General US Politics

[Phoenix Wright]

that's a surface level analysis of free trade. it breaks the number one rule of economics right off the bat: scarcity. it is absolutely impossible for everyone to be successful, because there aren't enough successful places to be. not everyone will get to do what they want for a host of reasons.

on the international level, getting to do things cheap because of a lack of worker protection laws puts you quite a ways ahead........

[Shoblongoo]

9 hours ago, Phoenix Wright said:

that's a surface level analysis of free trade. it breaks the number one rule of economics right off the bat: scarcity. it is absolutely impossible for everyone to be successful, because there aren't enough successful places to be. not everyone will get to do what they want for a host of reasons.

on the international level, getting to do things cheap because of a lack of worker protection laws puts you quite a ways ahead........

...you don’t have to be a country with low cost of labor and no protection of worker’s rights to benefit from free trade. That merely gives you a competitive advantage in the low-skill manufacturing sector--one sector of many.

But the first rule of economics is division of labor. The idea that it is horrendously inefficient for everyone to do everything and live self-sustained by their own efforts and exertions; everyone should focus on becoming skilled at doing one job and doing it with the skill and efficiency of a person who performs only that job. Then meet the totality of their needs by engaging in commerce with other persons doing other jobs. Classically: 

 

…the farmer produces food, but does not sew or forge.

…the seamstress produces clothes, but does not farm or forge.

…the blacksmith produces metalworks, but does not sew or farm

 

And by all engaging together in the stream of commerce; they collectively produce more food and clothes and metalwork at a lower cost (and to be enjoyed by more people) than if they were each on their own trying to self-sustain their own households by growing their own food AND sewing their own clothes AND making their own tools and weapons.

That is the foundation and guiding principle of what we have come to call “economy.”

Generally, if you are engaging in the stream of commerce—if you’re making money off a marketable good or service that you specialize in producing, and buying from entities that produce goods and services you do not specialize in—you are better off for it. The only people who are not strictly better off under such an arrangement are persons who have not developed a specialization in providing a marketable good or service.

…The same principle applies to international trade…

You look at countries like Germany. Japan. South Korea. Taiwan. First World democracies with strong protection of worker’s rights; they are doing phenomenally well in international trade.

Japan has developed a reputation for producing home electronics of exceptional ingenuity and quality—people will go out of their way to buy their gaming systems, cameras, televisions, and computers from Japan.

Germany has developed a reputation for excellence in mechanical engineering. People will go out of their way to drive German cars.

…then you look at a country like America...

And there isn’t really anything we specialize in doing exceptionally well anymore. (Our largest productive economic entities are military contractors and pharmaceutical companies. We make guns, tanks, and pills.)   

Once upon a time in another century, we enjoyed competitive advantage in coal and steel. We did very well in international trade because of it. And we have populists today running around telling everyone: “We’re going to put the miners back to work! We’re bringing back coal! We’re bringing back American steel!” As though the way forwards is backwards, and the problem is that we haven’t beat that dead horse long enough; not that we’ve failed to innovate and find a new competitive advantage for a new century of commerce.

…like…I’m sorry…we deserve every pounding we’re taking in international trade and every job we lose to East Asia, if at this moment in history we’re still electing leaders who tell us “We’re going to get this economy running again by cutting R&D for renewable energy—waste of tax payer money, what a scam—putting our miners back to work is going to be so great. America is going to be the world’s #1 producer of coal.”

Imagine for a moment an early 20^th century business that sells horse-drawn carriages, and develops a thriving business as the best carriage store in town. The store owner becomes very rich. Along comes this hot new thing called the automobile. The store refuses to stock and sell automobiles. Business starts failing. The store owner is presented with the opportunity to start stocking automobiles and turn his business into a car dealership. The owner says to himself: No; that’s a waste of money. I got rich selling carriages. And he not only refuses to stock and sell automobiles, he hires more carriage-makers and pays them to make more carriages, and opens five new horse-drawn carriage shops to compete with Cadillac and Buick and Ford Motors.  

