The Well-Mannered Politics Thread

[29BmoreBird22]

I'm sick of hearing about Trump, I want to know whos up and coming and whos going to run in 2020 and 2024. Ben Sharpiro is the only guy who makes sense to me.

Every time I see a Shapiro clip, it's him debating someone with little to no education like it's going to impress someone.

 

[gtalk12]

Shapiro can't help himself when it comes to bring up the "Left" in every single issue. It is beyond annoying, and he is usually making a lot of sense.

He is no different to me then Young Turks who can't seen to talk about anything without mentioning conservatives.


It's the same shit as if we all don't want to make money and pay less in taxes

 

[BloodRaven]

Shapiro can't help himself when it comes to bring up the "Left" in every single issue. It is beyond annoying, and he is usually making a lot of sense.

Yeah thats what is annoying about him, he's too condescending when he's obviously smart enough to make his point and win people over. This country really needs candidates who have more moderate views and aren't increasingly divisive like Clinton and Trump etc.

 

[gtalk12]

Yeah thats what is annoying about him, he's too condescending when he's obviously smart enough to make his point and win people over. This country really needs candidates who have more moderate views and aren't increasingly divisive like Clinton and Trump etc.

I don't care what the other person is doing or what they are saying. What are YOU going to do?

I think it's stupid to have a country choose between 2 parties. Especially not these 2 anymore

 

[rossihunter2]

I don't care what the other person is doing or what they are saying. What are YOU going to do?

I think it's stupid to have a country choose between 2 parties. Especially not these 2 anymore

2 party system is not a good plan which is why the recent general election in the uk worried me a little because all of the minor parties have really started to become afterthoughts (certainly in england)

 

[Dom McRaven]

I don't care what the other person is doing or what they are saying. What are YOU going to do?

I think it's stupid to have a country choose between 2 parties. Especially not these 2 anymore

Fuck parties in general. Parties should be eliminated so people now have to do research on a candidate based on their merits, views/stances, etc.

 

[rossihunter2]

Fuck parties in general. Parties should be eliminated so people now have to do research on a candidate based on their merits, views/stances, etc.

i mean they would naturally reform once candidates were elected though

 

[BloodRaven]

If you're a lib your candidate is elected for you by superdelegates and the electorial vote trumps the popular vote. If you're conservative you have to consider sacrificing your principles to elect Trump again. Everyone is between a rock and a hard place.

 

[rossihunter2]

If you're a lib your candidate is elected for you by superdelegates and the electorial vote trumps the popular vote. If you're conservative you have to consider sacrificing your principles to elect Trump again. Everyone is between a rock and a hard place.

libs have been compromising all over the world for years to get moderate candidates into office - has stopped working which has caused liberals to go back to more liberal candidates hence this new massive political void occurring globally

 

[Inqui]

One of these days you will realize that what can be done in NZ and places like Finland only happen cuz of strong borders(merit based immigration) and a fraction of a fraction of our population. All the wealthy would probally move out or stash all their funds in foreign banks and then the middle class here would be totally fucked and be the servants of the govt. If capitalism doesn't work then why the hell does everybody want to come here. Look at all the countries south of us and realize what type of govts they run. When something is not broke you don't suddenly start radically changing it. If anybody disagrees with me then ask yourself how much you trust the govt then ask yourself would you really like them to control everything. Just look at the VA. That's govt run!!!!! And its run like shit!!! And then politicians and elites can have their family doctors and gold star plans. All federal employess should be on Obamacare.

Also socialism is in no way "right wing poltics". Please don't be telling me that Maduro is right wing. Pretty please.

One of these days you will realise that having a significantly higher population means you can do a huge amount more. Sure it's more people to take care of (though with healthcare it's an as-you-need-it thing) but it's also more people to collectively foot the bill. If you look at the GDP/capita PPP stats (which measures each person's income in US dollars against the overall price level in that country - so a higher value means you can buy more in your own country) it shows that we're not a particularly rich country in the scheme of things. There are fewer people to foot the bill for, but there are fewer people to do the footing and the income levels aren't as high as they would be over there.

