Support NeoGAF

[Blood Borne]

i. These articles don't demonstrate that average American people actual care about income inequality. Nor do they show how raising taxes fixes that issue.

Not to mention looking at data empiracally, US States with high taxation tend to have higher rates of poverty and general income inequality, than states with low/little taxation.



ii. This example is really a propos, because a person earning £30mil owes closer to £12mil at current tax rates, more than double the £5mil you're suggesting.

You obviously don't agree with people being taxed at 30% to 40% income rates.Otherwise why low ball the tax rates so much in your example?



iii. The most basic economic principle is the relationship between price and demand. If you raise the price ( in this case taxes) you lower demand (in this case the amount of people paying the full tax rate, or taxes at all.)

In the fifties, when the income tax rates were massive, it was due to the US having a monopoly on industrial manufacturing. Those levels of taxation wouldn't work in the modern economy. It would drive many businesses right out of the country.

Explaining basic economics to leftists is like teaching a pig how to sing. You waste your time and effort and more so, you annoy the pig.

Wealth inequality has got to be one of the stupid issues the left harps on about. Standard of living should be the concern. There's massive inequality between Bill Gates and a person who earns $100,000. Nevertheless, the latter leaves a very comfortable life. As opposed to developing countries where there's no wealth inequality and people are equally poor.

The left creates fake issues, issues no one cares about, just to further their marxist agenda. It's not a coincidence that all, I repeat, ALL the issues leftists scream about, the solution to all the issues is tax/wealth redistribution.

Climate change - the left believes tax/wealth redistribution will solve it.

Wealth inequality - same as above, tax/wealth redistribution.

'Institutional' racism - tax/wealth redistribution.

Institutional sexism/ gender issues - tax/wealth redistribution will fix it.

Anything leftists complain about, their answer to it is tax/wealth redistribution. Fuckin marxists.

 

[Mohonky]

Explaining basic economics to leftists is like teaching a pig how to sing. You waste your time and effort and more so, you annoy the pig.

Wealth inequality has got to be one of the stupid issues the left harps on about. Standard of living should be the concern. There's massive inequality between Bill Gates and a person who earns $100,000. Nevertheless, the latter leaves a very comfortable life. As opposed to developing countries where there's no wealth inequality and people are equally poor.

The left creates fake issues, issues no one cares about, just to further their marxist agenda. It's not a coincidence that all, I repeat, ALL the issues leftists scream about, the solution to all the issues is tax/wealth redistribution.

Climate change - the left believes tax/wealth redistribution will solve it.

Wealth inequality - same as above, tax/wealth redistribution.

'Institutional' racism - tax/wealth redistribution.

Institutional sexism/ gender issues - tax/wealth redistribution will fix it.

Anything leftists complain about, their answer to it is tax/wealth redistribution. Fuckin marxists.

I'm seeing a lot of buzz words but not a lot of substance. Care to elaborate on your comments here?

 

[davidbloop]

I'm an Aussie so the entire concept of left and right is strange to me..... don't get me wrong, we definitely have what you'd call "left leaning" and "right leaning" but for the most part, this idea of you're either LEFT or RIGHT just seems stupid to me.

As an outsider looking in... and I'll admit... this isn't necessarily accurate, just an outsiders perspective. I watch a lot of American news as I find it fascinating just how strange your country and culture is from my world view. Anyway.... from my perspective... the right is the only party that really identifies so hard with being right. They seem to think there's some type of left vs right thing going on, when they are the ones perpetuating it.

I see so many times "it's just the left pushing their agenda just to fuck over the right" or all sorts of other strange motivators that get pushed onto the left. From my point, sitting from the outside looking in... I see a whole bunch of people that just want to use history, science and basic human compassion to make policy, rather than some tribe mentality. The right seems to identify much harder as being 'right' and they seem to behave as though everyone that isn't in their group, is an outsider, regardless of policy.

That said I'll admit... I am not in a position to understand fully. I find it truly impossible to comprehend why anyone in the USA isn't for universal health care.... and I suppose that stems from my own cultural bubble, its hard to see the right as anything other than a self-centered mentality. ie. "why should MY taxes be paying for someone ELSE". We take it for granted here that taxes are not being paid to benefit ourselves but everyone in the country.... It seems ironic to me that the 'patriotic' party, is the party that wants the least to share their good fortune with other fellow citizens. That said though I think the left also goes too hard in their position which is why we saw such big backlash to the PC culture that the left got going. (Don't get me wrong, I believe in equal rights... but when you start having people that say posting a picture of a meme with an African American person in it is 'digital blackface' if you aren't black is ridiculous) Or when you have women saying men are sexist pigs who are purposefully trying to make women feel inferior because they sit with their legs open (Manspreading?) while seeming to forget that we have rather sensitive and delicate sexual reproductive organs between our legs so it's probably natural for us to not want to crush them. Neither party seems to be willing to make small concessions to meet a rational conclusion, instead it seems to boil down to "us vs them"



Again I must state, I'm not American, and im not saying my viewpoints are correct.... its a different country and a different culture so I can't begin to claim I understand things there.... but I just had to say how really strange it is watching the American political climate and how people tend to identify so much with their political party. Here in Australia they're all just a bunch of shitty politicians and outside of election time, we just don't give a fuck. I never meet people that identify as left or right... instead they'll identify as having a position on a certain policy. I guess we think there's more room for grey area and nuance than just a 2 party mentality, even though we have mainly 2 political parties here, even then they tend to go back and forth and never really take the plunge into a full right or left position. An example would be our liberal party (what you'd call the right wing I suppose) is hard against immigration and gay rights.... but they still believe in universal healthcare and environmental protection and social welfare... just not as much as the labor party (what you'd call left I guess).

