2016 U.S. Presidential Race Megathread Mark 2.

Amerika · 10-11-2016 04:28PM

aloyisious wrote: »

Don't the various amendments mean the constitution is a living constitution, something not written in stone?

I'm looking at Article Three of the constitution which sets out what the SC can make judgements on and it seems to have the power, under it, to make determinations when it comes to actual cases and differences between different parties when it comes to citizens rights under the constitution. I'm no constitutional lawyer so will rely on wiser minds about it.

Lol at your admiration of the elderly governors......

No it's not. The Founding Fathers knew the US Constitution wasn’t a perfect document. So in order to meet the changing needs of a nation that would profoundly become different from the eighteenth-century world in which its creators lived, were smart enough to allow for amendments to the US Constitution. And that it was something that would need the approval of the majority of representative of the people to accomplish, not just a handful of political appointed judges sitting on the high court making decision based on how they feel rather than interpreting the law before them.

RobertKK · 10-11-2016 04:28PM

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

I find a lot of this labelling to be over-simplistic. It's like we're not comfortable unless we can put people in a box and tick another box so we'll always know where they are.

What happens when they do something 'outside the box'. Do we re-label them or persist with the stereotype and ignore the outliers?

Trump has said a lot of things that very clearly box him up. I'm waiting to see what he actually does when he's in office.

If I was an American, my views on some issues would be classed as conservative, my foreign policy views would be classed as being liberal.
Hillary Clinton is a staunch conservative on foreign policy.

Mr.Micro · 10-11-2016 04:39PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Technology constantly improves which constantly helps to improve security.

One can see the security wall between Israel and the Palestinians had an enormous effect on the number of suicide bombers entering Israel.

I think the US who are very security conscious, will consider every option including a wall, and from that a decision will be made.

No doubt the US will still feel the need to interfere in other countries affairs, wall or no wall. So long as we are OK all other initiatives are on the table. Only now there are other players such as the Chinese and a more aggressive Russia.

Brian? · 10-11-2016 04:51PM

Amerika wrote: »

This nonsense again? How disingenuous it is to judge a select group from hundreds of years ago through the prism of modern morality. A little bit of history for you… For centuries slavery had been a growing part of the world-wide economy, not just in the 13 Colonies here. The fact that some of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery at all was an incredibly radical idea for their time. What was the thinking on the subject of slavery of your ruling class forefathers from that time? Also, take some time and look up the Founding Fathers and the ‘Gradual Act for the Abolition of Slavery.’ Who else from this time attempted to accomplish anything similar?

I don't think disingenuous is the correct word. But let's work this through.

In 1776 slavery was illegal in Britain and Ireland. But not British colonies. So the "ruling class of my forefathers", whoever they were, did not own slaves.

As early as 1588, slavery was outlawed in Lithuania. Japan in 1590. Russia in 1720. You get the idea. Opposition to slavery was in no way a radical idea.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal......" . Buts it ok to own some of them??

Some of the founding fathers opposed slavery. Some did not. My point is that insisting on the all knowing wisdom of a group of 18th century men is a poor way to maintain a constitution.

Answer me this: Why the capitalisation of founding fathers?

Jawgap · 10-11-2016 04:52PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Technology constantly improves which constantly helps to improve security.

One can see the security wall between Israel and the Palestinians had an enormous effect on the number of suicide bombers entering Israel.

I think the US who are very security conscious, will consider every option including a wall, and from that a decision will be made.

The funny thing is if you read the recent article in the Irish Times, the people who live, work and police that area don't think it'll work.

And yes, I'm sure the contractors are itching to make the wall, the supporting infrastructure etc as high tech as possible

And finally, do you think that any wall the US might build would be policed even as remotely intensively as the Israelis police their wall(s)? Could they afford to sustain that level of supervision/policing?

RobertKK · 10-11-2016 04:53PM

Mr.Micro wrote: »

No doubt the US will still feel the need to interfere in other countries affairs, wall or no wall. So long as we are OK all other initiatives are on the table. Only now there are other players such as the Chinese and a more aggressive Russia.

North Korea could be a huge issue as well.

