The US Election, Part XI

[Guard Dog]

I believe the biggest impact of the 2016 election is really at the state level. I know it has gotten some press coverage but not much. Right now you can drive from Pocatillo Idaho to Key West Florida and not pass through a single state where the Democrats control a single legislative body or governorship. In 8 of the 9 southern states the Democrats are in such a minority they are practically extinct. That is nothing short of amazing that they have fallen so low. It's not a good thing. 

 

It's no secret I despise the Democrats because they are the anti-liberty party. But we need them too. Unchecked Republican governance in not a good thing either. The government at any level works best when the competing philosophies act as a check on the excesses of the others. But for three election cycles the Democrats are falling farther behind. No granted, this can turn around really, really, quick. But for that to happen they need to understand why they have been reduced to a powerless minority in all but the West Coast, Northeast and Great Lakes. The democrats have turned their backs on the thing that gave them the most appeal and made them who they were when they were the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Truman, Jack & Bobby Kennedy. They have turned their backs on Jacksonian Democracy. Starting with McGovern and ending with Obama (with a brief respite during 6 of Clinton's 8 years) they have become the party of identity politics, social justice warriors, campus communists, and political causes. I would not even call them the party of Civil Rights because they don't find every civil right worth of defense. Quite the opposite actually. Their way forward is actually in their past. But so far that appears to be a lesson they are stubbornly refusing to learn.

[imaenoon]

We need both parties to stop trying to figure out which basic rights they want to restrict. Finally found a right both candidates of the last election want to take away... speech. Trump even wants to take away your citizenship for burning the flag. For shame!

 

Some people might not believe this, but most service people I know don't want it to be illegal to burn the flag. A good number might want to kick your ass for doing it, but hardly any of them would actually kick it.

 

I could have said ScAlito as an example of a great Justice, but I'm protesting Thomas's treatment by the museum in DC.

[Volourn]

"Trump even wants to take away your citizenship for burning the flag. For shame!"

 

So did Hillary.

 

Honestly, I think it is silly. It shows weakness when you ban things you simply dislike. What he should  is make it a celebration to burn every single non US flag once a month. Also, make a show of burning the Koran. And, so when people whine about him burning  them he can remind them, hey, you got upset when I even hinted at banning BURNING THE FLAG OF THE us.

 

I do find it funny how hypocritical both sides can be on this issue.

 

Liberals - Okay to burn the US flag as its a form of free speech but if you burn other countrys' flag or the Koran (but not the bible) you are evil and racist.

 

Conseravtives - I'm for freedom and elss gov't control but I'm gonna ban the burning of the US flag. LMAO

 

 

I say burn ALL flags! Burn all religious texts! BURNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!
 

[imaenoon]

I say burn ALL flags! Burn all religious texts! BURNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!

This made me laugh out loud. It was a crazy and frightened laugh, I'll own, but I did laugh out loud when I read it.

 

I say we should have the right to burn flags, bibles, and Korans. I say we should have the right to draw pictures of Prophets Mohammad, Jesus, Buddha, and Moses. I say we should have the right to protest Christian bakeries and gay weddings. I don't think we should do those things, only have the right to do so.

 

As for safe speech and trigger warnings? Which is safer, the person who hates in the open so he can be seen in the light or the person who hates in private and hatches schemes in the dark? Let the haters be heard so that they may be answered and all that. In a free society, safe spaces are unsafe.

[Pidesco]

I believe the biggest impact of the 2016 election is really at the state level. I know it has gotten some press coverage but not much. Right now you can drive from Pocatillo Idaho to Key West Florida and not pass through a single state where the Democrats control a single legislative body or governorship. In 8 of the 9 southern states the Democrats are in such a minority they are practically extinct. That is nothing short of amazing that they have fallen so low. It's not a good thing. 

 

It's no secret I despise the Democrats because they are the anti-liberty party. But we need them too. Unchecked Republican governance in not a good thing either. The government at any level works best when the competing philosophies act as a check on the excesses of the others. But for three election cycles the Democrats are falling farther behind. No granted, this can turn around really, really, quick. But for that to happen they need to understand why they have been reduced to a powerless minority in all but the West Coast, Northeast and Great Lakes. The democrats have turned their backs on the thing that gave them the most appeal and made them who they were when they were the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Truman, Jack & Bobby Kennedy. They have turned their backs on Jacksonian Democracy. Starting with McGovern and ending with Obama (with a brief respite during 6 of Clinton's 8 years) they have become the party of identity politics, social justice warriors, campus communists, and political causes. I would not even call them the party of Civil Rights because they don't find every civil right worth of defense. Quite the opposite actually. Their way forward is actually in their past. But so far that appears to be a lesson they are stubbornly refusing to learn.

