I don’t recall you mentioning elder abuse when Trump was slurring words, rambling on in a way that makes no sense, or just saying off the wall shit (like the noise from windmills could cause cancer).
We had stuff like that for 4 years, and you didn’t come to any conclusions about Trump’s mental fitness? Biden’s first couple months and it’s clear as could be that he isn’t mentally fit?
I am fine with saying both are sub optimal, or both are fit enough, but I can’t understand saying one is and one isn’t. It’s inconsistent thinking.
I primarily look to results and start with a question of compared to what? Trump produced a lot of good outcomes and none of his most vocal critics’ predictions came remotely true.
Biden, in the other hand, has wasted no time producing demonstrably bad outcomes. Keystone, the border and his insane war on police are just the first three that come to mind.
As to mental state, Trump could (and did) get up and speak unscripted for hours on end. He was no Obama-level orator by any means, but he didn’t remind me of any nursing home interaction I’ve had in my hospice work.
How about that market. I am the richest I’ve ever been. Bread and butter issues seem pretty good right now.
I am actually against the government using eminent domain to rob people of their property (forcing selling at much lower than the property is worth given it is needed to complete a project).
I haven’t heard many good arguments to support the government doing this, that are not some sort of socialism (it’s for the greater good that the government owns your property and under pays you for it).
I partly agree with you here, but I also think it is reasonable to want some police reform. For example, I think we should stop pulling people over for stuff like tabs, cracked windshields, air fresheners, burnt out tail light.
Sure but minor reforms are not what’s on the table at all. Police morale is the lowest it has been in my lifetime, recruitment has tanked and this is producing bad human outcomes that are both easily predicted and easily avoided.
We also haven’t seen the worst yet. I’m only half joking that soon the bouncers of today will be the only people willing to do the police work of the future.
Oh well, good intentioned liberals were hoping that it would make things better. All of the shattered lives and dead bodies were an unfortunate byproduct of progress.
There’s no excuse for this insanity anymore, yet the top-down campaign continues.
As I said, I partly agree on police reform. There is some change needed to policy, but the divisive rhetoric should go.
Do you agree with me on the Keystone and the border wall? I just can’t defend the government taking (I say taking because they will only pay a fraction of what it is worth) people’s properties to complete projects.
So IMO, the fact that Biden has shut these projects down, which has kept the government from grabbing people’s property has been a good thing.
No, I don’t agree, especially without knowing any of the specifics about the individual situations or the type of compensation offered.
Whatever good outcomes those may be will be dramatically out weighed by the individuals who have to live with the bad outcomes we steer ourselves into.
What kind of outcomes does a pipeline avoid? My kid played hockey a few hundred yards from these train tracks. We were friends with a number of families there who lost loved ones. The Lac-Megantic Turmel and the whole town were wonderful hosts to our team.
Well, let’s say I visit your house. I like it. I offer you some money. You say no. I say it is generous enough, so I should get it. In this scenario, should I get your house? Obviously not, right. You own the house, you should be able to set any price you like. Agree?
With eminent domain, they need your land to finish a project, but they are offering you a price that is based on the worth before them needing it, and you don’t get a choice. It is stealing plain and simple.
If I own a 10 ft strip of land that is 20 miles long, and the government wants to put a pipe line through that land, my land is worth approximately the cost of running the pipe line around my property, not what a typical 10ft, by 20 mile strip of land in that location would go for. It’s supply and demand.
I am shocked at your anti capitalistic stance here.
I actually don’t spend hardly any time on Twitter. Not like the previous President.
Would that be the same law that businesses and organizations called racist? Similar to one struck down by the Supreme Court? The same ones Republicans in Georgia changed during our discussion? We beat that up, but even if you don’t think it was racist I think it’s a little dismissive to not question why the GOP is doing everything possible in many states to change voter laws. Thinking they are doing that of pure heart and mind with no ulterior motives seems insane.
Heck I’ll fully say Dems want to do the same thing. Come on man what’s next Republicans aren’t going to gerrymander and setup future success with their power at the state level.
Honestly I don’t feel the need to do so unless you would really like me to. It seems pretty self evident. Heck just look at the threads and posts. Nearly everyday it was something new and crazy. And it was a lot of traditionally conservative or right leaning posters saying this isn’t how a President should be.
And clearly this is something the American people also believed. It’s why Trump joined the company of the very few people who only served one term.
That’s entirely up to you, but speaking about politics in broad narratives because others do too doesn’t strengthen any point you try to make.
Remember the recent gun policy discussion where the closest thing to a clear policy you could articulate is that 30 guns is too many for one person?
Again, this is what I’m talking about with narrative repetition.
Like I said, if you readily believe media narratives a lot of the “new and crazy” stuff will seem to be exactly that.
How much of that turned out to be nonsense? Quite a bit.
I recall being badgered because I didn’t immediately assume the “”Russian bounty” narrative to be true and clear and obvious evidence of Trumpian corruption and malfeasance?
Yeah. Fake news. Yet another case of media presenting these stories as facts and people eating it up.
Of course, yours truly called it correctly from the moment the story hit. It wasn’t difficult to read the article and see the total absence of evidence being presented or a name being named. It was more of the same “sources say” narrative weaving with no regard for the truth.
I was accused of carrying water for Trump for correctly refusing to take a fact-free article at face value.
Without eminent domain we wouldn’t have a lot of nice things.
Besides, what makes you think that Biden’s “infrastructure plan” won’t involve eminent domain? Solar, wind and the corridors to move that energy are going to trample some property rights too.
The Keystone oil will be moved by other means, and nobody’s objections to eminent domain will be considered to lay down the roads and rail that will move that oil less efficiently, less safely and less environmentally friendly than a pipeline.
