Wrath of Dagon

It's hard to say what the meaning of American citizenship is when the government actively wages war on its own citizens and favors criminal aliens over citizens: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2016/04/13/irs-admits-it-encourages-illegals-to-steal-social-security-numbers-for-taxes/#4c8555fe237a The IRS actually has a policy not to tell a citizen that his social security number has been stolen to file fake tax returns.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." I find it amusing, and a little ironic, that you define the US by something that, while important from a historical standpoint, isn't nearly as vital to making the US the US as, say, the Constitution (and not only because that, unlike the Deceleration, is something that still has an impact on the country and the laws since it's an actual legal document and the foundation that everything else is blog upon). Personally if I had to choose one thing to enshrine it would be the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The Constitution sets up the structure of the government, the legal system, and enumerates certain specific rights. The Declaration is what says what America is all about, or used to be about. Edit: Third party candidates have little chance to be in debates: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/presidential-debate-stage-gary-johnson-jill-stein-libertarian-green-party-polls-requirements-criteria The decision will be made in mid-September though, so still a month to go.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." I would add "rule of law" to that. If you want a longer answer, read "Tales of the South Pacific" by James Michener. Unfortunately we've already lost most of that, fools never realize what they have until it's gone.

WOD this whole issue people have with changes to flags is really unnecessary, if you can be honest about the reality of the 2016 Lets be honest most people think a flag symbolically represents the nation, they place real value in it and think changes to it should only seen as negative. But what about changes to a flag to make it inclusive ? So changing the USA flag positive way would you support that? Yes, we should change it to the white flag of surrender.

Huh?

Playing Graviteam Tactics: Mius-Front. Very fun game. You don't quite have the same amount of control and feedback in tactical battles as you do in Combat Mission, and may be CM is more of a sim, but this one has a real campaign!

In 10 years the American flag will be considered racist, possibly sooner.

Everything we know is wrong: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/researchers-orbit-a-muon-around-an-atom-confirm-physics-is-broken/

I was just reading about Perot on Wikipedia and I forgot that he actually dropped out of the race before he got back in. That hurt his chances more than anything.

I would agree that Trump is in trouble right now. You have to meet a certain threshold before people will entrust you with the presidency, and once you image is formed in the public mind it's very hard to overcome. Right now it's a referendum on Trump which he will lose. It has to become a referendum on Hillary for her to lose. It would take a very special set of circumstances for Trump to still be able to win.

Let me guess, Communication Arts? I got my degree out of a Cracker Jack box. But it came with a cool decoder ring. Electrical engineering and computer science. I'm sure the decoder ring is worth a lot more than your actual degree. No matter what's in his tax return, they would provide a huge amount of ammo for Hilzilla's opposition research and the media that's doing the work for her. They can distort anything and make a good use of it. And of course most people's business record isn't all that honest, I don't expect Trump's to be any different. Why won't Hilzilla release her speeches to Goldman Sachs, or the 30 thousand e-mails she deleted while under Congressional subpoena? Nothing surprises me anymore about Trumps comments or general bombast , its hard for Trump to actually shock or offend me anymore ...my expectation of what he says is typically " how low can Trump stoop with his rhetoric " He says things like "Obama\Clinton are the founders of ISIS " http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politics/trump-obama-isis/index.html And then he claims " I was just being sarcastic " ...this is the man who wants to be the leader of the most powerful military and economic superpower in the world Why wasn't there any outrage when Hilzilla called Trump "a recruiter for ISIS"? If he's the recruiter, she's the founder.

There was nothing wrong with my school but I went a lot earlier than you did.

Wrong. With two liberal parties, three conservative parties, and voters equally split ideologically the liberal parties would both get 25% while the conservative parties would get 16,6%, which would result in two liberal parties in the run-off, just like I said. You did finish primary school, right? I meant equally split amongst liberal and conservative as you said. Obviously the parties wouldn't all be equally split, there'd probably be a couple of large parties (one on either side) and a few smaller but still viable parties. With run off election you could safely vote for any party, knowing that either the two bigger parties would be in the run off, or a smaller alternative party would take place of one of them. At least it would be a lot safer than now. There are centripetal and centrifugal forces acting on party size and number, the trick is to balance those to get close to the desired number of parties. I got Magna **** Laude from Rice University, what did you get? *lol*

Yes, and re-interpreting it this way makes it meaningless. This is a different country now from the time you're referring to. Certain states and localities will be only too happy to ban guns. As far as nationally, we're safe so long as Republicans control the House, but once that is lost so are our rights, mark my words. Btw, at this point in 1988 Dukakis was up by 17 points, though I'm not making any predictions.

Again, the reason it never did is because the Supreme Court was protecting the Second Amendment. That will no longer be the case once there's another liberal Justice.

