American Politics

[xi0]

And a cool thing is that after the shooting, New Zealand in a day or two put a ban on assault rifles or guns, whereas USA won't even do much despite the fact that kids have been killed due to mass shooting.

That's just false, there's been no legislation passed yet in the wake of the shooting. I know it's really important to some people to juxtapose the situation in NZ with the US, but it's political apples to oranges, and some politicians have already backtracked on their statements regarding bans there.

Attorney-General David Parker back-tracks on comments about gun control

Attorney-General David Parker has clarified comments made at a vigil in Auckland's Aotea Square this afternoon, saying the government has not yet committed to banning some or all semi-automatic weapons.

www.radionz.co.nz

 

[M3J]

bans are band-aids. Racists are still toxic and offensive and their words and other forms of abuse can be harmful.

So why not ban racists instead? USA would be safer.

That's just false, there's been no legislation passed yet in the wake of the shooting. I know it's really important to some people to juxtapose the situation in NZ with the US, but it's political apples to oranges, and some politicians have already backtracked on their statements regarding bans there.

Attorney-General David Parker back-tracks on comments about gun control

Attorney-General David Parker has clarified comments made at a vigil in Auckland's Aotea Square this afternoon, saying the government has not yet committed to banning some or all semi-automatic weapons.

www.radionz.co.nz

They're still talking about it, and it was still brought up whereas we just send prayers and thoughts every time a mass shooting happens. And if a state like NY actually takes proper steps, people bitch.

 

[xi0]

They're still talking about it, and it was still brought up whereas we just send prayers and thoughts every time a mass shooting happens. And if a state like NY actually takes proper steps, people bitch.

Neat? That's still not the same as passing a ban in a day or two. Gun legislation is always brought up in the wake of mass shootings here, what are you talking about?

 

[M3J]

That they were still closer to doing something about guns than USA.

 

[kkck]

That they were still closer to doing something about guns than USA.

You have to consider that for New Zealand gun control is a drastically different issue than in the US. By US standards NZ's current gun control laws would be..... How to describe this.... (communism + facism)^aids? That sounds about right. Not that I oppose current NZ gun laws (if anything my own inclination would be to further remove guns from society at large). but at least a quick read suggests the most ambitious gun control proposals in the US by leftwing democrats don't go as far as what is already implemented by NZ. Also note that to begin with NZ has substantially less gun violence than the US.

Gun law in New Zealand - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Going by the wiki at least for instance you have that self defense is not a valid reason to get a gun permit. unless there is an actual threat specifically to you... And from what I gather, though i might be wrong or missing some context, they do not have stand your ground laws. In short, nothing of what is being implemented or debated in NZ regarding gun laws has any relevance whatsoever to the same debate at the US.

 

[M3J]

 

[SharkBait]

hopefully dems choose buttigieg so i can get representation. also young is good.

 

[M3J]

New Zealand is apparently banning assault rifles and the likes, which is excellent.

 

[kkck]

So mueller apparently turned in his report.. i maintain the point that the investigation was done with extremely quickly. I still wonder if the investigation is actually over though. I feel like there is a chance there might be a curveball in all of this. Though on the other hand mueller does not strike me as the type to throw a curveball at least. Maybe it just seems odd given the overall lack of information so far.

That said, I do kinda get the impression democrats have handled these news rather incompetently. The russia investigation is of course important but on the other hand democrats don't seem to have been making a strong case that investigations into trump's finances have little to do with collusion with russia. public support for investigations into trump's finances diminishing would be pretty bad for democrats coming 2020...

I also wonder, what are the odds of trump going to jail once his term is over? Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes on trump's instructions. He has provided copies of checks and pretty much everything. So if cohen is guilty of this... doesn't that mean trump is also unquestionably as guilty? And the only reason he hasn't been taken to trial over this is that he is president and presidents can't be indicted?

 

[SharkBait]

The report is another distraction that is making democrats lose focus. Instead of uniting under platforms to keep america great they are spending manpower and public attention on a report and investigation that has no relevance or importance on improving american lives.

 

[xi0]

So if cohen is guilty of this... doesn't that mean trump is also unquestionably as guilty? And the only reason he hasn't been taken to trial over this is that he is president and presidents can't be indicted?

