Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Kaleredar]

Gotta hand it to "christian" Trump supporters. They've reduced the number of future American christians by several million.

Unfortunately I get the impression that many "christian" republicans take the bible not as a guide on whom to love (fairly certain that Jesus guy said "everyone,") but on whom they think it tells them they should hate.

Jesus' whole shtick about helping the poor and sick selflessly, no matter the cost to oneself, and the directive to eschew wealth in favor of doing good to as many people as possible? More of a recommendation, really.

That one passage from the old testament about gays being icky? CHISEL. IT. IN. STONE.

[Edge-]

Also there is nothing wrong with torture of terrorists if it can save lives.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5325643/

The US Senate and CIA both disagree with you. The CIA has confirmed that torture does not lead to quality, actionable intelligence.

It's just cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

And loosely related to this: Still waiting, 10 years later, for Hannity to "prove" waterboarding isn't torture and raise money for charity.

[Bailine57]

I am Russian aligned? Now why would you lie like that?

Also there is nothing wrong with torture of terrorists if it can save lives.

This is a silly viewpoint. It’s been demonstrably proven that torturing for information does no better if not worse than other interrogation methods.

This is because torture itself is predicated on the belief that the subject actually knows something. If they don’t, they tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get you to stop, regardless of the truth.

[Cizr]

On the basis of years of interactions, yes, you most certainly are.

And now here comes the part which all you people do, which is to play the "no sir, not a radical right wing Putin fan at allll".

Spare me. I don't care.



There is very much wrong with it.

(1) It is illegal under international law. It is a war crime.
(2) It is illegal under US law. It is a war crime.
(3) It does not actually work and do what you think it does. That is entirely from fiction.



My closest friend in the world - like a brother to me - did 3 tours in Afghanistan, two in the US Army and one as a contractor. His job was Counter-Intelligence attached to US Army Special Forces. His role? Human intelligence. His feelings on the matter? Torture doesn't work and the Americans who did it made his job (years later) harder. They should have been locked up until the end of time for their crimes.

Maybe people do that because you slander them for something that they are not doing.

Thats nice opinion from your friend.

[nonameelf]

Well, add another to the chosen one.



https://twitter.com/DavidBrodyCBN/st...278207488?s=19

People who believe that their God put Trump in office for a reason. I could go off here, but I won't. Still these people are weak and they know they can be influenced.

Plus weak on Haley who needs some deity to anoint someone we elect thru our Constitution.

Yeah, that's pretty disturbing. That kind of fanatical view of Trump being president is not going to end well whether he's impeached and removed or just voted out.

[Skroe]

Terrorists are not soldiers of another country. They absolutely would not hesitate to do that to you.

You want a good soldier kicked out because he took photo of dead scumbag. Soldier that could kill many more terrorists like that making the World a better place.

Terrorists are still human beings and entitled to their inalienable human rights.

Being from Europe, I'd think you'd know that better than anybody, considering that it was your people's proclivity to kill and be killed by your neighbors in the most horrifying and novel of ways, that led to the genesis of modern humanitarian law.

[Orange Joe]

Funny how quickly Spencer went from corrupt Trump boot licker to a poor victim of Trump for some people in this thread. Thats why its better to wait for more informations. Maybe the story will change again.

Also posing with corpse of TERRORIST is absolutely not serious "war crime". Its not like he dishonored enemy soldier. He did that to absolute scumbag that would not hesitate to murder civilians if he got chance.

since you seem unable to answer my question that means we can rule this as more just made up buillshit from you? Why lie about something that can be so easily proven?

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe people do that because you slander them for something that they are not doing.

Thats nice opinion from your friend.

irony. thy name is Cizr

[DarkTZeratul]

So the only grocery store in a rural town in Florida closed. Since for most residents driving 20 miles to get groceries wasn't an option, City Hall opened their own grocery store paid for by taxes, with employees on the municipal payroll, and with profits used solely for maintaining it. But it's totally not socialism.

Notably, these experiments in communal ownership are taking place in deep-red parts of the country where the word “socialism” is anathema. “You expect to hear about this in a place like the People’s Republic of Massachusetts,” jokes Brian Lang, the director of the National Campaign for Healthy Food Access at The Food Trust.

