I’ve written the following many times over the past five years.: stop giving ANY air to the concept of a self-pardon. It’s self-evidently absurd, and yet constant discussion of it is threatening to normalize it.
And now, with Senators openly admitting that they voted against convicting Trump because they feared for their lives, do not underestimate the danger. Imbuing a President with the ability to self-pardon is logically identical to monarchial power. The Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Congress aren’t going to move against them if he commands thugs to kill them. A few years back this would be considered hyperbole. But it shouldn’t. Trump is profoundly sick, and should be considered capable of anything.
It's funny Charlie mentions a Founders' Valhalla. I had a daydream once about an American Valhalla where we could eternally feast with Washington, and Lincoln, and Grant, and all the other heroes. And Trump and his ilk were there, too, but as carpets upon which we trod and threw down our scraps.
I would submit to you that from Putin's perspective, he is not winning. He is regressing.
By his standpoint, he has lost Ukraine. The seventh-largest country in Europe, the crown jewel of "Russian civilization". Lost it, forever. His invasion was intended as a coping mechanism, a compensation. A vengeful, final spurt of violence, as he rides off, shirtless, into the sunset.
Now Russia's fate is tied to its junior partner status with China. It will never have the nice things the West has, never have the respect the West has. It will decline and sink and stink, and become, as Obama (prematurely) said, a "declining regional power".
Realistically speaking, Russia will never be trusted or partnered by the West again--at least not for another 50 to 75 years. And that's whether or not Trump "wins" in 2024 and spends the rest of his life/term trying to avoid justice and purge his "enemies" throughout the country and the world.
That's not to say Putin is not making life bad for civilized people, or could not potentially end us all out of sheer pique. He did get Trump elected, after all, and he may well do so again. He is like Arcturus Mengsk from Starcraft: "I will RULE this sector or see it BURNT TO ASHES around me."
But I implore Bill, as dark as things are, to have some damn perspective. Putin does not think of himself as a "winner"; quite the contrary. He thinks he's a victim, and oppressed. Most bullies do.
Sorry to be posting this here, but I don't have another way to reach you. I want to suggest that you and Nicolle and whoever mention the fact that Senator Tuberville is just another example of the Republicans insisting on denying democracy. He is way out voted in the Senate, and he refuses to acknowledge it. They are not willing to adopt his policy preference on abortion. This is what the Republicans are doing in every forum that they can think of. They don't want democracy.
It's ironic that the Electoral College, which was supposed to be the filter for the passions of the masses, has become the vehicle by which the minority has been able to claim victory for an authoritarian leader who has no respect for or dedication to defending our Constitution. I have always believed that Hamilton, who should have known better, put way too much faith in the educated and wealthy to protect our representative system.
Given what the Founders thought about the public generally, they'd be shaking their heads over subsequent generations letting any citizen over 18 without a felony conviction vote. IOW, the Founders would have understood that the surest way to put a demagogue in charge is to extend the franchise to the hoi poloi. Difficult to say they'd be wrong in that assessment.
In terser terms, the biggest problem with democracy is the voters.
The story is more complicated by the fragile game setup by the primary system that amplifies the power of the extremes. Let's consider the game with the following simplifying assumptions: a) the prime directive of politicians is to remain in office, and b) the way that one wins elections is to mobilize one's supporters to vote and discourage one's opponents from voting. Given the rules of the game, politicians seeking office and serving in office must serve up the extremes to win, especially is highly gerrymandered elections. The bases that vote in primaries tend to a) have time on their hands, and b) passionate about cultural issues. No amount of education or persuasion will influence these votes, once they've made their committments.
Now consider the game chance if politicians knew that universal voter turnout was guaranteed. Under that game, there'd be no need to juice up support from the extremes. That won't make voters any better, but it would likely regress to the mean.
After enough cycles of that, with a different incentive structure in place, the same electorate with the same candidates would produce very different policy outcomes.
So it's not just the voters, it's the structure of the game.
Re the rules of the game, agreed that hyperpartisan 1st past the post (FPTP) primaries in gerrymandered districts leads to the results we see. From my perspective, Alaska's approach: open primary with top 5 vote winners on the general election ballot, then ranked choice voting in the general election seems to be the best approach any state has come up with so far.
God knows California's system is idiotic: open primary with only the top 2 vote winners on the general election ballot, distilling the worst of French 2-round elections into a system that's perfect for magnifying the partisan divide.
