Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Think the unthinkable before your enemies do. It's your only hope to forestall them.

 

I  don't see how, in this case, but other people are smarter than me. I just hope some of those smarter people are in the Biden administration and in Congress.

 

Dean ShomshK

 

 

Almost certainly impossible to do anything through Congress...and even harder, if possible, to do something before the fact.  Interesting, short article here:
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/contested_elections/election_laws.htm

 

It's plausible that some states will write their laws to rise to these levels, but I really doubt they will.  Most of what I've heard is more subtle;  they're not targeting groups of people per se, they're trying to lower the turnout indirectly.  They can argue "it affects everyone equally so it's not discriminatory."  

[Pariah]

Just STFU. You're embarrassing yourself. 

 

Capitol rioter compares attacks on her to treatment of ‘Jews in Germany’

 

You're not the victim here, Ms. Ryan. You committed a crime, livestreamed on social media, and that's why you're going to jail. Grow up and take some responsibility. And for the love of all that is good and holy, stop trying to turn your 'persecution' into profit.

 

Jackass.

[TrickstaPriest]

7 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Just STFU. You're embarrassing yourself. 

 

Capitol rioter compares attacks on her to treatment of ‘Jews in Germany’

 

You're not the victim here, Ms. Ryan. You committed a crime, livestreamed on social media, and that's why you're going to jail. Grow up and take some responsibility. And for the love of all that is good and holy, stop trying to turn your 'persecution' into profit.

 

Jackass.

 

Given how little of my ancestry survived Germany, I quite dislike these people

[Ragitsu]

While it is important to highlight strange perspectives/mentalities that lead people to ignominious ends, these same people are receiving a healthy dose of attention in the process.

[unclevlad]

5 hours ago, Pariah said:

Just STFU. You're embarrassing yourself. 

 

Capitol rioter compares attacks on her to treatment of ‘Jews in Germany’

 

You're not the victim here, Ms. Ryan. You committed a crime, livestreamed on social media, and that's why you're going to jail. Grow up and take some responsibility. And for the love of all that is good and holy, stop trying to turn your 'persecution' into profit.

 

Jackass.

 

It is better to seem foolish by remaining silent than to speak out and remove all doubt.

 

It's a given, tho, that she's just pushing the usual buttons her side loves to push.  Truth and reality are...fluid to them.

[BarretWallace]

10 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

Truth and reality are...fluid to them.

To paraphrase one of my favorite TV characters, the only fluid I see is a puddle of p*ss trying to be relevant.

[Pariah]

1 hour ago, BarretWallace said:

To paraphrase one of my favorite TV characters, the only fluid I see is a puddle of p*ss trying to be relevant.

 

I was thinking this exact thing. Well played.

[Cygnia]

My tongue was only partially in cheek over In Other News when I said I was making a list... 😕

 

Hitting Cops, Roaming the Senate: DOJ Says Ohioans Were Everywhere During Jan. 6 Insurrection

[DShomshak]

22 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Given how little of my ancestry survived Germany, I quite dislike these people

You get the dry understatement award.

("Like," "Thanks," and "Sad" being all not-quite-right as responses.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[TrickstaPriest]

8 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

You get the dry understatement award.

("Like," "Thanks," and "Sad" being all not-quite-right as responses.)

 

Dean Shomshak

 

You can have my hugs, at least

[Ragitsu]

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.

 

- Samuel P. Huntington

[Ockham's Spoon]

This is a clip from my local paper about the sentencing of one of the January 6 Capitol rioters.

 

 

Of course if Joe Biden had won by a billion votes, then you really would have evidence of voter fraud 🤪

[Pariah]

‘The Daily Show’ Erects NYC Monuments To January 6 “Patriots Who Fought Against America”

 

[Ragitsu]

 

Awesome.

[unclevlad]

A problem Beau didn't mention:  the major differences in the approaches to health care.  How would Americans access the Canadian health care system?  it's publicly funded, not privately funded.  Largely by definition, any Canadian treatment would be considered "out of network" and thus, if covered at all by American insurance companies, coverage would be far more limited.

 

Also, securing the border?  The US-Canadian border is WIDE open from the Great Lakes to the Pacific, perhaps with some natural challenges from the Coast Range and the Rockies.  There are no natural obstacles whatsoever, for most of it.  And it's over 1000 miles long, from the eastern edge of the Rockies, to the Lakes.  The resources would most likely go into the eastern part...Ontario and Quebec.  The St. Lawrence can help form that line...you can build up first-stage processing facilities on Canadian soil, south of the St. Lawrence, but north of the tip of upstate New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire.  Not sure you could handle *that* large of an influx, tho, in that small an area.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

A mere five years ago, if anyone even dreamed of a scenario like this, it would have been as a joke.