Immigration. In principle I agree you need strong borders (and I agree the EU needs to put more funding into its own border program) and for immigration to be kept at sustainable levels. With that said, you can comb over the net migration rates per 1000 people and form your own opinion over whether things are actually unsustainable. The US isn't really out of line with any other major economy (aside from Australia and Canda. And Finland - go figure), all of whom run what gets described as "socialist" policies. Those numbers are the most up-to-date that the World Bank has (NZ's net migration has since increased to 15 people per 1000, in line with everyone else. People here hate it but they need to get over it), but the CIA uses a slightly different metric. Again though, US migration rates aren't dramatically different to many other major economies that run more generous programs.

Capital flight. The top tax rate here is 33% and we don't tax property at all (aside from local council rates), compared to your 39%. I haven't compared the European countries, but if you were to implement the exact same tax system as here (dollar for dollar, so again you'd have a much higher tax base due to said higher population and a higher income per person) the rich aren't moving their money anywhere. Depending on what loopholes got closed, because I know deductions are a big part of that system. The euro zone's a strong enough economy that people want to hold money there irrespective (as the UK government is finding out now). But the tax system the world over could use a revamp, so that's something I wouldn't disagree with but I think I'd bore everyone by bringing up my thoughts on that.

The South/Central American countries. The net migration rate between the US and Mexico is actually negative, but that's more a mildly interesting fact than any particularly substantial point. But this is where you have to define what exactly you mean by socialism and what it is they do that you think would ruin any capitalist country. And you also have to define what a "capitalist" country is, because otherwise this topic just descends to Cold War rhetoric that doesn't mean much of anything (where every country has to pick a side between socialism and capitalism, and since neither are competing political ideas like capitalism and communism were it's a hugely grey area since nearly every country in the world has several aspects of both). Mexico and Chile are signatories to the TPP, so in that regard you could argue they're more capitalist than the US (I'm not going to say that they are, but you get my point). Argentina's capital controls have always been a terrible idea (and you can go back to those GDP/capita PPP stats to compare the results with Chile, which has been working hard recently to open its economy), but I haven't seen anyone in the US advocate that. Venezuela's got a long list of problems, none of which translate to literally any developed economy in the world. Hugely corrupt officials (it's always popular to complain about your own country, but only the likes of Angola or Somalia are Venezuela-level bad) that have too much access to the main commodity of a single-commodity country (again, every developed country in the world is more diversified) and sketchy regulations with the central bank (meaning Maduro has essentially been able to print money at will - the textbook way to bring about hyperinflation) are all issues that are less to do with "socialism" than structural issues for a developing country. Maduro certainly isn't right-wing, but you have to have a seriously low opinion of your country and your President if you think something even remotely similar would happen in the US if you were to implement Venezuela's social welfare system, but that isn't even something I'm advocating for. All I'm doing is agreeing with @rossihunter2 that expanding certain areas of government assistance is nothing unprecedented. All I'm saying is that people like Bernie who get called socialists in the US aren't advocating anything too different to what people like Angela Merkel and Theresa May oversee or someone like Jacques Chirac did in the not-too-distant past. Bernie would be a centrist at best in Europe, which was my point.

Again, my point is that without an actual definition of socialism, simply saying that socialist policies will bankrupt the country is pretty meaningless. What kind of socialist programs was @K-Dog referring to?

Finally, you also said the US was spending a lot of money on foreign aid. The State Department (ie, the department that does foreign aid) has requested $54 billion for foreign aid for this fiscal year (page 1 of the official document - not some partisan hackery) against a federal budget of $3.9 trillion, which is about 1.4% of the budget. I brought this up like 10 pages ago, so maybe I should just tap out of this thread if it's going nowhere.

 

[Willbacker]

Fuck parties in general. Parties should be eliminated so people now have to do research on a candidate based on their merits, views/stances, etc.

