3022

The thing that is so utterly insane is that the folks who are constantly screaming about how we need to cut government down to nothing, and go back to the gold standard, and essentially go back to the articles of confederation? They are the same idiots who are saying we should have the government go around with a secret police to round up millions of people and deport them without trials.

In terms of things like conservatives who oppose crap like rejecting refugees because we are afraid of them all being terrorists? There actually are, including folks at the Cato institute.
(Some other links to cato support for refugees)

Basically, the argument for not freaking out about syrian refugees, is that there is absolutely no reason to fear them. Statistically, there is LESS of a chance that they would be terrorists compared to any other person.

3023

They not trying to cut government. They’re just trying to cut the parts of the government they don’t like, just the social welfare pieces. Then they’ll take the money and distribute into more military, registries, give more to religious groups (just theirs of course not all), and figure out ways to shift the tax system to favor their donors.

3024

I thought you were making a joke, but he literally said that. Goddamn.

3025

Yes, advocating violence to silence political opposition is fascist. Trump is an authoritarian nationalist who attempts (often successfully) to bully the media into compliance and whose main campaign themes are the decline of our country (Make Germany Great Again), the demonizing of religious minorities and threats against the American way by scary outsiders. It is not proto-fascism or quasi-fascism. It is straight up fascism. Godwin’s Law does not apply when you are discussing a literal fascist.

Wow. That is so perfectly and strongly stated. And critically important to understand, that Trump does not exist in a vacuum. Carson, Cruz, Rubio – they are all banging the same drum and it is resonating with a wide swath of the right in this country. This is absolutely the end result of years of political propaganda and shameless playing to people’s baser instincts as a political strategy.

3026

Atkin also makes a plea to resist the Overton Window is that excellent piece:

Good journalism shouldn’t continue to pretend that both partisan sides of American politics are equally extreme, and that the best public policy lies in middle-of-the-road compromise between the two. Good journalism should analyze and expose the fact that we now have a unilateral problem centered in the Republican Party, and try to figure out how to keep Americans adequately informed of that so that we can right the ship before it’s too late.

3027

And honestly, lets say a few terrorists get through. The damage they’d do would be less than what the citizenry does to itself on a daily basis anyway.

Freedom isn’t free. Though we’ve apparently forgotten the meaning of it, it doesn’t mean fighting wars across the world against people. It means that the very act of being free endangers you. Laws can only protect so much before they start to restrict freedom. It’s the price you pay to have free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to get drunk, the right to carry a baseball bat down the street.

The GOP talks big and says everyone is a bunch of cowards and pussies, right before they wring their hands in terror at the concept of a refugee somehow killing them. Statistically you’re more likely to get shot by a crazy white person. Yet, disarming those crazy white people isn’t on the table (a point I actually agree with for the most part). Yet, somehow, a brown person fleeing a warzone killing you is worth destroying the Constitution and pissing on the ashes. Because… reasons.

I consider all our rights sacred, though I acknowledge people disagree with that. The Republicans cry about the Nanny State and Big Government and then immediately decide that what we need is more Big Brother watching everyone to protect us from something less dangerous than honeybees.

Dear GOP: Stop being cowardly pussies. If you aren’t afraid of some redneck with a small arsenal, you shouldn’t remotely be afraid of some war widow trying to escape ISIS. You shouldn’t be afraid of an ISIS terrorist for that matter. Because statistically it’s irrelevant and the price of being a free society. Selling that freedom for security from threats that effectively don’t exist is cowardice of the rankest order.

3028

This isn’t actually what he’s saying in that ad at all.
He’s saying that there is no possibility of negotiating with Islamic terrorists for peace, and he’s absolutely right. You aren’t going to find some kind of peace accord with ISIS. Either we win or they do. There’s no end game where both groups end up living peacefully together.

There isn’t anything in that ad which is at all condemning Islam as a whole.

3029

But it’s still fucking absurd because no one is suggesting we negotiate with them in the first place.

3030

You seem to be confusing reality with the narrative. They rarely actually cross.

3031

It’s still making the critical error that religious extremism of any kind is an entity that can be either “negotiated with” or “destroyed”. Like all other kinds of violence it’s been around for a long time, and there are many things a President could do to make it worse (see US foreign policy in the middle east from the cold war) or better. Destroy ISIS using near indiscriminate violence and another group will pop up, perhaps stronger and more barbaric than ISIS, this is what history teaches us consistently. I agree that Rubio wasn’t saying what Slainte implied out of it, but it’s just as useless.

3032

The Trump Train, it does not stop.

Donald Trump touted the benefits of waterboarding in a campaign rally on Monday night, telling a crowd that “you bet your ass” he would bring it back into use.

Addressing thousands of people in Columbus, Ohio, the Republican frontrunner praised waterboarding, an interrogation method that has been called torture. “I would approve more than that,” he said.