As a Californian born in the state, grew up through high school in the state, and living in the state for the last 34 years since I went from my 1st job to my 2nd, I've developed the theory that California is often 1st, and almost always makes mistakes too few other states learn from, other than not to be like California.
If the founders met Trump, they would first try to have him imprisoned as an imbecile. They would ask for his views on Adam Smith's writings, and all hell would break loose when Trump says, "Never heard of the guy. I don't read too much." Actually, they would probably confiscate all of his belongings and accuse him of being a French or Bavarian spy.
Hamas's terrorist attacks on Israel were barbaric, disgusting and evil. That does not make Israel's bombing of.hospitals and refugee shelters justified.
Hamas locating its HQ & other military resources under hospitals & refugee shelters is also not justified.
Nor is claiming that Israel bombed a hospital when (1) the hospital was still standing; and (2) it was a Hamas missile that struck the parking lot.
Nor is Hamas's theft of fuel from hospitals, nor the fact that it put enormous resources into building tunnels for its fighters and then says that the safety of Gaza's citizens is none of its concern.
Nor is the declaration by Hamas's leader, safe in Qatar, that more blood of women and children in Gaza is needed for "the revolution."
None of that seems to be offensive to the "Palestinian" activists.
All of that is true. Still, as a militarily sophisticated Israeli commented to me, there was method to the Hamas madness. Their brutal tactics and torture were intended to evoke the reaction of the Israelis. Under the wisest of governments, Israeli politicians would have had a hard time taking a more strategic approach (which I'll describe below). But with the present government, the response was virtually guaranteed. The losses of civilians in Gaza is a feature, not a bug for the attack. The reasons that Hamas wanted to reshuffle the decks are obvious, and they have.
Now imagine if the Israelis had been able to take a different path.
To start, still declaring an embargo on Gaza, but pointing out that a) Hamas, their government, has large stores of fuel, water and fuel which they could, if they wished, distribute to the general population, and b) that that the government of Gaza could end the embargo at anytime by returning the hostages. That would have had a much higher probability of extracting the hostages.
Second, to clearly state to the Gazans and the world, that Israel would ultimately punish every member of Hamas with Munich-style persistence. That it might take years, but it would be inexorable and non-negotiable. For whatever the current difficiencies of the Israel Intelligence and military, that the response to Munich has a psychological power and moral defensibility that would not give Hamass the picture of dead children that they value so much.
An omission in Bill Kristol's excellent account of Vladimir Putin in today's Bulwark is Putin's role as the leader of the global white "Christian" nationalist movement. That the Mike Johnson-led maga party (formerly known as the Republicans) in the House intends to block further US aid to Ukraine is a feature, not a bug. The deficit talk is all camouflage.
Politico was on to the Putin/"Christian" right story 6 years ago:
All of the talk here and in SCOTUS jurisprudence as to what "the Founders would have thought" always strikes me as hilarious.
An oft noted observation is that out of all of the Constitutions and systems of government that the United States has ever written for another country (e.g. Japan & Germany, but there are at least another half-dozen) NOT ONCE did the U.S. export either to the defeated country. Instead, they pretty much universally wrote in a Constitutional Parliamentary system. And huh, not once did they establish anything approaching the second amendment (because it's clearly a stupid idea).
Lol, so when people ask, "What would the Founders think about X?", it makes me chuckle. After WWII the civilian leadership of the U.S clearly didn't give a shit about what the Founders thought.
Funny how so many countries have citizens that want to be in the US. Perhaps our way of government isn't 100% exportable, but for centuries people have flocked to our country despite our flaws. They seem to appreciate it so much more than some of us who live here.
So many Monday morning quarterbacks on the blog today...not appreciating what we do have which is in large part due to the Founding Fathers.
They weren't perfect, our country isn't perfect, but it certainly doesn't mean that the FF's efforts shouldn't be discussed and appreciated in their context.
Brother I'm Canadian. Lived in Mexico (upper-middle class) till I was 8 years old.
In my experience, people flock to the U.S. mostly based on the propaganda, intentional or not, that Hollywood projects about the American experience. You ever notice how FUCKING AMAZING the U.S. looks in Hollywood movies? Whereas in personal visits to the like of Boston, Orlando, NOLA, NYC, the U.S. is fucking filthy and unsafe.
