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[#HBC | ZoZo]

Honestly, Russia wouldn't attack anyone without reason. Putin is (imo) a great leader and has his mind in the right place.

 

[Orboknown]

Theres no one i really care for more than others and the one that wins is technically my boss anyways so /shrug

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I wouldn't call him a 'great leader' but there's no doubt that he's a smart politician. Certainly a good stop above all the spineless opportunists that sit in the european governments.

What ever happened to Al Qaeda am I right?

Your point? Al Qaeda was founded by former CIA agent Osama Bin Ladin and to this day they, like IS, receive massive support from Saudi Arabia - the US' most important ally in the region apart from Israel.

 

[Maven89]

Sanders is actually 100% right about that one. His foreign policies are a lot smarter than anybody else's except non-interventionist dudes like Rand Paul, who of course have no actual chance of making it.

But yeah, neither Russia nor Iran really pose much of a threat to the USA [or any of its allies for that matter]. North Korea is the much bigger problem, no doubt.

We're too reliant on foreign oil and the global economy for that to be true. Guaranteeing the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf has been a priority in our foreign policy for decades, because an interruption in this oil wrecks us. We've suffered this is the 1973 oil crisis. We have been moving away from reliance on it ever since, but it's still important. Iran is a direct threat to our control of the Persian Gulf. A nuclear Iran is an Iran that can act freely with little fear of American attack. Iran is, without a doubt, seeking regional dominance (one of the reasons we're allied with their rivals Saudi Arabia), and an Iran that has dominance of the oil fields is an Iran that has dominance of the Persian Gulf, an Iran that hates our dominance and is actively seeking to remove it. This is a giant threat to America's way of life, our economy and our power in the world, and by consequence of that the economies in Europe and Asia.

Russia is a nation we've been dealing with for almost a hundred years. By itself Russia is not a problem, their navy has always been fairly weak and are of little threat to our control. But a Russia with Europe's industry would be unstoppable. Russia knows this, we know it . Europe knows it. America, either by design or fate, are in the process of demolishing Russia' sphere of influence, because without it there's little peace of mind. Germany has no military to speak of, Europe as a whole has little military force, and more importantly they still hate each other. Would England or France really send their armies to help Eastern Europe? We would. We're already moving soldiers up. Cold War was the collapse of the USSR, but Putin has moved in and began reestablishing the same power bloc that existed before, and this is what is being demolished. They just lost western Ukraine. I'm surprised America is being so hostile, but either way it's not something that someone can hand wave away, nor is it some sort of misunderstanding.

North Korea, on the other hand, threatens almost nothing. Our main danger from them comes from their collapse. Their main threat of a nuclear strike is empty, any nuclear strike would guarantee the demolishing of their country and the loss of power for whoever ordered it. North Korea's army is also empty because they don't have a strong enough nation state to make use of it for any length of time. North Korea is a threat to South Korea and Japan, but when it comes to our main interests in the pacific (keeping open markets and securing the flow of goods back home) North Korea only has the potential to cause temporary chaos. It would be awful if North Korea attacked or used a nuclear weapon, but they're in no position to remove us our replace us for regional control.

Honestly, Russia wouldn't attack anyone without reason. Putin is (imo) a great leader and has his mind in the right place.

I don't think this is very accurate either. Just looking at Russia right now, they're losing their sphere of influence, their infrastructure is garbage, and their economy is almost entirely based on exporting oil. Their budget is based on oil prices being $50. It's currently $30, and expected to not rise for a long time, with a couple of people predicting (due to fracking and alternative energy) that oil prices are never going to return to previous highs. Despite all of Russia's strength, they have little control over their own economy. Changes in the price of oil destroys them (way more than us), but they're not capable of controlling that price. Russia jumped in Syria, because Assad is Russia's only ally in the region, but they're almost definitely going to inherit a quagmire in Syria, something they're even less capable of dealing with then we were in Iraq. Those rebels aren't going to just sit down and go home, and if Russia picks up and goes home, then what was the point? Putin himself is facing growing discontent back home due to the economy. Turkey even felt safe enough to provocatively shoot down a Russian Jet, and Russia just had to deal with it. The guy was officially called out for murder. Putin is getting increasingly isolated with a faltering country.

 

[Maven89]

Maven's thoughtpile reminds me of me every single election season. I try to vote, guys, I really do. And I just can't bring myself to support a platform. I just... can't. I've been eligible to vote three times ever and only voted once -- the party I voted for didn't pursue literally a single thing that I supported them for, other than perhaps the very generic "keep fighting in Afghanistan" back when. It's not that that soured me forever but it was pretty annoying to have not one single thing I supported happen and tons of **** I didn't care about helping the same special interests.

