US Politics Thread 2021-24

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Trumpism?

"Grab 'em by the pussy"
A lot of people seem to admire him explicitly for this
"Trump! Definitely my president!"

In 2023 you either think the guy is a scumbag, or you worship the ground he walks on, there really isn't any middle ground. Proving what we already knew (that he sexually assaults women) isn't going to move the needle for anyone at this point.

I think he was or is a great dishonour to the US.

If you feel that a partial quote taken out of context years ago is contemporary proof that Trump commits multiple sexual assaults on women then you have some pretty big blinders on there Catfish.

As for middle ground you're wrong about that too. There are many Americans, myself included, who dislike the man personally but also see him as the lesser of two evils and/or a giant middle finger to the political elite of this country who so desperately need it.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

You do realize that the left in the US are still capitalists?

Well no, we are I think much closer to Marxist Socialism than you think.

[mapuc]

When does the trial begin ?

I heard something with spring 2024, is that correct ?

Why this late start of the trial ?

Is it normal that it takes month from first hearing to a the start of a trial ?

Markus

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Well no, we are I think much closer to Marxist Socialism than you think.

The US already has social institutions which I'll put under the category of promoting the general welfare. I'm sure we will never see eye to eye on this, but I don't see the US going the communist route ever, but I am seeing a significant portion moving in a Fascist direction which is every bit as bad, if not worse. Unlike many here, I don't view socialism as an outright evil, but as a needed aspect of any government to serve it's population to mutual benefit. Of course, there is a sensible middle ground, but the word shouldn't carry the stigmatism it gets as if it's the same as communism.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by August

If you feel that a partial quote taken out of context years ago is contemporary proof that Trump commits multiple sexual assaults on women then you have some pretty big blinders on there Catfish.

As for middle ground you're wrong about that too. There are many Americans, myself included, who dislike the man personally but also see him as the lesser of two evils and/or a giant middle finger to the political elite of this country who so desperately need it.

Out of context? Trump said it several times, maybe not in the last months (I wonder why. Not.), and he lost one of the accusations, good for Jean. I wonder how much more will come after this.
This is of course not the major issue after those secret documents found with a copier, but this is the court's task to find out.

What I do not like is the absolute arrogance paired with dumbness and being absolutely unsympathetic. I think types like him should not be allowed to run for president, he was talking gibberish all of the time, a blithering idiot, and he should be in jail alone because of this Capitol stunt.

Of course you have a point. The reasons that Trump got elected in the first place are even stronger now. The average person is disaffected and feels as though the government isn't listening. When that happens people resort to "F'k you" votes, and Trump is a "F'k you" vote if there ever was one.
Biden has turned out to be less than "ok" for Trump followers, and has done very little to help the average American. He still is a better statesman and president than T. was or could ever be.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

The US already has social institutions which I'll put under the category of promoting the general welfare. I'm sure we will never see eye to eye on this, but I don't see the US going the communist route ever, but I am seeing a significant portion moving in a Fascist direction which is every bit as bad, if not worse. Unlike many here, I don't view socialism as an outright evil, but as a needed aspect of any government to serve it's population to mutual benefit. Of course, there is a sensible middle ground, but the word shouldn't carry the stigmatism it gets as if it's the same as communism.

I'm not talking about a welfare program to help others in need. Hell I do that, I'll slip a homeless fella a Jackson or contribute to charity. I'm talking about Socialism there is a HUGE glaring difference between the two. I suggest you read Das Kapital

Capitalism is about the private sector the individual, private freedoms the non hierarchy part of society that controls the means of production and pricing. It is distinctly anti-corporation. In fact, Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Facists, and Authoritarians are the birds of a feather who are pro corporation, pro public, and pro state control of the means of production.

Socialists want government control of the economy. They want central banks just as Marx called for in the communist manifesto.

They want to rid themselves of private trade unions and workers councils, and like Hitler and Lennin did nationalize them into the body of the state

Let me explain if you have large trade unions which dominate societies, something that Marxist syndicalists believe in. You could say that they would embody the nation if they embody the nation, they embody the corpse, a.k.a the corporation, that's where the term comes from. Then they would be giant public entities. The central state finds it easier to control a handful of public corporations than it does thousands of small private businesses or trade unions.