The US will have to intervene, but they need to be far more intelligent than getting involved in places Iraq, Libya, backing God knows who in Syria, arming the Saudis..
Trump inherits a mess.

alastair · 10-11-2016 04:59PM

RobertKK wrote: »

New York Times 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

Fast forward to 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/hillary-clinton-necono-republican-endorsements-donald-trump-policy-issues

The Secretary of State is the person who signs off on arms deals to other countries.

No doubt the actual neocons supported Hillary over Trump, but that doesn't make Hillary a neocon. The neocons are a Republicans too, do you contend that makes Hillary a Republican?

The Saudi arms deal was drafted between the Dept of State and the Dept of Defence, and approved by Congress. It involved Obama travelling twice to Saudi to lobby - Hillary was only a small cog in the sales process.

Amerika · 10-11-2016 05:04PM

How the nation voted…

Seems like a mandate to me.

Trump may very well become the best and most effective US president we have seen in a generation. Republicans will be happy and angry over his agenda. Democrats will be happy and angry over his agenda. The people that voted for him understand he has more in common with Democrats than Republicans on a number of issues. Heck, he was a lifelong Democrat until just a few years ago. He personally knows Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shummer, and has contributed to them. He knows most of the powerful politicians personally. And he is not afraid to go up against Republicans as well as Democrats. He is beholding to no one except the American people. He won because he promised to do what is best for the average American. He knows how to negotiate and isn’t afraid of a fight. GW Bush and Obama didn’t know how to get things accomplished by reaching across party lines. Trump does and will fight to do what he was elected to do. And he won’t be afraid to take his case to the people to get them to force their representatives to work for what is best for the country, rather than party. Trump is what this country needs today. I will not be happy with some of what he will try and accomplish, but I realize we need to move beyond the division and polarization that now cripples Washington. I guess I will just need to be happy with his SCOTUS picks and bite my tongue on much of the other stuff at times. And in a few years I predict all the Donald Trump Derangement Syndrome types of today will be looking rather silly.

10-11-2016 05:10PM

Brian? wrote: »

Answer me this: Why the capitalisation of founding fathers?

The same reason we usually capitalise 'presidents' in The Presidents of the United States. 'Presidents' is a specific noun. It relates to specific presidents, not presidents generally.

Founding is not the present verb participle, the whole term 'Founding Fathers' is a plural noun as well as being a specific noun.

Convention suggests it should be capitalised.

For the same reason, the word People is capitalised in the Irish constitution, because it refers to a specific, sovereign, self-contained people; it is a specific noun and not a general noun.

Amerika · 10-11-2016 05:12PM

Brian? wrote: »

Answer me this: Why the capitalisation of founding fathers?

Sorry, don't get your drift.

alastair · 10-11-2016 05:12PM

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

It was slightly over 1% of voter turnout in Florida. 1.1% to be exact.

The 0.2% is an average of polls. Some were closer than others. Polls have a built in margin for error. Usually that's around 3%. On no level can you say that the polls in the case of Florida were not a reflection.

It was actually 1.3% - 49.1% vs 47.8%. My maths let me down.
A lead of 0.2% for Trump isn't an accurate reflection of the outcome. The margin of error is wide sure, but if you want to take that line, you could equally make the claim that the polls accurately reflected the national electoral college win for Hillary, since she's only 2% away from that.

alastair · 10-11-2016 05:16PM

Amerika wrote: »

How the nation voted…

Seems like a mandate to me.

If fields voted. Meanwhile more actual voters supported the losing candidate. The mandate is generally measured by popular support, not land mass.

RobertKK · 10-11-2016 05:17PM

alastair wrote: »

No doubt the actual neocons supported Hillary over Trump, but that doesn't make Hillary a neocon. The neocons are a Republicans too, do you contend that makes Hillary a Republican?

The Saudi arms deal was drafted between the Dept of State and the Dept of Defence, and approved by Congress. It involved Obama travelling twice to Saudi to lobby - Hillary was only a small cog in the sales process.

She is neoconservative on foreign policy. That is all the neocons care about.

The State department could have objected.