That was just the one time I ever generally supported someone's platform. And then they did all the dumb or less important things on it and none of the good ones. And I never saw a platform before or after it that I truly supported.



PS - I think Trudeau has finally been in office long enough that I can say I was completely right. He has yet to get the memo that he is no longer a high school literature teacher. He's a Prime Minister and it seriously feels like he's just interested in preening for "oh captain my captain"-esque accolades.


edit

I guess I should elaborate more. Preface: I had come to despise the incumbent government mildly by the time they were ousted, and didn't vote for them. So this is all about exposing hypocrisy, not partisanship.

They put the prior conservative government on total blast for not having an ambitious enough refugee import target for end of 2015, that being 10K. They ran on an election platform of letting in 50K by year's end. People said it was ridiculous and not realistic. Then November, aka the month of ISIL declaring war on ****in everybody, happened. And they still hemhawed around before finally adjusting to the more realistic, still ambitious target of 25K.

....they didn't even meet the original conservative target of 10K. Nice one.


They constantly put the past government on blast for lack of transparency. They've made some very... symbolic motions, like adding a Minister of Science after the prior government was criticized [rightly] for silencing the scientific community. Except they have seriously not been any more transparent. Literally every major decision or change of policy has been dithered and meandered around, and every question meant to get specifics and directness from them has been met with spin, pre-arranged answers, and rhetoric. Vagueries. Obfuscation. Sure sounds like a lack of transparency to me.


Hell, even the things he gets praised for are... not very forward or intelligent, if you really think about it. He did a gender-balanced cabinet. As I said in a prior post I actually think the highest offices should be more than exempt from affirmative action, but I was elated that every minister I'd read up on seemed quite qualified for their job, so that's chill. However, he was asked why he selected a gender-balanced cabinet by a reporter, and he replied "Because it's 2015", to uproarious applause.

...why? Does that actually make any comment on why there are frail connective fibers in gender relations? Or what his leadership can or would do about it? No, it doesn't. You're right, Trudeau, it is 2015, and logic and statistics say that we SHOULD have more women in positions of power. What, uh, what does your comment enlighten, though? Like at all? Literally nothing. He says things that he thinks will make for great soundbites that don't actually illuminate anything about either the issues being discussed, why they are as such, or what will be done to address them. And people eat it the **** up.

gogdammit he's literally the left wing version of donald trump

Looks like you guys got an Obama too!

I wouldn't call him a 'great leader' but there's no doubt that he's a smart politician. Certainly a good stop above all the spineless opportunists that sit in the european governments.



Your point? Al Qaeda was founded by former CIA agent Osama Bin Ladin and to this day they, like IS, receive massive support from Saudi Arabia - the US' most important ally in the region apart from Israel.

He wasn't a CIA agent

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Yeah, he decided to not get strongarmed by ****ing everyone... which isolates him. He's boycotting Europe and Europe is boycotting Russia (economically). Isolation is the goal.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.

Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.

Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.

Beep boop boop I am rubio bot 3000

Also I will eat my hat if cruz ends up with the nomination. He has all of the signs of being this election's Huckabee/Santorum.

 

[Maven89]

Also I will eat my hat if cruz ends up with the nomination. He has all of the signs of being this election's Huckabee/Santorum.

Yes, except all other non-Trump candidates are failing. If Cruz can keep himself in second place, he might find himself in a situation where he's the only real non-Trump alternative, and Republican establishment find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

 

[Evil Eye]

Did someone seriously say Putin is a great leader that doesn't do bad things

tell that to the innocent people he murdered in South Ossetia and Ukraine to flex his mightboner, or the laws he changed to maintain power longer and for no other reason, or all the non-ISIS targets he is killing to support his bloodthirsty butt buddy Bashar al Assad.

what the ****. I'm flabbergasted.


He instituted laws that would allow the police to arrest a gay couple for holding hands on the basis of "spreading pro-homosexual propaganda"

He's been illegally invading a sovereign nation for 2 years that just so happened to be part of the former soviet bloc.

He has dedicated as much and arguably much more of his war efforts to killing the enemies of his political ally who happens to be a murderous dictator than even breathing in the direction of ISIS

The people shot down over Ukraine by a Russian anti-air weapon killed twice as many people as Paris.


