2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
I don't think anyone is normalizing violence toward presidential candidates. What we don't know though is how often in the present and in the past attempts haven't been made because security was tight enough.
We don't even know if things are worse these days (in the potential, threat sense) than in the past, which could be true, but maybe there were always people willing to try to kill candidates, but they didn't manage to get close enough , or they scouted areas and saw no options available.
Or n
He had a number of threats against him including serious conspiracies. Threatening to kill would-be presidents and presidents is a fairly common thing in the US.
Which if you look at how US was founded in the first place and the fact we fought a civil war shouldn’t be surprising.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying all wealthy people. But nearly all do. The founding fathers were mostly against democracy. This was a huge point of contention. Just read some of the Federalist papers, especially by Madison. Haven't you watched Hamilton? 😉 What do you think the compromises were to ensure that wealthy landowners still had mostly had the greatest say? Hint, hint... it's a big topic today.
I don't think this needs it's own topic. It honestly really should be common sense if you jus
this is not showing your work
i actually have read all of the federalist papers and all other major documents of that time
yes they put in a lot of restrictions such as you needed to be a white man and a landowner - but being an agricultural society, roughly 90% of the colonists owned at least a small piece of land at the time of doing that
you're also discounting how establishing a monarchy would have been the simple and straightforward transition and that was by far the path of least resistance
you're also wholly ignoring that democracy is basically founded upon capitalism and letting wealthy individuals operate freely without interference from the state - in no other system do the oligarchs have anywhere close to as much autonomy as in democracy - under all other systems they are either persecuted or directly under government control - you're thinking about being the family which is in power, well that's fleeting a family which may be in power this generation could be wiped out and stripped of everything in the subsequent generation - whereas in a democracy they can continuously operate generation after generation without much interference
there's absolutely zero reliable evidence backing up your thesis and mountains outright refuting it
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/
if you look at a list of the wealthiest people in the world, 17 of the top 25 are american, the very first on the list from a non democratic country in the founder of tiktok at #27, at #33 there's another Chinese tech guy and then you have some in Hong Kong at #38, #63, 89 more Chinese tech guys at #46, #57, #80, #81, and a Russian at #70, #76, 85, 86 & 91
that's the entirety of the top 100 wealthiest in the world, from outside democracies and it's mostly chinese versions of zuck and bezos
most either dont care that he was shot at or wanted a different outcome.
at the very least I would guess that every one of them except you would be much more appalled and outraged at an attempt on Kamala. thats fine and all but I just point out their hypocrisy.
Pure conjecture .
But at least y admit u guessed …….just wrongly .
I don't think anyone is normalizing violence toward presidential candidates. What we don't know though is how often in the present and in the past attempts haven't been made because security was tight enough.
We don't even know if things are worse these days (in the potential, threat sense) than in the past, which could be true, but maybe there were always people willing to try to kill candidates, but they didn't manage to get close enough , or they scouted areas and saw no options available.
Or n
U normalize violence in almost every situation .
U call it a normal human behaviour ….
this is not showing your work
i actually have read all of the federalist papers and all other major documents of that time
yes they put in a lot of restrictions such as you needed to be a white man and a landowner - but being an agricultural society, roughly 90% of the colonists owned at least a small piece of land at the time of doing that
you're also discounting how establishing a monarchy would have been the simple and straightforward transition and that was by far the path of least resistance
yo
Well, that makes a lot of sense on why you're confused on so many topics. If this is your world view, and you don't think wealthy people want unregulated power, I don't think it's incumbent upon me to "show my work", and make you understand something that all of history has proven over and over.
You don't have to overly complicate this. Just look at America. What happened when monopolies formed, why did it happen, what was the language used to justify the legislation at the time? Is it the same or similar as today, and so on...
I guess your reasoning is, look, 17 of the top 25 wealthiest people are American. Wealthy people must love democracy. You're not getting it. Those people have been whittling away at democracy. That's how they got so insanely wealthy. This isn't some binary thing where there's either democracy or there isn't. There's degrees.