Presidents not being indicted is only the stance of the current Department of Justice. Whether they can be or not is simply untested due to it being avoided, even in the case of Nixon.

The report is another distraction that is making democrats lose focus. Instead of uniting under platforms to keep america great they are spending manpower and public attention on a report and investigation that has no relevance or importance on improving american lives.

Oversight is pretty important, especially when the Legislature is the only body capable and willing to do it. Saying it has no relevance is a rather extreme case of Hand-waving.

 

[gnut]

Exactly...what good is a president to us if he is controlled by another government?

 

[SharkBait]

Exactly...what good is a president to us if he is controlled by another government?

theres clearly nothing in the report if even the president is like release it.

 

[xi0]

Exactly...what good is a president to us if he is controlled by another government?

It's not even about that... how much of that could even be proven is debatable, considering no one on Russia's side will be a willing participant in solving it. But if the President is involved in any criminal activity at all, whether it has to do with the collusion question or not, he shouldn't be in office. Mueller's job was to investigate collusion, but congress can investigate whatever it wants. And at a bare minimum, the facts must be laid bare for the voting public.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 23, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 23, 2019 ---

theres clearly nothing in the report if even the president is like release it.

Have you read the Mueller report?

 

[gnut]

Collusion or controlled...its apples and oranges when it comes to questioning our president's interest in the well being of our nation imo.

 

[kkck]

Presidents not being indicted is only the stance of the current Department of Justice. Whether they can be or not is simply untested due to it being avoided, even in the case of Nixon.

IIRC mueller also shared this view. Or was that because he was instructed to say this (I am not cleared on what exactly the bureaucracy is here)? If it has been consistently handled and approached like this then it just would be weird if another justice department goes and change its stance. You'd have basically decades of this apparent indecisiveness and then... a president would basically place people who would would be willing to test this? It sounds like at a minimum the president would have to shot someone on plain sight for this to even be considered...

 

[xi0]

IIRC mueller also shared this view. Or was that because he was instructed to say this (I am not cleared on what exactly the bureaucracy is here)? If it has been consistently handled and approached like this then it just would be weird if another justice department goes and change its stance. You'd have basically decades of this apparent indecisiveness and then... a president would basically place people who would would be willing to test this? It sounds like at a minimum the president would have to shot someone on plain sight for this to even be considered...

He might, but it wasn't his job to prosecute crimes, only to investigate and recommend cases to federal prosecutors. I think the notion there is that Congress would invoke articles of impeachment before it would be necessary. The majority of sitting presidents usually aren't involved in investigations into what would be considered high crimes and misdemeanors either.

About shooting someone in plain sight, you're probably right. But I sort of wonder what's worse, and president killing someone like that, or a president having a complete blindspot when it comes to foreign policy, especially as it applies to Russia. If he wasn't such an ignoramus, I sort of wonder if he's intentionally baiting the public into thinking he's a Russian stooge for some reason. It's almost too obvious...lol

 

[kkck]

He might, but it wasn't his job to prosecute crimes, only to investigate and recommend cases to federal prosecutors. I think the notion there is that Congress would invoke articles of impeachment before it would be necessary. The majority of sitting presidents usually aren't involved in investigations into what would be considered high crimes and misdemeanors either.

About shooting someone in plain sight, you're probably right. But I sort of wonder what's worse, and president killing someone like that, or a president having a complete blindspot when it comes to foreign policy, especially as it applies to Russia. If he wasn't such an ignoramus, I sort of wonder if he's intentionally baiting the public into thinking he's a Russian stooge for some reason. It's almost too obvious...lol

Wait, but Mueller indicted a bunch of people and wasn't he a prosecutor against michael cohen and manafort?

I'd say easily the foreign policy blindspot. There are lives involved in that as well, its just not quite as obvious as straight up shooting a guy in the middle of the street...

As far as trump baiting the public... i genuinely don't think there is a plan 99% of the time. At a minimum it just makes more sense that there isn't a plan. Of course, if the opportunity presents itself trump is absolutely the type to pretend there was a masterplan all along and the russia thing was him just trolling the media.

