Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 233: Kashmir Outside, How 'Bout That?

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Espeon posted...

Klobuchar sucked, but at least I understand WHY she thinks she can run for president.

Alright I'm just gonna tap out here because I don't get this at all. We clearly have very different estimations on the lower half candidates and it's seeming like you're conflating outside aspects of Gabbard's candidacy to the subject of her debate performance.

I can't stress enough that I'm hardly complimenting Gabbard at all to suggest Suprak's evaluation of Gabbard's performance is reasonable, it's a statement on the other candidates more than anything and why I can't wait to cull the herd (Gabbard included).
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GuessMyUserName posted...

Espeon posted...

Klobuchar sucked, but at least I understand WHY she thinks she can run for president.

Alright I'm just gonna tap out here because I don't get this at all. We clearly have very different estimations on the lower half candidates and it's seeming like you're conflating outside aspects of Gabbard's candidacy to the subject of her debate performance.

I can't stress enough that I'm hardly complimenting Gabbard at all to suggest Suprak's evaluation of Gabbard's performance is reasonable.

Klobuchar sucked, but she constantly spoke up and repeated her stances on things. Everyone in that bottom tier was devoid of purpose or charisma, but on a sliding scale, Klobuchar was more memorable than Gabbard.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

https://twitter.com/MikevWUSA/status/1159138888532811778

Jesus fucking christ

Correction: not a shooting; building evacuated due to reports of a man with a weapon:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/07/usa-today-headquarters-evacuated-after-report-man-gun/1944136001/

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LordoftheMorons posted...

People can reasonably disagree about whether or not it's better to intervene in a clusterf*** like Syria. Not wanting to do so in no way requires questioning the fact that Assad gassed kids.

This kind of talk is how we got stuck in Iraq.
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LOTM, why is it so important whether Assad used gas? We in the West decided gas was a horrible weapon after World War I, but we proceeded to develop even deadlier weapons afterward that we used with no compunction. We (the United States) killed 80,000 civilians in one blast at Hiroshima, about 135,000 in a couple hours of firebombing at Dresden, I think around 200,000 in one night of bombing in Tokyo. Many of the civilians (multiple tens of thousands at least) killed were children. We have never so much as apologized for it or admitted any wrongdoing.

As for torture, what about Guantanamo Bay? We have no moral standing to criticize others for things we do ourselves without repentance.

If our argument in killing civilians on a massive scale in World War II was that it was justified to save lives by winning the war quickly - surely Assad can make the same argument.
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I disagree with Klobuchar being "memorable" in the slightest bit, she was just another person who simply existed on the debate stage while Gabbard did at least have memorable moments to stand out. If you can remember anything at all Klobuchar said during the debate I'd be shocked - and that goes for the rest of the bottom half as.

"She spoke" is frankly irrelevant if there was no impact. Like Delaney never had as much speaking time but even he at least came across very memorably, to the point you're surprised how little he actually spoke.

But again all these direct comparisons are not the point but just to say Suprak's evaluation is far from unreasonable strictly because the stage is overcrowded with useless trash.
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It's one thing to say "let's stay out of it" it's another thing entirely to actively support the murderous regime.

Gabbard is a hard pass from me and that won't change.
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Gabbards memorable moments are all tearing down other candidates. Anytime she talks about her own policy its a reminder shes a nutcase.

Leafeon13N posted...

Gabbards memorable moments are all tearing down other candidates. Anytime she talks about her own policy its a reminder shes a nutcase.

99% of her positions are the same as everyone else's though?
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Peace___Frog posted...

It's one thing to say "let's stay out of it" it's another thing entirely to actively support the murderous regime.

Gabbard is a hard pass from me and that won't change.

Was the US wrong to actively support the Soviet Union during World War II? That was a murderous regime that actively killed millions of innocents.
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and again I gotta point out that I do in fact agree Gabbard sucks major ass, but that's why I think she came off well because she got to take the spotlight away from her biggest garbage

Like she got to put out a pro-LGBT image for herself with absolutely no push back, and on intervention she got to come out as a strong voice specifically on the Iraq war and 9/11 without actually getting into the weeds as Assad's lapdog.