This is kind of an interesting topic on the whole though, because I've found this to be EXTREMELY consistent all through my life when talking politics w/ conservatives. I know you don't consider yourself conservative, Rick, but...
Some form of this same world view comes out, which is so interesting to me honestly. There seems to be missing some basic connections (or perhaps denials about human nature), about what the end goals are for insanely wealthy people. And I concluded some time ago, that if you don't get this genesis correct, your whole political philosophy will be off imho.
You can make this even simpler to understand Rick. Who came up w/ "the deep state"?
It depends on who you are and how you came to be wealthy, but in general I would not rate this as a true statement. Sure, if you are a member of the Saudi royal family, you don't have much interest in democracy because your wealth largely depends on the maintenance of an archaic system of government.
But by and large, the wealthy of the world favor stability and not having their **** taken. All things considered, democracies tend to be more stable, and more concerned about things like due process, than non-democracies.
It depends on who you are and how you came to be wealthy, but in general I would not rate this as a true statement. Sure, if you are a member of the Saudi royal family, you don't have much interest in democracy because your wealth largely depends on the maintenance of an archaic system of government.
But by and large, the wealthy of the world favor stability and not having their **** taken. All things considered, democracies tend to be more stable, and more concerned about things like due pro
Ya, so this is the tricky thing, because of course you're correct. Democracies in general create more stability, which in turn allows for more stable investment of capital and wealth. 100% agree with you... but that's the thing I think people miss. Wealthy people don't always follow sane logic.
You can look at America, and even some of the billionaire class (Buffet, Cuban, et.c.) are trying to let the rest of the billionaire class know that if they continue down the path of tax reduction and deregulation, you're going to tear it all down. But that's the rub... they can't control themselves. Why do we have think tanks creating boogie men like "the deep state", and funding politicans that have openly orchestrated a failed coup?
By your sane reasoning, you'd be correct. But that's not what's actually happening.
This is weird (i.e., terrible) logic.
Trump obviously isn't an existential threat to our species, but the fact that he has been president and we are still here doesn't prove the point.
To take a very extreme example, imagine that we had a super weapon that had the ability to create black holes. 5 times out of six, if the weapon is activated, it will malfunction and do nothing. But one time out of six, it will create a black hole that swallows the earth.
If we activated the weapon one time and it malfunctioned, would you be in here arguing that the weapon wasn't an existential threat?
If your conclusion isn't "both sides same", you might as well be trying to teach your puppy quantum mechanics.
Ya, so this is the tricky thing, because of course you're correct. Democracies in general create more stability, which in turn allows for more stable investment of capital and wealth. 100% agree with you... but that's the thing I think people miss. Wealthy people don't always follow sane logic.
You can look at America, and even some of the billionaire class (Buffet, Cuban, et.c.) are trying to let the rest of the billionaire class know that if they continue down the path of tax reduction and dere
Tax reduction and deregulation may be bad policy, but they are quite a distance from ending democracy.
Tax reduction and deregulation may be bad policy, but they are quite a distance from ending democracy.
Not if that's what it leads to. And to be clear, like I said previously, I don't think all wealthy people hate democracy, but most do. And even if they don't want to entirely eliminate it, they want to make sure they have more power than others, which is the definition of being antidemocratic. Do you think Peter Thiel wants his vote counted equally w/ yours?
most either dont care that he was shot at or wanted a different outcome.
at the very least I would guess that every one of them except you would be much more appalled and outraged at an attempt on Kamala. thats fine and all but I just point out their hypocrisy.
Food for thought .
Mostly liberal democrats are against capital punishment’s?
Mostly conservative republicans are for it ?
Do the same thing with gun ownership?
Who’s for killing anyone without fault with guns for trespassing or stealing 5$ ?
Both parties hold the same stance ?
Democrats are less bloodthirsty and less ready to condemn people to death but for trump it would be ok ?
If only you would actually say something more realist like democrats would actually like to see trump in prison ? Ok ….
