Give me an eternity, I'll give you an update!
And on the plus side, I will have plenty of time to write again once the job that's actually making me happy is eradicated and I'm no longer destroying America.
In the meantime, I'm still scrapping some story updates together. Hope to have something soon.
Page generated in 0.029 seconds
Total duration
1,003 users online
1,612,041 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Did the wrong lizard get in?
2575244
Sometimes I think it's less the right or wrong lizard, and more the wrong or MORE wrong lizard.
Hope that your current situation is a merely a bump in life rather then the beginning of the series of Unfortunate Event.
2575285
My life has been a series of unfortunate events for the last eight years.
I really don't think the affordable healthcare bill is going anywhere.
2575287
Considering their every waking moment and breath is devoted to either repealing it entirely or dismantling the bill a piece at a time until it's as useless as FEMA, instead of simply trying to fix the flaws in the system while working towards something better, I have every reason to be concerned.
2575286
I myself don't have much of a favorable view of the US itself (because of GOP/Tea Party), but it can't be ALL bad
2575291
I think that Obamacare itself was a hairballed idea to begin with that does more harm than good, so i'd have a Rager in the streets, but from living in a city with the key demographic for Obamacare I would highly doubt that it would be repealed unless all of the newly elected politicians want to commit political suicide.
I honestly was apathetic about the election... in particular because in the region I was in, I heard less 'issues' and more 'go with us, because we present these people as idiots and do not agree with them'.
Ah, Mudslinging. It sucks.
2575327
IAH is worried that Obamacare won't be repealed so much as piecemeal torn apart via other bills that effect its ability to work as intended, bit by bit. Obama would never sign into law a bill that overturned what's viewed as his legacy, but if incremental, important bills have enough anti-Obamacare riders attached to them...
...but, I don't think that will be a problem. Republicans may control Congress, but their majority is a slim one, and any serious attack on Obamacare will meet still resistance from the Democrats. Plus I don't think that the Republicans have enough time; in two years there's another Presidential election plus another set of elections in the House that could very well turn House control over to the Democrats if the Republicans continue their "block everything Obama tries to do ever no matter what" approach to politics.
I will say this; the Democrats really, really did not try hard enough this election cycle.
2575384
I understand his concern, being that its his employment, but I don't care if it gets pecked to death, repealed, ripped up, or rolled into a blunt and smoked, I just don't want it. Socialized healthcare, like other state sponsored social services, succeeds in the way that people who didn't have healthcare before will have coverage, but fails in every other regard because it brings everyone else down.
The quality of care has decreased (just look at the socialist confederacy of Canada and why so many Canadians get medical work done in the states). The rates have raised on previous medical plans ( "The affordable Healthcare Act won't raise your price of coverage" my pasty white ass). There are numerous loopholes in the plan itself(a guy in my area owns 10 gas station with 200 fulltime employees, so he split his business across his 5 kids -one of which is 20 years old- and had them sign him as the chief beneficiary). The system is supporting people who don't even pay taxes and are already on welfare, do I even need to link the legions of people in Detroit who think that the Stimulus package came from Obama's "Stash"? Worst yet, there's a better system for national healthcoverage anyway!
I don't think its going anywhere because the ignorant masses want it and politicians will do what it takes to be reelected, but if it gets dismantled then it'd be a wet dream come true.
2575471 State-owned healthcare do work in other countries, like here in Malta and the rest of Europe. I know because I work in a healthcare department.
And I don't think you should worry too much about what would happen to your job. If they want to use Negative Politics all the time, they will risk political suicide. Unless the mass are stupid enough to agree with the negativity spewed by the Republican opposition.
2575494 what's the population of Malta?
I completely forget, what job did you get?
2575509 Around 415,000. It's densely populated. Why did you ask?
2575518
Supplying healthcare for everyone in a country gets much harder the larger the country is. Malta's entire population is only about 2/3rds that of Boston, Massachusetts (the capital of my home state), for example. Plus a single small island in the middle of the Mediterranean has somewhat less pressures on its finances and people than the world's largest economy, sole remaining superpower, and third most populous country.
No offense intended.
2575509
Having said the above, though, there are numerous other examples of universal healthcare working on a large scale - the Scandinavian countries, for example, or Spain, which has one of the best healthcare systems in the world.
Yes, people take advantage of the system. People take advantage of every system. The overwhelming majority of people on Obamacare, however, are honest participants who genuinely benefit from it.
Percentages, s’il vou plaîs? Even if, say, 50,000 Canadians per year come down to the US to do this, that's only gonna be about .1% of their population.
...
...in the course of posting this I have learned that I know a surprising number of world population figures off the top of my head. Take that, people who say Americans don't know anything about the world outside of America!
As a Green Party socialist, I too am pretty disappointed, especially by the apathy toward voting so many young people I talked to displayed. "My time is too valuable" my ass. You can't let go of ONE hour or less ONE day a year? Disgusting indifference.
2575471 you want to debate this? I will fuckig destroy you, Republican shit bag.
2575555
Maybe because the system is beyond fucked, and the younger generation doesn't want to support a Coke or Pepsi system.