TheOven · 10-11-2016 05:20PM

alastair wrote: »

If fields voted. Meanwhile more actual voters supported the losing candidate. The mandate is generally measured by popular support, not land mass.

Lets not muddy this with liberal bias such as population density.

alastair · 10-11-2016 05:20PM

RobertKK wrote: »

She is neoconservative on foreign policy. That is all the neocons care about.

The State department could have objected.

She isn't a neocon, so she can't be 'neoconservative' on any issue. She can certainly align with them on certain issues, but that's an issue of coincidence, not ideology.

10-11-2016 05:32PM

RobertKK wrote: »

She is neoconservative on foreign policy. That is all the neocons care about.

The State department could have objected.

She's not a neoconservative that's utterly ridiculous.

You could say she's a Hamiltonian in the sense that she favours intervention over splendid isolation (that must make Trump a Jeffersonian? Maybe according to himself), but neocon is so wide of the mark it's just daft.

I think Hamiltonians have been described as paleoconservatives, which is a nice word.

RobertKK · 10-11-2016 05:46PM

People can stay in denial that her foreign policy has been consistent neocon in nature, to the point she got the backing of the most high profile neocons around.
It does not mean she is not liberal in other areas.

daithi7 · 10-11-2016 05:49PM

alastair wrote: »

If fields voted. Meanwhile more actual voters supported the losing candidate. The mandate is generally measured by popular support, not land mass.

Yes, that's undoubtedly true, but to be fair to the Trumpites, he won the election fair and square, by the rules of the contest.

Also as a side point, whilst Hillary may have marginally won the overall popular vote, this however does not reflect the federal nature of the USA. Also, Republicans in particular, would say that land mass and land owners, should carry a higher weighting vote per person. (i.e. more electoral votes per person in less populous states)
Now you can say that is daft in one way, but it tallies with their beliefs and it is a very valid argument IMHO.
(& I am certainly not a republican)

alastair · 10-11-2016 06:12PM

daithi7 wrote: »

Yes, that's undoubtedly true, but to be fair to the Trumpites, he won the election fair and square, by the rules of the contest.

Also as a side point, whilst Hillary may have marginally won the overall popular vote, this however does not reflect the federal nature of the USA. Also, Republicans in particular, would say that land mass and land owners, should carry a higher weighting vote per person. (i.e. more electoral votes per person in less populous states)
Now you can say that is daft in one way, but it tallies with their beliefs and it is a very valid argument IMHO.
(& I am certainly not a republican)

No problem with the reality of the electoral college system, and of checks and balances on the state's, but the claim was made that the map represented a mandate from the nation. It doesn't, since the nation is the sum of the citizens, not the electoral districts, and they (or at least the voting electorate) actually mandated the losing candidate. The electoral system mandated Trump, but the nation didn't.

PopePalpatine · 10-11-2016 06:15PM

alastair wrote: »

It was actually 1.3% - 49.1% vs 47.8%. My maths let me down.
A lead of 0.2% for Trump isn't an accurate reflection of the outcome. The margin of error is wide sure, but if you want to take that line, you could equally make the claim that the polls accurately reflected the national electoral college win for Hillary, since she's only 2% away from that.

The thing is, the polls were mostly wrong across the country by that same margin of error. The models failed to account for the drop of 6 million voters from Obama in 2012 to Clinton two days ago.

26000 Elephants · 10-11-2016 06:16PM

Amerika wrote: »

Sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about.

:cool: Looking to 200 year old legal texts to guide your way through the modern world is nonsense.

To conflate this with the timeless ideas of the great philosophers is absurd.

alastair · 10-11-2016 06:16PM

RobertKK wrote: »

People can stay in denial that her foreign policy has been consistent neocon in nature, to the point she got the backing of the most high profile neocons around.
It does not mean she is not liberal in other areas.

Once again, she's not a neocon, so she can't hold any neocon positions. She can share some positions with them, but that doesn't make her a neocon. Whether she's conservative, centrist, leftist, or liberal, on any given issue doesn't change that reality.

johnp001 · 10-11-2016 06:28PM

RobertKK wrote: »

People can stay in denial that her foreign policy has been consistent neocon in nature, to the point she got the backing of the most high profile neocons around.
It does not mean she is not liberal in other areas.

