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The email scandal is not going away any time soon. Comey stated that Clinton's conduct with the email server demonstrated gross negligence along with the recommendation not to indict. During the primary process Clinton's statements (1. didn't send classified information, only sent personal emails; 2. only used one device; and 3. provided all emails to the FBI) and the findings of the FBI investigation presented by Comey which refute her testimony provides evidence for both incompetence as well as deception -- just not enough to demonstrate treasonous willful intent, which seems to be Comey's standard for pursuing indictment. The burden of proving treasonous willful intent is so high and unprecedented. This precedent is dangerous to standards of ethics and accountability.
The email server will become the main attraction of the general election debates, and in the many battleground states (about 8) with polls in the margin of error the electoral impacts cannot be ignored. Not to mention, wikileaks has released more emails from the private server, including over 1200 related to the war in Iraq -- not personal emails. This again demonstrates that Clinton either mishandle emails or deleted the emails willfully during the investigation. Though, 1200 emails related to the Iraq war seems to be less of a case of negligence than intent. For perspective, the general election polls are really useless, instead look at the battleground states. These are all nailbiters; Trump would almost necessarily secure the presidency if he clenches 5 of them -- especially Florida. It's insane that there are people who still act as if Clinton has it in the bag rather than understand that the lead is narrow, tenuous, and can be overturned after a single debate and/or if the pollsters are underestimating/overestimating turnout of voting demographics. http://i.imgur.com/NlDPNMQ.jpg This is why we needed a candidate like Bernie to take down Trump; instead Clinton's demonstrated corruption will only distract the public from Trump's nazi-like vision. The only way to combat Trump's vision is with a candidate of a vision of their own -- not someone driven by public opinion and constantly flips the script when it comes to black (mass incarceration, black-on-black crime myth, super-predatory), women (lobbied to abolish welfare "TANF" which leads to less autonomy to single mothers, especially women of color), Hispanic (tough anti-immigration policy record..i.e. the Clinton Administration), LGBT (lobbied for DOMA and for decades has engaged in dehumanizing religious and "traditions" rhetoric) lives when politically expedient. The reason being, general elections are largely determined by who turns out, and disenfranchised groups and progressives (equivalent to "the moderate left" relative to much of Europe) are less likely to support candidates with a record of bigotry, even if it is in the pursuit of combating an even bigger bigot. It does not help when we have to support a corrupt bigot in order to be politically strategic; at some point we lose faith in the political process -- and we do not vote as a consequence. Who knows, provided the unprecedented disdain of both candidates it may be the perfect storm for a third party. I would love to see american politics shift from neo-conservative vs neo liberal paternalism to libertarianism vs socialism. The latter deals with two tensions that are foundational to governance -- negative rights and positive rights. Negative rights provide individuals freedoms to live their lives with self-determination rather than the government limiting personal choices, whereas, positive rights provide social benefits that allow for individuals to live the "good life". We need negative rights to ensure we have autonomy, but also autonomy only exists when we take collective-action, for instance a single payer plan. Both of these ideologies need to coexist in order for freedom to be maximized. Our government only deals with the "pragmatic" navigation of transient and fashionable concerns through appealing to an existing system of dogmas and traditions (white supremacy, christianity, heternomativity, patriarchy. ect). That is false consciousness. Pragmatism only works if in the realm of a philosophical tension such as negative and positive rights rather than an ideological free-for-all determined by those who have the capital to determine meaning for us. |
Two things about swing state polls:
a) Clinton is... doing better than Obama! http://i.imgur.com/FRKRxbd.jpg and b) Trump is... doing horribly at red states. He's losing freaking Kansas! http://i.imgur.com/52ISF91.jpg So, for Trump to overcome this, he'd need to either make massive hordes of white voters turn out (which is becoming increasingly harder)- also it must be non-college graduates, since college graduates are moving into the Democratic camp for the first time in half a century. And he must do that despite being Donald Trump. He's not a professional politician who can put on a moderate mask for the campaign- he'll praise Saddam Hussein in public for murdering detainees without a trial if he wants to, and virtually all voters know who he is and what his positions are already, so a simple "Trump 2.0" won't cut it. I'm not going to say that "Clinton has this in the bag", but Trump needs something else other than a good debate to win. Either he becomes a different person altogether, or the Democrats collapse in a sea of infighting, or I don't see how he wins. I really don't. Quote:
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After my own country's recent attempt at democracy I sincerely hope that the polls that Went is quoting come true. Although its best not to assume its any clear victory, we learn that lesson the hard way ;-;.