The voting system should not be based around two parties that barely represents 47% of the population, when combined.
Thats right motherfuckers, 53% of America doesn't align itself with either party. That means that the party we have in the house, the Republicans, on average, only accurately represents 23% of America.
So why vote? Fuck voting. Not voting is to protest an already broken system, one that has been broken for the past 70 years. Officials take office not because of what they stand for, but because they have shit tons of money, and are sponsored by more multi billion dollar corporations than your average NASCAR driver.
Besides, anybody who's not blind can see that the table's going to flip, and revolution is going to break out within the next 10 years, so long as things don't change. And since the country is being run by two parties, one which wants things to stay fucked, the other driving it to be fucked, I don't see anything notable happening in the future.
2575575 that defeatist attitude isn't going to help our country become any better. Sure, (overgeneralizing) Democrats suck, but the suck a metric fuckton less than republicans.
2575527
I asked a friend of mine from England once about what he thought about Obamacare, because being from England where they have a very successful social medical system, he'd been very interested in Obamacare and done a lot of research on it. His ultimate opinion (concluding about an hour of specific examples) was the the US had taken "everything wrong or that didn't work" from other social medical systems and adopted those practices, while dutifully ignoring everything "everything that actually works." He had multiple examples of things that the UK and other nations have refined out of their social medical systems because they were huge, inefficient money sinks that for whatever reason Obamacare made bigger than every other system out there. It was, he pointed out, as if Obamacare was determined to become the largest train wreck of social medicine ever embarked upon by picking all of the worst, most non-functioning aspects of socialized health care and taking them front and center. He brought up revisions to England's health care and other countries where they'd fixed problem areas that were hurting the system and then showed how Obamacare was running full tilt the other direction. It was almost bad enough that he wondered if our President simply wanted the system to fail, because as he put it, 'if you were seriously going to create a socialized medical system, it would take willful ignorance to ignore this much about it and put together something so poor.'
A socially subsidized medical system can work. Unfortunately, we don't have a working one right now. Obamacare was ill-thought, an attention-grabbing scheme that isn't panning out at all. Will it possibly get the ball rolling on a long overdue complete and competent workover of our health-care system? Hopefully so, because like a few other infrastructures in the country, we need some rebuilds and shake-ups. Is it a magic bullet? No. Bullet maybe, but it's shot the healthcare system in the neck and letting it bleed out.
2575518 Okay, that's good to know. About a quarter of the way around the world There's a city called Chicago. Chicago's Population is 2.7 million people (which seems kind of small, but oh well). The City of Chicago had plans to move all health coverage over to Obama care, which in and of itself, would be a disaster. Now, I'm pretty sure this plan fell through because 1. why would people that could pay for better coverage settle for sub par coverage. and 2. Because the labor unions strike against it because the union benefits were already better than Obamacare. But let's talk a walk past Lake Michigan and go to a little old place I call home, Detroit.
For the last 50 years, Detroit's population has been declining rapidly and now the city is borderline ready to default on their city bonds and loans. In short, We're bankrupt. so + 600,000 Are either now on Obamacare or had their rates hiked, the city itself can't even pay for promised retirements, the UAW doesn't want Obamacare, and god only know how many people are either on welfare or don't pay taxes in the first place. The system can't support this because there are too many things pulling it down, and the situation is as bad around the rest of the country.
2575527
Hasn't the Scandinavian peninsula had a history of debt because of its socialized services? Anyway, there are also numerous examples of it failing because its almost impossible to raise the coverage while not raising the prices. The fact people aren't procedures done in their own country is enough to show the quality of the care. The loopholes of the Obamacare policy aren't done because some rich white guy wants to save money, its done because its a difference of life and death. The policy has lead to layoffs, reduced hours, and reduced wages. The only thing good out of this is the increase of part time workers ... which can be interpreted as either increased employment or employees with less money.
As for this:
I had to suppress a laugh. there are many people who are benefitting from Obama care, some of them are who are honest, and even more who are damaged by it.
2575555
You know, I'd actually have some respect for your mental capacity if could have spelled "fucking" right.
2575575
Uh, actually, it's not. Yes, Democrats and Republicans have all the money and recognition, but that's because they have the support from the plurality of the country. It's not like third-party candidates are locked out of the system, it's that they can't drum up enough support outside of their local regions because when America gets to voting the Democrats or the Republicans have their bases covered the overwhelming majority of the time.
The problem here is that the remaining 53% doesn't represent a single bloc, or even ten blocs, but instead quite literally hundreds, the largest of which comprise only about 2-3% of the voter base, and most of which don't even add up to 1%. Greens, Progressives, Socialists, Fascists, Royalists, Communists, Anarchists, Confederates, Dixiecrats, Whigs, Religious, Federalists, and others too numerous to count, simply don't have enough of a presence on the national scene because their platforms simply don't resonate enough with the American people.
