I think people need to get over the egotistical satisfaction of saying "both sides are bad" and recognize the world for what it is.
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And I suppose the accurate view of the world is that we live in a time of the purest heroes and most vile of villains, where the heroes have ascended past normal human moral failings and achieved something similar to sainthood or godhood. The incarnates of the celestial realm and the infernal abyss walk among us right now.
The people who are saying "both sides are bad" are the only ones capable of compromise, reconciliation, negotiation in a time of thoughtless and destructive tribalism. We've seen the extent of good faith and open mindedness the partisans have. It led us to this moment.
If you guys think that the Democratic party that twice nominated the more moderate candidate (Clinton over Sanders and then Biden over Sanders) is a party beholden to radical leftwing politics, you're not a centrist. And you're demonstrating far less capacity for compromise than you think.
When John Kasich has endorsed the Democratic nominee, and you're still complaining that the Democrats are too far left for your tastes, what you're revealing is an inability -- far greater than most Democrats -- to be willing to meet "the other side" halfway.
I dont think the only "both sides are evil" folks can compromise argument holds water. I think it's a false equivalency strategy from those on the losing end that dont want to look back and see that their ideology has lead us to our current predicament.
The truth is - either side *can* be equally bad, but I dont believe that is the case today. No one is saying that the left is perfect, but the GOP is currently in the middle of it s "Authoritarian with massive corruption" phase. The one in which they damage institutions that are hundreds of years old, and have perpetuated the greatest economic wealthy gap in human history.
The Democrats, by virtue of being a "Big Tent" party, include a much (much, much) larger stake of the political center than Republicans do. There have been a variety of studies done, and the GOP has become far more conservative over the last few decades that the Democrats have become liberal. The Democrats are closing that gap a bit by having a functional progressive wing for the first time in modern history, but there is still a wide gap.
The only other thing I'd have to say is: I dont think we can say the "fringe" of the left is holding the Democrats hostage when Bernie Sanders - the legitimate face of leftist politics in this country, has lost two straight primary contests by significant margins to more moderate candidates.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
I mean, do we want to compare notes? The fringe of Democrats want medicare for all and no fraking. The Republicans have literally thrown kids in cages at concentration camps. Go ahead and find something equivalent to Jim Henson's concentration kids. I think its also worth noting that I'm not a Democrat. I simply have no illusions of what the kind of people who will sign off on concentration camps are capable of.
What good would comparing notes do? That would imply that there is a two way street, where both Republicans and Democrats can be criticized and the members of those parties will accept the criticism, provided that it's fair. In no way does that resemble this forum. Special pleading is the norm.
In my view though, I think killing kids is a comparable act of moral failing, and this has become systemic due to the war policies that were expanded tenfold in scope under a democratic administration, and with an utter refusal to be transparent about the process. They knew what they were doing and they refused to talk about it. Not only that, but they lied about it and were caught.
Are you truly prepared to say that the kids murdered at the direct approval of our leaders are of infinitely less value than the people we apprehend at the border? Because of what? The need to make one political party look better?
I think it says a lot more about the person who makes such an argument than it does for anything or anyone else.
I've said this before but it was probably 300 pages ago so I'll say it again. I voted for John Dingell every election up until he went all-in for Obamacare (at that time I was against big-government taking over healthcare, I've refined my views since), I voted for Jennifer Granholm both times she ran for Governor of Michigan (there was no way I was voting for Posthumous after his predecessor was such a dick his final term and the 2nd time Amway-Boy Dick DeVoss ran against her - don't even get me started about the DeVosses and Amway).
Many of you don't seem to get the concept of being centrist. I vote for who I think is either the lesser of two evils (especially for president) or who I think actually votes their conscience rather than party-line (Dingell and, to a lesser degree Snyder who I voted for both times he ran).
I've said this before but it was probably 300 pages ago so I'll say it again. I voted for John Dingell every election up until he went all-in for Obamacare (at that time I was against big-government taking over healthcare, I've refined my views since), I voted for Jennifer Granholm both times she ran for Governor of Michigan (there was no way I was voting for Posthumous after his predecessor was such a dick his final term and the 2nd time Amway-Boy Dick DeVoss ran against her - don't even get me started about the DeVosses and Amway).
Many of you don't seem to get the concept of being centrist. I vote for who I think is either the lesser of two evils (especially for president) or who I think actually votes their conscience rather than party-line (Dingell and, to a lesser degree Snyder who I voted for both times he ran).
Drink too much of the ideological kool-aid and you forget what the world looks like to those who don't share your convictions. Or what the world actually looks like, for that matter.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
I mean, do we want to compare notes? The fringe of Democrats want medicare for all and no fraking. The Republicans have literally thrown kids in cages at concentration camps. Go ahead and find something equivalent to Jim Henson's concentration kids. I think its also worth noting that I'm not a Democrat. I simply have no illusions of what the kind of people who will sign off on concentration camps are capable of.
What good would comparing notes do? That would imply that there is a two way street, where both Republicans and Democrats can be criticized and the members of those parties will accept the criticism, provided that it's fair. In no way does that resemble this forum. Special pleading is the norm.
In my view though, I think killing kids is a comparable act of moral failing, and this has become systemic due to the war policies that were expanded tenfold in scope under a democratic administration, and with an utter refusal to be transparent about the process. They knew what they were doing and they refused to talk about it. Not only that, but they lied about it and were caught.
Are you truly prepared to say that the kids murdered at the direct approval of our leaders are of infinitely less value than the people we apprehend at the border? Because of what? The need to make one political party look better?
I think it says a lot more about the person who makes such an argument than it does for anything or anyone else.