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I can't really agree that people voting third party aren't "thinking about their future." It really does often come about because some of these voters do believe these candidates have better things in store for their future than the mainstream ones.
In any case, I also think the whole attitude to voting to win instead of voting based on your principles just ensures that we will never move past the Democrat/Republican gridlock our country is in and never truly give other party ideals (pure Socialism, libertarianism, Green, etc) a real chance at bringing their own methods to the table. Right now the best that anyone can hope for is infiltrating a mainstream party and putting your ideas forward there, but even that won't guarantee success (Ron Paul for classic liberalism and Bernie Sanders for social democracy are two big recent examples of this failure). |
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The current system gives so much credit to Dems and Repubs that the general public doesn't give credence to third parties because media doesn't focus on them, which means we're just going to continue having a system where third parties won't gain much steam and momentum because the public won't give them a chance. And the most common excuse is "they're not realistically going to win." If you keep thinking third parties are never going to get off the ground, that just ensures they never will. A self-fulfilling prophesy, I believe is what the term is. |
The problem is that the US electoral system, by virtue of being a Winner-takes-all in all levels, with a single round of voting, effectively makes it impossible for a third party to appear. And when third parties do appear, they a) end up being absorbed by one of the two leading parties [Southern Democrats > Republicans]; b) end up replacing one of the two main parties, so the two-party system is recreated [Whigs > Republicans] or c) become hopeless also-rans. Why? Because, by definition, if you aren't voting for (big party A), you are implicitly allowing (big party B) to win. And most people would rather not give a win to someone who is radically opposed to them than "wasting" their vote on someone who might represent them a bit better just to prove a point, so lots of "lesser evil" happens.
And since this electoral system is stuck in the Constitution, either someone changes it to make it more representative (proportional and all), or your only options are killing one of the two main parties and replacing it, or infiltrating it a la Paul/Sanders. |
http://fightfor15.org/democratic-party-adopts-15-national-minimum-wage-to-party-platform/
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[QUOTE=Ivysaur;9311900]Two things about swing state polls:
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The only scientific poll shows Trump ahead. It's not up-to-date because it is considered a gimme state for him; plus low-delegate count. http://i.imgur.com/q07BWp0.png Quote:
Example of 2012 General Election Projections http://i.imgur.com/oXeyrbE.jpg Again, this is just another case of misinformation that underestimates the Trump threat. With that in mind: Nearly all of these (except Georgia) are within the margin of error, which means that the "true value" of the result is 95% likely to be 3.5 points higher or lower than the number provided -- thus it's pretty close despite what the popular vote may indicate. http://i.imgur.com/NlDPNMQ.jpg |
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Perhaps, in fact, your problem is that you focus too hard on RCP, which only quotes naked polls, without adjusting for past accuracy or house effects. Because RCP's naked averages showed "a dead heat!" "statistical ties everywhere!", but yet, by adjusting for the pollsters' known outcomes, he called every state just right. And he even called the popular vote more accurately than RCP did! http://i.imgur.com/iFXVopj.jpg As by the numbers I was quoting, I'll link you to the article so you can read it: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-swing-state-polls-and-national-polls-basically-say-the-same-thing/ I'll concede that things change during the campaign, and that random poll outliers can make it seem like a race is far closer than it is (and we the media loooooove a good "X poll says it's a tie!" headline even if it has nothing to do with reality). But there is such a thing as being confident that X candidate is leading in Y state, even if they are doing so by a number under the margin of error. Whatever the case, there are my sources, you can check them, he was 100% right in 2012 and I trust his judgement. After all, he's just working with the same public polls available to everyone, like RCP. What you do with them is what makes all the difference, and if you want to look at them from the "dead heat" narrative, be my guest. I'll stick to the "of course Trump can obviously still win but signals say Clinton is leading rather comfortably for now" line. |
I am not old enough to vote for either Clinton or Trump and actually I am pretty happy about that. My parents was talking to me and my older sister who is 18 and will be old enough to vote in this election and my parents said to us that this Presidential Election has been a complete circus and nothing they have seen in previous ones comes even close to the crap that has occurred in both of these campaigns and there supporters. They said to my older sister we would never sway you to vote our way in any election, but this election we actually can't because we have no clue who we are going to vote for yet.
