Should Canada Be Preparing for a Destabilized USA?

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by logan5

My feeling here is that your numerous and lengthy posts are an attempt at misdirecting people from the most important point.

Clearly there is something psychologically wrong with Donald Trump. I'd like to see your lengthy post on why you think Trump is of sound mind, which at this point would be very hard to do.

Baseless character attacks like this contribute how to the discussion? And here I thought this forum was full of fairly intelligent people.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by logan5

My feeling here is that your numerous and lengthy posts are an attempt at misdirecting people from the most important point.

Clearly there is something psychologically wrong with Donald Trump. I'd like to see your lengthy post on why you think Trump is of sound mind, which at this point would be very hard to do.

This keeps getting said however there isn't a great deal of evidence for this.

He's a rather generic narcissist, which is the character profile of most politicians.

He also seems to be quite deliberately engaging the public in a rather specific style, which suggests he knows what he's doing.

He's a strong persuader and it's hilarious how people are locking themselves down into borderline autistic literalness with the guy.

It's really tiring people who are supposedly educated acting as if they've never heard of politics before.

What's frustrating is that people are complaining about the right being so easily manipulated by him, when in reality it's his detractors than seem to be running after red herring after red herring.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Loco101

I've travelled to all of our provinces and most of the states. I find that it really depends what you are doing and what types of places you are visiting. I find that service is friendlier at businesses that cater to tourists and travellers who come from elsewhere. I live in a mining city that has almost no tourism and I can never depend on good service when shopping or dining. But there are almost always exceptions of course no matter where you go.

As a visitor, I find that Quebeckers in general have the right balance of friendliness and not being too much in your face and business. I find there is less negative attitude in Quebec as compared to much of North America. And I find Quebeckers to be more genuine.
.

I find this too, after living here for over 20 years. But I've always put my impressions down to simply my getting used to the way people are where I live.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Stryker

Agreed.

As I said before on a purely selfish level I love immigration.

I love being able to travel the worlds culture all within the comforts of the 416.

Beyond self serving autistic obsessions it's the most bizarre thing imaginable to me.

I truly believe the only reason people tolerate it is some subconscious narrative that anglos are still on top. And I'm talking about the most blatant of liberals.

People that blindly claim altruistic motivations are the worst.

And that's exactly why I think the vast majority of criticism of Quebec from ROCers should not be taken seriously.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Acajack

And that's exactly why I think the vast majority of criticism of Quebec from ROCers should not be taken seriously.

Why because bilinguals are the one that are truly on top.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Stryker

Why because bilinguals are the one that are truly on top.

Hahaha! Good one.

Seriously though, the majority in Canada is mostly OK with diversity because the newcomers are fairly conformist, and mostly made up of people who want to become like them.

When you get stuff happening like Richmond BC, that's when another attitude emerges. And multiply Richmond by 100 or 1000 all across the country, and see what happens then.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Hahaha! Good one.

Seriously though, the majority in Canada is mostly OK with diversity because the newcomers are fairly conformist, and mostly made up of people who want to become like them.

When you get stuff happening like Richmond BC, that's when another attitude emerges. And multiply Richmond by 100 or 1000 all across the country, and see what happens then.

Agree but disagree.

I think it's more complicated than simply being conformist.

I think the biggest contribution is when the rhetoric outstrips the reality.

The "hate" rhetoric of people not learning the culture etc I think leads into people being mislead on the problems of immigration.

So when they actually meet immigrants they go "those little guys are harmless".

I think a much more damaging campaign against immigration would be photos of white couples with dogs(because they cannot afford, can't be bothered to start families).

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by geotag277

This is rather Orwellian misdirection that you keep disseminating ad nauseum, ironic that you think I am the one repeating myself.

At issue is discrimination, and where it is discriminatory to say 7 countries are unstable and any visitors to said countries require a material change in their entrance criteria for a country.

This absurd straw man you keep parroting that I am attempting to exactly equate the two actions is beyond asinine, and makes you look more and more ridiculous each time you repeat it.

Either calling out 7 countries is discriminatory, or it isn't. Your grandiose mental gymnastics to try to absolve your political team of Obama and house Democrats of any discriminatory wrong doing when they themselves specifically called out these countries and materially changed the entrance criteria for their visitors is downright pathetic at this point.