The point here is that - this isnt an ideological issue. Both sides have done it, and each of the past three administrations have expanded it. We'll have to see what Biden does.
You might think this argues for the "both sides are bad" argument, but instead it's an argument for one side is considerably worse - because it participates in drone strikes abroad *and* does things like forcibly separates mothers from their children as a form of state sponsored terrorism to deter immigration. Not to mention that Trump has doubled Obama's drone strike program in half the time.
Again. The left isnt perfect, but they are not equally complicit right now. Whether that'll be true in the future? I dont know.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
I agree entirely but any talk of a viable third party needs to have a solution to the structural disadvantages a third party candidate has. They are basically designed to lose. You will be kicked off ballots, mocked in the media, won't get a chance to speak at the debates.
Trumps new job after he is out of office. And here is the latest weather forecast for central Florida. Hurricane Alpha doesn't exist it's fake news from the other stations you don't need to evacuate. Go to the beach today it's going to be warm and sunny.
Trumps new job after he is out of office. And here is the latest weather forecast for central Florida. Hurricane Alpha doesn't exist it's fake news from the other stations you don't need to evacuate. Go to the beach today it's going to be warm and sunny.
He is already essentially a late night infomercial host masquerading as a President. Senior citizens like and trust their doctors. They've been with many of them for decades. That's why Trump's support from them has evaporated. The "sacrifice yourself for the economy" pitch, predictably, went over like a fart in an elevator. And since almost nothing has changed in 6 months, my guess is they see Biden as the only hope of resuming a normal life.
The miscalculation that older voters would, en masse, willingly sacrifice themselves at the altar of the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street was absurd from day one. They're old, they may even be politically conservative, they aren't suicidal.
Trump's only generational support at this point is coming from a section of boomers and Gen-X. He's drowning among everyone else.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
I agree entirely but any talk of a viable third party needs to have a solution to the structural disadvantages a third party candidate has. They are basically designed to lose. You will be kicked off ballots, mocked in the media, won't get a chance to speak at the debates.
I agree. The last real chance we had was when Ross Perot ran back in '92. He was close to succeeding but never got the grass-root support to translate into a viable 3rd party (mostly because he went psycho late in the '92 campaign and lost his momentum - he needed to get other viable candidates running for Congress and judge seats and it never happened). It's a colossal undertaking to start a 3rd party under our current system. That's why we need to rewrite the system. There is no support from corporate America for any changes. Not surprising since change = chaos and chaos = chance that corporations lose ? in the short term. Corporations are vested in lowering short-term risk, not looking at improving things in the distant future, and they hold the purse-strings of both parties. If Biden wins, in large part it will be because a lot of major corporations are spending money on him now because the Democrats are a winning bet this time.
The drone thing is not a big deal to me. Presidents are privy to information that none of will ever see. Our grandchildren or great-children might see the data that they had to go on (if it's not shredded) but we won't. I don't fault Bush, Trump or Obama for any of that until I see definitive proof that it was immoral.
You might think this argues for the "both sides are bad" argument
It does. The only way it would not qualify for both sides being bad would be if it was okay for Democrats to kill children. I know thats not what you mean but that *is* the direct implication here.
but instead it's an argument for one side is considerably worse
I just don't understand the impulse to side with, uplift, glorify, and defend one murderer at the expense of another, rather than condemning them both.
There are lots of ways he was uniquely unethical in this regard, including his willingness to lie about the subject in a variety of ways, his willingness to prosecute any whistleblower who would have tried to expose it, or the fact that he even changed the way we count civilian casualties in order to classify innocent people as enemy fighters.
The sum total of all this is that we will never truly know the extent to which innocent young kids were being slaughtered, and no journalist is asking.
More than half of the people poor enough who live on the street right now live in California, and the support for them is almost non-existent, since they are also the highest percentage of homeless people with no shelter to go to.
We can cherry pick how this and that party does this or that thing better or worse, and get nowhere, or we can acknowledge that, indeed, both sides are bad and have issues.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
I agree entirely but any talk of a viable third party needs to have a solution to the structural disadvantages a third party candidate has. They are basically designed to lose. You will be kicked off ballots, mocked in the media, won't get a chance to speak at the debates.
I agree. The last real chance we had was when Ross Perot ran back in '92. He was close to succeeding but never got the grass-root support to translate into a viable 3rd party (mostly because he went psycho late in the '92 campaign and lost his momentum - he needed to get other viable candidates running for Congress and judge seats and it never happened). It's a colossal undertaking to start a 3rd party under our current system. That's why we need to rewrite the system. There is no support from corporate America for any changes. Not surprising since change = chaos and chaos = chance that corporations lose ? in the short term. Corporations are vested in lowering short-term risk, not looking at improving things in the distant future, and they hold the purse-strings of both parties. If Biden wins, in large part it will be because a lot of major corporations are spending money on him now because the Democrats are a winning bet this time.
Perot wasn't really that "close" as he didn't win a single state either time. He was viewed that way because he got on the debate stage and had unlimited money to run live infomercials with charts. He was also helped by Pat Buchanan basically staging a culture war revolt at the 1992 RNC.
The only thing 3rd party candidates are capable of is handing the election to the candidate most directly opposed to their vision. This happened with Perot, Nader, and Stein. The only semi-viable candidate of this type in a century is George Wallace, whose entire platform was maintaining racial segregation, which won him 5 southern states in 1968.
You might think this argues for the "both sides are bad" argument
It does. The only way it would not qualify for both sides being bad would be if it was okay for Democrats to kill children. I know thats not what you mean but that *is* the direct implication here.
but instead it's an argument for one side is considerably worse
I just don't understand the impulse to side with, uplift, glorify, and defend one murderer at the expense of another, rather than condemning them both.