The results of this election are a result of demographics more than anything. At the national level, I don't see how the GOP will win the popular vote again. The EC, gerrymandering and demographics (Democrats are concentrated, Republicans are spread out) are what gave the election to the GOP. The presidential election was won by 100000 votes, and Congress was, as usual defined by gerrymandering.

 

This election was mostly defined partisanship and the aggrieved, uneducated white vote.

[Gromnir]

"Trump even wants to take away your citizenship for burning the flag. For shame!"

 

So did Hillary.

 

not true.  make flag burning illegal is not the same as "take away your citizenship for burning the flag." am personally offended whenever we hear folks advocating for criminalization o' flag burning, but loss o' citizenship for flag burning is whole 'nother kinda wacky.

 

then again, is yet another example o' trump revealing how little he understands 'bout what a POTUS can do in our form o' government.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

edit: to be fair, the flag burning nonsense from trump is one o' his less dumb twitter moves in recent weeks.  trump, in spite o' election victory, is actual not particular popular.  didn't win popular vote and a considerable % of folks who did vote for him admit they don't like him.  is one o' the least popular President elects... evar.  have an unpopular Prez is no surprise given how both hillary and trump were unpopular.  

 

the thing is, prohibitions on burning the flag IS popular.  more than 50% o' the public would be in favor o' criminalization o' flag burning.  the Court and Congress (as a whole) has shown better judgement than the average citizen insofar as attempts to criminalize flag burning is concerned, but if you wanna increase popularity w/o any risk o' having to actual try and get a flag burning amendment adopted, then rail 'bout flag burning is a politically appealing option.

 

twitter nonsense 'bout flags will resonate with average citizen and will distract from some other recent trump nonsense. trump comments thus makes an ugly kinda sense. typical trump.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Gromnir

[Wrath of Dagon]

I'm with Bork on this, not Scalia. Preventing someone from desecrating the flag does not prevent them from expressing their opinion, no matter how unpopular.

[imaenoon]

The proper way to dispose of the flag is to burn it. I once went into the post office because the flag it was flying was tattered and asked to speak to the boss. When I gently but firmly expressed my dismay that they were flying a flag in such a shape she took on a sheepish expression and told me that she knew it was an issue and that a new flag was on order. I laughed but told her that I would rather they not fly one at all than to fly one in tatters.

 

As for you, Pidesco, I say this without an ounce of hostility, don't believe the white-lash philosophy. If we took out the presidential election, the democrats clearly still have work to do to shore up their flank. Use identity politics when it helps your side. Sure, it's cynical most of the time and both sides do it to some extent, but the Democrats are becoming a one trick pony.

[ShadySands]

Flag burning?

 

Did we run out of actual important issues to worry about

[aluminiumtrioxid]

we could always discuss transgender bathrooms I guess

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Personally I find book burning more abhorrent than flag burning, and, even though I don't think either should be illegal, would feel stronger about someone burning a copy of The Constitution than the flag. But maybe that's just me.

[Blodhemn]

not true.  make flag burning illegal is not the same as "take away your citizenship for burning the flag." am personally offended whenever we hear folks advocating for criminalization o' flag burning, but loss o' citizenship for flag burning is whole 'nother kinda wacky.

 

then again, is yet another example o' trump revealing how little he understands 'bout what a POTUS can do in our form o' government.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

edit: to be fair, the flag burning nonsense from trump is one o' his less dumb twitter moves in recent weeks.  trump, in spite o' election victory, is actual not particular popular.  didn't win popular vote and a considerable % of folks who did vote for him admit they don't like him.  is one o' the least popular President elects... evar.  have an unpopular Prez is no surprise given how both hillary and trump were unpopular.  

 

the thing is, prohibitions on burning the flag IS popular.  more than 50% o' the public would be in favor o' criminalization o' flag burning.  the Court and Congress (as a whole) has shown better judgement than the average citizen insofar as attempts to criminalize flag burning is concerned, but if you wanna increase popularity w/o any risk o' having to actual try and get a flag burning amendment adopted, then rail 'bout flag burning is a politically appealing option.

 

twitter nonsense 'bout flags will resonate with average citizen and will distract from some other recent trump nonsense. trump comments thus makes an ugly kinda sense. typical trump.

So he's starting to act like a politician. Congrats are in order?

