421–430 of 460 posts
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Possibly. Remember it is the right wingers with all the guns :-)
You can troll your way into a civil war, but you can't troll your way out of it.
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Washington's farewell address was a political speech. He was unequivocally a federalist, and his speech was aimed at suppressing anti-federalism. He basically believed there should be only one party - his and Hamilton/Adams' party. That's why very soon afterwards federalists in Congress passed laws allowing the President to imprison people for reporting truthfully what was happening in Congress (out of the fear it wo…
That's an interesting take, that's the first time I've heard of that interpretation. Is that the view of any specific authors? I feel like Washington is extremely venerated, which makes me a bit suspicious. It's not quite a cult of personality like Stalin but nobody's perfect. A accounts seem to imply that Washington was a reluctant leader who didn't want to get involved in politics: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Geo…
> I feel like Washington is extremely venerated, which makes me a bit suspicious. It's not quite a cult of personality like Stalin but nobody's perfect.
The cult of personality around Washington was quite deliberately engineered and some of his contemporaries - some even nominally his friends - privately lamented that someone (in their eyes) so awful would be, for all ages, venerated as a great man and a hero, but they regarded it as necessary that the nasty infancy of the country would be glossed into something more noble. (I do think his contemporaries judged him too harshly, but things always look different centuries later.)
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This is a good question. Obama claimed the president has the power to assassinate american citizens without trial and Trump is claiming further powers over immigration, science and the media. None of these things should be the sole purview of the president, this is why rule via executive orders is so dangerous. It would lead to the end of the republic. The American republic now resembles the late roman one, complete…
This is being exacerbated by the increasing factionalism within the US itself. I'm starting to understand better and better why Washington warned us of political parties in his farwell address "Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a…
The increasing factionalism recently in the US is arguably (barring perhaps some overshoot directly connected to Trump, on both sides) return to the long-term norm as the major political realignments resulting from the New Deal and Civil Rights movements upsetting the pre-existing alignment of the parties completes, and the parties return to a state of cohesiveness.
Wow. This is more hostile than I ever imagined. Banning 70 million people from Iran when there is no terrorism link for the country is, at best, idiotic. (Iran is anti-ISIS and apart from its conflict with the US has no precedent of terrorism) I'm really speechless.
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No, actually you are right. You CANT convince me. Before I appreciate the legal opinion on some poster on ycombinator I prefer the opinion of a former German supreme court judge: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article150947586/Mer...
What exactly in the article are you referring to? He -- a former supreme court judge of one of the German states , not of Germany -- doesn't outright claim anything illegal was done. He sort of, fairly timidly, questions it, with the flimsiest of legal analogies: the legislature has to agree to military missions, e.g. participation in UN missions, and thus (?!) something something Merkel. It's a complete non-sequitur…
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Universities ought to offer deferred admission to international admits from countries on the list. We ought to demand it.
Deferred until when, exactly? A year? 4 years? 8? It is unfair to expect the students to put their lives on hold indefinitely. I say they should pursue their education in places that welcome them like Canada or Germany.
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"It's a bit more interesting wrt. most 9/11 hijackers being Saudis: I think it's pretty much confirmed at this point that it was a deliberate choice by al Qaida, attempting to deteriorate US-Saudi relations." I think that Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest problem in the world. In fact, I wish Trump would have banned them too or even suggested a regime change: 1. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2…
> For Iran I have high hopes. They started the fundamentalist bullshit Please try to learn even the slightest thing about this subject before you make statements so confidently. Wahhabism started in Saudi Arabia in the early 20th century and spread due to Saudi oil money in the 30's and 40's. Meanwhile Iran was a pluralistic society right up until 1979.
While there is a tiny bit of truth in your statement, Saudi Arabia changed a lot in 1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure
Saudi King Khaled however, did not react to the upheaval by cracking down on religious puritans in general, but by giving the ulama and religious conservatives more power over the next decade. He is thought to have believed that "the solution to the religious upheaval was simple -- more religion." First, photographs of women in newspapers were banned, then women on television. Cinemas and music shops were shut down. School curriculum was changed to provide many more hours of religious studies, eliminating classes on subjects like non-Islamic history. Gender segregation was extended "to the humblest coffee shop". The religious police became more assertive.[
So it is up to debate, if Wahhabism really predates Islam extremism so far or at all. But regarding for Saudi Arabia I have little to no hope at all.
Again, to use your wording, Please try to learn even the slightest thing about this subject before you make statements so confidently.
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This process seems ripe for abuse. Phone calls do not necessarily come from the geographic area they appear to, and there likely aren't any legal consequences for lying about zip code. How can this be both the most effective way to influence a politician, and at the same time not be subverted to the point that such feedback cannot be trusted? Are there other checks that are less obvious? If what you say is true, I'd…
I've wondered about this question myself. Wondering whether a financially well-resourced group would just use money to get access as an easier and more efficient approach to influence of a member of Congress. That to simulate an avalanche of calls from concerned citizens by paying people to call is a less financially efficient method to get influence. (I'm just speculating.)
I abhor Trump, but something about this statement irks me: > To the Trump regime, I make one request: if you ever decide that it’s the policy of the US government to deport my PhD students, then deport me first. I’m practically begging you: come to my house, arrest me, revoke my citizenship, and tear up the awards I’ve accepted at the White House and the State Department. I’d consider that to be the greatest honor of…
This is the executive's power. There is literally nothing that can be done about it for the next 4 years besides try to change Trump's mind (or pray he does something impeachable).
I think it's more than that, it has to be impeachable AND Senate Republicans have to dislike it enough to upset their boss, right? Without Senate Republicans' support there can be no impeachment hearing can there?