I really like this idea since a lot of people just blindly vote their own party and especially name recognition. How else can guys like McCain serve 30 yrs.

I really wish we can set term limits also but yeah try getting that thru the legislative branch. Reason why I like this if your only allowed a certain amount of time you're gonna be more pressured to get your agenda across.

 

[Inqui]

I don't care what the other person is doing or what they are saying. What are YOU going to do?

I think it's stupid to have a country choose between 2 parties. Especially not these 2 anymore

I brought this up a while ago but a winner-takes-all two-party system is terrible. You somehow end up with the worst of both worlds between parties trying to dilute their ideas to vaguely appeal to the most people, while also ending up with blind hackery where people vehemently oppose the other side's ideas just because it's the other side who said it (it's mind-blowing how that Wisconsin guy was able to punch a reporter the day before an election and still win - and another example of what I mean is the difference in polling support between the ACA and Obamacare). If I were made emperor, I'd probably do the following:

1) Blow up the campaign finance laws and restructure them so there are fewer barriers to entry for new players.
2) Scrap the electoral college (I get the argument that it's for protecting the voices of the smaller states, but that's why the Senate was designed the way it was, and that effectively has veto power over the president anyway) and put in something more like the French system where any candidate needs two rounds of voter consensus.
3) Take creating districts out of the hands of the states and the parties, and set up a more independent panel to remove gerrymandering. Iirc the Supreme Court's due to make a ruling on that this month, so hopefully that goes the right way.
4) Bring in a proportional system for the House and maybe rework the way that gets integrated with the Presidential powers. If anyone's curious about how MMP could work in the US, this video's pretty good at explaining it (albeit I can understand if you find him a little hard to understand with the accent and how fast he talks):


Any substantial change IRL would require a huge electoral and probably a constitutional overhaul so I don't think anything significant would ever happen, but it's a fun topic to think about.

 

[rossihunter2]

I brought this up a while ago but a winner-takes-all two-party system is terrible. You somehow end up with the worst of both worlds between parties trying to dilute their ideas to vaguely appeal to the most people, while also ending up with blind hackery where people vehemently oppose the other side's ideas just because it's the other side who said it (it's mind-blowing how that Wisconsin guy was able to punch a reporter the day before an election and still win - and another example of what I mean is the difference in polling support between the ACA and Obamacare). If I were made emperor, I'd probably do the following:

1) Blow up the campaign finance laws and restructure them so there are fewer barriers to entry for new players.
2) Scrap the electoral college (I get the argument that it's for protecting the voices of the smaller states, but that's why the Senate was designed the way it was, and that effectively has veto power over the president anyway) and put in something more like the French system where any candidate needs two rounds of voter consensus.
3) Take creating districts out of the hands of the states and the parties, and set up a more independent panel to remove gerrymandering. Iirc the Supreme Court's due to make a ruling on that this month, so hopefully that goes the right way.
4) Bring in a proportional system for the House and maybe rework the way that gets integrated with the Presidential powers. If anyone's curious about how MMP could work in the US, this video's pretty good at explaining it (albeit I can understand if you find him a little hard to understand with the accent and how fast he talks):


Any substantial change IRL would require a huge electoral and probably a constitutional overhaul so I don't think anything significant would ever happen, but it's a fun topic to think about.

which is crazy because the way the USA is run constitution is as old as... the constitution - which is too old - society, technology and so much of life is new and develops over time but not the constitution or the way the political system in the US works

one that is big to me in terms of finances is that they should be all declared and they should be capped on both sides so that businesses and corporations cant buy policy - and there should be an independent organisation that reviews party funding and donations every campaign and has the ability to prosecute/sanction any party that break those regulations

 

[Willbacker]

One of these days you will realise that having a significantly higher population means you can do a huge amount more. Sure it's more people to take care of (though with healthcare it's an as-you-need-it thing) but it's also more people to collectively foot the bill. If you look at the GDP/capita PPP stats (which measures each person's income in US dollars against the overall price level in that country - so a higher value means you can buy more in your own country) it shows that we're not a particularly rich country in the scheme of things. There are fewer people to foot the bill for, but there are fewer people to do the footing and the income levels aren't as high as they would be over there.

