US Politics/Biden Presidency (Trump-free zone)

[StevO]

4 hours ago, RPG said:

It might be 'off topic' but we are still Evertonians discussing the subject are we not?

I am not suggesting we should all have the same views. I am not suggesting we shouldn't express our different views. But there is a tendency from some to attack others who don't agree with them.

I thought we were better than that.

So what has us being Evertonians got to do with anything then? It’s completely irrelevant. 

[MikeO]

On 09/01/2020 at 10:37, holystove said:

Another Boeing goes down.   Do you fly Boeings (the 737 MAX perhaps?) ?  Any difference in safety with Airbus planes?

I think corporate manslaughter charges could be justified...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51058929

[Palfy]

On 10/01/2020 at 19:31, TallPaul1878 said:

What you have to understand is that for a great many Americans they had just had 8 years of Democrat rule. Further expansion of war in the middle east, further decay of the fly over states and for them it was just about having something different. Hillary absolutely represented more of the same and that was something that, obviously, a great many people didn't want.

Without blowing my own trumpet I predicted Trump to win, I predicted Brexit, I predicted a massive victory for the Conservatives in the election just gone and, unless of some big developments, I'm gonna call another term for Trump.

For the vast majority of Americans the issues around Trump are irrelevant. Democrats are pushing ever further left, having candidates speaking in Spanish to pander to the latino vote, pursuing a partisan impeachment on what appear to be trumped up charges. The middle ground is not with the Democrats and they have no figurehead who can take Trump on.

There was a study done based on policy position amongst the two major parties. Whilst both had shifted further on the political spectrum it showed that the Democrats had shifted significantly more to the left than the Republicans had shifted to the right. Socialism is just a really hard sell in the USA and the Democrats have gotten the reputation of being the party of minorities and "woke" culture.

For the ordinary American, as it is in the UK, social issues like gay marriage, abortion rights etc just really don't matter. They don't put food on the table and keep the mortgages paid. The Democrats, just as the Labour Party in Britain, have managed to give themselves the reputation of being anti white working class and if they keep up with that they are doomed to failure.

Calling your opponents deplorables, racists, bigots and Nazis is hardly endearing. The vast majority of people are liberal leaning, live and let live. Unfortunately the left leaning parties have seen fit to push a social marxists agenda and embarked upon a purity spiral where they eat their own.

I’m not going to give you a dislike for what you said Paul, because I know how they have hurt you now and in the past, but I do think you are wrong and the best way I can prove that to you is by looking at who gave you a like. 

[StevO]

On 12/01/2020 at 20:21, RPG said:

It should dictate the level of courtesy and respect shown between us when discussing emotive subjects on which we  may have contrary opinions.

In most cases, to be fair, it does. But in too many cases it does not. And that risks turning the board into a left wing, mutual back slapping echo chamber where no contrary views can be accepted. And where no people with contrary views will bother posting. If that's what the guys that run the board want, then that is fine but you will never get a rounded discussion of any 'off topic' subject if that is the path chosen.

Paul already looks to have abandoned this thread because of it and he has my support.

 

On any subject, football or otherwise, for over a decade we have all argued and often in groups who agree and groups who don’t. We have lost members, we have gained members, this place is what it is. We all agree on many things, we all disagree on many things, mods included, but it’s still here. We all keep coming back. 
We don’t have to agree, we can argue, there has always been a level of civility that makes us different, and often a whole lot friendlier, than other Everton based websites. So much so that over the years we’ve had many contributors who are not Evertonians. 

No one has to stay, no one has to come back, very few are made to leave. If you don’t enjoy it why are you coming here?

Paul enjoys it, I know he does, he’s all over the Everton based topics and being a big contributor to the main threads in here. I doubt Paul will leave TT because some people don’t agree with his views on the US. 

This community works, if it didn’t I would’ve have been here for nearly 15 years. 

[Palfy]

2 hours ago, StevO said:

On any subject, football or otherwise, for over a decade we have all argued and often in groups who agree and groups who don’t. We have lost members, we have gained members, this place is what it is. We all agree on many things, we all disagree on many things, mods included, but it’s still here. We all keep coming back. 
We don’t have to agree, we can argue, there has always been a level of civility that makes us different, and often a whole lot friendlier, than other Everton based websites. So much so that over the years we’ve had many contributors who are not Evertonians. 

No one has to stay, no one has to come back, very few are made to leave. If you don’t enjoy it why are you coming here?

