Discussions

veloster said "I have met many people like you( usually working in the Coffee service industry)Just kidding."  
 
Have you considered a career as a United States Press Secretary? Whenever Huckabee-Sanders decides to pack it in they'll need someone else to roll out the 'just kidding' bit, too.  
 
veloster said "They have this opinion that there opinion is the only correct one and if anyone threatens that opinion they just start throwing insults and correcting spelling mistakes to try an prove how smart they think they are."  
 
The funny thing about facts is that they're facts, not opinions. I admit that the spelling thing was a bit trite, but sometimes when I'm having to address willful ignorance it can be a little frustrating and things like that slip out.  
 
veloster said "Most information on government websites are set to misinform the public and that information changes every time government changes party's. and should not be the only source of your information. Try clicking on your links could the information be changing again as they don't show any information."  
 
Most information on government websites is there to inform people. In my original post in this thread, I had intended to elaborate on several factors which motivated some Americans to vote the way that they did in 2016. One of these things was about being suspicious of their own government, that this suspicion is a borderline national psychosis, and that it has really helped to breed conspiracy theories.  
 
If you can't trust the government, and you can't trust the media (and things like Fox News, and youtube, and websites, and even black and white printed pamphlets also count as media) and you're not there to witness these facts with your own eyes, then where are you getting your information from?  
 
Word of mouth? Did you ever play that game in school where you all sat in a big circle, and one person whispered something into another person's ear, and then that person then whispered that "same" message into someone else's ear? How accurate was that message after it came around full circle?  
 
veloster said "Every response you have issued in this discussion is picking apart someone comments and usually talking down to them. Maybe try to be better. "  
 
I think the way I've tackled each of these things has brought with it a little more clarity to each point, and not muddied things up in a blob of text. This is just my opinion, though.  
 
I will call into account any misinformation I encounter. If I did not challenge these views, then why should I expect anyone else to?  
 
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Today may be a turning point, not only for the US, but for the Republican Party as well, president Trump very seldom backs down, but today the president did back down, which hopefully gives those republicans that are honest, and have integrity and honor the strenght to challenge the president when he goes to the extreme. Today should also come with the reality that there are problems with immigration into the US.  
 
Am sort of encouraged that we do take a bit of interest in our neighbours to the south, the country has been taken to it's limits in many areas, and hopefully they realise that it is a new world and maybe the power structure is being challenge, if this is true it means change, adapt or dissappear, the disappearing would be the scary part.

I think that for most people, concerns over economic security are weighed more heavily than social issues. As long as there''''s a roof over their heads and food on the table, typical people are not predisposed towards towards meddling in the lives of others unless they absolutely have to. Live and let live.  
 
This is not to say that there still isn''''t a considerable number of people who do weigh social issues more heavily, but those people are most certainly in the minority. People that feel this way have embraced Trump not because he stands for their concerns about social issues, but because he is a convenient ally. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Trump, who just wants people to like him, has embraced these people. They are easy to please, because being complicit to the stagnation or outright regression of social norms doesn''''t mean he has to betray his business interests.  
 
Fortunately for Trump, he will never be put in a position where he has to outright choose business/financial interests over social issues, because if he had to, he would, and those who vote for him in an attempt to stymie progressivism would feel burned. He will finish his term, or terms, and go on to make spectacular bank on all sorts of book deals and rallies and real estate until the end of his days.  
 
Trump is not the poster-child for a return to some magical bygone era the way you seem to think he is.  
 
Also, while I really get a kick out of it, you should still probably stop with the silent majority deal. That''s kind of a Nixon thing, and while the jury is still out on Trump, Nixon was a guy who most definitely did not have a very good presidency. Not a comparison you want to draw.  
 
Edited by Hashidoi, 2018-06-20 23:30:10

don brown said "Today may be a turning point, not only for the US, but for the Republican Party as well, president Trump very seldom backs down, but today the president did back down, which hopefully gives those republicans that are honest, and have integrity and honor the strenght to challenge the president when he goes to the extreme. Today should also come with the reality that there are problems with immigration into the US.     Am sort of encouraged that we do take a bit of interest in our neighbours to the south, the country has been taken to it's limits in many areas, and hopefully they realise that it is a new world and maybe the power structure is being challenge, if this is true it means change, adapt or dissappear, the disappearing would be the scary part. "

I would hope that his backing down is a sign that he can admit he was wrong... I suspect it isn't.  
 
