The Political Discussion Thread

[Coco Pops]

You should vote for Trump - he's gonna fix all your problems.

Yep he's gonna ban all the muslims and everyone will have a gun. Perfect

[Falcon Horus]

Saw a wonderful tweet this morning:

"Trump is like a YouTube comment section running for president."

[Gatefan1976]

Fascism isn't Nazism. The two are related but distinct, let's not mix them.

Umm............. I didn't.

"Aryan race" was used to denote the Nordic "race" in the German discourse since the 1800-s or so. The idea of describing prehistoric Germanic peoples as "Aryan" and the superiority of the Nordic peoples as racially unmixed "true Aryans" crystallized in Germany around the 1850-s.

I don't care, Aryan did not come from Germany, and certainly not from then.
I know what you are saying, but "white superiority" is hardly a new, nor exclusive concept.

I want you to learn to follow a coherent line of thought. Get a manual if you need to.

I want you to think outside the staid little box you live in.

My point is that Hitler invented nothing. He created Nazism by fusing together elements of German tradition and identity with the fashionable science-worshipping turn-of-century zeitgeist.

And Indian, and Roman, but lets ignore them..........

Evil ideas always draw on something good, otherwise they fail early. An idea does not become genuinely popular and does not win mass appeal unless it taps into something with tremendous appeal AND unless it has something behind it that people feel is "authentic". And it's never just the push factor of frustration, wounded pride and economic hardship. There has to be a strong pull factor as well. Fascism, Nazism and other revolutionary movements (just like modern "progressive" movement, on which I'll elaborate if necessary) proved so popular because they drew upon lots of good and positive things.

I agree with you, I merely apply your logic to a somewhat longer timeframe than you seem to be willing to do.

Fascism's very name has roots in the "fascis" - the Roman symbol of collective power, a bundle of rods. It signified strength through unity. It was a revolutionary movement of protest, in Mussolini's words, against the backwardness of the Right and the destructiveness of the Left. It sought to embrace modernity while preventing wholesale destruction of much-loved traditional social structures. People standing together for things they love and believe in- what's not to like?

Well, at least you recognize that it is not just a techno-German Zeitgeist.
Nazism drew on -anything- it could.

Pagans have much more to answer for, my friend. They ruled the earth longer and killed more brutally, they just didn't leave as detailed a written record.

How long do you want me to wait for a Pagan to deny your charge?
As for leaving records, well, it's hard to leave records when your storehouses of knowledge get burned, and your religion is systematically annihilated, especially those who would hold the Oral traditions of a people.
But sure, they left no records...............

And don't get me started at the few societies who incorporated atheism into their founding ideas; their body count in a single century rivals that of Monotheism's complete body count over thousands of years.

LOL!!!
I did not realise you could spell Atheism as Totalitarian.
You might need to check a dictionary.
Lack of belief in a divine being in no way forces anyone to kill anything. Fear of the existing power of a church structure (no matter the structure) drove people to do things, like any fear of having your power challenged. I am yet to see ANYTHING that would indicate that a lack of belief could cause a damn thing. Totalitarian regimes do not fear God, why would they fear something they do not believe in, They feared the power of the Church, not the power of God.
Talk about needing to have a rational thought.............

Ain't it fun to paint with broad brushes?

I'll tell you when I get there

Well gee, if I have no right to judge good from bad then let's just toss morality into the dust bin, shall we?

You can judge it for yourself, you cannot judge it for anyone else. To Judge for everyone else is to employ secular law, something that -should- apply to all equally, regardless of belief.

I suggest a simple litmus test: "How do you feel about killing those who disagree with you?"

It's pretty bad.
May I suggest another one?
"How does your Religion feel about killing those who break religious law"
Not your interpretation, not Apologetics, not Rabbinical law but -the ACTUAL BOOK-.

Why yes. Again, disease analogy. You live with germs all the time, but you only take antibiotics when they make you sick.

Define "sickness"

I hate to break it to you, but if images and stories aren't information, what is?

Facts?

Reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy, it's a very useful form of argument. It demonstrates that should one accept your reasoning, untenable results follow.

No, it is making the assumption that your version of the extension of someone's thoughts are accurate, and then arguing it as if it was fact.

ISIS has plenty that can be bombed right now. They couldn't fight major battles if they didn't.

And what has been the result?

The goal isn't to kill X number of them, but to deny them any form of territory control. ISIS' strength - decentralization - becomes their weakness if they are prevented from coalescing into a coherent force and denied control of resources that enable them to fight on a large scale. Strip them of territory and oil fields, and they're just another Middle Eastern militia. Keep them from making gains for a few years, and they will disintegrate into a bunch of rival gangs. They might still wave the black flag from the fringes after that, but as a small-scale local threat without territory or financial clout, they'll be manageable.