That said though, I'm so far removed that I find the simple concept of a 'rally' and large campaigns is strange to me.

It's just interesting I suppose is what I'm saying I guess I just wanted to share that from the outside looking in, it really does seem like a country of extremists... maybe not extremists in the way you're used to using it... but extremists regardless.

 

[Naudi]

Explaining basic economics to leftists is like teaching a pig how to sing. You waste your time and effort and more so, you annoy the pig.

Wealth inequality has got to be one of the stupid issues the left harps on about. Standard of living should be the concern. There's massive inequality between Bill Gates and a person who earns $100,000. Nevertheless, the latter leaves a very comfortable life. As opposed to developing countries where there's no wealth inequality and people are equally poor.

The left creates fake issues, issues no one cares about, just to further their marxist agenda. It's not a coincidence that all, I repeat, ALL the issues leftists scream about, the solution to all the issues is tax/wealth redistribution.

Climate change - the left believes tax/wealth redistribution will solve it.

Wealth inequality - same as above, tax/wealth redistribution.

'Institutional' racism - tax/wealth redistribution.

Institutional sexism/ gender issues - tax/wealth redistribution will fix it.

Anything leftists complain about, their answer to it is tax/wealth redistribution. Fuckin marxists.

Lol, this has to be a troll account.

 

[TheChocoboCadet]

Lol, this has to be a troll account.

Check out his post history and realize that he's openly been doing this for at least a month without receiving any sort of ban.

Speaking of which, could the nearest mod please ban my account? This place has really let me down these last few months, but I don't have the self-control to stop posting here. And you can skip the 7 posts of "You could have PM'd a mod/not logged on/desperate cry for attention." I already know that and chose to make a stupid post anyways, so what's done is done.

On-topic: (looks at Twitter) It wasn't a good year.

 

[CampbellzSoup]

Check out his post history and realize that he's openly been doing this for at least a month without receiving any sort of ban.

Speaking of which, could the nearest mod please ban my account? This place has really let me down these last few months, but I don't have the self-control to stop posting here. And you can skip the 7 posts of "You could have PM'd a mod/not logged on/desperate cry for attention." I already know that and chose to make a stupid post anyways, so what's done is done.

On-topic: (looks at Twitter) It wasn't a good year.

What has he deserved a ban for exactly?

 

[Mohonky]

What has he deserved a ban for exactly?

I would generally say repeatedly posting passive aggressive statements that arent actually contributing to any conversation, just throwing out 'trigger' terms but not actually controbuting anything.

Its similar to how people used to just respond with referring to posters aa nazi's, bigots, snowflakes etc. Its not actually constructive.

Some people have trouble differentiating between what is actually providing an alternative point of view that is articulated and constructive as means of providing the alternative narrative, instead they think that because they arent being banned for attacking others with useless buzz word insults that they are providing legitimate counterpoints to the discussion.

I havent yet decided which annoys me more; the shit posting comments about SJW, snowflakes, soy boys, Marxists etc, or the previous dog piling of anyone that did infasct provide articulate discussion that got shut down vexauae it didnt suit the greater hive mind of posters who felt morally and ethically superior.

I like to see open discussion and debate; but some people havent actually contibuted anything of that sort.

 

[Deleted member 12837]

Serious question.

When people say Russia 'interfered' or 'intruded' in the election, what do they exactly mean?

Do they mean that Russia hacked the voting booth/machine?

Can someone please help me out, because I really don't get it.

I'm going to answer this in good faith in case you are serious. There are actually quite a few different rabbit holes to go down answering this question. I'll try to cover some of them.

Let me also preface this by saying I don't personally think it can or ever will be established that Trump won the election *because* of this interference, or even that we'll ever be able to know how much it helped him (or if you've very skeptical, whether it helped him at all). I think that's irrelevant anyways -- it's just a distraction from how serious these intrusions and attempts were/are. It doesn't matter if they were "successful" or not. We still put criminals in jail for "attempted murder" or failed attempts at just about any crime.

1) Email and server hacking

Let's put aside tribalism for a minute and not even mention political parties.

A hacking group (Fancy Bear) associated with the GRU (Russian military intelligence agency) infiltrated the servers of one of the governing body of one of our 2 major political parties. This is backed by the findings of the major US intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, DNI) and corroborated by foreign agencies as well.

They launched targeted phishing attacks against high-ranking officials in that party, and successfully gained access to that party's candidate's campaign chairman's email. Those emails were then given to WikiLeaks to release to the public.

You can argue all you want about what the emails uncovered, but that's its own separate issue to deal with/handle and it doesn't change the fact that a foreign power launched a successful cyber attack against a major US government organization and officials.

2) Hacking of local and state election voting databases

Late last year, the DHS revealed that 21 state election systems were targeted for attack by Russian actors. They were unsuccessful, save for Illinois, where they were able to breach the state's voter database. They had brief access to view the records (names, DOB, driver's license info, partial SSNs) and managed to download as many as 90k before being detected and cut off.