But prison and death sentence is not the same thing .
Sorry to burst your bubble but the US isn’t Russia yet for there prison scheme aka Alex navalny .
Prison and death is still different but continue with your 2+2 = fish
This is weird (i.e., terrible) logic.
Trump obviously isn't an existential threat to our species, but the fact that he has been president and we are still here doesn't prove the point.
To take a very extreme example, imagine that we had a super weapon that had the ability to create black holes. 5 times out of six, if the weapon is activated, it will malfunction and do nothing. But one time out of six, it will create a black hole that swallows the earth.
If we activated the weapon one time a
Just use the “ Russian” roulette example .
We know victor will understand that one .:p
You are smart and decent and with a moral compass, you will understand what i am talking about when the exact same strategy will keep being used after Trump, that's when you will realize it's not about Trump. You got a hint for 3-4 months when desantis had a chance to maybe with republican primaries. Takes about him being "worse than Hitler" and ofc "worse than Trump" started immediatly.
In Italy supposedly it was about Berlusconi being a unique threat to democracy and so on, which justified the
Like conservative accusations of being silenced for their views
If you don't push enough against the most productive people in society, those who carry everyone else, that's the end of democracy according to freakdaddy
I find this state of mind extremely consistent w/ conservatives as well, as if it makes even an ounce of sense.
It's about balance Luciom. You're always going to have some people in society, tribes, groups, that aren't productive. But pretending you owe your good fortunes to the billionaire gods is pretty ignorant. It's as if this amazing society that sits before you only could have happened w/ the good graces of billionaires.
To me that's like watching the shadows on the wall from people carrying objects on their heads w/ the fire behind them, and thinking the shadows are real.
I missed this gem:
Originally Posted by Luciom
You are smart and decent and with a moral compass, you will understand what i am talking about when the exact same strategy will keep being used after Trump, that's when you will realize it's not about Trump. You got a hint for 3-4 months when desantis had a chance to maybe with republican primaries. Takes about him being "worse than Hitler" and ofc "worse than Trump" started immediatly.
In Italy supposedly it was about Berlusconi being a unique threat to democracy and so on, which justified the same kind of language and distorted narrative buildind and so on.
When he became far less relevant politically, magically the same kept happening to anyone on the right with significant political consensus. Every time it was a threat to democracy and so on. We already played the movie in Italy.
It's not about trump, it's the whole leftist political strategy in the west that is about delegitimizing the possibility that a right, with different ideas and values, can exist and can govern and it's still democratic if that happens.
The same is happening with Le Pen and AFD and was happening with Wilders (now they belatedly made a government) and is happening with Farage in the UK and so on. And doesn't matter how much they can be despised or criticized legitimately , they are all threats to democracy, and their successors will be as well, at least if they actually propose something opposite to leftism in the policy space.
So everyone is crying wolf, so they are lying. Did any of those guys attempt an actual coup? Your point is moot.
I don't know if this has been pointed out to you as well, so I won't assume, but American's version of the right, doesn't exist in Italy. You do realize that America is the most conservative of the first world countries, correct? What is considered liberal here is considered moderate in most 1st world countries?
And your comment about DEI hiring practices in the secret services is straight up misogynistic. You do realize you're being manipulated, right? This is exactly how it works. Locate the fears in other people, whether it be homophobic, misogynistic, racists, whatever... and use those fears and compound them w/ policy ideas that benefit the wealthy elite. This is the "connection issue", which they use to connect to bigger ideas that only benefit the few.
I do realize America is more to the right economically than most other first world countries which is why it is better measurably in creating wealth.
Socially no, but that's another topic
I do realize America is more to the right economically than most other first world countries which is why it is better measurably in creating wealth.
Socially no, but that's another topic
Correct... wealth for the few. That's why we have a rapidly shrinking middle class.
My grandparents immigrated w/ no money. Bought a home, car, and raised 4 kids on one car mechanics income. That story doesn't exist anymore, specifically because of conservative policies. Not because democrats want social safety nets. lol
