Wrath of Dagon

I consider China a dangerous enemy, so their economy doing bad is good news. Last time we weren't particularly affected by the Asian financial crisis, so hopefully it'll be the same this time.

Very precious.

Good reason not to answer the question.

Let's not pretend that either of us are constitutional lawyers. But the Supreme Court did not make any laws here. They looked at the laws that were designed to keep gay couples from marrying and found them unjust. I actually think there is a case for the fact that this opened the door for a lot of possible religious freedom issues, and you can argue that the Supreme Court did not do a good job of clarifying the extent of this ruling. That would be a logical argument. But trying to argue they've set aside the Constitution and have gone mad with power smacks of shock jock radio tactics. You don't need to be a constitutional lawyer to understand that what you claim is in the Constitution just isn't there, you just need basic reading comprehension. And what kind of a citizen are you to claim you can't even understand the Constitution? And you a history teacher too, no wonder out country is so screwed up! Do you ever teach your students about Marbury vs Madison or do you only teach them gay, transgender and minority victimization history? Current law is that someone's religious freedom can not be abridged unless there's a compelling government reason for doing so, and it's done in the least restrictive way possible. Also you'd have to show it's a sincerely held believe, not just something you made up on the spot. Anyway, how many people would openly patronize a nazi run business? Edit: It's already established you can't discriminate in a public business based on race, religious objections or not.

No, Constitution doesn't make that quite clear at all. I suggest you read it before spouting off. The Supreme Court exists to interpret laws, not to make them. What's unjust to you may be perfectly just to someone else, that is not how jurisprudence works.

Then why bother with democracy and laws and Constitution at all? Why not just appoint a just dictator?

Only if you define "tyranny of the majority" as "I didn't get my way, no matter what the laws and the Constitution says". If you don't like a law, work to change it, the courts are not a legislature. That's because most Republican candidates are owned by corporations, and even for the ones that aren't this isn't a real vote getter issue. You'd first have to explain what TPP does, and there are much more visceral issues to talk about. Edit: Interesting aside, I just installed Windows 10 and their Edge browser doesn't let me quote posts. May be some security setting I have to change.

I already said that by Kennedy's legal reasoning you can find a right to anything, so yes, it's a bad decision. This is a case of the Court acting as an unelected legislature, which it's done since 1930's. So what we have in this country is the tyranny of the judiciary.

Found a few problems in Cyanide's Game of Thrones. For one there's a game breaking bug in Chapter 9 where you have to sneak through a dungeon and there seems to be no way out, so I ran around and around and couldn't figure it out. Turns out from watching walkthroughs there's a guard that's supposed to be patrolling so you can sneak past him but he's just standing in one place, blocking the way. Finally figured out if I reload the start of the dungeon I could quickly go there and trigger him normally. Then there's a long timed fight (the only timed so far and hopefully the last) that's easy to fail, plus it gets tough at the end so you're likely to die, and no saves anywhere. I got frustrated and did it on easy, hate repeating long sequences. In one place there's a long sequence of several conversations and cutscenes and no saves allowed until after a tough fight that follows. Very douchy. But still a great game overall.

If you're still talking about America, there wasn't any bill that was passed, it was decided by one man. And you can come up with any right you want using his logic. As far as Socialism, it means the government has a monopoly on the means of production, so there can be no free market in a monopoly. The government decides what's to be produced and how much it will cost. There can be no freedom either, because everyone works for the government and is completely dependent on the government, so no one can go against it. As far as our system of government, yes it is more of an plutocracy/oligarchy than a democracy, but that's entirely because of the ignorant and apathetic voters who are easily swayed by any commercial they see instead of thinking for themselves. The Founders of the Republic said democracy wasn't possible without educated voters, and they were right.

