Does Trump Want To Be President?

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Sy Borg
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve3007 wrote: January 21st, 2019, 12:25 pm... I presume even the most extreme Libertarian advocate of small government would rather do it in a more controlled way than arbitrarily removing 800,000 people from the payroll ...
The most extreme Libertarian would say this was an excellent way to do it.

It may be that you are too inherently decent to readily imagine just how indecent others can be when they lose their centre and start flailing.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Greta . I think that this is exactly right. For the Libertarian the rights of the individual is paramount. Government is seen as an infringements on individual rights. It is a necessary infringement, however, and so must be kept to an absolute minimum. We have far exceeded that limit. It does not matter that many are helped by government programs, removing them is not wrong since they are not based on recognized rights. Rights in this view are limited to non-interference. If 800,000 or 8,000,000 lose their jobs, they had no right to them in the first place. On the other hand, the right to non-interference may entail the right to a wall as a means to vital protection of their rights. The rights of citizens trump human rights. Those who have been here longer enough have the right to refuse others the same rights they enjoy.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Sy Borg »

Fooloso4 The way I see it, if a nation has the word "United" in its name, that's an indication of a strong separatist movement being quelled in the past, and you'd expect tense undercurrents to remain. As far as I can tell, the US is about as disunited as a nation can be without being in a state of civil war. Rather, it appears to be a cold civil war, which seems a tad circular given the Republicans' new alliance with Russia in working against the Democrats, especially since the Republicans were always more intense provocateurs in the Cold War than the Dems.

I feel like I'm watching the process of how a nation surrenders its democracy. The system gets damaged and remains powerless to defend itself due to the level of power invested in one position. Now so many norms, checks and balances have been undermined by Trump that, without significant reform, it's easy to see future presidents push the authoritarian experiment further again because Trump has shown that it's easy with the Murdochs, Kochs and Rothschilds smoothing the way.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta wrote:The way I see it, if a nation has the word "United" in its name, that's an indication of a strong separatist movement being quelled in the past, and you'd expect tense undercurrents to remain.
That's an interesting point. Similarly, if a country explicitly has the word "Democratic" in its name (e.g. the former East Germany and North Korea) that seems to indicate that it's a dictatorship. Country names often seem, like Hamlet's mum, to protest too much methinks.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

So, following that logic, the most stable and comfortable-in-their-own-skin countries should be called something like "the completely anarchic mess of..." whatever.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

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Steve3007 wrote: January 23rd, 2019, 6:14 am
Greta wrote:The way I see it, if a nation has the word "United" in its name, that's an indication of a strong separatist movement being quelled in the past, and you'd expect tense undercurrents to remain.
That's an interesting point. Similarly, if a country explicitly has the word "Democratic" in its name (e.g. the former East Germany and North Korea) that seems to indicate that it's a dictatorship. Country names often seem, like Hamlet's mum, to protest too much methinks.
Good point about democratic. Protesting too much remains the norm, it seems. Look at the Yanks - one minute champions of democracy and ready to bomb their way to it, the next moving full speed towards authoritarianism, with plenty of media and citizen backers.

Yes, those elements of names are reminders for the naughty people who didn't like the idea that they lost and they'd better not get out of line again. I'm trying to think of a nation not founded in blood, or significantly maintained by it. Are there any?
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by UniversalAlien »

Greta wrote:
......... I'm trying to think of a nation not founded in blood, or significantly maintained by it. Are there any?
How many nations in the world were created without violence or wars of independence?

"The only country that comes to my mind is Liberia........"
The Czech Republic and Slovakia were created out of the old Czechoslovakia without a war.

Luxembourg and Monaco seem to have evolved into independent countries without a war.

Australia and Canada became independent countries without a war.

Most countries in the “British” Commonwealth were spun off without a war although there was local agitation in some.
Quote source:
https://www.quora.com/How-many-nations- ... dependence

I'm also thinking if we looked hard enough we could find others
- Today in Iceland there is no standing army and only a lightly armed coast guard.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Sy Borg »

UniversalAlien wrote: January 29th, 2019, 8:51 am Greta wrote:
......... I'm trying to think of a nation not founded in blood, or significantly maintained by it. Are there any?
How many nations in the world were created without violence or wars of independence?

"The only country that comes to my mind is Liberia........"
The Czech Republic and Slovakia were created out of the old Czechoslovakia without a war.

Luxembourg and Monaco seem to have evolved into independent countries without a war.

Australia and Canada became independent countries without a war.