Immigration. In principle I agree you need strong borders (and I agree the EU needs to put more funding into its own border program) and for immigration to be kept at sustainable levels. With that said, you can comb over the net migration rates per 1000 people and form your own opinion over whether things are actually unsustainable. The US isn't really out of line with any other major economy (aside from Australia and Canda. And Finland - go figure), all of whom run what gets described as "socialist" policies. Those numbers are the most up-to-date that the World Bank has (NZ's net migration has since increased to 15 people per 1000, in line with everyone else. People here hate it but they need to get over it), but the CIA uses a slightly different metric. Again though, US migration rates aren't dramatically different to many other major economies that run more generous programs.

Capital flight. The top tax rate here is 33% and we don't tax property at all (aside from local council rates), compared to your 39%. I haven't compared the European countries, but if you were to implement the exact same tax system as here (dollar for dollar, so again you'd have a much higher tax base due to said higher population and a higher income per person) the rich aren't moving their money anywhere. Depending on what loopholes got closed, because I know deductions are a big part of that system. The euro zone's a strong enough economy that people want to hold money there irrespective (as the UK government is finding out now). But the tax system the world over could use a revamp, so that's something I wouldn't disagree with but I think I'd bore everyone by bringing up my thoughts on that.

The South/Central American countries. The net migration rate between the US and Mexico is actually negative, but that's more a mildly interesting fact than any particularly substantial point. But this is where you have to define what exactly you mean by socialism and what it is they do that you think would ruin any capitalist country. And you also have to define what a "capitalist" country is, because otherwise this topic just descends to Cold War rhetoric that doesn't mean much of anything (where every country has to pick a side between socialism and capitalism, and since neither are competing political ideas like capitalism and communism were it's a hugely grey area since nearly every country in the world has several aspects of both). Mexico and Chile are signatories to the TPP, so in that regard you could argue they're more capitalist than the US (I'm not going to say that they are, but you get my point). Argentina's capital controls have always been a terrible idea (and you can go back to those GDP/capita PPP stats to compare the results with Chile, which has been working hard recently to open its economy), but I haven't seen anyone in the US advocate that. Venezuela's got a long list of problems, none of which translate to literally any developed economy in the world. Hugely corrupt officials (it's always popular to complain about your own country, but only the likes of Angola or Somalia are Venezuela-level bad) that have too much access to the main commodity of a single-commodity country (again, every developed country in the world is more diversified) and sketchy regulations with the central bank (meaning Maduro has essentially been able to print money at will - the textbook way to bring about hyperinflation) are all issues that are less to do with "socialism" than structural issues for a developing country. Maduro certainly isn't right-wing, but you have to have a seriously low opinion of your country and your President if you think something even remotely similar would happen in the US if you were to implement Venezuela's social welfare system, but that isn't even something I'm advocating for. All I'm doing is agreeing with @rossihunter2 that expanding certain areas of government assistance is nothing unprecedented. All I'm saying is that people like Bernie who get called socialists in the US aren't advocating anything too different to what people like Angela Merkel and Theresa May oversee or someone like Jacques Chirac did in the not-too-distant past. Bernie would be a centrist at best in Europe, which was my point.

Again, my point is that without an actual definition of socialism, simply saying that socialist policies will bankrupt the country is pretty meaningless. What kind of socialist programs was @K-Dog referring to?

Finally, you also said the US was spending a lot of money on foreign aid. The State Department (ie, the department that does foreign aid) has requested $54 billion for foreign aid for this fiscal year (page 1 of the official document - not some partisan hackery) against a federal budget of $3.9 trillion, which is about 1.4% of the budget. I brought this up like 10 pages ago, so maybe I should just tap out of this thread if it's going nowhere.