They never were in a position to affect actual vote recording or tallying (thankfully), but it's likely that their main goal was to sow discord and undermine our confidence in US democracy and the election process by poking around. Perhaps they'll put some of that voter data to use in the future via identity theft, etc.

3) Social media, bot accounts and Fake News

I'll preface this one by saying my definition here of "Fake News" refs to truly falsified stories. Not a journalist making a mistake or jumping the gun, or of predictions that didn't pan out. I'm talking about stories and conspiracy theories like Pizzagate, Uranium One, or Obama being a secret muslim who wasn't born in the US.

Russia made a concentrated effort to flood social networks with incredibly divisive fake news stories. Many of those ads have now been publicly released (they've all been seen by the Senate and House intelligence committees who've been interviewing Facebook, Twitter, etc). All in all, Facebook has said up to 126 million people were exposed to the ads, either directly, or via sharing.

Here's a sampling: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html

They may look ridiculous to you or me, but unfortunately the general public is pretty bad at distinguishing fact from fiction:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...smaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real

Fake news articles consistently had higher engagement levels on social media than real news. We also know from previous experiments at Facebook, and subsequent published studies, that Facebook is very effective at manipulating emotions and behavior based on the content shown in the News Feed:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/facebook-emotions-are-contagious/

Again, none of this proves a *direct effect* on the election results. But it does demonstrate determined, deliberate attempts to stoke divisions over social issues, undermine faith in the US election process, and cause general chaos.

You asked for information about what people mean when they discuss Russian "interference" and "intrusion", which is exactly what all of the above is. Cyber attacks and massive propaganda campaigns.

 

[Blood Borne]

I'm going to answer this in good faith in case you are serious. There are actually quite a few different rabbit holes to go down answering this question. I'll try to cover some of them.

Let me also preface this by saying I don't personally think it can or ever will be established that Trump won the election *because* of this interference, or even that we'll ever be able to know how much it helped him (or if you've very skeptical, whether it helped him at all). I think that's irrelevant anyways -- it's just a distraction from how serious these intrusions and attempts were/are. It doesn't matter if they were "successful" or not. We still put criminals in jail for "attempted murder" or failed attempts at just about any crime.

1) Email and server hacking

Let's put aside tribalism for a minute and not even mention political parties.

A hacking group (Fancy Bear) associated with the GRU (Russian military intelligence agency) infiltrated the servers of one of the governing body of one of our 2 major political parties. This is backed by the findings of the major US intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, DNI) and corroborated by foreign agencies as well.

They launched targeted phishing attacks against high-ranking officials in that party, and successfully gained access to that party's candidate's campaign chairman's email. Those emails were then given to WikiLeaks to release to the public.

You can argue all you want about what the emails uncovered, but that's its own separate issue to deal with/handle and it doesn't change the fact that a foreign power launched a successful cyber attack against a major US government organization and officials.

2) Hacking of local and state election voting databases

Late last year, the DHS revealed that 21 state election systems were targeted for attack by Russian actors. They were unsuccessful, save for Illinois, where they were able to breach the state's voter database. They had brief access to view the records (names, DOB, driver's license info, partial SSNs) and managed to download as many as 90k before being detected and cut off.

They never were in a position to affect actual vote recording or tallying (thankfully), but it's likely that their main goal was to sow discord and undermine our confidence in US democracy and the election process by poking around. Perhaps they'll put some of that voter data to use in the future via identity theft, etc.

3) Social media, bot accounts and Fake News

I'll preface this one by saying my definition here of "Fake News" refs to truly falsified stories. Not a journalist making a mistake or jumping the gun, or of predictions that didn't pan out. I'm talking about stories and conspiracy theories like Pizzagate, Uranium One, or Obama being a secret muslim who wasn't born in the US.

Russia made a concentrated effort to flood social networks with incredibly divisive fake news stories. Many of those ads have now been publicly released (they've all been seen by the Senate and House intelligence committees who've been interviewing Facebook, Twitter, etc). All in all, Facebook has said up to 126 million people were exposed to the ads, either directly, or via sharing.

Here's a sampling: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html

They may look ridiculous to you or me, but unfortunately the general public is pretty bad at distinguishing fact from fiction:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...smaying-inability-to-tell-fake-news-from-real

Fake news articles consistently had higher engagement levels on social media than real news. We also know from previous experiments at Facebook, and subsequent published studies, that Facebook is very effective at manipulating emotions and behavior based on the content shown in the News Feed:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/facebook-emotions-are-contagious/

Again, none of this proves a *direct effect* on the election results. But it does demonstrate determined, deliberate attempts to stoke divisions over social issues, undermine faith in the US election process, and cause general chaos.

You asked for information about what people mean when they discuss Russian "interference" and "intrusion", which is exactly what all of the above is. Cyber attacks and massive propaganda campaigns.

So in other words, Russia influenced Americans to vote for Trump via propaganda.
There's precedence for it and it isn't legal, more so it doesn't change the fact that Trump was democratically elected.

This is just leftist mindset of "I know what's best for you". In other words, Americans are too stupid, they don't know what's good for them. It's pathetic. Next time, they shouldn't use a shitty candidate such as Hillary.

As one poster said, they're not even concerned about the crimes exposed but are concerned about how and why it was exposed.