Most countries in the “British” Commonwealth were spun off without a war although there was local agitation in some.
Quote source:
https://www.quora.com/How-many-nations- ... dependence

I'm also thinking if we looked hard enough we could find others
- Today in Iceland there is no standing army and only a lightly armed coast guard.
Both Canada and Australia were founded in blood and warfare, just that the wars with the existing indigenous people were so one-sided that descendants of the invaders now don't even think of it as war, just colonisation.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by UniversalAlien »

Donald Trump, currently being impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors' by the House controlled Democrats, is a master of the big {and small} lie - And also a master of playing the
political 'game of thrones' - He knows he will be exonerated in the Senate - And will use his impeachment as a political plus in the coming election.

A psychopathic liar {my opinion}, some say he actually can not distinguish the truth from a lie.
Or as he has said :


Trump: "I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot Somebody And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters"


A statement of broad appeal to psychopaths everywhere - And yet he won in 2016.

Now facing a very left, almost Socialist, Democratic Party in 2020 which is sure to fail in their
attempts at impeachment - Trump suddenly also gets lucky when multi, multi billionaire
Michael Bloomberg goes back on his word and decides to buy the Democratic Party so he can run for President. - And mocks the legitimacy of the other Democrats and of the Democratic party.

Bloomberg who was first a Republican, than an Independent, and now claims to be a Democrat, reminds me in many ways to be another version of Trump - But he has the additional distinction of being a 'control freak' who has no reservations about using government to interfere in peoples lives - remember his law limiting the size of soft drinks passed when he was mayor of NY ? - Just think of what he might do with the power of 'executive action' as
President - He could make the Trump monster look like 'Little Red Riding-hood'

Bloomberg could insure the victory of Donald Trump
Both were once friends - I speculate they still are and Bloomberg and Trump are conspiring together to insure the billionaire elite maintains controls of the United States
- They do not want left wingers like Warren giving health care coverage to all, housing and food
to lower income people or any other government program that might interfere with
the oligarchical corporate elite that controls America.

Trump did not win the election of 2016 with a majority vote, Hilary had a clear cut majority
of voters. Supposedly he won in the electoral college - Now that we know Trump better,
I'm beginning to wonder did he really win at all ???????

At any rate I didn't like Hilary Clinton but she's suddenly not looking so bad after all.

Are you going to rise from the ashes Hilary and get your revenge against the dragon?
- I'll back you
- But you will have to come up with a better excuse for those lost emails !














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Steve3007
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

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The Trump presidency, so far, is not as bad as many of us predicted is it? The third world war hasn't come. As far as it's possible to tell, he hasn't yet impetuously tried to "press the button". Trade disputes rumble on but they haven't yet tanked the US economy. The Paris Climate Agreement withdrawal has been begun, but that can be reversed by the next president, so meh. Whatever.

All of his faults are pretty well known, and have long since been priced in by supporters and foes alike. We all know he lies, values people who flatter him more than people who know stuff, bases his decisions largely on personal grudges and would, if he had his way, be a populist dictator for whom a compliant media would regularly report that 110% of the electorate vote in every election. But if he doesn't get his own way in that respect, who cares? It's like saying that if the fuel in my car's fuel tank got its own way it would explode. But it doesn't get its own way. It's contained for a reason.

I heard a commentator on the radio news this morning opining that this whole impeachment thing, massive as we say it is, is irrelevant because we already know what will happen. The Republican controlled Senate is 100% certain to strike it down and 3 months from now most voters won't really be able to remember whether he was impeached or not and won't care much. In this world where truth doesn't matter and where any event, no matter how apparently momentous it seems at the time, just sweeps past in the continuous avalanche of meaningless is-it-fake-or-is-it-real news, the US hasn't yet imploded. So who cares? Maybe nothing matters.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

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He's blowing up a bubble, one that will be exacerbated by the global debt bubble.

In an unsustainable world, governance only determines how hard the landing will be. At this stage, the landing will be much harder than if global leaders were honest and actually did something about known environmental and economic structural issues.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by LuckyR »

Steve3007 wrote: December 12th, 2019, 7:25 am The Trump presidency, so far, is not as bad as many of us predicted is it? The third world war hasn't come. As far as it's possible to tell, he hasn't yet impetuously tried to "press the button". Trade disputes rumble on but they haven't yet tanked the US economy. The Paris Climate Agreement withdrawal has been begun, but that can be reversed by the next president, so meh. Whatever.

All of his faults are pretty well known, and have long since been priced in by supporters and foes alike. We all know he lies, values people who flatter him more than people who know stuff, bases his decisions largely on personal grudges and would, if he had his way, be a populist dictator for whom a compliant media would regularly report that 110% of the electorate vote in every election. But if he doesn't get his own way in that respect, who cares? It's like saying that if the fuel in my car's fuel tank got its own way it would explode. But it doesn't get its own way. It's contained for a reason.

