Congrats, Democrats

Wait, I thought China was bad? Which kinda pokes at the biggest issue of your biggest GDP economy, it is rather heavily reliant on (foreign) credit. I don't think you want another Great Depression.

The conversation is about corporations and if they have the right to influence how our country operates, and you pull up a 3 year old article from the Obama Administration about China and the trade deficit. I think you're back to trolling me.

China is bad. The trade deficit, under the Trump Administration, is under a long overdue correction. Walmart still has the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, just like Unions, the NRA, activist organizations, as well as every other American Citizen.

I believe you should be more concerned about Brexit... notice I don't chime in on that issue?

 

Wait, I thought China was bad? Which kinda pokes at the biggest issue of your biggest GDP economy, it is rather heavily reliant on (foreign) credit. I don't think you want another Great Depression.

The conversation is about corporations and if they have the right to influence how our country operates, and you pull up a 3 year old article from the Obama Administration about China and the trade deficit. I think you're back to trolling me.

 

China is bad. The trade deficit, under the Trump Administration, is under a long overdue correction. Walmart still has the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, just like Unions, the NRA, activist organizations, as well as every other American Citizen.

 

I believe you should be more concerned about Brexit... notice I don't chime in on that issue?

 

So walmart spends lobbying money to influence congressional votes on trade, tariffs and employment laws that make it easier to move manufacturing jobs overseas. It uses its money in local city lobbying to influencing zoning  exemptions so that they can build SUPERCENTERS, that proceed to spend their first two years of existence operating in the red deliberately to push out local small businesses, resulting in a net loss of competition and jobs. Walmart uses political lobbying to get changes  to regulations on part time vs full time workers in order to deflate wages and result of fewer stable jobs for individual americans.

I thought you were pro small business, pro good jobs, pro american manufacturing lys?

I thought you were pro small business, pro good jobs, pro american manufacturing lys?

I'm pro small government, pro capitalism, and pro nationalism. I don't care what Walmart does. They will do whatever is best for their business. The question is, can they lobby the government. The answer is yes they can. If you want to lead an effort to change the 1st Amendment to say everyone has the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, except for Walmart... then go for it.

 

Wait, I thought China was bad? Which kinda pokes at the biggest issue of your biggest GDP economy, it is rather heavily reliant on (foreign) credit. I don't think you want another Great Depression.

The conversation is about corporations and if they have the right to influence how our country operates, and you pull up a 3 year old article from the Obama Administration about China and the trade deficit. I think you're back to trolling me.

 

China is bad. The trade deficit, under the Trump Administration, is under a long overdue correction. Walmart still has the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, just like Unions, the NRA, activist organizations, as well as every other American Citizen.

 

I believe you should be more concerned about Brexit... notice I don't chime in on that issue?

 

And I think you don't understand where trade "imbalances" (both deficits and surplus) can come from and that talking about a singular nation they are meaningless for your entire country's economy. That said your complete trade picture is indeed a deficit, perhaps look into ALL the factors.

AKA, you got a deficit cause your capitalism model makes it so, stop whining about it >_>

You are free to talk about the Brexit, but know I will be selling you a bus then.

People are gay if they want to be.

Sorry to get back to this, I know the discussion seems to have moved on.  I've been a bit busy, but I wanted to address it.  Lys, I'd like something cleared up, are you saying being gay is a choice?

I'd like you to be honest.  I know you don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, that's something I can respect.  I've lived my life the same way.

I'll be honest, that statement has been bothering me.  I'd like an honest response.

If you wish to answer my question privately, we can.

To everyone else, please let Lys respond honestly.  When he does, please, as a favour to me, wait until I respond.

Lys, I'd like something cleared up, are you saying being gay is a choice?

I stated several times that my position on social issues are personal. I'm not debating the science, nor do I care about the clinical findings, or that a peer review panel took a poll, and by a unanimous show of hands determined that... no, just forget all of that, because I don't care. I can only speak for myself, and I know for a fact that I choose not to be.