There's ignorant and then there's that

Putin is literally the first example since Stalin where the Hitler analogy wasn't just the logical endgame of exaggeration. He's a cartoon character of terrible.

im probs just sayin this cuz he is "strong" tho obvz lolol

 

[Evil Eye]

good on you putin though don't let things like sovereignty, human rights, or international law "strongarm" you, shine on you noble bastion of integrity

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

yea same tbh :3

 

[Evil Eye]

I dunno if you're trolling but if you're gonna go for a troll argument at least own it with conviction don't reply with nonsequiturs it's low level troll comedy

 

[Cheerilee]

Maven89 You are thinking about North Korea as if it were a self-preservationist country when it's clearly not. In addition you seem to be referring to nuclear threat as if you are quantifying North Korea's ability to amass nuclear stocks to be the quantifiable threat to measure,

The issue with North Korea is that it has made its national policy the development of ICBM. These missiles can be loaded on carries and can target any country once the carrier has traveled a set amount of distance from its original location. These missiles could also be sold to other parties, terrorists, or government organizations once they refine the technology for it to require less set up and increase the accuracy of the missiles.

In addition you stated that North Korea won't initiate an attack because it will fear retaliation. However, you are talking about a country that has isolated the entire country into its capital of Pyongyang while it forces everyone else to starve. The reason why North Korea is constantly a risk factor is precisely because it is the most apt country to pull the trigger because it has nothing to lose and has ruled in a haphazard way as to suggest that pulling the trigger will come easily to them e.g. Kim Jung Un announcing a preemptive nuclear attack on the U.S.

#HBC | ZoZo Russia had little to no legitimacy in annexing Crimea in 2014 and even stated that giving Crimea to Ukraine was a "mistake." Ukraine has stated in public that it views the Russian takeover as an invasion. My take on the matter is that the country took over the region because it was in civil unrest and agree with EE that while the move was opportunistic, it couldn't be said that it constitutes as being a reason to counter your point tha that Russia wouldn't attack for no reason.

This is not defending the western approach for the issue to be an issue of illegitimacy as we have established nations in regions which were really not rightfully ours resulting in conflict and problems in the middle east.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

its just a he said she said thing on putins intent and in the end its not a black or white matter either (nobody is 100% great or 100% bad). i agree that some things he did are absolutely disgusting (gay rights matters in particular) but im so not down to argue about someone who, at the end of the day, i dont really care about, especially with someone who obviously took zero time researching both sides of the story. but hey the media said putin is bad so he must be bad right haha eks dee :3333

 

[adumbrodeus]

Sure, Russia's an awful country, but the question is "how large of a threat does it pose"? To be quite frank, Russia one of many countries ruled by a strongman. It's certainly interested in expanding it's power based but given it's economic state it seems doubtful that it's more then a minor threat in the long term because Russia is defiantly rational enough to not do a nuclear first strike and Putin seems to be just setting it up for a repeat of what happened to the USSR. This is similarly true of Iran, awful country but little more then a regional power and the idea of them doing a nuclear first strike is ludicrous.

As far as NK, Cheerilee's argument makes a great deal of sense, are they the type of country to throw caution to the wind and initiate nuclear first strike? Possibly, they certainly want to develop in that direction.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Russia's an awful country

How many times have you been there again?

 

[Mediocre]

its just a he said she said thing on putins intent and in the end its not a black or white matter either (nobody is 100% great or 100% bad). i agree that some things he did are absolutely disgusting (gay rights matters in particular) but im so not down to argue about someone who, at the end of the day, i dont really care about, especially with someone who obviously took zero time researching both sides of the story. but hey the media said putin is bad so he must be bad right haha eks dee :3333

So you say he's a "great leader", but you don't care about him?

Then you claim Evil Eye hasn't done research, after bringing up exactly zero facts on your own.

Let's set Russia's military actions aside for a moment. Under Putin's administration, this is a country where you can be charged for protesting homophobia or making support groups for gay teenagers. It's a country that poisoned an ex-Russian intelligence agent living in the UK with radioactive polonium, likely with direct approval from Putin, because he was making claims that Russia didn't like. It's a country that jailed members of ***** Riot, a band critical of Putin's administration, for two years basically for singing a "blasphemous" song in a Russian Orthodox church.