Socialists who want to control society, only want a handful of public corporations rather than thousands of small private companies. This is the central idea behind Marxist socialism and anarchy cynicalism, or corporatism or fascism or national socialism. Think back for a moment when during the so called COVID panic and calls by Democrats to close businesses around the nation. This caused the private sector mom and pop stores to suffer greatly and collapse. Leaving behind the public corporations who can easily be controlled by bailouts and tons of regulations.

They all want the public sector to have total control, total state control, totalitarian control, the modern roots of the fascist corporate state were revolutionary syndicalism.

Socialists want the end of capitalism. They want the end of the private sector. They want everybody to be part of this hierarchy, the body of the nation, the corporation, the corporate state, socialism, with most of you as slaves at the bottom and them in total control at the top, there can be no individual who is outside of the state. Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Marx called for the following: (I know for a fact you called for some of the same things too.)

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes to a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

2. Abolition of all rights of inheritance and for confiscation of the property of all immigrants and rebels.

3. In case you haven't noticed small banks are being forced out of business. Marx called for the centralization of credits in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with, State capital and an exclusive monopoly. Yes, that includes State monopoly and Central Banking on a NATIONAL level.

4. In case you haven't put 2 and 2 together yet. Marx also calls for the centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

5. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state. They're bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvements of soil generally in accomplice with a common plan. (The four or Five year plan) Corporations are buying farmland hand over fist. In the name of saving the planet I bet

6. Equal liability of all to work, establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. (More Slavery & War)

7. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country and

8. Free education for all children in public schools.

[Buddahaid]

I am calling for none of that. I'm pointing out there is socialism in government that you partake of everyday which is responsible governance, but you just knee jerk to the extreme end of that spectrum.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I am calling for none of that. I'm pointing out there is socialism in government that you partake of everyday which is responsible governance, but you just knee jerk to the extreme end of that spectrum.

Again what you are referring to are social programs that are agreed upon by individuals to benefit those in need. It is not Socialism in the political Marxist sense.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure you once said you’re for loan bailouts and I believe you even once stated that you think education should be free. How very Marxist of you.

Let me add too. That when Trump suggested abolishing the Central Bank there was a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth from Democrats, I believe you were among them too.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I am calling for none of that. I'm pointing out there is socialism in government that you partake of everyday which is responsible governance, but you just knee jerk to the extreme end of that spectrum.

It's not a knee jerk to the extreme end, it is the direction that we are heading.

Look at how much the federal government has expanded in the last 100 years. How much more the government controls the lives of it's citizens. Do you think that trend will ever stop? I don't see how short of tearing it down and starting over.

Socialism is just a slippery and irreversible slope to totalitarianism. It is the nature of bureaucracies. The longer they exist the more power they draw to themselves until words like Freedom and Liberty become hollow catch phrases.

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

I am calling for none of that. I'm pointing out there is socialism in government that you partake of everyday which is responsible governance, but you just knee jerk to the extreme end of that spectrum.

Government is nothing more than a necessary evil.

[August]

Do Any Republicans Really Think DeSantis Won’t Get Impeached Or Framed By The FBI?

By Joy Pullmann

Anyone who has been watching for seven years — and counting — has seen the nation’s top Republican politician framed, impeached, raided, prosecuted, and now indicted by corrupt spy agencies on behalf of the Democrat Party. Their goal is to send their top political opponent to prison on charges they said were fascist to bring against their own presidential candidates.

After these last seven years, how can anyone not expect that any Republican who questions the unelected, Congress-defying security state won’t get the Trump treatment? If they can and will do it to Trump, they can and will do it to Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert Kennedy Jr., and anyone else who threatens their power.

