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skyfire2020 Wrote:...
As for Trump starting WW3, aren't these the same people complaining that Trump was being blackmailed by Russia? Do they honestly think Putin wants to blackmail Trump into starting WW3?
... If the blackmail stories are true: When one gets tired of being blackmailed, one strikes out at the blackmailer.
If the blackmail stories are false: How better for Trump to show Russia has nothing on him than to start a war with them? (Well, yes, I know there are plenty of better ways - but look at the wording and tone of his inauguration speech.)
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Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:skyfire2020 wrote:
...
As for Trump starting WW3, aren't these the same people complaining that Trump was being blackmailed by Russia? Do they honestly think Putin wants to blackmail Trump into starting WW3?
...
If the blackmail stories are true: When one gets tired of being blackmailed, one strikes out at the blackmailer.
If the blackmail stories are false: How better for Trump to show Russia has nothing on him than to start a war with them? (Well, yes, I know there are plenty of better ways - but look at the wording and tone of his inauguration speech.)
Just as worrisome is that Trump may just start a war period. And it escalates into a nuclear exchange.
Quote:The 1930's showed how that works out in the end but it might delay things enough for another president to deal with it.
And the next President might decided to accept it as well, if the cost of rolling back whatever tide is too great and just concentrate on "Fortress America". Of course you do know a nation can't run on a war footing indefinitely and maintain a decent standard of living.
Edit: His theme seems to "America First". And the US has a grievance against the world. Does not it sound similar to what dictators use to justify their actions?
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ordnance11 Wrote:...
Edit: His theme seems to "America First". And the US has a grievance against the world. Does not it sound similar to what dictators use to justify their actions? I was thinking "schoolyard bully" instead of "dictator", but yes.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
Quote:khagler wrote:
Apparently logic means something different for low level parasites, excuse me, "public servants," engaged in wishful thinking.
I dunno how that answer came about , you'll have to clarify that one. Because Rob and myself are those "parasites" you describe. Kindly enlighten both of us on that.
And while you're at it, you can describe your choice of term that you used to describe us, and you can describe how government services would be provided without us.
Taxation is theft, and anyone who chooses to live of of money stolen from the productive class is therefore a parasite. I don't want "government services" to be provided at all--as a libertarian, I'm opposed to the initiation of force, which governments depend on.
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Trump's "record turnout" compared to Obama's first inauguration. "We've got the BIGGEST EMPTY SPACES in inauguration history! No President has ever had BIGGER empty spaces in his audience!"
Countdown to denial of photographic evidence begins in 5... 4...
Well, that took about as much time as I thought. Yesterday White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer accused the news media of falsely reporting the size of the Inauguration crowds and basically threatened them for not following the official Trump party line on the turnout. Literally. "We're going to hold the press accountable" is the word-for-word quote.
Fortunately, the ACLU is basically saying, "bring it on" in response.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Obsessing over the size (or lack thereof) of inauguration crowds seems a bit silly all around. Trump didn't win by being widely loved, he won by being very slightly less despised than his opposition. And he did win, so it's a little late to be crowing about nobody liking him.
What's more, small inauguration crowds mean that there weren't many people who could spend hundreds of dollars, take a day off of work, and either live in Mordor on the Potomac or afford the travel costs to get there who actually wanted to go. In other words, the very wealthy and powerful elite that Trump criticized in the election doesn't like him. Imagine that.
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It's an impressive quirk of the system that you could end up with 2 million less votes and still win. That's a substantial margin of the expectorate, far more than on previous occasions. It wasn't that the Trumpasaurus was more popular than Clintron. It was just that he was popular in the right places....
And, unfortunately, governments are something of a necessity these days.
You can't privatise a police force. (The reason why should be obvious)
You could theoretically privatise the fire-brigade, but it's a public service for a reason. (Everyone benefits from shit not burning down)
You can't really privatise the military. PMC's are toxic where they're employed. (Mercenaries being far to unreliable, and being outside the Geneva convention so the enemy gets to have fun)
You can't really privatise the health service or ambulance service.
Public transport services that run at a loss, but are necessary for some parts of the country.
The same with infrastructure investments....