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Well Sanders just officially endorsed Clinton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/us/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton.html Time to beat The Donald :P |
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-09/one-american-political-party-actually-works
This summarizes very well how the US political system stands right now. |
Not saying i support trump but at least he didn't cheat his way into getting the nomination like hillary did.
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It's a really interesting election this one. I've personally always stood with Trump and I have my reasons that I don't want to get into since today I've just seen Papa Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton which is a shame, I thought he had more integrity than that. I was really really hoping for a Trump Vs. Sanders election because the way I see it they both are there for the people. I believe in both of them that they have the best intentions at heart and it's what the people deserve I guess. Two candidates that aren't even establishment backed that would both serve as a real middle finger to American Politics and Big Donorship. I'm unsure if Bernie supporters will really support Hillary since she's a bit of a demagogue and Bernies supporters have been shown to be quite die hard with some very violent protests. These people believe in Bernie and it's interesting to see how divided they will be given to Bernie "selling out".
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You need to realise though, that despite "being for the people" and other things, the platform Donald Trump is officially running on includes passages like:
- Forcing kids to read the Bible at school as an "historical document". - Banning all kinds of porn, even the one performed by consenting adults in their own free time. - Forcing transgender people to go to the bathroom that matches their genitals, not their gender. - Undoing marriage equality. - Endorsing "gay conversion therapy". - Supporting coal (the most polluting energy source ever) as “abundant, clean, affordable, reliable". - Declaring food stamps as unconstitutional. - Passing a constitutional amendment that would ban the Government from forcing parents to vaccinate or school their kids. This is the official Republican Party platform. This is what Donald Trump is running on. If you still believe that all of this is okay because "Trump is running for the people", or that Clinton supporting a $15 minimum wage and a progressive reform of healthcare to extend Medicare down to 55 year-olds and keep cutting out-of-pocket costs for the rest is "bad" because "she is stablishment", then I beg you to please stop looking at politicians' faces and start looking at what they are promising to do. Donald Trump might look similar to Sanders in image, but have you even tried to look at the substance of his platform? Because there is quite literally nobody as opposted to Sanders's goals than Trump right now. If you supported Sanders and now are considering Trump, I'm pretty sorry to tell you that you aren't a social-democrat and you didn't honestly give a crap about Sanders's policies- all you wanted was "someone who isn't establishment", regardless of whether their platform was left-wing or right-wing. If you do really care about equality and progress, voting Republican should be off the cards from day -1. |
I hate that it's come to this, but I'm going to be voting for Clinton. It's hard when you had someone who much more closely represented what you wanted and who now can't be in the final round, but third party candidates just can't win so as much as Jill Stein is the closest to what I'd like to see in the remaining candidates I'm not going to risk a Trump win. I'm in a "safe" blue state so I could probably vote for Stein without it affecting the overall outcome, but I don't want to have a situation where Trump wins the most votes even if he loses in the Electoral College (much as I'd like to see it abolished and replaced) because then you'd probably see an even more polarized country.
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I'm definitely on the Trump train. Before anything, my father was born in Mississippi, as was I (and my mother was born in Florida), and on top of that, my father is a thirty year army veteran, so we consider ourselves to be at least moderate conservatives.