Isn't that what they are doing now?

I don't care a whole lot whether or not you include your own country into the general West-blaming. I will simply point out that a hands-off approach is not a realistic option. As Europe has recently found out, you can bend over backwards to not be involved in the Middle East, but the Middle East will come right over and get you involved.

Well, good thing I never said that, and it is merely a fantasy of your Absurd reasoning.

So how come it worked in Sri Lanka?

The Tamil Tigers had no religious impetus?

Like I said, it's not the point to exterminate any and all germs. Some of them are even beneficial until you develop an auto-immune disorder. All you need to do is manage the ones that make you sick, and only until they stop.

Yeah, still not seeing your point here.
I get your correlation, I am not sure about your definition of what is a "good" or "bad" germ.

[Womble]

There, finally something that is less conjecture:

San Bernardino shooter supported ISIS, was 'fixated' on Israel, father says

A reliable source with a name attached to it - father of the male shooter.

Yes, let's stick with the headline and not read the rest.

From the article:

Over the weekend, Farook's father told an Italian newspaper that his son supported ISIS' ideology of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

"He said he shared the ideology of (ISIS leader Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi to create an Islamic state, and he was fixated on Israel," the elder Farook told La Stampa newspaper...

Jew-hating is the favorite bigotry of pretty much every terrorist out there. They're all fixated on Israel because Israel represents that feared modernity that makes Islamic supremacy impossible.

[Womble]

I don't care, Aryan did not come from Germany, and certainly not from then.

Doesn't matter. We're not discussing anthropology but the roots of Nazism.

I want you to think outside the staid little box you live in.

Thinking outside the box is my specialty. I come from a generation that had its box taken away. It's one of the reasons why we communicate so poorly - out-of-the box thinking requires challenging conventional wisdom, in which you're stuck like Obama in Afghanistan.

And Indian, and Roman, but lets ignore them..........

I agree, the fewer irrelevancies, the better.

I agree with you, I merely apply your logic to a somewhat longer timeframe than you seem to be willing to do.

See above. The fewer irrelevancies, the better.

How long do you want me to wait for a Pagan to deny your charge?

As long as it takes.

As for leaving records, well, it's hard to leave records when your storehouses of knowledge get burned, and your religion is systematically annihilated, especially those who would hold the Oral traditions of a people.
But sure, they left no records...............

Oh, the few cultures who left a written record wrote of some major horrors. The Greeks and the Romans were Pagans and wrote profusely of massacres, child sacrifice, slaves buried alive with their dead owners and wives with their dead husbands. Indian polytheist occasionally practice human sacrifice to this day; there were at least three cases since 2003. That's not ancient history. And don't get me started on the famously brutal Aztec religion, or on non-Islamic Africa, where polytheist tribes sacrificed hundreds, and sometimes thousands, in annual rituals.

LOL!!!
I did not realise you could spell Atheism as Totalitarian.
You might need to check a dictionary.
Lack of belief in a divine being in no way forces anyone to kill anything.

Neither does the presense of such a belief.

You can judge it for yourself, you cannot judge it for anyone else. To Judge for everyone else is to employ secular law, something that -should- apply to all equally, regardless of belief.

But I don't need to care who thinks what. There's always someone out there whose morality is outlandish; why would I need to accomodate them? ISIS is bad in my judgement, and anyone who disagrees with it argues from a completely warped moral viewpoint.

It's pretty bad.
May I suggest another one?
"How does your Religion feel about killing those who break religious law"
Not your interpretation, not Apologetics, not Rabbinical law but -the ACTUAL BOOK-.

Oh, I call nonsense on that one. Completely shameless, self-serving, cretinous and - yes I'll go there - willingly malicious nonsense. Your viewpoint is so untenable that you want to completely dismiss the religion's PRACTICE in order to find some theoretical way to blanketly vilify it.

Religion's practice is what matters, nothing else. The way it is applied is what does or doesn't make it a threat. A man who speaks nicely while committing murder is a villain; a man who curses everyone but harms no one is a harmless curiosity.

You're not qualified to judge "the actual book" if your concept of reading is too infantile to understand the simple fact that an act of reading is inherently an act of interpretation, and "the actual book" is interaction between the text and the reader. What you bring with you when reading the book - your prior knowledge base, your particular associative ties, your prejudices - determines how you understand it. The "rabbinical interpretation" is centuries worth of accumulated interpretative work, and you want to dismiss it because your deficient knowledge of subject matter produces a reading more favorable to your prejudices?