 

[Blood Borne]

I would generally say repeatedly posting passive aggressive statements that arent actually contributing to any conversation, just throwing out 'trigger' terms but not actually controbuting anything.

Its similar to how people used to just respond with referring to posters aa nazi's, bigots, snowflakes etc. Its not actually constructive.

Some people have trouble differentiating between what is actually providing an alternative point of view that is articulated and constructive as means of providing the alternative narrative, instead they think that because they arent being banned for attacking others with useless buzz word insults that they are providing legitimate counterpoints to the discussion.

I havent yet decided which annoys me more; the shit posting comments about SJW, snowflakes, soy boys, Marxists etc, or the previous dog piling of anyone that did infasct provide articulate discussion that got shut down vexauae it didnt suit the greater hive mind of posters who felt morally and ethically superior.

I like to see open discussion and debate; but some people havent actually contibuted anything of that sort.

Check out his post history and realize that he's openly been doing this for at least a month without receiving any sort of ban.

Speaking of which, could the nearest mod please ban my account? This place has really let me down these last few months, but I don't have the self-control to stop posting here. And you can skip the 7 posts of "You could have PM'd a mod/not logged on/desperate cry for attention." I already know that and chose to make a stupid post anyways, so what's done is done.

On-topic: (looks at Twitter) It wasn't a good year.

Lol, this has to be a troll account.

Making snark comments and calling for someone to get banned shows immaturity, also shows that you have no rebuttal and can't keep your emotions in check.

I clearly explained why I think wealth inequality is a stupid issue and gave an example why I think so. Rather than address my point, you guys call for a ban. That's ridiculous. Also, since when is saying marxists become ban worthy?

 

[pramod]

That said I'll admit... I am not in a position to understand fully. I find it truly impossible to comprehend why anyone in the USA isn't for universal health care.... and I suppose that stems from my own cultural bubble, its hard to see the right as anything other than a self-centered mentality. ie. "why should MY taxes be paying for someone ELSE". We take it for granted here that taxes are not being paid to benefit ourselves but everyone in the country.... It seems ironic to me that the 'patriotic' party, is the party that wants the least to share their good fortune with other fellow citizens. That said though I think the left also goes too hard in their position which is why we saw such big backlash to the PC culture that the left got going. (Don't get me wrong, I believe in equal rights... but when you start having people that say posting a picture of a meme with an African American person in it is 'digital blackface' if you aren't black is ridiculous) Or when you have women saying men are sexist pigs who are purposefully trying to make women feel inferior because they sit with their legs open (Manspreading?) while seeming to forget that we have rather sensitive and delicate sexual reproductive organs between our legs so it's probably natural for us to not want to crush them. Neither party seems to be willing to make small concessions to meet a rational conclusion, instead it seems to boil down to "us vs them"

I support universal health care as well, if a fair system is in place. We don't have one in the USA though.

Let me ask you, I don't know if you can give an honest answer, but would you still support universal health care in Australia if you have a very large population of illegal immigrants(in the millions), who mostly don't pay income tax, but still get free health care? Would you be ok with paying for their health care as well as your own? Or if Australia has chain migration like the USA, where let's say some new immigrant can bring over all their old and sick grandpas and granmas, and then you have to pay for their expensive healthcare as well? Let's say to support all these people with free healthcare, they have to double your taxes? Would you be ok with that?

 

[Deleted member 12837]

So in other words, Russia influenced Americans to vote for Trump via propaganda.
There's precedence for it and it isn't legal

Hacking the DNC or the personal email accounts of government officials is certainly not legal. Neither is hacking or attempting to hack state voter registration databases.

Of course spreading propaganda isn't illegal. I'm not sure why that matters. Should we only be upset or concerned about the actions of other nations if they aren't legal?

more so it doesn't change the fact that Trump was democratically elected.

I never suggested otherwise. I went out of my way to point out it might not even have affected the election at all, and whether it did or not is completely irrelevant. This isn't about making excuses. Again, framing the issue like that is just a convenient way to ignore the gravity of the events that transpired.

This is just leftist mindset of "I know what's best for you". In other words, Americans are too stupid, they don't know what's good for them. It's pathetic. Next time, they shouldn't use a shitty candidate such as Hillary.

1) I have no idea what you're talking about here or how it's relevant to the discussion.

2) If you're somehow trying to link my statements about propaganda to a comment on the intelligence of Americans, you're sorely mistaken. Social engineering and propaganda are very effective. Human minds are easily exploitable, and it has nothing to do with intelligence or IQ levels. We're all very irrational and subject to cognitive biases. That's just the reality of how our brains work. I'm not suggesting Americans are a bunch of gullible idiots.

3) What is a "leftist"? Is that the new "snowflake"? Can't we go about having a discussion without using buzzword-y "insults"?

As one poster said, they're not even concerned about the crimes exposed but are concerned about how and why it was exposed.

And you seem to be doing the same thing but with the roles reversed: obsessing over some alleged exposed crimes and ignoring blatant acts of aggression by a foreign power.

Ask yourself this: if during the election, China hacked the RNC and released a bunch of Trump team emails, what would your response be? Would you be solely focused on investigating Flynn and Manafort (let's say in this hypothetical, the things they've been indicted for are revealed by this release of emails), and ignoring China's actions altogether?