There's plenty of other **** he's done, but there's only so much time I want to spend citing sources when you've cited literally nothing to back up your position. But the fact that this **** happened under Putin's administration means that either he was alright with all of it, or he's not in control of the actions of his own government. Either way, that doesn't sound like a "great leader" to me.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

if you hadnt noticed, yea, im not really interested in citing **** because im not here to have this discussion, so stop discussing at me. i dont walk into the ****ing <dgames SOCIAL> to have an indepth discussion with people who have largely made up their mind about russias leader, lmao. if you want to circlejerk your pov with evil eye, isnt there a debate room?

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Don't forget that Russia's economy is in the ****ter right now.

I'm convinced that a sizable portion of putin's western fanbase just see him as "Strong guy that rides bears" and nothing more.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

"hey gorf why did you suddenly disappear for like a couple of weeks?"

MY ACCOUNT LITERALLY GOT ****IN ROBBED BY NIGERIAN CYBER PIRATES.

seriously i got an email from this nigerian hacker group that ****in hacked my account and just got it recovered. its like what dafuq...

 

[Evil Eye]

cite facts

you're a libtard media koolaid drinker

days after poopin all over the guy libtard media is constantly circle jerking, also with facts

k

by a guy who doesn't mention one single fact and just tries to blow it off by being a smug indignant jerk

but I'm clearly the one that doesn't do research

k :3

 

[Evil Eye]

Staunch defence of a guy as a leader with no facts given

Facts given

Yeah that's because he doesn't get STRONGARMED by all those BULLIES

More facts given

You're just worshiping the media and do no research (also I don't actually care about him)

Tons of facts

I'm not in the mood to discuss this cuz you're just circlejerking and clearly have your mind made up, I'm gonna be indignant as hell about this even though I started this conversation and have never once cited a single fact despite talking down to everyone that disagrees' logic and acting like he's some strong principled leader just cuz (but I don't care, did I mention how much I don't care cuz I don't)


HARVEY DENT. CAN. HEBETRUSTED.




I have to admit though, Putin's line about how it's the job of God to judge or forgive ISIL terrorists and his own job to send them to him was one of the most staggeringly bad*** things a politician has probably ever said

 

[Evil Eye]

gorf you should post those screenshots from the nigerian army that was one of the funniest weirdest things I've ever seen

 

[Mediocre]

if you hadnt noticed, yea, im not really interested in citing **** because im not here to have this discussion, so stop discussing at me. i dont walk into the ****ing <dgames SOCIAL> to have an indepth discussion with people who have largely made up their mind about russias leader, lmao. if you want to circlejerk your pov with evil eye, isnt there a debate room?

Dude, it's fine if you don't wanna have an in-depth discussion about it. Totally legit.

But you're the one who initiated this whole conversation. Moreover, claiming the other side is circlejerking when they're the only people actually backing up their points isn't really gonna hold water.

So yeah, it's fine if you wanna bow out. I totally understand not wanting to invest effort into an argument like this. But don't try to pretend like it's my fault that I'm not swayed by your total lack of arguments or facts. Just say, "Sorry, I don't feel like arguing about this anymore."

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

idk how to post pics from my phone and am too technologically illiterate to find sonewhere to host em so that i can link a url of em

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Dude, it's fine if you don't wanna have an in-depth discussion about it. Totally legit.

But you're the one who initiated this whole conversation. Moreover, claiming the other side is circlejerking when they're the only people actually backing up their points isn't really gonna hold water.

So yeah, it's fine if you wanna bow out. I totally understand not wanting to invest effort into an argument like this. But don't try to pretend like it's my fault that I'm not swayed by your total lack of arguments or facts. Just say, "Sorry, I don't feel like arguing about this anymore."

you mean like this:

but im so not down to argue about someone who, at the end of the day, i dont really care about

which i posted before you even responded to me? and before you even start about the tone, why don't you look up where that tone got introduced to this entire conversation


but its ok u guys convinced me with ur arguments stronger than russias leader

 

[Mediocre]

you mean like this:

but im so not down to argue about someone who, at the end of the day, i dont really care about

which i posted before you even responded to me?

Sure, you posted that, but then in the same post you couldn't resist going for another little jab that invites anyone arguing against you to continue the conversation:

i dont really care about, especially with someone who obviously took zero time researching both sides of the story. but hey the media said putin is bad so he must be bad right haha eks dee :3333

Like, you accuse Evil Eye of not doing any/enough research, and you expect him to just let the conversation end without responding to that? That's a pretty unfair thing to expect, honestly.

and before you even start about the tone, why don't you look up where that tone got introduced to this entire conversation

I'm not talking about tone. You're right that you weren't the first one to go in that direction. That's really not your fault, or certainly at least no more your fault than it is Evil Eye's.

