Trump MAGAthread VIII: Make the MAGAthread Great Again

[Alvecia]

And who decides what is "important for the people to know"?

I would assume the people.

That'd take fucking forever to sort out.

[Proctopeo]

I would assume the people.

That'd take fucking forever to sort out.

I never said it would be efficient

[Ifreann]

No it isn't. That doesn't make any sense at all. How do you hold Donald Trump accountable by reading private texts he sends to his wife? Or his children?

And you've been talking about taking away the rights of the members of political parties, not just candidates. Who's gonna volunteer to work with a campaign when you have to turn over your tax returns, medical history, family photo albums, and everything else about your life to be entered into the public record? Fucking no one.

We don't need to go that far. Just enough that's important for the people to know.

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

[The Flutterlands]

We don't need to go that far. Just enough that's important for the people to know.

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

...I just want transparency in Leadership and Government. What's wrong with that? We can hold them accountable with protest and voting

[Dumb Ideologies]

We don't need to go that far. Just enough that's important for the people to know.

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

Maybe every politician's emails should have to be on an easily hackable non-government account? Hillary died for our sins and to show us the way!

[The Flutterlands]

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

Maybe every politician's emails should have to be on an easily hackable non-government account? Hillary died for our sins and to show us the way!

Well, to be honest another lesson in this mess is to have better security.

[Proctopeo]

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

Maybe every politician's emails should have to be on an easily hackable non-government account? Hillary died for our sins and to show us the way!

Just put them on Sony's servers.
They're hacked every other weekend by toddlers!

[Astrolinium]

But the DNC and RNC wouldn't be running the country.

You're saying that the only two significant political parties in the U.S aren't trying to run the Country? Or that the DNC isn't the Democratic Party and the RNC isn't the Republican party?

Our elected officials run the country. The DNC and RNC include elected officials in their ranks, but the greater amount of their members are not elected to any public office and are private individuals who have been chosen at the precinct, county, district, and, ultimately, state levels to represent their communities each step up the ladder. They run their respective parties, but they don't run the country.

[AiliailiA]

Only because you keep sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming whenever someone tries to demonstrate that yes, the cyberattacks happened.

I never said that cyberattacks didn't happen. I'm questioning the accusations of who actually did the attacks.

Well at least you're no longer insisting he's innocent because he hasn't been proven guilty yet.

Not much of step now, you just have to admit that going along with a criminal mastermind's plan, knowing it is illegal, is actually collusion.

Oh, and admitting that the GRU are actually criminal masterminds. It's not so hard if you consider the average educational level of Russian citizens (higher than the US), the obvious laxity of internet law in Russia, the weak private sector of online business (legal business: it does not thrive because it is not protected by law), and the massive corrupt privileges of anyone who works for Putin or for the kleptocrats. The best Russian hacking talent goes to government, that's the only way which is lucrative AND safe.

By the way, our own democratic security services aren't spotless either. Free range hackers, criminals, are given immunity and given a job when they're caught. Only very rarely are they caught and then charged with a crime. It's pretty much the perfect contract for security services: you work for us, we pay you well and give you some privileges, but don't ever forget that open-and-shut case of hacking. We have that over you.

Ultimately, I think you'll be left defending Trump (on presumption of innocence, to your credit), with nothing more than "yes he did collude, he must have known he colluded, but the poor fellow is too naive to understand that collusion with a foreign government in a presidential election actually matters ... much" and after all putting most of the blame on some foreigners, not on Trump himself.

Which I can sort of see. Donald Trump is hopelessly lightweight, he's a babe in the woods. It is his fault if he knowingly accepted help in his campaign, from agents of a foreign government (because that is blatantly illegal, anyone running for President should know it is), but after all it can be excused as him being a small person, out of his depth, and basically being stupid. It's technically a crime, but despite the law I have some sympathy for people too stupid to know they're breaking the law.

No sympathy from me, for the Trump voters. Nearly half of the voters, about a fifth of the entire US population, voted for that fart in a suit. If you were one of them, I wish you nothing but heartbreak and disappointment, and a hard lesson learned.