 

[pramod]

You guys realize that the US government has interfered in numerous elections in other countries too, right?

And you also realize that there has been foreign interference in almost every US election, right?

Like I said this is all bullshit. Would any of the left care if the GOP was hacked and Hillary won? Would it be getting headlines non-stop on CNN for over a year?

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Not a fan.

 

[David___]

You guys realize that the US government has interfered in numerous elections in other countries too, right?

And you also realize that there has been foreign interference in almost every US election, right?

Like I said this is all bullshit. Would any of the left care if the GOP was hacked and Hillary won? Would it be getting headlines non-stop on CNN for over a year?

What’s with these hypotheticals people always ask that require people to be able to freely travel between multiverses to answer them?

Here’s what actually happened: The DNC was hacked and Trump won. do people on the right care? Not really, no. In fact the people in power are doing their best to discredit the special counsel at every turn, almost as if they have something to hide at worst. At best they’re spineless and falling in line and putting party before country

 

[Mohonky]

I usually can't be bothered, but I'll respond this once.

Making snark comments

No one has made any snark comments at you, on the contrary, a great number of your posts are exactly what you are accusing others of. I clearly pointed out it was you're 'snark' comments that don't contribute anything to any discussion which was entirely the point of my post.

and calling for someone to get banned shows immaturity

No, you're passive aggressive statements and the terms you use in those statements is the sort of immaturity that is bothersome and counter productive; hence questioning what it is you actually contribute to these discussions.

, also shows that you have no rebuttal

You haven't provided anything requiring a rebuttal. I asked earlier for you to expand upon your post that apparently 'leftist' don't actually do anything but make up fake issues because all they are really concerned about is tax and wealth distribution, but you don't provide any context or reasoning for those statements.

See when you want to make a point, you should generally follow the guideline of;

Statement -> observational and / or statistical analysis that supports statement -> reaffirm statement and conclusions drawn from it.

What you provided is a closed statement. There's nothing to be taken from it, nothing to support it and nothing to actually respond to.

Hence my point you offer nothing to discuss, you're not actually contributing to anything worth discussing because there is nothing to counter point you're statements because there is no reasoning provided to support them and your mannerisms in general just come across as arrogant and aggressive so you aren't really worth wasting time on.

can't keep your emotions in check.

They're in check. Literally nothing you can do or say would offend me. My approach to disagreements ends with letting something go and agreeing to disagree or me thinking 'what a fuckwit' and realising I don't care enough about what the other person has to say to give a shit.

I clearly explained why I think wealth inequality is a stupid issue and gave an example why I think so. Rather than address my point, you guys call for a ban. That's ridiculous. Also, since when is saying marxists become ban worthy?

Yeh, nah, you still haven't made a point worth responding too.

 

[Blood Borne]

Hacking the DNC or the personal email accounts of government officials is certainly not legal. Neither is hacking or attempting to hack state voter registration databases.

Of course spreading propaganda isn't illegal. I'm not sure why that matters. Should we only be upset or concerned about the actions of other nations if they aren't legal?



I never suggested otherwise. I went out of my way to point out it might not even have affected the election at all, and whether it did or not is completely irrelevant. This isn't about making excuses. Again, framing the issue like that is just a convenient way to ignore the gravity of the events that transpired.



1) I have no idea what you're talking about here or how it's relevant to the discussion.

2) If you're somehow trying to link my statements about propaganda to a comment on the intelligence of Americans, you're sorely mistaken. Social engineering and propaganda are very effective. Human minds are easily exploitable, and it has nothing to do with intelligence or IQ levels. We're all very irrational and subject to cognitive biases. That's just the reality of how our brains work. I'm not suggesting Americans are a bunch of gullible idiots.

3) What is a "leftist"? Is that the new "snowflake"? Can't we go about having a discussion without using buzzword-y "insults"?



And you seem to be doing the same thing but with the roles reversed: obsessing over some alleged exposed crimes and ignoring blatant acts of aggression by a foreign power.

Ask yourself this: if during the election, China hacked the RNC and released a bunch of Trump team emails, what would your response be? Would you be solely focused on investigating Flynn and Manafort (let's say in this hypothetical, the things they've been indicted for are revealed by this release of emails), and ignoring China's actions altogether?

"Much ado about nothing" is the best way to describe this whole Russia nonsense.

 

[Blood Borne]

I usually can't be bothered, but I'll respond this once.



No one has made any snark comments at you, on the contrary, a great number of your posts are exactly what you are accusing others of. I clearly pointed out it was you're 'snark' comments that don't contribute anything to any discussion which was entirely the point of my post.




No, you're passive aggressive statements and the terms you use in those statements is the sort of immaturity that is bothersome and counter productive; hence questioning what it is you actually contribute to these discussions.



You haven't provided anything requiring a rebuttal. I asked earlier for you to expand upon your post that apparently 'leftist' don't actually do anything but make up fake issues because all they are really concerned about is tax and wealth distribution, but you don't provide any context or reasoning for those statements.

See when you want to make a point, you should generally follow the guideline of;

Statement -> observational and / or statistical analysis that supports statement -> reaffirm statement and conclusions drawn from it.

What you provided is a closed statement. There's nothing to be taken from it, nothing to support it and nothing to actually respond to.