Yes, you can criticize the fact that Trump went too far, and should not have changed the criteria to the extent that he did, but the fact remains that the discriminatory nature of this action is entirely consistent with the act Obama signed (and was not protested at all), house Democrats and House Republicans calling these countries unstable and materially changing how entrance procedures are handled for visitors.

So fine, you can argue the action went too far. But drop the discriminatory rhetoric unless you also want to throw Obama and house Democrats under that same banner. To do otherwise is vapid intellectual dishonesty.

As I understand it (and perhaps I'm incorrect), the legislation passed by the Democrats simply required an in-person interview prior to issuance of a visa for anyone who had travelled to the 7 identified states. It was not based solely on nationality or citizenship. This seems far more rationally connected to the concerns (state-sponsored terrorism) that it was intended to address (and therefore far less vulnerable to allegations of being based on stereotype.) For instance, Mr. Trump's executive order captures persons who have not visited the terrorism-sponsoring states in many years. Similarly, it misses Americans or Europeans who have frequently visited such terrorism-sponsoring states. Lastly, I think that it is impossible to remove Mr. Trump's executive order from the context in which it was enacted and the specific comments that Mr. Trump made leading up to it.

And there was no significant adverse effect. It only required further investigation. It did not ban travel for anyone unless specific information (gleaned from the interview) justified such.

Therefore, they seem to me rather different.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Stryker

Are you fucking high?

Seriously I can't tell if this is some trollish trolling, or your just clueless.

The intelligence is the weakest aspect of the whole situation.

The entire legal structure of drone strikes is the most suspect in modern history.

Intelligent asset supplies info>Analyst decides validity> Pilot drops bomb.

For the record, I believe that there are significant problems with the United States' drone policy.

However, I'm not sure how you can so confidently conclude that the intelligence that supports these drone attacks is so weak? As far as I know, there is no process whereby such intelligence is submitted to public, impartial review (one of the significant problems that I have with it.)

In any event, to answer your question, of the three choices that you've suggested (high, trollish trolling, or just clueless), I choose "high".

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Reesonov

For the record, I believe that there are significant problems with the United States' drone policy.

However, I'm not sure how you can so confidently conclude that the intelligence that supports these drone attacks is so weak? As far as I know, there is no process whereby such intelligence is submitted to public, impartial review (one of the significant problems that I have with it.)

I don't think the direct intelligence is weak.

I also don't really give a flying fuck what happens to people directly integrated in with the islamofacsists. It is a literal war.

But it's the oversight issue that I have trouble with. More importantly the emotional disconnect between combatants.

EDIT: I'm also deeply concerned when the terrorist start figuring out how to use these drones for their own purposes.

What happens when terrorist can start hacking self driving cars to drop off bombs etc.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Stryker

I don't think the direct intelligence is weak.

I also don't really give a flying fuck what happens to people directly integrated in with the islamofacsists. It is a literal war.

But it's the oversight issue that I have trouble with. More importantly the emotional disconnect between combatants.

EDIT: I'm also deeply concerned when the terrorist start figuring out how to use these drones for their own purposes.

What happens when terrorist can start hacking self driving cars to drop off bombs etc.

(1) If you don't think that the direct intelligence is weak, then what did you mean when you posted "the intelligence is the weakest aspect of the situation"?

(2) Who are the "islamofascists"?

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by logan5

My feeling here is that your numerous and lengthy posts are an attempt at misdirecting people from the most important point.

Numerous and lengthy? My posts are a handful of paragraphs at most and should take no more than 30 seconds to read. Even an eloquent and succinct writer, of which I am not, would take a couple paragraphs to fully present, form, and develop an idea.

Now I see why Trump uses twitter so much, no one has the attention span for anything else anymore. I doubt people here read much of politics articles beyond the headline, and it shows in their arguments.

Originally Posted by logan5

Clearly there is something psychologically wrong with Donald Trump. I'd like to see your lengthy post on why you think Trump is of sound mind, which at this point would be very hard to do.

Ah yes, attacking the mental state of your political opponent. This is what it has come too.

