Posted by MikeT23 on 1/15/2016 3:28:00 PM (view original):
Truth is, Trump won't be a dictator.    He may WANT to do things but we have a system that prevents someone from just doing whatever suits his fancy.

It's ridiculous to think his Presidency would be any different than the rest as far as policy.   He'll have to go thru the same channels as everyone else.   The WORST thing could be potential damage to foreign policy.   While we can chuckle when he insults other candidates, world leaders aren't as likely to find his silliness, well, silly.

It's precisely the foreign policy implications of a Trump presidency I'm worried about...

Most fiscal policy, even if I disagree with it, isn't likely to produce such negative results that it will tear apart the country.  They can be fixed relatively quickly.  And Congress substantially checks them.  Any social policy you disagree with can always be changed instantly by the Supreme Court or the next Congress.  But destroying our relationship with the rest of the world could really mess things up long term.

Not sure that a Hillary-led White House would have that much better a foreign policy effect.  Think about all the misogynist countries that treat women like toilets and slaves, several of whom are terrorist-friendly.  What do you think their first reaction to a Hillary presidency will be? 

Hint: it won't be positive, and it won't be passive.

You have to know that's bullshit.  Germany's had a female chancellor for years with no ramifications.  Great Britain has had female PMs.  No problem.  Get real.

Would Trump calling someone fat and stupid be any worse than what's been going on?   Even the most ardent Obama supporter can't think we have a stronger relations overseas than before he took office.

More likely, the "common sense" world leaders would see Trump as a buffoon and ignore him.

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/15/2016 4:56:00 PM (view original):
You have to know that's bullshit.  Germany's had a female chancellor for years with no ramifications.  Great Britain has had female PMs.  No problem.  Get real.

Yah, that's relevant because they think of the US the exact same way.  GREAT point.

/sarcasm

Ok, this brings me to my #1 pet peeve about the mindless far-right-wing Rush worshippers...

Why exactly do you think the United States is perceived differently from Western European nations in the Arab world?  Eh?  Do you think, possibly, it has anything to do with decades worth of US intervention in the Middle East?

Somewhere along the line, we unfortunately came up with this rhetoric of a "war on terror."  Even though most of the educated policy-makers know that it isn't a viable long-term plan, it appeals to lots of American voters, and both parties - but to a far greater extent the Republicans - have been playing it up.  I would have thought by now more people would catch on.  Fighting terrorism is like fighting a hydra.  You want to go after what you see attacking you, but every time you cut off a head, 2 more pop up.  Have you people all failed to notice that repeated US military actions in the Middle East are NOT helping?  We took out almost all of the Al Qa'ida leadership structure.  Guess what?  It came back.  And now we have ISIS, along with literally dozens of new state-recognized terror organizations.  More have been recognized in the 15 years since we started the war on terror than the entirety of US history before that point.  You think this is a coincidence?

Listen, there will always be some people who hate other people.  There will always be some crazy people.  But you can't fight terrorism by fighting the individuals.  That just creates the exact image of the United States that terrorist leaders are already trying to project to the general Islamic population.  They claim the United States is trying to interfere in their lives, interfere in their religion, and stop them from practicing the way they want.  So what do we do about it?  We invade their countries, and now we're talking about singling out Muslims living in the United States and potential Muslim immigrants.  That's playing right into the terrorist agenda.

Every time we kill 100 terrorists, it creates the PR for terrorist leaders to recruit hundreds of new recruits.  You can't kill a hydra by cutting off the heads.  You have to cauterize the wounds, or go after the heart.  The heart of this particular problem is the increasingly popular anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East.  You combat that with non-interference except when requested, by having US intervention in the Middle East center on humanitarian efforts, and possibly by placing anti-offensive requirements for US aid to Israel.  It's gonna take a long time to improve our image in the Middle East at this point.  We've had 15 years of making it increasingly negative.  But you'd think, after 15 years, more of the general population would start to recognize that the situation is not improving.  Obviously pulling US troops out of Iraq was a mistake.  You'll find, in 2008 election posts from these forums, my predictions that Al Qa'ida would move into Iraq in the event of a full US withdrawal and take advantage of the power vacuum to seize control.  That wasn't exactly what happened, but it was pretty close.  That said, further offensive actions in the region are still incredibly ill-advised.

If you want to fight ISIS, you do it under the table.  Who knows, maybe we already are?  Get Putin in a room alone and tell him we can quietly, under the table, provide funding over time to help compensate for a ground war carried out by Russian troops.  Some terrorist leaders will likely accuse us of doing just that.  But they'll do so whether we actually do it or not, and it won't resonate with people who aren't already sympathetic to their cause.  Since anti-Russian sentiments are much less widespread, this is probably the most harmful course of action to terrorist causes.  But sending US troops in is worse than doing nothing.  If we destroy ISIS, all the survivors - and there would be many - will just go hide somewhere else and recruit new support.  I know MikeT and Moy said they'd rather do the wrong thing than do nothing.  That's just bad governance.  The wrong thing is cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Spending US money to increase the long-term anti-American sentiment is hurting us on multiple fronts.  Wasting resources singling out Muslims in the United States or immigrating to the United States does the same, albeit on a smaller scale.  If you want to throw resources at the problem, do it by supporting refugees, even if it's not on US soil.  If we feed and house them, then they won't turn to well-funded extremist groups to do the same.

Too long.  You know I didn't read all that.

Sure, it certainly does have something to do with decades of ME intervention.

Now that I've played your game, do you think our foreign position is better or worse under Obama?