Let's just break this down. If she were to choose, Hillary would obviously give amnesty to illegals who entered the United States... illegally, while Trump completely respects the veterans. A veteran who is in an economic crisis would deserve amnesty much more than an illegal immigrant, obviously. The wall will happen if he's elected, folks. Our borders do not help, as we see people climbing over them every single day. We need a wall guarded with some sort of higher security to keep the illegal immigrants out. Can you really trust a woman who was confirmed to have used her personal e-mail to store classified information? If that isn't enough, the Director of the FBI had even confirmed that a Russian hacker had gotten a hold of this e-mail. There's obviously a ton of corruption in this system, especially since the director is a Republican and is letting this happen. There was obviously something that happened when Bill Clinton hopped on to Loretta Lynch's private jet and 'talked about golf', which they obviously had not done. Also, she is in favor of super delegates, which is just not how our democracy should work, as it is just unfair for delegates to choose who they want, not representing the people. Also, she likes Super PACS. Like... no. I also don't understand how a system that isn't capitalist can really run. When Obama came in, he totally destroyed the economy, and our national debt is about to reach twenty-trillion dollars. Sure, you can't really have a good President without some debt, but when you see how unconstitutional the Obama administration has truly been, it's just sad. We need the economy to run itself. Some of the greatest and most popular Presidents were Republican, like Ronald Reagan, Theodore Roosevelt, and George Washington was actually more conservative (despite the fact that Great Britain was actually sort of conservative in that scenario as well). Cutting all of these programs would be great. I don't understand what's so great about Common Core, as it just doesn't help! I'm in three honors classes, and they're ignoring what we need in order to learn by throwing random questions at us that don't even help us understand the book. Suprisingly, if we cut this education, our taxes would have a drastic cut, and local governments could do what's best for their students. You hear people say that Trump is against the LGBT community, but this is simply not true. His first appearance after Orlando's mass shooting was him recognizing the LGBT community as part of America and part of our culture. On The Today Show, Trump said that he wouldn't care if Caitlyn Jenner used the women's bathroom in Trump tower. It wasn't bothered before, so he's saying why bother it now. I think the big thing that confuses people is when Trump is saying what Obama did is unconstitutional. Even though he is in support of the LGBT community, anything like this should have been up to the states, not up to the Federal Government. The Constitution is something we must use in order to run our country. We can't let people illegally obtain weapons while some people who mean no harm aren't permitted to get a gun because of gun control. You see that gun control laws have been strengthened, and because of this Orlando happened. We might need some control, but all of these shootings are happening because people are obtaining firearms illegally. If I was permitted to shoot, I'd take advantage of it even if I were younger, because I want to stay safe, no matter what it takes. That's my rant. If you have any arguments, please share them with me c;. |
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Second, the wall with Mexico is going to do little to help. Not least because the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico has dropped by 8% since 2010 (they are leaving back to their country!) and, consequently, the arrivals from Mexico have fallen by a whooping 80%. No, the problem is that more than half of the illegal immigrants come to the US legally, crossing the border through the official checkpoints with valid visas... and then simply stay once they run out. So having a 100-km tall border wall wouldn't change a single thing to the majority of illegal immigrants who never needed to climb over it to get in in the first place. That's a good waste of billions of dollars! Source. Quote:
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Again, look at Sweden. The Government takes just over 50% of the GDP and spends it on public services. How is that communist hellhole holding up, according to the OECD? http://i.imgur.com/HR2HAMe.jpg And the US? http://i.imgur.com/BtA7Ggw.jpg Well, I'll be! Though I'll concede that in the "income" section, the US has a whooping 100%, compared to Sweden's 51%. But if I had to choose? I think I can spare some cash in hand in exchange for everything else. Quote:
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- Overturning the Supreme Court (no relation to the Federal Government) ruling, thereby re-banning same-sex marriage in several states. - Endorsing "gay conversion therapies", implying that LGTB people are somehow ill and need therapy to become straight. - Endorsing "natural families composed of a man and a woman", which is clearly not a shot against LGTB families. - Forcing transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their genitals instead of their gender, which is just an ideological "fuck you" as it serves no other purpose than to make their lives harder for no reason. - And last, but not least, passing discrimination laws that allow business to deny their services to people by reason of their sexual preferences. Incidentally, nobody did anything unconstitutional- the Supreme Court interprets the Consitution, and it decided that same-sex marriage is constitutional and protected by the Constitution. That's all. And the platform Trump is running on wants to overturn that ruling. Do you see why LGBT people may not be happy with Trump's party? Quote:
