US General Election 2016

if they build on brown sites that's ok by me, but building on virgin fields fills me with hatred for humanity because once its gone its gone forever.

{{England for comparison}}

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154789374236385&set=a.443194796384.207459.627026384&type=3

Someone put it perfectly

I kinda get the sentiment, but four years ago I (like most liberals) voted to re-elect a President who has committed war crimes, not simply advocated for them, so I'm wary of throwing too many stones from my glass house.

Footnote:

Hm, which was the last US president that didn't per definition commit war crimes though?

Doesn't matter if your objective is to tar voters with all of the characteristics of the people they vote for.

Also not sure what you mean by a war crime "per definition".

But then again, Blue lives on a different continent. You don't vote at all when it comes to U.S. elections, Blue, and certainly can't throw any rocks far enough to hit Eldo's glass house!

"A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. Examples of war crimes include intentionally killing civilians or prisoners, torture, destroying civilian property, taking hostages, perfidy, rape, using child soldiers, pillaging, declaring that no quarter will be given, and using weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering."

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime

Blue - I think the problem here is that there are a chunk of people who they thought was worse... Hillary Clinton.

If you truly believed one thing was the lesser if two evils AND your vote was one that would count (for example if you were in a swing state or one that is looking likely to be close) would you not vote to make sure that the worse of the two doesn't get in?

I think this pretty horrible end result be seen in the context of the whole selection process.

Trump got in because people were fed up of all the same crap being spouted by his republican rivals and they wanted change. A lot wanted exactly the mind of things he has said that make him such a hated figure. A lot had just seen all of the rest before and didn't want it again.

Hillary got nominated because she had the backing of the establishment. Any other Democrat nominee would have had to pull off something spectacular to have beaten her, which Bernie almost did.

Once you have gotten over that this is who ended up in the running... you then have to decide what you think is worse.

Option 1 - Is it the inexperienced businessman who could possibly be bleating all of this rubbish to get the crowds riled up and vote for him at the risk that he actually means it.

Option 2 - is it the very clearly already corrupted candidate who has a track record of doing unsavoury things related to everything from fraud to war crimes?

I do think you a being a little unfair on a significant proportion of people who.made what they thought was the best judgement and it is easy to point fingers when you didn't have to make it yourself.

On the flip side... there are people who very much support exactly what Trump said he stood for. Those people are the ones that need to be on the population control spreadsheet.

Eldorion wrote:Doesn't matter if your objective is to tar voters with all of the characteristics of the people they vote for.

Also not sure what you mean by a war crime "per definition".

I don't think that was what it was trying to say, really.   But that on these values, if followed up in policy, we cannot agree.. The quote doesn't call Trump's supporters any of the things it calls Trump himself out for. It does however blame them for enabling, and refuse corroberation on those values, on that basis.

I think you raise an important point, however.

In general I'd say teh difference betwen Obama and Trump matters, as while Obama has had his obvious failings as a president, he has also had his clear strenghts. My view as stated earlier is that he has been nudging the country in the right direction for eight years. And he seems a decent human being.

Now, the problem with Trump is that besides being the polar pposite of Obama in his views of all the points in that quote, racism, sexism, cruelty, he has also seems inclined to exacerbate exacerbate Obamas failings re alleged war crimes et so on. Not only is he for drone strikes, but he wants to target terrorists families. He wants to introduce torture. He reportedly asked an official security adviser three times why he couldn't just use nuclear weapons.

Obamas failings in areas where american presidents traditionally fail simply are not comparable to me.

Lancebloke wrote:Blue - I think the problem here is that there are a chunk of people who they thought was worse... Hillary Clinton.

Yes, and I think the point you make here is a very important one. What the Trump campaing unconditionally succeded in was villifying Hillary Clinton to the degree people thought Trump was the lesser of two evils.

This was particularly ridiculous as with a factual look at the two candidates, Trumps fitness for the role was all that more questionable.



Secondly I think the Trump campaing succeded in almost never addressing actual policy, unless Trump was making some ridiculous signal political statement to seem alternative, there was almost no real policy statements in all his blustering on the campaign trail. So, the election never really got into policy, because Trump avoided it and the Clinton campaign, in hindsight I think wrongly, decided to focus on Trump as a person/character and his racist, sexist biggoted statements. Sadly, I think as much as a large majority does not agree with those statemets, there is just a saturation in the general population with what is seen as political correctness. People are tired of hearing things called out and the outrage at every turn. Particularly white americans, who are the people who in the end elected Trump.  