[imaenoon]

Flag burning?

 

Did we run out of actual important issues to worry about

ya got an important issue, pony up, pardner.

[Blodhemn]

It also points out the hypocrisy of criticizing public schools that - unlike private or charter schools - can't reject students who aren't going to perform well, and further are being held to the standard that they 'fail' if they can't help all students.

 

The line of thinking seems so pervasive in modern thought - that essentially education is a manufacturing job.  The warehouse (school) gets material (children) with which they produce a shirt (graduate).  This is nothing like what schools actually do - in fact it kind of misses the point of education.  And I'm not saying that education in the US can't be criticized - I certainly have my own feelings about it - but it is (IMO) kind of silly to create impossible standards for public schools and then complain when the schools can't meet them.

Public schools do it too, albeit not as blatant, but you can bet some students are being shifted to gloss the records of those in cushy positions. The whole educational system is built around stats for that purpose alone.

[Agiel]

A few days ago a very good friend of mine remarked to me that the election of Trump allowed him to finally use the phrase "we are through the looking glass." It was a phrase that took a double meaning for me. A piece from Alex Wellerstein, and in line with what I've been trying to hammer home for the past year and a half, emphases mine:

 

 

 

No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons. That’s by design.

 

Sometime in the next few weeks, Donald Trump will be briefed on the procedures for how to activate the U.S. nuclear arsenal, if he hasn’t already learned about them.

 

All year, the prospect of giving the real estate and reality TV mogul the power to launch attacks that would kill millions of people was one of the main reasons his opponents argued against electing him. “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons,” Hillary Clinton said in her speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. She cut an ad along the same lines. Republicans who didn’t support Trump — and even some who did, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) — also said they didn’t think he could be trusted with the launch codes.

 

Now they’re his. When Trump takes office in January, he will have sole authority over more than 7,000 warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of U.S. nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president — and only the president — can use them whenever he decides to do so. The only sure way to keep President Trump from launching a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the early Cold War, would have been to elect someone else.

 

* * *

 

When the legal framework for nuclear weapons was developed, the fear wasn’t about irrational presidents but trigger-happy generals. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which was passed with President Harry Truman’s signature after nine months of acrimonious congressional hearings, firmly put the power of the atomic bomb in the hands of the president and the civilian components of the executive branch. It was a momentous and controversial law, crafted in the months following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with an eye toward future standoffs with the Soviet Union.

 

The members of Congress who wrote the law, largely with the backing of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, framed it explicitly as a question of who controls the power to use nuclear weapons: Is dropping an atomic bomb a military act or a political one? If it is inherently political, above and beyond a regular military tactic, then that power could not be entrusted to the military. Ultimately, the president was supposed to be the check against the Pentagon pushing to use nukes more often.

 

 

The scientists’ fears were based in their experiences in World War II. Their work under the Army Corps of Engineers and the Army Air Forces left them with a sour taste: Generals, they concluded, cared little about ethics, democracy or international politics. Even during the war, some civilians involved with atomic-bombing work feared that the military had become too eager to leave German and Japanese cities in cinders. The secretary of war, Henry Stimson, learned about the ruinous firebombing of Tokyo from the press. He warned Truman that letting the military run the show might cause the United States to “get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities.”

 

This division between military and civilian control over nuclear weapons has been weaker or stronger at various points. In the late 1940s, U.S. nuclear weapons could have their nuclear components — the plutonium or uranium “pits” needed to start their reactions — removed and inserted as needed. The nuclear parts of the atomic bombs were in the custody of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission (the precursor to the present-day Energy Department), while the military controlled the nonnuclear parts. The president had the power to transfer these pits to the military and order their use.

 

During the Eisenhower administration, more compact and complex weapons were developed whose nuclear and nonnuclear parts could not be separated. Fearing a Soviet sneak attack, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put the military in charge of most of the U.S. nuclear stockpile to streamline a possible response. Eisenhower also “pre-delegated” authority to the military to use tactical nuclear weapons (aimed at tanks, not cities) without getting specific presidential approval in certain situations, such as if Soviet tank columns rolled into Germany’s Fulda Gap.

 

Fears of low-level commanders setting off nuclear conflagrations during the tensions of the early 1960s persuaded President John F. Kennedy to dial some of this back. Miscommunications during the Cuban missile crisis almost led to the use of nuclear weapons by both U.S. and Soviet troops, and U.S. weapons stationed abroad, such as the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, could be used by any army that seized control of them. There were also lingering concerns about “Strangelove”-esque rogue generals. The head of the Strategic Air Command, Gen. Thomas Power, was an enthusiastic proponent of preemptive nuclear war.

