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Post by JoeP on Oct 12, 2016 16:15:47 GMT
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Post by Moose on Oct 12, 2016 19:02:21 GMT
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 12, 2016 23:17:13 GMT
For me, it is the size of the government and beaurocracy. The apparent ability of the Supreme Court to create laws (rather than only making rulings about conflicts regarding current law) is an example. This "thing" they have about regulating everything under the sun (slight exaggeration) is another. I would like to see a smaller, streamlined, efficient government, there only to handle issues too big for the states, and external audits to protect abuses of tax payer money. But have you seen any budding shoulder blades on your local hogs recently? The problem is that practically all commerce these days is trans-state and most of it is trans-national. The 'smaller, streamlined, efficient government' is nothing but a delusional pipedream perpetrated by those who have the means to influence smaller, more easily swayed audiences, like state and local government officials. I don't trust local government MORE than I don't trust federal government. It has consistently been the federal government which has protected and extended civil rights to Americans whilst state governments have acted to prop up vile and corrupt laws and protect special interests. Everything I have seen in my life indicates that it is MORE regulation which is required in my nationstate...not less. Witness the debacle of the crash of the housing market....caused by DEREGULATION of the banking and real estate industries. Witness the gouging of the American public by the firms of PhRMA, jacking up retail pharmaceutical prices to four to ten times those of the very same products in Canada or Europe. Sometimes our unregulated pharmaceutical industry goes on some perverse whim and the company starts charging whatever the market will bear and people die because they cannot afford a drug which used to be 1/1000th the cost. If you think we are 'over-regulated', you just are NOT PAYING ATTENTION. So, I think your idea sucks, Christy.
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Post by Moose on Oct 13, 2016 1:26:50 GMT
I don't entirely buy - as I have said before - the fact that many Americans dislike and distrust 'big government', though I recognise that I come from a country that is smaller than some of the United States themselves. That said, if people want smaller government is there (genuine question) any point in keeping a federal government at all? Bearing in mind also the vast disparity of opinion in different parts of the US (before anyone says it I know that it's not neatly compartmentalised but it can certainly be roughly categorised).
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Post by spaceflower on Oct 30, 2016 17:08:44 GMT
Well, I don't see how this goes well with "making USA great again". They seem to want to make USA small. So maybe they feel more like Texans, Californians etc than Americans?
I read that some Swedish expert thinks that if Trump wins, it is the greatest threat against Europe since WW2. It is about Nato. Today the Baltic states and Finland are protected against Putin's Russia, unlike Georgia and Ukraine. Tomorrow?
The economic experts worry about free trade. USA is an important trade partner for Sweden but what if USA introduces trade barriers, like customs duties? Trump is bad but Clinton is not that good either.
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Post by tangent on Oct 30, 2016 17:27:00 GMT
Clinton is probably by far the best choice for everyone outside America.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 30, 2016 18:37:41 GMT
Clinton is probably by far the best choice for everyone outside America. Of those still standing, yes. I agree that internationally, she is, by far, the most stable. But she is also still a tool of the financial machinery to pillage world economies. She comes with her own set of problems, all of them less accute that those of other candidates. What happens in other arenas is going to colour her administration considerably. Most notably in the Senate and with the Republican Party. Do NOT expect the drones to stop. Do not expect the impositions upon privacy to stop. Do not expect the military colonies to disappear. Amongst the many things I perceive Secretary Clinton to be is a tool of the Military-Industrial Complex...the source of the Forever War. Note that, eight years later, Gitmo is still open, despite the promises of candidate Obama, with his promises of HOPE and CHANGE. I got change...two nickels and three pennies. Thanks a lot.
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Post by tangent on Oct 30, 2016 18:55:44 GMT
I agree that internationally, she is, by far, the most stable. But she is also still a tool of the financial machinery to pillage world economies. As are most US politicians. Do NOT expect the drones to stop. Amongst the many things I perceive Secretary Clinton to be is a tool of the Military-Industrial Complex...the source of the Forever War. Is there anyone in America who isn't a source of the Forever War? I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just observing that her bad points are no worse than anyone else we can expect to be a candidate. Except Sanders, of course.
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Post by whollygoats on Oct 30, 2016 19:09:17 GMT
I agree that internationally, she is, by far, the most stable. But she is also still a tool of the financial machinery to pillage world economies. As are most US politicians. Do NOT expect the drones to stop. Amongst the many things I perceive Secretary Clinton to be is a tool of the Military-Industrial Complex...the source of the Forever War. Is there anyone in America who isn't a source of the Forever War? I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just observing that her bad points are no worse than anyone else we can expect to be a candidate. Except Sanders, of course. Sadly, that is my point. Many Americans practice 'aversive voting'....voting to support those they don't want to support because the alternative is worse. It's fear voting; stampeding the herd. Sanders and Warren are my particular exemplars at this point. Yes, there are other sources in the US which augur against the Forever War machine...but you are right, in that the corruption runs deep and curing it will be protracted and costly. Chalmers Johnson, an academic chronicling the fall of the American empire, noted in his analysis that practically every US Representative district in the United States, there is a manufacturing plant, one providing a significant number of jobs in the district, which is predicated upon 'Defense contracts'....that is the Forever War machine. The expansion and contraction of economic opportunity is controlled by the MIC and its war profiteers. That's why it will be costly, painful, and protracted.
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