1.) I'm insisting if he's guilty of anything if not innocent. I just find all the collusion accusations utterly far fetched not to mention difficult to prove because there is no legal basis..

2.) Regardless, even if Trump did collude, I still don't think he should be impeached because I don't want to be in a universe where Mike "Pray the Gay away" Pence is President and, call it petty, but I see Trump's Presidency as punishment for Establishment Democrats for 2016. The Democrats deserved to get hacked by the Russians or whatever and lose to Donald Trump for screwing over Bernie Sanders and Progressive voters because they tried pushing a moderate Republican in Democrat clothing on us.

1.) Donald Trump is Not Guilty. He hasn't been proven guilty, and he probably never will be proven guilty ... removal from office by Senate conviction would not convince me, only a trial in court would convince me. The big precedent of Richard Nixon shows that resigning the office of President is enough to escape trial for crimes, so Donald Trump will never even be tried in court, whether or not he committed a crime during the election campaign.

Don't tell me he is innocent though. I will just laugh.

2.) You maybe had a point with the Vice President being undesirable, but then you spent many more words peddling some Bernie bullshit. Totally blew it.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Maybe every politician's emails should have to be on an easily hackable non-government account? Hillary died for our sins and to show us the way!

Just put them on Sony's servers.
They're hacked every other weekend by toddlers!

True, true. The first words of every East Asian baby nowadays is a demand for immediate transfer of 1 million US$.

[The Flutterlands]

I never said that cyberattacks didn't happen. I'm questioning the accusations of who actually did the attacks.


1.) I'm insisting if he's guilty of anything if not innocent. I just find all the collusion accusations utterly far fetched not to mention difficult to prove because there is no legal basis..

2.) Regardless, even if Trump did collude, I still don't think he should be impeached because I don't want to be in a universe where Mike "Pray the Gay away" Pence is President and, call it petty, but I see Trump's Presidency as punishment for Establishment Democrats for 2016. The Democrats deserved to get hacked by the Russians or whatever and lose to Donald Trump for screwing over Bernie Sanders and Progressive voters because they tried pushing a moderate Republican in Democrat clothing on us.

1.) Donald Trump is Not Guilty. He hasn't been proven guilty, and he probably never will be proven guilty ... removal from office by Senate conviction would not convince me, only a trial in court would convince me. The big precedent of Richard Nixon shows that resigning the office of President is enough to escape trial for crimes, so Donald Trump will never even be tried in court, whether or not he committed a crime during the election campaign.

Don't tell me he is innocent though. I will just laugh.

2.) You maybe had a point with the Vice President being undesirable, but then you spent many more words peddling some Bernie bullshit. Totally blew it.

To be honest, if Sanders pulled the same BS as Hillary, I probably wouldn't vote for him ether...

[AiliailiA]

1.) Donald Trump is Not Guilty. He hasn't been proven guilty, and he probably never will be proven guilty ... removal from office by Senate conviction would not convince me, only a trial in court would convince me. The big precedent of Richard Nixon shows that resigning the office of President is enough to escape trial for crimes, so Donald Trump will never even be tried in court, whether or not he committed a crime during the election campaign.

Don't tell me he is innocent though. I will just laugh.

2.) You maybe had a point with the Vice President being undesirable, but then you spent many more words peddling some Bernie bullshit. Totally blew it.

To be honest, if Sanders pulled the same BS as Hillary, I probably wouldn't vote for him ether...

I am so impressed with your virtue in not voting for bad people. You stand above it all, and refuse to vote for the lesser of evils.

Let me guess, you didn't vote at all?

[Washington Resistance Army]

To be honest, if Sanders pulled the same BS as Hillary, I probably wouldn't vote for him ether...

I am so impressed with your virtue in not voting for bad people. You stand above it all, and refuse to vote for the lesser of evils.

Let me guess, you didn't vote at all?

No, that would be a waste. He voted Stein

[Ifreann]

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

...I just want transparency in Leadership and Government. What's wrong with that? We can hold them accountable with protest and voting

And if people in the Democratic Party prefer Clinton to Sanders, how does that have anything to do with leadership or government? Transparency in government means you can see what the government is doing. It doesn't mean you can poke through Donald Trump's sock drawer.