It's not Monday morning quarterbacking, this is your country. And at no point since the 1800's has the U.S. tried to replicate their chaotic system of government elsewhere. You have to acknowledge what that means--namely when people had practical challenges in establishing a government, your own countrymen rejected the principles of the Founding fathers in government.
Dude it's not even a remotely arguable point, based on the facts. The U.S. has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the entire working world. Y'all don't have mat leave or pat leave, and American crime rates, especially gun deaths are near the top of the western world. Any immigrant that choses the U.S. over say Canada or any country in Western Europe, is frankly just ignorant.
If you want to keep insisting that "'Merica is "the best country in the world" you may want to travel. I've travelled to some 30 countries in my life, and the U.S. would be near the bottom of my list of places to live in.
Read the last sentence in my post...apparently you missed it. Actually...perhaps you missed reading my entire post...as it simply says despite our flaws...we are a popular destination for migration.
BTW...I spent 30 years in the Navy...and travelled the world and even enjoyed some Moose Milk with some Canadian "Sailors" in Panama. Well...I don't think they were Sailors per se but Canadian military members participating in a US Joint Naval exercise.
Thanks for not reading my post and hijacking it with some seriously misguided projection.
You apparently also have no idea how the comments section works.
You responded to a comment I posted. Why would you think that would naturally lead me to an unspecified original post that was NOT on this thread?
What, am I supposed to scroll the 300+ comments to see if you've said something sensible along the way? Don't have the time for that bro.
Don't care how much Moose milk you drank, it doesn't change the fact that the social mobility measures in the U.S. are horrendous as is basic healthcare.
4 year average mortality rate issue should be concerning to you. But naw, let me guess, you're fine with just putting out big ass American flags and your fellow citizens die of preventable causes solely because of your stubbornness.
Though let me add, do not construe this in any way as an invitation to move to Canada. We have our own immigration criteria, and I doubt you'd qualify.
"They [Founding Fathers] weren't perfect, our country isn't perfect, but it certainly doesn't mean that the FF's efforts shouldn't be discussed and appreciated in their context."
Here's an excerpt from your post (that was a response to mine):
"If you want to keep insisting that "'Merica is "the best country in the world" you may want to travel. "
WTF is your problem? It's as if you didn't read mine at all. I never said or even implied that America is the best...I simply said that we attract a lot migrants which should stand for something.
I told you already, your original post was in no way linked to what you replied. Meaning that the only way I'd know about your original post was to comb through 300 random comments.
Hello, boomer!
Sir, just figure out how the comment section ACTUALLY works, then return for a chat.
Well...all I can say is that I'm here looking at my screen and your and my posts on all on the same thread. My quotes were from this thread...so I have NO IDEA what you are talking about.
I'm coming around to realizing that this shouldn't surprise me at all based on the aggregate of your replies to me and others.
You're not like most of the Canadians I've met and known.. They were nice people who didn't have a burr in their saddle about their southern neighbors.
What would voters think when Trump loses the election and won't accept the results? Are we going to go through that again? There has to be a MANDATE of votes and that will be tough to get.
Sadly, no matter a mandate or not, Trump and his Anti-Democrats, will not accept defeat. If anything should be clear now, facts are no match for repeated and disciplined lies. No matter what the results of the election, we are in for some very serious violence.
Absolutely agree. There is no scenario where pressuring Ukraine to accept a negotiated settlement that allows Russia to keep Ukrainian lands doesn’t invite further aggression by Russia.
The Founders saw Trump coming. He is an absolute “cartoon in real life” of every worst feature of demagoguery, with nary a hint of Periclean eloquence. Americans - however impressionable - should have identified so transparent a fraud and charlatan. And we did, I think. His support derived and derives, I fear, from cynical and malign motives. Nothing good can come from Trumpists.
What surprises me most is not the abandonment of ethical judgment to accommodate Trump as long as he serves one's political purposes; it's the refusal by well-educated people to acknowledge how idiotic and absurd he typically sounds.
As Mitt Romney's book reveals, many members of the Senate (and probably of the House) are fully aware of how lunatic Trump is -- but they are afraid of his supporters. His connection to his supporters is visceral. He is clearly someone who was humiliated as a kid, and has spent the rest of his life doling out abuse to everyone else. For people who themselves feel humiliated or anticipate being humiliated, having a bully of their own is deeply satisfying. This isn't a comment on anyone's level of education; it's a feature of human cognition and emotion.