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Trump is someone who is a moderate conservative. He's an outsider, and he's not truly running on the platform that the Republican party has laid out. Every candidate will have their different solutions, and a Republican can't always be assumed to be against the LGBT community. About the unconstitutional part, Trump is in favor of LGBT rights, but how it was decided on was not up to the states, when things like this usually were up to the states. That's really all I meant. (I'm in favor of LGBT rights, just to clear things up). There's been an argument during this election which is actually not that significant. It has been noticed that there has been a change in immigration. Sure, quite a few people are returning back and the amount of people coming in has dropped slightly, but there are still a lot of things happening. There are a ton of veterans that are homeless. Amnesty has been given to illegals before, but what Trump is saying is that if he were to give amnesty (which he probably wouldn't), he'd give it to the homeless veterans who truly need help rather than illegals who aren't earning their way into our country. Also, how to illegal immigrants come in legally? They're called illegal immigrants for a reason. Either way, if that is the case, then there'll be much better national security to help in the process. As for things that are all economic and program-like. First, I've had a firsthand experience with Common Core, and barely any of it is beneficial. My parents have shown me what real stuff is. In fact, my mother was a teacher for ten years, so she knows more than anyone in my household. Cutting Common Core would give Americans more money. We're supposed to have the freedom of earning money for our own luxuries, and that's what they'd do with it. One thing I don't like is that Trump denies global warming, but I'm sure there'll be conservation groups that keep all of that up and running, and he might even come to realization. Cutting some of these programs like state education would help Americans earn money to do things that they want to do, not just need to do. Having higher taxes to pay for those who are poor and to pay for unnecessary programs like Common Core is ridiculous. A lot of these people who are on Welfare need to get up and find some work, because they can do it, but they just don't want to. We must stop giving money to people who really don't need it, and can just earn money themselves. What happened to responsibility? We need that again. Responsibility is what kept America flourishing. Also, I do like the statistics there, but if this is part of Obama's governing, then when Trump is President, things'll be different, especially him being a part of the Republican party. I'm also pretty sure that Trump being a moderate would lead to him making new programs to maybe even help with these things. We have a huge benefit, as we have over 300 million citizens. We don't have to drain our taxes as much for these possible programs, and as a businessman, Trump is smart enough to understand that. |
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Secondly, an eighty percent drop is a hell of a lot more than slight. It also makes it pretty damn clear that people stopped buying into the delusion that America is the land of freedom and opportunity a long time ago. Quote:
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On top of that, there's also a great deal of US citizens who are suffering from physical or mental disabilities or long-term illnesses that simply cannot work. Including such people as the veterans you so like to go on about. Even further still, because of the ridiculous wage companies are paying it's occasionally more profitable and therefore more intelligent to be on welfare than working minimum wage if you're trying to get an education, achieve independence or raise a family. The US doesn't need less money invested in Welfare, it needs to improve access to education, increase the minimum wage, create jobs and improve the outdated welfare system it's running on. Quote:
As for Trump being a smart businessman... not only has he bankrupted a great deal of the companies he's started and ruined his father's investments, he's also intending to waste tax payer money on an extremely ineffective means of controlling an all but non-existent immigration problem, thinks the Bible is an accurate and unbiased source of information, denies global warming/climate change even exists and doesn't even know what the word amnesty means apparently. If Trump hadn't been born with a silver spoon up his ass then not only would he be neither rich nor famous but he wouldn't be in a position where his misguided worldview could potentially destroy an entire nation. He's not even remotely intelligent and isn't even a good businessman or politician. Trump is a disgrace not only to your country but to humanity as a whole and if he wins the election the voters of the US have failed. |
^You forgot his genius plans of using torture even if it doesn't work, bombing the families of terrorists, and citing the Geneva Conventions as a problem.