…that’s sorta where America is at right now…


An unfortunate side-effect of being the world’s premier superpower for so much of the 20^th century is that we’ve romanticized the history that got us here.

And we’re making some really silly, really retrograde choices because of it. While the rest of the world is moving forward.

 

Edited June 21, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Nobody]

I'm a big fan of free trade. I live in a very protectionist country, and it's outrageous how much more expensive some goods are here, specially imported ones, and the lack of competition due to a barrier to foreign products means that a lot of what we have is of lower quality as well. It's easy to be against free trade when you live in a country that has a fairly free market, since the consequences don't seem as obvious and you get to 'keep yer jerbs', but lack of free trade makes the price of goods go up for everyone (which mainly affects people of low income) and also lower their quality.

The job loss is sort of bullshit as well. There is no known association between openess of a country's economy and its uneployment rate. Just as globalization makes some jobs 'go' elsewhere, it also creates others that wouldn't exist otherwise. The concern about free trade ending jobs in the United States as a whole is honestly quite baffling, America has a quite low uneployment rate as of now (source: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate), not much different from the lowest it has ever been. 

People who are against free trade because it ends jobs in certain areas are not much different from ones who want to keep using coal as an energy source to keep jobs. 

@Phoenix Wright

as sad as this is (and it really is), people on those countries would be working on bad conditions regardless of free trade, and in some cases free trade itself makes the conditions they work on less horrible (like in china, where the average rural worker has it much worse than people who work on industries, even if they also have it really bad). The issue here is not free trade, but the living conditions and underdevelopment of that country as a whole, and one can argue that trading with those countries improves their incomes (which it absolutely does), which slowly improves living conditions on them (again, China is a big exemple of this). Free trade brings advantages for both sides, and the losers are very few and localized in few areas and industries (e.g industry workers in the rusty belt), which can be fixed by the government improving wellfare and trying to renovate the job market in those areas through public (and private as well) investments, which would cost less than the country would get from the trades (through cheaper goods, higher gdp growth and the like). The problem with America is not the freetrade, but rather the lack of wellfare and investiments. Like, just so you know, the Scandinavian countries are very pro free trade (WAY more than America).

Edited June 21, 2017 by Nobody

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 2017-06-20 at 4:09 AM, Tryhard said:

Maybe beneficial to the economy, but not for the right people. Outsourcing isn't helping bring jobs to their respective countries and screws over many people including Mexican workers so really it only benefits the corporations because it is neoliberal trash. 'Free trade' is not free at all, and there's a reason why people are pissed at these agreements, because they are anti-worker. It's the same reason Trump's rhetoric about bringing jobs and services back to the US was popular, even if he's a complete hypocrite about it and outsources his own work.

It's saddening how many progressives flipped to disliking these free trade agreements simply because Trump also dislikes them. Removing any notion of implementing TPP is about the only thing I like that Trump did even though it was pretty much dead on arrival so I can't really give him much credit. That said, the man is swayed so easily that a phone call with the Canadian prime minister caused him to completely change what he thinks of NAFTA, even though he still plans to "renegotiate" it, whatever that means.

Trump's rhetoric about bringing jobs back to the US was popular but also completely divorced from reality. Find me an example of a country that managed to kickstart its economy/job situation via protectionism. It doesn't work. If you erect heavy tariffs on other countries' imports, they do the same to you, and this both hurts jobs in your own country and raises the cost of living. It also stymies innovation, hurting your country in the long-term. Nobody wants to create things in a walled-off economy. (See also the entirety of Nobody's post.)

If Mexico's trade with the US were bad for it, why is it that Mexicans, when polled, have consistently dreaded a Trump presidency? If NAFTA were "neoliberal trash" then these Mexican workers would welcome Trump's promise to scrap the agreement, yet they don't, and by huge margins. (One source claims 10-1 favoured Hillary Clinton over him.)