---

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

Maybe every politician's emails should have to be on an easily hackable non-government account? Hillary died for our sins and to show us the way!

Skip the middleman and automatically public them all online.

[Frenequesta]

So you want to know everything about the people running for office, so you can hold them accountable(still haven't explained how you hold people accountable by knowing things about them), but by that you don't actually mean "everything", just...something. And you want to have the same capacity to know things about members of political parties. But again, "everything", but really just something. And you don't care about getting a hold of this information legally, because at this point I think you just don't give a fuck about law and order. You want people who steal that information to be praised, not punished.

Have you considered that the problem isn't American politics, it's that you have wildly different values from the rest of the country?

...I just want transparency in Leadership and Government. What's wrong with that? We can hold them accountable with protest and voting

The Democratic and Republican parties are ultimately private organizations. It's not as if they make decisions that affect our daily lives the way the actual government does, where transparency is essential to make sure it follows the law we have put on it.

In fact, the privacy of their emails is more important than just protecting what pizza the employees order. Suppose a staffer has figured out a great way to reach a demographic that the other side has a strong hold on. Here, even though this strategy will come out of the open eventually, it is important for the party to have a head start on the new strategy. If that strategy is communicated in an email that anyone can access, the the other side can use it and blunt the party's new strategy from having its effect. Would you say that the party doesn't have an interest in keeping that info secret even temporarily?

And fundamentally, that principle extends to emails that say "we'd rather have Hilary than Bernie fronting our party." The line on balancing public interest and party privacy is very hard to draw. If emails do reveal a plan to commit a crime or civil wrong we have whistleblower statutes that wouldn't give such things protection. Why isn't that sufficient?

[Astrolinium]

I am so impressed with your virtue in not voting for bad people. You stand above it all, and refuse to vote for the lesser of evils.

Let me guess, you didn't vote at all?

No, that would be a waste. He voted Stein

Do-nothing shapeshifter Jill Stein. You know, I could kind of respect the Greens if they ran more than a token number of local candidates and actually worked seriously at the grassroots level to build their party instead of coming out of the woodwork every four years and spend the rest of the time bitching about the system. Maybe they used to be better, but now they seem to be a machine totally devoted to funneling speaking fees into Jill Stein's pocket.

[Washington Resistance Army]

No, that would be a waste. He voted Stein

Do-nothing shapeshifter Jill Stein. You know, I could kind of respect the Greens if they ran more than a token number of local candidates and actually worked seriously at the grassroots level to build their party instead of coming out of the woodwork every four years and spend the rest of the time bitching about the system. Maybe they used to be better, but now they seem to be a machine totally devoted to funneling speaking fees into Jill Stein's pocket.

It really does seem that way. At least the Libertarians run candidates all across the country for everything possible, the Greens seemingly only show up during presidential elections.

[AiliailiA]

I am so impressed with your virtue in not voting for bad people. You stand above it all, and refuse to vote for the lesser of evils.

Let me guess, you didn't vote at all?

No, that would be a waste. He voted Stein

Shut up.

I asked The Flutterlands a question, and it was a serious question. You jumped in a minute later, with what you apparently think was a joke.

It's not even funny, "feel the johnson" guy, so shut up.

[Washington Resistance Army]

No, that would be a waste. He voted Stein

Shut up.

I asked The Flutterlands a question, and it was a serious question. You jumped in a minute later, with what you apparently think was a joke.

It's not even funny, "feel the johnson" guy, so shut up.

Your panties need some untwisting friendo

[Astrolinium]

Do-nothing shapeshifter Jill Stein. You know, I could kind of respect the Greens if they ran more than a token number of local candidates and actually worked seriously at the grassroots level to build their party instead of coming out of the woodwork every four years and spend the rest of the time bitching about the system. Maybe they used to be better, but now they seem to be a machine totally devoted to funneling speaking fees into Jill Stein's pocket.

It really does seem that way. At least the Libertarians run candidates all across the country for everything possible, the Greens seemingly only show up during presidential elections.