I have known a few, and I've even been hit on before, but I sincerely don't care enough to even desire to understand it all. People have the right to be gay, but I still have the right to not be. I grew up in military schools in a very different time. I know the next generation is much kinder than mine was.

I don't know how being gay is tied into this current trend of men having their dicks chopped off, but having it chopped off doesn't make you a woman... it makes you a man who had his dick chopped off. That is just lunacy to me, so maybe it's all just different degrees of mental illness... but like I said, it's not a part of my life so I really don't care.

I believe you should be more concerned about Brexit... notice I don't chime in on that issue?

I don't see a blue wave coming, if anything this election and the previous election have shown us that the left has a very vocal minority. I don't have to look very far to find people dismissing opinions as being racist, xenophobic, transphobic, cisphobic, white privileged, culturally appropriated, etc. It's normal for the house to go to the opposite party during midterms and this was no exception. Quite frankly, democrats lost my vote and the votes of many others, because they viciously demonize anyone who doesn't fully conform to their ideals. As long as the dems keep vilifying everyone who votes against them, they simply won't gain the support they need.

Actually you have chimed quite loudly about it in other threads. I understand you dislike having “others” speak about America, but I am interested in opinions and ideas, and I would appreciate it if you would stop dismissing and discouraging others for sharing their thoughts.

The only chiming was my support for the leave campaign and my congrats when they won. Since the referendum I have remained silent about all the details of the difficult task of actually leaving. It wouldn't bother me a bit if some angry European blasted me because it's none of my business, and I have never attempted to keep my US Citizenship a secret so anyone who reads it will think my opinion matters. What I take issue with is transparency. I wouldn't mind at all if Rafay said "I'm in Pakistan, and my opinion doesn't matter, but I'm awesomely thrilled the Democrats took the House in the USA!!!" He didn't do that... he said "we" a lot... he's not one of us.

 

Actually you have chimed quite loudly about it in other threads. I understand you dislike having “others” speak about America, but I am interested in opinions and ideas, and I would appreciate it if you would stop dismissing and discouraging others for sharing their thoughts.

The only chiming was my support for the leave campaign and my congrats when they won. Since the referendum I have remained silent about all the details of the difficult task of actually leaving. It wouldn't bother me a bit if some angry European blasted me because it's none of my business, and I have never attempted to keep my US Citizenship a secret so anyone who reads it will think my opinion matters. What I take issue with is transparency. I wouldn't mind at all if Rafay said "I'm in Pakistan, and my opinion doesn't matter, but I'm awesomely thrilled the Democrats took the House in the USA!!!" He didn't do that... he said "we" a lot... he's not one of us.

 

 No

"Today Americans proved me and a lot of people in the world wrong and cleared".

"The Dems won the house, picked up governors, gained some state assemblies and most importantly won the popular vote big time."

"Congrats once again guys."

Perhaps it's been sufficiently  long since your last english class: Americans is that sentence is the subject noun, while "me" and "a lot of people" are acting of objective pronouns. A sentences structured in that way indicates that the person or persons indicated by the subject pronoun are acting in a way external to the person or persons indicated by the object pronoun. The sentence is equivalent to the dative case, not the nominative case. As an example, "The store gave me a discount",can in no way be read to to imply that the speaker (indicated by the pronoun "me") is also the store. 

Infact, every one of those sentences indicates that the subject is external to the speaker. 

I would recommend you either not invent reasons to justify your comments, or brush up on your grade school grammar. 

"The Dems won the house, picked up governors, gained some state assemblies and most importantly won the popular vote big time."

Typical Progressive. Cherry pick something that supports your position and insult the intelligence of your target. It's not about nouns and pronouns, it's about context. He's not in the USA, he didn't vote for anyone, he didn't win anything, and "the war" he's talking about, is not his. I think it's important to make that clear. It's not important to argue about it.

"The Dems won the house, picked up governors, gained some state assemblies and most importantly won the popular vote big time. I call it a good haul but its only a battle we won, the war rages on."