She got to put out a much better side of herself to the debate audience because frankly nobody else cared to pull the curtain on her, and what better way to evaluate a performance than by putting out a better image for yourself than reality (see: Kamala, queen of debate 1).
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GuessMyUserName posted...

and again I gotta point out that I do in fact agree Gabbard sucks major ass, but that's why I think she came off well because she got to take the spotlight away from her biggest garbage

Like she got to put out a pro-LGBT image for herself with absolutely no push back, and on intervention she got to come out as a strong voice specifically on the Iraq war and 9/11 without actually getting into the weeds as Assad's lapdog.

She got to put out a much better side of herself to the debate audience because frankly nobody else cared to pull the curtain on her.

What curtain? Even if shes actively terrible, her debate performances have been the very definition of plain, vanilla ice cream. This argument began with Smuffin claiming shes entertaining (one of the only two candidates to receive this claim, alongside obviously crazy Williamson). Since then, Red Sox has called her great because shes non-ideological. Red Sox is absolutely right. She comes across as taking NO stances on anything whatsoever, aside from the super-difficult choice to say war = bad, which is so obvious that its almost offensive that someone felt the need to make it the central focus of their presidential platform.

While it concerns me how much of a hard-on right wingers have for her, Im mainly focused on just how utterly dispassionate she comes across in these debates. And I just dont get it. I really dont. I think she would get utterly demolished by Trump in a one-on-one debate, and one-on-one debates are his greatest weakness, because they highlight how much of a moron he really is.
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Chemical and biological weapons are considered especially bad not because of their raw numerical killing potential, but because of the excessively insidious and painful ways they damage humans (among other things)

Nuclear weapons are also bad- the cold war was pretty much about trying really hard not to use them- but whataboutisms dont get us anywhere
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Espeon posted...

GuessMyUserName posted...

and again I gotta point out that I do in fact agree Gabbard sucks major ass, but that's why I think she came off well because she got to take the spotlight away from her biggest garbage

Like she got to put out a pro-LGBT image for herself with absolutely no push back, and on intervention she got to come out as a strong voice specifically on the Iraq war and 9/11 without actually getting into the weeds as Assad's lapdog.

She got to put out a much better side of herself to the debate audience because frankly nobody else cared to pull the curtain on her.

What curtain? Even if shes actively terrible, her debate performances have been the very definition of plain, vanilla ice cream. This argument began with Smuffin claiming shes entertaining (one of the only two candidates to receive this claim, alongside obviously crazy Williamson). Since then, Red Sox has called her great because shes non-ideological. Red Sox is absolutely right. She comes across as taking NO stances on anything whatsoever, aside from the super-difficult choice to say war = bad, which is so obvious that its almost offensive that someone felt the need to make it the central focus of their presidential platform.

While it concerns me how much of a hard-on right wingers have for her, Im mainly focused on just how utterly dispassionate she comes across in these debates. And I just dont get it. I really dont. I think she would get utterly demolished by Trump in a one-on-one debate, and one-on-one debates are his greatest weakness, because they highlight how much of a moron he really is.

If War = Bad is so easy, how come none of the establishment candidates can say it? Like, none of them.
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Espeon posted...

aside from the super-difficult choice to say war = bad, which is so obvious that its almost offensive that someone felt the need to make it the central focus of their presidential platform.

You can't honestly believe this is true.
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Whataboutism is in fact extremely important. Whatever your intentions, you simply cannot make a good case against X if you are doing X yourself or you have no credibility. It's like calling a witness with a long history of perjury convictions to testify against someone else at trial - you could turn an airtight guilty verdict into a not guilty verdict calling this witness.

People with no credibility need to recognize it. This is the problem with the media attacking Trump. The media (and Hillary) are the only people in the country with less credibility than Trump. So every attack they make against him in fact helps him.
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GuessMyUserName posted...

