George H. W. Bush voting for Clinton

[Roy]

This idea that we're allowed to really strive for life and liberty, and pursue happiness is unique.

P.S. "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite"

[robrecht]

P.S. "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite"

Or, as some left-wing French would interpret the actual punctuation: Liberte, point. Egalite, point. Fraternite, point!

[robrecht]

It's literally just a silly way of saying the word "evil" as though a child said it, or as if Homer Simpson said it. It's said that way in order to take the sting out of the word a bit.

Oh. Thanks.

I think his point is simply that, if you put a check in the box next to his name at election time, you are, by definition, supporting Trump. That seems to me like a fair definition of "support". As I've said before, you could always vote third party or not vote at all...

True. And in addition to that, I also think my good friend and fellow ornery Baptist Purple Pants is sometimes dismissive of what I think are legitimate concerns about a Trump presidency. I certainly accept that he is less concerned about Trump than he is about Clinton. Friends can disagree on these things.

[Cow Poke]

If you're voting for Trump, then you're supporting Trump and that vote may just be the one that gets him into power...heaven help the world. And it'll be your fault.

Then that means I have singlehandedly succeeded in preventing Hillary from having the opportunity to nominate and/or appoint judges! That, of course, is my goal - not "supporting Trump".

[Cow Poke]

One of the figures, typically animals, shown on either side of the shield in a full depiction of a coat of arms. The lion and the unicorn in the British coat of arms here are both heraldic supporters.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18790[/ATTACH]

I kinda sorta knew that, Roy, but.... thanks. (only kinda sorta)

[lilpixieofterror]

That's a list of things I think the average person in the rest of the Western world would describe as major, major, problems in the US that need to be urgently addressed before the US could rightly be considered a civilized nation.

I see that you're in your 'I hate America' screed mode again, for entertainment, let's try this...

The reason I should care what a bunch of people, who don't live in the US, think about what we do in the US is....

Tell me dimbulb, why should I care what you think?

The Republicans propose doing almost nothing to address any of those problems. The Democrats for the most part seem to generally want address those topics, albeit with half-hearted and tepid policies. That's what makes the Democrats sane and right-wing from an international perspective, and the Republicans just loony.

You've been listening to more of the lying media I see. Plenty of Republicans have introduced thing themselves, but I doubt you know that because you hate anybody who doesn't agree with you.

Here's all the biggest military spenders in the world:


The US's rate of military spending is insane beyond any rational or reasonable amount. That level is simply indefensible. If it was approximately equal to Russia + China, that would be arguably reasonable - although the rest of the US allies listed there outspend Russia and China put together even without any contribution from the US.

Russia has 17 military facilities in foreign countries, China has 1, Britain has 18, and France has 12... the US has 662. That's not a rationally defensible amount of military spending.

Nice to see that your opinion is automatically absolute truth and anybody, who doesn't agree with you, must be wrong. Since you're selectively picking and choosing what facts you'll hear and what ones you'll ignore, it's my turn to put in the facts you left out:

1. US GDP spending is number 4 on the list. Other countries spend far higher on their GDP spending than we do. The US has the largest economy so we have more money to spend.
2. Your ranting about the amount of US installations overseas is more of your selective picking and choosing what you want to hear and ignoring the rest. See, we were invited to those countries to set up these installations and work closely with them. I know this because I've been to these places and our commanders make large efforts to ensure that we put on a good face to our allies and make a point that we are guest there. Plus, many of those installations are tiny with few resources or have primarily a training mission.

So as always, you leave out critical details in your 'I hate America' screeds because facts are not on your agenda, expressing your hatred is on your agenda.

Plenty of other nations are multicultural. It's not at all unique to the US. It's hard to make exact comparisons, but my country seems to be slightly more multicultural / multiethnic than the US for example.

I've already corrected you on this one too and you ignored me and ran away. See, the US counts several groups as being 'white' that other countries do not count as being white. Latino's are counted as 'white' in the US census along with every person that comes from Europe and Arabs also are counted as 'white' too. You should really try reading the fine print when you jump into the whole 'I HATE AMERICA!' screeds.

