if I weren't already an American living in exile him becoming president would make me one

 

Perceptive as always, Steve. I find the choices in U.S. elections, whether Demoblican or Republocrat, drifting further and further from the sort of person that I would prefer to vote for. Things are getting so divisive that even mentioning finding a middle ground or bipartisanship translates into capitulation bordering on treason. Working for the greater good of most Americans is no longer even feasible. Politics is now the art of making the possible impossible.

 

And what do we get? Congress tries to override Obamacare more than 50 times, although everyone involved openly acknowledges such a bill won't pass. Congress spends more time worrying about women's vaginas and what adult gay couple's prefer to do in the privacy of their own home, rather than fixing the nation's crumbling infrastructure of highways and bridges. The middle class has eroded to the point that real wages can purchase far less than what one could in the 1990s, but CEOs and the top 1% of earners have had decades of obscene profit, aided by slush funds from shadowy sources that are now openly flaunted as the pimp plutocrats whore out their prostitute politicians (and both Republicans and Democrats suck at the same Wall Street teat).

 

I'm sick of it.

America is built on the hard work of generations of common people. America is not responsible for the entire world's problems. People are the same worldwide, to think differently is ridiculous.

Thanks Steven.

Love you Raff but I have to disagree on some of your points.

I don't believe this country is built on "the worship of wealth and success".  Actually there are huge numbers of fundamentalist evangelicals who believe it was built on bent-knee deference to an ancient Jewish rabbi.  And in their defense, many of them practice what they preach and eschew wealth and material success in favor of more ethereal goals.

There is a strong argument to be made that the U.S. was built on principles of personal liberties and, hand-in-hand with that, personal responsibility, but that's probably a topic for a different thread.

And sure, there are a few powerful and often unscrupulous people who take advantage of an economic and political system for personal gain, but how is that different than every society that has ever existed in civilized history?  Why a different standard for the U.S. than for everyone else when it comes to greedy and self-serving members of society?  Part of personal responsibility is not letting oneself become a victim.

And the "American Dream" as it was taught to me wasn't about getting rich or powerful.  The point was that anyone could come from anywhere and change their circumstances here, and there wasn't anyone who could legally or morally stop them.  That doesn't mean a guarantee of wealth or success or power or prestige or fame, just an opportunity.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a flag-waver or one of Trump's "poorly educated" minions.  But I do believe that Dream still exists because I lived it.  My wife lived it.  And my parents lived it.  We came from very little, worked hard, and now have something to show for it and some measure of respect in our communities.  And we've raised kids who both contribute to, and get something back from, their communities.  That's the whole point, nothing more.

But back to the 2016 election - man, what a mess.  The best people in our country are all unfortunately too smart to run for public office, so this is what we're left with.

Worst-case scenario:

a) Republicans decide to have a brokered convention and nominate Rubio (Rubio is already trying to arrange this).

b) Democrats nominate Hillary thanks to all her insider super delegates, even though Sanders is much more popular with younger, more educated and party-base voters (seems almost certain to happen).

c) Trump runs as an independent and wins in a landslide thanks to both Republican and Democratic voters who are sickened by the insider dealing and having their parties abandon them by not allowing the more popular candidates to gain nominations.

Could happen ...

 

That may be true philosophically but weren't most of them  elitists themselves so to speak regarding their education, holdings , and positions...?

 

Is the country a better place than it was in the past?  I'm not sure.  Certainly an argument can be made either way.  There certainly have been plenty of darker days in our history.

- 85 years ago the unemployment rate was over 25% and we were living through the biggest financial crisis in history.  Today unemployment is a fraction of that and inflation is almost non-existent.

- in the 1950s more than half of blacks in the U.S. lived below the poverty level.  Today that rate is about 24%.

- in 1945 we killed or injured more than 300,000 Japanese civilians in the name of "peace".  A couple years before that we rounded up 120,000 Americans and put them in internment camps just because of their ethnicity.

- in the 1960s we saw the murders of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and scores of civil rights workers and protesters throughout the South.  Lots of countries have had coups and assassinations and political upheaval since 1963, but in that half-century the worst political issue we've had is a bunch of idiots running the country. 

- also in the 1960s the president had to send federal troops to escort little girls to school just to ensure they were allowed in because they were the 'wrong color'.

- in the 1980s the federal government had to take control of the public schools in Kansas City because the city was enforcing segregation and unequal education.  This was in 1985, not 1885!

So yeah, a lot of things suck in the U.S. today.  Could be worse, and it has been.  That's not an excuse of course, but I think sometimes we have to take a broader view.  Today I've been married for almost 30 years to an immigrant minority and nobody bats an eyelash.  That wasn't true even when we got married.  Home ownership rates in the U.S. are among the highest in the world.  We have the oldest working constitution and continuous government of any country in the world.

So like I said, things could definitely be better, but if I had to pick a time to live in the U.S. I'm not sure I can think of a better one.  Glass half full, I guess ...

We are screwed. I cant stand that not matter who is a candidate, we show allegiance, despite how awful the whole lot can be. 

I'm avoiding the news at all costs until this abomination of an election is over. This is the best we can do??

The 2016 Presidential election has been described as the Countdown to Extinction.

 

Why don't you immigrate to somewhere saner and safer Australia even, you could wrestle crocs for free that must be safer than Detroit.

 

Or Just change your leaders every time the wind changes, like we do in Oz.

We've had 5 in 5 years, good going I say- don't let 'em settle into anything they can only cause harm......

Our last outgoing Leader Tony Abbott's said on being kicked out  "a febrile media culture has developed that rewards treachery"?

You gotta love the way pollies speak, keep em on there toes I say.

 

 

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Australia is full of crazy right wing nuts too tho :(
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Yea, pretty salty ones.........

 

 

Absolutely....it was time for this years ago. And term limits on Supreme Court judges also. None of these people need to be in there for life.

The rubber chicken circuit?

Being in there any longer breeds complacency, corruption , and contempt.

These Federal , State, and other political jobs have become careers to the extent that people want them to gain power and wealth and not for any public cause.

When it comes to president I don't really trust anyone who actually wants the job...that's more about ego imo, and not a sign of someone who is going to do the right thing in many cases.

 

 

There is so much division in the US, we have kind of reached that point where we really should split into two or more countries with the blue states forming one country and the red states forming the other.  The sad part is, if that were to happen, it would only be a matter of time before these two new countries went to war with each other over their ideological differences.

 

There are always politics involved when these things happen and since Democrats are in charge right now it's unlikely they will indict her,  but the better question is why would someone as smart as Hilary Clinton even take the risk of getting using a  'private server' knowing it was against the rules for government officials in her area?  I'm not endorsing any of the GOP since I have pretty much always been a Dem but is she someone you want to vote for knowing she did this and then tried to cover it up? Is she the best we have to vote for? That's a sad comment imho.

It would be an interesting battle with no money to spend on combat, with the blue country handing out everything in entitlements and the red country having eliminated taxes on the people who can actually afford to pay taxes.

Depending on your point of view, term limits are what are getting us into this mess with our next president.  Honestly, if I had my druthers between another term of President Obama and any of the other candidates out there, I'd prefer President Obama.   Maybe its a good thing or maybe its a bad thing but basically right now, being a lame duck president, he is about as ineffective as he has ever been...but given that he and Congress have refused to work with each other for the last 5 years, what is another year.