The rules of the game of elections that have evolved over 250 years have ended up amplifying the power of small, dedicated minorities in low-population states. The founders were reasonably good software architects who couldn't anticipate that the error correction features of the US Operating system would be so thoroughly hacked. Many of the bugs in their system were terrible compromises to accommodate slavery. Eventually the system crashed in the Civil War. And now we find, that despite the system patches of the post-war Amendments, the system is still fragile -- and now on the verge of a second system crash.
(IMHO, Mitch McConnell is arguably the greatest hacker of all time, with his elegant exploitation of the rules).
Like Hamilton warned...Trump simply tells them what they want to hear...and they don't care if it's entirely true...because it makes them feel good.
I agree with the post above that the support of Trump isn't simply by the gullible...there are very unscrupulous people taking total advantage of it. They'll glom right on to the next populist leader without a hint of remorse for getting rid of "loser" Trump.
And equally distressing is when people such as Cheney, Kinsinger, Buck, The Bulwark, and high level former administration members do speak out their words just fall on deaf ears and make Trump supporters dig their heels in even deeper.
What's left of The Republican Party should consider rebranding themselves as the Anti-Democratic Party. Those, like the founders of The Bulwark, should join the Democratic Party to form its "Conservative Wing," perhaps we'll one day see something like this.
I’ve written the following many times over the past five years.: stop giving ANY air to the concept of a self-pardon. It’s self-evidently absurd, and yet constant discussion of it is threatening to normalize it.
And now, with Senators openly admitting that they voted against convicting Trump because they feared for their lives, do not underestimate the danger. Imbuing a President with the ability to self-pardon is logically identical to monarchial power. The Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Congress aren’t going to move against them if he commands thugs to kill them. A few years back this would be considered hyperbole. But it shouldn’t. Trump is profoundly sick, and should be considered capable of anything.
It's funny Charlie mentions a Founders' Valhalla. I had a daydream once about an American Valhalla where we could eternally feast with Washington, and Lincoln, and Grant, and all the other heroes. And Trump and his ilk were there, too, but as carpets upon which we trod and threw down our scraps.
I wouldn't have fun. I'd always be wondering if today is Gotterdamerung day.
Bill's article on Putin has merit, but. . .
I would submit to you that from Putin's perspective, he is not winning. He is regressing.
By his standpoint, he has lost Ukraine. The seventh-largest country in Europe, the crown jewel of "Russian civilization". Lost it, forever. His invasion was intended as a coping mechanism, a compensation. A vengeful, final spurt of violence, as he rides off, shirtless, into the sunset.
Now Russia's fate is tied to its junior partner status with China. It will never have the nice things the West has, never have the respect the West has. It will decline and sink and stink, and become, as Obama (prematurely) said, a "declining regional power".
Realistically speaking, Russia will never be trusted or partnered by the West again--at least not for another 50 to 75 years. And that's whether or not Trump "wins" in 2024 and spends the rest of his life/term trying to avoid justice and purge his "enemies" throughout the country and the world.
That's not to say Putin is not making life bad for civilized people, or could not potentially end us all out of sheer pique. He did get Trump elected, after all, and he may well do so again. He is like Arcturus Mengsk from Starcraft: "I will RULE this sector or see it BURNT TO ASHES around me."
But I implore Bill, as dark as things are, to have some damn perspective. Putin does not think of himself as a "winner"; quite the contrary. He thinks he's a victim, and oppressed. Most bullies do.
Charlie,
Sorry to be posting this here, but I don't have another way to reach you. I want to suggest that you and Nicolle and whoever mention the fact that Senator Tuberville is just another example of the Republicans insisting on denying democracy. He is way out voted in the Senate, and he refuses to acknowledge it. They are not willing to adopt his policy preference on abortion. This is what the Republicans are doing in every forum that they can think of. They don't want democracy.
It's ironic that the Electoral College, which was supposed to be the filter for the passions of the masses, has become the vehicle by which the minority has been able to claim victory for an authoritarian leader who has no respect for or dedication to defending our Constitution. I have always believed that Hamilton, who should have known better, put way too much faith in the educated and wealthy to protect our representative system.
The founders expected a Senate of honorable, civic-minded persons. Toqueville wrote they'd succeeded. He was wrong.
Given what the Founders thought about the public generally, they'd be shaking their heads over subsequent generations letting any citizen over 18 without a felony conviction vote. IOW, the Founders would have understood that the surest way to put a demagogue in charge is to extend the franchise to the hoi poloi. Difficult to say they'd be wrong in that assessment.
