American Politics

[Mozz]

not that i fully support the law, but do you think that protesters who block roads (and prevent ambulances, fire depts, etc to get places) should be charged with serious crimes?

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Mozz

not that i fully support the law, but do you think that protesters who block roads (and prevent ambulances, fire depts, etc to get places) should be charged with serious crimes?

I think it warrants investigation, both in the phase where they'd write up the law as well as in the phase where they would apply the law. For instance, there's a difference between these two:

1. me blocking the cul-de-sac to my parents' home (less than ten homes on the cul-de-sac) and some prickish authority deciding to charge me with "economic terrorism" because I "blocked the road, preventing ambulances from getting through" (of which there were none that day, and had there been any me and my protestors would've happily moved out of the way)

2. me leading an army of protestors down I-65 (connects Chicago with Indianapolis) and having them form a human wall all along both the northbound and southbound lanes of I-65, preventing anyone from getting through and effectively shutting down traffic between Chicago and Indy.

Even if we were to agree that protestors should not be allowed to shut down major thoroughfares, and I think you and I do agree on this, I should hope that we'd also agree that the police should not be empowered to charge people with terrorism just for peaceful assembly that doesn't really harm anybody.

I think the problem that people like Deo and myself see with restricting the places where protestors can assemble is that it's easily abused by a government that doesn't want its citizens to protest. You and I, we can agree that there are some places which should be off limits for protesting. (I would cite major roads, cemeteries, and children's safe spots like daycares or playgrounds as good examples.) But Deo and I, we would probably agree that it's worrisome to say "you can't block roads period" since a civil protest amassing some 10,000 people in most capitals' center circles is all but guaranteed to obstruct the city circle road itself and possibly several of the branch roads as well. It'd be far too easy for an anti-protest government to cry foul and say, "Well, there was a little old lady who lived on that branch road who needed 911 and you assholes were blocking the way and as a result she died!" No one wants to kill little old ladies, but at the same time forcing people to hold protests out in the middle of fucking farmland where no one is around to hear it isn't satisfactory either. The point of a protest is to be heard. People don't protest "just 'cuz." They want both the government to take note as well as for their fellow citizens to take note. To do that, I wonder if it's even inextricably, they have to obstruct some aspects of their fellow citizens' daily lives.

[deoxys]

Funny how willing they are to little by little attack the first amendment but the moment you want to touch the second amendment you done fucked up

[rotomotorz]

Protests are normally organized with the police and public service ahead of time so if a emergency vehicle needs to get through the police can help protesters move out of the way. That said there should be action taken against protests that result in violence and intimidation because that is also attacking the first amendment of those affected. I think a C class felony may be a bit high, but the way it is now is far from acceptable imo

[Princess Ana]

Fairly certain there already is laws for protests that become violent and such. I might be wrong there, but I'm pretty sure you cannot protest by destroying property and businesses.

[rotomotorz]

What about protest that lead to violence against people and or encourage intimidation and fear tactics?

[Princess Ana]

I mean...violence against people is in fact a crime.

The latter I'm not really sure but there probably is something in there.

[Connor]

Peaceful protest is a constitutional right. Once it escalates beyond that in any capacity it can and should be considered criminal.

I can understand the worries of a government using this somewhat ambiguous line to actually crack down on protests which shouldn't be, but as Roto said as a general rule of thumb actual protests tend to be well organised events which alert the local authorities of their intention.

[Shuckle]

Originally Posted by deoxys

Funny how willing they are to little by little attack the first amendment but the moment you want to touch the second amendment you done fucked up

Eeeeeeeeeeeeh I would not pin the blame for any erosions of First Amendment freedoms onto Republicans. They're usually the ones fighting for the free exercise of religion, free speech, free press, peaceful protest, and they're the ones petitioning the most.

The bill in question is specifically adding additional punishments for violent protesting and calling it "terrorism," probably because Republicans don't like to see the right to assemble abused in this way. So it doesn't actually defy any Constitutional principles, not even in spirit.

Usually we see the Bill of Rights getting attacked from the left, not the right. Sad but true.

[Doppleganger]

Bit o' lemon twist to the ousting of Christie from Trump's inner circle.

[Stealthy]

First few nominations came out. Today's a good day to not be Middle Eastern.

[Shuckle]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Bit o' lemon twist to the ousting of Christie from Trump's inner circle.

He is an Orthodox Jew. Trump has been accused over the course of the campaign of trafficking in anti-Semitic themes.

...I'm actually angry.

Referring to a re-tweet by Trump during the campaign that featured a photo of Hillary Clinton superimposed over a pile of cash and a six-pointed star, Schwartz wrote, " ... people can play ignorant, blame the corrupt liberal media for trying to 'get' Trump, but it takes only a basic knowledge of world history or an understanding of how symbols work to ... see the subtext."