Yes, Hillary's track record in foreign policy has been anything but good, and she seems to want to continue down the same path. Some recent reports suggest her Middle East foreign policy to be to the right of- wait for it- George W. Bush. On the other hand, in at least some speeches, Donald Trump showed something of an "isolationist" tendency. But let me tell you why all that may be immaterial. I think the strongest reason for not voting Trump is not because we know his plans, but precisely because we don't know any of them. He has flip-flopped on virtually each of his positions multiple times throughout his campaign. We have no clue what sort of president he would make. He may become the poster boy for 'moderate' republicanism- veering a bit to the left from the more traditionalist social values- and become an acquiescent little ***** of the establishment. He may also become a full-on totalitarian warmonger who drops missiles the moment someone insults the size of his hands. It's easy to see why we wouldn't want those hands on the nuke launch codes. |
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(1). The Clinton campaign is very corrupt, but not compared to the sense that she used her personal e-mail for classified information alone. The fact that she lied about it, but it was stated by the Director of the FBI that she had indeed used her personal server to store classified information is very stupid, but when you lie about it, that's something that's corrupt. I understand how the wealthy usually control the government, but throughout the campaign, I couldn't have been the only one to notice how diverse he is from the rest of the field. Trump has held his consistent argument for years that he's tired of seeing what's happening to the country. He really didn't want to run in the first place, and he would be so much happier if he didn't have to run. Seeing the destruction that has been placed upon our country is what caused him to initiate his campaign. (2). As I said in (1), Trump has held a consistent argument for years, and it's very unlikely that he'd change this argument so abruptly in 2016. Sure, there must be some things you have to say in order to get some votes. You can't really have a chance without saying something to get some votes, but Trump wouldn't say something about the LGBT community, something that was purely implemented into our culture as something important, and something that he took time to carefully explain that the concept of the LGBT community is part of America, and it's part of who we are. Watch this video, and skip to 2:04 for his comment: You can obviously tell he was being sincere. Sure, it doesn't completely prove he's completely open to the LGBT community, but I'm pretty sure this is pretty damn good, especially for a Republican. (3). I'm sorry that I used amnesty in the context of helping homeless veterans. It's been a while, and I'm a bit rusty on some terms, so please excuse me there. I should've looked into that before I actually made that statement. Either way, we shouldn't be giving political pardon to those who are just entering our country illegally. The system of immigration was made for one reason, and that's so citizens from other countries can enter this country legally in order to become a citizen of the United States. Again, I apologize for my misunderstanding of that term. (4). I understand how that part of illegal immigration works, but we're always seeing illegal immigrants jumping the fences. The arrivals from Mexico have dropped eighty percent, but the amount of illegal immigration has only dropped eight percent. Trump is going to have to work something out with the Mexican government, of course. The former President of Mexico was on Bill O'Reilly, and he spoke about how the Mexican government and Trump should make some type of deal. Sure, he isn't in power anymore, but this is just going to show that Trump is a very intimidating man, and the Mexican people are seeing how he totally destroyed the race to become the Republican nominee. The Mexican people don't want an embargo, which Trump could very well threaten to do if they don't compromise with him. (5). The Republican Party believes that education should be up to the local government. It's ridiculous to judge a whole state and give that entire state the same stuff. Sure, there must be standards, as you can't run an educational system without some sort of state or federal standards, but with my firsthand experience of Common Core, what it is is a waste of money. Nobody is learning from this, and more than one of my teachers have admitted that it's a useless program. Local governments should govern education, not state governments (primarily). If local governments govern education, then they can specify the material that needs to be made in order for students to learn what they must. It's so much simpler and easier, it's more effective, and it's not as much money. (6). The Republican Party constantly denies global warming, which I too dislike very much so. I do have hope that Trump will accept it and do something about it. Him being a moderate, he could very well see the situation. He also listens, believe it or not. He listens to the people who are in support of him. If he becomes President, I'm sure there'll be more than one request stating that there should be something done about global warming, because it's getting to the point where it's unhealthy and dangerous for our country, as well as our world. (7). As I said before, we'll definitely need some sort of educational basis nationwide or statewide, but the