US Presidential Candidates

Political correctness isn't about protecting the vulnerable. It is all about shutting up people who disagree. How else to explain that Australian kindergarten class chanting "I hate Trump" and worse? If the intent was to protect the innocent and vulnerable those kids would have been happily coloring pictures not learning how to hate.

In the US the protesters are protesting an election, the ultimate expression of free political speech, simply because they don't like the outcome. Who does that protect? The President Elect hasn't done anything yet to take away anyone's rights. All the hate speech is coming from the protesters. Are there idiots taunting the protester? Only a few. The majority are anti-Trumpers.

That is simply private citizens. I am glad the government in its minute wisdom can't get into the act yet......yet.

PeterZ wrote:Political correctness isn't about protecting the vulnerable. It is all about shutting up people who disagree. How else to explain that Australian kindergarten class chanting "I hate Trump" and worse? If the intent was to protect the innocent and vulnerable those kids would have been happily coloring pictures not learning how to hate.

And on the other hand, a desire to abandon political correctness is more often than not a desire to finally be able to tell these fucking niggers, chinks, lesbos and fags to go eat a bag of dicks and fuck off to wherever they came from without having to suffer the consequences for such speech.
Way I see it, if your argument for why you shouldn't have to face backlash for your speech is that said speech isn't illegal, I have to wonder if your speech does have any merit.

PeterZ wrote:In the US the protesters are protesting an election, the ultimate expression of free political speech, simply because they don't like the outcome. Who does that protect? The President Elect hasn't done anything yet to take away anyone's rights. All the hate speech is coming from the protesters. Are there idiots taunting the protester? Only a few. The majority are anti-Trumpers.

An election which Trump lost by more than a million votes at last count.
Oh, and need I remind you of all the Trump supporters who threatened to do everything from protesting to starting a civil war if they lost? Or all the protests people started in 2008 and 2012? link link

No, that doesn't make what is happening good, of course. But before putting yourself on a pedestal, remember that your side in this fight is not any better. Using this behaviour as a point for your side just makes you look hypocritical.

Ask yourself this: what would all those protesters be doing today if the shoe was on the other foot? How smug would they be, proclaiming that 'the process worked' despite all the Great Unwashed voting the 'wrong' way?

The US is not a democracy; it is a representative republic. The electoral college system is a measure intended to prevent the entire country being controlled by the 8 largest cities.

Daryl: where you wrote 'presidential contenders', I had to read it three times before I stopped seeing 'presidential pretenders'.
---------------------
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here - this is the War Room!

Imaginos1892 wrote:Ask yourself this: what would all those protesters be doing today if the shoe was on the other foot? How smug would they be, proclaiming that 'the process worked' despite all the Great Unwashed voting the 'wrong' way?

The US is not a democracy; it is a representative republic. The electoral college system is a measure intended to prevent the entire country being controlled by the 8 largest cities.

Yeah, but it's a pretty ridiculous measure. All it actually does is say "if you live where lots of people like to live your vote for who you want to lead your own government doesn't count as much".

Which is, let's face it, hard to justify.

Not really. Living in a large city makes delivering services easier. It follows that accessing government services is more convenient in cities. Same for infrastructure. If we went to a majority vote without the electoral college, half the population that lives in 8-10 cities will vote to get the majority of the services delivered to them. In a truly imperfect world, that majority would could vote to get almost all the resources and the minority can do squat about it. Well they could revolt as they did back at our founding.

gcomeau wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:Ask yourself this: what would all those protesters be doing today if the shoe was on the other foot? How smug would they be, proclaiming that 'the process worked' despite all the Great Unwashed voting the 'wrong' way?

The US is not a democracy; it is a representative republic. The electoral college system is a measure intended to prevent the entire country being controlled by the 8 largest cities.

Yeah, but it's a pretty ridiculous measure. All it actually does is say "if you live where lots of people like to live your vote for who you want to lead your own government doesn't count as much".

Which is, let's face it, hard to justify.

gcomeau wrote:

Imaginos1892 wrote:Ask yourself this: what would all those protesters be doing today if the shoe was on the other foot? How smug would they be, proclaiming that 'the process worked' despite all the Great Unwashed voting the 'wrong' way?