 

[SonOfDaws]

Is that something I've been doing? Or do you just mean general political "discourse"? lol


I'm not sure what you mean by taking them more seriously now. From what I've seen so far NK seems like a glorified publicity stunt without much being accomplished. I really don't know how Russia is being taken seriously either. In fact, I think this administration has stood in the way of a lot of measures such as sanctions being put in place against Moscow due to their election tampering.


Because we already have barriers. When Trump was campaigning he was talking about building a "great wall", and in order to do that you'd have to take land from American citizens.

And I think the notion of physical barricades not working got traction because it's a discussion of its value proposition. How much illegal immigration would something like that prevent for that kind of investment, even if it ever could be built?

And it's downright perplexing to me that he waited for the GOP to lose control of congress to really try to push this through if he was actually interested in doing what he said. It looks like a poorly conceived political play, one that has large consequences every time he shuts down the government or threatens to.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 11, 2019, Original Post Date: Mar 11, 2019 ---

I don't blame Bernie for doing that, simply because enough Americans have no idea what socialism is and don't realize the most popular government program ever is exactly that (social security). The problem is he shouldn't be so willing to die on that hill either.

I liked Warren, but but her whole recent situation is so cringeworthy that I think she'd be a liability if she won the nomination.

The Biden thing is sort of my point. That they'll rake him over the coals even if he's the best chance to beat Trump.

I don't really get that with Beto, he's got this weird Tom Joad-esque thing going on that he seems to be going with. Wouldn't really fall inline with him praising Mike Pence or something like that.

It's centainly has the makings of a publicity stunt. Little came from the first summit and there was some clear backtracking on there in the wake of the second summit, not that getting a country's threat level to notably decrease would come so easily. Still, a publicity stunt is a quite a bit better than just making light of them. A nuclear bomb is no joke and yet, in the mainstream, their nuclear capabilities and progress were just that until he took office.

Even after all the reports, investigations, and publicity, nothing has come of them. It has already been confirmed that there's 0 new indictments in this most recent report.

On the other hand, Trump has pushed the UN to actually keep up there commits on defense spending and left the agreement with Russia on intermediate range ballistic missiles, missiles that pose a threat primarily to the US' allies, not even the US itself. However, when he does this, he gets accused of trying to stoke a war. As I said before, I do not agree with every decision or action Trump has had or taken regarding those countries, but to say that he, or at the very least his administration is doing nothing about the threat these countries pose to the US and our allies is inaccurate.

The report is another distraction that is making democrats lose focus. Instead of uniting under platforms to keep america great they are spending manpower and public attention on a report and investigation that has no relevance or importance on improving american lives.

Without a doubt. However, it's hard to make any big changes when there's no united front and right now, the only Democrat front that has widespread support is that Trump is bad.

That they were still closer to doing something about guns than USA.

The issue is more complex than just presence of firearms. There's little correlation between violent crime and the presence of firearms. The best preditor for violent crime is actually relative economic disparity and that, contrary to what some utopians anti-capitalists believe, is not a simple problem even in the best of economies. So, either more focus goes to minimizing the gap or dealing with the fact that, in many of these situations, the shooter could only do what they did because the systems currently in place failed to do its job on a ridiculous number of occasions. It doesn't really make much sense to give the government more control in our society when it's already failing spectacularly in the same areas it wants more responsibility. The method in which we deal with such reports and mental health needs more ironing out before try to rip apart the principles the US was built upon. If you do not value what you have, then you will lose it and, if you're losing in the US, you have quite a lot to lose. People aren't scrambling over here from all around the world because our country is the worst of the worst. I just hope it doesn't take something catastrophic, far worse than any terrorist attack, for Americans to realize that again. In short, we need to put more effort into fixing our systems as opposed to tearing it down.

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 24, 2019 ---

And @xi0 , no, I was being genuine there. Many people approach conversations with the usually unconscious goal of forcing their opinion on someone else or getting them to just concede. Having some back and forth is great, but it can't be with the intent to "win" and the other people "lose." Either both people gain insight and get better or both peopls lose in the long-term. I try to keep that in mind when I enter discussions like this and I hope that came across in the reply, but I'm not perfect.

 

[xi0]

Wait, but Mueller indicted a bunch of people and wasn't he a prosecutor against michael cohen and manafort?

No, he brought charges against them but the cases were handled by federal prosecutors.