 

"The Dems won the house, picked up governors, gained some state assemblies and most importantly won the popular vote big time."

Typical Progressive. Cherry pick something that supports your position and insult the intelligence of your target. It's not about nouns and pronouns, it's about context. He's not in the USA, he didn't vote for anyone, he didn't win anything, and "the war" he's talking about, is not his. I think it's important to make that clear. It's not important to argue about it.

 

"The Dems won the house, picked up governors, gained some state assemblies and most importantly won the popular vote big time. I call it a good haul but its only a battle we won, the war rages on."

 

Oh right. You say you grasp the grammar. Fine. There's that reason gone.

So you understand that Rafay spends multiple paragraphs of that post clearly speaking as someone who is neither an American nor even a Democrat. You're aware that Rafay is from pakistan and no one else seems to think that fact is some revelation, so clearly they've not made a secret of it in the years I stopped playing. There's obviously no intent to mislead, nor even any accidental possibility of it, nor has anyone here claimed to have been mislead.

But yet you keep going off about how rafay is attempting to keep his nationality a secret and claiming to be american. Why? 

But yet you keep going off about how rafay is attempting to keep his nationality a secret and claiming to be american. Why?

You're the one that keeps going off about it. I dropped the issue days ago, and Rafay defended himself just fine. Honesty is a real important thing to me, and I feel the same way about all cases of stolen valor. Democrats won some tough elections the other night, and Rafay didn't have a thing to do with that. It was important to me to make that clear, after that was accomplished, it was over as far as I'm concerned. You guys can embrace his "I'm a Communist" declaration and wear that around your neck. You took some time writing about my comprehension of nouns and pronouns, and totally missed the part where you don't know how to read... I said it's not important to argue about. You win. Congratulations!

Why don't America shift to a multi party system?
That would solve all this

We do have a multi party system technically, its just the nature of our election systems that leads to having two main parties.  Libertarian and Green are the other two "major" parties, but they don't really get enough votes to actually win anything.

Why don't America shift to a multi party system?
That would solve all this

In before Betsy. 

Also america's political process is pretty much antithetical to more than two parties. There is a reason why when america plays a role in setting up new goverments, the american system is the last thing they used, and why most "modern" political structures prefer a parliamentary system. The executive is pretty much uncheckable outside of the rigidly defined system of  checks and balances, and so there's a huge incentive for parties to combined outright rather than act as a coalition. 

In a parliamentary system if the executive can't get consensus of the house then their power is sharply curtailed and in the event of a minority government they're forced to form coalitions. Also depending on the system (for example most of the commonwealth), if a minority government shits the bed, a vote of no confidence can dissolve the the government and the resulting election turns into a sort of referendum on that issue.

Under the america's system even if the house spits say 20/40/40 with a three party system, one party still ends up with complete control of the executive.  The senate also screws with this, you can carry the senate with a pathetic amount of the popular vote, which theoretically means that a party can wield far outsized influence there (also the fact the VP gets to break a tie  doesn't help.). If there are two parties that have a somewhat common platform, it's always the better option (at least as far as their winning the election goes. Good for america is another topic)  for them to combine their resources instead of competing. 

Basically american politics were "republican democracy 1.0"  that's been patched a couple dozen times to make it mostly work.  But like any 1.0 product, it has quite legacy problems and rough edges. 

 

Lys, I'd like something cleared up, are you saying being gay is a choice?

I stated several times that my position on social issues are personal. I'm not debating the science, nor do I care about the clinical findings, or that a peer review panel took a poll, and by a unanimous show of hands determined that... no, just forget all of that, because I don't care. I can only speak for myself, and I know for a fact that I choose not to be.

 

I have known a few, and I've even been hit on before, but I sincerely don't care enough to even desire to understand it all. People have the right to be gay, but I still have the right to not be. I grew up in military schools in a very different time. I know the next generation is much kinder than mine was.