What hurts them the most, I think, is that a large number of them are essentially single-issue parties. That is, even if they do have stances outside of their main issue, those stances aren't well advertised or known about, and the parties are instead defined by their single raison d'être. The Green party, one of the more successful in recent years, is a great example of this. The Democrat party is known to stand for gay marriage, increased taxes on the rich, benefits for the poor, public healthcare, avoiding international interventionism, being pro-choice, and protecting the environment. The Green party is known to stand for protecting the environment, and...that's it. Which is great if the environment is your only concern, but although parties can be single-issue, people rarely are.
And because people vote for them. And because enough people have decided that their votes don't matter and/or don't care enough. All the money in the world wouldn't change things if their votes don't add up to greater than 50%, but since it does...
Voter turnout in a midterm election is typically only about 40%. Do you know what that tells candidates? It tells them that they're doing just fine, that the majority of the constituency is satisfied enough with the state of affairs that they don't feel a pressing need to change. And they're not wrong for thinking that, either.
Like we haven't heard that one before...the revolution has been going to break out in the next 10 years for the past 60 years or so. Khrushchev promised that the weight of history was on his side, but in the end the USSR only buried itself.
America is not ripe for a revolution. The last real shot at one was in the late 60s, early 70s, but that didn't go anywhere, and chances were pretty low then, anyway. The last time things got bad enough for Americans to start shooting other Americans en masse was 1861, and it took a whole lot of buildup and a far more fundamental break in American culture than anything that exists today (and it was, besides, essentially a temper tantrum thrown by Southern Democrats when they realized that they no longer had enough votes to control the country). For all the dissatisfaction that's floating around in America, there just isn't enough of it to particularly want to overthrow the government violently.
If there's going to be a revolution in this country, it'll be when one of those "rock the vote" things finally works and people flock to the polls in numbers not seen since the 50's to peaceably replace the government. 'Cause we can do that in America, remember? There's no need for revolution, there's just a need to wait a few years until the next election.
In fairness the voter turnout in 2012 was the highest in the country since 1968, and in fact has been on a steady rise since an all-time low in 1996.
2575583
The Republican Party is...going through a difficult time right now. I don't want to say it sucks, but many of its most visible members certainly do.
The Republican party is supposed to stand for things like protection of American jobs, individual liberty, being pro-life, protection of Christian values, reasonable development of our natural resources, a hands-off approach to the economy that encourages investment, and the projection of American force beyond America's borders in order to protect the interests of America and our allies. Phrased like this, I can agree with nearly all of it, with the only real stickler being the pro-life thing, and even then even if I'm pro-choice I can certainly understand where pro-lifers are coming from and will never belittle their cause.
The problem facing the Republican party is that it is, at the moment, being essentially taken over by extremists. It's not enough to be protect Christian values, they have to force them on others (a la suppressing gay marriage and attacking Islam). It's not enough to develop our natural resources, we have to drain them dry. It's not enough to have a hands-off approach to the economy, we have to actually step in and protect companies that are making huge mistakes. It's not enough to protect American interests overseas, we have to wage a holy war against Islam. It's not enough to protect American jobs, we have to exile all foreigners, especially if they're brown. And so on.
The presidential elections of 2016 and 2020 are going to be the big deciding factors for the future of the Republican party. I predict that they'll run a moderate candidate in 2016, in an attempt to please as many people as possible. If this works then we'll see the Republicans move back towards the center-right in response, where they should be and where I can agree with them on many issues. If they lose, however, it'll be the third Presidential election in a row lost, each time because they tired to be "moderate."
So if they lose in 2016, they're gonna try again in 2020 by going as far to the right as they can, on the idea that they just "weren't Conservative enough" in the previous elections. Thing is that America is liberalizing over time, so if they go to the far right in 2020 they will lose, badly, and it will finally be proof positive to the Republicans that they need to change their tune.
(Personally I'm hoping for a Republican victory in 2016 under the terms I outlined above. Generally speaking I tend towards liberal over conservative and Democrat over Republican, but a 2016 victory with a moderate Republican candidate is exactly what the Republicans and, by extension, America, needs right now to help the Republicans clean the crazies out of their house and restore balance to the Force).
2575583
If I've to choose between one evil and another, Id rather not choose at all.
2575616
Did you read what I wrote? 53% of America does not associate itself with either side of the lane, meaning that only 23% of America is properly being supported. That's less than a quarter. And its a load of shit, because good luck getting into any position of power if you are anything but Democratic/Liberal or Republican/Conservative because you won't have the support from anybody already INSIDE the system. Or the Electoral College for that matter, WHICH DECIDES WHO YOUR VOTE COUNTS TO MIND YOU.
And even if its single issue parties, that doesn't mean that they're right, it just means that the majority of the people think that, that's their only option because it's the two choices you have on the ballet. That shouldn't even be on there in the first place.