Now we can see what policies Trump stands for in the people he sorounds himself with. To put it mildliy policies a majority of americans does not support. But this part of their choice betwen the two candidates never came to the fore.

Add to that the fact that people particularly in the rust belt swing states more than anything wanted change, as industrial america is the major looser in internationalization, and you get our election result. And as narrow as it was, just as with Bush in 2000, when the liberals don't turn out for their candidate, see the massive drop in democratic turnout from Obama to Clinton, the value conservative middle america will elect the candidate on the right. Remember 12 years ago GWB was reelected.

But I'll not accept that criticizing the choice is wrong. Because just as with brexit, this was a massive populist conjob pulled on a gullible elctorate.

A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Rudyard Kipling from EPITAPHS OF THE WAR 1914-18

It needs to be called out. As does the incidental or outright racism, sexism, biggotry of the Trump camp, along with the blatant lies made to get elected. And the failure to deliver what the american people in general want. Or we will never be able to move forward to a better place.

Bluebottle wrote:
It needs to be called out. As does the incidental or outright racism, sexism, biggotry of the Trump camp, along with the blatant lies made to get elected.

I hope there's at least a little irony in this statement Blue. This is almost a paraphrase of some of the personal attacks that Trump used to shut down meaningful discussion during the election cycle. Ad hominem attacks that never would have been seen outside the Tabloids are now becoming normal on all sides, and I'm afraid that may be the biggest threat of all. No civil discussion = No democracy.

We have to remember how the liberals (myself included) denigrated Bush as stupid, immoral, self-satisfied, racist....and now he looks like a serious statesman in comparison to Trump. What has happened has been an over saturation in vitriol, so much so that a candidate being a scumbag only matters if they represent the other side of the political aisle.

Strangely, we've reached a point where people are seeing the issues more clearly than personal attributes - but only if the candidate represents your own side to begin with.

Personally I felt Trump was too disgusting to be electable, but I heard many people on the conservative side say the same about Clinton.

David H wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:
It needs to be called out. As does the incidental or outright racism, sexism, biggotry of the Trump camp, along with the blatant lies made to get elected.

I hope there's at least a little irony in this statement Blue. This is almost a paraphrase of some of the personal attacks that Trump used to shut down meaningful discussion during the election cycle. Ad hominem attacks that never would have been seen outside the Tabloids are now becoming normal on all sides, and I'm afraid that may be the biggest threat of all. No civil discussion = No democracy.

The problem with calling out ad hominem attacks is when (i) they are not only true, but self admitted, and (ii) when they are the basis for dangerous divisive policy. To quote John Oliver "This is not normal." I'm not sure it's a good idea to forget and forgive out of hand just because we normally are reflected, cooperative and forgiving people. I've said before, trust is earned.

Your stance does you credit though, I'll freely admit that.

I think you both have a very valid point though, that this whole election was lost in the personal attacks and the judgment of the personality of the candidates from both sides. And the Clinton campaing was as much to judge as anyone. (In hindsight, one could perhaps say they played Trumps game and lost?)

On re-reading the above Blue, I wonder if I may have misunderstood your intentions when you spoke of "calling out" people.

In the usage I know, the phrase "to call someone out" means to challenge somebody to a fight or a duel. It's the language of Old West gunfighters, thugs and bullies. Even when used figuratively, to me there's an underlying implication of violence, just as when it's said that somebody "needs to be taught some respect" I imagine thugs with baseball bats.

Looking back at all your comments I'm pretty sure this isn't what you were intending, but in these times there are people I'm sure do intend the implied threat, especially on the internet where there's no consequences to inflammatory language.

Do you see now why I was concerned?

Bluebottle wrote: (In hindsight, one could perhaps say they played Trumps game and lost?)

I'm afraid there's quite a bit of truth to that.

Bluebottle wrote:In general I'd say teh difference betwen Obama and Trump matters, as while Obama has had his obvious failings as a president, he has also had his clear strenghts. My view as stated earlier is that he has been nudging the country in the right direction for eight years. And he seems a decent human being.

Now, the problem with Trump is that besides being the polar pposite of Obama in his views of all the points in that quote, racism, sexism, cruelty, he has also seems inclined to exacerbate exacerbate Obamas failings re alleged war crimes et so on. Not only is he for drone strikes, but he wants to target terrorists families. He wants to introduce torture. He reportedly asked an official security adviser three times why he couldn't just use nuclear weapons.

Obamas failings in areas where american presidents traditionally fail simply are not comparable to me.