 

I don't know how being gay is tied into this current trend of men having their dicks chopped off, but having it chopped off doesn't make you a woman... it makes you a man who had his dick chopped off. That is just lunacy to me, so maybe it's all just different degrees of mental illness... but like I said, it's not a part of my life so I really don't care.

 

Thank you for answering my question Lys.  I respect the fact that you don't want to discuss it, and I'll be honest I don't want to derail this topic.

Lys, the reason I asked that question was personal.  I am gay.  Like you I grew up in an era as well as a very parochial society, where being gay was not tolerated and was met with extreme hostility. I struggled for a very long time before I accepted what I am. 

I am heartened to see that you believe I have a right to exist, unlike a number of your fellow Republicans. 

I won't say anything further.

 

 

Lys, I'd like something cleared up, are you saying being gay is a choice?

I stated several times that my position on social issues are personal. I'm not debating the science, nor do I care about the clinical findings, or that a peer review panel took a poll, and by a unanimous show of hands determined that... no, just forget all of that, because I don't care. I can only speak for myself, and I know for a fact that I choose not to be.

 

I have known a few, and I've even been hit on before, but I sincerely don't care enough to even desire to understand it all. People have the right to be gay, but I still have the right to not be. I grew up in military schools in a very different time. I know the next generation is much kinder than mine was.

 

I don't know how being gay is tied into this current trend of men having their dicks chopped off, but having it chopped off doesn't make you a woman... it makes you a man who had his dick chopped off. That is just lunacy to me, so maybe it's all just different degrees of mental illness... but like I said, it's not a part of my life so I really don't care.

 

Thank you for answering my question Lys.  I respect the fact that you don't want to discuss it, and I'll be honest I don't want to derail this topic.

Lys, the reason I asked that question was personal.  I am gay.  Like you I grew up in an era as well as a very parochial society, where being gay was not tolerated and was met with extreme hostility. I struggled for a very long time before I accepted what I am. 

I am heartened to see that you believe I have a right to exist, unlike a number of your fellow Republicans. 

I won't say anything further.

 

Don't worry my friend. I have read very deeply into your posts, and I knew you were either gay or a woman... it didn't matter to me one way or the other. I want nothing more than for you to be happy with your life, and I am absolutely positive that if we ever encountered each other IRL, you would discover immediately that I would never judge you on such a personal matter, especially when it could be so potentially painful... and I think you would be surprised how protective I would be.

One thing you deserved from me was an honest response. I can't hide my lack of understanding, but really the most important thing I have learned in all my decades on this planet is I will never understand everything, and it's futile to try. Rest assured you will always have my friendship and respect. You can like cucumbers too, even though I hate them... but I do like dill pickles... figure that one out.

Martha McSally put out a rather cheerful consession speech last night. If you're wondering why she's so okay with it, it's because John McCain's seat was appointed to Jon Kyle on condition he would only fill it until the start of the new year. For Governor Ducey, the obvious choice is Martha McSally. Pretty sure she will get to the Senate anyway. Flake being replaced by Kyrsten Sinema is like Flake keeping the seat, but in the end Republicans will have at least one Senator they can count on from Arizona, and that will be Senator McSally.

 

Why don't America shift to a multi party system?
That would solve all this

 

In before Betsy. 

 

Why me?

Aside from RH's commentary, a direct cause if a FPTP election, "winner takes all" is an idiotic thing in a democracy, compounded with that in the US most (not all) wins can be done by plurality so offcourse they (the parties) band together into a 50%+1 so they can be "sure" of winning. Meanwhile the fringe parties (green, libertarians, ...) are seen as more as a lifestyle choice. Only plus side you guys have is the lack of "protest votes", or atleast not as frequent as happening here.

As for AZ's senate seat, I did enjoy the RNC being annoyed when (ignoring her trumpismy post-primary) McSally didn't go full ham into the "election fraud/steal" screams some other Reps are doing in various other still contested races. Even funnier when AGAIN your president goes into the whole FAKE NEWS part of it and adds some more ham to the already ludricous situation. That she is front runner to keep the seat warm for another 2y was a given once she started trailing in her own race.