Vilageidiotx

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

woop

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Eh? Trump turned China against the DPRK, (partly) by destroying the Syrian chemical weapons program over dinner. I'd call that a difficult leadership situation and a home run.

@mdk

That has been going on for quite some time. Shit, Xi Jinping hasn't even met with Kimmy III, and the latter has been office since, shit, five or six years ago wasn't it? That's a situation delivered to him on a silver platter. Hence why I used the Cuban missile crisis as an example, something that actually requires political delicacy.

Well personally the one major thing I could see stopping Trump from reelection going to war or continuing all the drone strikes. It certainly drew a lot of ire from his own side from the attack that wasn't explained. Also I'd consider both of them to be utter disasters. (and Obama literally pretty much did everything Bush did but worse.) But I guess throwing that aside.

@SleepingSilence

Eh... I have a bad feeling that shit is normalized by now.

Also, I never voted for Obama, but the idea that he was worse than Bush is pretty silly. The Bush years started the Middle Eastern kerfuffle and then watched as an unregulated banking system mishandled housing loans, causing the second largest economic disaster in American history. Obama just failed to step down from the war ledge Bush walked onto and got tangled up in healthcare. Obama was a pretty average President really. I mean, if you go through a history of Presidents you'll find Obama level fuck-ups for most of them, just not so often Bush level fuck ups.

Do you think he'll be elected regardless of success? Because we can't seem to just elect someone once and switch them out? "We need 8 yearz bruh!" mindset that we almost seem cursed with two term presidents. Like whether I like someone or not, I'm really certain having two term presidents are particular helpful to them or us or the country. It's pretty obvious being president drains your mental and physical health, and most people can't deal with that pressure. So doesn't it kind of seem like were giving these people a well paid death sentence? Among other things. <.< I dunno, maybe that's just me.

Hell, he took the job, the effects of it on his health is on him.

The two terms thing is interesting. It could just be that shit candidates run in off years? I dunno. I don't think it is as hard a rule as we make it sound though. If it's true that the good candidates don't want to run against incumbents in normal times, Trump might break that pattern by virtue of being the beast that a bunch of candidates want to make a name defeating.

Fuck if I know though, I'm just spitballing. Trump is a bizarre phenomena.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I'm so lost on the economic discussion now that I'm not sure who is responding to what exactly. It's less like watching a debate that can be jumped into and more like watching two great meme icebergs groan on past each other.

Also, how the hell are we having an argument about free will? Did you guys get high last night?

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll sing another song

We'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree!

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Vilageidiotx
Come for the communism stay for the Kaynesian economic policy

@Penny

Thomas Piketty is my spirit animal.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

i came back for the economics but everyone already moved on to fucking free will.

Oh, and since my current debate is going nowhere. How about something possibly more interesting and hopefully less personal, political/personal opinion. (try to stick to non-personal conjecture.)

2020. (assuming we don't crash into the sun.) What happens in the next election? Who do you WANT to run, and who do you think will actually try to run? Would you actually vote for the same person you voted for again, if you did? Will you not vote again and complain that elections are rigged and start a petition to succeed if you're side doesn't win? Do you think if Trump does well (to the people that voted for him.) He'll get re-elected again? Would you want the third two term president in a row even if he was? How about if he is passable/does poorly? Is there an actual difference? Will third parties ever have a damned chance? Give me your thoughts. Maybe it will lead to better discussion. *fingers halfheartedly crossed* :3

@SleepingSilence

If everything goes exactly steady from here on out, Trump probably gets reelected. The biggest problem for him as that he has shown himself to be an amateur, so whereas he can obviously handle a situation where nothing happens and his party just kinda gives him bills to sign, if some major event takes place that requires executive leadership, it'll happen to him and he will have little control of the effects. This could turn out well if he gets unity votes, so the best thing that can happen for him is a 9/11 type event (perish the thought though). The worst thing that could happen to him is a recession (those are always bad because they touch most people where they live). Any situation that requires difficult leadership would be dubious for him. Like, for instance, close your eyes and imagine Trump dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis. So yeh, Trump needs an easy time.

The Dems need to find themselves. Which they will, of course. In 2008 everybody was out there like "Damn, Republicans can never recover from this shit, nobody will ever forget the Bush years" and then they recovered, though the Bush Years were a burning disaster, whereas the Obama years were just underwhelming. Right now anything that happens is going to look like the Republicans fault, so they will have to make excuses for the reality whereas the Dems will get to snipe from the comfort of opposition-partydom, and they'll grow some skills out of that.