There are lots of ways he was uniquely unethical in this regard, including his willingness to lie about the subject in a variety of ways, his willingness to prosecute any whistleblower who would have tried to expose it, or the fact that he even changed the way we count civilian casualties in order to classify innocent people as enemy fighters.
The sum total of all this is that we will never truly know the extent to which innocent young kids were being slaughtered, and no journalist is asking.
More than half of the people poor enough who live on the street right now live in California, and the support for them is almost non-existent, since they are also the highest percentage of homeless people with no shelter to go to.
We can cherry pick how this and that party does this or that thing better or worse, and get nowhere, or we can acknowledge that, indeed, both sides are bad and have issues.
I agree with you for the most part. You have to admit though, for this one election, Biden is the better choice. Up until last year, and especially this year, I was willing to hope that Trump might be somebody I could still support. No longer. Our current POTUS is a train-wreck and good-riddance if he loses. Having said that, I'm no fan of Harris so hopefully Biden has at least four years of semi-coherence in him. ?
The drone thing is not a big deal to me. Presidents are privy to information that none of will ever see. Our grandchildren or great-children might see the data that they had to go on (if it's not shredded) but we won't. I don't fault Bush, Trump or Obama for any of that until I see definitive proof that it was immoral.
I don't agree one bit. The whole drone program as it is designed constitutes waging war by Executive Branch fiat. The Constitution had very valid reasons to place those powers in the hands of Congress.
Now if it was some bipartisan Congressional council making decisions and reporting to at least a judicial authority, it would be another matter entirely. This is little different from outright murder, and any differences between it and murder are obscured to the public and most members of state.
It doesn't help that there has been such a colossal effort to hide the real numbers and stories from the public.
You might think this argues for the "both sides are bad" argument
It does. The only way it would not qualify for both sides being bad would be if it was okay for Democrats to kill children. I know thats not what you mean but that *is* the direct implication here.
but instead it's an argument for one side is considerably worse
I just don't understand the impulse to side with, uplift, glorify, and defend one murderer at the expense of another, rather than condemning them both.
There are lots of ways he was uniquely unethical in this regard, including his willingness to lie about the subject in a variety of ways, his willingness to prosecute any whistleblower who would have tried to expose it, or the fact that he even changed the way we count civilian casualties in order to classify innocent people as enemy fighters.
The sum total of all this is that we will never truly know the extent to which innocent young kids were being slaughtered, and no journalist is asking.
More than half of the people poor enough who live on the street right now live in California, and the support for them is almost non-existent, since they are also the highest percentage of homeless people with no shelter to go to.
We can cherry pick how this and that party does this or that thing better or worse, and get nowhere, or we can acknowledge that, indeed, both sides are bad and have issues.
I do condemn both, but starting from that position doesn't mean both are equally complicit in all things. Not to mention, you cannot make a cohesive argument that drone strikes are linked to ideology.
Also, I do not think that is a direct implication there. The implication was rather directly that both administrations should be condemned for it. *that* was the implicit claim. I shouldnt need to say "Hey - let's not kill innocent people in other countries".
The way this conversation sounds to me is: Conservatives were perfectly happy ignoring compromise and putting themselves on a pedestal until they began to lose *horribly* in popular opinion polls and elections, to the point that they might lose in a landslide... and now they want liberals/progressives to agree that both sides are bad and that we must compromise.
No. The GOP doesnt get to eschew compromise for as long as it suits them, and then try to guilt the other side into it when their positions are revealed to be historically unpopular. Either you work together in good faith, or not at all.
@WarChiefZeke Its not a refutation that the left can be criticized. Its a refutation that the current left and right are equal in the bad things they've done. And unless you can somehow demonstrate something that is equal to putting children in concentration camps, denying them food, beds, and medical care. Then I'm afraid your claim has zero foundation to stand on.
Trumps new job after he is out of office. And here is the latest weather forecast for central Florida. Hurricane Alpha doesn't exist it's fake news from the other stations you don't need to evacuate. Go to the beach today it's going to be warm and sunny.
He is already essentially a late night infomercial host masquerading as a President. Senior citizens like and trust their doctors. They've been with many of them for decades. That's why Trump's support from them has evaporated. The "sacrifice yourself for the economy" pitch, predictably, went over like a fart in an elevator. And since almost nothing has changed in 6 months, my guess is they see Biden as the only hope of resuming a normal life.
The miscalculation that older voters would, en masse, willingly sacrifice themselves at the altar of the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street was absurd from day one. They're old, they may even be politically conservative, they aren't suicidal.
Trump's only generational support at this point is coming from a section of boomers and Gen-X. He's drowning among everyone else.
I'm Gen-X. Fuck Trump. Im pretty sure many X-ers are in the same boat as me. No pension, no healthcare unless we work until we're 65, and no loyalty from the corporations we work for. We were forgotten and screwed by a government that was all-in on appeasing the Boomers.
The drone thing is not a big deal to me. Presidents are privy to information that none of will ever see. Our grandchildren or great-children might see the data that they had to go on (if it's not shredded) but we won't. I don't fault Bush, Trump or Obama for any of that until I see definitive proof that it was immoral.
I don't agree one bit. The whole drone program as it is designed constitutes waging war by Executive Branch fiat. The Constitution had very valid reasons to place those powers in the hands of Congress.
Now if it was some bipartisan Congressional council making decisions and reporting to at least a judicial authority, it would be another matter entirely. This is little different from outright murder, and any differences between it and murder are obscured to the public and most members of state.
It doesn't help that there has been such a colossal effort to hide the real numbers and stories from the public.