She got to put out a much better side of herself to the debate audience because frankly nobody else cared to pull the curtain on her, and what better way to evaluate a performance than by putting out a better image for yourself than reality (see: Kamala, queen of debate 1).

I doubt anyone sees her as enough of a threat to really go after her. I bet Hillary never bothered researching Lincoln Chafee, for example.
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Espeon posted...

What curtain? Even if shes actively terrible, her debate performances have been the very definition of plain, vanilla ice cream.

... Which is better than what she is. And again she did have strong displays on what's supposed to be her 'arena' of intervention, and this is despite the fact that the nuances of her position become deplorable.

Why ask what curtain when I said what the curtain was? Anti-Interventionism is very popular after Iraq and being lied to about WMDs, and that's what Gabbard manages to portray her policies as all about, keeping out of view where she intends to take that road regarding Syria as Assad's bestest pal. Intervention is exactly the reason people came to like Gabbard, so yeah it's a massive deal she gets to keep looking good there without people pulling that curtain - as well as the one over her LGBT issues despite caping the Knights of Columbus in a smack against Hirono & Harris.

I hate this debate because it's as if I'm defending Gabbard by saying she did well, when what I'm saying is literally the exact opposite - her debate performances keep allowing her to put out a much better image of herself to the public, which is a substantive way to qualify a good performance.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Espeon posted...

aside from the super-difficult choice to say war = bad, which is so obvious that its almost offensive that someone felt the need to make it the central focus of their presidential platform.

You can't honestly believe this is true.

Why not? The Democratic Party, as a whole, is anti-war. As much as people want to claim X is a warhawk Id still trust literally any Democrat over ANY Republican. But the war/peace dynamic is far too complicated to view in black and white terms, and when thats your central platform, it comes across as just as disingenuous as a candidate (this is an example from our state governor race) claiming I want to eliminate the income tax! I can easily see, if she were elected president, Gabbard being no different than all the complaints about every other Democratic candidate in terms of their war record. I just have no reason to trust someone who offers a simple solution to a complicated problem.
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Espeon posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Espeon posted...

aside from the super-difficult choice to say war = bad, which is so obvious that its almost offensive that someone felt the need to make it the central focus of their presidential platform.

You can't honestly believe this is true.

Why not? The Democratic Party, as a whole, is anti-war. As much as people want to claim X is a warhawk Id still trust literally any Democrat over ANY Republican. But the war/peace dynamic is far too complicated to view in black and white terms, and when thats your central platform, it comes across as just as disingenuous as a candidate (this is an example from our state governor race) claiming I want to eliminate the income tax! I can easily see, if she were elected president, Gabbard being no different than all the complaints about every other Democratic candidate in terms of their war record. I just have no reason to trust someone who offers a simple solution to a complicated problem.

So anti-war they voted for the Iraq War. And the Vietnam War. And the Korean War. If the Democrats really are opposed to war they are so terrified of appearing weak that they are probably more likely than Republicans to actually go to war. If you look at Republican presidents who presented an unquestionable image of strength and willingness to go to war like Nixon and Reagan - they actually were able to bring about peace. Because they weren't voting for war out of fear of having their patriotism and courage questioned.
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Also, people like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who voted for the Iraq War have never said they were wrong in any serious sense. They just complain about being misled by wrong facts from our intelligence agencies. But the reality is - even if all the information we were getting about Iraq's WMDs were true, it was still a stupid war. That needs to be said. And until Tulsi Gabbard (and maybe Bernie Sanders), the only person in either party who actually said it publicly and loudly was.....Donald Trump.
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I trust Bernie FAR more than Tulsi Gabbard when it comes to being anti-war. He walks the walk and talks the talk.
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red sox 777 posted...

Also, people like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who voted for the Iraq War have never said they were wrong in any serious sense. They just complain about being misled by wrong facts from our intelligence agencies. But the reality is - even if all the information we were getting about Iraq's WMDs were true, it was still a stupid war. That needs to be said. And until Tulsi Gabbard (and maybe Bernie Sanders), the only person in either party who actually said it publicly and loudly was.....Donald Trump.

