2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
Yeah. I'm not bothered that someone I consider a terrible person and an existential threat was almost shot, so apparently I also shouldn't be bothered if his opponent is almost shot. Because that's how logic works when you are a very smart person.
lol existential threat. I got some news for you, Trump was already president once.
I want some government I am not an anarchist, I am what these days is called a minarchist, but can also be called a Classic liberal.
as I said more than once, I want the count of government which was common in late 19th century in the USA or Australia.
btw an oligarchy will always happen no matter the orga izational system, it's an inherent byproduct of pyramidal hierarchy which is an unavoidable element of all complex societies.
a few people
Not really sure how to respond to this beyond... ya, ok. I think pretty much everyone understands this. That's kind of the whole point of democracy, homie. To put a check on centralized wealth, which the wealthy have fought at every step of countries becoming democratized. The wealthy hate democracy.
Now take it one step farther, and you're almost there. Ask yourself again, why do Republican talking points align so closely w/ with how to limit democracy, and government in general?
You can do it.
And just so there's no confusion. Democrats have plenty of people bought off as well, but they are the only opposition party to no holds barred oligarchy. What you're seeing happen right now in America didn't happen overnight. It happened from decades of think tank apparatuses, grooming of judges from early law school on, aimed at allowing the free flow of money into politics, via rulings like Citizens united, Buckley vs Velejo, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, etc... removing regulations and allowing for consolidation of industries to remove competition.
They don't want democracy. The "deep state" came out of those think tanks, like the Heritage foundation, Cato institute, etc... and their media networks. Democracy is pointless if there's a deep state that doesn't play by the rules. You obviously can't remove it via the levers of democracy, so democracy has to be thrown out.
That's where we're at.
That's kind of the whole point of democracy, homie. To put a check on centralized wealth, which the wealthy have fought at every step of countries becoming democratized. The wealthy hate democracy.
gonna have to ask you to show your work on this one, perhaps even start a new thread so it doesn't take this one too far off topic
but nothing i've seen would ever confirm that to be true and most examples of mine even counter it
the founding fathers themselves were all insanely wealthy people
gonna have to ask you to show your work on this one, perhaps even start a new thread so it doesn't take this one too far off topic
but nothing i've seen would ever confirm that to be true and most examples of mine even counter it
the founding fathers themselves were all insanely wealthy people
Just to be clear, I'm not saying all wealthy people. But nearly all do. The founding fathers were mostly against democracy. This was a huge point of contention. Just read some of the Federalist papers, especially by Madison. Haven't you watched Hamilton? 😉 What do you think the compromises were to ensure that wealthy landowners still had mostly had the greatest say? Hint, hint... it's a big topic today.
I don't think this needs it's own topic. It honestly really should be common sense if you just listen to what these people are asking for. All you have to do is read any proposed legislation by ALEC, and ask yourself... who benefits, what's the short term and long term goal of this proposed legislation?
It's not difficult to sleuth through this. What do most people w/ insane amounts of wealth want?
I don't think anyone is normalizing violence toward presidential candidates. What we don't know though is how often in the present and in the past attempts haven't been made because security was tight enough.
We don't even know if things are worse these days (in the potential, threat sense) than in the past, which could be true, but maybe there were always people willing to try to kill candidates, but they didn't manage to get close enough ,
He had a number of threats against him including serious conspiracies. Threatening to kill would-be presidents and presidents is a fairly common thing in the US.
Which if you look at how US was founded in the first place and the fact we fought a civil war shouldn’t be surprising.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying all wealthy people. But nearly all do. The founding fathers were mostly against democracy. This was a huge point of contention. Just read some of the Federalist papers, especially by Madison. Haven't you watched Hamilton? 😉 What do you think the compromises were to ensure that wealthy landowners still had mostly had the greatest say? Hint, hint... it's a big topic today.