Why do you keep trying to minimize the war crimes committed under the Obama administration? Earlier you seemed to imply that they only counted as war crimes under a technicality, though I wasn't sure if I'd interpreted your post correctly, and now you call them alleged. Are the family members of terrorists killed at weddings and funerals by the drone program any less dead because Obama presents a more respectable face to the world? What on earth does "seem[ing] a decent human being" mean in this context?

While I don't think that Obama is remotely as flawed a candidate as Trump is, portraying him as Trump's polar opposite is simply not true. On immigration, Trump's biggest difference with "the establishment" is, again, rhetoric. There are already walls/fences along much of the US-Mexico border and Obama deported more illegal immigrants than any President in US history. Obviously Trump has suggested he'd be even worse, but that does not make him the singular threat to democracy and/or humanity that many on the left seem intent as presenting him as.

I don't think that was what it was trying to say, really.   But that on these values, if followed up in policy, we cannot agree.. The quote doesn't call Trump's supporters any of the things it calls Trump himself out for. It does however blame them for enabling, and refuse corroberation on those values, on that basis.

Something about pots and kettles comes to mind here.

Eldo - I think the difference is that Obama has at least maintained that he didn't intend on going out to kill innocent people. There may have been decisions taken by him or other to take out a target when civilian casualties were known and the decision taken that the death of baddie x is worth losing some civilians for a reason.

Trump on the other hand outright says he wants to commit war crimes. He intends to just go and do it. That is a big difference.

Blue - going back to my point, you say the campaign at vilifying Clinton? She has been involved in so many dodgy things both under denial and straight from her mouth that this isn't a case of the Trump regime smearing... it has been going on for a long time from member sof her own party and people nothing to do with either of them.

The only difference at election time was Hillary has been seen to already be engaging in corruption and voting for things like the patriot act. Trump just says he will.

Lancebloke wrote:Eldo - I think the difference is that Obama has at least maintained that he didn't intend on going out to kill innocent people. There may have been decisions taken by him or other to take out a target when civilian casualties were known and the decision taken that the death of baddie x is worth losing some civilians for a reason.

Trump on the other hand outright says he wants to commit war crimes. He intends to just go and do it. That is a big difference.

The Obama administration's official stance is that any male over the age of 18 who lives in an area in which the drone program operates is considered a combatant rather than a civilian. They have deliberately killed emergency workers with "double tap" strikes. Calling them war crimes isn't my opinion or me trying to score rhetorical points; these are some of the same things that interventionists have used to make the case about intervening against Assad in the Syrian Civil War.

So I ask again, are the victims of Obama's administration any less dead because Obama is less outwardly honest about his willingness to flout the laws of war?

Look, like I said earlier, I voted for Obama in 2012 and I voted for Clinton in 2016, so I'm not trying to argue that they are as bad or worse than Trump. He's been on both sides of just about every issue but there are good reasons to think he would be even worse on this front. But if we truly care about the deaths caused by American militarism, like actually regretting the fact that real lives have ended instead of trying to score political points off them, then we need to unequivocally condemn violations of the laws of war regardless of which party is in power.

While I'm not trying to excuse Trump supporters who fully agree with all of the odious things he's said, I don't think the majority of his supporters who overlooked much of what he says (as mentioned in the image Blue shared) were engaging in a fundamentally different political calculus than Clinton supporters who overlooked or ignored aspects of her record, even though I think Clinton was clearly the (relatively) better option.

{{ Personally my biggest fears lie in the fact that I dont believe in the American political system. I dont believe its got robust safeguards, I dont believe it has any moral core and I dont believe it provides protection against extreme government.

I mean the US says all people are equal under the law but you still had segregation as government implemented policy under the law. You had the witchtrials, sorry MCcarthy years of reds under the bed and after Peril harbour you took completely innocent American-Japanese and locked them up in massive open prisons and tore families apart for no reason other than a desire for blood and revenge. And more recently your government perfectly legally under your constitution thought torture which just peachy, and so was farming your torture out to some of the most horrendous violent regimes in the world.

As far as I can tell if a US President really wants to do something he can. And if Trump wants to lock up all US Muslims in 'internment camps' why not- youve done it before. If he wants to 'purge' the country of weak influences- ie anyone on the left- he can you've been there before too. If he wants to he could 'heal' the racial problem by keeping the races seperate in public places- you've been there before too. Hell you can drop a nuke on civilian targets if your President and get away with it.

And as far as I can tell at the time all these things happened it was all perfectly hunky-dory and fine by the seemingly infinitely flexibile morality of the US political system which seems incapable of protecting against such abuses of power. }}}

its not so much Trump himself its the people making up his new team who seem even more scary to me. there's some seriously dodgy extremist stuff in there.

Agreed.