I don't disagree with you, per se. I just would need to see the data they were looking at before I would definitively say they were immoral. It is impossible to say how many lives they may have saved with their actions because we'd need to have access to alternative universes to see every possible outcome. That's why we elect representatives to make those tough decisions. Also why I've never had any political ambitions...
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
I agree entirely but any talk of a viable third party needs to have a solution to the structural disadvantages a third party candidate has. They are basically designed to lose. You will be kicked off ballots, mocked in the media, won't get a chance to speak at the debates.
I agree. The last real chance we had was when Ross Perot ran back in '92. He was close to succeeding but never got the grass-root support to translate into a viable 3rd party (mostly because he went psycho late in the '92 campaign and lost his momentum - he needed to get other viable candidates running for Congress and judge seats and it never happened). It's a colossal undertaking to start a 3rd party under our current system. That's why we need to rewrite the system. There is no support from corporate America for any changes. Not surprising since change = chaos and chaos = chance that corporations lose ? in the short term. Corporations are vested in lowering short-term risk, not looking at improving things in the distant future, and they hold the purse-strings of both parties. If Biden wins, in large part it will be because a lot of major corporations are spending money on him now because the Democrats are a winning bet this time.
Perot wasn't really that "close" as he didn't win a single state either time. He was viewed that way because he got on the debate stage and had unlimited money to run live infomercials with charts. He was also helped by Pat Buchanan basically staging a culture war revolt at the 1992 RNC.
The only thing 3rd party candidates are capable of is handing the election to the candidate most directly opposed to their vision. This happened with Perot, Nader, and Stein. The only semi-viable candidate of this type in a century is George Wallace, whose entire platform was maintaining racial segregation, which won him 5 southern states in 1968.
I voted for Perot in '92. It was my dream. A different choice, finally! It was supposed to be just the start of a freight train that wouldn't stop until we had a viable 3rd party. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a train that broke down before it ever got out of the depot. I think I never really got over my disappointment and that's why I am the way I am. Disappointment hits harder when you're young and idealistic...
Edit: It was even worse when it became apparent to me that Perot just had an axe to grind with Bush Sr. I wasn't just disillusioned, I felt used after that.
It is impossible to say how many lives they may have saved with their actions because we'd need to have access to alternative universes to see every possible outcome.
Personally, I am very confident that number is 0. At the very least, we can devise methods of self defense that don't involve inordinate numbers of civilian casualties. Even by the favorable estimates the amount of actual terrorists and innocent people killed by them is nearly equal.
Medicare for all has to be funded somehow and the left lies about who will have to fund it (the middle class - either by direct taxation or by inflation). I voted for Bernie in the primary and would have voted for him over Trump, so personally I don't have a problem with it. I'm not a fan of insurance companies even though I'm normally conservative in regards to big government.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
I agree entirely but any talk of a viable third party needs to have a solution to the structural disadvantages a third party candidate has. They are basically designed to lose. You will be kicked off ballots, mocked in the media, won't get a chance to speak at the debates.
I agree. The last real chance we had was when Ross Perot ran back in '92. He was close to succeeding but never got the grass-root support to translate into a viable 3rd party (mostly because he went psycho late in the '92 campaign and lost his momentum - he needed to get other viable candidates running for Congress and judge seats and it never happened). It's a colossal undertaking to start a 3rd party under our current system. That's why we need to rewrite the system. There is no support from corporate America for any changes. Not surprising since change = chaos and chaos = chance that corporations lose ? in the short term. Corporations are vested in lowering short-term risk, not looking at improving things in the distant future, and they hold the purse-strings of both parties. If Biden wins, in large part it will be because a lot of major corporations are spending money on him now because the Democrats are a winning bet this time.
Perot wasn't really that "close" as he didn't win a single state either time. He was viewed that way because he got on the debate stage and had unlimited money to run live infomercials with charts. He was also helped by Pat Buchanan basically staging a culture war revolt at the 1992 RNC.
The only thing 3rd party candidates are capable of is handing the election to the candidate most directly opposed to their vision. This happened with Perot, Nader, and Stein. The only semi-viable candidate of this type in a century is George Wallace, whose entire platform was maintaining racial segregation, which won him 5 southern states in 1968.
I voted for Perot in '92. It was my dream. A different choice, finally! It was supposed to be just the start of a freight train that wouldn't stop until we had a viable 3rd party. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a train that broke down before it ever got out of the depot. I think I never really got over my disappointment and that's why I am the way I am. Disappointment hits harder when you're young and idealistic...
Edit: It was even worse when it became apparent to me that Perot just had an axe to grind with Bush Sr. I wasn't just disillusioned, I felt used after that.
My first vote was for Ralph Nader because listening to too much Rage Against the Machine (who is still awesome) led me to believe there was no difference between Bush and Gore. Took me about 48 hours to decide I was never voting for a third party again when it became clear the Bush team wasn't remotely interested in counting votes, only winning by any means necessary, which resulted in a Supreme Court decision even the Justices were ashamed of, because they specifically wrote in that Bush v. Gore shouldn't be used as precedent in any future cases.
It is impossible to say how many lives they may have saved with their actions because we'd need to have access to alternative universes to see every possible outcome.
Personally, I am very confident that number is 0. At the very least, we can devise methods of self defense that don't involve inordinate numbers of civilian casualties. Even by the favorable estimates the amount of actual terrorists and innocent people killed by them is nearly equal.
Because you have all the data that Presidents of the United States of America have, presumably? Not convinced. The very fact that 'both sides' are doing it convinces me that we're not seeing the whole picture. I'll concede that you may be right, however. That's the best I can do.