Iraq was entirely justified. They broke UN resolutions, in which the consequence could be military intervention.
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Espeon posted...

The Democratic Party, as a whole, is anti-war. As much as people want to claim X is a warhawk Id still trust literally any Democrat over ANY Republican.

This is the Democratic Primary, the point is picking which Democrat and foreign policy has been greatly neglected in the age of Trump as we've been caught up by so many other issues. But the Democrat Party absolutely does *not* have a crystal clean record in foreign policy and war, so in a Democratic Primary it's absolutely a relevant issue to push.

Unfortunately we're letting Tulsi fucking Gabbard push it uncontested and it drives me mad, and to top it off we even let her come out on top thanks to dumpster fire Tim Ryan going after her from that exactly angle of a right-wing war hawk you claim doesn't exist among the Dems. No doubt the other right of center candidates have similar views aligning to Ryan, and yeah I absolutely do wish we'd talk about it more so we can reveal them. Namely I'd like to see Harris talk on the issue, but even as a Warren stan I feel lacking on a recent update of important details of her foreign policy.
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Corrik7 posted...

red sox 777 posted...

Also, people like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who voted for the Iraq War have never said they were wrong in any serious sense. They just complain about being misled by wrong facts from our intelligence agencies. But the reality is - even if all the information we were getting about Iraq's WMDs were true, it was still a stupid war. That needs to be said. And until Tulsi Gabbard (and maybe Bernie Sanders), the only person in either party who actually said it publicly and loudly was.....Donald Trump.

Iraq was entirely justified. They broke UN resolutions, in which the consequence could be military intervention.

Something can be entirely justified and still be stupid. If a hotel overcharges me by $20 I can sue them and spend $200k on attorney's fees. I would win the case, and be out $199,980. It would be stupid, and justified.
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Not to Corrik though

You break a rule, you get the penalty, no room for consideration. Simple cause and effect.
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Also another reason why I seriously hate having such a big field is that all the themed issue questions go to the candidate running on that particular... we know how they feel already, we need to be asking the candidates who don't revolve their campaign a particular issue about it and the 'expert' candidates can attempt to show off their credentials by response.

Similarly, back to Gabbard she just gets questioned on her obvious stuff - intervention and LGBT issues which she very well should be expected to give a prepared response and that's it. What good is asking Gabbard so plainly about LGBT issues so she can give a simple 'supportive' response and that's that? Can't wait to get past these damn easy mode debates.
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red sox 777 posted...

Whataboutism is in fact extremely important. Whatever your intentions, you simply cannot make a good case against X if you are doing X yourself or you have no credibility. It's like calling a witness with a long history of perjury convictions to testify against someone else at trial - you could turn an airtight guilty verdict into a not guilty verdict calling this witness.

People with no credibility need to recognize it. This is the problem with the media attacking Trump. The media (and Hillary) are the only people in the country with less credibility than Trump. So every attack they make against him in fact helps him.

Yeah, that's fair. I just think that we *are* avoiding using nuclear weapons
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You guys are too worried about Gabbard. Remember, she's running as a Democrat. Good sense is like the kiss of death in a Democratic primary and that will show once the field narrows. If she was running as a Republican, she might have a chance but Democrats just don't have enough of an open mind to do anything other than try the same policies that succeeded in the 90s and have failed ever since, over and over and over.
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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmjja/elizabeth-warren-promises-to-kill-state-laws-that-ban-locally-owned-isps
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Grimlyn posted...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmjja/elizabeth-warren-promises-to-kill-state-laws-that-ban-locally-owned-isps

I am very much in love with this idea.
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More proof that Warren is the candidate we need.
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Warren is a great candidate. Not sure why so many people think she's 'boring'.
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the only non-boring thing about her is that she faked being a native american

if she gets to the general, it will be entertaining as hell to see Trump go at that

not QUITE as entertaining as it would be to see him go after Kamala for sleeping her way to the top tho
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SmartMuffin posted...

