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International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

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351–360 of 402 posts

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#351
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds to me like voting with your pocket book. It's very interesting that you would compare it to voting, because that means we're talking about citizens of one country "voting" for the leader of another country--which would mean interfering with another country's elections. Are you sure you want to stick with that analogy? :) This is in contrast with the traditional definition of "voting with your wallet," which…

I guess I'm just more cycnical (possibly pragmatic) than you, because IMO it is "apples to apples". I believe that the US was captured by corporations long before Trump made it to office, and the only way to sway corporate opinion is to hit them in the wallet. Sadly, as a foreigner, what I purchase is the most effective way to be heard. Besides, how successful is a business that blames potential customers for not buy…

> I guess I'm just more cycnical (possibly pragmatic) than you, because IMO it is "apples to apples". I believe that the US was captured by corporations long before Trump made it to office, and the only way to sway corporate opinion is to hit them in the wallet.

Corporate power is indeed an issue, but I feel like you are changing the subject here.

> Sadly, as a foreigner, what I purchase is the most effective way to be heard.

I don't think your theory is logically coherent here. If you desire to punish the corporations which you say have captured the U.S., then which candidate was elected President is irrelevant. More than that, although Trump is an entrepreneur and far wealthier than Clinton, he is also far more independent than Clinton, far less in the pocket of the mega corporations. On this concern you should favor Trump over Clinton.

> Besides, how successful is a business that blames potential customers for not buying their products? "We're gonna bomb them until they buy our cars dammit!"

Sorry, I don't understand your point here.

> I also disagree with you about why Trump was elected. I hear this condescension argument all the time but I think it's total BS. I suspect it's more about jobless (white) men and is a much harder (and real) problem to solve than simply being polite.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but as a non-foreigner, I think you are completely wrong. In fact, your "jobless (white) men" line is merely repeating the leftist media's racist, sexist propaganda. Note that it is, by definition, racist and sexist. It's inherently condescending, but here you are protesting that condescension had nothing to do with it.

It's disappointing that you seem to be uncritically accepting this belief. It doesn't even cohere with the data: Trump received many votes from non-whites, non-males, and the employed. The votes were split primarily along geographic lines! But don't let that stop you from blaming angry old white men for all the problems in the world. Obviously, if it weren't for them, everything would be great...

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#352
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The remaining 43% voted for 'I'll take whoever wins'. Or they lived in some of those insane regions where only a single voting office served thousands of people and couldn't affording standing outside for 8+ hours, or they couldn't get a tuesday off (sane countries allot a whole weekend for voting), or they couldn't afford to get sufficient id to satisfy their state's demands. (Yes, i know, mail-in voting is a thin…

only a single voting office served thousands of people and couldn't affording standing outside for 8+ hours Really, that's how it is in US? Any semi-decent country is responsible for creating comfortable conditions for anyone to vote. Here in Poland there were 28k voting offices for 30 million of potential voters, so there's on average little more than 1k voters per office. It is almost impossible to be waiting in li…

> Any semi-decent country

Feel free to replace with "No true Scotsman".

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#353
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a fair statement given the oddities of the electoral college. I know a lot of people in big coastal cities (New York, Boston, LA, San Fransisco, Seattle) who don't vote but are very anti-Trump. They know it doesn't matter because their states were always going to go strongly for the Democrats.

It seems like those people didn't feel the electoral college was problematic. Otherwise, voting would have exposed the vast discrepancy between popular opinion and the college. Even if Hillary had won, that demonstration could be used to spur reform of the election process.

Actually no. Literally all the cities listed are in states that have agreed to a compact [1] that would award all electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote. The thinking being that such a system would be easier than getting rid of the electoral college. It goes into effect if 61.1% of electoral votes are part of the compact.

What is it with non-US citizens in this thread? Honestly, none of you seem to have a good understanding of US politics and are being very insulting.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters...

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#354
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not from the U.S., so my knowledge here is a bit sketchy, but wasn't one of the problems Clinton had exactly that some states which always voted for the Democrats fell to the Republicans this time?

The difference is that the Democratic party "rebased" itself. They've basically removed blue collar white people as a constituency that they focus on. This created a problem, as the get out the vote efforts from groups like unions and others were tepid as a result, and the GOP isn't stupid and courted these voters pretty heavily. The other thing is that the Democrats over-relied on minority voters as a key base, whic…

No, no, no, she lost because of Russian hacking! /s

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#355
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ford Focus sold in Europe is assembled in Germany [1]. The current US border control security climate dates since the Obama Administration. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Europe#Facilities

The money is still going to an american company.

Yeah, but American companies leave and hide as much income and money offshore as possible for tax reasons so buying something outside the states is rarely going to give money to America.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#356
post #83
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Recent (this administration) policies allow for demanding passwords etc. at the border. There was an incident where a NASA engineer lost control of sensitive data as a result https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/a-nas... It's not paranoia. Welcome to 2017. Edit: It's not like they're scanning every cell phone that enters the country... but they reserve the right to.

Please stop spreading lies. This happened long before this administration. E.g. articles from 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/us-custom... https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14066082/us-customs-bord...

I stand deceived and now corrected. I'll do better next time.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trump. Just thought I'd point out that most people DO NOT want this president.

He won according to the system that's been in place for 100-200 years. You don't get to support it until it works against you and then complain about it.

A relatively large amount of states (by electoral votes) don't support it and have held that position (and tried to change it) prior to the election.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#358
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really a fair statement given the oddities of the electoral college. I know a lot of people in big coastal cities (New York, Boston, LA, San Fransisco, Seattle) who don't vote but are very anti-Trump. They know it doesn't matter because their states were always going to go strongly for the Democrats.

It seems like those people didn't feel the electoral college was problematic. Otherwise, voting would have exposed the vast discrepancy between popular opinion and the college. Even if Hillary had won, that demonstration could be used to spur reform of the election process.

Except a discrepancy between popular opinion and the college won't matter because the party who wins is the one that the problems of the electoral college worked in favor of. The electoral college was already brought up when Trump won while losing the popular vote, but it's just seen as "whining and complaining" so it just drops off pretty quickly.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of US citizens did not vote for Trump. Just thought I'd point out that most people DO NOT want this president.

Thanks for bringing up, since it is a relevant point. However, it still does not change the fact that he is now leading the most powerful nation, with all its consequences. I have always wondered how hard it would be to switch to direct voting rather as opposed to the system with an electoral college. Is it impossible because the current system is codified in the constitution, or does it 'only' require an amendment.…

> Is it impossible because the current system is codified in the constitution, or does it 'only' require an amendment.

1.) The constitution can be changed 2.) The thing the changes the constitution is an amendment.

You're prescribing a lot of "this is how the US political system should work" without really (it seems) understanding it.

Re: International Travel Guide for Basecamp employees

#360
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say that ~70% of the voters did not try to prevent him becoming president.

Exactly! But this seems like a feature of a Two Party system rather than a bug? What happened to the Free Market and competition?

The natural "free market" tendency to form monopolies as dominate parties buy out smaller ones.
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