Ok there's a lot to go over here.

First off capitalism to me is competition and the free market while socialism is govt controlled. If you have single payer health you are not going to have your own choice on who to see, what coverages you would like or how much you would like to pay for it and you're gonna have to pay since hey the poor needs it right so you have to pay for them too. My problem is the rich and politicians do not use what they dole out on the public. Also look at our VA system and how well that's run. I want no parts of it. There's already socialist practices now that I cant stand like Social (probally short for socialist) Security. You pay into this and they tell you how much you gonna get per month. Its laughable and you cant leave this to anybody when you die except spouse. Trust me I could have made more money other ways but since I didn't have a choice...... Public education is another. You're told what school to go to and you pay this tax for life even tho a parent should only have to pay for 12 yrs plus more if they want to go to college, You get either extremely limited or no choice on these things thru socialism whereas with capitalism you would thru competition which helps keep the price down and you can do as to what you can afford.
.Please read Art 1 Sect 8 of the Constitution ( I left a link on pg 60) as to what the federal govt is allowed to do. It doesn't mention health or education.

Now that you're saying net migration is going up in countries like yours with socialistic practices you will find out in a few yrs whether you can sustain. Canada is already starting to freak out. While I agree with the negative Mexico thing its Central/South America that's concerning for the US.

On foreign aid I'm sure you are correct on %'s but why keep giving money if people are gonna continue to flee. Its just more waste. Hell if China gives aid in any ways they get mining rights or something while we don't get a damn thing.

 

[Willbacker]

I brought this up a while ago but a winner-takes-all two-party system is terrible. You somehow end up with the worst of both worlds between parties trying to dilute their ideas to vaguely appeal to the most people, while also ending up with blind hackery where people vehemently oppose the other side's ideas just because it's the other side who said it (it's mind-blowing how that Wisconsin guy was able to punch a reporter the day before an election and still win - and another example of what I mean is the difference in polling support between the ACA and Obamacare). If I were made emperor, I'd probably do the following:

1) Blow up the campaign finance laws and restructure them so there are fewer barriers to entry for new players.
2) Scrap the electoral college (I get the argument that it's for protecting the voices of the smaller states, but that's why the Senate was designed the way it was, and that effectively has veto power over the president anyway) and put in something more like the French system where any candidate needs two rounds of voter consensus.
3) Take creating districts out of the hands of the states and the parties, and set up a more independent panel to remove gerrymandering. Iirc the Supreme Court's due to make a ruling on that this month, so hopefully that goes the right way.
4) Bring in a proportional system for the House and maybe rework the way that gets integrated with the Presidential powers. If anyone's curious about how MMP could work in the US, this video's pretty good at explaining it (albeit I can understand if you find him a little hard to understand with the accent and how fast he talks):


Any substantial change IRL would require a huge electoral and probably a constitutional overhaul so I don't think anything significant would ever happen, but it's a fun topic to think about.

I like every one of your ideas except scrapping the electoral colleges since in this country you'd be handing all the power to urbanites.

Good vid. I liked it even with the accents lol. Interesting cuz when we talk about 3rd party candidates I've actually done this twice voting for the liberation candidate in 2008 ( the name is eluding me) cuz I couldn't stand neither candidate and Ross Perot who effectively got the Clinton admin started. I would love to see more parties but most people just think its a wasted vote and it actually takes away from the candidate they'd rather have from the 2 big parties. Really quite a shame.

 

[rossihunter2]

Ok there's a lot to go over here.