Hence my point you offer nothing to discuss, you're not actually contributing to anything worth discussing because there is nothing to counter point you're statements because there is no reasoning provided to support them and your mannerisms in general just come across as arrogant and aggressive so you aren't really worth wasting time on.



They're in check. Literally nothing you can do or say would offend me. My approach to disagreements ends with letting something go and agreeing to disagree or me thinking 'what a fuckwit' and realising I don't care enough about what the other person has to say to give a shit.



Yeh, nah, you still haven't made a point worth responding too.

Blah blah blah. Verbosity doesn't conceal the fact that you simply have no rebuttal.

 

[David___]

"Much ado about nothing" is the best way to describe this whole Russia nonsense.

Ah yes, nonsense. Nothing says nonsense like people being arrested and making plea deals with the special counsel to save their ass for a crime that totally didn’t happen. Enjoy your bubble I guess

 

[Blood Borne]

Ah yes, nonsense. Nothing says nonsense like people being arrested and making plea deals with the special counsel to save their ass for a crime that totally didn’t happen. Enjoy your bubble I guess

As far as I'm aware, the arrests have absolutely nothing to do with Russian collusion but other crimes such as money laundering and whatnot.

But please, I've not been following the investigation that much, so if you have more information, please do tell.

 

[BANGS]

Ah yes, nonsense. Nothing says nonsense like people being arrested and making plea deals with the special counsel to save their ass for a crime that totally didn’t happen. Enjoy your bubble I guess

Apparently you don't really know what charges those people were arrested for, do you?

 

[davidbloop]

I support universal health care as well, if a fair system is in place. We don't have one in the USA though.

Let me ask you, I don't know if you can give an honest answer, but would you still support universal health care in Australia if you have a very large population of illegal immigrants(in the millions), who mostly don't pay income tax, but still get free health care? Would you be ok with paying for their health care as well as your own? Or if Australia has chain migration like the USA, where let's say some new immigrant can bring over all their old and sick grandpas and granmas, and then you have to pay for their expensive healthcare as well? Let's say to support all these people with free healthcare, they have to double your taxes? Would you be ok with that?

Hi.. although we don't have illegal immigration in the millions (our total population is only like 23 million or so) we do have a lot of illegal immigration (although still not comparable to US numbers), Australia is an easy country to get into because of our huge coast line and yes, we do pay for their healthcare...there is some debate in this country as to what to do with our illegal immigrants, but denying them healthcare is generally seen as a basic human right here...... so that normally doesn't come up. The arguments start to stem from whether we should be paying to detain and feed them. Now if the 'illegal immigrant' is considered a refugee, they can also get social security benefits of $492 a fortnight, plus rent assistance towards their accomodation. However, at the moment we ship our illegals to detention centres to be detained and the quality of their care is a matter of debate here, it's barely every brought up whether we should be paying for them to have basic healthcare.... we consider it a basic human right not to die from preventable causes and to not just let people suffer.

Here's a great link for information about how the government handles refugees/illegal immigrants here.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parlia...2012-2013/AustGovAssistRefugees#_Toc336609242

of note...... regarding immigrants placed in detention:

Since 2005, DIAC (Department of Immigration and Citizenship) has provided funding to Non Government Organisations (NGOs) aimed at ensuring that people placed in community detention are appropriately supported.[43] NGOs are funded by DIAC to source appropriate housing, to provide payment of living expenses, and to ensure access to relevant health and community services and social support networks.[44] The lead agency in the Community Detention Program is the Australian Red Cross.Support provided includes:

accommodation
furniture and household goods (owned by DIAC)
24 hour care for unaccompanied minors
assistance to access healthcare, including mental health care and pharmaceuticals (as approved by DIAC)
education for school-age children (for example, fees, uniforms, textbooks and excursion costs)
meaningful activities (for example, English classes, sporting programs)
social and religious networks
welfare support (for example, legal, counselling, social).

As far as our tax rates go.... we generally have a system where the richer you are, the higher percentage of taxes you pay. As an example, if you earn under $18,000 you pay 0% tax on your income. That climbs though, to where if you're earning over $180,000 you are paying a 45% rate. Again we generally accept this (I say generally coz there's always those people) and of course the richer you are, the more ability you have to give back. We also have generally low indirect taxes. I'm not sure what Sales tax is like over there, but here in Aus we don't separate taxes by state and we don't have to figure out how much they are at the checkout. It's a flat 10% rate for the Goods and Services tax, and that applies to ALL goods and services. BUT if you are running a business with a turnover of less than $50k or so... you don't have to apply the tax to your business.

Somehow we manage to be able to pay for everyone ok. Although we also don't have the insane military spending.

 

[BANGS]

we consider it a basic human right not to die from preventable causes and to not just let people suffer.

I wonder if your culture would be singing the same tune if you had half the immigration/freeloading non tax payer issues we have in America... and if your medical system was half as corrupt/expensive as ours...

I'm all for socialized health care in theory, but only in theory. In practice, in America, it would be a nightmare...

 

[davidbloop]

I wonder if your culture would be singing the same tune if you had half the immigration/freeloading non tax payer issues we have in America... and if your medical system was half as corrupt/expensive as ours...

I'm all for socialized health care in theory, but only in theory. In practice, in America, it would be a nightmare...

Well that's a very good point. I'm not arguing that universal healthcare is right for America, I was simply saying how strange of a concept it is to someone from a country that's had it for ages and generally takes it for granted.