I heard a commentator on the radio news this morning opining that this whole impeachment thing, massive as we say it is, is irrelevant because we already know what will happen. The Republican controlled Senate is 100% certain to strike it down and 3 months from now most voters won't really be able to remember whether he was impeached or not and won't care much. In this world where truth doesn't matter and where any event, no matter how apparently momentous it seems at the time, just sweeps past in the continuous avalanche of meaningless is-it-fake-or-is-it-real news, the US hasn't yet imploded. So who cares? Maybe nothing matters.
Not a bad summation of the current situation, though many will disagree on the implications for the future. For example if you believe that the government actually has a role to perform in society and that there is merit to having the folks in the government having the interests of the majority of the populace in mind. Then he is paving a path for folks in the future to routinely not give a darn about the 99%. Of course just because he has shown the way doesn't mean that future leaders will necessarily choose to go that way, but BT (Before Trump), even the most plutocratic American presidents were wary about going too far and self regulated to the extent of throwing a bone to the rabble once in a while. The future may (or may not, its' true) look like that.
"As usual... it depends."
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by UniversalAlien »

America, The United States of America, goes into the New Year, 2020, so divided politically so
as to be 'unsustainable' - It can not survive as a single nation, unless......

And that is where Trump came in in 2016 - In defeating every other Republican, all of whom
supposedly didn't like him, apparently even hated him - He showed an almost Napoleonic
ability to unify his own party - I know some will say the right-wing Republican Party was always unified and Trump was only a distraction - maybe this is true - and he was Not the independent he wanted us to believe he was.

But as the 2016 election progressed and Trump made his pitch, even attempting to attract
voters from the Left - And apparently he did attract a few.

In fact and appearance Trump was getting to appear like a new hope for American unity,
of course his followers still think he is - But once in power he became a true dyed in the
wool right wing Republican - And now the Left hates him more than ever - Hence his being impeached.

The pity is that Trump could have been one of America's greatest Presidents, could have
really made America great again, as he stated was his goal.
- But apparently money much larger than his small fortune has trumped Trump
- And he has become nothing more than a puppet of right wing, 'right to life', 'God, guns,
and government extremists and has nothing more than polarized the Left into what has
now become a political civil war - This is not the America I was born in.

The sorrow and the pity of it is, I don't know who is more responsible, the right wing
egotism of Donald Trump or the Socialism now, like it or not, of the New Left being led
by the likes of Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, and Elizabeth Warren ?
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by Steve3007 »

A curious thing I've noticed about Trump's assassination of Iranian and Iraqi generals in Iraq is that it has caused all the teenage children I know (my own children and the children of friends and family) to talk excitedly about the prospect of World War III starting. But the adults see it as business as usual - an action that was taken after a simple cost/benefit analysis shows that the US government can do, essentially, anything they want in any country that is militarily and economically much smaller than themselves with no significant cost to themselves.

I guess it's the power of the internet over young minds combined with the excitability of youth and the weary cynicism of age.
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Re: Does Trump Want To Be President?

Post by UniversalAlien »

Steve3007 wrote: January 6th, 2020, 8:55 am A curious thing I've noticed about Trump's assassination of Iranian and Iraqi generals in Iraq is that it has caused all the teenage children I know (my own children and the children of friends and family) to talk excitedly about the prospect of World War III starting. But the adults see it as business as usual - an action that was taken after a simple cost/benefit analysis shows that the US government can do, essentially, anything they want in any country that is militarily and economically much smaller than themselves with no significant cost to themselves.

I guess it's the power of the internet over young minds combined with the excitability of youth and the weary cynicism of age.
During the Vietnam War I was sure WW III was eminent - Thought the end of the World was near. But we're still here.

I stand for many but not all, Liberal causes and Republicans have created a wall here, not
around Mexico, alienating the Left - Both the Left and Right seem to live in different countries
with different agendas.

But way back during Ronald Reagan's Presidency and even though I did not like his right wing politics - I still admired the way he acted as leader on the world stage - The movie actor
Reagan played his greatest role as President, and played it well. The Russians were scared of
him - he would not take the BS of Communist propaganda.

Trump may not be a Ronald Reagan - but he represents the US well in that terrorists and
terrorist nations will not intimidate him - he will act if necessary and now they know it.

Is that dangerous? - Yes, but it could be argued that it is more dangerous to allow intimidation
from terrorist nations that could back the US into a corner.
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