Reminds me a bit of the 2015 election in Canada, where people made obscene, vapid, degrading political attacks that went after Harper's relationship with his wife, made fun of his appearance, made fun of how he talks, and so on. If you bothered to say a word to defend Harper here, you were ostracized and met with severe indignation about how you could possibly defend him, as if to say no attack is off the table as long as our guy gets elected and your guy doesn't.

The 2016 American election took a page out of that embarrassing chapter of Canadian politics, with Democrats going after Trump over his appearance, his relationship with his children (especially embarrassingly Ivanka), culminating in Gloria Allred's team parading around a fake child rape case to attempt to achieve maximum politicization of sexual assault.

It was one of the most disgusting displays of politics I've seen in my lifetime, and again the deafening silence from Democrats who implicitly approve of such tactics as long as they work.

What was Michelle Obama's famous saying? "When they go low, we throw shit on the dirt and dig through the sewage to see how low this cesspool can go?" Or something like that.

You would think that Trump is representing such a flawed political platform that it would be possible to talk about substantive policies, but questions like this make it seem like Trump has such a solid platform that people are genuinely afraid of working as it would validate a political approach different than their own, such that the only criticism they can muster are these vapid personal highly charged political attacks that rarely rise above the level of juvenile absurdity.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by casper

In addition to all of this, his team does not have their act together.

You can really tell how people consume news here. Read some rumors and half truths. Probably not going past the headline. Repeat it in a casual discussion as fact. It confirms your worldview so it must be true. You think Trump is a chaotic unstable demagogue. Done and done. A straight reading of words, confirming of biases, and repeating of words on an internet forum. Really rather dogmatic. You can really see how people turn to news to be told how to think instead of critically thinking about reports (especially rumors) in the context of it's environment. It shows in how people use the exact same language to say the exact same things in the exact same ways. If I didn't know any better, I would say this is successful thought conditioning.

In particular this "chaotic" narrative has really comedically stuck with Trump for almost a year now. First it was his campaign. Somehow, Trump's campaign was constantly in disarray, a chaotic mess of confusion and always self-imploding. Somehow, Trump chaotically was filling stadium after stadium all over the mid west, while Hillary somewhat un-chaotically never stepped foot in Wisconsin, spent millions in Texas, and was spending precious time and money in California. Hillary ultimately un-chaotically spent double what chaotic Trump did to ultimately lose the election. That's stability for you.

Now, surprise surprise, we have the same chaotic narrative. I think this "chaos" narrative comes more from the fact that Trump is not a politician. He doesn't act, talk, or manage things like a politician. If you screw up, he will reassign you, fire you, and shuffle people around, as evidenced by his firing of campaign managers and, recently, Sally Yates. This must come at a shock to the political bubble surrounding Trump and attempting to fit Trump into their normal political paradigms that they are used to seeing.

Speaking of political bubbles, I think a few words need to be said about Washington DC. Since he moved to the White House and Trump's administration began in earnest, rumors have been pouring out of DC like Niagara Falls.

I'm not sure if many people here have much exposure to Washington DC here, but I do. I was involved in some technology lobbying initiatives for an American company, mainly to act as an impartial observer and supervise. It was obvious from the start how much of a cesspool Washington DC is. If you think the hyper partisan conversations online between casual contributors who simply do this as part of their spare time is a ridiculous caricature of politics as sport teams, just imagine what happens when actual salaries and career prospects are intimately tied to ensuring one particular political party has ever expanding power. The effect is multiplied by orders of magnitude. To use a very strained metaphor, Milgram's experiment somewhat proved how ordinary citizens can be manipulated to do horrible things such as in the holocaust, and there is a holocaust of sorts going on right now against American democracy happening in Washington DC.

So you have this corrupt rat's nest which represents the seat of power of American democracy, and all these un-elected political power players, I call them vermin, running around pushing the boundaries on what is legal and what is illegal (aka a campaign secretary who just happened to meet with an assistant to a Super PAC in a DC bar, and of course they discuss strategy, funding, and allocations of resources) throwing money around trying to maximally optimize the way they can efficiently convert dollars into influence. By the way, the place is dominated by democrats, especially when it comes to individuals actually associated with the large government departments who are constantly jockeying for more funding.