I don't think this needs it's own top
this is not showing your work
i actually have read all of the federalist papers and all other major documents of that time
yes they put in a lot of restrictions such as you needed to be a white man and a landowner - but being an agricultural society, roughly 90% of the colonists owned at least a small piece of land at the time of doing that
you're also discounting how establishing a monarchy would have been the simple and straightforward transition and that was by far the path of least resistance
you're also wholly ignoring that democracy is basically founded upon capitalism and letting wealthy individuals operate freely without interference from the state - in no other system do the oligarchs have anywhere close to as much autonomy as in democracy - under all other systems they are either persecuted or directly under government control - you're thinking about being the family which is in power, well that's fleeting a family which may be in power this generation could be wiped out and stripped of everything in the subsequent generation - whereas in a democracy they can continuously operate generation after generation without much interference
there's absolutely zero reliable evidence backing up your thesis and mountains outright refuting it
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/
if you look at a list of the wealthiest people in the world, 17 of the top 25 are american, the very first on the list from a non democratic country in the founder of tiktok at #27, at #33 there's another Chinese tech guy and then you have some in Hong Kong at #38, #63, 89 more Chinese tech guys at #46, #57, #80, #81, and a Russian at #70, #76, 85, 86 & 91
that's the entirety of the top 100 wealthiest in the world, from outside democracies and it's mostly chinese versions of zuck and bezos
most either dont care that he was shot at or wanted a different outcome.
at the very least I would guess that every one of them except you would be much more appalled and outraged at an attempt on Kamala. thats fine and all but I just point out their hypocrisy.
Pure conjecture .
But at least y admit u guessed …….just wrongly .
I don't think anyone is normalizing violence toward presidential candidates. What we don't know though is how often in the present and in the past attempts haven't been made because security was tight enough.
We don't even know if things are worse these days (in the potential, threat sense) than in the past, which could be true, but maybe there were always people willing to try to kill candidates, but they didn't manage to get close enough ,
U normalize violence in almost every situation .
U call it a normal human behaviour ….
this is not showing your work
i actually have read all of the federalist papers and all other major documents of that time
yes they put in a lot of restrictions such as you needed to be a white man and a landowner - but being an agricultural society, roughly 90% of the colonists owned at least a small piece of land at the time of doing that
you're also discounting how establishing a monarchy would have been the simple and straightforward trans
Well, that makes a lot of sense on why you're confused on so many topics. If this is your world view, and you don't think wealthy people want unregulated power, I don't think it's incumbent upon me to "show my work", and make you understand something that all of history has proven over and over.
You don't have to overly complicate this. Just look at America. What happened when monopolies formed, why did it happen, what was the language used to justify the legislation at the time? Is it the same or similar as today, and so on...
I guess your reasoning is, look, 17 of the top 25 wealthiest people are American. Wealthy people must love democracy. You're not getting it. Those people have been whittling away at democracy. That's how they got so insanely wealthy. This isn't some binary thing where there's either democracy or there isn't. There's degrees.
This is kind of an interesting topic on the whole though, because I've found this to be EXTREMELY consistent all through my life when talking politics w/ conservatives. I know you don't consider yourself conservative, Rick, but...
Some form of this same world view comes out, which is so interesting to me honestly. There seems to be missing some basic connections (or perhaps denials about human nature), about what the end goals are for insanely wealthy people. And I concluded some time ago, that if you don't get this genesis correct, your whole political philosophy will be off imho.
You can make this even simpler to understand Rick. Who came up w/ "the deep state"?
It depends on who you are and how you came to be wealthy, but in general I would not rate this as a true statement. Sure, if you are a member of the Saudi royal family, you don't have much interest in democracy because your wealth largely depends on the maintenance of an archaic system of government.
But by and large, the wealthy of the world favor stability and not having their **** taken. All things considered, democracies tend to be more stable, and more concerned about things like due process, than non-democracies.