It is impossible to say how many lives they may have saved with their actions because we'd need to have access to alternative universes to see every possible outcome.
Personally, I am very confident that number is 0. At the very least, we can devise methods of self defense that don't involve inordinate numbers of civilian casualties. Even by the favorable estimates the amount of actual terrorists and innocent people killed by them is nearly equal.
I have a lot of sympathy with your argument, but I think you may be starting from a position that no president shares, i.e. that the US is not protecting a legitimate interest with its use of drones. As a thought experiment, let's ignore the history behind the conflicts where drones have been used (i.e. the extent to which western countries have made themselves targets through their past actions) and assume that there are people plotting to attack US targets - I don't think there should be any difficulty in accepting that assumption. In that case a president has quite a wide range of options about what to do, but none of them are particularly palatable. Options could include for instance: Do nothing - if the threat is generally recognized (for instance as a result of something like 9/11) that doesn't seem realistic. Ask another regime to take action - that's the sort of approach used for years with Pakistan, but hasn't worked terribly well there. Support a regime to work on your behalf - that's effectively what was done with Saddam Hussain for many years, until he got a bit too independent. Even in the meantime though, when he was working in line with western interests and ensuring Iraq was not used as a base for terrorists, there were major question marks about his treatment of his own population. Promote a client state to control actions more directly - moving along the spectrum from supporting towards controlling you get something like Iran under the Shah. It's no great surprise that resulted in not only a repressive regime, but also a backlash against the US that's still a major driving force half a century later. Cut diplomatic ties with the country and use sanctions to enforce compliance with your demands - this may be successful at a macro level if there are elements in the country sympathetic to you (South Africa might be cited as a potential example). However, this not only causes hardship in the population, but doesn't address the problem that it's really individual people in another country that are your target, not the government. Individual sanctions (such as used against many Russians for instance) are not very effective against terrorists. Use a program of assassination - this has been a long-standing policy of Israel and has arguably been quite successful in disrupting potential major military strikes on the country - but less so in reducing the danger of terrorism. Infiltrate groups and intercept planned attacks - this is the sort of approach the UK used with the IRA, but with pretty questionable success. Take targeted military action - the use of drones or artillery from ships would come in here, along with things like raids by special forces. Drones are a bit less discriminating, but have the advantages that they may appear to be less of a territorial infringement and don't put US lives at risk. Maintaining civil war - US policy seems to have been content to do this in Yemen (arguably also in Syria), but it's difficult to see how that helps an objective to prevent terrorist attacks. Full scale war - something like the last invasion of Iraq could be a reasonable response to a perceived threat from another country, but is unlikely to reduce a terror threat.
So lots of options, but there's nothing that shouts out to me that would obviously be better than the use of drones. That's not at all to say I support their use and in fact I doubt I would ever agree to using them if I were asked. However, I think I'm with @Balrog99 on this one that it's hard to say unequivocally they shouldn't be used without a clear alternative strategy. You've referred to using alternative means of self-defense. What sort of thing do you have in mind there?
The previous post about choosing between bad options put me in mind again of Covid-19. I posted some weeks ago about the real levels of the disease in the UK (and other European countries) still being low in comparison with earlier in the year - even though diagnosed cases were at or approaching record levels. I noted that could change quite quickly on the then-current trajectories, but felt governments would feel compelled to take action to prevent that happening.
Since then the progression in the UK has got worse a bit quicker than I expected. Case numbers are much more patchy geographically than earlier in the year, but the trend is upwards everywhere and in some locations in the Midlands and North are already approaching the sort of prevalence seen in March. Overall, UK cases yesterday were 17,540, compared to the previous peak in March of around 100,000. On the current trajectory we would probably equal that number in about 3 weeks - see graph here.
The numbers for hospitalizations and deaths are still much lower, due to the time lags there, but are following similar trajectories - so even if case numbers stopped growing today hospitalizations would continue to increase for a while. Given the pressures on the health service as a result of the delays in other treatments caused by the previous lockdown - and the expected normal seasonal pressures as we move towards winter - prospects are not looking rosy.
In response, Scotland have just announced a considerable tightening of restrictions to come into force today. Those are not as severe as the original full lockdown, but are certainly intended to make people think about the need for social distancing after a period where it's suggested attitudes had become much too relaxed.
There's a major political debate going on in England at the moment about what response to make. There have been several moves to tighten restrictions in the last few weeks, but a further major change is almost certain. It's so much clearer now than it was in March how much difference a week or two can make to the progress of the disease that I think that change will be made in the next few days rather than letting that debate go on longer.
For some time now I think it's been apparent that the clarity of the original lock down message was being lost through complex messages about what you could do and where you could do it - I suspect I follow what's being said more closely than most people, but it still seems confusing to me. Local lockdowns have been and are being used, but those have caused their own confusion about just who is covered and why. The way it looks like government will try and reconcile those difficulties is to have a nationally agreed traffic light system. That would have 3 tiers of restrictions depending on the prevalence in your area. Just what the restriction levels will be and which areas they will apply to is still up for grabs, but I would expect decisions to be made on that this weekend.
Edit: I forgot in drafting the post, that one of the reasons I started it was to note a growing opposition to restrictions. You can see that in a number of forms, e.g.
- the conservative backbenchers who've forced the government to promise more involvement for Parliament in making changes in future.
- local politicians who want more say in what happens in their areas.
- the Great Barrington Declaration may be more of a media stunt than anything, but has been successful to some extent in highlighting opposition to lockdowns.
- there's still significant public support for restrictions, but that's reduced a bit over time.
On balance I think the original argument for restrictions stands - without action, many hundreds of thousands would be expected to die in the UK and huge numbers suffer other health problems. Treatments are improving and it remains possible a vaccine will transform the position in future, but for now the risks of inaction seem to me to be too great.