I can't speak for all progressives (and in fact consider myself only moderately progressive), but rest assured that I didn't flip on this issue recently. IMO the recent reversal on trade removes one of the few things Republicans were right about. It's also part of why I consider Trump dramatically worse than George W. Bush or Mitt Romney. Full disclosure that as a Canadian I do have a vested interest in the US maintaining trade ties. While Trump tearing up trade agreements would be bad for the US, it would be plain disastrous for Canada; international trade is simply a larger part of our economy, and a huge amount of it is with the US.

[Tryhard]

48 minutes ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

If Mexico's trade with the US were bad for it, why is it that Mexicans, when polled, have consistently dreaded a Trump presidency? If NAFTA were "neoliberal trash" then these Mexican workers would welcome Trump's promise to scrap the agreement, yet they don't, and by huge margins. (One source claims 10-1 favoured Hillary Clinton over him.)

I don't know why you're equating this, it's obvious that Mexicans don't like Trump because he said he was going to build a giant wall on the border of Mexico and they were going to pay for it. Of course they don't like him, but that doesn't say anything about what they think of protectionism, or they are taking the "full package" of Trump at face value. Nevertheless, he still did better with the Latino vote compared to Romney and around the same percentage as McCain. It is not any different then any other Republican candidate. It's likely that he did worse with public opinion of people in Mexico for obvious reasons. And of course, I was speaking of the Bernie Sanders supporters where one of his major talking points is against these free trade deals - and why unions have been attempting to fight them for years.

Edited June 24, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lord Raven]

2 hours ago, Tryhard said:

I don't know why you're equating this, it's obvious that Mexicans don't like Trump because he said he was going to build a giant wall on the border of Mexico and they were going to pay for it. Of course they don't like him, but that doesn't say anything about what they think of protectionism, or they are taking the "full package" of Trump at face value. Nevertheless, he still did better with the Latino vote compared to Romney and around the same percentage as McCain. It is not any different then any other Republican candidate. It's likely that he did worse with public opinion of people in Mexico for obvious reasons. And of course, I was speaking of the Bernie Sanders supporters where one of his major talking points is against these free trade deals - and why unions have been attempting to fight them for years.

How many of those Latino voters were Cuban? Because I imagine older Cubans tend to vote more conservative, and some may not be fond of Obama relaxing restrictions.

[Tryhard]

5 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

How many of those Latino voters were Cuban? Because I imagine older Cubans tend to vote more conservative, and some may not be fond of Obama relaxing restrictions.

That's true, but I wasn't really able to find any further breakdown than "Latino/Hispanic" support anywhere.

[Skynstein]

10 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

How many of those Latino voters were Cuban? Because I imagine older Cubans tend to vote more conservative, and some may not be fond of Obama relaxing restrictions.

Largest community of Cuban Americans in the US is in Florida by far. The others are negligible and live in states where Latinos are more likely to vote Democrat.

Edited June 24, 2017 by Cerberus87

[Tryhard]

In case it wasn't obvious how shit the proposed healthcare bill is, there was a segment on MSNBC where they spoke to the disabled people protesting Medicaid cuts, some of which were dragged out by police from protesting outside Mitch McConnell's office.

I knew it for a while and I say with no doubt that the Republican party getting what they want unconditionally would be a far larger threat to America moreso than any terrorist group could ever hope to achieve. Whether or not they could push their callous ideology through I am unsure, because they know the people will destroy them for it.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

21 hours ago, Tryhard said:

In case it wasn't obvious how shit the proposed healthcare bill is, there was a segment on MSNBC where they spoke to the disabled people protesting Medicaid cuts, some of which were dragged out by police from protesting outside Mitch McConnell's office.

Just want to say that this is not the only side of the story.  It's very easy to say budget cuts will kill people.  It's harder to say that not having any budget cuts will kill people too.  I've heard democrats and republicans say Obamacare was unstable and not likely to sustain itself long term.  Whether this is the case or not, I think everyone should think about what would happen if our health care system cannot sustain itself.  You're talking about a lot more people losing health care than this one. 