Well that settles it, Israel's biggest fan and staunch ally turned out to be anti-semitic. We know this because of his Twitter feed and not because of his Jewish daughter, or even the fact that he was the leader of the Israel Day Parade. It's good to know that I can find out a politician's TRUE colors by looking at what they retweet.

http://observer.com/2016/07/jared-ku...-trump-i-know/

This fucking article by Jared Kushner goes into painstaking detail of why exactly Donald Trump's retweets aren't a reason to call him racist, and the author goes ahead and stomps all over it while I guess thinking that Kushner is a stand-up guy anyway? They caaarefully say "He's been accused of dabbling in anti-semitic themes" so that they aren't actually telling a lie, but the implication is that Trump = Hitler and it infuriates me that people still believe this.

If my father in law’s fast-moving team was careless in choosing an image to retweet, well part of the reason it’s so shocking is that it’s the actual candidate communicating with the American public rather than the armies of handlers who poll-test ordinary candidates’ every move.

Donald Trump is unequivocally joking.

Now can we please God give it a rest?

[Shuckle]

Spoiler: show

Spoiler: show

lol

[Mozz]

that's not the best pic of the two of them, he's a step ahead.

I've met Trump in person, he's 6'2-6'3, big dude, bigly

[deoxys]

Oh Shuckle I'm sure there is no fucking way in Hell that article is biased in any way... Because it's written by Trump's fucking son-in-law.

Give me a fucking break. If you are going straight based off of what he said and as the source you are going to cite then I don't know what to even say. Use more sources.

Anyway in the end it's more likely Mike Pence is all of these things and Trump is just the figurehead, since Pence is in charge of the transition.

[Princess Ana]

Originally Posted by Escalion

E.g. a popular vote system should in my opinion always be preferred. All the people who live in rural places all over the country still count as a huge pile of votes regardless of which state they live in, and they won't forget if they're being purposefully ignored. And their vote can still swing the results in any direction when looked at it on a national level.

I'm not sure you've looked at a breakdown of population in the US by state, because this really isn't true. This morning I took on a project: adjust the electoral college so that every elector represents (roughly) the same amount of people. This means that everyone would have the same voting power compared to anyone else.

This was done by finding the state with the least number of voters per elector, which is very a nice mile Wyoming, and then using that figure to find how many electors each state would have. Wyoming is still at 3, obviously, while the most populous state caps out with 200 electors. That's a _huge_ difference compared to the current EC number. The full numbers are in the spoiler below, but be aware there may have been some minor miscalculations as I am kind of tired today lol.

Spoiler: show

Adjusted EC votes:
California: 200
Texas: 141
Florida: 104
New York: 101
Illinois: 66
Pennsylvania: 66
Ohio: 59
Georgia: 52
North Carolina: 51
Michigan: 51
New Jersey: 46
Virginia: 43
Washington: 37
Arizona: 35
Massachusetts: 35
Indiana: 34
Tennessee: 34
Missouri: 31
Maryland: 31
Wisconsin: 30
Minnesota: 28
Colorado: 28
South Carolina: 25
Alabama: 25
Louisiana: 24
Kentucky: 23
Oregon: 21
Oklahoma: 20
Connecticut: 18
Iowa: 16
Utah: 15
Mississippi: 15
Arkansas: 15
Kansas: 15
Nevada: 15
New Mexico: 11
Nebraska: 10
West Virginia: 9
Idaho: 8
Hawaii: 7
New Hampshire: 7
Maine: 7
Rhode Island: 5
Montana: 5
Delaware: 5
South Dakota: 4
North Dakota: 4
Alaska: 4
District of Columbia: 3
Vermont: 3
Wyoming: 3 (195,369)

This means there is a total of 1,594 EC votes. Not the prettiest of numbers compared to our current count, but let's work with this. If we use the numbers given, a few interesting things are discovered.

Clinton EC votes: 717
Trump EC votes: 928

Trump still wins the election, and the votes are marginally closer than in our current system.

Top 10 EC share: 840
Bottom 10 EC share: 43

The top 10 states represent about 52.7% of the electoral votes, which is quite a big number, while the bottom 10 only represent 2.70% of the electoral votes.

Top 25: 1326
Bottom 25: 268

If you were to split it down the middle though, you can see how much population makes a difference. Even with an additional 15 states, some of which can't be lumped in the same group as say Montana or Wyoming, the lower population states can't even come close to the amount of power that the top 10 states have. The next top 15 don't have as much power as the top 10 . The bottom 25 only _barely_ edge out the entirety of California, and lose to both California and Texas.

This is why the idea of all votes being equal doesn't work. Rural areas get absolutely shafted; suddenly they have basically zero power in any government matter, while states like California get even stronger. The focus becomes entirely on populous areas: why bother going to states like Iowa or Colorado when you can campaign in the 10 most populous states and still win?

[Shuckle]

Also, another argument against the idea that Trump is anti-semitic comes from this:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/06/17...-dog-whistles/

Basically, the idea that Trump's retweets are his "true colors" is fucking stupid.

Originally Posted by deoxys

Oh Shuckle I'm sure there is no fucking way in Hell that article is biased in any way... Because it's written by Trump's fucking son-in-law.

Trump's JEWISH son-in-law, responding to accusations that Trump is an anti-semite.

Give me a fucking break. If you are going straight based off of what he said and as the source you are going to cite then I don't know what to even say. Use more sources.