And you know what? Look at the state of affairs. California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and few other states on the east coast are boardering on police states. within these past ten years, you've also seen actual police states take authority. The ATF is issuing hundreds of no knock warrants every single day, over half of them on innocent people, leading to innocent deaths and the maiming of children. Cops are armed and trained on the levels of SWAT teams Nation wide, many of them getting APCs and other military grade equipment. And for the first time in a long time, we've been seeing the mass organization of militia groups formed by concerned citizens who honestly believe that the government is overstepping its limits, many of these groups numbering in the thousands. They're small, yes, nothing really but a bunch of idiots with semi auto rifles, shot guns, and mall gear, but really, that's what the middle east's militias and terrorist cells have, and both groups are just itching to fight. All it's going to take is one piece of legislation that takes the Assault Weapons Ban back from Clinton was president, and takes it one step farther by saying that all gun owners that do not either register or turn in their firearms will be considered felons, kind of like the Safety Act New York passed four months ago that really fucking pissed people off.
And you know what? All it takes is a single match to light the gasoline in a very similar fashion to what was expected to happen during Great Brittan's gun powder plot that they celebrate every year.
If there is going to be change, it's not going to be peacefully, because people are content with their shitty lives, because changing them would take too much effort. Change its going to happen when something big blows up, and the Military, National Guard, and Police are called in to keep the state of peace, they'll do this by making everybody bend at the knee, and shooting anybody who disagrees.
Until the two party system is abolished, everything will be coke or pepsi, one step left, or one step right, which doesn't really matter since both parties are moving forward to the future they want, not the one the American people want.
2575597
Like you wouldn't believe. On the other hand none of them are exactly bankrupt, either. Quality of life is extremely high across the social strata; amongst the highest in the world, in fact. The Scandinavian model probably wouldn't work in the US, but that's not the point, the point is that it's demonstrating that it can work. The trick is adapting it to America.
Not saying it's perfect. I do think, however, that universal healthcare is a desirable thing, and that we'll figure out Obamacare over time, adapt it to America's needs. Maybe one of those needs will be to allow individual states to opt out, I dunno, but it's still something that I feel has to be done.
2575629 I honestly cannot wait for the 2016 Republican Primaries. I'm hoping for a Bachmann/Trump ticket myself.
2575631
53% of America does not associate with Democrat or Republican (I myself am registered as an Independent); that is not the same thing as saying that 53% of America would not vote Democrat or vote Republican if they found themselves in a voting booth. The appeal of both parties is just too broad.
The Electoral College has several good reasons for existing to counter the bad ones; I will say, however, that I don't agree with the "winner take all" system of determining state votes (that is, if you get 50.1% of the votes in California, then you get all 53 of its Electoral votes), and think that Electoral votes should be counted up individually. If you get only 50.1% of the votes in California then you get 27 of California's electoral votes, with the remainder going elsewhere, as appropriate to whoever won the rest of them.
Ballot. Though requiring candidates to have some dancing skill is not unappealing...
Also I don't know what you're triyng to say here.
No, they are not. You have not lived in anything that even closely resembles a police state if you believe this.
Bring up Boston. I dare you.
This is a nation where it's perfectly legal in many states for private civilians to themselves be armed and trained on the levels of SWAT teams nation wide and own APCs and other military-grade equipment. A good police force should be at least as well armed as the criminals it may be forced to face.
The militarization of America's police force was in direct response, by the way, to several incidents in the 90s, particularly in California, of criminals who were using equipment far in excess of what was available to police forces at the time, including automatic rifles with armor-piercing bullets, or an incident with a freakin' tank. The upgrading of police power wasn't done in a vacuum or by someone rubbing his hands together dreaming about Anschluss with Canada or finding lebensraum in Mexico, but out of a very real concern that police services were in an arms race with criminals and losing.
In the case of the US, with our diehard love of guns and weaponry, the alternative to such a militarized police force is the actual military. Would you prefer that? I rather think not.
"First time in a long time...?"
What are you, 12? Did you miss the 90s or something? This is nothing new, kid.
Revolution didn't happen in the 60s, kid, when what you're describing actually happened. The only result was we pulled out of Vietnam, expanded civil rights, and voted Nixon into office.
2575640
Prior to Christie's little fiasco with the intentional traffic jams and such, I was actually in favor of Chris Christie in 2016. Now...I dunno.
2575636
The problem with the Obama care is that socialism simply does not work on the basis that people won't abide to its rules. Yes, allowing everyone to have healthcare is a dandy thing, but this isn't the way to do it. Also, I think that allowing states to opt out of the Obama care would basically be the same as having it be repealed because I have a feeling that many states would immediately opt out of it because they didn't want it or money would force it out. I know for sure that Michigan, for all its unemployment and probably the key state for Obama care, would opt out because the automobile companies and the UAW have as much if not more power than the State government (after all, the Michigan Supreme Court is know as "The Best Money can Buy" ). But then of course this isn't even coming close to the bullshit with the insurance and medical coverage rates, because that would be a massive clusterfuck.