Paul enjoys it, I know he does, he’s all over the Everton based topics and being a big contributor to the main threads in here. I doubt Paul will leave TT because some people don’t agree with his views on the US. 

This community works, if it didn’t I would’ve have been here for nearly 15 years. 

Buggered if you do buggered if you don’t, opinions can’t be equally split on all subjects, regardless if it’s football religion or politics, we are fundamentally here as Everton supporters and can’t always agree on Everton issues, sometimes it’s light hearted sometimes it’s toxic, so to expect political discussions to be tame and inoffensive I feel would be an ask to much, it doesn’t happen between those running the government and opposition parties why would you expect it to be any different here. 
 

 

 

[Palfy]

36 minutes ago, TallPaul1878 said:

Don't worry lads I'm not gonna cry off because of a disagreement on the boards.

I didn’t think you would and I don’t know how that suggestion came about, I think you’re a very good poster who gives insightful views that encourages debate, not everyone is going to agree with you or like what you say that’s par for the course, but you know that so I’m sure it won’t be a problem and you will carry on as previously. 
Any how what’s the point of leaving everyone comes back eventually

[Palfy]

Just now, TallPaul1878 said:

Sometimes you need to take a step back. Especially when you are tired

[Sibdane]

41 minutes ago, RPG said:

No argument with your basic premise but when it comes to the subjects, particularly, of Trump and Brexit, some people have problems containing their prejudices and lines of decency can get crossed.

I could turn your argument right back on those very people regarding not leaving the community. We are citizens of a democratic community (Country). The democratic decision in UK is to have Johnson as PM (by a massive majority) and to leave EU, and the democratic decision in USA is to have Trump as President.

Noone has to stay in these communities (Countries) if they don't like those democratic decisions. If people don't enjoy it, why do they stay?

I think people are more concerned about how they got elected in a lot of cases. 

Also, that last sentence is bonkers. It's not so easy to just up and move to a different country because you don't like the one you're in. 

[Palfy]

39 minutes ago, Sibdane said:

I think people are more concerned about how they got elected in a lot of cases. 

Also, that last sentence is bonkers. It's not so easy to just up and move to a different country because you don't like the one you're in. 

If we don’t like them doesn’t mean we should runaway from them, those with some balls don’t runaway from decisions they don’t agree with they stay, stand up and fight them.

[StevO]

3 hours ago, RPG said:

No argument with your basic premise but when it comes to the subjects, particularly, of Trump and Brexit, some people have problems containing their prejudices and lines of decency can get crossed.

I could turn your argument right back on those very people regarding not leaving the community. We are citizens of a democratic community (Country). The democratic decision in UK is to have Johnson as PM (by a massive majority) and to leave EU, and the democratic decision in USA is to have Trump as President.

Noone has to stay in these communities (Countries) if they don't like those democratic decisions. If people don't enjoy it, why do they stay?

You may have the means to get up and leave. If I don’t like how things are in the UK I can’t go anywhere. I have a family and friends here that I couldn’t leave.

Id love to move abroad but it’s not financially, or strategically, possible for myself and my wife to do that.

[Sibdane]

1 hour ago, RPG said:

Some have done it.

Looking at the levels of faux hand wringing from some, it would maybe seem that they should leave, no matter how 'difficult' it is to do so.

And your first sentence is bonkers. You can't complain about the rules after you have lost.

 

Yes... I can. Free speech and all that. I also believe there was interferance in our election of Trump, but keep taking the government at face value. 

[Sibdane]

1 hour ago, RPG said:

Agreed. But the conduct of the fight is bonkers and below the belt from some people. And, it hasn't worked for them, which just seems to wind them up even more.

In some cases it is an 'entitled generation' phenomena I think, and they will grow up eventually,  but UK is either a democracy or it is not and all democratic decisions should be respected - not just the one's you might agree with.

Democracy is not a perfect system. Someone who blindly follows the government just because it is labeled a certain way really doesn't understand the inherent nature of mankind.

[Sibdane]

1 hour ago, RPG said:

I like Churchill's quote on democracy.

'Democracy is a terrible way to run a country - until you consider the alternatives!'

Anyone who doesn't understand this and can't accept democracy (including its failings) doesn't understand the value of freedom or the price that others have paid so that he might enjoy it.

 

59 minutes ago, RPG said:

Ok, let me expand. You can't legitimately complain about the rules after you have lost.

