Well folks it is the sequel nobody wanted except trumpites!
The world has just got a more dangerous place. Enjoy it while we can.
Well folks it is the sequel nobody wanted except trumpites!
The world has just got a more dangerous place. Enjoy it while we can.
There are a lot of things I dislike about Trump but I'm not convinced by the idea that he will make the world a more dangerous place. He is the only US President of the last 60 years that did not get his country involved in a war during his first term in office.
The world is a more dangerous place when weak men like Joe Biden are in charge because the despots of the world sense weakness and take advantage of it. I don't believe Putin would have invaded Ukraine under a Trump presidency for example.
Over the last few years the West has provided vast amounts of weaponry and ammunition to Ukraine in a war that I don't believe any of us, including our leaders, fully understand. For the record, I'm not saying that was wrong, I'm just questioning. It will be interesting to see if Trump can bring this war to an end or not.
As for the situation in Israel, I have spent almost my entire life studying the history of Israel and the Middle East. I would love to discuss it with anyone wiling to have a calm rational debate but I am aware that have a mass debate on a thread probably isn't a good idea as I don't want to be ranted at.
As far as why Trump won, I believe he offered a clear idea of what he was going to do once in power. Whether you agree with what he would do or not is beside the point. Voters were able to see what he said and choose whether they agreed or disagreed with it. Harris on the other hand seemed to have a campaign based around "look how bad the other guy is", rather than presenting a positive view of what she would do for America. In addition, saying that anyone who votes for the other side is a racist and a bigot is a sure way to put people's backs up and lose an election. We saw that with Brexit.
For the record, I don't like Donald Trump as a person and I disagree with a lot of what he says and how he treats people but I understand why so many people voted for him and I don't think it's all because they were stupid or bigoted
Either way the world keeps turning. Let's all be kind to each other
I totally agree with you Number, in fact it is quite refreshing to hear someone else say it. I first noticed it during the Brexit debate and it has got worse ever since.
I believe it stems from social media. People live in a bubble surrounded by the tweets and statuses of people they agree with. If they see an opinion they disagree with they can either shout verbal abuse at them on the internet with no real life consequences of merely delete them from their lives by blocking or unfollowing them. Then when they come across an opinion they object to in real life they are unable to deal with it and seek to have that person cancelled or, worse, arrested.
In the pre social media world, people of different viewpoints would sit around a table in a pub, coffee shop or dinner party and discuss their views in a calm, rational manner, learn from each other's perspectives and part friends. Sadly this mature, adult way of dealing with things is no more and instead everyone screams at each other like toddlers in a playground.
The old "pub debate" is dead
Mr T,
For what it's worth;
In the last couple of years, I have come to the alarming conclusion that almost everyone has lost the ability to "agree to disagree" (or even exchange differing opinions in a civilised fashion.)
This conclusion is based on my own ad hoc experiences but also my extensive "watching" of the wider world.
Personally, I find this lost ability (and the reasons behind it) to be THE most alarming feature of the human world right now.
I wish more brain power was employed to understand why this has occurred and to do something about it, rather than endlessly fighting about this person or that person or this country or that country or this policy or that policy.
I also find it weird and alarming that I am generally considered "weird and alarmist" for expressing concern about this point.
Accordingly, I will shut up.
Number.
This isn't a criticism, but I know there are many people who don't 'get' black humour, or humour in general.
Please don't feel too disheartened.
There have been occasions when I have posted things that I had intended to be interpreted in a light-hearted way, and then found some of the responses to be different to what I had been anticipating. This has happened even when I have attempted to make it clear that what I'm posting isn't intended to be taken too seriously.
I originally started this thread with a light hearted but serious tone. Black humour if you like.
I did not imagine that it descend into misunderstanding and folks feeling triggered and threatening to quit.
I am sorry if any of this threads intentions were taken wrongly.
Please do not fight and say harsh words to each other. Agree to disagree.
I'm sorry you feel triggered by my words RT, that was never my intention, as spikey said, it's just that for Europeans the Democrats are right wing, more right wing than many of us would consider voting for.
I agree about gender reasignment surgery for prisoners when it's not available for the general population without paying mega bucks.
Minimum wage caused some problems initially in this country too, but now most people support it, yes everytime it goes up the same groups complain, mostly small business owners and having been part of running a small business I do understand the problem. But work need to pay and pay enough that people aren't having to work all the hours in the day to keep a roof over thier heads and food on the table. We have universal credit that's supposed to top up the wages of the employed as well as those unemployed, for the employed it's a nightmare as they risk losing so much if they do more hours, it's not that they want to not work for a living. If it were down to me, I'd get rid of in work benefits for all but the very few and use the money over a 10 year period to support business, particulalry small businesses to double the minimum wage and keep increasing it yearly along with at least the rate of inflation.