I think he was just testing the fence, looking for week spots. He now knows that family separation is a no go. He'll find other ways to undermine the office.  
 
Until the day that Trump leaves office, I will not believe that he will agree to peacefully go. If he loses in 2020 I don't think he'll accept the result. If Ivanka is not the nominee in 2024, I'd be surprised if he leaves then. He is not acting like a man that plans on ever answering to anyone for anything.

Agree no different than the uk voting out of the Europe union the silent majority has had enough there is way to many special interest groups running this country and many more country’s when our tax dollars go to support a minority’ interest and times that by a few thousand interest I have to shake my head when people complain taxes are to high let’s get back to basics we have enough laws in place to protect the vulnerable but we shouldn’t have to resort to electing an idiot to prove a point

Was elected as I see it, more as a result by people who don't want their nation to fail. That is what they were afraid was happening under the Democrats, with the apologist attitude of Obama, virtual open borders attitude of the Democrats, ordering local sheriffs not to enforce or even question immigration status. This is not Trumps law that is separating children from their parents. It is a law that was passed in the late 1990s (1997 to be exact). Trump only told ICE to start enforcing it, he didn't pass it. If the law needs to be changed, that is the job of congress, not Trump.

Triplethreat said "Was elected as I see it, more as a result by people who don't want their nation to fail. That is what they were afraid was happening under the Democrats, with the apologist attitude of Obama, virtual open borders attitude of the Democrats, ordering local sheriffs not to enforce or even question immigration status. This is not Trumps law that is separating children from their parents. It is a law that was passed in the late 1990s (1997 to be exact)."  
 
There was no law passed in 1997 to do this.  
 
In 1997 a policy called the Flores Agreement was created to detail how unaccompanied minors that had illegally entered the US would be handled by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service. (This settlement was brought about by a 1993 court case called Reno v. Flores.)  
 
However, there were problems with it and this agreement was never fully implemented. In 2002 the US INS was disbanded with the signing of the Homeland Security Act, so the whole damn thing was rendered moot anyhow.  
 
Triplethreat said "Trump only told ICE to start enforcing it, he didn't pass it. If the law needs to be changed, that is the job of congress, not Trump."  
 
It is a Trump Administration policy that has resulted in this, although I'm not clear upon who the blame squarely lies for trying to implement it. (But it's either Attorney General Jeff Sessions or the Donald himself.)  
 
Either way, so now that we know there's no law, just a dusty old agreement pertaining to a government agency that no longer exists, we can now safely wonder:  
 
How can a government whose legislative branch is comprised of a Republican controlled congress and a Republican controlled senate, and features an executive branch with a Republican president be unable to act?  
 
What if they suddenly needed to go to war tomorrow. Would this same mysterious force tie their hands there, too?  
 
I bet it wouldn't. Very strange indeed.  
 
For now though, the recent public outcry has brought a lot of attention to this, and it's kind of forced Trump to address it. He just signed an executive order to expressly deal with this, although in true Trump fashion the way it's worded might actually contravene the original 1993 Reno v Flores ruling and basically accomplish nothing.  
 
Fortunately, it appears as though Congress will still act and pass something to prevent this child-parent separation policy from ever occurring again. It's actually an excellent opportunity for some bipartisanship to happen, but it's a shame it had to come at the expense of, well, you know, probably emotionally scarring a bunch of little kids.