You're so wrong. I'm a white male. I completely understand what it means to live freely. Let me add that I come from a military family... those who have lost loves defending MY country. 

And yes, any "complaining" that I do is legitimate. Otherwise, your view of democracy is twisted. 

[Sibdane]

Funny thing is I respect Churchill to an extent, but you're quoting someone who was alive, what, 50ish years ago? How much has changed since then? @RPG

[Palfy]

Churchill’s quote still rings true today democracy is a process, democracy doesn’t mean every decision voted on has to be upheld in the minds and actions of everyone. 
We, well not all of us live in a country where we have freedom of speech were the minority has a right to challenge the majority, were we are allowed to challenge the people we put in positions of power. 
Not to be able to do theses things is not a democratic society or a democracy, it would be an authoritarian state, and what Churchill refers to in his speech, is the sacrifices people have given for us to enjoy freedom, against the alternative of at the time the Nazi state. 
He was definitely not advocating that you have to accept every decision voted on and won that you don’t agree with, more to the contrary he was saying you have the freedom to argue against decisions you don’t agree with. 
You could go to these Middle East countries and have no freedom of speech and be a shadow of your former self, that’s entirely your choice. 
But would Churchill be happy that British national’s were in someways helping to legitimise and prop up regimes that have some of the worse human rights in the world, that offer you no freedom of speech, that offer you no say in how or who leads the country, that’s no way to respect or remember the people who Churchill was referring to, the ones who gave up there lives for world freedom in a world war, many people on here show them respect by using there freedom of speech, and I for one thank them for that because that is what they gave there lives up for freedom. 

[Chach]

15 hours ago, TallPaul1878 said:

I find talking to progressives really difficult. I get the impression that they act in bad faith, the constant demand for examples etc just has you chasing your tail rather than them trying to take on board and understand your thoughts and feelings.

Its very hard to engage with someone when they give sweeping generalisations that can be unpicked very easily, you can't have a proper discussion until you get to a substantive argument and taking the extreme examples of the left (or right) and then projecting that onto the whole group as the basis of your argument is actually acting in bad faith and a strawman.

The fact of the matter is that it's been demonstrated that peoples politics are not even based on reason, Hume first posited this in his Treatise on Human Nature in the 18th century and all the evidence since has confirmed that people rely on intuition first based on which of the six moral foundations they favour (via genes and then adaptaion by experience)  and then reason in a post hoc fashion to justify their intuition like a politicians press secretary.

Left leaning people make the common mistaken accusation that conservatives don't care about other people or are racist because they are concerned about levels of immigration but the research shows they just value other moral foundations such as in loyalty and authority equally/more.  

These are mine (green) hard to for me to argue that I am a balanced so I have committed in the Brexit/Trump era to try and understand conservatives positions more, but to do that you lot also need to understand us more and have arguments that appeal to our sentiments as well as your own.

 

 

[Sibdane]

1 hour ago, RPG said:

I think not.

Your complaining is akin to losing the Superbowl to a vastly superior team and then complaining about the rules of American Football. If you choose to play the game you are honour bound to play by the rules. It is very bad form to complain about the rules after you have played the game and been soundly beaten.

I am not going to get involved in a contest with you over military backgrounds other than to say I am a former military pilot and have a strong military background in my family. I believe this has led me to respect my freedoms in a more appreciative way than some others.

I also play by the rules and accept democratic outcomes no matter which side of the result I am on. Democracy relies on loser's consent. Without it there is no democracy and that would be bad for everyone - including those that refused to accept it.

Another terrible analogy from you, because you assume that just because the rules are in place then they are followed at all times.  

[Sibdane]

17 minutes ago, RPG said:

What I am saying is that if you are going to play the game you play by the rules. You come across as thinking you can make the rules up to suit your own agenda as you go along - even after the event. If you really believe you can do that then there is no point in discussing further with you. Or are you advocating cheating as an acceptable mode of behaviour?

It's called being responsible and accepting the democratic outcome when you lose as well as when you win. If you are unwilling and/or unable to do that then you have no structure or consistency to any position as you will blow with the wind to try to suit your own narrative and it then becomes pointless debating with you.

The analogy is good.

No, of course I don't advocate cheating, but according to your responses you pretend it's not possible. 

Your analogy is garbage. 

Edit: you're a politicians' dream. 

[Sibdane]

6 minutes ago, RPG said:

Then you agree that if you play the game that you play by the rules. Any fouls committed during the game are penalised during the game. That means that you should accept the result.