I can totally understand how there is nothing this rat's nest cesspool would hate more than for an outsider to come in, not play the game, not need any money, not care about political capital in any way shape or form, and continually undermine and shine a light on all the dirty crap that is going on. This entire environment would be highly motivated, if it ever happened to ingest an entity like Donald Trump, to violently disgorge itself of such a thing, lest the whole fragile ecosystem of the sewer be threatened.

This is the environment Trump, a businessman outsider who never stepped foot into Washington DC as a politician before winning the White House, is currently operating in. As much as it is political campaign rhetoric, there is a very real angle to his presidency which represents the first, and perhaps last, time a true outsider has a chance to do something in Washington.

Mark my words, if Trump's presidency fails, the most likely reason will be because he was on the cusp of actually making a material and lasting change to this cesspool. And most likely all the parrots here who are blindly repeating every negative breath written about Trump and chopping at the bit for his failure will be loudly cheering for the victory of democracy if he is removed. As Mike Pence steps in, reverts back to business as usual, continues the policies of Obama and Bush before him, and proceeds to remove any and all evidence that there was anything other than a rat at the seat of power in American politics.

I don't expect people here to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. I don't expect people here to have a rosy picture of him, or to agree with all, many, or any of the policies he has proposed. But this is the environment he has entered, and I would implore everyone to at least critically examine and use independent thought when considering the news, reports, and especially the rumors and half truths spilling out of Washington DC right now.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by geotag277

You would think that Trump is representing such a flawed political platform that it would be possible to talk about substantive policies, but questions like this make it seem like Trump has such a solid platform that people are genuinely afraid of working as it would validate a political approach different than their own, such that the only criticism they can muster are these vapid personal highly charged political attacks that rarely rise above the level of juvenile absurdity.

If you haven't heard the symphony of criticism of Mr. Trump's political platform and proposed (and now enacted) policies, then you simply haven't been listening.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by cornholio

Baseless character attacks like this contribute how to the discussion? And here I thought this forum was full of fairly intelligent people.

The thing is, these are (otherwise) intelligent people. The problem is when it comes to politics, people can't seem to break out of their own dogmatic worldviews and when someone challenges them, their brains collectively turn to mush. It is no longer about discussing ideas, it is about defending themselves from existential threats to their dogmatic worldviews.

There was an interesting paper here, (summarized by *gasp*, Huffington Post here) about how the phenomenon seems rather unique to political discussions.

Ironic that rousseau is a militant atheist, yet rather shamelessly falls for the same cognitive shortcomings as the people he no doubt denigrates for the same.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by Reesonov

As I understand it (and perhaps I'm incorrect), the legislation passed by the Democrats simply required an in-person interview prior to issuance of a visa for anyone who had travelled to the 7 identified states. It was not based solely on nationality or citizenship. This seems far more rationally connected to the concerns (state-sponsored terrorism) that it was intended to address (and therefore far less vulnerable to allegations of being based on stereotype.) For instance, Mr. Trump's executive order captures persons who have not visited the terrorism-sponsoring states in many years. Similarly, it misses Americans or Europeans who have frequently visited such terrorism-sponsoring states. Lastly, I think that it is impossible to remove Mr. Trump's executive order from the context in which it was enacted and the specific comments that Mr. Trump made leading up to it.

And there was no significant adverse effect. It only required further investigation. It did not ban travel for anyone unless specific information (gleaned from the interview) justified such.

Therefore, they seem to me rather different.

First of all, I have to applaud you. This is the most reasonable and level headed response critiquing Trump I have read in the 87 page history of this thread.

I think it's important to note, the legislation was passed in a bipartisan fashion. Yes, Obama is ultimately the one who signs the bill, and can potentially veto it, but it is a bit disingenuous to call every single bill Obama signs as "Obama's legislation", especially when it has near unanimous support like HR 158 had. At most, Obama could have called out his disapproval of the discriminatory nature of the bill to have his opinion on record.

As to the nitty gritty, the bill labeled 5 (ultimately 7) countries as unstable and automatically removing visitors to said countries from the visa waiver program, which essentially fast tracked approval to visit the USA.

I believe fundamentally at issue is whether labeling connections (whatever those connections happen to be) to those 7 countries, including simply traveling there, is a reasonable discriminatory policy to include in an entrance evaluation.