First off capitalism to me is competition and the free market while socialism is govt controlled. If you have single payer health you are not going to have your own choice on who to see, what coverages you would like or how much you would like to pay for it and you're gonna have to pay since hey the poor needs it right so you have to pay for them too. My problem is the rich and politicians do not use what they dole out on the public. Also look at our VA system and how well that's run. I want no parts of it. There's already socialist practices now that I cant stand like Social (probally short for socialist) Security. You pay into this and they tell you how much you gonna get per month. Its laughable and you cant leave this to anybody when you die except spouse. Trust me I could have made more money other ways but since I didn't have a choice...... Public education is another. You're told what school to go to and you pay this tax for life even tho a parent should only have to pay for 12 yrs plus more if they want to go to college, You get either extremely limited or no choice on these things thru socialism whereas with capitalism you would thru competition which helps keep the price down and you can do as to what you can afford.
.Please read Art 1 Sect 8 of the Constitution ( I left a link on pg 60) as to what the federal govt is allowed to do. It doesn't mention health or education.

Now that you're saying net migration is going up in countries like yours with socialistic practices you will find out in a few yrs whether you can sustain. Canada is already starting to freak out. While I agree with the negative Mexico thing its Central/South America that's concerning for the US.

On foreign aid I'm sure you are correct on %'s but why keep giving money if people are gonna continue to flee. Its just more waste. Hell if China gives aid in any ways they get mining rights or something while we don't get a damn thing.

in practice that's not really how it works - if there's one thing im proud of as a brit (and there are very few things left) it's the NHS and it is the world's pre-eminent health service despite being govt funded and controlled

and to distill capitalism and socialism down to those reductive terms you mentioned is a little simplistic

public schooling doesnt work really like that either - you arent told you have to go to one specific school, you have options still - it's not like a communist communal autarky where things are dictated to the population on communist principles

and again the tax idea comes back to the idea that the richer shouldnt support the poorer - if you had a truly capitalist system then not every child in the country would be able to go to school which is crazy - of course taxes on schooling shouldnt have anything to do with your children - if that was the case there should be an opt out clause on armed forces... if you want to run schools and health like that then people shouldnt expect to have to pay for the military outside of war time invasions on their homeland...

and im afraid that unregulated pure capitalism doesnt have its endgame at extra competition and low prices - no it ends up in monopolic or ologopolic collusion with prices unable to be brought down a la the pharmaceutical companies which is why so many medicines cost a fortune or glasses (that's a great example of a hidden monopoly/oligopoly)

in terms of migration/immigration - given the racism and some of the awful people in my country i couldnt give a shit who comes in from outside tbh because they dont immediately get citizenship when they arrive... id rather they drove out the racists and xenophobes etc. - i dont mean to be flippant but i hate the mainstream media/politics demonising immigrants (and muslims)

on foreign aid i have to say this: aid and immigrants dont come necessarily from the same place - people migrate for a number of reasons and then there are people who cant migrate who still need aid - given how relatively small the money is that's leaving the country in aid terms i dont really know what you have to complain about tbh when in many cases western intervention causes many of the economic problems in countries that then require aid - of course there are examples where aid is inefficiently used/disseminated but if anything the western world should be giving more in aid to the rest of the world given how so many of their problems are related to colonialism, world wars they wouldnt have otherwise been involved in, oil crises, untempered and unrestrained globalisation, servitude, racism etc.etc. i think those 3rd world countries and war-torn regions probably deserve more aid than they are getting tbh

 

[rossihunter2]

I like every one of your ideas except scrapping the electoral colleges since in this country you'd be handing all the power to urbanites.

Good vid. I liked it even with the accents lol. Interesting cuz when we talk about 3rd party candidates I've actually done this twice voting for the liberation candidate in 2008 ( the name is eluding me) cuz I couldn't stand neither candidate and Ross Perot who effectively got the Clinton admin started. I would love to see more parties but most people just think its a wasted vote and it actually takes away from the candidate they'd rather have from the 2 big parties. Really quite a shame.

the only way to break a 2 party system is by having a 3rd successful party come in and pave the way to having 3 parties in government which allows other parties to become meaningful

the problem with keeping the electoral colleges is that while it protects those in less urban areas it also reduces the value of votes cast by those who live in cities or more populous places - a vote should matter equally or it doesnt really matter at all in a democratic sense

 