My opinion on healthcare is simple.  Very few people were actually concerned with healthcare until Obama took office.  I really think most people were fine.  Billions of dollars later, and I haven't actually seen any increase in our health care system.  Certainty no one in my friend group or family has benefited from it.  The only thing I can think of, is a friend of mine whose Mom lost a ton of money because after Obamacare went into affect, her current health care provider got so expensive she had to move to Obamacare and lost most of her benefits.  I know what you're thinking, 'just because no one I know benefited from it, doesn't mean no one did'.  But I find it hard to justify just how expensive this program is when I consider that I haven't even seen it help a single person, only hurt. 

The video of the child was very heartbreaking.  However, I believe he is over 3 years old.  I'm just wondering, how was he doing before Obamacare?  It's easy to say all these people are going to be murdered by Trumpcare, but that's quite the exaggeration.  The same goes for most of the people that were disabled in that video.  Am I to believe that every one of these people have only been disabled for 3 years?  For those wondering, 3 years is how old most of Obamacare is.

 

I don't agree with our president on everything, but opening up health care to third parties and competition is a very good thing.  Government programs are almost always more expensive than third party programs. 

 

edit:  Also I know this thread is really old but the second poll question was silly.  No one should automatically want to vote for a third party just like no one should completely rule it out. 

Edited June 27, 2017 by Lushen

[Tryhard]

24 minutes ago, Lushen said:

My opinion on healthcare is simple.  Very few people were actually concerned with healthcare until Obama took office.  I really think most people were fine. 

45,000 people at a highest estimate were dying each year from lack of basic health care coverage. This number can be disputed, but it still a significant number of people per year.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/

Estimates place Trumpcare/The Republican healthcare bill of up to ~30,000 adding to whatever gains Obamacare made on this front:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/24/us-healthcare-republican-bill-no-coverage-death

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/06/22/434917/coverage-losses-senate-health-care-bill-result-18100-27700-additional-deaths-2026/

I am not saying that Obamacare is "good" - people are still dying because of lack of access to basic health care, and it isn't an insignificant amount. It is really a right-wing plan from Conservatives in the 90s, but it is still a step in the right direction.

The answer is unequivocally single-payer. This isn't Bahrain or some third world country, the US can do universal healthcare, and should.
 

Edit: by the way, that video was in regards to Medicaid that Republicans want to cut, which has been around far longer than Obamacare and is hugely popular.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lord Raven]

13 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Very few people were actually concerned with healthcare until Obama took office.  I really think most people were fine. 

No they didn't. Premiums and costs were rising rapidly before the ACA, and they aren't rising as quickly after the ACA, for one thing. You're hearing more complaints about healthcare precisely due to Obama's presidency coinciding with widespread social media use.

Furthermore, there have been many attempts to overhaul the system in the past 40 years, with Nixon and Kennedy in the 70s being the biggest voices about it (where they disagreed on how to implement a universal system -- with Nixon oddly enough being the single-payer voice). Hillary Clinton herself tried to get to the basis of a universal healthcare program in the 90s.

Quote

But I find it hard to justify just how expensive this program is when I consider that I haven't even seen it help a single person, only hurt. 

Counter anecdote: My dad was paying around 600-700/month (after a while of rising) before the ACA, and my sister, my mom and I could not afford insurance as a result. They found a program under the ACA that gave them good coverage on top of affordable insurance, costing around 200-250ish dollars at most per month to cover both my parents and my sister. My graduate program covers my health insurance, though. You can search around and find many similar anecdotes.

Both of our anecdotes are meaningless though, because neither of us are going into the nuances of our respective situations.

13 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I don't agree with our president on everything, but opening up health care to third parties and competition is a very good thing.  Government programs are almost always more expensive than third party programs. 

I don't understand what you're agreeing on. Trump has repeatedly said he wants government out of healthcare but he wants healthcare to be free. So which is it?