The best person the Dems have in their arsenal is probably Tulsi Gabbard, who if it weren't for her religion would probably be the most weirdly electable candidate in the country. She'll probably be a bit young for 2020 though... still, that's who I'm watching. Then again, Trump won and people unironically think he is a good choice, so who the fuck knows, Kanye 2020 maybe.

In the end, there is too much going on to make a real prediction, but I'll pull out what I think would be the funniest future.

-Trump wins by a hair in 2020 but loses Congress and/or the Senate.
-Trump doesn't have the temperament to be a lame duck President and bitches all the time. We get all kinds of funny material here.
-Being Donald Trump, and being a lame duck, we get to call him Donald Duck.
-2020 to 2024 is just Donald Duck going on tv throwing impotent shit-fits.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

No one should be penalized for making money and becoming successful. It's a ludicrous idea.

@SleepingSilence

Echh, this sounds a bit like the law of the jungle tbh. If it is determined that your success is a detriment to your society, then it is reasonable to curb that success. The purpose of a government by the people is that we as a group determine what produces the greatest benefit to the group with the least harm to individual interests. This balancing act is true for pretty much everyone but the most nutty an-cap. The illegality of a ponzi scheme, for instance, is public regulation that curbs the success of an individual for the benefit of the masses.

My point is the American Dream is totally achievable.

@mdk

Upward mobility in itself isn't new, it has existed since the days of Imhotep. That the US and democratic values in general has improved upward mobility from where it was before is absolutely true, but this doesn't mean we have reached the peak. We should do everything we can as a society to ensure that none of our talent gets wasted trying to clear basic hurdles in poverty. That means keeping social stratification from ossifying and creating some sort of neo-feudal situation like what happened to, say, the Romans.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

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I agree, but I also feel like creation would actually be that casual of an act for literally YHVH the Almighty.

@Darcs

It would be easy for a omnipotent and all powerful god, but that's not the same as casual. Taking the Christian cannon at face value suggests that god takes the universe seriously.

Now, the argument that an omnipotent being could never truly take creation seriously is compelling...

When will I do the thing?

use a stic

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Technically they're not wrong. First Bibles were in Greek Latin and Hebrew, and one of the first languages it was translated to was Old Slavonic (long before Martin Luther translated it to German and then the next guy to English) which is extremely accurate because of Greek alphabet and lots of Greek loanwords. Let me tell you, after reading it these guys are pretty much doing God's work. The only thing they have going wrong is the free market thing. Christ our Lord was quite against the dangers coming from the powers of greed and late stage capitalism that a "free" market defined which is understandable and also puts me off from American conservatism.

@Andreyich

You're obfuscating what is silly about this. The mainstream english translations are the KJV and its children. The idea that KJV or the language updates that have followed it are liberal conspiracies is crazy as fuck. I've never in my life met a Conservative who would argue that all the English translations bibles are examples of liberal media.

The thing is, you say the Slavic language translation is accurate because of the greek loanwords, and that is fine. But English isn't the same thing. It is unlikely that they will outdo previous interpretations, especially since they are dedicated to tweaking the translation to fit a modern political narrative.

Just peaking in, I figured I would look at how they handled one of the most iconic translations...

King James Version

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

New International Version

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Conservapedia Version

For starters, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, the argument they make for this literary misfortune is interesting grammatically...

There is no definite article in the Hebrew text, and thus "for starters" is a better translation than "in the beginning." Creation was not God's beginning, but the universe's.

But to me, there are some serious problems with this choice. For one, they are splitting hairs, because nobody reads the english translation as suggesting God began at that moment. For two, the expression they chose is idiomatic, one that an english speaker would typically associate with informal writing or speech. "In the beginning" carries a literary weight that equals the task of creating the universe, whereas "For starters" makes creation sound as casual as ordering mozzarella sticks.

Now, in my opinion this whole thing seems like a joke. That they are crowdsourcing a biblical translation implies to me that much of this would be a joke, and replacing one of the most iconic lines in English literature with "For starters" suggests to me that some internet atheist types are having a laugh. And that would fit Conservapedia's history. The guy who started it was fucked with by people making fun of him and conservatism for years so that the website is half troll articles. The practical response to that website is to say "It's a joke" and move on.