The Political Thread - Burlamaqui edition

[Guard Dog]

Shifting gears a little. This is an interesting read on public sector unions, particularly teachers unions following the SCOTUS Janus decision last year. https://www.city-journal.org/teacher-freedom-post-janus-world-16206.html

 

I have no problem with Unions per se, but I am 1000% opposed to the compulsory aspect of them. I get my hackles up every time someone tells me "you HAVE to do this". My knee jerk response to that is usually to suggest they go perform an anatomically impossible sex act on themselves. 

[Malcador]

And Mattis is stepping down.

 

https://twitter.com/Elizabeth_McLau/status/1075881565216010246

Edited December 20, 2018 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

Shifting gears a little. This is an interesting read on public sector unions, particularly teachers unions following the SCOTUS Janus decision last year. https://www.city-journal.org/teacher-freedom-post-janus-world-16206.html

 

I have no problem with Unions per se, but I am 1000% opposed to the compulsory aspect of them. I get my hackles up every time someone tells me "you HAVE to do this". My knee jerk response to that is usually to suggest they go perform an anatomically impossible sex act on themselves. 

 

Yeah, the only thing worse than a Union having too much power is a school district having too much power, unfortunately.

 

The best thing I find is keeping both the school districts and unions small enough in scale to allow the employees to have enough influence to matter. My wife and I are both in smaller districts, and the union basically begs us to get involved and help with negotiations and site representation. On the adverse, my wife was part of a big district and had pretty much no say on the goings on. They did have better lawyers though.

[Zoraptor]

And Mattis is stepping down.

 

https://twitter.com/Elizabeth_McLau/status/1075881565216010246

 

Won't lie, I was hoping for Bolton rather than Mattis and I'm still holding out hope there.

 

Not a fan of everything he did- no chance of that, realistically- but Mattis clearly acted as a moderation on Trump's impulses and since he's also clearly quit at least in part over the Kurdish abandonment he has far more moral fibre than could be expected of anyone in a political position. There's also a very good chance there would have been a shooting war with Russia in Syria if he hadn't sat Donald down for a Talk. Having someone there who knew that Russia would not back down and was willing to tell Trump that was absolutely essential.

[Malcador]

I hold out hope Bolton is retired from the human race, myself. Reprehensible little man.

[Cpl Halsbart]

Morality doesn't hold middle eastern coalitions together, and the kurds are by no means a worthy or moral people. Trump was elected to not only build a gigantic wall, but to leave Israel's wars to them to sort out. Neither of which he's even tried to fulfill, outside the twitterverse and blaming somebody else.

[injurai]

Nobody is making that caricature of deified morality. Kurds are not a worthless nor immoral people. They are allies who seek to uphold their own dignity. Trump wasn't elected to fulfill any vision of any lay-person whatsoever. Trump's populist posturing is solely a power tactic to spin people's wheels to bring consolation deals closer to something that he does ultimately want to pursuing things so destitute and outlandish that other's strike bad deals.

[Cpl Halsbart]

Nobody is making that caricature of deified morality. Kurds are not a worthless nor immoral people. They are allies who seek to uphold their own dignity. Trump wasn't elected to fulfill any vision of any lay-person whatsoever.

I never said deified, I said they aren't worthy of my aid or my countrymen's blood. Again, if these proxies wish to continue, then they can. Let them manifest their will. That's war.

 

any lay person

 

Why do you spin the narrative like this? As if appealing to authority is any refuge for this argument. I don't know when you began paying attention, but resistance to involving ourselves in further sandpeople tarbabies isn't a high-low struggle. You'll find plenty of non "laymen" agreeing the middle east is unsolvable and the occupation exhausting if you just look.

 

Trump's populist posturing is solely a power tactic to spin people's wheels to bring consolation deals closer to something that he does ultimately want to pursuing things so destitute and outlandish that other's strike bad deals.

There must be a missing comma.

 

He was elected to clear out, and he does owe his electorate that, or he isn't getting reelected. He does not, on the other hand, owe kurds a thing for the mistakes of previous administrations tying themselves to police duties a world away.

[injurai]

I said deify to mark out your caricature of morality as a sapient personification. Nobody had done so, so jesting at such a thought is merely straw-manning. There is a reason we argue that individuals must uphold and re-inculcate morals into politics. I'm also pointing out that Trump wasn't elected to build a wall or to oppose Israel, his populist promises to lay-people was always duplicity. The most that will come of the wall with be laundering fund through construction companies in pockets of "renovation."