I remember in college for the final of a class we had to find or design an alternative to the Universal Healthcare and grades were distributed based on class appeal to the proposal. The one with the highest appeal was based off of a healthcare system used in a southern Asian country, either Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, or the Philippines. In it, there is no social healthcare, but instead each individual (combined for families) is forced to put aside a sum of money each year in their taxes (I believe it was a grand) which would be held in a frozen bank account run by the state. The Bank account would fill with money each year and then be capped at (I believe, I forgot the numbers) 10k or 20k. When medical services needed to be performed either a subsidized amount or the entire bill was paid from the individual's health account. Personally I think this system would work better because it applies to law abiding citizens along with already established medical insurances... and better yet, I don't have to pay for the fucking retard who put himself in a coma when he decides to pop a fucking wheelie going 70 miles per hour down the highway.
2575670
Again, depends on how you define "working." Sweden is a (basically) socialist country with absurdly high taxes and perpetual government debt - and complete individual liberties, universal healthcare, absurdly high quality of life, and a per-capita GDP (PPP) of $43,000 per year, which, while not quite as high as America's $53,000, is still well within first-world limits.
(and is way better than Russia's $14,000, or China's $6,800)
2575660
Oh thats right, I'm bringing up Boston. Katrina, Pennsilvenia with Frien, Connecticut with their response to the Ebola Crisis, how the Police apparently now have legal immunity all the incidents considered, and all the other BS.
In fucking New York, you can't even have as big of a Soda as you want? And because of the Safe Act, you can't own any super scary black plastic guns. And all the states I mentioned have their own versions of the Assault Weapons ban. So you know what, when the state starts demanding that the people be disarmed, I tend to worry when the police are getting military training, carrying military grade firearms, are using military surplus equipment, using military grade munitions, and are chock fucking full of ex military personnel
You know, a voting Ballot? The thing you write on when you go and vote?
And you know what? That's what SWAT is for, for when some idiots get their hands on full retard guns they got from the Californian Governor, and decide theys gon shoot some niggus up. Not the police. There literally is no difference between SWAT and regular police anymore. They carry the same guns, the police wear less gear for the sake of mobility, get the same SWAT breaching training, and use the same APCs. SWAT was meant for special circumstances, giving every single officer in the US enough gear and arms to go join a PMC group is not a reasonable reaction to an incredibly small amount of incidents. Body armor, fine. A rifle, fine. Fucking level 4 plates, full auto m16s, Military surplus AP rounds, Military surplus vehicles, SWAT and Military operations training to boot. No, there is something seriously fucked with that.
Im not saying Militias never existed, no. They've never existed at this level of quantity, or how armed they are. Hell, many of these groups are started by ex military service members.
There is also a big difference between today, and the 60s. Back during the cold war, we were afraid of Russia, you know, the whole better dead than Red fiasco? People fully supported the American Government because they thought the wolves at the door were far more dangerous than the ones inside.
Now? Now the people dont have something to keep them in a state of awe, and the government has been doing a pretty shitty job about keeping the lid on the can of shit they don't want out. Things like the NSA with Snowden, how there were thousands of innocent people killed in Afghanistan, or how we close we were to losing all of our second amendment rights.
You have to be a blind idiot to believe that the government isn't overstepping its bounds, let alone being trust worthy, not like it was 50 years ago though.
2575880
The police force used in Boston was entirely legal under Massachusetts state law and has been for decades.
Elements of the National Guard were called in to provide support, as I worked with several who were called into service during the time. Not only were they there for essentially solely security and backup purposes in Boston itself - rather than the surrounding suburbs that were being sweeped - but they weren't even allowed to even carry anything other than their standard-issue sidearms (no rifles, grenades, etc.), specifically because it was feared that some would say that martial law had been declared. In other words the police were better armed than the soldiers.
And again, the police were acting well within established Massachusetts law. There is no incidence - not one - of a Bostonian refusing the police entry into his or her house nor an unoccupied house being broken into, so a warrant was entirely unnecessary, but even if someone had flat refused or an unoccupied house being encountered, a warrant could be legally acquired in less than an hour.
Katrina had problems, Pennsylvania has problems, Connecticut has problems. But the only people I've ever seen object to the way Boston handled the bombings, are not themselves from Boston. Usually they aren't even from Massachusetts. The opinion Bay Staters is that we handled the situation in exactly the way we wanted to with exactly the force we wanted to, and if anyone else on the planet has objections, they can kiss the Commonwealth's ass.
People always bring this up. "when the state starts demanding that people be disarmed, Fascism follows."
Uh-huh. Massachusetts has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country and we still had 118 gun murders in 2010. For comparison, Denmark, which has a roughly equal population but far more restrictive gun laws than us, had only 47. Yet I don't recall hearing anything about the Fascist police state of Denmark.
California's population is about 38 million - about equal to Canada's 35 million, and of course Canada is famous in America for there being restrictive gun laws. In 2010 California had a total of 1,257 gun murders. Canada in the same time had about 179. You would have to be smoking some pretty primo stuff to seriously consider Canada a police state, however. They're too polite.
Now - wait, hold on, bite your tongue, I can hear your response. "Canada and Denmark don't also have militarized police services." Well, you're absolutely right.