 

 

Similar concerns within the upper reaches of the Kennedy administration led to a push for technologies to “lock” the nuclear weapons and prevent their use without some kind of codes or authorization. Some early versions were as primitive as combination locks, but later versions were complex electro-mechanical systems that could physically disable a weapon if it were tampered with or if the wrong code was entered too many times.

 

Eventually, the brass adopted the idea that, when it came to nuclear matters, they were at the beck and call of the president. It was not generals’ responsibility to make the order; it was their responsibility to carry it out.

 

 

That the president would be the only person competent to use nuclear weapons was never challenged. Even asking the question would throw the entire system into disarray, as Maj. Harold Hering learned in 1973. Hering was a 21-year Air Force veteran who was decorated for his flying in Vietnam before being sent for training as a nuclear missile squadron commander. He had been taught that officers had an obligation to disobey illegal orders. So when he was told how to launch a nuclear attack, he asked what seemed like a simple question: How could he be sure that an order to launch his missiles was lawful? How could he be sure, for example, that the president wasn’t insane? Instead of an answer, he got the boot: an aborted promotion and an administrative discharge for “failure to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership” and for indicating “a defective mental attitude towards his duties.”

 

The Air Force’s problem, in short, is that once a serviceman starts down the rabbit hole of doubt, he becomes an unreliable second-guesser — and suddenly he is one of the few people who can decide whether nuclear weapons are used.

 

* * *

 

The procedure for ordering a nuclear attack involves more than one person: The president cannot literally press a button on his desk and start World War III. There is no “nuclear button” at all. Instead, the U.S. nuclear command-and-control system is bureaucratically and technically complex, stretching out to encompass land-based missile silos, submarine-based ballistic and cruise missiles, and weapons capable of being dropped from bombers. The chain of command requires that the president order the secretary of defense to carry out a launch; the secretary serves as the conduit for implementation by the military. There are succession policies in place so that the procedure can be continued in the event of the death or incapacitation of either the president or the secretary of defense — or their designated successors.

 

 

Most details of how a nuclear war would be started are classified, because an enemy who knew enough about the system could come up with ways to complicate or defeat it. What is known is that an aide is always following the president, carrying at least one large satchel (often two) known as the “nuclear football,” reportedly containing information about nuclear attack possibilities and how the president could verify his identity, authenticate orders and communicate with the military about implementing them.

 

 

Could the secretary of defense refuse to carry out a presidential order for a nuclear attack? The legal and constitutional aspects are not clear. The official doctrine that has been released says nothing about this question, and the cryptic public responses to official inquiries, even from Congress, indicate that it is not something that can be openly talked about. “Only the president can authorize the use of nuclear weapons” is essentially the only reply officials ever give to any questions about nuclear controls. Could the president simply fire the defense secretary and move on to the deputy secretary, the secretary of the Army and so on through the chain of command? Maybe. Such an action would at least slow things down, even if the refusal to carry out the order was illegal.

 

Commanders further down the pipeline are trained to act quickly on any orders that do come in. The launch officers are trained to launch weapons, not to debate the legality or advisability of the action. Hence the problem with Hering’s question in 1973: While nuclear launch officers are not meant to be strictly mechanical (and indeed, the United States has always resisted fully automating the process), if they stopped to question whether their authenticated orders were legitimate, they would put the credibility of U.S. nuclear deterrence at risk.

 

Congress held hearings on these issues in the mid-1970s, but nothing came of them. The debate faded away except among a small circle of nuclear wonks. In the early 1980s, Jeremy Stone, then the president of the Federation of American Scientists, proposed that Congress ought to pass a law restricting presidential use of nuclear weapons. The idea was fairly simple: So long as no nuclear weapons had been used by another power in a conflict, the president should not be able to order a first strike with nuclear weapons without getting approval from a fairly large committee of high-ranking members of Congress. It would not eliminate the possibility of an American first strike but would spread the responsibility more democratically.

 

 

The idea was pooh-poohed by legal scholars, who noted that Congress has often been far more belligerent than presidents and that the logistics could be complicated.

 

The people who set up the current command-and-control system did believe there was a check in place: elections. Don’t want an insane president to have nuclear weapons? Don’t put one in office. But this isn’t necessarily much of a check — even rational presidents have bad days; even high-functioning people succumb to mental illness or substance abuse.