If it is reasonable discrimination, it is reasonable discrimination, and next we can talk about the extent to which those connections can and should be evaluated and restricted.

Absolutely, Trump's approach is a sledgehammer to HR 158's scalpel, but if there truly is a concern regarding connections to these unstable countries, we are arguing over a different in degrees not a difference in kind. For the record, I personally think Trump's travel ban likely went too far, he has already voluntarily walked back significant portions of it (including green card holders) before the injunction stopped it further.

Overall, I see this as a partial policy mistake, indeed I believe partially stemming from Trump's lack of experience as a politician.

I also agree that Trump's comments need to be taken into consideration and context. He famously advocated for a restriction on Muslim travel to the United States stemming from worldwide problems with Islamic extremist terrorism. Giuliani also recently made similar comments, which Trump to his credit denounced.

Trump's comments on the campaign trail came in the wake of several terrorist attacks in Europe, and were said largely to contrast his position with recognizing there is a problem with Islamic extremism. Hillary Clinton rather famously could not even utter the words in the debates, even when point blank challenged by Trump to do so. I think that was the starkest contrast of ultra politically correct Democrats sticking their head in the sand to avoid offending people by disingenuously denying realities.

Ultimately, I think Trump's campaign trail comments can reasonably be taken in context of a response to terror attacks, and an "art of the deal" style negotiation, where he started with an outright ban, and very quickly after "negotiated" the changes down to a very Hillary Clinton-like "extreme vetting".

To be clear, I do not deny that Trump's campaign comments are deserving of criticism, and furthermore that his recent travel ban is a sledgehammer also deserving of criticism, only that the rhetoric used to discuss both is absurdly and disingenuously twisted.

Again, I appreciate your level headed and rational response here. I implore you to contribute to this thread more, as reasonable voices are one thing this thread is sorely lacking.

I may come across as a pompous blowhard in my recent responses, but that is just because I have been dealing with National Enquirer level gutter politics in this thread for so long, I responded in kind.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Reesonov

(1) If you don't think that the direct intelligence is weak, then what did you mean when you posted "the intelligence is the weakest aspect of the situation"?

(2) Who are the "islamofascists"?

1) I just mean the oversight structure.

2) The jihadist, although i think it often gets far too connected to the idea that these people are brainwashed zealots.

The reality is that their is a high level of fascist thought that goes along(parallels) with islam.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Stryker

The reality is that their is a high level of fascist thought that goes along(parallels) with islam.

This is interesting. One problem that you will run into with this hypothesis (well, we all have this difficulty when discussing something as broad as "Islam") is that Islamic "jurisprudence" regarding politics and economics is very diverse. There is no consensus.

However, a couple of generalizations that I would make:

For the most part, it seems that most of Islam's economic theories are not at all fascist: no desire for self-sufficiency, embrace of markets and trade, little intervention in the economy (except for dispute resolution), etc.

Also, fascists sees political violence, war, and imperialism as a ends in themselves (as they mobilize and stimulate the nation). As I understand it, Islamists see religion as the best instrument for mobilizing and stimulating the nation. Some Islamic movements may cynically tolerate political violence or imperialism as a way to spread or strengthen religion, but it isn't the same thing (at least from my very layman perspective).

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by geotag277

The thing is, these are (otherwise) intelligent people. The problem is when it comes to politics, people can't seem to break out of their own dogmatic worldviews and when someone challenges them, their brains collectively turn to mush. It is no longer about discussing ideas, it is about defending themselves from existential threats to their dogmatic worldviews.

There was an interesting paper here, (summarized by *gasp*, Huffington Post here) about how the phenomenon seems rather unique to political discussions.

Ironic that rousseau is a militant atheist, yet rather shamelessly falls for the same cognitive shortcomings as the people he no doubt denigrates for the same.

Right like you've broken out of your dogmatic views. Thank you for being so enlightened. You've only established yourself a s the premier Trump apologist on this forum. Sad that you cannot see the true character of what you are defending, mighty puzzling from the child of immigrants.

[Acajack]

Islam isn't fundamentally more violent or prone to fascism or violence than many other major religions, including Christianity actually.

It's the social and political climate in much of the Muslim world at this particular moment in time that is causing the serious problems they (and we) are grappling with.