By definition, a collectively owned, government-run enterprise like the Baldwin Market is inherently socialist. But Lynch, who has a nonpartisan position but governs a town where 68 percent of residents voted for Donald Trump in 2016, doesn’t see it that way. From his point of view, the town is just doing what it’s supposed to do: providing services to residents who already pay enough in taxes.

“We take the water out of the ground, and we pump it to your house and charge you,” he told The Post. “So what’s the difference with a grocery store?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...grocery-store/

[Cizr]

since you seem unable to answer my question that means we can rule this as more just made up buillshit from you? Why lie about something that can be so easily proven?

- - - Updated - - -



irony. thy name is Cizr

I dont have time just for you.

Here Skroe claimed that he was snake making a show of resigning and working with "corrupt White House"

"The part your missing is that his threatening to resign was an act. It was an act designed to give himself political cover and plausible deniability to execute the White House's will AFTER the SEALs decided Gallagher's fate (which would have likely meant they intended to reduce his rank and cut him from the SEALS).

When Esper found out about this, he fired him. Spencer did not willingly resign. He was told he was going to resign."

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post51902691


Here he is good guy trying to protect due process

"So the situation I described earlier was backwards. Spencer was basically trying to get the White House to butt out to let the Navy's internal process work by telling them what they wanted to hear. He was trying to protect the process that Trump's White House was going to corrupt.
"

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post51903873

[Edge-]

So the only grocery store in a rural town in Florida closed. Since for most residents driving 20 miles to get groceries wasn't an option, City Hall opened their own grocery store paid for by taxes, with employees on the municipal payroll, and with profits used solely for maintaining it. But it's totally not socialism.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...grocery-store/

"It's only socialism when I don't like it."

See: Medicare and Social Security.

[Teleros]

No it isn't. Trying to make the law a matter of opinion is incredibly destructive. What is legal and what is not is very clear, and any executive involvement in judicial proceedings outside of specific powers such as pardons is blatantly illegal. No amount of deflecting from you will change that.

You clearly have little to no experience of the way the legal system operates.

It is a war crime under US and international law.

Again, just because it's illegal it isn't necessarily immoral or unethical.

You didn't read the comment. The comment says its contextual.

1. This offence is designed to criminalise only the most serious conduct.
2. To mistreat or otherwise violate the dignity of the body of a dead person requires severe physical desecrations, such as dismemberment, sexual or other defilement, or mutilation of dead bodies...

So, to be guilty of this offence, you must have done "only the most serious" stuff. The second point helps clarify this, with things like dismembering bodies etc being singled out as bad things to do, especially if publicly displayed. Now, as our dear old Navy SEAL didn't dismember or otherwise mutilate the corpse, or engage in necrophilia etc etc etc, but just posed with it, how the ever-loving hell do you consider that "only the most serious conduct" or a "severe physical desecration"?

It's notable that the advocates of this not being a war crime @Cizr and @Teleros, are both not Americans. Both are Russian-aligned Europeans.

Say what?

Russia does not practice any sort of advocacy or defense of human rights.

Quite sensible too, given how toxic and corrosive to civilisation the concept of human rights has been. TYVM but I'd unironically rather go back to the pre-world-war era Britain, before such nonsense was in the air.

But they do represent a timeless and global tendency for people of low moral character to want to revert civilization to barbarism because they think there are special circumstances.

Seeing as I'm one of the few around here who supports the 3 pillars of Western civilisation (aka Christendom)... yeah, whatever. Go tip that fedora and scream tabula rasa or muh radical individualism or whatever it is you do.

The founders of the United STates had people like them figured out when they drafted the Constitution in the 1880s.

All hail the Founding Fathers! Praise them - praise them I tell ye! Suffer not the Founding-Father-doubter to live! Burn them all I tell ye!

Seriously though, stop talking utter garbage.