The analogy is good.

Are you really that naive and can't understand what I'm saying? As a supporter of soccer (football) then surely you understand that the system isn't perfect.

Football is small scale in comparison, but there are many wrong decisions made. This then applies to larger scale issues. 

[Sibdane]

4 minutes ago, RPG said:

I am not naive at all. Of course no system is perfect but it has to be applied universally and consistently despite any failings. That is why I caveated my comments on democracy with 'despite its failings.' Otherwise we leave ourselves open to nothing ever being achieved as there will always be an active minority group  claiming a foul somewhere or other. They may be right in a small isolated instance but not to the extent that it would alter the outcome. That is why we are honour bound to accept the democratic results given by the electorate - even if we don't like them.

Like I said, you're a politicians' dream. 

[Chach]

I like how conservatives keep on claiming that there is "left wing" inertia against Brexit when it's probably one of the most left wing things to happen to the UK in modern history.

The Tory party has now moved so far to the left on economic policy that one wonders if there will be any space for a new post-Corbyn Labour party to occupy once it recovers, the European Union is the biggest experiment in free market capitalism since Adam Smith.

A vote for Brexit was not a vote for capitalism it was a vote for protectionism, not a vote for conservatism but a vote for National Populism.

[holystove]

12 minutes ago, RPG said:

If the EU had restricted itself to the free market (we only joined a Common Market, remember) then I would probably agree with you.

But being led by the nose, one inch (sorry, cm) at a time through a process of creeping Federalism and loss of Sovereignty towards a United States of Europe is where EU has shot itself in the foot with UK.

A vote for brexit was quite simply a vote for Patriotism and Retention of Sovereignty. We want our country back. We are very happy, indeed, keen, to maintain cordial relations with all the countries of Europe. We just want to do it as an independent Sovereign country. There is nothing Nationalistic in that whatsoever.

The biggest protectionist racket in the world is the EU itself.

Economic integration requires political integration.  You can't have common rules, if there is no political platform to discuss what those rules should be.   Increased cooperation (= federalism) is therefor a natural process.  

All countries in the EU are sovereign; being an EU member increases their sovereingty as it allows them to project power beyond what they would achieve alone.  

The EU, aside from being the biggest single market in itself, has, by far, the most free trade deals in the world of any economic entity.  Your statement it is the most protectionist is one of the more meaningless you have made on here.

 

[Chach]

I also like how @TallPaul1878 is now just downvoting any posts that are rebutting his Daily Mail talking points rather than engaging honestly, even when said posts help explain why he so taken in by Daily Mail talking points. 

[StevO]

If you could suck yourself off, would you?

Wrong thread?

[Palfy]

4 hours ago, StevO said:

If you could suck yourself off, would you?

Wrong thread?

brilliant. 
If he could it would be far better than anyone else. 

[Palfy]

8 hours ago, RPG said:

No, just an honest man who trusts the electorate!

that takes the biscuit you win

[Palfy]

5 hours ago, RPG said:

And, it is all academic now anyway as we will be out of EU in a couple of weeks - thank God.

What’s with the royal we you weren’t in it anyway, getting above your station again.

[Palfy]

16 minutes ago, RPG said:

You do spout some tosh Palfy. My British passport and 17.4 million plus other people says otherwise. I am just as British as you (I assume you are British) and am not going over old ground with you again on this matter.

Have another Rijoca pal.

When it comes down to the facts of the matter, you’re just a spectator in British politics your not a contributor, you don’t have a vote or say on the future direction of the country, so again what’s with the we business. 

[Palfy]

13 minutes ago, RPG said:

Because I am a British citizen, have the right to live and work in UK, hold a British passport and spent 12 years in the Forces doing my very small bit to preserve the freedom of people such as yourself to spout the rubbish that you do.

One does not have to be resident in a country to be impacted by the events within it.

And, at 11-00pm on 31st January I shall be cracking open a bottle of champagne.

That’s freedom of speech and my right to express my opinion, just because it doesn’t suit your agenda tough. 
Now I’m sticking you back on ignore because you’re boring me again. 

[Chach]

I also like how reactionaries are still trying to claim that Brexit has something to do with sovereignty and our relationship with the EU when you can't find a single poll pre-vote where those things were registering seriously in the concerns of voters.

How many of those 17.4m (+ Reactionary Party Guru) are going to be disappointed when they realise the immigration continues, the economy is contracting and the Tory party are now New Labour 2.0.