 

To rewrite that run on sentence. Trump's populist posturing is solely a power tactic. He spins people's wheels with destitute and outlandish demands to force a consolation deal which is closer to what he actually wants and pulls negotiation power away from the other table. Empty gestures to seek re-election is not the same as fulfilling some debt owed to his electorate. Which he isn't actually held to fulfill and thus won't, because his motivations lie elsewhere.

 

 

sandpeople tarbabies

 

Is this what passes as a valid conception to you?

[Cpl Halsbart]

Its still a word salad. You don't need to say he's a pressure-release and liar in so many words. Where do his motivations lie, would you like to be specific?

 

He was however elected to fulfill those terms, regardless of anything agreed behind the scenes - he was elected to build a wall, deport, and pull out of the middle east, and whether you think his supporters will hold him to that in 2020 is just your opinion. I suspect they will abandon him, and that does matter to his reelection, because even if we all take for granted democracy is a farce, the farce matters to a watching public, who want to feel they pull the levers.

 

A valid concept? My god mate, you know what banter is right? This is still the internet, even if there must be a pretense at decorum, or is this a uni lecture and words aren't allowed? A tarbaby is an unsolvable problem that only becomes worse, and sandpeople explains itself I think. I'm pretty sure you know what I mean, especially when taken with the surrounding context, which was the middle east is unsolvable.

 

The United States have amply supplied these kurds with the means to stand, and that was not even our motive to be there in the first place. We created ISIS to sow chaos and topple Syria as we had Lybia and Egypt, and to draw Iran into a war. I'm willing to bet we're pulling out of Syria, just to hit Iran directly next year.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Cpl Halsbart

[HoonDing]

Trump needs a new war to up his approval rating

[Cpl Halsbart]

No president I know of has been voted out during a war, so that might be part of it, but Iran lives rent free in every neocon's brain.

 

 

Funny how the more we try to make desert world western, the more like desert world the west becomes.

[Malcador]

Oliver North for Sec Def ?

[smjjames]

The Syrian Kurds DO NOT want a state. They want (con)federalism within Syria and not to be ethnically cleansed by Erdogan's jihadi goons like in Afrin. Philosophically their belief is more or less that States should become obsolete, but they've not espoused independence from Syria, just internal changes within. There aren't enough Kurds there for it to be feasible, they don't have enough resources and their relations with the government have historically been if nowhere near good in absolute terms at least better than in other countries. There's also been very little fighting between Kurdish groups and the Syrian government during the Civil War and a lot of negotiation and communication on all sorts of issues.

 

Absent outside intervention (like some sort of map redrawing as happened after WWI), they'd also have to almost literally (or even literally) carve their way into existence and would have to fight everybody that their territory covers. Iraq really doesn't want them to leave because a lot of their oil is in Kurdish territory and would fight to keep it if it came to that (though it'd likely be a last resort), Turkey certainly doesn't want to lose roughly a quarter of their territory, Iran wouldn't put up with it either, and Syria may be too much of a clusterf*** to care.

 

No president I know of has been voted out during a war, so that might be part of it, but Iran lives rent free in every neocon's brain.

 

 

Funny how the more we try to make desert world western, the more like desert world the west becomes.

 

*Ahem* LBJ and the Vietnam War? Though I think he simply decided not to run rather than voted out? Lemme check. Edit: Yeah, he decided not to run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson#1968_presidential_election Sounds like he could very well have been heading for being voted out.

 

And by desert world, you mean Arrakis, right?

 

Just had to plug that reference, lol.

Edited December 22, 2018 by smjjames

[Guard Dog]

The Spice must flow!

 

 

On a separate not it occurs to me Donald Trump might be doing us all a real favor. He may well kill off the notion of the "celebrity President" for good and all. The US has been flirting with it for decades and finally pushed the button in '16. Don't think we'll be doing that again. 

[Cpl Halsbart]

Well, Americans have always loved celebrity. Even de Tocqueville notes it in his letters.

 

https://youtu.be/obFPLRuP41w

 

Oliver North for Sec Def ?

The **** show would feed a small country. Edited December 22, 2018 by Cpl Halsbart

[Zoraptor]

..Iraq really doesn't want them to leave because a lot of their oil is in Kurdish territory and would fight to keep it if it came to that (though it'd likely be a last resort)..

 

 

Definitely, indeed they did fight to keep it after the abortive independence referendum in northern Iraq last year- though that was far from a full on conflict and had only a few hundred deaths.

 

Syria is a bit of an odd man out in that they fairly actively supported Kurdish separatism via the PKK. The current PYD/ SDC (YPG/ SDF) shares a parent organisation with the PKK so they have had better relations than most despite a fair few institutional negatives.

[Bartimaeus]

The Spice must flow!

