Trump’s 2nd term: American Carnage

[OzTitan]

5 minutes ago, Titandan said:

You're mean. Stop it 

I was referring to the person you linked to, but for you to link that nonsense in the context of this thread while embroiled in challenges about forming opinions from obviously bad information for something you didn't know anything about 2 weeks ago is, honestly, pretty impressive trolling.

[OzTitan]

But yes if you genuinely entertain something like that then you are of course cooked as well.

[Titandan]

9 minutes ago, Bink said:

 

If you respectfully disagree---can you make an argument? 

 

You've said "time will tell" before. 

 

Can you provide a counter argument? Can you assess Trump's empowerment of Elon via executive order, Elon's actions, the wholesale dismantling of government agencies, the wholesale withdraw of the US from the world stage----can you assess any of that through the lens of American history and make an argument as to why it is in line with American ideals? 

 

Because I can easily map this to Russian history, or what happened to squash progress in Iran, or the fate of countless other countries. 

 

If you don't want to be a troll--I'd respectfully say, fuck the posters on this board. Don't give a shit about us. 

 

Stop trolling yourself. You claim to have a history degree. I believe you. 

 

Apply it. Use those critical thinking skills. Don't wash your hands a say time will tell.

 

A historian would never do that. Neither would a good citizen. 

I honestly have spent so much time on this board that I'm kind of reassessing the use of my time.

It provides me some entertainment but I don't really enjoy pissing everyone off. At the root of it, I'd rather get to the issues at hand. 

But when I'm working, I usually listen to podcasts or youtube clips that cover the major issues of the day while driving in my car from one location to the next.  And yes, most are biased to the right or libertarian.  But I do like to engage because I would like to hear what the other side is thinking.  Today, I haven't had much time to do research.  I'm just trusting the news that's coming out and the good thing about x.com is that it has community notes. And I'm sure the mods or developers at x.com can control certain things but I think it's still the best source for news that we have.  I usually wait for the news to be confirmed before I take a hard stance one way or the other and more often than not, my hunch ends up being correct.  I was wrong a lot in the past as O-man will gladly attest and I'll own up to my mistakes. 

 

I actually wanted to cover the positives and the negatives of each news sources and I was curious where some of you guys are getting your information so that I can try them out when I can.  

Anyway, I'm not super passionate about this and tired today but I do believe that if these programs that are funded by USAID verified to be wasting money or funneling money to politicians, I do definitely think it's a problem.  I'm sure you guys would not be happy if the majority of the media was MAGA and billions of dollars were going to MAGA causes. 

 

And as far as being a historian, I believe everyone who studies history is a historian.  But as an official title, I would not consider myself a historian today.  I remember almost nothing about the studies from 25 years ago and I haven't really brushed up on medieval European history in at least 20 years.  I just thought that was the most enticing major and it had a facade of sophistication when I was a young'un college so that's what I went with. I know... stupid. 

I hope I'm being fair with my treatment of you guys and if I'm not, please let me know or just tell me to fuck off. I don't care anymore at this point. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Titandan said:

I honestly have spent so much time on this board that I'm kind of reassessing the use of my time.

It provides me some entertainment but I don't really enjoy pissing everyone off. At the root of it, I'd rather get to the issues at hand. 

But when I'm working, I usually listen to podcasts or youtube clips that cover the major issues of the day while driving in my car from one location to the next.  And yes, most are biased to the right or libertarian.  But I do like to engage because I would like to hear what the other side is thinking.  Today, I haven't had much time to do research.  I'm just trusting the news that's coming out and the good thing about x.com is that it has community notes. And I'm sure the mods or developers at x.com can control certain things but I think it's still the best source for news that we have.  I usually wait for the news to be confirmed before I take a hard stance one way or the other and more often than not, my hunch ends up being correct.  I was wrong a lot in the past as O-man will gladly attest and I'll own up to my mistakes. 

 

I actually wanted to cover the positives and the negatives of each news sources and I was curious where some of you guys are getting your information so that I can try them out when I can.  

Anyway, I'm not super passionate about this and tired today but I do believe that if these programs that are funded by USAID verified to be wasting money or funneling money to politicians, I do definitely think it's a problem.  I'm sure you guys would not be happy if the majority of the media was MAGA and billions of dollars were going to MAGA causes. 

 

And as far as being a historian, I believe everyone who studies history is a historian.  But as an official title, I would not consider myself a historian today.  I remember almost nothing about the studies from 25 years ago and I haven't really brushed up on medieval European history in at least 20 years.  I just thought that was the most enticing major and it had a facade of sophistication when I was a young'un college so that's what I went with. I know... stupid. 

I hope I'm being fair with my treatment of you guys and if I'm not, please let me know or just tell me to fuck off. I don't care anymore at this point. 

 

"I listen to podcasts. I watch youtube clips. I haven't done research. I am tired. I trust "x" of all media sources (the one source influenced by one singluar person with clear bias). 

 

From this I do believe these programs are "verified" to be wasting money or funneling money to politicians (this is far from verified)."

 

Again, this is radically simple. If there is even a sliver of a chance that addressing famine, global health issues, starvation--if the life of one child is on the line, don't you think it is at least worth investigating and making the case in a normal way? 

 

That shutting it down over the course of a weekend after Elon said so is not the American way? 

 

You are on here espousing listening to the other side, but you are also cosigning political action that complete circumvents this process to do away with entire government organizations, costing hundreds of people their jobs and potentially putting people all across the world at risk. 

 

I don't care how you treat me. I know for conservatives a lot of Trump support is based on perceived grievance/treatment. 

 

I am asking you to apply very basic common sense and you are failing that test. 