Where I see parasitism of the taxpayers money is in cases where a private organisation his hired to do something, and treats the government as a bottomless pit of money. Those are the true parasites. We had an utterly amusing one where a caretaker at a local school - which I used to attend - was telling me about how they had a company come in to quote to do a BMS system, and I asked him what he'd been quoted. He said, for arguments 100k or so - to which I told him he should've been paying a quarter of that. And the system was to be set up so that, if they even wanted to change the internal temperature of the building, it was an expensive callout charge to the company.
The real graft comes in to play when you realise all of this had been specified by a consulting engineer hired by the school, who was widely known to 'play golf' with the MD of the other company, and who wrote the specification for the project in such a way that no other competitor could comply. You can't prove it enough to call it graft or corruption, and the school, or the local councils, really don't know any better. They're trusting the outside contractor to do their job honestly.
That's where your fucking money goes.
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There is an old joke I read once.
Three CEO's are meeting a government official to give a quote to build a large shed.
The first CEO has a long look around, does some measurements and quotes 20k.
The second CEO looks around and does more measurements and makes a quote for 22K.
The third CEO doesn't do any measurements but instead talks to the official and asks what the other bids are. When he/she hears the other bids, the CEO immediately says he/she will do the job for 30k.
The official asks the CEO why he/she didn't make any measurements. The CEO responds its 5K for me, 5K for you and we pay the first guy 20K to actually do the work.
What annoys me in the UK is too big to fail managers particularly if they are taxpayer funded. There is a line in the Honor Harrington books that when the Manticorian officers reach a certain rank they are guaranteed a job for life no matter how badly they perform. It seems to be the same in the public sector. If the average worker messes up they get punished and if its a sacking offence, they are thrown out the door with nothing but a bad reference. When a top manager messes up they are allowed to resign, they still get a big pay-off and by the time their chauffeur driven car gets to the door way they have already been appointed to another top job.
Mark
Quote:Dartz wrote:
And, unfortunately, governments are something of a necessity these days.
Yet you give a bunch of examples of things that not only can be, but often are done just fine without governments in various places.
Quote:You can't privatise a police force. (The reason why should be obvious)
The US is absolutely full of private police forces called "security guards."--there's something like two or three times as many of them as there are government enforcers. You just don't hear about them much because they aren't above the law, and therefore don't go around torturing and murdering people with dark skin all the time the way the government thugs do.
Quote:You could theoretically privatise the fire-brigade, but it's a public service for a reason. (Everyone benefits from shit not burning down)
There are plenty of private firefighters in the US--both private companies hired by small towns, and volunteer fire departments supported by donations.
Quote:You can't really privatise the military. PMC's are toxic where they're employed. (Mercenaries being far to unreliable, and being outside the Geneva convention so the enemy gets to have fun)
Standing armies are just as toxic, and with some overlap of reasons, as the people who founded the US were well aware. That's why they wanted to rely on an armed citizenry. Sadly, the Geneva Conventions aren't really relevant as neither the US nor the people the US picks fights with pay much attention to them. Quote:You can't really privatise the health service or ambulance service.
Both of these things are widely privatized in the US.
Quote:Public transport services that run at a loss, but are necessary for some parts of the country.
Public tranportation (that is, city buses and trains) run at a loss because they're run by governments that grant themselves monopolies and don't care about money. It's pretty common here in the US for city public transportation agencies to spend huge amounts of money on light rail systems and subways that are absurdly expensive, of limited utility, and do take money from the buses that people actually use.
Quote:The same with infrastructure investments....
Infrastructure is a bit broad. It's pretty common in the US for city governments to grant themselves a monopoly on some things, like electricity, but there are also places where it's provided by private companies. In places where it's provided by a private company, there's generally just one politically connected private company that has bribed the government to give them a monopoly. Even then private companies are still sometimes able to get around those obstacles--Google Fiber, for example.
Quote:Where I see parasitism of the taxpayers money is in cases where a private organisation his hired to do something, and treats the government as a bottomless pit of money. Those are the true parasites. We had an utterly amusing one where a caretaker at a local school - which I used to attend - was telling me about how they had a company come in to quote to do a BMS system, and I asked him what he'd been quoted. He said, for arguments 100k or so - to which I told him he should've been paying a quarter of that. And the system was to be set up so that, if they even wanted to change the internal temperature of the building, it was an expensive callout charge to the company.