There are a few things most Brits and probably most Europeans don't understand about your country, like the lack of public health care and gun control. I get that the right to bear arms is part of your founding consitution, but military grade hardware! Really!, I understand that in many areas you have animals such as bears and pumas that can kill a person, but do you really need an RPG or assault rifle?
I think that this is a misunderstanding. It would be a shame if you left because of this.
I think CW was merely saying that a lot of Europeans find the US definitions of far left astounding when the Democrats are not far off the UK's Conservative party.
I'm pretty sure she wasn't laughing AT anyone.
'Conservative' is defined as being averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. It is opposite of the term, 'progressive' and is not the same thing at all. The terms conservative and progressive are polarized opposites.
For example, Harris wanted to allow prison inmates to have the option of purusing elective gender changing operations at taxpayer expense. Depending upon the quality of the operation performed, this could cost taxpayers $163,000+ per patient. This service is not available to the average person unless they have insurance and want to pay the deducatable.
She wanted to raise Federal minimum wage to $15.00. California raised minimum wage to $16.00 an hour. The end result was that 5,400 people were laid off as businesses either closed or streamlined their operations. 60% of all businesses in California have now raised their prices. Fast food which was characterized as being affordable and quick is now much more expensive.
I am going to take my leave of this site for a few days. Being told that you are laughing at my pain has been a trigger because the United States is moving towards becoming a fascist state as Donald Trump continues to erode core democratic principles.
He already violated his oath of office to support and defend the constitution when he encouraged an insurrection on Janaury 6th. One of his campaign promises was to pardon all convicted rioters if he won the election,
If project 2025 is implemented, the consequences will extend far beyond our borders given how the United States is the world's only remaining superpower.
Edit: I have disabled messaging from this site and have blocked it on my email.
Sorry it just makes me laught when Americans refer to Harris as Far Left, to us she's just differently conservative. Why do you think she's far left?
Biden should never have run for reelection. He was too old. By the time he stepped aside, it was too late for any other candidate other than Harris to step in. Harrris, as you might remember, lost in 2020.
I used to be a Republican but left the GOP in 2016 after Trump won the primary. I refused to have anything to do with Trump because MAGA did not represent the traditional core Republican values as they were under Ronald Regan. I also didn't like hearing the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump claimed that when you're rich and famous you can grab women by their privates without consequences. This was around the same time that it became known that he had paid hush money to Stormy Daniels and had therefore broken his marraige vows.
The next 8 years have only shown me that Donald Trump is a nasty, mean spirited, selfish person. He is also stupid. He seems to think that foreign governments pay tariffs. He didn't know that injecting yourself with bleach will kill you. He doesn't understand how electricity works.
After learning that Harriss had spent a summer working at McDonald's, he worked a partial shift without a hair restraint as required by the health code. People at the drive through were prescreened so that they wouldn't say or do anything unfortunate when they came to the window to get their food. The entire McDonald's event was clearly staged and yet his gullible base ate it up.
I honestly don't understand why he was reelected. I don't think that this speaks well of our core values in the United States. I am also now wondering if race and gender was a factor. Are we still a nature where the president has to be some old white guy?
I wish Liz Cheney had formed a third party for conservative moderates. Our only two choices in this country seem to be far left or far right. There isn't a middle of the aisle choice.
I wonder if it would have made a difference if Biden had stepped aside sooner? Harris had a very short time to get herself together, but even so I would have expected more ideas even if they weren't firm policy. When asked what she would of done differently to Biden and she said 'nothing', was a big mistake, it made her look as though she had no ideas or oomph of her own.
I think thinking that people with the same coloured skin will behave in a predictable way with no individual variation is racist in itself. I think Labour made the same mistake with Brexit,they had an expectation that working class people would all think the same. Politiicans, along with many others seem to lump peole together into demographic silo's and then get a hell of a shock when people step out of a silo they probably never knew they were in.
In some ways Trumps victory was predictable, I think Biden let the whole country down, but not stepping aside sooner and allowing there to be a proper caucusus, (is that what you call it?) and debate over who the Democrat candidate would be.
To be honest I wonder why the US only has two parties still? I know it's easy to say the UK does as it's oten a battle between Labour and the Tories, but we do have other smaller parties who can hold the balance of power in a hung parliament, and seak up for those who don't like either of the main parties and can be an opposition to both of the main parties, which ever of them holds power, they can be an opposition to the oppostion too.
I don't really understand how the electoral colleges work either and how they decide if a Democrat or a Republican is thier senator/representative?
The other thing I've been hearing a lot about over the last couple of days, is the effect that Elon Musk will have and some of it has been very interesting. There seems to be a thought that he will try and use Trump to do things like more space exploration and a manned mission to Mars, this could be interesting as it might contain Trump from some of his more malevolent ideas and put his energies into something else? Another flash point could be how Trump and his drill, drill, drill stuff will effect Musk and Tesla, I can see that relationship hitting the rocks over old and new technologies.