1. Where do you think the Founding Fathers got the 8th Amendment from, out of interest? Oh right, yes - the British Bill of Rights of 1689.
2. People can't even agree if the Guantanamo Bay captives (ie, the guys on US soil) should have the 8th Amendment apply to them - so take a guess as to what the position is WRT ISIS terrorists and the like?
3. As if all that isn't enough, the definition of "cruel and unusual" is hardly a fixed principle, and has changed considerably over time. As an example, your precious Founding Fathers were (a) okay to compromise over slavery, (b) fine with people being whipped for illegal gambling and the like, and whatnot.

This harkens back to the whole thing about torture (aka "enhanced interrogation") and how people excused that during the bush years.

My impression of that whole issue was that the Coalition was perceived as being too soft and hamstrung by lawyers and the like, not that we had to go full Genghis Khan on the other guys. There's a hell of a difference between waterboarding someone and, oh I don't know, taking an electric drill to various body parts (especially when you're dealing with people who are much more used to violence & death than us pampered Westerners)... but that sort of nuance tends to get lost in all the screaming about torturing people.

[Edge-]

My impression of that whole issue was that the Coalition was perceived as being too soft and hamstrung by lawyers and the like, not that we had to go full Genghis Khan on the other guys. There's a hell of a difference between waterboarding someone and, oh I don't know, taking an electric drill to various body parts (especially when you're dealing with people who are much more used to violence & death than us pampered Westerners)... but that sort of nuance tends to get lost in all the screaming about torturing people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5325643/

The US Senate and CIA both disagree with you. The CIA has confirmed that torture does not lead to quality, actionable intelligence.

It's just cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

And loosely related to this: Still waiting, 10 years later, for Hannity to "prove" waterboarding isn't torture and raise money for charity.

The CIA doesn't seem the type to be "screaming about torturing people" since, you know, that's what they were actually doing. But they still agreed that it's an ineffective interrogation technique that doesn't provide quality/actionable intel.

And waterboarding isn't a joke, either. Just ask someone who's actually been waterboarded. I.e. not Sean Hannity (who still refuses to be waterboarded despite promises to do so to prove us all wrong about how bad it is) or some MMA guy who doesn't even do it right and then claims it's no big deal.

[Shadowferal]

The low point is the legality.
If one wants the higher ground then appeals to morality and ethic would be mandated.

[Teleros]

The CIA doesn't seem the type to be "screaming about torturing people" since, you know, that's what they were actually doing. But they still agreed that it's an ineffective interrogation technique that doesn't provide quality/actionable intel.

You mean the same CIA that produced the WMD dossier & all that? The same CIA that had all these hush-hush rendition sites outside the US they could send people to for interrogation?

"No, we don't torture people, we don't think it's a good technique, honest guv. BTW Turkey, did you get the prisoner we sent you?"

And waterboarding isn't a joke, either. Just ask someone who's actually been waterboarded. I.e. not Sean Hannity (who still refuses to be waterboarded despite promises to do so to prove us all wrong about how bad it is) or some MMA guy who doesn't even do it right and then claims it's no big deal.

Steven Crowder then?

[Skroe]

Maybe people do that because you slander them for something that they are not doing.

Nah they absolutely are Mr. Slavic Swastika.

Thats nice opinion from your friend.

It's not just my friend's opinion. It's US law, and the consensus opinion of the CIA, US Military, psychologists and prosecutors.

It does not work. If you insist otherwise, its because you want to inflict harm. Because you think they deserve pain. Not because you think it will help advance the counter-terrorism effort.

It is also illegal. Period.

I mean it's nuts really. You're European. Modern Europeans are not the first generation of Europeans to think big wars that ruin their lives and devastate their countries is behind them. That they're safe from their neighbors. They're certainly wrong. The perpetual European War has seen respites before, but while Pax Americana is a long one, it too, will not last forever, and the day is coming where neighbor will slaughter neighbor. There are likely fewer days of peace ahead than behind.

So you, of all people, should be most inclined to defend and advance human rights. This is the logic in fact, that has propelled the creation of modern Human Rights law and the European Union. Because your leaders understood this. Because your leaders knew that one day they would need the law to protect their people. So they must uphold the legitimacy of the law now.

You may not care, and you may not pay for the barbarity you espouse. There is a good chance your descedants will. Because Euripeans have been innovators at killing their neighbors for thousands of years, and there is little reason to believe that the corner we've turned will last longer than another life time or too. All Europe’s great settlements – Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles, Yalta – have lasted no more than two generations. You can probably throw Maastricht in that pile too.