 

It might be worth resurrecting this debate , if we take seriously the idea that presidents — any of them, much less Trump — should not have the legal authority to conduct arbitrary and unilateral nuclear war. Perhaps now, decades after the end of the Cold War, we are past the moment when we need to entrust that power in a single person. One can imagine a law that would allow the president to use nuclear weapons in the face of imminent danger, the sort of situation in which a matter of minutes or even seconds could make a difference, but would enact formal requirements for outside consensus when more options were on the table. It would not require a full renunciation of the possibility of a first-strike nuclear attack (something the United States has never been willing to make) but might add some reassurances that such decisions would not be made unilaterally.

 

Congress ceded a considerable amount of power to the presidency in 1946. Seventy years later, maybe it is time lawmakers took some of it back.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Agiel

[ShadySands]

 

Flag burning?

 

Did we run out of actual important issues to worry about

ya got an important issue, pony up, pardner.

I wish I could influence the national discussion but I'm just a random guy on a random website

[Deadly_Nightshade]

 

 

Flag burning?

Did we run out of actual important issues to worry about

 

ya got an important issue, pony up, pardner.

I wish I could influence the national discussion but I'm just a random guy on a random website

Who gives away free games to, the horror, people who haven't earned them by the sweat of their brow! Communist! You seek to use your vile whiles undetermine the capitalist game distribution systems and bring games to the masses! You're a monster! A red menace!

 

And I cannot keep a straight face typing this any longer so I'll stop there.

[Meshugger]

There's no secret that no likes, including me, Trump's pick for secretary of the treasury, but who is this Mattis guy that he just picked for secretary of defence?

 

//edit, nvm it's one bad mother****er. 

 

Edited December 1, 2016 by Meshugger

[Agiel]

You're kidding, right?

 

 

At any rate, I've had my reservations about such a decision, but the fact that in terms of fopol he couldn't be any more different from Trump if he tried allays some of my concerns over the next four years:

 

https://youtu.be/SCD5zHBNWG8?t=12m29s

Edited December 1, 2016 by Agiel

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I think he was considering running against Trump at one point?

[ShadySands]

 

 

 

Flag burning?

Did we run out of actual important issues to worry about

ya got an important issue, pony up, pardner.

I wish I could influence the national discussion but I'm just a random guy on a random website

Who gives away free games to, the horror, people who haven't earned them by the sweat of their brow! Communist! You seek to use your vile whiles undetermine the capitalist game distribution systems and bring games to the masses! You're a monster! A red menace!

 

And I cannot keep a straight face typing this any longer so I'll stop there.

I've been discovered

[Leferd]

You're kidding, right?

 

 

At any rate, I've had my reservations about such a decision, but the fact that in terms of fopol he couldn't be any more different from Trump if he tried allays some of my concerns over the next four years:

 

I know he's held in high esteem by certain Marines in this forum, and reports indicate he's competent, very intelligent, and nuanced --but like a separation of powers between the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary bodies of governmrnt, there should be an explicit chain of command of clear civilian leadership over the military at the Pentagon. That's why the 8 (formerly 10) year rule between military service and DoD leadership is in effect. It's a good and prudent law.

[imaenoon]

 

 

Flag burning?

 

Did we run out of actual important issues to worry about

ya got an important issue, pony up, pardner.

 

I wish I could influence the national discussion but I'm just a random guy on a random website

 

Aren't we all, brother?

 

The whole world is a testimony to random guys on random websites who have no monument or lasting tribute but whose ideas last even after they've signed off. You never know what impact an idea will have and it doesn't matter whether you thought of the idea (as if any of us have an original thought) or if you just happened to the latest person on the food chain. You've got some 2000 posts or so according to that thing under your name. I'm sure there's something in there worth keeping. I bet you can even remember an exchange you had with some other random guy or another on this board. I don't know how long it takes to get to 2k posts, but even someone more random than you, namely me, can still duke it out. ...And even though I'm not stupid enough to think that most of what I type is read, I'm an American. I derive some satisfaction out of speaking my mind to the crowd, even if an empty crowd.

 

I've got 16 posts, although for some reason I thought I had more. No problem. Empty words on a random message board or not, I'll keep typing and hope you're not all figments of my imagination. Well, for some of you commie rat bastards, I actually do hope you're figments. :angel:

Edited December 1, 2016 by imaenoon

[ShadySands]

You most definitely do have more than 16 posts but the ones in Way Off Topic don't count towards your tally

[Leferd]

When it comes to post counts, I always think on what, if anything our eldars would say about them. Cant think of any other alternatives.