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The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns. The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns.

07-16-2017 , 05:10 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by ScreaminAsian
this can't be real lol
Maybe, maybe not. Some random tweeted it and I found it through a whole bunch of similar Google images.
07-16-2017 , 05:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by stinkubus
Founding father fetishism is WOAT. Why should anyone in the modern world care what they thought of anything? If you could time travel them, Bill and Ted style, and showed one of them a smart phone they'd **** their pants and accuse you of witchcraft.
This is an ignorant take from someone trapped in the bubble of their lived experience.

07-16-2017 , 05:20 PM
trump's lawyer tried the secret service let them all in defense and the response was wait, why the **** were they there? They wouldn't have been covering don jr at that time.

These trump lawyers not the sharpest tools in the shed.
07-16-2017 , 05:21 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by zikzak
It's not fetishism. They cobbled together a pretty decent system with multiple failsafes to prevent a Trump. They just failed to appreciate that in the future We the People would be monumentally stupid enough to blow through all of them.
Last I checked the same electorate votes for both congress and the president, so I don't know why anyone would think congress would act if the demagogue has the blessing of enough of the people.
07-16-2017 , 05:25 PM
I'm starting to think the Fake Bo Pelini twitter account isn't Bo Pelini
07-16-2017 , 05:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by zikzak
It's not fetishism. They cobbled together a pretty decent system with multiple failsafes to prevent a Trump. They just failed to appreciate that in the future We the People would be monumentally stupid enough to blow through all of them.
Well, they actually were kinda worried about that (e.g., direct election of only 1/4 of the government), they just didn't foresee the development of Jacksonian Democracy.
07-16-2017 , 05:30 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by stinkubus
Founding father fetishism is WOAT. Why should anyone in the modern world care what they thought of anything? If you could time travel them, Bill and Ted style, and showed one of them a smart phone they'd **** their pants and accuse you of witchcraft.
If someone from 2217 traveled back in time to the present day and showed us their technology we would probably **** our pants. Does that mean we're all stupid or something? The founding fathers created a system that allowed a backwater to eventually become a super power. I don't think that's too shabby but I'm sure you're very smart and have accomplished much more.
07-16-2017 , 05:31 PM
Stinkbus, I know you have a lot of gaps in your education about government stuff. So here, in one easy lesson, is a quick way to literally double your knowledge. (Well, 87 easy lessons, but they're basically newspaper articles from 230 years ago, should be easy to understand.)

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/...ralist-papers/
07-16-2017 , 05:35 PM
I really doubt Benjamin Franklin would **** his pants if he saw a smartphone. I think he'd get it in about 5 minutes.
07-16-2017 , 05:37 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by stinkubus
Last I checked the same electorate votes for both congress and the president, so I don't know why anyone would think congress would act if the demagogue has the blessing of enough of the people.
Wat? Obamacare has the blessing of more of the people than Donald Trump, so I guess by this logic we can expect Congress will try to impeach before they try to repeal?

We have representative democracy. The point is that the people elect (hopefully) qualified individuals to make decisions for the public good, not to make popular decisions. The founders added representative facets in surprising places like the electoral college in part to prevent someone like Donald Trump from gaining power. If Donald Trump were one of only a few bad actors in the system, he would be gone already. The problem is that there are many bad actors on all levels causing systemic dysfunction.
07-16-2017 , 05:48 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by microbet
I really doubt Benjamin Franklin would **** his pants if he saw a smartphone. I think he'd get it in about 5 minutes.
Ben Franklin would definitely figure out how to use it to aid in masturbation immediately.
07-16-2017 , 05:48 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by microbet
I really doubt Benjamin Franklin would **** his pants if he saw a smartphone. I think he'd get it in about 5 minutes.
I agree with this. We're talking Age of Enlightenment here, not early feudal Europe.
07-16-2017 , 05:54 PM
The second you mention that the system was set up to temper and, when necessary, override the will of the people, you get the charges of elitism and that that's the reason the founders should *****.
07-16-2017 , 05:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AllTheCheese
Wat? Obamacare has the blessing of more of the people than Donald Trump, so I guess by this logic we can expect Congress will try to impeach before they try to repeal?

We have representative democracy. The point is that the people elect (hopefully) qualified individuals to make decisions for the public good, not to make popular decisions. The founders added representative facets in surprising places like the electoral college in part to prevent someone like Donald Trump from gaining power. If Donald Trump were one of only a few bad actors in the system, he would be gone already. The problem is that there are many bad actors on all levels causing systemic dysfunction.
Which shows it's VERY urgent and important that we find out the reason why there are so many more than just a few GOP defending Russia and/or Trump collusion and/or Russia-Trump colllusion.