The real graft comes in to play when you realise all of this had been specified by a consulting engineer hired by the school, who was widely known to 'play golf' with the MD of the other company, and who wrote the specification for the project in such a way that no other competitor could comply. You can't prove it enough to call it graft or corruption, and the school, or the local councils, really don't know any better. They're trusting the outside contractor to do their job honestly.
That's where your fucking money goes.
Yes, that's absolutely a huge problem. A related problem is the practice of local governments stealing people's property and giving it to politically powerful real-estate developers. That practice even got an official Supreme Court stamp of approval a few years ago. I'm all in favor of getting money out of politics. The problem is that the only way to do so is to actually get the money out of politics, and that's very unlikely to happen because so many people have been brainwashed in government schools to believe that the world would end if it wasn't there.
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There is of course, a fairly difference between a security guard a a cop. It's a complete false comparison. A police force tackles actual crime - equally. It doesn't matter whether the victim can pay for the case to be pursued or not.
Some local councils started charging for fire-service callouts. What actually happened was people stopped calling them when they saw houses on fire, or started trying to tackle fires themselves, and the fire-service itself called radio stations to complain about people getting hurt trying to save 200 quid on a callout, becase it was usually better for the homeowner to let the house burn and claim the full insurance, than try put it out, or pay the callout charge. Which was below the policy excess. The original private fire services happily let buildings, and their screaming contents, burn if they didn't that particular company's medel.
I'd rather a group of properly trained and professional soldiers, than a bunch of fucking redneck yahoos with itchy trigger fingers whu just wann shoot sumpin good.... (As an aside, having fully armed soldiers turn up at your door, is always an amusing experience. And you can see the ammunition in the magazines. Yes, we know. Stay inside, stay off the mobile phones, wait until the all clear. )
Public transportation runs at a loss because ridership is below what'd make the route economically viable. There're plenty of villages/routes that, while being perfectly open to public competiion, ust aren't bothered with because there's no money to be made on them. Even the intercity bus-routes that are being snatched up, the services are almost always direct routes, and 'quicker', by just bypassing every village and town along the way. While the State service has to burn more fuel and drive more hours to reach everyone.
Infrastructure.
Good roads, unipeded by tolls (The sheer havoc one toll bridge can cause on traffic). Reliable rail connections. Clean water services. Good power grid connections. Stability and security of supply. All of these things are good for attracting industry, jobs and general economic activity that is considered b everyone to be good good. And all of these things are generally best tackled by the state.
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Yeah, when the idea of "fake news" is "reporting anything other than the official party line", then we have a real problem.
Also, Bob, I'm fairly certain we now have someone attempting to derail the thread outright. I'm adding him to my own ignore list, and I'm thinking it might be recommended to ask him to start a new thread if he's going to argue the off-topic point.
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That's a very good point and idea, JFerio.
Khagler, your arguments about the nature of government and how private industry could take on all its responsibilities should have its own thread. Please start one. It really doesn't belong in a thread about Trump.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Trump's "record turnout" compared to Obama's first inauguration. "We've got the BIGGEST EMPTY SPACES in inauguration history! No President has ever had BIGGER empty spaces in his audience!"
Countdown to denial of photographic evidence begins in 5... 4...
Well, that took about as much time as I thought. Yesterday White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer accused the news media of falsely reporting the size of the Inauguration crowds and basically threatened them for not following the official Trump party line on the turnout. Literally. "We're going to hold the press accountable" is the word-for-word quote.
Fortunately, the ACLU is basically saying, "bring it on" in response.
And Kellyanne Conway's explanation that Spicer is just stating "alternative facts". It does not bode well when the press secretary is being compared to Baghdad Bob by the news corps.
Far more ominous to me is the news that Trump is not going to be releasing his tax returns and the Trump organization will be accepting business from foreign governments. So I can see corruption scandals showing up in the next 4 years if not the start of impeachment proceedings.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:Trump's "record turnout" compared to Obama's first inauguration. "We've got the BIGGEST EMPTY SPACES in inauguration history! No President has ever had BIGGER empty spaces in his audience!"