All other Western countries recognize international human rights, and most have them entrenched in their constitutions. My own country lacks a constitution but has a special Bill of Rights law, which provides guidelines for interpreting other laws in a way that maximizes liberty.

Sorry dimbulb, but we both know that's a lie because if it was true that they 'maximized liberty'; why is the Germany government arresting people who are critical of their policies in dealing with the refugee crisis? Why do these countries that 'maximize liberty' have 'hate speech' laws that pretty much make it legal to throw people into prison for being critical of government policies?

That's some serious propaganda you're smoking there dude.

Irony at it's finest.

The best comparative analysis I can find of freedom in different countries is the human freedom index which ranks countries on personal freedoms and economic freedoms. The US ranks 31st on personal freedoms, and 20th overall.

So countries that throw people into prison, for being critical of the government, rank higher that countries that don't do that. Yep, another worthless dimbulb chart.

Not quite sure what you're getting at there... it's not Nazi-ville here, we rank as the 5th freest country in the world on that list.

Anybody can pick and choose criteria that they want to list and ignore the rest. It's not hard to do (considering how that list ranks Germany as number 8, it's pretty worthless).

[lilpixieofterror]

New Zealand has a lower population density than the USA. The NZ population is even more spread out than the US one, and correspondingly harder to control.

You've never been to Alaska, Montana, or Wyoming I see.

[Adrift]

New Zealand has a lower population density than the USA. The NZ population is even more spread out than the US one, and correspondingly harder to control.

In a country the size of California... I imagine not so hard. We have states nearly as large, if not larger than NZ, with far less population density than they do. At any rate, his diatribe had pretty much nothing to do with my post so it's neither here nor there.

[Adrift]

P.S. "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite"

Unlike France, (and often to our detriment) the US actually practices it.

[Cow Poke]

Unlike France, (and often to our detriment) the US actually practices it.

Not only that, we use soap!

[lilpixieofterror]

In a country the size of California... I imagine not so hard. We have states nearly as large, if not larger than NZ, with far less population density than they do. At any rate, his diatribe had pretty much nothing to do with my post so it's neither here nor there.

I don't think he's looked at a population density map of the US. The state of Wyoming has a population of 584,153 and is 253,348 km². For comparison New Zealand has a population of 4.47 million and is 268,021 km². So the least populated state in the US, has a population far smaller than New Zealand and is only slightly smaller, in land mass, than New Zealand. I don't think these two have traveled much across the US.

[Sparko]

since China practically pays nothing in wages and has effective slave labor, it is no wonder it's military spending is lower than the US which has to pay actual competitive wages to it's suppliers and soldiers. not to mention that the USA pretty much subsidizes most of the the militaries of the western world.

[Cow Poke]

since China practically pays nothing in wages and has effective slave labor, it is no wonder it's military spending is lower than the US which has to pay actual competitive wages to it's suppliers and soldiers. not to mention that the USA pretty much subsidizes most of the the militaries of the western world.

Plus, the US often pays incredible overcharges for goods because of the excellent efficiency of our procurement system.

[Sea of red]

since China practically pays nothing in wages and has effective slave labor, it is no wonder it's military spending is lower than the US which has to pay actual competitive wages to it's suppliers and soldiers. not to mention that the USA pretty much subsidizes most of the the militaries of the western world.

I doubt China worries about ever getting into a war with the us anyways - since we need them. Russia doesn't have the economy to fight the UK, let alone the US. Sometimes I wonder, 'when is it enough', you know?

The Russians, Chinese, etc have all fallen so far by the wayside that it's kinda of absurd to spend as much as we do.

[Roy]

2. Your ranting about the amount of US installations overseas is more of your selective picking and choosing what you want to hear and ignoring the rest. See, we were invited to those countries to set up these installations and work closely with them.

The majority of those US overseas installations are in Germany (218), Japan (115) and Italy (68). There are also 16 in Afghanistan, and a particularly notorious one in Cuba.

Do you really think that the US was invited to those countries?