You mentioned looking at the results. Ending those projects ended two big eminent domain projects (the results were good). He will likely use eminent domain, and I’ll probably be opposed to it.
That’s akin to saying without stealing, I wouldn’t have this sweet new watch.
But they should be. It is stealing by way of paying people far less than their property is worth in a sale they have no choice on. You are just justifying it because we get some nice shit.
This came out months ago and seems to be right on. Except that it didn’t go into the additional explanation of Biden other anti American acts, like the border fiasco or driving racial division by stepping into active judicial cases.
Why not just pay what the property is worth? I don’t think it is a necessary evil, because it isn’t necessary. I do agree partly with you. It would be massively inconvenient. It would likely hamper growth. Maybe a bit of socialism is good?
Perhaps if we could agree on a fairer payment for these people the government forces into selling their property. I think the payments are currently way too low. There should be some price increase due to the crazy change in demand for the property. Maybe paying 10X what the market would have dictated it was worth prior to the government wanting it or something. I suppose I could agree to something like that. Just a prior government demand market value or a little bit higher just doesn’t seem right to me.
And as I said then I don’t think any of us are writing policy while we shoot the shit on a bodybuilding forum. I’ve never at any point claimed to know all the answers but look at these things we do as pure discussion. And yes I think 30 guns isn’t needed for anyone at all. But it’s a moot point because we live in a place that’s completely fine with it on the whole.
Personally much like with training if you aren’t having results I think it makes sense to examine things. Our country tends to have a much more significant issue with mass shootings than most of the rest of the world. To me that’s worth looking at why and thinking about ways to reduce that. Maybe we shouldn’t change gun laws at all. I’m not claiming to know the answer. But it seems worth examining.
Trumps own words? Yeah a lot of it was nonsense. Like that he would build a wall, solve the debt, insure all people, etc. People ate that up even though it was nonsense and that’s why he had no problem convincing them that the election was stolen even if he couldn’t possibly show how. The how was never important to him. It didn’t need to be.
Again the idea that Trump wasn’t presidential isn’t some broad narrative fed by media that right wingers seem to not consume but know what they are all writing about. You can just ignore my thoughts and go back to the few big Trump threads we had and count the people who all leaned right historically and would openly tell you that they could never support a President who acted like him. Heck look at what the American people think. They disliked Trump so much they said we’ll even take an older dude! And he long maintained one of the lowest approval ratings in history. That’s not people thinking he’s presidential.
You didn’t need to read CNN or ABC to know this stuff. It wasn’t secretly being fed by anyone as the vast majority of damning Trump items were all things he did and said openly.
I really haven’t thought that deeply about eminent domain, at least not since I had to study it in class a few decades ago. I don’t consider it particularly pertinent to this thread as it is not a partisan policy issue that you’ll get something different from one party vs the other.
I find it to be a particularly odd point to be hung up on in a discussion about Biden, especially in response to my concern about the President lying about racism to divide the country, neuter the police and continue down the path that’s already creating disastrous outcomes that we’re only beginning to feel.
Maybe a new thread is appropriate for that discussion.
Fair enough, but have you considered what you’re trying to achieve by sharing your very strong, very uninformed opinions on firearms policy when you don’t know enough about it to translate your thoughts and feelings into anything resembling coherent policy?
This is, after all, the Politics and World Issues sub-forum. It seems strange to me to discuss politics without discussing policy, but you’re far from the only one who prefers to think in broad narratives over the actual details of policy
It is interesting that you bring this up. If someone starts a thread in the training section of this forum and someone comes along to spout off uninformed opinions about the subject at hand, they get called out. Their ideas are exposed. Which they should be, if anyone is to get anything productive out of the forum.
It works the same in PWI. I expect my ideas to be attacked. It wouldn’t be much fun if they weren’t. Off-topic or the Flame-Free thread is generally where plain old shit-shooting happens.
That’s not a particularly difficult argument to make, especially given the subjective nature of that. I’ve long challenged anyone on this forum to pick a policy of Biden’s and advocate for it.
Crickets.
Nothing but crickets, and cries of “but Trump!!!”, who is not the president anymore and did not set the stage for Biden’s insane anti-police campaign or any other policy disaster I’ve named.
I don’t particularly think my opinions are very strong on it personally. I’d like to think we’re all learning by discussion. I can’t count the number of times someone has said something that sounded like it would be incorrect and I had no idea and had to look it up. We did it often in the Covid thread when people were spouting conspiracy theories and saying things like you can’t buy seeds anymore.
If any of us are trying to really “achieve” something by posting about politics on a bodybuilding message board I’d say that’s pretty funny. I enjoy talking about politics on here don’t get me wrong but I know full well it’s about the least productive thing anyone can do. I’ve been posting on here for a long damn time and seen a lot of people come and go. The amount of minds significantly changed on most big issues remains about 0.
They were strong enough to argue a subject you were entirely uniformed about. You won’t see me chiming in about topics I’m not prepared to add anything to, but that’s just my personal, possibly antiquated notion of forum etiquette.
If you happen to catch me spouting off ignorantly about something, please be sure to have the common courtesy to draw it to my attention.
I appreciate your candor. I don’t see it that way at all, but I’m just a guy who enjoys the freedom to speak my mind and have exchanges of ideas here, as opposed to Facebook where I’d face bans and the very real possibility of leftist nut jobs trying to fuck with my life for expressing my opinions.
Do you think that is a legitimate concern of mine?
I appreciate your honesty. I don’t share your belief and I find it a strange belief to hold for someone who spends as much time as you do putting his thoughts about politics out there. If nothing else, it is a sharpening stone for my thought processes.