Primary sources always outweigh secondary sources. If you want to know what Trump thinks about black people, you look at his voting record; you don't just read a NYT article about Trump and black people, because that introduces bias from the author not only in the language of the article but also in the sources they cite and the information they flat-out ignore.

If you are unable to evaluate a primary source (such as a voting record), reading articles is perfectly fine though.

In this case, asking Trump's Jewish son-in-law whether or not Trump is anti-Semitic is perfectly valid.

Anyway in the end it's more likely Mike Pence is all of these things and Trump is just the figurehead, since Pence is in charge of the transition.

...I wouldn't hold my breath that this one is true. Pence is in charge of the TRANSITION, which means he's picking out cabinet members according to Trump's wishes and deciding how best to execute Trump's plans for America. Pence will not be in charge of the country or even the direction of the Trump administration, only the words used to define and enact the reforms Trump is trying to pass.

It's pretty clear to me that Trump is just using Pence as a way to connect with and buddy up to the Republican Congress, as Trump himself actually falls more leftwards than Hillary Clinton does. I predicted pretty early on that Trump was going to try to execute progressive plans couched in conservative language, and I've seen no evidence against this idea just yet.

[Snorby]

Originally Posted by Emi

This is why the idea of all votes being equal doesn't work. Rural areas get absolutely shafted; suddenly they have basically zero power in any government matter, while states like California get even stronger. The focus becomes entirely on populous areas: why bother going to states like Iowa or Colorado when you can campaign in the 10 most populous states and still win?

The issue with this logic is that it applies in a different manner to the current system: "Why bother going to states like California and Illinois when you can just campaign in the 10 most significant Swing States and still win?"

In the current system, the entire population of California doesn't matter. In a popular vote electoral college system, the entire population of Wyoming doesn't matter.

I'd rather have 600,000 disenfranchised voters than 40 million.

If we're being realistic, though, the major issue with the electoral college is that it's a winner-takes-all system. If we used a proportional system with the same number of electoral votes per state, the results would have been:

Clinton: 273
Trump: 264
McMullin: 1

Now this is obviously an approximation, but the point here is that the electoral college itself isn't what's undemocratic about our system. What's undemocratic about our system is that half of the populace of a state can vote for someone and the other half someone else but all of the votes are given to one person. If we gave each state a vote based on population, it'd still be undemocratic, because we're still giving all of California's 200 votes to Hillary even though she only actually deserved 120 of those 200.

[Princess Ana]

I don't really have an issue with the winner take all system, because its used piecewise. The idea right now that many people are throwing around is that because Clinton got 1% more of the popular vote, that means that she should 100% be president. Obviously that's dumb, and obviously its not a fair indicator of things. But likewise, should a state with a large amount of votes like say Tennessee be split up because Clinton won 35% of the vote (despite losing the popular vote at a massive 26 point difference)? I don't think that's fair.

I do like the way that Maine and Nebraska do things by divvying up votes based on district, but whether that's even applicable in other states is the question.

[Stealthy]

If more people vote for you, you should win the election. It's not complicated. It's the basic principle that democracy is built on.

[Mozz]

Originally Posted by Stealthy

If more people vote for you, you should win the election. It's not complicated. It's the basic principle that democracy is built on.

Is America a democracy?

[Lady Kuno]

Originally Posted by Stealthy

If more people vote for you, you should win the election. It's not complicated. It's the basic principle that democracy is built on.

If all the people in the top 10 most populated states vote for candidate X, and candidate Y wins the rest of the 40, despite the fact that candidtate X will have 20~ million more votes, candidate Y will win.

[Doppleganger]

I don't really have any complaint with the electoral college. My feeling is it's always the losers of an election who complain if their candidate wins the popular vote, but loses the electoral college. People always hate losing over winning (see: Chicago Cubs fans) and look for ways to connect a loss to a potential victory.

I know because in middle school, where I had little political opinion, I didn't care so much, but after I watched Bush screw everything up I started to hate the electoral college because it denied Gore the presidency and elected a dangerous moron.

That isn't an inherent love of the popular vote. I'm just butthurt Gore lost. I think the electoral college is fair, since having moved to a rural area, the rural midwest of the US is a tougher life than in the cities. There should be some method of rewarding them for that kind of life, and it just happens to manifest in elections.

[Shuckle]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ogy/?tid=a_inl

I nudged my kids and reminded them that’s what freedom sounds like,” Pence said.

Pence reportedly was leaving the auditorium before Dixon finished speaking, but told Wallace that he heard the full message.

“I did hear what was said from the stage, and I can tell you, I wasn’t offended by what was said,” Pence said. “I’ll leave to others whether that was the appropriate venue to say it.”

He added that he wanted to address the cast’s message.

“I know this is a very disappointing time for people that did not see their candidate win in this national election. I know this is a very anxious time for some people,” Pence said. “And I just want to reassure people that what President-elect Donald Trump said on election night, he absolutely meant from the bottom of his heart. He is preparing to be the president of all of the people of the United States of America.”

Spoiler: show

[Doppleganger]

That whole event is cringe-worthy.