Government programs are always more expensive than third party programs? Then why has America consistently paid more for healthcare than places with universal healthcare? You can't make a broad and sweeping generalization like that without considering the reality.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Res]

5 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I don't agree with our president on everything, but opening up health care to third parties and competition is a very good thing.  Government programs are almost always more expensive than third party programs. 

How do you argue this when the U.S. spends more per capita on healthcare than any other nation? 

Also it only works if there's actual competition. I'll try and find the article I read that broke down the economics, but right now most healthcare companies exist alongside each other rather than competing against one another. Prices aren't being driven down. Whereas with some government-run health systems, competition comes from companies competing to get the only available contract. 

And personal anecdotes, etc. I was personally uninsured for a year before the AHA came into being. I've heard of it helping plenty of people, especially with regards to the lifetime caps being removed (a friend with life-long diabetes and who contracted cancer hit his lifetime limit in his early 20s) and maternity coverage (pre-AHA, another friend was bankrupted by a $60k hospital bill when his baby was unexpectedly born premature). 

Here's the impact Trump's healthcare bill could have on people with preexisting conditions, on pregnant people, and on disabled people.

[Lushen]

I'm just saying, people always see the benefits of these government programs.  The forget that it's not free, it DOES cost people money.  If it doesn't, then its unsustainable and will collapse in the future.  It is NOT as simple as whether people get the help they need or if they don't.  

I'm fine with differing viewpoints, I'm just not fine with the black and white people who think the bill is absolute garbage.  It was proposed by many talented people who have been doing this for years.  Politics aren't black and white, they're just gray.  

As for government programs being more expensive, that is because the government doesn't negotiate.   One example would be back when Trump cut the cost of fighter jets with a simple phone call.  Why no president thought about doing so before, I'll never know...  Another example would be the EPA spent millions funding a climate change....advertisement.  And many of my Civil Engineer friends talk about how overpriced new roads and bridges are.  The fact is, when the government wants things, they ask how much.  Competition will always win.  That just plain logic. 

I'm not going to change anyone's opinion on the health care bill, I wasn't trying too.  I'm just tired of not being able to have a facebook account because people tell me to kill myself for voting for Trump (yea, all the time).  There are two sides,  if you think something one side proposes has no logic, you probably aren't looking at it close enough or are watching too much Stephen Colbert. 

Edited June 27, 2017 by Lushen

[Lord Raven]

Just now, Lushen said:

I'm just saying, people always see the benefits of these government programs.  The forget that it's not free, it DOES cost people money.  If it doesn't, then its unsustainable and will collapse in the future.  It is NOT as simple as whether people get the help they need or if they don't.  

I'm fine with differing viewpoints, I'm just not fine with the black and white people who think the bill is absolute garbage.  It was proposed by many talented people who have been doing this for years.  Politics aren't black and white, they're just gray.

They know what they're doing. Their goal just isn't "a better healthcare program." Their goal is to give tax cuts to the rich and remove government assistance to the poor, because that's what keeps them in their comfy senate seat.

Trump said free, not me. I said universal coverage. The ACA is a very right-wing way to try universal coverage; the Senate's replacement is a far right wing way to give tax cuts. It's not a healthcare bill, it's a shitty funding bill

As for government programs being more expensive, that is because the government doesn't negotiate.   One example would be back when Trump cut the cost of fighter jets with a simple phone call. Why no president thought about doing so before, I'll never know...

Source?

Another example would be the EPA spent millions funding a climate change....advertisement.

Getting the message out is important.

And many of my Civil Engineers talk about how overpriced new roads and bridges are.

Source?

The fact is, when the government wants things, they ask how much.  Competition will always win.  That just plain logic.

Yes, but this doesn't explain why healthcare is cheaper everywhere else than here. You didn't address that point!

I'm not going to change anyone's opinion on the health care bill, I wasn't trying too.  I'm just tired of not being able to have a facebook account because people tell me to kill myself for voting for Trump (yea, all the time).  There are two sides,  if you think something one side proposes has no logic, you probably aren't looking at it close enough or are watching too much Stephen Colbert.

What was the purpose of this paragraph?