I'm just taking issue with the description of my points as "circlejerking". Posting arguments with multiple examples and sources backing them up is not circlejerking.

but its ok u guys convinced me with ur arguments stronger than russias leader

Hey, I'm not saying Putin is a weak leader. In fact, I think he's a strong leader. I just think he's leading Russia in entirely the wrong direction in a lot of ways.

Anyway, hope there are no hard feelings, and that you have a good day.

 

[Cheerilee]

Not sure if it's Nigerians or whether it's like the status quo to run a scam as a "Nigerian group" when running a scam on someone, but holy hell there are a lot of "Nigerians" scamming people.

 

[#HBC | Gorf]

well they call themselves the "nigerian cyber army." they apparently have a facebook page

 

[Cheerilee]

well they call themselves the "nigerian cyber army." they apparently have a facebook page

Dying irl.

July Aren't you part of a union. Most presidential candidates pretend that they want to slash departments as a bluff in order to appease naysayers who are skepetical that they will follow through on "austerity" measures when they are participating in debates. However in truth post-election they just pretend that it gets lost in paperwork and never follow through on it. Republicans are more likely to create more unnecessary positions than get rid of them and it seems like your employment status would just be moved around to a different executive department than actually laying people off or "furlough status". Last election Rick Perry also mentioned (or failed to mention) the three departments that he wanted to do away with therefore I think every election has to be someone promising "actual" austerity measures to "balance the budget."

 

[Spak]

Here's a screenshot I took when it was happening:

http://smashboards.com/threads/melee-social-thread-and-stuff.284387/page-185#post-20820058

I really like the Smiley Face of Intimidation.

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

if you hadnt noticed, yea, im not really interested in citing **** because im not here to have this discussion, so stop discussing at me. i dont walk into the ****ing <dgames SOCIAL> to have an indepth discussion with people who have largely made up their mind about russias leader, lmao. if you want to circlejerk your pov with evil eye, isnt there a debate room?

Hey bae, you brought this one down on your head. My advice would be hush so you don't lose it.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

So what yall guys are saying is that Putin is the same piece of **** as the people that govern the USA, the EU and just about every other country in this world.

I can agree with that.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

Gheb's political opinions remind me a lot like a character from south park or some ****. They're hard to take seriously.

Also gorf I got that same email. They called me "admin" so someone ****ed up badly.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Gheb's political opinions [...]

How much exactly do you know about that?

 

[Maven89]

General bitterness at America for being dominate, bitterness at the other world powers because you can't agree with them, and general hatred for most European nations and bitterness that you can't turn to them?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't think that's quite where it's at.

 

[Evil Eye]

I actually thought Dark Horse's South Park analogy was pretty astute. General nihilism and disdain that can vary between "that's a good point" and "that's a cartoonish misrepresentation of the facts" that generally makes you wonder if they (be it Gheb or Matt Stone and Trey Parker) actually have a stance on any issues or just kinda hate everybody

<3 you tho ghebski

 

[July]

Dying irl.

July Aren't you part of a union. Most presidential candidates pretend that they want to slash departments as a bluff in order to appease naysayers who are skepetical that they will follow through on "austerity" measures when they are participating in debates. However in truth post-election they just pretend that it gets lost in paperwork and never follow through on it. Republicans are more likely to create more unnecessary positions than get rid of them and it seems like your employment status would just be moved around to a different executive department than actually laying people off or "furlough status". Last election Rick Perry also mentioned (or failed to mention) the three departments that he wanted to do away with therefore I think every election has to be someone promising "actual" austerity measures to "balance the budget."

My workplace is not unionized. I work for a non-profit, public policy law firm that is often subcontracted by HUD to provide national technical assistance on initiatives to reduce and end homelessness, and the initiative I work on in particular involves utilizing the Affordable Care Act to maximize health resources available to homeless individuals and assist in healthcare and housing integration for homeless individuals and low-income persons living with HIV/AIDS. So while I'm concerned about HUD disappearing, I also have to be worried about any attempts by potential candidates to cut back or do away with the Affordable Care Act, or just decreased investment by the federal government in these national homelessness initiatives, which I imagine seem very appealing to cut because they are long-term initiatives that don't produce immediate outcomes and that many people don't know about because they happen at a provider level.

Either way, even if they are empty threats, I would prefer not to take any chances, and there are many other reasons I would prefer not to vote for Cruz or any other Republican candidates, including that most of them don't jive with my pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control, and anti-tax cuts for big business political philosophy :-)