Regarding the backing of high profile neocons...
hil-e14785422862921.jpg?w=528&h=500

Neil Clark wrote:

The 2016 US Presidential election has seen a coming together of hard-core Bush-era neocons and the anti-Bush liberal-left in support of the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The unofficial coalition, which looks likely to help propel the Democratic nominee to the White House (if the polls are to believed), will have surprised many, but it’s not the first time self-identified progressives have - wittingly or unwittingly - aided the cause of the most reactionary people in western politics.

The neocons: a group of ultra-hawkish hard-right imperialists, who are quite happy for the US to illegally invade other sovereign states and drop bombs all over the world. The liberal-left: who profess their support for human rights, internationalism and progressive causes.

At first sight, these two groups don’t appear to have much in common. But the truth is the liberal-left have for a long time been the accomplices of the endless war lobby.

Think back to 1999 and the US-led bombing of Yugoslavia. Never mind that the Balkan state was a multi-party democracy that operated an economy with very high levels of public/social ownership: the liberal-left cheered as bombs rained down on Belgrade, Nis and Kragujevac . Many ‘progressives’ swallowed hook, line and sinker the lurid claims of a ‘genocide’ being committed in the province of Kosovo, which were later dismissed by a UN court.

Although it was promoted as a ‘humanitarian’ venture, the bombing of Yugoslavia was in fact a hard-right project pushed by fiercely anti-socialist/anti-communist Cold War warriors.
More...

daithi7 · 10-11-2016 06:32PM

alastair wrote: »

No problem with the reality of the electoral college system, and of checks and balances on the state's, but the claim was made that the map represented a mandate from the nation. It doesn't, since the nation is the sum of the citizens, not the electoral districts, and they (or at least the voting electorate) actually mandated the losing candidate. The electoral system mandated Trump, but the nation didn't.

With all due respect that's a real splitting hairs attitude to the outcome of this election. The election was won fair and square by the laws of the land.

p.s. as an aside, other presidents have also won the election before while not getting the majority of the overall popular vote (e.g. Bush v Gore, Kennedy v Nixon) . So this anomaly of the US electoral college system is well known and has precedent.

oscarBravo · 10-11-2016 06:37PM

daithi7 wrote: »

The election was won fair and square by the laws of the land.

True. It's a pity that the Voting Rights Act was no longer one of those laws. It's tragic to see a country that holds itself up as a beacon of democracy work so very hard to prevent so very many of its citizens from voting.

Overheal · 10-11-2016 06:49PM

RobertKK wrote: »

North Korea could be a huge issue as well.

The US will have to intervene, but they need to be far more intelligent than getting involved in places Iraq, Libya, backing God knows who in Syria, arming the Saudis..
Trump inherits a mess.

Election season: "Trump is a noninterventionist! No more wars!"

Trump wins: "We HAVE to invade Korea!"

God listen to yourselves. Dissonant foolishness.

BoJack Horseman · 10-11-2016 06:49PM

Neither can quite understand how it got to this.

BoJack Horseman · 10-11-2016 06:56PM

Overheal wrote: »

Trump wins: "We HAVE to invade Korea!

That's news!

Tell us more.

I thought the Donald was open to talks with NK?

RobertKK · 10-11-2016 06:59PM

They seemed to get on well.
It was suppose to be a meeting for 10-15 minutes, went on for near 90 minutes.
Trump called Obama a "very good man".

Both had been insulting eachother, and now they are getting on better than expected, Obama called the meeting 'excellent', and Trump said he had 'great respect' for Obama.
Looks like a lot of wounds were worked on as they shook hands.

RobertKK · 10-11-2016 07:02PM

Overheal wrote: »

Election season: "Trump is a noninterventionist! No more wars!"

Trump wins: "We HAVE to invade Korea!"

God listen to yourselves. Dissonant foolishness.

Where did he say he would invade North Korea?

2016 U.S. Presidential Race Megathread Mark 2.

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