In terser terms, the biggest problem with democracy is the voters.
The story is more complicated by the fragile game setup by the primary system that amplifies the power of the extremes. Let's consider the game with the following simplifying assumptions: a) the prime directive of politicians is to remain in office, and b) the way that one wins elections is to mobilize one's supporters to vote and discourage one's opponents from voting. Given the rules of the game, politicians seeking office and serving in office must serve up the extremes to win, especially is highly gerrymandered elections. The bases that vote in primaries tend to a) have time on their hands, and b) passionate about cultural issues. No amount of education or persuasion will influence these votes, once they've made their committments.
Now consider the game chance if politicians knew that universal voter turnout was guaranteed. Under that game, there'd be no need to juice up support from the extremes. That won't make voters any better, but it would likely regress to the mean.
After enough cycles of that, with a different incentive structure in place, the same electorate with the same candidates would produce very different policy outcomes.
So it's not just the voters, it's the structure of the game.
Re the rules of the game, agreed that hyperpartisan 1st past the post (FPTP) primaries in gerrymandered districts leads to the results we see. From my perspective, Alaska's approach: open primary with top 5 vote winners on the general election ballot, then ranked choice voting in the general election seems to be the best approach any state has come up with so far.
God knows California's system is idiotic: open primary with only the top 2 vote winners on the general election ballot, distilling the worst of French 2-round elections into a system that's perfect for magnifying the partisan divide.
As a Californian born in the state, grew up through high school in the state, and living in the state for the last 34 years since I went from my 1st job to my 2nd, I've developed the theory that California is often 1st, and almost always makes mistakes too few other states learn from, other than not to be like California.
This is one of Charlie’s best Shots. 👏👏👏
If the founders met Trump, they would first try to have him imprisoned as an imbecile. They would ask for his views on Adam Smith's writings, and all hell would break loose when Trump says, "Never heard of the guy. I don't read too much." Actually, they would probably confiscate all of his belongings and accuse him of being a French or Bavarian spy.
Hamas's terrorist attacks on Israel were barbaric, disgusting and evil. That does not make Israel's bombing of.hospitals and refugee shelters justified.
Hamas locating its HQ & other military resources under hospitals & refugee shelters is also not justified.
Nor is claiming that Israel bombed a hospital when (1) the hospital was still standing; and (2) it was a Hamas missile that struck the parking lot.
Nor is Hamas's theft of fuel from hospitals, nor the fact that it put enormous resources into building tunnels for its fighters and then says that the safety of Gaza's citizens is none of its concern.
Nor is the declaration by Hamas's leader, safe in Qatar, that more blood of women and children in Gaza is needed for "the revolution."
None of that seems to be offensive to the "Palestinian" activists.
All of that is true. Still, as a militarily sophisticated Israeli commented to me, there was method to the Hamas madness. Their brutal tactics and torture were intended to evoke the reaction of the Israelis. Under the wisest of governments, Israeli politicians would have had a hard time taking a more strategic approach (which I'll describe below). But with the present government, the response was virtually guaranteed. The losses of civilians in Gaza is a feature, not a bug for the attack. The reasons that Hamas wanted to reshuffle the decks are obvious, and they have.
Now imagine if the Israelis had been able to take a different path.
To start, still declaring an embargo on Gaza, but pointing out that a) Hamas, their government, has large stores of fuel, water and fuel which they could, if they wished, distribute to the general population, and b) that that the government of Gaza could end the embargo at anytime by returning the hostages. That would have had a much higher probability of extracting the hostages.
Second, to clearly state to the Gazans and the world, that Israel would ultimately punish every member of Hamas with Munich-style persistence. That it might take years, but it would be inexorable and non-negotiable. For whatever the current difficiencies of the Israel Intelligence and military, that the response to Munich has a psychological power and moral defensibility that would not give Hamass the picture of dead children that they value so much.
An omission in Bill Kristol's excellent account of Vladimir Putin in today's Bulwark is Putin's role as the leader of the global white "Christian" nationalist movement. That the Mike Johnson-led maga party (formerly known as the Republicans) in the House intends to block further US aid to Ukraine is a feature, not a bug. The deficit talk is all camouflage.
Politico was on to the Putin/"Christian" right story 6 years ago:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/how-russia-became-a-leader-of-the-worldwide-christian-right-214755
All of the talk here and in SCOTUS jurisprudence as to what "the Founders would have thought" always strikes me as hilarious.