Yeah. I know. I voted in the election but unlike 2020, this time Trump carried Nevada.
Although I am not a Democrat and am certainly not a fan of Biden or Harris, I voted for Harris because she's not stark raving insane. She's not a convicted felon. She has never sexually assaulted anyone. She isn't a pathological liar. She hasn't embraced project 2025 which if adopted, could cause irreperable harm to our republic.
I wonder if this is what the Germans felt like after the fall of the Weimar Republic during those dark days before the *** took control of the government.
Harris made a number of mistakes.
1) She spent too much time focusing on how she represented law and order while Trumpw as a convicted criminal.
2) She did not address issues with the economy.
3) She did not address issues with immigration.
4) While she had grandoise social plans, she never explained how she would fund any of her projects.
5) She failed to appeal to the the working class and lost too many black and Latino votes.
Joe Biden also erred when he referred to Trump supporters as "garbage". Trump capialized on this by appearing at a rally in a garbage truck. This mistake was similar to Hillary Clinton's deplorable comment in 2016. Both of these comments ticked off Trump's base and galvanized his base to vote.
I now worry that Trump will follow through with withdrawing from NATO, ignoring climate change, and ending support for Ukraine.
The next four years are going to be brutal.
Do you think Ukraine will just give up and accept a loss of territory and not be allowed to join the EU or NATO? Which is what Putin wants, I'm not sure they will, they might refuse to surrender, theres plenty of precedent for small embattled countries refusing to surrender, us during WW2 for example, maybe the logical thing would of been to give up, but sometimes fighting to the bitter and bloody end is the only right thing to do., who know's you might even win? European governments were happy to offer Zelinsky sanctuary, expecting them to roll over belly up, he and they didn't, they fight, and seeing as Russia has brought N Koeans in to help with the dying I'm not sure his situation is as secure as we're led to believe?
I ask the questions that instantly spring to mind when someone says something, there's often quite a queue of them.
I sometimes don't want logical answers or practicle help, sometimes I just want to let off steam, often people try and give me solutions that I've already tried and they've not worked, when that happens I feel gaslit and talked down too, especially when I've already explained the things I've tried and failed at. The problem with logical solutions in they're in the box and usually I want an out of the box one, in the box solutions are often simplistic especially when the problems ar ecomplex. There are some things I just can't do, like tech, I don't know why, but it all goes wrong.
I'm autistic and yet I've had to learn to take the feelings of others into consideration, even when it's to my own disadvantage, so I guess we will have to agree to differ unless you want to explore the difference between instinctive and logical ways of living more?
I'm not sure about the laws of entropy and the death of the universe
This comes from the second law of thermodynamics. I won't try to explain the mechanics in case it comes across as mansplaining so I'll leave it to you whether you want or need to look it up.
The outcome is that when looking to the far distant future, all heat and energy will dissapate through space until the whole universe reaches an equilibrium or average temperature which is very close to absolute zero (-273 Celcius).
I'm a much more instinctual person, it dosen't stop me from asking questions or from exercising intellectual rigour.
Can you explain how you can exercise intellectual rigour without logic? This seems paradoxical to me.
when offering your practicle help you don't stop to consider any feelings
That is because of my autism - I'm not good with understanding others feelings so I use logic to give a reasoned potential solution. I'm not good at understanding why you reject logic or practical help when offered.
It may be safer to accept our differences
Personally, I mind my own business and focus on the things that are important to me in life. As far as I'm concerned, nothing supersedes my family, my wife and my children, and politics are the least of my problems.
Whatever it throws in my direction, I shall do my best to either take it or deflect it to the best of my abilities. It's how I've come this far at any rate.
Trump won. That's neither good nor bad to me, for whatever outcome occurs, my principle thoughts are, can I still carry on loving and caring for my family. So far I have, and so long as I have much to live for, I've got nothing to die for
I do worry about climate change, and I do believe that all of us individually can be part of the solution with the choices we make, a choice that America with its oil loving, environmentally destructive president elect has made that will put the world back decades in reducing climate change.
I'm not sure about the laws of entropy and the death of the universe, we don't even know how it started yet unless you cling to the holed blanket that is the big bang theory?
I don't want practicle help, this isn't something to be practicle about, when offering your practicle help you don't stop to consider any feelings, it feels like you're saying don't worry your pretty little head about such things and clam down dear, that may not be how you intended your comments to appear, but thats how they appear to me, especially when you start to comment on my health, you've never met me, you don't know how robust or no I am and I'm pretty robust.
I worry about all sorts of things, unlike you I look for ways to mitigate the impacts of these things, even if they're tiny and ultimately futile, at least I can look myself in the eye and know I did my best.
By the way I think logic is over rated, we mostly know what we want to do and going to do, logic is just a set of excuses to justify our action and create a wall of righteous words. I'm a much more instinctual person, it dosen't stop me from asking questions or from exercising intellectual rigour.
