to take "what a president got away with in the past" as the gold standard for what is allowed constitutionally, Trump could deport without trial almost all the people who run US-based media companies because Lincoln did it. Then Trump could order the detention of all the Democrats in concentration camps "in order to protect the country" because FDR did it to the Japanese with Executive Order 9066.

 

Honestly, the reason we have a Constitution is so that crap like that can't happen. It's to our shame that we as a country have allowed violations of the Constitution in the past. But in my opinion, shameful blatantly unconstitutional acts of the past are not a valid argument to allow such violations in the future.

 

2 cents

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5 hours ago, archer said:

Honestly, the reason we have a Constitution is so that crap like that can't happen. It's to our shame that we as a country have allowed violations of the Constitution in the past. But in my opinion, shameful blatantly unconstitutional acts of the past are not a valid argument to allow such violations in the future.

 

2 cents

 

The point isn't "allow."  The root fact is, major violations have occurred in the past, the internment of the Japanese, which included natural-born US citizens, probably being the most egregious from a pure civil liberties perspective.  Your argument is more theoretical...that it'd be illegal to do so...but that won't matter until AFTER the fact.  The damage can/will be done.

 

And the point with Lincoln shows that what's allowed is determined in large measure by political will.  It's not enough to scream "you cant' do that!" if you don't have the clout to push back.  The Japanese internment also shows this...and it was actually UPHELD as constitutional.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirabayashi_v._United_States)

 

It is extremely dangerous to say the Constitution is anything more than words, which can be ignored when it's convenient to do so.

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On 11/2/2018 at 6:35 AM, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Do you mean the Patriot Act rather than the NDAA?  AFAICT, the NDAA mainly covers funding the military.  Or am I missing something in there?

The Patriot Act was signed by Bush. The NDAA (which is the act that funds the military, and is regularly revised and updated) in 2012 was signed by Obama, who actually stated “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

Those provisions remain on the books, and can be interpreted to allow the president to send the military to detain indefinitely anyone that has been labeled a terrorist by the president.

It's always said those that do not learn from history are destined to repeat it, so for a historical parallel you may want to look up the Reichstag Fire Decree.

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10 hours ago, clnicholsusa said:

The Patriot Act was signed by Bush. The NDAA (which is the act that funds the military, and is regularly revised and updated) in 2012 was signed by Obama, who actually stated “The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

Those provisions remain on the books, and can be interpreted to allow the president to send the military to detain indefinitely anyone that has been labeled a terrorist by the president.

It's always said those that do not learn from history are destined to repeat it, so for a historical parallel you may want to look up the Reichstag Fire Decree.

 

Thank you for the details.  I had done a Wiki search on NDAA and worked my way back through the years but hadn't gone back to 2012, so I didn't see that.

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56 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

They've also been banning idiots that can't read. It follows on my own feelings so I am good with it.

 

When the election was going on, one of my coworkers (most of the older ones are conspiracy nuts and flat earthers) said Trump is better than Killeray. I was like are you serious? Because if you are, you are a ton of words meaning stupid, some slurs and other things. He was like what? And I said we would ban deliveries from Trump because he'll always call back trying to get free food and won't tip the drivers. Eventually we's have to Roscoe his dumb @$$.

CES   

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15 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

This is just insane (HugeBillboard with Trump's face and the biblical quote "The Word became flesh - John 1:14") 

 

I honestly don't understand how any Christian who has even a passing familiarity with their own religion could support this. 

Because the Christian people who support Trump only care that he is as much of a bigot as they are. The Christian  people who don't support Trump recognize he is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins and want nothing to do with him.

CES 

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Facebook also deleted Trump's last-minute scare immigration ad because of blatant misleading/false statements.

 

I think the RPG.net explanation for their decision is crucially important.  Effectively, they're asserting Trump's comments slide near/into hate speech, or support for hate-related groups.

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I am so {REDACTED} done with this stupid election. I've been getting nonstop political spam in my text messages, and my phone has been ringing off the hook. The two Congressional candidates in my district have mailed us so much propaganda, I'm starting to wonder how many actual trees have been killed and sent just to my house. Enough. I voted 2 weeks ago. Leave me the {REDACTED} alone.