For what it's worth though we have a lot of 'freeloaders' and we also have some ok welfare benefits too. As well as the usual things you'd expect such as concessions.

 

[BANGS]

Well that's a very good point. I'm not arguing that universal healthcare is right for America, I was simply saying how strange of a concept it is to someone from a country that's had it for ages and generally takes it for granted.

For what it's worth though we have a lot of 'freeloaders' and we also have some ok welfare benefits too. As well as the usual things you'd expect such as concessions.

Same here. Tons of people get a free pass in life because they made horrible decisions. It really kills our budget. I won't pretend it's the only thing our twisted government does to kill our budget, but it is a big factor and the politicians have done a great job of brainwashing people into believing it's the only budget issue worth looking into...

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

Yeah the people with the least power and wealth in society have really rigged the system to their advantage. Must be all that lobbying they do.

 

[Deleted member 12837]

You guys realize that the US government has interfered in numerous elections in other countries too, right?

Yes. I imagine those countries aren't super happy with us about it either.

And you also realize that there has been foreign interference in almost every US election, right?

Yes, but not to this scale. Not even close. No massive propaganda campaigns on social media with paid advertisements and massive bot farms. No hacking of state system. No hacking of emails or DNC/RNC servers.

Would any of the left care if the GOP was hacked and Hillary won?

Yes? It's still an attack by a foreign power on a political party's governing body. Still hacking the email of an important campaign figure. Still an attack on the US democratic process. This isn't even a case of putting country over party. It's not a partisan issue, at all.

"Much ado about nothing" is the best way to describe this whole Russia nonsense..

Is that really all you have to say about it? It's "totally fine" that they hacked a political party's servers. "Totally fine" they went after voter registration databases.

You address none of the facts I brought up directly and just brush aside the whole thing? And you wonder why people are accusing you of trolling.

Thanks for the great "discussion".

 

[David___]

Apparently you don't really know what charges those people were arrested for, do you?

As far as I'm aware, the arrests have absolutely nothing to do with Russian collusion but other crimes such as money laundering and whatnot.

But please, I've not been following the investigation that much, so if you have more information, please do tell.

Manafort/Gates: Conspiracy and money laundering with Russians
Papadopoulus : lying to the FBI about Russian contacts: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/us/politics/paul-manafort-indicted.html Who is now fully cooperating with the counsel regarding the Russian probe. Who is the sole reason why there's an investigation to begin with


Flynn: lying to FBI about Russian contacts http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/politics/whos-charged-russia-investigation/index.html

It's almost as if they have something bad to the point that they think the risk of lying to the FBI is the better alternative

 

[CampbellzSoup]

Ah yes, nonsense. Nothing says nonsense like people being arrested and making plea deals with the special counsel to save their ass for a crime that totally didn’t happen. Enjoy your bubble I guess

Apparently your bubble has been popped, and dealing with others opinions are now ban worthy. Blood has not been disrespectful or disparaging to no one, and you guys are calling for his ban because he’s not a leftist? Ok.

The Russia thing is a huge nothingness, and all of our taxpayer dollars are being funded to uncover nothing. Imagine what 7 million dollars (so far) could have done for the homeless / inner city funding of programs you know...real issues.

 

[David___]

Apparently your bubble has been popped, and dealing with others opinions are now ban worthy. Blood has not been disrespectful or disparaging to no one, and you guys are calling for his ban because he's not a leftist? Ok.

Show me where I'm calling for a ban. I LOVE how you came in here and say the Russia thing is nothingness when I provided links and 404Ender laid it out clearly yet you outright put shit I didn't say into my mouth. Fuck outta here

The Russia thing is a huge nothingness, and all of our taxpayer dollars are being funded to uncover nothing. Imagine what 7 million dollars (so far) could have done for the homeless / inner city funding of programs you know...real issues.

A lot less than what Trump's golf trips could have done.

 

[Naudi]

Apparently your bubble has been popped, and dealing with others opinions are now ban worthy. Blood has not been disrespectful or disparaging to no one, and you guys are calling for his ban because he’s not a leftist? Ok.

The Russia thing is a huge nothingness, and all of our taxpayer dollars are being funded to uncover nothing. Imagine what 7 million dollars (so far) could have done for the homeless / inner city funding of programs you know...real issues.

How do you know it's nothing? I for one would like to know for sure. And that's a drop in the bucket compared to trumps golfing and vacations.

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

LMAO are these russian troll accounts for real? They don't even try to address anything, much like russian and right-wing Twitter/Facebook propaganda.
I wonder why...

 

[bomb]

the economy has gone up for the last one hundred years so saying Obama was the cause of 2017 is as bad as giving Trump full credit.

 

[rokkerkory]

Apparently your bubble has been popped, and dealing with others opinions are now ban worthy. Blood has not been disrespectful or disparaging to no one, and you guys are calling for his ban because he’s not a leftist? Ok.

The Russia thing is a huge nothingness, and all of our taxpayer dollars are being funded to uncover nothing. Imagine what 7 million dollars (so far) could have done for the homeless / inner city funding of programs you know...real issues.

Tax payers are paying for Trump's almost weekly golf trips. Where's the outrage for that?

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

You guys are being played right into the whataboutism, don't fall for it.

 

[longdi]

Stocks on fire in the new year.