Countdown to denial of photographic evidence begins in 5... 4...
Well, that took about as much time as I thought. Yesterday White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer accused the news media of falsely reporting the size of the Inauguration crowds and basically threatened them for not following the official Trump party line on the turnout. Literally. "We're going to hold the press accountable" is the word-for-word quote.
Fortunately, the ACLU is basically saying, "bring it on" in response.
As long as we're holding people accountable...
Over the weekend, CBC News radio was reporting that Trump claimed one million to one-and-a-half million people attended the inauguration ceremony.
Today, CBC News radio reported that The Mall has a maximum capacity of a half-million.
Somebody needs to check a few facts here.
--
Rob Kelk
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So he's a braggart! That was proven a long time ago, Rob.
Canadian lighthouse to U.S. Warship approaching it: "This is a lighthouse. Your call!"
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Well, you know, CBC News is a "fake news" group from an "overrated" country. And they've got the wrong facts, not the alternative ones. "Sad!"
Trump and his henchmen just make it too easy to mock them.
Or, another way of looking at it: Conway was misheard. She wasn't saying "alternative" facts, she was saying "alt-right" facts. Not that there's a real difference....
-----
Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
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Trump's including the people losing their minds and violently protesting by smashing their near-ideological compatriots' things.
For all the talk about Trump being "fascist," there's an awful lot of people acting like brownshirts opposing him.
Bear in mind, I'm not now nor was I ever one of his supporters, but simply not agreeing with destroying unaffiliated parties' property because they do not seem to be in lockstep with a specific ideology does not make me evil.
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them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
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Quote:Foxboy wrote:
Trump's including the people losing their minds and violently protesting by smashing their near-ideological compatriots' things.
For all the talk about Trump being "fascist," there's an awful lot of people acting like brownshirts opposing him.
Bear in mind, I'm not now nor was I ever one of his supporters, but simply not agreeing with destroying unaffiliated parties' property because they do not seem to be in lockstep with a specific ideology does not make me evil.
Mind giving us a link stating that unaffiliated parties were destroyed? And also bear in mind this is an administration that is willing to pick a fight with the mainstream press over the facts. Or "alternative facts" in this case.
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It seems that Trump lost no time committing his first war crime. He didn't even make it a day.
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Fine. Here we go, even from a heavily biased against Trump source.
I'm reasonably sure that the cars were burnt without checking to see who the owners voted for.
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Quote:Foxboy wrote:
Fine. Here we go, even from a heavily biased against Trump source.
I'm reasonably sure that the cars were burnt without checking to see who the owners voted for.
Funny, I live in D.C. and I didn't see and pillars of smoke rising in the skyline where I'm from during the inauguration. If you want a civil disturbance, live through the Rodney King riots. I lived in Los Angeles at that time. More interesting to me is that people in other countries are protesting also.
12th and K street is the rich and tony area of DC if you're interested by the way.
Edit: That's why I was puzzled over the "limo" windows being stoned.
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Can anyone confirm a claim I just heard that the National Parks Service got its Twitter feed cut off by the White House for posting the side-by-side shots of the Inauguration crowds?
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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-pa ... ing-again/
Last sentence of the news:
Quote:And the other NPS retweet pointed out that whitehouse.gov pages on issues like climate change had been taken down.
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Trump feels unappreciated
Quote:Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media’s failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public’s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.
WaPo has come out as Trump being unfit for the Presidency from the get go and that hasn't changed. So if you can dig out any mainstream news source signing his praises, go ahead and post it for balance.
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Quote:ordnance11 wrote:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-pa ... ing-again/
From that article: Quote:“Two retweets from the National Park Service’s (NPS) main Twitter account Friday were inconsistent with the agency’s approach to engaging the public through social media,” Tom Crosson, National Park Service spokesman, said in a statement to CBS News’ Arden Farhi. “Out of an abundance of caution, while we investigated the situation involving these tweets, the Department of Interior’s communications team determined that it was important to stand down Twitter activity across the Department temporarily, except in the case of public safety.”
Translation: "We now have a minder to keep us from posting anything that the White House does not approve of."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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