 

 

On a separate not it occurs to me Donald Trump might be doing us all a real favor. He may well kill off the notion of the "celebrity President" for good and all. The US has been flirting with it for decades and finally pushed the button in '16. Don't think we'll be doing that again. 

 

There have been some on the left who've wanted Oprah to run, as well as Michael Avenatti, but there were also plenty of others who've said "screw that". Not that the job should necessarily be limited exclusively to politicians, but if you're going to have any kind of celebrity run, it should ideally be someone who...I don't know, has some kind of experience being an actual person, preferably someone who has walked a significant portion of their life in a regular person's shoes? I'm not gonna vote for some crappy talking head who has a history of buying into obvious bullcrap and recommending it to others like Oprah (and never mind her political stances which I don't even know what are), or some awful political opportunist with a whole lot of baggage like Avenatti...but maybe I'd vote for...I'm not even sure, to be honest. Are there any celebrities who seem like real people that have some sort of vaguely qualifying experience?

Edited December 22, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[injurai]

The Spice must flow!

 

 

On a separate not it occurs to me Donald Trump might be doing us all a real favor. He may well kill off the notion of the "celebrity President" for good and all. The US has been flirting with it for decades and finally pushed the button in '16. Don't think we'll be doing that again. 

 

He won't. People will be back at the faucet. Another reason accelerationism is more of a form of bargaining.

[smjjames]

 

The Spice must flow!

 

 

On a separate not it occurs to me Donald Trump might be doing us all a real favor. He may well kill off the notion of the "celebrity President" for good and all. The US has been flirting with it for decades and finally pushed the button in '16. Don't think we'll be doing that again. 

 

There have been some on the left who've wanted Oprah to run, as well as Michael Avenatti, but there were also plenty of others who've said "screw that". Not that the job should necessarily be limited exclusively to politicians, but if you're going to have any kind of celebrity run, it should ideally be someone who...I don't know, has some kind of experience being an actual person, preferably someone who has walked a significant portion of their life in a regular person's shoes? I'm not gonna vote for some crappy talking head who has a history of buying into obvious bullcrap and recommending it to others like Oprah (and never mind her political stances which I don't even know what are), or some awful political opportunist with a whole lot of baggage like Avenatti...but maybe I'd vote for...I'm not even sure, to be honest. Are there any celebrities who seem like real people that have some sort of vaguely qualifying experience?

 

 

I think a lot of it is just people going for whoever seems the coolest at the moment since there is a lack of a real frontrunner and it's all speculation at this point. I'm sure all of you (well, those in the US and those outside who were paying attention) remember the pre-2016 speculation of a clash of dynasties (with obligatory Game of Thrones comparisons) between the Clintons and the Bushes.

 

"but maybe I'd vote for...I'm not even sure, to be honest. Are there any celebrities who seem like real people that have some sort of vaguely qualifying experience?"

 

No idea. Ronald Reagan? heh. I suppose it depends on what sort of celebrity you're talking about, the Hollywood/music industry variety or the more self-made celebrity because they're just cool or are a popular person.

 

Anyhow, both parties want a 'Mattis clone' 'in order to check Trumps isolationist impulses' https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/21/senators-want-a-mattis-clone-1051069 That they want someone who hews to the same warhawkish ideas as Mattis isn't surprising, but it doesn't seem like Mattis has checked Trumps isolationist impulses all that much. Sure, he might have tamped down on some of the impulsivity, but the isolationism is unabated.

[HoonDing]

 

this guy is the president

 

lmao

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The Spice must flow!

 

 

On a separate not it occurs to me Donald Trump might be doing us all a real favor. He may well kill off the notion of the "celebrity President" for good and all. The US has been flirting with it for decades and finally pushed the button in '16. Don't think we'll be doing that again.

 

They elected a dementia addled cowboy actor almost 4 decades ago so I wouldn't count on that. If anything President Tekashi 6ix9ine is more likely to happen now.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

this guy is the president

 

lmao

Seems like Trump's got something on his mind.

[Guard Dog]

 

The Spice must flow!

 

 

On a separate not it occurs to me Donald Trump might be doing us all a real favor. He may well kill off the notion of the "celebrity President" for good and all. The US has been flirting with it for decades and finally pushed the button in '16. Don't think we'll be doing that again.

They elected a dementia addled cowboy actor almost 4 decades ago so I wouldn't count on that. If anything President Tekashi 6ix9ine is more likely to happen now.

 

Not the same thing. Reagan had been out of show business and in politics for 24 years when we was elected.

[Cpl Halsbart]

Removed for violating the forum guidelines.

 

~ Gorgon.