An oft noted observation is that out of all of the Constitutions and systems of government that the United States has ever written for another country (e.g. Japan & Germany, but there are at least another half-dozen) NOT ONCE did the U.S. export either to the defeated country. Instead, they pretty much universally wrote in a Constitutional Parliamentary system. And huh, not once did they establish anything approaching the second amendment (because it's clearly a stupid idea).
Lol, so when people ask, "What would the Founders think about X?", it makes me chuckle. After WWII the civilian leadership of the U.S clearly didn't give a shit about what the Founders thought.
Maybe we should embrace that approach?
Funny how so many countries have citizens that want to be in the US. Perhaps our way of government isn't 100% exportable, but for centuries people have flocked to our country despite our flaws. They seem to appreciate it so much more than some of us who live here.
So many Monday morning quarterbacks on the blog today...not appreciating what we do have which is in large part due to the Founding Fathers.
They weren't perfect, our country isn't perfect, but it certainly doesn't mean that the FF's efforts shouldn't be discussed and appreciated in their context.
Brother I'm Canadian. Lived in Mexico (upper-middle class) till I was 8 years old.
In my experience, people flock to the U.S. mostly based on the propaganda, intentional or not, that Hollywood projects about the American experience. You ever notice how FUCKING AMAZING the U.S. looks in Hollywood movies? Whereas in personal visits to the like of Boston, Orlando, NOLA, NYC, the U.S. is fucking filthy and unsafe.
It's not Monday morning quarterbacking, this is your country. And at no point since the 1800's has the U.S. tried to replicate their chaotic system of government elsewhere. You have to acknowledge what that means--namely when people had practical challenges in establishing a government, your own countrymen rejected the principles of the Founding fathers in government.
Dude it's not even a remotely arguable point, based on the facts. The U.S. has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the entire working world. Y'all don't have mat leave or pat leave, and American crime rates, especially gun deaths are near the top of the western world. Any immigrant that choses the U.S. over say Canada or any country in Western Europe, is frankly just ignorant.
https://equitablegrowth.org/the-american-dream-is-less-of-a-reality-today-in-the-united-states-compared-to-other-peer-nations/#:~:text=Contrary%20to%20the%20self%2Dconception,compared%20to%20many%20European%20countries.
I'll just finish with a simple fact: Canadians on average live 4 years longer than Americans despite, "our socialist medical system".
Newsroom summarized all of the above this nicely. Every fact cited is true:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQpEcPexI0
If you want to keep insisting that "'Merica is "the best country in the world" you may want to travel. I've travelled to some 30 countries in my life, and the U.S. would be near the bottom of my list of places to live in.
Ummm because if you lunatics elect Trump again he'll invade Canada when he goes full fascist.
And honey, I have no illusions you can help yourselves, much less will ever pay attention to a foreigner.
Are you fucking kidding me? The U.S. routinely invades countries with no sound arguments. Vietnam, Korean war, Iraq, Nicaragua, need I go on?
Just to be clear, you're saying the EXACT same membership I paid for doesn't entitle me to make comments?
Something tells me you wouldn't have made that comment if I identified myself as a white good-old boy from Calgary.
I should also note that your glib comment isn't even an argument.
Also, for the record, Mexicans have a faaaaaaar more established history in the southern States of the U.S. than you folks.
Pick up a history book once in a while, hon.
Your motivation is fear of a U.S. invasion of Canada? That's what drives you? And the "ummmm" suggests you believe that idea to be obvious, correct?
So, you go to an anti-Trump website to sound the alarm because....cranky?
Read the last sentence in my post...apparently you missed it. Actually...perhaps you missed reading my entire post...as it simply says despite our flaws...we are a popular destination for migration.
BTW...I spent 30 years in the Navy...and travelled the world and even enjoyed some Moose Milk with some Canadian "Sailors" in Panama. Well...I don't think they were Sailors per se but Canadian military members participating in a US Joint Naval exercise.
Thanks for not reading my post and hijacking it with some seriously misguided projection.
You apparently also have no idea how the comments section works.
You responded to a comment I posted. Why would you think that would naturally lead me to an unspecified original post that was NOT on this thread?
What, am I supposed to scroll the 300+ comments to see if you've said something sensible along the way? Don't have the time for that bro.
Don't care how much Moose milk you drank, it doesn't change the fact that the social mobility measures in the U.S. are horrendous as is basic healthcare.