I dont know man, Trump is the saviour? Then again Brexit came and went, the world economy is so unpredictable!

 

[pramod]

Yes, but not to this scale. Not even close. No massive propaganda campaigns on social media with paid advertisements and massive bot farms. No hacking of state system. No hacking of emails or DNC/RNC servers.

Except this ultra sophisticated massive "hacking" that resulted in anything was just John Podesta being moronic enough to let his password get phished. It could have been pulled off by a teenager from his cellphone, it barely required any effort.

 

[David___]

Tax payers are paying for Trump's almost weekly golf trips. Where's the outrage for that?

That makes him smart to his base, as does him charging the secret service to stay at his properties in order to protect him

 

[bomb]

That makes him smart to his base, as does him charging the secret service to stay at his properties in order to protect him

Are you saying that he is making money off his secret service team? The last time I looked he is the only president in the last 30+ Years to drop in net worth due to his Presidency.

 

[PataHikari]

Are you saying that he is making money off his secret service team? The last time I looked he is the only president in the last 30+ Years to drop in net worth due to his Presidency.

Just because Trump is an incompetent moron does not mean that is isn't a corrupt con artist.

He's just a stupid con artist bad at his job.

 

[David___]

Are you saying that he is making money off his secret service team? The last time I looked he is the only president in the last 30+ Years to drop in net worth due to his Presidency.

http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...d-tens-of-thousands-to-trumps-mar-a-lago-club


http://www.newsweek.com/trump-golf-trips-have-cost-nearly-150000-cart-rentals-secret-service-727933

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...ervice-as-agency-runs-out-of-money-2017-08-21

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...nt-golf-carts-trump-courses-article-1.3545530

http://www.newsweek.com/government-paying-trump-tower-presidential-protection-638852

 

[PataHikari]

What will you do if he wins a second term?

He won't. He literally only one due to quirks in the countries electoral process that won't repeat themselves.

He only won the Republican primaries because the clown car of candidates didn't thin themselves out in time. Joke candidates like Scott Walker and Ben Carson stayed on far to long, and so Trump kept barely winning a plurality of the votes in the primaries because all the "Not Trump" votes were divided while Trump's MAGA lunatics block voted with him.

Then in the actual election it was low turn out and low enthusiasm due to a multitude of reasons involving Hillary Clinton. Even then he lost the popular vote and only barely won a handful of Electoral Collage votes to win.

The next two major elections are going to be a Democratic Wave. Whoever is the Democratic Candidate is going to win by a healthy margin as well as major gains in congress.

 

[Blood Borne]

Are you saying that he is making money off his secret service team? The last time I looked he is the only president in the last 30+ Years to drop in net worth due to his Presidency.

Unlike Hillary who amassed over $250 fuckin million dollars while in office and 5 mansions worth over $8 million fuckin dollars but hey, she's a leftist hence she gets a pass.

 

[BANGS]

The next two major elections are going to be a Democratic Wave. Whoever is the Democratic Candidate is going to win by a healthy margin as well as major gains in congress.

Funny, they said the same thing last time... up until the day of the election...

 

[PataHikari]

Unlike Hillary who amassed over $250 fuckin million dollars while in office and 5 mansions worth over $8 million fuckin dollars but hey, she's a leftist hence she gets a pass.

Truly this will bring down the Hillary Presidency.

Funny, they said the same thing last time... up until the day of the election...

As always, you don't actually know anything. Let me repeat what I said.

"He won't. He literally only one due to quirks in the countries electoral process that won't repeat themselves.

He only won the Republican primaries because the clown car of candidates didn't thin themselves out in time. Joke candidates like Scott Walker and Ben Carson stayed on far to long, and so Trump kept barely winning a plurality of the votes in the primaries because all the "Not Trump" votes were divided while Trump's MAGA lunatics block voted with him.

Then in the actual election it was low turn out and low enthusiasm due to a multitude of reasons involving Hillary Clinton. Even then he lost the popular vote and only barely won a handful of Electoral Collage votes to win."

Trump is wildly unpopular, only won through edge cases, and is only liked by Nazis and racists who aren't quite at Nazi level yet.

 

[David___]

Unlike Hillary who amassed over $250 fuckin million dollars while in office and 5 mansions worth over $8 million fuckin dollars but hey, she's a leftist hence she gets a pass.

Whataboutism at its finest

Trump is wildly unpopular, only won through edge cases, and is only liked by Nazis and racists who aren't quite at Nazi level yet.

I'll save you the trouble and show you what you're dealing with:

You were expecting a well thought out political discussion on a video game internet forum? lol, has that ever happened, ever?

Nothing but disingenuous bullshit

 

[BANGS]

Trump is wildly unpopular, only won through edge cases, and is only liked by Nazis and racists who aren't quite at Nazi level yet.

As always, you don't actually know anything. Let me repeat what I said.

Funny, they said the same thing last time... up until the day of the election...

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

Whataboutism at its finest



I'll save you the trouble and show you what you're dealing with:

Nothing but disingenuous bullshit

BUT HIL;ALRLYY

 

[David___]

BUT HIL;ALRLYY

She probably runs a child sex trafficking ring in a basement of a pizza place for all we know

 

[PataHikari]

As always, you don't actually know anything. Let me repeat what I said.

You've yet to offer any counter claims to my statement about how what lead to Trump's victory is not going to repeat.