Tell you what. If you think you can read and not interprete, go get your Nobel Prize. If they don't give you one, go back to school to learn some basics.

No, it is making the assumption that your version of the extension of someone's thoughts are accurate, and then arguing it as if it was fact.

So you've failed formal logic too, Google help you?

The Tamil Tigers had no religious impetus?

They had a nationalist one which is just as strong. That wasn't what made a difference.

Yeah, still not seeing your point here.
I get your correlation, I am not sure about your definition of what is a "good" or "bad" germ.

You're not sure if ISIS are good or bad?

[LtColCarter]

Why do I feel like I'm reading a transcript of the republicant debates?

[Womble]

Panel casts doubt on U.S. propaganda efforts against ISIS

The State Department is considering scaling back its direct involvement in online campaigns to discredit the Islamic State after a review by outside experts cast new doubt on the U.S. government’s ability to serve as a credible voice against the terrorist group’s propaganda, current and former U.S. officials said.

...he review group, which included veterans of Google, Twitter and other technology companies, endorsed State Department initiatives to enlist Middle Eastern allies in the propaganda war as well as a campaign that called attention to often-harrowing accounts from Islamic State defectors.

But the team “had serious questions about whether the U.S. government should be involved in overt messaging at all,” said a U.S. official briefed on the group’s findings. The group’s skepticism reflected concern about U.S. credibility with Muslim audiences overseas as well as the scant evidence that the State program has diminished the flow of recruits to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.

...The U.S. counter-messaging operation “is in disarray,” said Will McCants, an expert on the Islamic State at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser to the State Department. Among those involved in messaging efforts, McCants said, “morale is low, and they’re not getting any clarity from the top about what they’re supposed to be doing.”

The fight against ISIS by non-military means isn't going any better than the fight by military means, because the current US government is just as inept at soft power as they are at hard power.

I'm really dreading the 2016 American elections. No matter who wins this time round, the world loses. Clinton might actually turn out to be the lesser evil if Trump really comes out on top as the Republican candidate.

[Womble]

Why do I feel like I'm reading a transcript of the republicant debates?

Hey Gatefan, we're both Republicans now! How do you feel about that?

[LtColCarter]

Hey Gatefan, we're both Republicans now! How do you feel about that?

I didn't call you republicants...however...it just seems like a bunch of pointless bickering (which is what happens at the republicant debates).

W: I'm right

GF: No, I'm right!

W: No, I'm right. You're infantile!

[pookey]

My dads bigger than your dad

[Annoyed]

The fight against ISIS by non-military means isn't going any better than the fight by military means, because the current US government is just as inept at soft power as they are at hard power.

What do you expect with a "community organizer in chief" calling the shots?

I'm really dreading the 2016 American elections. No matter who wins this time round, the world loses. Clinton might actually turn out to be the lesser evil if Trump really comes out on top as the Republican candidate.

ISIS could turn out to be the best thing for the Republicans, and Trump in particular. If they maintain or increase their activity level, it's going to make it damned near impossible for the Democrats to win, no matter who they run. Historically, Republicans have been perceived as being stronger on national defense than the Democrats.
And Trump's incredible popularity clearly indicate that his message is resonating with a lot of voters.
ISIS just might end up handing Trump the keys to the White House.

[Falcon Horus]

If Trump becomes rhe next president, America will be lost and Putin will cheer.

[jelgate]

Trump or Clinton, they are all terrible choices for president. I really don't like any the candidates as they are either extreme right or extreme left

[SoulReaver]

I really don't like any the candidates as they are either extreme right or extreme left

extreme center ftw

[aretood2]

What do you expect with a "community organizer in chief" calling the shots?

If only there was a candidate that knew about foreign policy....whose name rhymed with Tubio...Nah, we want someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject and whose claim to fame is inheriting his riches from his parents who did everything to spoil him.

ISIS could turn out to be the best thing for the Republicans, and Trump in particular. If they maintain or increase their activity level, it's going to make it damned near impossible for the Democrats to win, no matter who they run. Historically, Republicans have been perceived as being stronger on national defense than the Democrats.
And Trump's incredible popularity clearly indicate that his message is resonating with a lot of voters.
ISIS just might end up handing Trump the keys to the White House.

You are right that fascists (Or populists really) tend to be the most militaristic and go after their enemies with fierce determination...even if they may not know much about their enemies as is the case with Trump.

If Trump becomes rhe next president, America will be lost and Putin will cheer.

Trump would isolate the US much like Putin is isolating Russia. Picking fights with major trading partners, insulting the people of major allies, and refusing to give actual tangible support to Israel.