They don't have executive power, but they have full judicial and partial legislative powers if they choose to use them. Now you're contradicting yourself. That's exactly what I said earlier. Do you think they won't jump at the chance as soon as they get it? Remember, SC can do anything, there are practically no limits on their power. Yes but it can only do it in a case that is before it. To give them the chance to overturn it it would take someone with standing to file a lawsuit, it would fail, appeal and have it fail to the federal appeals court, then the federal district court, then the Supreme Court. At any point it could be scuttled by any court refusing to hear it. The SCOTUS itself may refuse to take it because Heller is recent. It a hell of a hill to climb. It would take years. A lot of them. A lot can happen in that time. And lets say it did. Lets say in 2022 (because six years is how long the original suit took) the court overturns Heller. That does not repeal the 2nd Amendment. It will be in jeopardy from the legislature but they have been made to pay a high price for gun control before. And the NRA will still be around and will still be powerful. Congress will still face the wrath of the voters every two years. And even if they were inclined they would not start with complete prohibition. Yes, there is a danger that should be fended off now by making sure people like Clinton don't get to pick to many judges (for many good reasons besides this one) but that danger is not imminent. It's down the road a ways. just over the horizon. There's probably a test case already working its way through the courts just from the draconian anti-gun actions California recently took, if not a test case can be easily manufactured. I don't think it'll take anywhere that long since all the liberal courts will be complicit, also remember any federal judge's decision stands until overruled. Any case they hear which has anything at all to do with the Second Amendment gives them the chance to throw out the entire Second Amendment, you're whistling past the graveyard.

Means nothing. It was a 5-4 decision, now it will be a 5-4 decision the other way, and that's before Hilzilla gets to appoint some more Justices. Now you're contradicting yourself. That's exactly what I said earlier. Do you think they won't jump at the chance as soon as they get it? Remember, SC can do anything, there are practically no limits on their power.

Can you understand 5-4 Conservative majority vs. 5-4 Liberal majority? You are taking an incredibly complex situation and grossly simplifying it. The Supreme Court can not just throw out the Heller case, or McDonald vs. Chicago. Your gun rights were considerably more at risk 30 years ago than they are today. You also might want to notice that even the dissenting opinions in the Heller case varied, in fact you should read how different the tone of Breyer and Johnson are, because it makes it clear they are not really on the same page. Simply put, this isn't a black and white, liberal versus conservative issue. You should also note that Ginsburg and Breyer are both identified as liberal, and both are well into their later years. They aren't going to live forever. Kennedy is up there as well, of course, but he's often identified near the middle instead of a full conservative. So yeah, there is pretty much no evidence that as soon as Garland is elected, the government is going to take away all our guns. That's just hyperbole. Why can't they just throw it out? And who the hell is Johnson? The liberal theory is that Second Amendment is a collective right, not an individual right, so only government sanctioned organizations are allowed to possess guns. I don't know of any liberal Justices who disagree with that, the only reason Second Amendment is still around is Kennedy swings both ways, conservative in this case.

Then you don't know anything about any of the Supreme Court Second Amendment decisions.

Can you understand 5-4 Conservative majority vs. 5-4 Liberal majority?

Why? The left are aching to repeal the Second Amendment, then their power will be absolute. Nor will there be any limits on presidential power, it'll be a competition between the oligarchs and mob rule from then on. Not to mention Hilzilla is likely to be able to appoint more than one Justice. I was hoping to avoid the Civil War this time.

Yeah, much like the whole "Russia, please hack Hillary" thing, this was pretty clearly a not-particularly-coherent attempt at a joke. I wouldn't call the coverage particularly biased, though-- you'd see over-the-top headlines had any candidate said something like this. This is what the media does-- spot a "gaffe" and broadcast it far and wide. It's the easiest kind of campaign reporting to do, and it draws eyeballs far better than policy analysis or poll results. (It probably feels like bias against Trump because he says idiotic stuff like this so regularly. Shockingly, when you nominate a candidate who thinks that observing common standards of decency in public discourse is a bad thing, you're going to get a candidate who says a lot of poorly considered stuff.) No it is bias against Trump. In one week Hilzilla lied about what Comey said about her, said she "short circuited", had to be virtually carried up a short flight of stairs, had the Orlando's terrorist's father seated right behind her while she commemorated the victims, just had e-mails released detailing how she used the State Department to pay off Clinton Foundation donors, and probably half a dozen other things I'm forgetting. Not to mention she explicitly hoped for Obola's assassination in 2008, which the media never mentions. And yet it's all "Trump, Trump, Trump" Socialism for thee but not for me: http://ijr.com/2016/08/668817-fresh-off-his-campaign-to-make-socialism-great-again-bernie-sanders-buys-600000-summer-house/

Hilzilla herself had said something far worse than that: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/us/politics/24clinton.html?_r=1 If it was any issue other than the Second Amendment, no one would've jumped to the conclusion he's talking about an assassination. Having said that his remark was rather cryptic, so more ammunition for the media to attack him with.

Could be just the four degrees of separation thing. Edit: Also remember the Clintons are connected to many more people than an average person. Just Bill's mistresses have to be in the thousands.

That's funny because we still have redlight cameras, and they're annoying as hell.