I sort of agree with your idea that Donald Trump was elected to protect the US, but my problem is he was elected more to protect a certain idea in the US, the idea being that greatness would return if the country could be taken back in time to when it was great.  
I think back to the 1960''s, when in my opinion the US was great. At that time jobs were good, wages would allow a person to support a family, and not only support a family, but if managed properly allow people to live the American dream. I once made the comment that democracy is the beginning of socialism, and I made that statement because of human nature. Not only does democracy suffer from the human nature aspect,but so does capitalism. My opinion of capitalism and democracy are they are the two greatest things in the world to help a society move forward, but the success of it all depends on the people.  
When I look at many countries I see a situation that was brought on by the people of the country, Canada i:ncluded. When things start getting tough in countries that have exceeded what there production can afford, people always make or find a target, targets can be things like unions, illegal labour, unfair trade or whatever people decide.  
What has destroyed us is government, government choosen by we the people.  
I was a member on an American social media site over a decade ago, and sometime the discussion came up about a tipping point, a point of no return, and many members had thought we had already passed that point, and no one could present an idea of how to undo the situation that had been created.  
President Trump wants to undo it, but many of his proposals just won'T work, the only conclusion that was ever arrived at over a decade ago, was that it would take the economic collapse of the nation to set things straight. That conclusion then presented the next problem, that being the results of such a collapse.  
I guess it will happen sometime, but President Trump cannot take the world back in time, but his actions may actually make things worse for his country as a whole, no one can ignore that today we live in a global economy, where the idea of a level playing field cannot exist.  
 
Edited by don brown, 2018-06-21 06:43:44

First off I will say the present situation at the US Mexico border is in need of being fixed.  
Just reading though this topic you do run across the idea of the supposed problems that immigrants place on our society, and this has been going on for likely decades in our country, and immigrants are sort of in a catch 22 situation, if we don't see them in the work place, then they are abusing our social programs, and if we see them in the workforce they are stealing jobs. From what I have observed while shopping in Brandon is that many immigrants to our country are out there working.

Here is a quiz from Pew Research. It will give you 10 statements. All you have to do is decide if it is a "fact statement" or an "opinion statement". Many people do not know the difference. Would be interested in some of your results.  
 
http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/news-statements-quiz/

PuddleJumper, took your quiz and only got one wrong, and that was on American healthcare costs.  
 
My final thought on this is I'm somewhat disappointed with today's actions in the US, sometimes it is a mistake to be an optimist.  
Maybe when we look at the immigration issue the problem might be history related.  
I'm not a conspiracy nut, but today it was announced that most of these immigrants are from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, countries that the United States did play a role in affecting the outcomes of elections going back into 1950's. These countries have some of the highest murder rates in the world. The question is, did American interference in these countries lead to what we are seeing today, unstable countries where people just want to be somewhere else.

Don. You should get a couple hundred more cows. Then you wouldn’t have time to worry about things like that.

Got all 10 correct.

5/5 on facts, 4/5 on opinion. The opinion I mistook as fact was the 'Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are a very big problem for the country today.' one.  
 
Today in immigrants who are in the US illegally news:  
 
Congress accomplished nothing because the far right Republicans and moderate Republicans are unable to come to an agreement.  
 
Trump's executive order from the other day is worded in a fashion that has cause some confusion among other government officials.  
 
With no new, clear direction, the DHS is continuing to separate families as per the earlier policy AG Sessions unveiled back in May.  
 
And immigrants who are in the US illegally aren't a very big problem for that nation today?  
 
(I tried to take the test again, just to see if it was pulling random questions out of a larger pool and was disappointed to see it was just the same 10.)

Thanks Larry, I did ask for suggestions. In a way I blame them darn cows for the way I sometimes think. A person thinks the cows are there to serve the person, the reality is that the person is there to serve the cows, the decisions you make affect others but the end result is poor decisions affect you.  
Looking after those darn cows has taught me a lot, some folks call it cowboy logic, I just look at paying attention to the things going on around me.  
 
Little surprised no one suggested some good meds, thanks for the suggestion Larry, and take care.

An article on John Kelly, who does address the core issue.  
 
https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2016/12/what-you-dont-know-about-gen-john-kelly/133703/  
 
It is a short article and maybe explains if you can't change people in your country try and stop the problem in another area, please read as it seems far closer to the truth than all the hybola we hear.

LarryRobins said "Don. You should get a couple hundred more cows. Then you wouldn’t have time to worry about things like that. "

Larry that is some good advice right there!LOL

The problems in Germany started 50 years before Hitler. It was a slow escalation that ended with Hitler. The question is where will the United States be 50 years from now if it continues on this path.  
 
Read Webster's dictionary meaning of fascism. It fits Trump perfectly.  
 
Trumps father was German with old German ideas.

I probably could have answered those correctly too.  
You are making yourself look foolish.