Trump told supporters: “Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would. In a heartbeat. I would approve more than that. It works.”

The Republican frontrunner then added “… and if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they do to us”.

3033

The one extra criteria I would put on Syrian refugees is how suitable the refugees are to becoming productive American citizens. Most of them aren’t going back.

It’s a general criteria I would use for all immigrants, not just refugees- because ultimately the whole point of immigration is to benefit the country- not to be a charity.

3034

Thankfully statistics prove that immigrants are much, much more likely to become productive citizens that natural born American citizens (or any other local in any other country).

3035

And you would be wrong. Aiding refugees is a humanitarian imperative. There are international treaties governing this, and we are a signatory nation.

3036

A candidate that openly endorses torture, religious registries and violence against protesters at his meeting.

And they call Obama Hitler? Whoa…

3037

You are correct, on the surface that’s exactly what he is saying in the ad. However, given the rhetoric from the right these past few days if he releases that ad into the public the message it will send to Americans already whipped into a frenzy by Trump, Carson, Rubio and FOX News is closer to what I stated. Those people are far more likely to interpret his message as “Islam is bad. It’s people are bad. It’s either them, or us.”

In short, it’s an extremely irresponsible thing to release into the public while the atmosphere is this highly charged. Moreover, his message makes zero sense. There is not a single person in the government of the United States or European countries who is suggesting that we “negotiate” with terrorists in any way shape or form. In fact, the US policy has always been very clear, we DO NOT negotiate with terrorists, not even when they have our own citizens or soldiers in captivity. I am not sure who Marco Rubio is addressing his remarks to, but in the current atmosphere in this country they are going to be misinterpreted as “it’s us vs. them” with the “Them” clearly being Muslims.

3038

Sorry, but your argument here isn’t sound at all.

You are basically making the same argument that crazy right wingers are making against Obama when he’s spoken out, totally reasonably, about police shootings. That somehow, despite what he says being totally reasonable, that somehow it’s bad for him to say it because of the tension that exists in the environment. That somehow discussing police shooting innocent people is bad because it draws attention to a bad thing and some folks are going to react badly.

No man, that’s bullshit. There’s nothing that Rubio said that is even remotely offensive or wrong, at all. There was nothing “irresponsible” about it. Condemning militant islamic terrorists is not, in even the tiniest way, irresponsible.

Now, you could make the argument that it’s unnecessary, because of course they should be condemned.

But then you need to look at the current state of things in American politics, to understand where Rubio is coming from.

In the presidential race, you have the limelight being hogged by imbeciles like Trump, who are advocating for truly monstrous policy, like rounding people up, or national registries of undesirbles… or even the notion that people should be considered undesirable based on their religion, something which is so inherently UN-American as to be obscene to me.

So Rubio’s statement is meant to point out that, despite the fact that he is NOT advocating absolutely insane, fascist policies to exterminate Muslims, that he is in fact still absolutely committed to fighting the forces of Islamic terrorism. And when you watch his other recent statements, he’s making this very clear, that we are not at war with Islam. But, due to the primary process, he needs to make sure that his position isn’t seen as being somehow soft on terrorism, because then he’ll be ceding the field to lunatics like Trump and Cruz.

You are erroneously attributing the insanity of Trump to Rubio, simply by virtue of the fact that the are both competing for the same nomination. But Rubio’s statements on this topic have been in stark contrast to Trump’s bullshit, and it’s unfair for you to ignore the relative reasonableness of his statements and blame him for the insanity of Trump’s.

3039

The us getting attacked part? Psh no worries

3040

A quote from Rubio’s ad:

This is a civilizational struggle between the values of freedom and liberty and radical Islamic terror. What happened in Paris could happen here. There is no middle ground. These aren’t disgruntled or dis-empowered people. These are radical terrorists who want to kill us because we let women drive, because we let girls go to school. I am Marco Rubio. I approve this message, because there can be no arrangement or negotiation. Either they win or we do.

IS and terror groups do not represent an existential threat to the US or Europe. Sharia law isn’t going to somehow be imposed in FL or NJ. Framing it as a clash of civilizations is both giving far too much legitimacy to IS and Al Queda and fear mongering.

The bit about killing us because we don’t oppress women (except when we force them to carry their pregnancy to term as a result of rape and incest, but that’s another story) is a dog whistle against Muslims. There are of course oppressive policies in some Islamic nations (see Saudi Arabia) but that doesn’t make those nations terrorist states. And what do you think he means exactly by negotiating? I’m guess that’s a reference to Iran.

Rubio is surrounded with neocons and just because Trump is a whack job that doesn’t make him (or Cruz for that matter) reasonable and moderate.

3041

HE HAS A LOGO YOU FOOL.