4 year average mortality rate issue should be concerning to you. But naw, let me guess, you're fine with just putting out big ass American flags and your fellow citizens die of preventable causes solely because of your stubbornness.
Though let me add, do not construe this in any way as an invitation to move to Canada. We have our own immigration criteria, and I doubt you'd qualify.
The most effec
Here's an excerpt from my post:
"They [Founding Fathers] weren't perfect, our country isn't perfect, but it certainly doesn't mean that the FF's efforts shouldn't be discussed and appreciated in their context."
Here's an excerpt from your post (that was a response to mine):
"If you want to keep insisting that "'Merica is "the best country in the world" you may want to travel. "
WTF is your problem? It's as if you didn't read mine at all. I never said or even implied that America is the best...I simply said that we attract a lot migrants which should stand for something.
I told you already, your original post was in no way linked to what you replied. Meaning that the only way I'd know about your original post was to comb through 300 random comments.
Hello, boomer!
Sir, just figure out how the comment section ACTUALLY works, then return for a chat.
Well...all I can say is that I'm here looking at my screen and your and my posts on all on the same thread. My quotes were from this thread...so I have NO IDEA what you are talking about.
I'm coming around to realizing that this shouldn't surprise me at all based on the aggregate of your replies to me and others.
You're not like most of the Canadians I've met and known.. They were nice people who didn't have a burr in their saddle about their southern neighbors.
Gollum looks better.
What would voters think when Trump loses the election and won't accept the results? Are we going to go through that again? There has to be a MANDATE of votes and that will be tough to get.
Sadly, no matter a mandate or not, Trump and his Anti-Democrats, will not accept defeat. If anything should be clear now, facts are no match for repeated and disciplined lies. No matter what the results of the election, we are in for some very serious violence.
Absolutely agree. There is no scenario where pressuring Ukraine to accept a negotiated settlement that allows Russia to keep Ukrainian lands doesn’t invite further aggression by Russia.
The Founders saw Trump coming. He is an absolute “cartoon in real life” of every worst feature of demagoguery, with nary a hint of Periclean eloquence. Americans - however impressionable - should have identified so transparent a fraud and charlatan. And we did, I think. His support derived and derives, I fear, from cynical and malign motives. Nothing good can come from Trumpists.
What surprises me most is not the abandonment of ethical judgment to accommodate Trump as long as he serves one's political purposes; it's the refusal by well-educated people to acknowledge how idiotic and absurd he typically sounds.
As Mitt Romney's book reveals, many members of the Senate (and probably of the House) are fully aware of how lunatic Trump is -- but they are afraid of his supporters. His connection to his supporters is visceral. He is clearly someone who was humiliated as a kid, and has spent the rest of his life doling out abuse to everyone else. For people who themselves feel humiliated or anticipate being humiliated, having a bully of their own is deeply satisfying. This isn't a comment on anyone's level of education; it's a feature of human cognition and emotion.
The rules of the game of elections that have evolved over 250 years have ended up amplifying the power of small, dedicated minorities in low-population states. The founders were reasonably good software architects who couldn't anticipate that the error correction features of the US Operating system would be so thoroughly hacked. Many of the bugs in their system were terrible compromises to accommodate slavery. Eventually the system crashed in the Civil War. And now we find, that despite the system patches of the post-war Amendments, the system is still fragile -- and now on the verge of a second system crash.
(IMHO, Mitch McConnell is arguably the greatest hacker of all time, with his elegant exploitation of the rules).
Like Hamilton warned...Trump simply tells them what they want to hear...and they don't care if it's entirely true...because it makes them feel good.
I agree with the post above that the support of Trump isn't simply by the gullible...there are very unscrupulous people taking total advantage of it. They'll glom right on to the next populist leader without a hint of remorse for getting rid of "loser" Trump.
And equally distressing is when people such as Cheney, Kinsinger, Buck, The Bulwark, and high level former administration members do speak out their words just fall on deaf ears and make Trump supporters dig their heels in even deeper.
Republicans being honest these days...leads to the instantaneous changing of them into RINOs....in the minds of the MAGAs.
What's left of The Republican Party should consider rebranding themselves as the Anti-Democratic Party. Those, like the founders of The Bulwark, should join the Democratic Party to form its "Conservative Wing," perhaps we'll one day see something like this.
Democratic Party
Social Democrats
New Deal Democrats
Democratic Republicans
Anti-Democratic Party