[Res]

I think you're misreading what we're saying. Government programs are proven to not be more expensive. We taxpayers in the U.S. already pay more in taxes to fund Medicaid (which doesn't cover everyone) than taxpayers in the UK or Canada (or insert other country of your choice) pay in taxes to cover every citizen in their countries.

And I disagree with U.S. healthcare because I actually spent 25 years in the UK experiencing and benefitting (and paying taxes for!) from the NHS...

 

 

[Tryhard]

It's something I've linked before, but even after the cuts and defunding the NHS has received in recent years in my own country (which I don't agree with at all, of course), it would still be more effective and would cost less than the US system.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/07/nhs-among-most-efficient-health-services

Hell, they even paid for my glasses for me up to the age of 18. I would honestly consider that unnecessary, but for people that can't necessarily afford a medical crisis and the following debt, is why the idea of universal healthcare is popular, with a majority of Americans supporting it. (I originally said 80% of Democrats, but I don't believe that is true on further inspection, I thought I read that but I must have been mistaken)

By the way, I edited it in but the video was in regards to Medicaid, which the Republicans plan to cut and which has been around far longer than Obamacare (and was expanded under it). 84% of Americans want Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid to stay in place.

If you're a fiscal conservative, wouldn't you support something that a) gets rid of the bloated healthcare system the US currently has for a more cost effective system and b) actually helps everyone to a basic degree, and you can get your private insurance on top of that if you want? Why can't the US, with far more resources, implement healthcare as well as these other countries?

Edited June 27, 2017 by Tryhard

[Nobody]

Republicans aren't fiscal conservative other than wanting lower taxes. The american debt has grown greatly under republican presidents, while democrats are the ones that most often than not lower it, or at least lower the defict.

See what happened to it under Bush or Reagan, and then compare to Clinton or Obama (who wasn't able to lower it much but slowed its growth by a lot.)

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp

A Trump supporter complaining about welfare costing money (which it does, no doubt, but most often than not the positive effects are much more positive), is absurdly hilarious, considering Trump supports a lot of stuff that is way more expensive than any welfare could be, including the so infamous 'wall', the tax cuts he wants to propose or the increase in military spending. Money spent on welfare is certainly better spent than on those issues. 

And again, as everyone else already said, it's possible to get a better health care system in America while spending less money, if all the developed countries can do that, i see no reason to why the USA wouldn't be able to do ot.

it's funny because most often than not Trump supports who post here post a bunch of anedocte or stuff they're not even sure about ("i feel like this, that happened to someone i know, trump wants to do this", etc), but when people reply with facts, they just go "oh, it's not so black and white, i wasn't trying to change anyone's opinions, please don't demonize me". I guess people who are actually aware of facts wouldn't vote for Trump in first place.

[Nobody]

.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Nobody
Douple post bug =(

[Time the Crestfallen]

16 hours ago, Tryhard said:

If you're a fiscal conservative, wouldn't you support something that a) gets rid of the bloated healthcare system the US currently has for a more cost effective system and b) actually helps everyone to a basic degree, and you can get your private insurance on top of that if you want? Why can't the US, with far more resources, implement healthcare as well as these other countries?

Because this is the internet, where sanity comes to die.

More seriously, as the person above stated, Republicans and a significant chunk of their supporters who speak in favour of fiscal conservatism aren't actually in support of proper fiscal conservatism, they just want to spend the money going into welfare on something else. Like dumping even more money into an already bloated and unreasonably expensive military.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Mortarion

[Shoblongoo]

Its a pretty obvious tell as to where Republicans are at on healthcare that after 7+ years of telling us the ACA was the worst piece of legislation in modern history and riding the promise-of-repeal to their majorities in Congress for 3 consecutive election cycles, they still don't have any plan for how to do it better.  

Its a political football to them. They are not serious about coming to a policy fix for a broken system of healthcare financing in America; its just an issue they want to have around so they can keep running on it.