The reason why we have militarized police services in the US is because in the 90s, when the militarization of the police force began, it would have been absolutely impossible to pass any serious nation-wide gun control laws - believe me, the Democrats tried. Yet clearly something needed to be done, since criminals were finding it pathetically easy to get their hands on heavy hardware and equipment that police forces did not have but absolutely needed to keep the peace (specifically you can trace the upswing to the North Hollywood shootout of 1997 as being the major impetus, though other earlier incidences had started a rise in police arms and armor; in the shootout the robbers had both more powerful weapons than the police (which could piece their Kevlar) and better body armor (which the police's own weapons had difficulty piercing). It was therefore easier from a political standpoint to increase the power of police forces.
Cut to the 2010s. The Democrats finally have enough clout and the country has finally liberalized enough that assault weapons bans and other heavy restrictions on firearms can now be put into place. However, just because these things can start to happen, doesn't mean that the time, money, and effort invested into militarizing the police against the very real threats that they were facing just magically goes away.
Snowden created his own problems by fleeing the country and stopping in, of all places he could have possibly chosen, freakin' Russia. If he wanted people to listen to him he would have appeared on air somewhere and started listing off whatever he thinks were the problems, creating a national fiasco, and turned everything into an impossible-to-suppress show trial. Instead, again, he thought that fleeing to freakin' RUSSIA would get people to sympathize with him.
At this point I don't even care if Snowden had a point; he was an idiot.
That was never secret. Wars suck. Wars against guerrilla fighters who have been guerrilla fighting for the better part of thirty years suck especially hard. This is nothing new.
However, here's a curiosity for you: civilian casualties in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011, comparing those by insurgents verses those by the UN forces (mostly America).
2006: 699 by insurgents, 230 by the UN (Human Rights' Watch estimates)
2007: 950 by insurgents, 434 by the UN (Human Rights' Watch estimates)
2008: 1160 by insurgents, 828 by the UN (UNAMA estimates)
2009: 1630 by insurgents, 596 by the UN (UNAMA estimates)
2010: 2080 by insurgents, 440 by the UN (UNAMA and AIHRC estimates)
2011: 1167 by insurgents, 207 by the UN (UNAMA and AIHRC estimates)
Except for an aberrant period in 2008, Afghani insurgents (Taliban, etc) have generally killed around twice as many civilians, and often three or more times as many.
Y'know, countries like Ireland, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan, all have far more restrictive gun laws than any US state, and yet somehow they've all managed to not transform into horrible police states as a result of it.
Trustworthy?
Government?
Kid...you gotta tell me the name of your supplier, because whatever it is, it is primo and I want some.
2575962
Yes, I'm going too tell the dozens of military personnel and police outside our door, far more ridiculously armed than I am, to piss off, right when they're on a man hunt, possibly making us a target for police suspicion. Mind you, for just ONE man. The complete and utter over reaction was a first of it's kind. Not during the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, not during the 2002 DC Sniper incident, and certainly not during the recent Frein attack, though that was a close second. It was 19,000 National Guardsman, and god knows how many police officers being called out for 1 man. All armed, all packing heat, all driving around in APCs, Jeeps, and other gas guzzlers, for one single man.
If people are fine with that, fan fucking tastic. Me? HA, every single police state and dictatorship has started with the disarmament of people, and the elevation of the police, often taking place during a national crisis. I'm not for one to let history repeat itself.
So what's your point here? Denmark, Canada, and many other restrictive countries have nowhere near the resorces needed to pull a sweeping police state lock down, not to mention that it hurts them more than it helps them. Besides, their agendas have already largely been achieved. By large their people are unarmed. Its not the fact that that they haven't enacted a police state that is of note, it's that they can if they wanted to, and the people couldn't do anything about it.
So guns get taken away, the police stay diet military, and the people can't do shit if the next president flips the fucking lid. FANTASTIC!
And really, Russia was Snowden's only place he could escape to. There isn't a single European nation that wouldn't automatically turn him back to America, and most slavic bloc countries wouldn't give two shits if suddenly a group of twelve, American, soldiers took a flight in, and left a week later, China would probably give him back to America, same with Japan. Putin is a crazy enough of a fucker who hates America enough that he would protect Snowden, just to spite America. Otherwise, the chances are the government would go Navy Seal on his ass, and we'd never see Snowden alive. Snowden played the part of the whistle blower, exposing some of the most disgusting examples of the feds overstepping their limits, and the fucking world forgot about it a week later when Miley Cyrus was caught doing cocaine.
So just because Al Qaeda killed more innocents, means its okay? Right?
Oh and
Britain has an actual internet police, it's impossible to own guns unless you make more than 250,000 dollars a year, the police are even more well armed than America's, you can't own sharp knives in Britain, any cases of self defense will land you in jail, and foreigners are consistently treated better than the people.
France is a statist shit hole so far in the ground, it not only smells of piss, but of shit.
Germany you can own guns, not all that far more restrictive, but still pretty stupidly bad.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands are laughable in terms of their military and arms. Them enacting a police state is about as likely as a Neo Nazi's dream of Hitler coming back to life.