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Pariah, you've got my sympathies!  I hear ya!  Pretty sure I've only gotten 2 calls today, but I was actually tempted to post that today should be declared

 

National Don't Answer the Phone Day

I think it's only been 2 because a)  I switched numbers on my landline about a year ago, and b)  it's now VOIP, so the call blocking is more automated.  But most likely, it's because the new number's not out there.  Neither number was recognizable, tho, so....I'm comfortable assuming they were political spam.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Pariah said:

I am so {REDACTED} done with this stupid election. I've been getting nonstop political spam in my text messages, and my phone has been ringing off the hook. The two Congressional candidates in my district have mailed us so much propaganda, I'm starting to wonder how many actual trees have been killed and sent just to my house. Enough. I voted 2 weeks ago. Leave me the {REDACTED} alone.

 

After everyone in my house did early voting, we stopped getting political phone calls.

 

Don't know if that'd work in your area but you might consider it next time around.

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I'm actually glad that everyone, including Donald Trump, has characterized these by elections as a referendum on his presidency. For once the electorate has a very clear choice to vote for or against, in terms of vision of what America stands for and where it's going.

 

And I can assure you, the whole world is watching the outcome as closely as you Yanks are.

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10 hours ago, Dr.Device said:

 

 

It's really sad that it had to come to that over there. I think Trump is a cancer on the country (and his adopted party) and actively campaigned for Hillary.

 

But if a site is going to allow US political discussions to take place at all, I don't see how banning words supporting every action an administration could possibly take is going to be helpful toward having an honest conversation about what's happening in the US.

 

For example, I wholeheartedly supported the administration when they got rid of Steve Bannon (formerly the White House chief strategist).

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Well, a website like RPGnet isn't set up to be a forum for political discourse. It's dedicated to role-playing games, but happens to include limited space to discuss other topics. IMO its administrators are well within their rights to ban comments within that space which they consider inflammatory.

 

Besides, the general political debate in America today is long past the point of "honest conversation." And if you're looking for a place to still find that, let's face it, RPGnet won't be at the top of your list.

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1 minute ago, Lord Liaden said:

Well, a website like RPGnet isn't set up to be a forum for political discourse. It's dedicated to role-playing games, but happens to include limited space to discuss other topics. IMO its administrators are well within their rights to ban comments which they consider inflammatory.

 

Besides, the general political debate in America today is long past the point of "honest conversation." And if you're looking for a place to still find that, let's face it, RPGnet won't be at the top of your list.

 

 

Oh, they are well within their rights to run their website as they wish.

 

But if they want political discussion on their site, that kind of ban isn't helpful for having political discussion.

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You can talk about politics on Rpg net like I'm cool with Hirano, or Graham needs to quit being a bootlicker, or Steve King needs to do better, or I hope the next chief of staff will be better than Kelly whom Trump tried to fire but couldn't. There's a guy who works for ICE who comments on the immigration policy and what the news says. He's never been warned as far as I know.

 

What you can't do is say Trump has the right idea. We should put all the jewish gay  brown people in cages so we can drop them in the ocean.

 

Basically those are the rules on the site and on the front page for new guys so everyone knows they can't be all Breitbart on the site despite what they do anywhere else.

 

It's the equivalent of Dan saying knock that off or else like he's done in this thread a couple of times.

 

of course out of the hundreds (thousands?) of people who use the forum, there is always someone who's all Ban Me REEEEDDDAAACCCTTEEEDDDD, and then they do something to get banned.

CES 

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Since we're nitpicking, no I didn't. :nya:  Britain, more properly "Great Britain," is the island containing England, Scotland, and Wales, which together with Northern Ireland, many smaller neighboring islands, and some overseas territories form the United Kingdom. Those four named areas are usually designated as "countries" of their own, with Scotland, Northern Island, and to a lesser extent Wales, having their own distinct political and cultural identities, including Parliaments with considerable powers devolved from the English parliament in London, which governs that country directly. While "Britain" has been used in the past to refer to the whole union, and often still is, "United Kingdom" has been its official title since Great Britain unified with Ireland in 1801.

 

Since I was referring to Queen Elizabeth II as official head of state of a number of the Commonwealth of Nations (a loose association of independent nations formerly part of the British Empire), I thought it simpler to just call her the reigning monarch of England, the dominant partner in the UK. Clearly I thought wrong. ;)

 

EDIT: Someone with William Wallace as his avatar should probably brush up on details like those. :snicker:

 

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