[wunksta]

You mean the same CIA that produced the WMD dossier & all that?

That was a problem with the Bush and Blair administrations misrepresenting the claims in the documents.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9...-iraq-invasion
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/...ief-iraqi-wmds
https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...oliticsandiraq

[Edge-]

You mean the same CIA that produced the WMD dossier & all that?

Yes, that same CIA. Not gonna argue that they didn't fuck up there, they did, but that doesn't mean that nothing they say is credible.

The same CIA that had all these hush-hush rendition sites outside the US they could send people to for interrogation?

Yes, they have first-hand knowledge about how ineffective it is. And thankfully, they're no longer engaged in this behavior according to reports, so I'd say that's progress.

"No, we don't torture people, we don't think it's a good technique, honest guv. BTW Turkey, did you get the prisoner we sent you?"

They did, IIRC they've admitted to it (though not specifically the severity), and they're not doing it anymore because it doesn't work. That's not just the CIA's assessment, that's an assessment shared by other intelligence organizations in the US, within other countries, and shared by the Legislature.

Steven Crowder then?

https://youtu.be/_eEldo1tlxE?t=6120

That video where he first lasts 8 seconds before they stop and all have a laugh? Then another 14 seconds, when he looks like he's in distress, but still joking because he knows that they'll stop the second he wants them to. Then he freaks out when they start pouring it without the mug in his hand to drop to signal them to give him a break. Instantly has them stop when they dump the bucket on it.

So yes, being waterboarded in a friendly conditions when they can stop whenever you give the signal isn't too bad!

And FYI - the guy "waterboarding" him is the same MMA guy I was mocking. Why am I not surprised he's involved.

A group of fucking clowns.

[Pannonian]

I think you can all drop the legal argument. This is not about legality.

Legality is just a smoke screen for the real reason: They want to torture people who they deem deserve it, because ultimately they have the same morals as the terrorists they despise so much.

[Skroe]

Again, just because it's illegal it isn't necessarily immoral or unethical.

It's objectively immoral and unethical to any rule of law respecting society.

1. This offence is designed to criminalise only the most serious conduct.
2. To mistreat or otherwise violate the dignity of the body of a dead person requires severe physical desecrations, such as dismemberment, sexual or other defilement, or mutilation of dead bodies...

So, to be guilty of this offence, you must have done "only the most serious" stuff. The second point helps clarify this, with things like dismembering bodies etc being singled out as bad things to do, especially if publicly displayed. Now, as our dear old Navy SEAL didn't dismember or otherwise mutilate the corpse, or engage in necrophilia etc etc etc, but just posed with it, how the ever-loving hell do you consider that "only the most serious conduct" or a "severe physical desecration"?

Photographing bodies and celebrating death is considered physical descration. I don't know what to tell you. This is what US troops have been prosecuted under for years.

Say what?

Going off our previous conversations.

Quite sensible too, given how toxic and corrosive to civilisation the concept of human rights has been. TYVM but I'd unironically rather go back to the pre-world-war era Britain, before such nonsense was in the air.

Okay that's just abhorrent. You mean the Age of Empire? You mean reversing the one thing the United States and Soviet Union agreed upon, which was that the age of colonialism would end? You mean returning to an era where this little nation in the North Atlantic systematically denied hundreds of millions of people their human rights and self rule and engaged in wars of conquest of other people's territory?

The demolition of the British Empire was one of the most profound goods of the 20th century. The liberal international order could not exist with its perpetuation, and is only legitimate because of the end of the age of colonialism.

Seeing as I'm one of the few around here who supports the 3 pillars of Western civilisation (aka Christendom)... yeah, whatever. Go tip that fedora and scream tabula rasa or muh radical individualism or whatever it is you do.

Oh you're one of those people. "Western Civilization", "Christiandom". What radical right wing YouTube channel did you pick that off of? Serious people don't express geopolicy in terms of "Western Civilization".

All hail the Founding Fathers! Praise them - praise them I tell ye! Suffer not the Founding-Father-doubter to live! Burn them all I tell ye!