[Willbacker]

in practice that's not really how it works - if there's one thing im proud of as a brit (and there are very few things left) it's the NHS and it is the world's pre-eminent health service despite being govt funded and controlled

and to distill capitalism and socialism down to those reductive terms you mentioned is a little simplistic

public schooling doesnt work really like that either - you arent told you have to go to one specific school, you have options still - it's not like a communist communal autarky where things are dictated to the population on communist principles

and again the tax idea comes back to the idea that the richer shouldnt support the poorer - if you had a truly capitalist system then not every child in the country would be able to go to school which is crazy - of course taxes on schooling shouldnt have anything to do with your children - if that was the case there should be an opt out clause on armed forces... if you want to run schools and health like that then people shouldnt expect to have to pay for the military outside of war time invasions on their homeland...

and im afraid that unregulated pure capitalism doesnt have its endgame at extra competition and low prices - no it ends up in monopolic or ologopolic collusion with prices unable to be brought down a la the pharmaceutical companies which is why so many medicines cost a fortune or glasses (that's a great example of a hidden monopoly/oligopoly)

in terms of migration/immigration - given the racism and some of the awful people in my country i couldnt give a shit who comes in from outside tbh because they dont immediately get citizenship when they arrive... id rather they drove out the racists and xenophobes etc. - i dont mean to be flippant but i hate the mainstream media/politics demonising immigrants (and muslims)

on foreign aid i have to say this: aid and immigrants dont come necessarily from the same place - people migrate for a number of reasons and then there are people who cant migrate who still need aid - given how relatively small the money is that's leaving the country in aid terms i dont really know what you have to complain about tbh when in many cases western intervention causes many of the economic problems in countries that then require aid - of course there are examples where aid is inefficiently used/disseminated but if anything the western world should be giving more in aid to the rest of the world given how so many of their problems are related to colonialism, world wars they wouldnt have otherwise been involved in, oil crises, untempered and unrestrained globalisation, servitude, racism etc.etc. i think those 3rd world countries and war-torn regions probably deserve more aid than they are getting tbh

If you go to a public school no you have to go to your district school.

The military is one of the powers of the federal govt

Its a good thing generics can be made after patent ends but also there's coupons and trial offers but yes pharm can be unscrupulous and its pathetic but there is no competition when only one company owns the rights. So I can buy into some sort of regulation if there can be no competition.

I don't want nobody flowing into this country illegally if you don't mind that happening in England than so be it.

Most of the immigrants do come from countries that we give aid to. I also don't believe western intervention caused economic problems.

 

[Willbacker]

the only way to break a 2 party system is by having a 3rd successful party come in and pave the way to having 3 parties in government which allows other parties to become meaningful

the problem with keeping the electoral colleges is that while it protects those in less urban areas it also reduces the value of votes cast by those who live in cities or more populous places - a vote should matter equally or it doesnt really matter at all in a democratic sense

We are not a complete democracy.

 

[rossihunter2]

If you go to a public school no you have to go to your district school.

its not working right then - that's not how it works elsewhere in the world

The military is one of the powers of the federal govt

i dont understand your point

I don't want nobody flowing into this country illegally if you don't mind that happening in England than so be it.

i mean that's not a popular opinion anywhere but i dont subscribe to popular opinions about immigration to be honest - objectively i find the idea of countries a bit weird in the first place

Most of the immigrants do come from countries that we give aid to. I also don't believe western intervention caused economic problems.

i just looked up those stats - in the top 25 countries receiving aid from the US of any kind, only mexico features as notable percentage (at 27%) of the immigrant population of the US... most other immigrants as a percentage of us immigration are coming from India, China and Hong Kong, the rest of latin america (of whom only haiti appears on the top 25 receivers of aid), the phillipines and korea

and i dont see how western intervention cant be blamed at least partially for the economic (and other kinds) problems suffered by a significant number of countries who now require aid and assistance

also here's a question i have for you on immigration - why is immigration now such a big fear in US society when it was not earlier in the 20th century - why is it such a politically important point now as opposed to 50 years ago for example?