The US is not a democracy; it is a representative republic. The electoral college system is a measure intended to prevent the entire country being controlled by the 8 largest cities.

Yeah, but it's a pretty ridiculous measure. All it actually does is say "if you live where lots of people like to live your vote for who you want to lead your own government doesn't count as much".

Which is, let's face it, hard to justify.

Your way means that if you live in Idaho or North Dakota, your vote doesn't count at all. Much worse.
-----------------
The politician's worst nightmare: that somebody, somewhere has got a nickel they haven't taxed.

Imaginos1892 wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
Yeah, but it's a pretty ridiculous measure. All it actually does is say "if you live where lots of people like to live your vote for who you want to lead your own government doesn't count as much".

Which is, let's face it, hard to justify.

Your way means that if you live in Idaho or North Dakota, your vote doesn't count at all. Much worse.

Care to show me the math on that? Because my way everyone gets one vote that counts as one vote.

Please walk me through the equations that makes one =/= one.

Our federal system is far from perfect but it does generally work.
Our parliament (congress equiv) is elected on similar population sized electorates. This does mean that several members have areas about the size of a European country to administer, while some in big cities are within a kilometre of each other.
The senate is elected on a state basis which means that with only six states and two territories no one populous state can dominate. Half are elected at each parliamentary election. This can lead to some weird independents at times, having the balance of power. An Australian term for this is "Keeping the bastards honest", which is similar in principle to the US Trump vote, keeping the career politicians in line.
Something that some on this forum don't understand properly is that technically our head of state is the English monarch (Betty), who is represented by the Governor General who appoints the Prime Minister. The key bit is "technically". In actual fact the party with the most seats in parliament nominates the Prime Minister who is the real power. Once (in 1975) a drunken Governor General sacked a sitting Prime Minister, and all parties have agreed that will never happen again. If the foreign monarch did ever attempt to exercise any power again we would be a republic within a week. So to those here who claim we are subjects of the crown and live at their whim, you really don't understand that we don't.
So we do have one vote per person, but also checks to prevent the big cities getting everything their own way. Plus we can change leaders mid term, and often do.

PeterZ wrote:Political correctness isn't about protecting the vulnerable. It is all about shutting up people who disagree. How else to explain that Australian kindergarten class chanting "I hate Trump" and worse? If the intent was to protect the innocent and vulnerable those kids would have been happily coloring pictures not learning how to hate.

In the US the protesters are protesting an election, the ultimate expression of free political speech, simply because they don't like the outcome. Who does that protect? The President Elect hasn't done anything yet to take away anyone's rights.

But he promised to. Repeatedly. All campaign. And he was just put in a position to be given the power to act on those promises to an as yet unknown degree of success.


So yeah, kind of hard to condemn protests... especially when the "winner" was voted for by less people than the loser.

gcomeau wrote:
But he promised to. Repeatedly. All campaign. And he was just put in a position to be given the power to act on those promises to an as yet unknown degree of success.


So yeah, kind of hard to condemn protests... especially when the "winner" was voted for by less people than the loser.

He has promised to uphold our borders. He has promised to throw out illegals that have committed crimes. He has clarified his stance on those here illegally but haven't committed additional crimes beyond the border crossing. They might stay pending a review of their circumstance. That sounds like due process to me.

I have no issues with protests against the abuse of civil rights. I do have an issue with protests that bemoan the expression of free speech. Elections are just that. I believe I felt just as bad when Obama was elected. Most on the right felt the same way. No huge protests bemoaning the election happened. I wish those snowflakes would "suck it up, buttercup!" (gotta love Laura Ingraham's way with words)

As for the total vote counts, I have held that 1 party local polities like Oklahoma and Chicago engage in election fraud. I don't trust the vote totals. Let's straighten out the process so that folks like Bernie have a chance to pierce the wall of the Democrat machine and rescue you lefties from your elites.

As long as we are doing that, might as well open all presidential debates to any party that has a nominee in every precinct in all 50 states. I am sick an tired of holding my nose to vote for bad and worse. I would love to have a mediocre option some time in the near future. Heck, just something less than putrid.