Seriously though, stop talking utter garbage.

I mean the Founding Fathers not only ended the first age of British Colonialism and took the British Empire's most important long term investment out of the Empire, but also pioneered human rights and the rule of law over a century before the actual United Kingdom did.

American Democracy has been imperfect from the start, but Democratic rights expanded across the 18th and 19th century well in advance of what was going on in the United Kingdom. In fact, the "Democratic Era" of the UK only began in the second decade of the 20th century.

So yes, all hail the Founding Fathers. Conquering heroes who laid low the mightest empire in the world themselves, and whose descedents spent the decades after World War II making sure that there would be no third life for British Empire.

That's what you want to go back to by the way. And it's hilarious and insane.

1. Where do you think the Founding Fathers got the 8th Amendment from, out of interest? Oh right, yes - the British Bill of Rights of 1689.

Correct, except that these aspects of the British Bill of Rights wasn't exactly being respected in late 18th century Britain and the American revolutionaries faced torturious deaths for their insurrection. The parts that were being respected were the ones regarding the rights of Parliament and role of the crown.

2. People can't even agree if the Guantanamo Bay captives (ie, the guys on US soil) should have the 8th Amendment apply to them - so take a guess as to what the position is WRT ISIS terrorists and the like?

What do you mean "People can't even agree". That's irrelevant.
The US Supreme Court decided in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) that GITMO detainees (and all detainees in US custody) are subject to the Geneva Conventions.
Two years later in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the Supreme Court found that everyone in US custody in GITMO have a right to habeus corpus and full constitutional rights US.

Open and shut.

This was objectively obvious because the Constitution was written explicitly as a constraint on the powers (behaviors) of the state that made no regards for territorial jurisdiction. It was written as a way to constrain what Government does whenever it interacts with people in general, and not just US citizens.

So open and shut, GITMO detainees are entitled to the same human and civil rights as any other prisoner. That is, full constitutional and international legal protections. The end. As it should be.

3. As if all that isn't enough, the definition of "cruel and unusual" is hardly a fixed principle, and has changed considerably over time. As an example, your precious Founding Fathers were (a) okay to compromise over slavery, (b) fine with people being whipped for illegal gambling and the like, and whatnot.

Correct, but they were certainly more progressive than the United Kingdom, which at the time had torturous penalty and execution on the books. That is explicitly what the Eight Amendment was written against at first, but it was eventually expanded upon.

And here we are. The evolved standards of decency (a term used in Supreme Court arguments) have rendered the very kind of thing you advocate for to be illegal.

If you want it another way, build a time machine, or move to Communist China.

My impression of that whole issue was that the Coalition was perceived as being too soft and hamstrung by lawyers and the like, not that we had to go full Genghis Khan on the other guys. There's a hell of a difference between waterboarding someone and, oh I don't know, taking an electric drill to various body parts (especially when you're dealing with people who are much more used to violence & death than us pampered Westerners)... but that sort of nuance tends to get lost in all the screaming about torturing people.

That's not what happened at all. And waterboarding and an electric drill are exactly the same thing. It is the State extra-judicially and illegitimately inflicting suffering, using information gathering as a pretext for what is really corporal punishment.

I can think of few bigger or scary abuses of power by the state than it deciding, unilaterally, to inflict suffering for suffering's sake. That is a dire violation of every tenant of ethics and morality that we're supposed to stand for.

Fundamentally, it's not about the terrorists. It's about who we are. There is no reason for the state to inflict senseless suffering and doing so lessens all of us.

And that is why it is banned under US law and international law. And that's why nearly every single person involved has seen their careers and reputations destroyed. And that is why George W Bush will go down in history as the President who oversaw a torture regime that decimated America's moral authority on such matters.


Fundamentally, I think the world you want to live in is a dark and sick one that we're far better to have moved past. It's not even Conservative. It's highly regressive. It's insane.

[Tenlo]

Indeed, comments like the “chosen one” bullshit show they’re just as eager for a theocracy as the Muslims they despise for wanting the exact same thing.

No no see they want a Theocracy with their flavor of deity! There's no way they will ever be the oppressed party when they rule!