On the topic of the debate about restrictions, in most of the world that's been a question of protestors fighting against an establishment view in favor of restrictions. I thought this article about the experience in Sweden was interesting as that's based on the opposite position - people frustrated by an establishment view against restrictions (people in the US of course may well have seen a similar situation, partly depending on where you live).
Comments
If you guys think that the Democratic party that twice nominated the more moderate candidate (Clinton over Sanders and then Biden over Sanders) is a party beholden to radical leftwing politics, you're not a centrist. And you're demonstrating far less capacity for compromise than you think.
When John Kasich has endorsed the Democratic nominee, and you're still complaining that the Democrats are too far left for your tastes, what you're revealing is an inability -- far greater than most Democrats -- to be willing to meet "the other side" halfway.
The truth is - either side *can* be equally bad, but I dont believe that is the case today. No one is saying that the left is perfect, but the GOP is currently in the middle of it s "Authoritarian with massive corruption" phase. The one in which they damage institutions that are hundreds of years old, and have perpetuated the greatest economic wealthy gap in human history.
The Democrats, by virtue of being a "Big Tent" party, include a much (much, much) larger stake of the political center than Republicans do. There have been a variety of studies done, and the GOP has become far more conservative over the last few decades that the Democrats have become liberal. The Democrats are closing that gap a bit by having a functional progressive wing for the first time in modern history, but there is still a wide gap.
The only other thing I'd have to say is: I dont think we can say the "fringe" of the left is holding the Democrats hostage when Bernie Sanders - the legitimate face of leftist politics in this country, has lost two straight primary contests by significant margins to more moderate candidates.
I'm about as centrist as they come because I don't tow the party line in either direction. Right now the Republican Party is off the rails so I have to vote for a dottering 77 year old white dude. I've resigned myself to it, but I don't have to like it.
No one's asking you to like it. But when you say things that are factually untrue such as the party being beholden to a fringe element, equivalent to the Republicans, that's going to be corrected.
And, imo, it calls for some self-reflection. Republican presidential nominees have lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. The only popular vote Republicans have won in the current century is 2004 -- where the president still enjoyed something of a post 9/11 effect imo. Some of the conservatives on here who want to jump to a reflexive "a pox on both their houses" politics ought to reflect on how little popularity their own views have among Americans.
What good would comparing notes do? That would imply that there is a two way street, where both Republicans and Democrats can be criticized and the members of those parties will accept the criticism, provided that it's fair. In no way does that resemble this forum. Special pleading is the norm.
In my view though, I think killing kids is a comparable act of moral failing, and this has become systemic due to the war policies that were expanded tenfold in scope under a democratic administration, and with an utter refusal to be transparent about the process. They knew what they were doing and they refused to talk about it. Not only that, but they lied about it and were caught.
Are you truly prepared to say that the kids murdered at the direct approval of our leaders are of infinitely less value than the people we apprehend at the border? Because of what? The need to make one political party look better?
I think it says a lot more about the person who makes such an argument than it does for anything or anyone else.
https://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush
https://www.salon.com/2011/07/19/drones/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/11/three-lessons-obama-drone-lies
Many of you don't seem to get the concept of being centrist. I vote for who I think is either the lesser of two evils (especially for president) or who I think actually votes their conscience rather than party-line (Dingell and, to a lesser degree Snyder who I voted for both times he ran).
Drink too much of the ideological kool-aid and you forget what the world looks like to those who don't share your convictions. Or what the world actually looks like, for that matter.
The Democrats can't win without their fringe, neither can the Republicans. That is not factually untrue as long as the bases show up to vote at a higher percentage than the folks in the center. You might be correct for this one election cycle just because Trump is such a prick that people like me can't stomach another 4 years of his clown act. That won't hold forever though and we'll be back to the normal shit-show where the people showing up to vote are overwhelmingly the bases on both sides. I'm telling you, there isn't any way that only two parties can possibly represent 330 million people. It's just not possible. Our current two-party system is flawed and needs to be shit-canned post haste.
They were then expanded again under Trump:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47480207
The point here is that - this isnt an ideological issue. Both sides have done it, and each of the past three administrations have expanded it. We'll have to see what Biden does.
You might think this argues for the "both sides are bad" argument, but instead it's an argument for one side is considerably worse - because it participates in drone strikes abroad *and* does things like forcibly separates mothers from their children as a form of state sponsored terrorism to deter immigration. Not to mention that Trump has doubled Obama's drone strike program in half the time.
Again. The left isnt perfect, but they are not equally complicit right now. Whether that'll be true in the future? I dont know.
I agree entirely but any talk of a viable third party needs to have a solution to the structural disadvantages a third party candidate has. They are basically designed to lose. You will be kicked off ballots, mocked in the media, won't get a chance to speak at the debates.
Trumps new job after he is out of office. And here is the latest weather forecast for central Florida. Hurricane Alpha doesn't exist it's fake news from the other stations you don't need to evacuate. Go to the beach today it's going to be warm and sunny.
He is already essentially a late night infomercial host masquerading as a President. Senior citizens like and trust their doctors. They've been with many of them for decades. That's why Trump's support from them has evaporated. The "sacrifice yourself for the economy" pitch, predictably, went over like a fart in an elevator. And since almost nothing has changed in 6 months, my guess is they see Biden as the only hope of resuming a normal life.
The miscalculation that older voters would, en masse, willingly sacrifice themselves at the altar of the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street was absurd from day one. They're old, they may even be politically conservative, they aren't suicidal.
Trump's only generational support at this point is coming from a section of boomers and Gen-X. He's drowning among everyone else.