 

Because most of us who come to this website grew up in a time and place of unprecedented stability, we tend to think of that as the natural order of things. But that stability was always a house built on sand, waiting for an earthquake. Now we all have to be the grains of sand, and work together to hold our collective house in place. Sadly, that prospect seems increasingly unlikely before it collapses.

[Ragitsu]

If this comes to pass, here's to hoping a new "Allied invasion" will aid in the restoration of our nation's sanity and decency.

[TrickstaPriest]

It's incredibly frustrating to me that all of the voices crying for this sort of thing don't understand/care that action like this would inevitably start a third world war.

[Lord Liaden]

13 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

If this comes to pass, here's to hoping a new "Allied invasion" will aid in the restoration of our nation's sanity and decency.

 

The prospect of invading the fourth largest country with the third highest population, the most powerful military, and the second-biggest nuclear arsenal, in the world, is beyond daunting.

[Ragitsu]

39 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

The prospect of invading the fourth largest country with the third highest population, the most powerful military, and the second-biggest nuclear arsenal, in the world, is beyond daunting.

 

Well, at that point, it wouldn't be a united front. The theoretical scenario concerns a house divided; some of the then-new divisions would be sympathetic to these allies. I would also add that when something becomes an absolute necessity, the daunting nature of such a task becomes less of a hurdle.

[unclevlad]

Mounting an invasion against a country at war with itself is highly likely to ensure it remains divided.  It is a no-win option, IMO.  I'd also point out:  define the circumstances under which such an intervention would be considered "necessary" from the perspective of, say, Canada or western Europe.

 

If anyone intervenes, it would most likely be, IMO, to establish and protect refugee safe zones.  I don't see even Russia or China moving against US soil;  I could see both of them supporting as many factions as possible, in order to maximize fragmentation, and while that's happening, move to grow their sphere, closer to home.  The breakaway republics for Russia;  for China, solidifying the hold on Taiwan and Hong Kong, and moving on the Philippines.

[Ragitsu]

I see a strange dichotomy: the US could potentially experience a disastrous collapse (we're talking "end of an empire" era, here) yet it will forever be strong enough to resist any invasion? Which is it?

 

  

16 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

I'd also point out:  define the circumstances under which such an intervention would be considered "necessary" from the perspective of, say, Canada or western Europe.

 

For starters, when the global economy is threatened. Nothing motivates altruism like self-interest.

[Lord Liaden]

20 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

I see a strange dichotomy: the US could potentially experience a disastrous collapse (we're talking "end of an empire" era, here) yet it will forever be strong enough to resist any invasion? Which is it?

 

 

Doesn't have to be forever. The country has a huge stockpile of very advanced weapons, including nukes. Any factions that arise with access to those weapons, will be extremely difficult to deal with through force for some time. We only have to look at the recent history of breakdown of other heavily-armed nations. I remember after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the grave concerns raised over the many nuclear weapons now in the hands of new and unstable governments, and their diminished security increasing the risk that non-state operators could get their hands on those weapons.

[wcw43921]

And the right-wingers' gloating begins in 5.  .  .4.  .  .3.  .  .2.  .  .  

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

For starters, when the global economy is threatened. Nothing motivates altruism like self-interest.

 

In what manner would an intervention by anyone help that situation?  I'll concede that a fractured US would risk a global depression;  I'll even allow as such would be HIGHLY likely.  But how would, let's say, a NATO attempt to stabilize improve anything?

 

Also given HOW the US is split politically, stabilization would be a logistical NIGHTMARE.  On the surface, you'd put Texas as overwhelmingly Trumpist, if things fall apart.  At the level of state government, it probably would be.  But Trump only took 52% of the vote.  On the flip side, 1/3 of the California vote was for Trump.  I suspect that the more detailed vaccination-rate map might be a better indicator;  it often does correlate, at the county level, to the vote count in that county, AND is a strong suggestion of how the residents of that county feel...how much they buy the right-wing liars.  That is a stand-in, admittedly weak at this point, to the degree to which a county has become radicalized.  But even then, it's not county by county, it's finer-grained.  The NextDoor app I'm on, includes my subdivision and multiple neighboring ones.  It's calmed down *some* but there's still a significant, LOUD, minority of "it's all lies, it's all a fake" types.

 

This would literally split neighbors...even families.  I think if you asked any military officer of notable rank, this would be a NIGHTMARE scenario, if not the absolute worst-case one, for an intervening/peackeeping force.  It would likely be worse than the missions in Bosnia in the 90s, and after the fall of Iraq.  And US troops in Iraq had a VERY hard time.

 

A NATO intervention in the US, large enough to actually DO something, would also invite Russia to move into eastern Europe.  

 

It was a long time ago now, but this is an analytical paper worth a read:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/decision-to-intervene-how-the-war-in-bosnia-ended/

 

Oh, and here's the state-level election map:

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/president/