It depends on who you are and how you came to be wealthy, but in general I would not rate this as a true statement. Sure, if you are a member of the Saudi royal family, you don't have much interest in democracy because your wealth largely depends on the maintenance of an archaic system of government.
But by and large, the wealthy of the world favor stability and not having their **** taken. All things considered, democracies tend to be m
Ya, so this is the tricky thing, because of course you're correct. Democracies in general create more stability, which in turn allows for more stable investment of capital and wealth. 100% agree with you... but that's the thing I think people miss. Wealthy people don't always follow sane logic.
You can look at America, and even some of the billionaire class (Buffet, Cuban, et.c.) are trying to let the rest of the billionaire class know that if they continue down the path of tax reduction and deregulation, you're going to tear it all down. But that's the rub... they can't control themselves. Why do we have think tanks creating boogie men like "the deep state", and funding politicans that have openly orchestrated a failed coup?
By your sane reasoning, you'd be correct. But that's not what's actually happening.
This is weird (i.e., terrible) logic.
Trump obviously isn't an existential threat to our species, but the fact that he has been president and we are still here doesn't prove the point.
To take a very extreme example, imagine that we had a super weapon that had the ability to create black holes. 5 times out of six, if the weapon is activated, it will malfunction and do nothing. But one time out of six, it will create a black hole that swallows the earth.
If we activated the weapon one time and it malfunctioned, would you be in here arguing that the weapon wasn't an existential threat?
If your conclusion isn't "both sides same", you might as well be trying to teach your puppy quantum mechanics.
Ya, so this is the tricky thing, because of course you're correct. Democracies in general create more stability, which in turn allows for more stable investment of capital and wealth. 100% agree with you... but that's the thing I think people miss. Wealthy people don't always follow sane logic.
You can look at America, and even some of the billionaire class (Buffet, Cuban, et.c.) are trying to let the rest of the billionaire class know that
Tax reduction and deregulation may be bad policy, but they are quite a distance from ending democracy.
Tax reduction and deregulation may be bad policy, but they are quite a distance from ending democracy.
Not if that's what it leads to. And to be clear, like I said previously, I don't think all wealthy people hate democracy, but most do. And even if they don't want to entirely eliminate it, they want to make sure they have more power than others, which is the definition of being antidemocratic. Do you think Peter Thiel wants his vote counted equally w/ yours?
most either dont care that he was shot at or wanted a different outcome.
at the very least I would guess that every one of them except you would be much more appalled and outraged at an attempt on Kamala. thats fine and all but I just point out their hypocrisy.
Food for thought .
Mostly liberal democrats are against capital punishment’s?
Mostly conservative republicans are for it ?
Do the same thing with gun ownership?
Who’s for killing anyone without fault with guns for trespassing or stealing 5$ ?
Both parties hold the same stance ?
Democrats are less bloodthirsty and less ready to condemn people to death but for trump it would be ok ?
If only you would actually say something more realist like democrats would actually like to see trump in prison ? Ok ….
But prison and death sentence is not the same thing .
Sorry to burst your bubble but the US isn’t Russia yet for there prison scheme aka Alex navalny .
Prison and death is still different but continue with your 2+2 = fish
This is weird (i.e., terrible) logic.
Trump obviously isn't an existential threat to our species, but the fact that he has been president and we are still here doesn't prove the point.
To take a very extreme example, imagine that we had a super weapon that had the ability to create black holes. 5 times out of six, if the weapon is activated, it will malfunction and do nothing. But one time out of six, it will create a black hole that sw
Just use the “ Russian” roulette example .
We know victor will understand that one .:p
You are smart and decent and with a moral compass, you will understand what i am talking about when the exact same strategy will keep being used after Trump, that's when you will realize it's not about Trump. You got a hint for 3-4 months when desantis had a chance to maybe with republican primaries. Takes about him being "worse than Hitler" and ofc "worse than Trump" started immediatly.
In Italy supposedly it was about Berlusconi being a un
Like conservative accusations of being silenced for their views