I agree. The last real chance we had was when Ross Perot ran back in '92. He was close to succeeding but never got the grass-root support to translate into a viable 3rd party (mostly because he went psycho late in the '92 campaign and lost his momentum - he needed to get other viable candidates running for Congress and judge seats and it never happened). It's a colossal undertaking to start a 3rd party under our current system. That's why we need to rewrite the system. There is no support from corporate America for any changes. Not surprising since change = chaos and chaos = chance that corporations lose ? in the short term. Corporations are vested in lowering short-term risk, not looking at improving things in the distant future, and they hold the purse-strings of both parties. If Biden wins, in large part it will be because a lot of major corporations are spending money on him now because the Democrats are a winning bet this time.
It does. The only way it would not qualify for both sides being bad would be if it was okay for Democrats to kill children. I know thats not what you mean but that *is* the direct implication here.
I just don't understand the impulse to side with, uplift, glorify, and defend one murderer at the expense of another, rather than condemning them both.
There are lots of ways he was uniquely unethical in this regard, including his willingness to lie about the subject in a variety of ways, his willingness to prosecute any whistleblower who would have tried to expose it, or the fact that he even changed the way we count civilian casualties in order to classify innocent people as enemy fighters.
The sum total of all this is that we will never truly know the extent to which innocent young kids were being slaughtered, and no journalist is asking.
https://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
More than half of the people poor enough who live on the street right now live in California, and the support for them is almost non-existent, since they are also the highest percentage of homeless people with no shelter to go to.
We can cherry pick how this and that party does this or that thing better or worse, and get nowhere, or we can acknowledge that, indeed, both sides are bad and have issues.
https://socialinnovation.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Homelessness-in-CA-Fact-Sheet-v3.pdf
Perot wasn't really that "close" as he didn't win a single state either time. He was viewed that way because he got on the debate stage and had unlimited money to run live infomercials with charts. He was also helped by Pat Buchanan basically staging a culture war revolt at the 1992 RNC.
The only thing 3rd party candidates are capable of is handing the election to the candidate most directly opposed to their vision. This happened with Perot, Nader, and Stein. The only semi-viable candidate of this type in a century is George Wallace, whose entire platform was maintaining racial segregation, which won him 5 southern states in 1968.
I agree with you for the most part. You have to admit though, for this one election, Biden is the better choice. Up until last year, and especially this year, I was willing to hope that Trump might be somebody I could still support. No longer. Our current POTUS is a train-wreck and good-riddance if he loses. Having said that, I'm no fan of Harris so hopefully Biden has at least four years of semi-coherence in him. ?
I don't agree one bit. The whole drone program as it is designed constitutes waging war by Executive Branch fiat. The Constitution had very valid reasons to place those powers in the hands of Congress.
Now if it was some bipartisan Congressional council making decisions and reporting to at least a judicial authority, it would be another matter entirely. This is little different from outright murder, and any differences between it and murder are obscured to the public and most members of state.
It doesn't help that there has been such a colossal effort to hide the real numbers and stories from the public.
I do condemn both, but starting from that position doesn't mean both are equally complicit in all things. Not to mention, you cannot make a cohesive argument that drone strikes are linked to ideology.
Also, I do not think that is a direct implication there. The implication was rather directly that both administrations should be condemned for it. *that* was the implicit claim. I shouldnt need to say "Hey - let's not kill innocent people in other countries".
The way this conversation sounds to me is: Conservatives were perfectly happy ignoring compromise and putting themselves on a pedestal until they began to lose *horribly* in popular opinion polls and elections, to the point that they might lose in a landslide... and now they want liberals/progressives to agree that both sides are bad and that we must compromise.
No. The GOP doesnt get to eschew compromise for as long as it suits them, and then try to guilt the other side into it when their positions are revealed to be historically unpopular. Either you work together in good faith, or not at all.
I'm Gen-X. Fuck Trump. Im pretty sure many X-ers are in the same boat as me. No pension, no healthcare unless we work until we're 65, and no loyalty from the corporations we work for. We were forgotten and screwed by a government that was all-in on appeasing the Boomers.
I don't disagree with you, per se. I just would need to see the data they were looking at before I would definitively say they were immoral. It is impossible to say how many lives they may have saved with their actions because we'd need to have access to alternative universes to see every possible outcome. That's why we elect representatives to make those tough decisions. Also why I've never had any political ambitions...
I voted for Perot in '92. It was my dream. A different choice, finally! It was supposed to be just the start of a freight train that wouldn't stop until we had a viable 3rd party. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a train that broke down before it ever got out of the depot. I think I never really got over my disappointment and that's why I am the way I am. Disappointment hits harder when you're young and idealistic...
Edit: It was even worse when it became apparent to me that Perot just had an axe to grind with Bush Sr. I wasn't just disillusioned, I felt used after that.
Personally, I am very confident that number is 0. At the very least, we can devise methods of self defense that don't involve inordinate numbers of civilian casualties. Even by the favorable estimates the amount of actual terrorists and innocent people killed by them is nearly equal.
My first vote was for Ralph Nader because listening to too much Rage Against the Machine (who is still awesome) led me to believe there was no difference between Bush and Gore. Took me about 48 hours to decide I was never voting for a third party again when it became clear the Bush team wasn't remotely interested in counting votes, only winning by any means necessary, which resulted in a Supreme Court decision even the Justices were ashamed of, because they specifically wrote in that Bush v. Gore shouldn't be used as precedent in any future cases.
Because you have all the data that Presidents of the United States of America have, presumably? Not convinced. The very fact that 'both sides' are doing it convinces me that we're not seeing the whole picture. I'll concede that you may be right, however. That's the best I can do.