Venezuela is an excellent example of what would happen here if Sanders and his ilk ever took over. Remember, Venezuelan government was also elected, perhaps with some fraud, but we have lots of fraud here as well. And Obola is already completely ignoring the rule of law. The existence of a private sector requires repression and authoritarianism. Edit: Where's my avatar? In what way are you being repressed? OK, so using the alternative definition social democrat = socialist so your making a distinction earlier is redundant. No one argues he wants a violent overthrow of the government or Stalinist repression. But government is always coercive, so once he establishes a confiscatory level of taxation whoever refuses to pay will still go to prison, just like the guy in my quote (of course he'd need a like minded Congress and I don't see that happening soon, but that seems like a poor argument for electing someone President). You already go to prison if you don't pay taxes in the US. See Wesley Snipes. But we don't have confiscatory levels of taxation yet. So how would you explain Scandinavia ranking better in competition, ease of making buisness, lower corruption, democratic participation and on and on...? We've had much much stricter government oversight and taxation than you guys for basically 150 years. Shouldn't we have devovled into totalitarian states by now? By your definitions... Edit: in any case - I'd love to see an America with much more power given back to the individual states.. Your strength is your pluralism, centralization doesn't seem to fit you as well as us of a more Germanic mindset.. Perhaps its some of that Italian ancestry, they never could handle it either.. Your second paragraph is spot on. Scandinavian societies are small, homogeneous, and have a completely different culture from US. Also you don't have actual Socialism, just a smaller private sector supporting a larger public sector through high taxes which you apparently don't mind paying.

OK, so using the alternative definition social democrat = socialist so your making a distinction earlier is redundant. No one argues he wants a violent overthrow of the government or Stalinist repression. But government is always coercive, so once he establishes a confiscatory level of taxation whoever refuses to pay will still go to prison, just like the guy in my quote (of course he'd need a like minded Congress and I don't see that happening soon, but that seems like a poor argument for electing someone President).

http://iremember.ru/memoirs/tankisti/vershinin-nikolay-petrovich/ What does this have to do with Sanders? He's trying to paint Sanders as a Tankie while the reality is that Sanders is a Social Democrat. Then why does he call himself a Socialist and not a Social Democrat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy Does he not know what Socialism means, or is he lying? And why was he a member of the Socialist party? Edit: Btw, the Liberty Union party he started his political career with not only endorsed candidates from the Socialist party but even the pro-Stalin Workers World Party, although I don't know to what extent he was still affiliated with LU at that point.

Sanders had a wet dream : http://iremember.ru/memoirs/tankisti/vershinin-nikolay-petrovich/

Too bad Trump's evil plan will be ruined when Hillary winds up in prison. On Sanders : http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/09/bernie-sanders-is-now-effectively-a-hostage-of-blacklivesmatter/

You were expecting deep political intrigue from a BioWare game? Snide comment aside, Orzammar was far and away the best part of that game, IMHO, largely because it was based around political intrigue. It still wasn't the deepest web of intrigue, but it was several hundred fathoms deeper than anything else in the game, and it would have been a significantly better game had the rest of it been more like Orzammar. I didn't think Orzammar worked well at all (the political sloganeering was pretty funny, but that's about it), of course I also apparently missed some of it. As far as Bioware expectations, I loved KOTOR and to lesser extent Jade Empire, so in my hero worship I expected them to keep improving, but got just the opposite.

You answered your own question.

This guy has been arrested 6 times in the last 15 months, yet he wasn't a deportation priority under Obola's new rules : http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/08/07/california-sheriff-points-finger-at-sanctuary-city-laws-for-cause-veteran/

Playing Cyanide's Game of Thrones RPG. I have to say it's the kind of political intrigue I was expecting from DA:O but never got.

I'm not too worried about US economy right now, I think it's pretty solid. Long term we got problems because of the utter disinterest/inability to control debt or unfunded liabilities.

Sanders on immigration : http://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9014491/bernie-sanders-vox-conversation Agree 100%, except he should've said "corporatist" instead of "right-wing", but I guess to him it's one and the same.

Israel cooperates with US plenty covertly. And sometimes it's what you don't do, like Israel never reacted when Iraq was firing Scud missiles at it one after another during the first Iraq war, because US asked it not to so as not to disrupt the Arab coalition we assembled.

...which is in no small part caused by the US war on drugs. In no small part caused by failure to secure the border, letting the drug cartels have free reign.

Yes, much better to have our border controlled by the Mexican drug cartels, we just have to hope they're professional and low key http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/22/afl-cio-controlled-union-intervenes-cancels-trumps-border-tour-planned-by-local-agents/ You think letting in even more unskilled low-wage labor is going to quench the desire of people to move here? Our immigration quotas are always full, what are you going to do, double, triple, quadruple them? As far as Mexicans helping us deal with our criminal activity, you mean like letting El Chapo escape? Mexico is corrupt through and through, they can't even begin to deal with their own huge criminality problem, let alone help us deal with ours. Try to base your suggestions on something at least approaching reality please.

You'll notice they actually polled the party establishment, not the party base.