the only non-boring thing about her is that she faked being a native american

I guess she should've created a fake college like our current President.
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You really relish the title of B8's biggest cretin, huh
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Grimlyn posted...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmjja/elizabeth-warren-promises-to-kill-state-laws-that-ban-locally-owned-isps

YES PLEASE

SmartMuffin posted...

the only non-boring thing about her is that she faked being a native american

if she gets to the general, it will be entertaining as hell to see Trump go at that

not QUITE as entertaining as it would be to see him go after Kamala for sleeping her way to the top tho

I think it would be interesting to see Biden's gaffes he has when under pressure from Trump.

Just a few days ago Biden sent his condolences to "Houston and Michigan" for the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings.
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Gabbard sucks and it seems to me that she panders being a progressive so I am constantly surprised how many progressive people buy into her.

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How does Gabbard suck? Her record in congress is quite good on several issues. I don't agree with her on everything but she's certainly fairly progressive.
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I really don't want to get sucked into this debate because I don't even really like Gabbard (putting her in the top half isn't exactly a compliment!) but I dunno if it is fair to say she is pandering to being a progressive.

I agree she has said and done some things in the past that were questionable overall, but with the exception of Syria (which is still very bad) I don't see how she couldn't have just evolved on these issues over time. Biden has said some bad stuff in the past and Warren used to be a republican. It is hard to find someone with the ideological purity of Bernie Sanders for 40+ years.
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Trump already went after her about the native American thing and its barely dented her thanks to the 24 hour news cycle. No one cares already.
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I think the issue with accepting she has evolved is that she randomly does stuff that suggests the change isn't as much as it seemed.

Attacking other Dems over "religious bigotry" for questioning connection to the Knights of Columbus, for instance, was just a hugely bad look.
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Didn't Gabbard meet with Trump when he was selecting his Cabinet? There's been allegations about her being a witting/unwitting Russian asset for years.
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HeroicSpiderPig posted...

Didn't Gabbard meet with Trump when he was selecting his Cabinet? There's been allegations about her being a witting/unwitting Russian asset for years.

She met with Trump to tell him not to start a war with Syria, which is pretty useful and good advice that he seems to have followed.

The fact that partisan crazies translate that into "she is a KGB spy" is their own problem.
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Um... what is this about being a Russian asset? lmao
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Ironic how Democrats are now echoing Joe McCarthy.
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HashtagSEP posted...

Attacking other Dems over "religious bigotry" for questioning connection to the Knights of Columbus, for instance, was just a hugely bad look.

The Knights of Columbus is a huge organization with like a million members, including my (Democrat) grandparents.

My dad isn't religious, but when I was a kid I remember he would take us to hang out and eat pub food when his dad was volunteering there.

Is there more to this story? Tulsi seems objectively on the right side here.

edit: I googled and apparently there are two million members.

Also it seems like two judges were being criticized as unable to be impartial because they were members? Uhhhhh, like I am a hardcore atheist and what makes this worse than literally any other religious group?
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Tony I thought we agreed to support Bernie and not support every stupid thing Tulsi does just because she's Wannabe Bernie
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In a series of questions sent to Buescher, Hirono asked whether his membership in the Knights of Columbus would prevent him from hearing cases fairly and impartially and, if confirmed, whether he would end his membership in the Roman Catholic charitable organization.

The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions, Hirono said in the questionnaire. For example, it was reportedly one of the top contributors to Californias Proposition 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage.

...

Harris, in her questions to the nominee, called the Knights of Columbus an all-male society and asked the Nebraska lawyer if he was aware that the group was anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage when he joined. The California senator also referenced Supreme Knight Carl A. Andersons statement that abortion amounted to the killing of the innocent on a massive scale and asked Buescher if he agreed with the statement.

I mean, this seems fair? Certainly not something to explode about "religious bigotry" over.
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