The obvious fix is a medicaid-for-all style public option as a baseline floor of access to care, with private insurance existing as a luxury good for persons of sufficient affluence to buy more expansive coverage rather than as the primary means of coverage for the general population. (i.e. the Australian System. The Taiwanese System. The Israeli System. The system of every 1st world country that provides better access to healthcare for its citizens at a lower cost then the United States)

But thats "socialism" or "big government getting between you and your doctor" or whatever the talking point of the day is. And no Republican today is prepared to put that on the table. (Hence why for all the grief over how bad the ACA is they can't come up with anything better)

Edited June 28, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Phoenix Wright]

18 hours ago, Lushen said:

I'm fine with differing viewpoints, I'm just not fine with the black and white people who think the bill is absolute garbage.  It was proposed by many talented people who have 

I'm not going to change anyone's opinion on the health care bill, I wasn't trying too.  I'm just tired of not being able to have a facebook account because people tell me to kill myself for voting for Trump (yea, all the time).  There are two sides,  if you think something one side proposes has no logic, you probably aren't looking at it close enough or are watching too much Stephen Colbert. 

for someone who voted trump, the man who claimed to drain the swamp, you sure have a ton of trust in the very individuals who trump claims we have every reason to distrust. unfortunately congress spends much of their time...fundraising. for the next election cycle, of course. we have issues that are deeply rooted in the political system, and i don't think republicans are particularly bent on changing that (or dems).

colbert isn't even on anymore lol. is it possible, perhaps, that trump's policies really do not have depth or logic? why is the conclusion simply that if one can't see why his points make sense, one hasn't looked hard enough? this already assumes your side is correct--but what about the strong possibility that it isn't?

ya see, i don't think a lot of important legislature is subjective. how a government should run, what the structure of a government should be, etc, those are fit well within subjective political philosophy. but what a government ought to do is more objective to me: make it possible for all citizens to be safe, successful, and happy to the best of the state's ability. treating our climate like a political ballgame, juggling life and death for millions to create a narrative on us v them in healthcare, these are simply incorrect positions. whether morally or factually, holding these beliefs places you on the wrong side of not only what will eventually be history, but the wrong side of reality.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Phoenix Wright

[Lushen]

8 minutes ago, Phoenix Wright said:

for someone who voted trump

I choose not to vote in this election, actually.  I still wanted Trump to win over Hillary - but neither was my top pick.  I don't believe in the whole 'everyone should vote' philosophy, I think that's just propaganda campaigners say to get their supporters to vote for them.

 

I'm choosing to refrain from further discussion in this thread.  I knew when I posted I was going to be an outlier, I don't know why I didn't listen to my instincts.  The fact is a forum dedicated to an anime series with lots of young people is going to have a VERY large democrat and liberal fanbase.  That's just demographics.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Lushen

[Nobody]

This forum is full of trump supporters, we've have had quite a few of them posting in here. It was just that most of them just couldn't answer the arguments of everyone else. Rather than trying to answer, you guys just sort of run. No one here is being disrepectful towards you or anything, but rather than trying to answer our argumengs backed up by facts (with sources for them), you run.

literally the same thing happened two pages ago: trump supporter posted something, everyone else argued in an objective manner, backed up by sources, about why they disagreed, dude replied with something vague and just vanished without adressing what we posted.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Nobody

[Shoblongoo]

14 minutes ago, Nobody said:

This forum is full of trump supporters, we've have had quite a few of them posting in here. It was just that most of them just couldn't answer the arguments of everyone else. Rather than trying to answer, you guys just sort of run. No one here is being disrepectful towards you or anything, but rather than trying to answer our argumengs backed up by facts (with sources for them), you run.

literally the same thing happened two pages ago: trump supporter posted something, everyone else argued in an objective manner, backed up by sources, about why they disagreed, dude replied with something vague and just vanished without adressing what we posted.

Propose something vague and rhetorical and ungrounded in fact, then claim that you're being treated very unfairly when it's poorly received + met with more specific and serious discussion of the underlying issue is Trump governance. Trump support is largely the same.