Honestly. It's terrible, because I nominally agree with the Green Party's positions more than I agree with many of the Democratic Party's, but only one of those is a functioning political organization that actually wins elections. You guys can at least genuinely claim to be building an actual framework from the grassroots, and I really hope you succeed because our country deserves a more sane option on the right.

Which, I think, is where I really resent the Greens. We not only deserve a decent third party on the left, we need one to more effectively hold the American political left accountable, and the Greens aren't doing it. I like what I've been seeing on that front out of the Democratic Socialists of America, though. They don't have "no bipartisanship" as a major plank on the welcome page of their damn website.

[AiliailiA]

Shut up.

I asked The Flutterlands a question, and it was a serious question. You jumped in a minute later, with what you apparently think was a joke.

It's not even funny, "feel the johnson" guy, so shut up.

Your panties need some untwisting friendo

Your friendos need untwisting, if you think I'm one of your friendos.

I am a serious critic of your serious points, and I respect serious points that you do make. But what you did there was a cheap shot, at the poster I was trying to seriously engage, what you did there was cheap, and small, and far beneath the intellectual norm I expect from you, and will respect from you.

That was some cheap, small-minded partisan shit and you should be ashamed of it.

[Washington Resistance Army]

It really does seem that way. At least the Libertarians run candidates all across the country for everything possible, the Greens seemingly only show up during presidential elections.

Honestly. It's terrible, because I nominally agree with the Green Party's positions more than I agree with many of the Democratic Party's, but only one of those is a functioning political organization that actually wins elections. You guys can at least genuinely claim to be building an actual framework from the grassroots, and I really hope you succeed because our country deserves a more sane option on the right.

Which, I think, is where I really resent the Greens. We not only deserve a decent third party on the left, we need one to more effectively hold the American political left accountable, and the Greens aren't doing it. I like what I've been seeing on that front out of the Democratic Socialists of America, though. They don't have "no bipartisanship" as a major plank on the welcome page of their damn website.

While I absolutely would agree we need more options (especially this last election...) it does feel kinda pointless at times because of FPTP and shit like that. Like, there's some times I'll get really excited for a Libertarian candidate and do my part to help their campaign but then I remember how much the system crushes anyone who isn't a Dem or Republican and it saps a bit of that enthusiasm.

Really we just need to overhaul our elections, if only by getting rid of FPTP and going to something that's less fucking stupid.

[Thermodolia]

Do-nothing shapeshifter Jill Stein. You know, I could kind of respect the Greens if they ran more than a token number of local candidates and actually worked seriously at the grassroots level to build their party instead of coming out of the woodwork every four years and spend the rest of the time bitching about the system. Maybe they used to be better, but now they seem to be a machine totally devoted to funneling speaking fees into Jill Stein's pocket.

It really does seem that way. At least the Libertarians run candidates all across the country for everything possible, the Greens seemingly only show up during presidential elections.

Ya the libertarian party has at least 4 members of state legislatures

[Proctopeo]

No, that would be a waste. He voted Stein

Shut up.

I asked The Flutterlands a question, and it was a serious question. You jumped in a minute later, with what you apparently think was a joke.

It's not even funny, "feel the johnson" guy, so shut up.

Comedy is subjective friendo
this was established way back when Gronk make joke about eagle cross river. why? get to other side!

[Empire of Cats]

It really does seem that way. At least the Libertarians run candidates all across the country for everything possible, the Greens seemingly only show up during presidential elections.

Honestly. It's terrible, because I nominally agree with the Green Party's positions more than I agree with many of the Democratic Party's, but only one of those is a functioning political organization that actually wins elections. You guys can at least genuinely claim to be building an actual framework from the grassroots, and I really hope you succeed because our country deserves a more sane option on the right.

Which, I think, is where I really resent the Greens. We not only deserve a decent third party on the left, we need one to more effectively hold the American political left accountable, and the Greens aren't doing it. I like what I've been seeing on that front out of the Democratic Socialists of America, though. They don't have "no bipartisanship" as a major plank on the welcome page of their damn website.

Amen. Well said.