local government should be the ones tweaking their own districts to where they think it's best for their students. (8). I agree with you that more often than not people are simply unable to work. I'm just saying that there still are about 300 million people in the United States, and a lot of people out of this huge population will play the system. The minimum wage is here for a reason. Maybe tweak it just a little bit, but to make the minimum wage like a full-paying job is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not sure how we'll do it, because there was the Bush administration and the Obama administration that totally destroyed our country in so many ways. We need to think of a way where those who are unable to work get what they need, but at the same time the minimum wage was created so small businesses could pay workers for primarily choosable shifts. Increasing this could easily make small businesses bankrupt. Businesses need relatively very little taken away from them in order to start trouble. I'm hoping some like Trump, a businessman, can find a solution. I think he can, becaus he's a businessman, and his success rate is in the high 90s. (9). Trump does not want to enroach on people's rights. In fact, a conservative government usually leaves the citizens to themselves. A liberalized government sort of controls you in a way. Living in a time with a conservative government would be very ideal, as you wouldn't have the government always looking over you, and you'd have the freedom to take your responsibilities into your own hands. We don't need gun control, either. Sure, there must be some sort of basis to control how people obtain firearms, but people with bad intentions who murder others usually obtain their firearms illegally. Successful crime would decrease because without such heavy gun control, more people who have good intentions would be able to obtain firearms and protect themselves from crime. Sure, Obama tried to clean up Bush's screw-ups, but he did it in the worst way possible. Trump has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times, and that's such a small amount compared to the amount of businesses he actually owns, as I stated in (8). His opinion about the Bible is definitely not going to sway him to make decisions for our country based on it, knowing how diverse religion is in our nation. Either way, Trump isn't a politician, and hates to be called one. He's a businessman, and even if he becomes the President, he still won't consider himself a politician. I'm enjoying this argument. No harsh feelings, right? c: |
If I understand you correctly, Genegerbread, I noticed the following trend in your reasoning:
- For the issues where republicans have had (what you think is) a bad record (e.g. LGBT issues, global warming)- Trump wouldn't follow their footsteps because after all, he's a moderate. - For the issues where republicans have had (what you think is) a good record (e.g. limited government spending on education, strong border control)- Trump would follow their footsteps because after all, he's a conservative. And this is where Trump apologetics gets ad hoc. I don't blame you, this trend is supported by the campaign he's run. Trump has adopted so many different policies in each and every issue that it's very difficult to tell what his actual beliefs are. One moment he talks about bombing the families of terrorists, the other he seems to talk in favor of isolationism (a point on which Hillary has attacked him). One moment he talks about the harms of Obamacare, the next he seems to weigh in in favor of universal healthcare (see this link- an analysis of an answer given during a debate). One moment he says women who abort should be punished, the next he speaks in favor of transgender rights. Because of this, it's easy to just associate him with whatever position one favors. If you listen to his debate answer on healthcare, it's just about ambiguous and confusing enough to appease everybody- regardless of whether you're an economic conservative or liberal. And this is the whole problem. We don't know who Trump is. We don't know his real positions. He's using a party platform, but as you pointed out, it's virtually impossible to predict how closely his policies would match that of his party's. He's a moderate, but seeing how quickly he changes his positions, it's hard to know how much of a break his policies would be from the background. We simply don't know what he's gonna do or what to expect from him. People who celebrate him can map their own political and social policy ideas on to him, but at the end of the day, none of us are the wiser. One other thing- Trump's campaign is all about encroaching on people's rights. Your argument against this was based on the conservative limited government idea, but Trump doesn't subscribe to that. He has threatened to bring back the Libel laws against media, and the list of people he wanted to sue include the owner of Amazon and Washington Post, Supreme court justice Ruth Bader because she criticized him, and- get this- The Onion for satirizing him. The first amendment isn't a thing that exists under his potential presidency. So let's not use the conservative ideas to defend Trump where he has most explicitly deviated therefrom. |
Think I'd mention this since it's getting to that stage of the campaign, but Trump has nominated Mike Pence as his vice-presidential running mate. Not a bad choice, but since I'm not a fan of Trump I'd be more looking forward to who Clinton picks for her vice-president.
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