Are they likely innocent, uncoordinated, and coincidentally on message with Putin's rhetoric and propaganda machines, or is is more likely they're dirty? And if they are dirty, is it more likely they are concerned about dozens of separate infractions about dozens of separate issues, or should we lean towards most of them being involved in obstructing the same Russian stuff over and over?
07-16-2017 , 06:00 PM
This ones good. Respect the game.



Who's the dude with the money bag?
07-16-2017 , 06:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by dlk9s
Ben Franklin would definitely figure out how to use it to aid in masturbation immediately.
That and he would find Tinder and be banging babes 60 years younger than him in like a couple hours.
07-16-2017 , 06:04 PM
Bernie for sure.
07-16-2017 , 06:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by sportsjefe
The second you mention that the system was set up to temper and, when necessary, override the will of the people, you get the charges of elitism and that that's the reason the founders should *****.
So, the US established the most democratic, participatory government that had ever existed in a nation close to its size and scope, against ceaseless criticism that no such system had ever worked in a serious nation state in the prior 2000 years, and the system they created undergirded the development of the most powerful nation in the history of the world for over 200 years, but the founders should be criticized because they were elitists? (And in an agrarian society without univeral literacy).

Part of the point of the Constitution was to prevent Trump, but they knew he was a possibility. Hence the 4-year term limit and other checks on executive power.

Now, I have to admit, I've sometimes had Skalanskyite fever dreams of limiting the electorate to only those who know a bit about history and government and are not, say, in the thrall of some religious or other delusion. However, certainly in the modern world, democracy is legitimized by universal suffrage. In fact, more than anything, democracy is not about the elevation of the best or wisest government, but about the legitimacy of government, so (ideally) a nation can focus on doing the peoples business, ensuring domestic tranquility, protection against foreign interests, etc. and not internal struggles over legitimacy and whether elections were fair, etc. ("If I lose, the election will have been rigged!"--a deeply unpatriotic claim.)

Point is, complaining that the founders were "too elitist" is like complaining that trains in the 19th-century only went 50 mph or that you've seen better card tricks than the one my dog has mastered.
07-16-2017 , 06:13 PM
ABC/WaPo Poll on who believes Russia interfered in our 2016 election. Not collusion with TT, but just that Russia interfered at all.

80% of Dems, 33% of Republicans - AFTER Fox showed Don Jr's own proof that they did!
07-16-2017 , 06:13 PM
Man, the inside of Garrison's head must be like a 5 ball multiball pinball game.
07-16-2017 , 06:21 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Our House
ABC/WaPo Poll on who believes Russia interfered in our 2016 election. Not collusion with TT, but just that Russia interfered at all.

80% of Dems, 33% of Republicans - AFTER Fox showed Don Jr's own proof that they did!
This isn't even a little surprsing. It would be absolutely stunning if it was above 50%
07-16-2017 , 06:23 PM
I'm OK with historically responsible Founding Father fetishism but the reality is MOST Founding Father fetishism is basically pop history sold to Dads via the History Channel or via the first chapter or 10 pages of whatever David McCullough book they got for Father's Day but never finished. That is, most Founding Father fetishism are people simply defending completely ahistorical, imaginary positions they assume the Founding Fathers held that coincide with right-wing boiler plate. That is, they think it's obvious there should be school prayer, that's why Jefferson put "one nation under God" in the Preamble to the Pledge of Allegiance, and it's obvious taxes should be low, that's why Washington and Revere and Thomas Paine dressed up as Indians and had that tea party dontchayaknow.

The whole imagery works on a subconscious level because we all sort of have this image of the stereotypical older white guy being a conservative so it stands to reason a bunch of really old, dead white guys must have been REALLY conservative and are rolling around in their graves at all the degenerate liberal stuff that annoys the modern American white guy.
07-16-2017 , 06:24 PM
Question is, how much of that 33% are planning on voting for him again, or at least continuing to support him for the time being.
07-16-2017 , 06:27 PM
Like this passage from Federalist 51 regarding the separation of powers.

Quote:
In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/...eralist-51.php
07-16-2017 , 06:32 PM
People are not answering truthfully on those type of polls so it doesnt matter, i have seen some very good examples where this is shown. People will say no just to express their support for the side they are on. Even if this poll says the russians didnt help a specific side people will know whats behind this.

      
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