 

 

[Titans279]

53 minutes ago, Bink said:

 

If you respectfully disagree---can you make an argument? 

 

You've said "time will tell" before. 

 

Can you provide a counter argument? Can you assess Trump's empowerment of Elon via executive order, Elon's actions, the wholesale dismantling of government agencies, the wholesale withdraw of the US from the world stage----can you assess any of that through the lens of American history and make an argument as to why it is in line with American ideals? 

 

Because I can easily map this to Russian history, or what happened to squash progress in Iran, or the fate of countless other countries. 

 

If you don't want to be a troll--I'd respectfully say, fuck the posters on this board. Don't give a shit about us. 

 

Stop trolling yourself. You claim to have a history degree. I believe you. 

 

Apply it. Use those critical thinking skills. Don't wash your hands a say time will tell.

 

A historian would never do that. Neither would a good citizen. 

he told me he didn’t go to college… 

 

 

[OzTitan]

@Bink's point about this not being a campaign issue is extra salient when you consider USAID expenditure is easy for anyone to look up. It's not like it took them getting into power to see ANY of this stuff.

 

So why is it such a big deal now they do have the power to go in and wreck shit?

Do you think maybe them highlighting a handful of DEI things (which is not automatically "fraud", btw) and subscriptions to a media organization (which is not solely a USAID thing anyway) is just because they know this stuff would rile up their base? why do they want you to be riled up?

 

For people who love a good conspiracy, they're really bad at seeing the genuine ones.

[Starkiller]

Conservatives have demonized foreign aid for decades. They will decry it as a waste of money. A lot of them love the idea of eliminating it, but only because they are too stupid to understand the value of it, both here and abroad. And in the end they will largely get their way, to some degree at least, as soon as Republicans pass a new federal budget. 
 

But the real problem is that Trump, Musk, and all of their supporters are doing everything exactly how those of us who label them as fascists say they will do things. This is all incredibly illegal and Republicans are just going along with the authoritarian violation of the law. It’s not just violating the norms that Trump stomped on the last time. This time he’s flat out ignoring federal law and the Constitution. Their fellow fascists cheer it on…

Edited February 7 by Starkiller

[Titandan]

40 minutes ago, Titans279 said:

he told me he didn’t go to college… 

 

 

Main schooling from "School of hard knocks" my boy.  I went to a small Christian College. Ain't telling you where. 

[Titans279]

30 minutes ago, Titandan said:

Main schooling from "School of hard knocks" my boy.  I went to a small Christian College. Ain't telling you where. 

I don’t care where. 
 

How old do you think the earth is btw?

[Titandan]

1 hour ago, Titans279 said:

I don’t care where. 
 

How old do you think the earth is btw?

According to the Bible, probably 6,000 years old but who knows how long the measure of a day is back then... time is something I'm not sure if I can take literally from the old testament.  People lived hundreds of years at certain times in the OT as well. The details might not be as important. 

 

According to the science community and carbon dating, the figures are in the millions of years. But that's hard for me to believe as well based on the recent historical advancement of mankind.  And I really don't know how accurate carbon dating is as I'm pretty sure there are many variables that affect the accuracy. 

I was never super interested in apologetics, philosophy, science, or metaphysics even while in school.  Not sure if my brain is even capable of understanding certain aspects of these subjects.  Like I said, I didn't always perform the best academically so the assertions that I'm not that smart might not be that far off.  But I definitely have at least a basic ability to read and comprehend simple concepts. 

So how old do you think the world is?  And what's your academic/professional background? 

Edited February 7 by Titandan

[Titandan]

Watch the first part of this video if you're interested in the tariff situation.
In these situations where trade is lopsided, I think tariffs are useful. 
Any thoughts about Germany and Japan still having tariffs on American cars? 
I completely forgot about that.  Trade should be fair. 
 

 

Edited February 7 by Titandan

[TheBukafax]

4 hours ago, Titandan said:

Watch the first part of this video if you're interested in the tariff situation.
In these situations where trade is lopsided, I think tariffs are useful. 
Any thoughts about Germany and Japan still having tariffs on American cars? 
I completely forgot about that.  Trade should be fair. 
 

 

I ALMOST made a generic comment like “Wow that’s wild Japan has tarrifs on US auto”.

 

Then I used some of that old fashioned critical thinking. Why in the fuck would they bother with that when they have the superior product? As well most US vehicle production is pickup and SUV. So I did what any well-meaning right winger recommends; I did my research.

 

https://www.jama.org/questions-and-answers-about-the-japanese-auto-industry-and-the-trans-pacific-partnership-2/#:~:text=Japan has zero import duties,selling there have been successful.

[ctm]

Any money saved by cutting USAID isn't going to be redirected to American poor or middle class.  It's going to be used to fund tax cuts for the Elon Musks of the country.

 

Republicans scream about the huge budget deficit, and maybe rightfully so.  Problem is they want to keep digging with their tax cuts.

[Jamalisms]

@Titandan Not only does Japan not have tariffs against US cars, we either do or did in the recent past put tariffs on Japanese cars brought into the US.

 

This is another example of how the information bubble you're living in is a huge disservice to you.

[LongTimeFan]

Reading through the pages of attacks on @Titandanis the same playbook the Dems have used for decades and can best be summed up by on of their own.

 

"Fetterman reiterated his belief that the party did it to itself by constantly attacking and demeaning their opponents.

 

I think their primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them ‘Hey, I know better than you, or you’re dopes, or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, how can you be this dumb? I can’t imagine it. And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?’" Fetterman said.

 

Then Drms elect an ultra progressive cop hating Trump hater to lead the DNC, shows how their party leadership is still out of touch.