Italy actually has pretty good gun laws
Greece an even bigger statist shit hole, and is beyond in debt
Sweden gives you an automatic Sig 556 Assault Rifle, and lets you buy other assault rifles, and various other full retard funs
Norway and Finland are just as funny as the other Nordic countries, with their military largely being conscripts
Japan and Australia actually censor and control media
People are leaving New Zealand
South Korea is a diet police state, ask anybody who's been stationed there
And Taiwan is a third world country
And yet I still can't understand the point you're driving at? That the possibility of a police state is nill? That guns aren't needed? That we can be like Britbongistan and have no rights at all because that's what will keep us safe from all the turrists?
2576076
Your typical beat cop in Britain doesn't even carry a gun, except in Northern Ireland, for reasons that should be blindingly obvious to anyone who knows anything about Northern Ireland. In the rest of the United Kingdom, they are permitted under special circumstances, but don't during everyday police work, and since 2004 have been switching to tasers over guns since tasers are generally nonlethal, and even then, the majority of police officers do not carry them, either. In fact in all of the UK there are only about 7000 police officers trained in and authorized to carry firearms.
So...you officially do not know what you're talking about, in fact are probably making shit up after presumably watching too much Hot Fuzz and V for Vendetta and hanging out on /pol/ to much, and I am done talking to you.
...actually, hang on, gonna touch on this too.
There are two definitions for a "third would country." The first means a nation that aligned with neither America nor the Soviet Union during the Cold War and includes nations such as India, former Yugoslavia, Egypt, and so on. The second means a nation that is poorly developed, with low standards of living and low income.
Taiwan fits neither of these. It was aligned with America throughout the Cold War and remains a close ally to this day; and its per-capita GDP (that is, the average amount that a person makes each year) is $41,000/year, comparable to Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Belgium, and only slightly behind the USA (which is about $50,000/year). A typical Taiwanese person make nearly three times as much as a typical Russian. Taiwan is a fully developed, postindustrial democratic society, ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, healthcare, education, and human rights.
So in addition to making shit up, you're pretty obviously a racist since I can only assume you saw "Taiwan," thought "Asia but not Japan," and so assumed it was underdeveloped. Congratulations.
So, again, that's it, done talking to you.
2576120
Try again. British police are packing heat. Not to mention the fact that their SWAT teams are issued the same gear as their special forces units.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28656324
And guess what? Taiwan just happens to be one of those places that is part first world, and part third, just like Mexico, and Costa Rica. How do I know this? Because in highschool, I used to sing with a foreign exchange student who was from Taiwan, and explained that. It's no different than China in some places, where you have the blue collar and white collar areas, and then you have your poor areas that look like they should be used in tear jerking commercials.
And hey, I can assume shit about you because you've been unable strongly counter a single one of my points. So go run off and take a pill to deal with your butt hurt and maybe think about your cognitive dissonance.
2575698 Not to make special exceptions, but the Swedish healthsystem is pretty fucked up for 2 reasons.
To a small degree, I had to look up the Swedish system because I was unfamiliar with it and 2 things really stood out as irregular.
The Healthcare services is decentralized, which wasn't elaborated on, but seems to me that it wasn't state run, so the quality seems unpredictable because of quality could differ from a public clinic or a private one. Besides that, and this one seems incredibly strange, is that the government funding is financed through county councils, which reminds me sort of a city run Health care from the city of Detroit... which sucked, but not because of who run it but because of its funding, either way, the difference between this and Obamacare is that the old healthcare which is basically defunct is that it was paid for by the City of Detroit, whereas Obamacare is paid by people from all over the country who don't give no fucks (and have every right not to) about Healthcare in Detroit.
But the biggest problem about the Swedish system is that the goal of the entire system is for the Swedes to breed a superhuman, and so far have only been able to do so once in the form of Nicklas Lidström, or as he's better know as by the Beard Growin', Squid throwin' Puck beatin' residents of Detroit, Mr. Perfect.
You're argument has never been this Perfectly Invalid.
Also, it does help Sweden's GDP that they have the headquarters of Volvo Heavy Truck in Gottenberg, which if I remember correctly is one of the most popular trucks Europe as well as the Volvo Plant in Dublin, Virginia.
2575667
Bill Clinton could have made a sex tape with 4 hookers on the Secretary of State's desk and lied about it and still would have been popular enough to serve for a third term. With the IRS targeting political groups scandal fresh on everyone's mind I'm pretty sure that the American Public would overlook the Trafficgate fiasco and vote for Chris Christie.
2576445
Dude, come on, talking with you had been pleasant until this. Just because we're not agreeing doesn't mean we have to be rude to each other. Synn Lofsvard is demonstrably a dick and possibly a 12-year-old /pol/ster, so that's why I got uncivil with him, but I've no desire to go that direction with you.
In absolute fairness, he didn't actually lie under oath anyway. Hang on, I've been holding this thing I found (it's not me) in reserve for when I'd need it...
Quite likely, but I most likely won't be one of them unless Christie puts forth an excellent showing at the RNC, if he even runs. I may tend Democrat, but I'm registered as Independent and perfectly willing to vote for a Republican if I feel they'd be better for the job, and prior to Trafficgate Christie was certainly looking better than any Democrat that might have been fielded (by which I mean Hillary Clinton).