Remember, even ineffective, regime-pleasing nice guys Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were cast as a dog torturer and grandma murderer. But standard media smear operations pale in comparison to media functioning as a security state propaganda tool to frame dissidents for treason.
Any Republicans who think the security state wouldn’t frame others the same way it has Trump are in denial about the evidence repeatedly stampeded across their eyeballs for seven years. This means if D.C. Republicans want any president but Trump, their only ticket to that outcome is fighting back good and hard against his relentless persecution.

If the law is not equally applied to all, it turns into a weapon for injustice. If the powerful can break constitutional norms about legal equality for one man, they can — and will — break constitutional norms about legal equality for anyone else they want.

The Trump Treatment Is Already Spreading

We’re already seeing this lawless weaponization of government bleed past Trump. The security state has also targeted Republican senators who have gotten a little too close to its corruption, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, and lower-profile Republicans like former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry. DeSantis has also started to get the Trump treatment with a Texas sheriff’s attempt to bring criminal charges over DeSantis’ lawful removal of illegal border-crossers.

Don’t forget, either, the FBI and DOJ entrapment of Mike Flynn, raid on pro-life dad Mark Houck, jailing of a pro-Trump meme creator, lawless allowance of violent mobs to pressure Supreme Court justices, pressuring of social media giants to help rig elections, unhinged pursuit of people accused of misdemeanors on Jan. 6, targeting of parents as “domestic terrorists” for protesting at school board meetings, and apparent spying on churches as hotbeds of anti-regime messaging.

Atop all these, how can anyone forget the lessons of Spygate, the bulk of the security-state iceberg we’re currently able to see? Spygate is an extremely dense saga, partly because of how many powerful institutions worked together to frame Trump as a Russian traitor to conceal evidence of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden’s own traitorous activities.



It took seven years to even get an accounting from a special counsel who brought zero accountability. In the meantime, a few dogged reporters — led by The Federalist — steadfastly blew away Democrats’ deep haze of lies. For a quick Spygate summary, here’s John Yoo and Robert Delahunty:

In 2016, the Hillary Clinton campaign fabricated false reports of ‘collusion’ between Trump and Russia and spread them to a sympathetic law enforcement and national security bureaucracy.
The ‘Russia hoax’ sparked a special counsel investigation that paralyzed the Trump White House for two years. The recent Durham Report fingered political bias by high FBI officials as the culprit.

Here’s a good place for more background on this credibility-killing operation from the federal agencies still cooperating to jail the nation’s top Republican. Spygate was intelligence agency election interference that boosted Democrats for two presidential election cycles, and now possibly a third.
This is what Democrats and U.S. security agencies are willing to do to get their way.

A Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations

Many more such operations occurred in the Trump era, probably many of them unknown. While the DOJ and FBI are obviously among the worst actors, they’re in plentiful company. Recall also the “Resistance” that involved insubordinate federal employees across all agencies working to thwart the policies of their constitutionally designated, democratically elected boss.
Here’s another: Several brazen, court martial-worthy acts by one of America’s top generals, Mark Milley. During Trump’s presidency, he secretly told Chinese officials he’d warn them if Trump ordered a strike on America’s chief foreign adversary.
According to Grassley and Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Milley also “reportedly ordered senior officers to check with him before executing orders from then-President Trump.” The woke general who pushed Marxism on American troops also worked to prevent the president from repulsing nationwide rioting by Marxist agitators and pulling U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The inspector general has inexplicably declined to even investigate Milley despite such widely reported treasonous interference with the policies of the constitutionally appointed commander in chief.
Any future Republican president — and increasingly governors and senators — can look forward to similar behavior from an American bureaucracy that has come entirely unmoored from constitutional restrictions on their actions.

Indictment Is the Same Play as Spygate

After its successful 2016 election interference operation, the institutionally corrupt FBI interfered in the 2020 election by leaking about Hunter Biden’s laptop to boost Democrats’ false claim it was “Russian disinformation.” Since then, it is becoming more apparent the FBI wasn’t so much investigating the laptop as burying it, as it appears to be doing with other evidence of Biden corruption that endangers U.S. national security.
In their indictment this week, the DOJ’s special counsel boasted of “audio recordings of Trump appearing to confirm he’d retained a document he failed to declassify as president.” The same agency hid from elected lawmakers evidence about audio recordings of Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly taking $10 million in bribes from Ukranians.