I have a lot of sympathy with your argument, but I think you may be starting from a position that no president shares, i.e. that the US is not protecting a legitimate interest with its use of drones. As a thought experiment, let's ignore the history behind the conflicts where drones have been used (i.e. the extent to which western countries have made themselves targets through their past actions) and assume that there are people plotting to attack US targets - I don't think there should be any difficulty in accepting that assumption. In that case a president has quite a wide range of options about what to do, but none of them are particularly palatable. Options could include for instance:
Do nothing - if the threat is generally recognized (for instance as a result of something like 9/11) that doesn't seem realistic.
Ask another regime to take action - that's the sort of approach used for years with Pakistan, but hasn't worked terribly well there.
Support a regime to work on your behalf - that's effectively what was done with Saddam Hussain for many years, until he got a bit too independent. Even in the meantime though, when he was working in line with western interests and ensuring Iraq was not used as a base for terrorists, there were major question marks about his treatment of his own population.
Promote a client state to control actions more directly - moving along the spectrum from supporting towards controlling you get something like Iran under the Shah. It's no great surprise that resulted in not only a repressive regime, but also a backlash against the US that's still a major driving force half a century later.
Cut diplomatic ties with the country and use sanctions to enforce compliance with your demands - this may be successful at a macro level if there are elements in the country sympathetic to you (South Africa might be cited as a potential example). However, this not only causes hardship in the population, but doesn't address the problem that it's really individual people in another country that are your target, not the government. Individual sanctions (such as used against many Russians for instance) are not very effective against terrorists.
Use a program of assassination - this has been a long-standing policy of Israel and has arguably been quite successful in disrupting potential major military strikes on the country - but less so in reducing the danger of terrorism.
Infiltrate groups and intercept planned attacks - this is the sort of approach the UK used with the IRA, but with pretty questionable success.
Take targeted military action - the use of drones or artillery from ships would come in here, along with things like raids by special forces. Drones are a bit less discriminating, but have the advantages that they may appear to be less of a territorial infringement and don't put US lives at risk.
Maintaining civil war - US policy seems to have been content to do this in Yemen (arguably also in Syria), but it's difficult to see how that helps an objective to prevent terrorist attacks.
Full scale war - something like the last invasion of Iraq could be a reasonable response to a perceived threat from another country, but is unlikely to reduce a terror threat.
So lots of options, but there's nothing that shouts out to me that would obviously be better than the use of drones. That's not at all to say I support their use and in fact I doubt I would ever agree to using them if I were asked. However, I think I'm with @Balrog99 on this one that it's hard to say unequivocally they shouldn't be used without a clear alternative strategy. You've referred to using alternative means of self-defense. What sort of thing do you have in mind there?
Since then the progression in the UK has got worse a bit quicker than I expected. Case numbers are much more patchy geographically than earlier in the year, but the trend is upwards everywhere and in some locations in the Midlands and North are already approaching the sort of prevalence seen in March. Overall, UK cases yesterday were 17,540, compared to the previous peak in March of around 100,000. On the current trajectory we would probably equal that number in about 3 weeks - see graph here.
The numbers for hospitalizations and deaths are still much lower, due to the time lags there, but are following similar trajectories - so even if case numbers stopped growing today hospitalizations would continue to increase for a while. Given the pressures on the health service as a result of the delays in other treatments caused by the previous lockdown - and the expected normal seasonal pressures as we move towards winter - prospects are not looking rosy.
In response, Scotland have just announced a considerable tightening of restrictions to come into force today. Those are not as severe as the original full lockdown, but are certainly intended to make people think about the need for social distancing after a period where it's suggested attitudes had become much too relaxed.
There's a major political debate going on in England at the moment about what response to make. There have been several moves to tighten restrictions in the last few weeks, but a further major change is almost certain. It's so much clearer now than it was in March how much difference a week or two can make to the progress of the disease that I think that change will be made in the next few days rather than letting that debate go on longer.
For some time now I think it's been apparent that the clarity of the original lock down message was being lost through complex messages about what you could do and where you could do it - I suspect I follow what's being said more closely than most people, but it still seems confusing to me. Local lockdowns have been and are being used, but those have caused their own confusion about just who is covered and why. The way it looks like government will try and reconcile those difficulties is to have a nationally agreed traffic light system. That would have 3 tiers of restrictions depending on the prevalence in your area. Just what the restriction levels will be and which areas they will apply to is still up for grabs, but I would expect decisions to be made on that this weekend.
Edit: I forgot in drafting the post, that one of the reasons I started it was to note a growing opposition to restrictions. You can see that in a number of forms, e.g.
- the conservative backbenchers who've forced the government to promise more involvement for Parliament in making changes in future.
- local politicians who want more say in what happens in their areas.
- the Great Barrington Declaration may be more of a media stunt than anything, but has been successful to some extent in highlighting opposition to lockdowns.
- there's still significant public support for restrictions, but that's reduced a bit over time.
On balance I think the original argument for restrictions stands - without action, many hundreds of thousands would be expected to die in the UK and huge numbers suffer other health problems. Treatments are improving and it remains possible a vaccine will transform the position in future, but for now the risks of inaction seem to me to be too great.
On the topic of the debate about restrictions, in most of the world that's been a question of protestors fighting against an establishment view in favor of restrictions. I thought this article about the experience in Sweden was interesting as that's based on the opposite position - people frustrated by an establishment view against restrictions (people in the US of course may well have seen a similar situation, partly depending on where you live).
Trump is getting bad advice. He only listens to himself. Anyone with any other opinions are shut up or gone already, he's surrounded only by yes-men.