2576718
It was a joke, as for why it was "Perfectly" invalid.
Amd yes, i know the clinton case got scrutiny all because the judge didn't classify a blowjob as sex. Whicu is going to help the next time the cops bust me for asking a girl on the street corner for "directions".....to my pants. point is, Christie is so popular right now that even with Trafficgate he could still run for president.
2576750
Oh. I didn't get the joke. Sorry...
I dunno. We'll see what happens in 2016. Hopefully my predictions come true.
2576277
From the article you just linked me:
Police Scotland insists that it is a long way from routinely arming those who serve in it. There has been no increase in the number of armed personnel. Out of 17,318 Scottish officers, only 275 routinely carry guns while on duty - 1.6% of the total. Because they work shifts, a much smaller number will be on duty at any one time.
Reading comprehension is an important life skill, you should pick it up.
2576277
[and about all your previous posts]
..........................
memecrunch.com/meme/15AAG/wtf-did-i-just-read/image.png
Uh okay wow I don't think I have ever encountered an individual such as your self. After reading your posts I can't help but concluded that you are completely out of your mind.
And yet as a academic I can't help but find your madness somewhat fascinating.
I have a few quick questions: first what political ideology do you find yourself identifying with the most? Libertarian? Anarchist? Nothing in particular? A mix of them?
Second: what state and, if it is relevant, city do you come from? What seems to be the local political trends there? Democrat, Republican, or something else? How common are you view's in you area?
Third: what demographics would you say you fall under? How common are your views within your demographics?
If you could answer me these questions I would be rather thankful.
2575670
Huh that's a pretty interesting final and the proposed policy sounds interesting. Would you mind giving me a brief description of the class demographics that voted for it that way I know what groups it appealed to?
The last thing is just more of a nit pic due to something that bugged me in your first post sorry. As both a Canadian and someone in University for a Political Science major I can't help but point out Canada is neither Socialist (though even the Canadian Conservatives are technically considerably farther left on the spectrum relative to even the American left, but still nowhere near socialist) nor a Confederation (though the event/process that resulted in it's formation is oddly enough referred to as the Canadian Confederation [verb?]). Canada is a Welfare Capitalist Federation.
Again sorry about that last one it just kind of really bugs me.
2576755
Okay, you know what, I'm going to stop this right here.
This entire argument is stupid. Why? Because absolutely nothing of value can be derived or achieved from arguing over such emotionally high charged, and absolutely pointless series of topics that have devolved beyond the point where they hold no semblance of what the original discussion was about.
So I quit, as you had before I made the foolish mistake of bringing you back in. This is not how I want to end such a good day of mine.
DD, I am formally apologizing. My arguments were poorly worded, and were left grossly beyond open interpretation. Instead of elaborating, I choose to entice it farther, while you were left to defend and make your own points, even though I was more than capable of further explaining and elaborating my position to the point where they would make more logical sense.
I personally hate to have bad blood between anybody, even if its with some random schmuck on the internet.
2576830
I went to Northwood University for college. The Michigan Campus boasts that it has the most diverse demographic for ethnicities and nationalities for a university in Michigan (and they may even say the entire United States as well) but the secret to it is that Northwood's Michigan Campus' student body is between 2-3k. Anyway, Northwood, although we aren't a politically focused campus, and do hire professors of all sorts of outlooks on politics, is a business school, so anyone attending is intending to be either a manager, entrepreneur, Car Dealer, ESM major, accountant, or banker, so it would be safe to say that everyone is either conservative in terms of money or independent.
Since most students are going to the university because of academic scholarships or because their parents are rich, most of the people in the class were from the metropolitan Detroit or locally from Midland, so the class was basically either white or black and genders were mixed evenly. If I remember correctly, though, the person who proposed the southern Asian healthcare method was a transfer from a foreign charter school and I believed was Chinese, so they may have been from Hong Kong. (My proposal was to disbar the IRS and go back to the flat tax rate and revaluate social services.)
As for the Social Confederacy of Canada. It was a line I heard in an episode of Archer where they are returning a Canadian terrorist, Kenny Bilko, who bombed a Tim Horton's in to protest and further his goals to secede and sovereign Nova Scotia.
2577337
Thank you for your input.
On the matter of the second part
I'm almost 100% certain that the Canadian stuff in that episode was meant to be tongue in cheek, as his bombing target was a Tim Horton's, and the fact that the closest thing to a separatist movement/sentiments in Nova Scotia within the last ~100 years was when the province's Premier, John Buchanan, predicted that if the Meech Lake Accord failed Atlantic Canada would have to join the USA, in 1990... Shortly before the failure of the Meech Lake Accord proving his prediction as just plain daft and little more then pointless political drama.
2577709 I'm positive that the canadian parts of the episode were done as jokes because its the style of Archer, and it helps that the Canadian Terrorist as well as the "Dudley Douchebags" Mounties were all voice acted by the cast of TrailerParkBoys who guest appeared in the episode.