Prosecutors also claimed Trump’s documents include major national security information, like nuclear secrets. How convenient that these documents are allegedly classified information that nobody can see. Regardless, “the president and the president alone decides what is a presidential record and what isn’t. He may take with him whatever records he chooses at the end of his term.”
Beyond that, Trump has been falsely accused of being dangerous with nuclear information so many times, anyone accepting this wild claim without good, hard, complete evidence is either a propagandist or an idiot. Remember how the security state’s narrative, formed by selective leaks about Trump’s call with Ukraine, was disproven by Trump releasing the transcript of the call? Of course, that didn’t stop Democrats from impeaching Trump while hiding key evidence and structuring the impeachment to make Democrat leaks the only way for information to get out.
As Grassley recently pointed out, deceptive leaks are now DOJ and FBI standard operating procedure. They constantly leak information out of context to form false narratives that benefit Democrats. That’s called disinformation and misinformation. It’s election interference, it’s authoritarian, it’s illegal, and it’s accelerating.


https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/15...ed-by-the-fbi/

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by August

It's not a knee jerk to the extreme end, it is the direction that we are heading.

Look at how much the federal government has expanded in the last 100 years. How much more the government controls the lives of it's citizens. Do you think that trend will ever stop? I don't see how short of tearing it down and starting over.

Socialism is just a slippery and irreversible slope to totalitarianism. It is the nature of bureaucracies. The longer they exist the more power they draw to themselves until words like Freedom and Liberty become hollow catch phrases.

Ya speaking of tearing it down. The 'withering away of the state' is a Marxist concept coined by Friedrich Engels referring to the idea that, with the realization of socialism, the state will eventually become obsolete and cease to exist as society will be able to govern itself without the state and its coercive enforcement of the law.

This means only one of two things a. he was lying his ass off as all totalitarians do, or b. when socialism a.k.a. the corporate state and coercive laws withers away you are left with what you began with the private individual in charge of the means of production, and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and a.k.a. Capitalism.


But it is concerning the direction I think we seem to be heading. Especially when our current leader has done what was once unthinkable and overstepped without any repercussions after accusing an entire of group of good people right wing extremists and publicly stated he is making it a point to jail a political opponent so he can’t run for office. That should be concerning to everyone Democrat and Republican alike. Not to mention all the Burisma Biden Bribery whistleblowers are now dead too.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

It's not a knee jerk to the extreme end, it is the direction that we are heading.

Look at how much the federal government has expanded in the last 100 years. How much more the government controls the lives of it's citizens. Do you think that trend will ever stop? I don't see how short of tearing it down and starting over.

Socialism is just a slippery and irreversible slope to totalitarianism. It is the nature of bureaucracies. The longer they exist the more power they draw to themselves until words like Freedom and Liberty become hollow catch phrases.

And you think the direction MAGA is heading is anything less than totalitarian? Those people are not small government conservatives! They do not take the position of not liking how someone wants to live but recognizing it's none of their business. They are actively trying to legislate how others may live so they comply to religious beliefs. That is contrary to the 1st Amendment.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

And you think the direction MAGA is heading is anything less than totalitarian? Those people are not small government conservatives! They do not take the position of not liking how someone wants to live but recognizing it's none of their business. They are actively trying to legislate how others may live so they comply to religious beliefs. That is contrary to the 1st Amendment.

That's a bunch of bull and you know it. 74 million Americans voted for Trump in the last election. Claiming that they are all religious extremists is both inaccurate and insulting.

[Otto Harkaman]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

And you think the direction MAGA is heading is anything less than totalitarian? Those people are not small government conservatives! They do not take the position of not liking how someone wants to live but recognizing it's none of their business. They are actively trying to legislate how others may live so they comply to religious beliefs. That is contrary to the 1st Amendment.

^ Don't worry you'll still get to do all your perverted things, perhaps more in private, but no pole dancing in drag during preschool nap time anymore.