161–170 of 196 posts
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You mean like the 3000 in the World Trade Center?
not sure if you are just being a troll with that statement. The loss of all innocent life is wrong, regardless of who the perpetrator is or the skin colour of the victim. Its one thing for a terrorist to behave like a terrorist and another thing for a publicly financed government to behave like one
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Has nothing to do with the point being made.
We went after the terrorists who perpetrated 911 because they killed innocent civilians. We have killed many innocent civilians in the process. That is indefensible, no matter our goals.
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So we shouldn't have done anything after all the major terror attacks in the past decade ? You need to elaborate more on your general point.
The burden of being virtuous is that you should not use the same methods that the vile used on you. Something needed to be done about the terror attacks. But that something shouldn't include torture and the summary execution of people.
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So you think using any of that protects you from the Chinese, KGB, etc.? Did you forget to block localStorage, too?
What's with the attitude? Calm down. They've only said they're more careful online (a good thing), not that they're actively trying to avoid government-level surveillance.
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Has nothing to do with my point. Quit pretending the Russians don't have a spy agency.
Maybe if you're trying to make a point about spy agencies, you should learn what they're called first.
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All first past the post systems like we have in the US will trend towards a two-party system. It sucks because voting third party just takes votes away from the major party candidate that most closely represents your views. To maximize your influence you have to hold your nose and vote for the major party candidate that most closely represents your views... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Perhaps that is true in terms of maximizing your influence in the next election. But to maximize your influence over a longer time period, you should vote for the third party candidate that most closely matches your views. Then, when the major party candidate you would have resorted to loses, the post mortem reveals votes lost to the candidate you voted for, and in the subsequent election the major party adapts its p…
That might, arguably, resemble truth if the details of the political system itself were guaranteed stable over time and not subject to alteration by the same people who gain power over other policies through electoral victories. But, in the real world, to maximize your influence over a long-time period, you should organize and advocate for both electoral reform and the minor party you most prefer during periods between elections (the former to work to mitigate the perverse effects of the existing system, the second to maximize the likelihood that, in the next election, the competitive major parties -- which can change over time -- will include the party you most prefer.)
But, once its clear who the major candidates are in the present election, you should still generally vote for the one least harmful to your interests if they win.
> If politicians expected voters to vote on principle and to hold them accountable, we'd have an entirely different sort of politicians.
With no changes to the electoral system, what we'd have with that is "major" parties representing even smaller pluralities (well, technically, only the biggest would be a plurality), and more negative campaigning directed by each major candidate at getting voters best served by the other to not vote for them to "hold them accountable" for something. Which is a change of degree, not kind, from what we have now.
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The KGB ceased to exist in 1991 with the break-up of the Soviet Union, a full three years before HTTPS was invented. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS
KGB/FSB are interchangeable. I don't think this pedantry invalidates his point. The reality is that if the US is caught doing something you can bet other countries are doing the same, and if not more, considering how little oversight autocratic states have. This is basic game theory and how countries handle foreign relations. Hell, Putin murders journalists on a whim. That's a far cry from cellphone tracking.
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We went after the terrorists who perpetrated 911 because they killed innocent civilians. We have killed many innocent civilians in the process. That is indefensible, no matter our goals.
You think war is clean and sanitary?
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Perhaps that is true in terms of maximizing your influence in the next election. But to maximize your influence over a longer time period, you should vote for the third party candidate that most closely matches your views. Then, when the major party candidate you would have resorted to loses, the post mortem reveals votes lost to the candidate you voted for, and in the subsequent election the major party adapts its p…
> But to maximize your influence over a longer time period, you should vote for the third party candidate that most closely matches your views. That might, arguably, resemble truth if the details of the political system itself were guaranteed stable over time and not subject to alteration by the same people who gain power over other policies through electoral victories. But, in the real world, to maximize your influe…
I totally agree with this.
>Once its clear who the major candidates are in the present election, you should still generally vote for the one least harmful to your interests
I don't agree with this, because the platform-creation calculus of the major parties is to ignore interest groups that will not abandon ship.
As H's platform makes clear, when there is sufficient loyalty, it's in the best interest of the candidate to edge as close as possible to the opposing party's platform, to attract as many swing voters as possible.