BTW, there is no "beating" ISIS.   You kill one, another two are made.   You can't contain ISIS.   They will find a way.  

But you can do your best to protect your citizens from ISIS.   You've shrugged and said "Nothing we can do."   That doesn't work for me.

I didn't say there's nothing we can do.  I said that singling out Muslims and denying immigrants on the basis of religion are not going to help.

I've never been one to oppose wire taps, e-mail oversight, etc.  Monitor communications, even well-coordinated large-scale terror attacks will likely generate chatter somewhere.  In a Democratic society, I don't fear some dystopian future arising from the government monitoring my personal communications.  But trying to prevent a few attacks on the scale of San Bernardino, or one day with a statistically unlikely number of sexual assaults, at the expense of generating support for future attacks on the scale of 9/11 or bigger doesn't feel like a good tradeoff to me.

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/15/2016 7:14:00 PM (view original):
Ok, this brings me to my #1 pet peeve about the mindless far-right-wing Rush worshippers...

Why exactly do you think the United States is perceived differently from Western European nations in the Arab world?  Eh?  Do you think, possibly, it has anything to do with decades worth of US intervention in the Middle East?

Somewhere along the line, we unfortunately came up with this rhetoric of a "war on terror."  Even though most of the educated policy-makers know that it isn't a viable long-term plan, it appeals to lots of American voters, and both parties - but to a far greater extent the Republicans - have been playing it up.  I would have thought by now more people would catch on.  Fighting terrorism is like fighting a hydra.  You want to go after what you see attacking you, but every time you cut off a head, 2 more pop up.  Have you people all failed to notice that repeated US military actions in the Middle East are NOT helping?  We took out almost all of the Al Qa'ida leadership structure.  Guess what?  It came back.  And now we have ISIS, along with literally dozens of new state-recognized terror organizations.  More have been recognized in the 15 years since we started the war on terror than the entirety of US history before that point.  You think this is a coincidence?

Listen, there will always be some people who hate other people.  There will always be some crazy people.  But you can't fight terrorism by fighting the individuals.  That just creates the exact image of the United States that terrorist leaders are already trying to project to the general Islamic population.  They claim the United States is trying to interfere in their lives, interfere in their religion, and stop them from practicing the way they want.  So what do we do about it?  We invade their countries, and now we're talking about singling out Muslims living in the United States and potential Muslim immigrants.  That's playing right into the terrorist agenda.

Every time we kill 100 terrorists, it creates the PR for terrorist leaders to recruit hundreds of new recruits.  You can't kill a hydra by cutting off the heads.  You have to cauterize the wounds, or go after the heart.  The heart of this particular problem is the increasingly popular anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East.  You combat that with non-interference except when requested, by having US intervention in the Middle East center on humanitarian efforts, and possibly by placing anti-offensive requirements for US aid to Israel.  It's gonna take a long time to improve our image in the Middle East at this point.  We've had 15 years of making it increasingly negative.  But you'd think, after 15 years, more of the general population would start to recognize that the situation is not improving.  Obviously pulling US troops out of Iraq was a mistake.  You'll find, in 2008 election posts from these forums, my predictions that Al Qa'ida would move into Iraq in the event of a full US withdrawal and take advantage of the power vacuum to seize control.  That wasn't exactly what happened, but it was pretty close.  That said, further offensive actions in the region are still incredibly ill-advised.

If you want to fight ISIS, you do it under the table.  Who knows, maybe we already are?  Get Putin in a room alone and tell him we can quietly, under the table, provide funding over time to help compensate for a ground war carried out by Russian troops.  Some terrorist leaders will likely accuse us of doing just that.  But they'll do so whether we actually do it or not, and it won't resonate with people who aren't already sympathetic to their cause.  Since anti-Russian sentiments are much less widespread, this is probably the most harmful course of action to terrorist causes.  But sending US troops in is worse than doing nothing.  If we destroy ISIS, all the survivors - and there would be many - will just go hide somewhere else and recruit new support.  I know MikeT and Moy said they'd rather do the wrong thing than do nothing.  That's just bad governance.  The wrong thing is cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Spending US money to increase the long-term anti-American sentiment is hurting us on multiple fronts.  Wasting resources singling out Muslims in the United States or immigrating to the United States does the same, albeit on a smaller scale.  If you want to throw resources at the problem, do it by supporting refugees, even if it's not on US soil.  If we feed and house them, then they won't turn to well-funded extremist groups to do the same.

Saved. 

Posted by dahsdebater on 1/12/2016 11:52:00 PM (view original):
A terrorist can just as easily enter the country as a tourist with a passport from any number of countries.  Or be one of the thousands of US citizens who are adherents of ISIS.  You can't protect yourself from terrorism in the modern world.  At best you can establish a false sense of security.  The best way to fight terror is to project an image of your nation that will discourage new recruits from experiencing anti-American sentiment.  Trust me, singling out Muslims and refusing to help the ultra-needy from Islamic countries is NOT going to help on that front.

Your words?

"You can't protect yourself from terrorism in the modern world."


If so, do you not think that reads "There's nothing you can do"?

 

BTW, everything America does will generate support for radicals.   They look for a reason.

It's not supposed to mean that there's nothing you can do.  Just that you can't expect 100% effectiveness.

But to answer your question directly, yes, it kinda does read that way.

And FWIW, I think restrictions on immigration will have little better than 0% effectiveness.

What percentage of dead murdered slaughtered innocent American citizens beyond 0% is acceptable?