American Politics the 2016 edition

Dean wrote: Quite - we banned semi-automatics after the Hungerford massacre and following the Dunblane massacre all handguns except some sporting pistols, muzzle-loaders and "historic handguns" (which is why I suspect the "old fashioned looking" comment is significant). The murder of 16 innocent school children was one mass shooting too far for us so how you guys can do nothing after the horror of Sandy Hook leaves me speechless.

Sad comments from John McCain saying Obama is "directly responsible" for the Orlando shooting. 

I certainly agree that going to Iraq was a mistake but how could our being there create a void? 

Atavachron wrote: ^ Or he figures Obama's a lame duck and might as well stir some sh*t.   Very disappointing though, really.

The T wrote: ^I don't think the 'no fly, no buy' policy is the MAIN thing, however I don't see it as something so idiotic. Administratively, logistically difficult, yes. But other than that, what do you see so inherently stupid with it?

The removal of a constitutional right without due process in the form lists whose administration are not subject to review nor the democratic process does not exactly set a warm and fuzzy precedent. The mesh of those lists also tend to be so fine that far too much gets sieved.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: The Dark Elf wrote: Gun owner here as well. I prefer much tougher gun laws: Federal oversight of background checks (no more patchwork state-by-state lunacy), required background checks and registration for private sales and gun show purchases, and a ban on all assault weapons. And the spurious statement "Half of the people in the country don't want gun laws changed" doesn't match nearly any poll released in the last year. Unless of course the poll was sponsored by the NRA.

Your poll is indicative of a rise in people wanting stricter gun control, and a precipitous drop in wanting it to remain the same. It also is rather old. Recent polls showing Americans want stricter gun control, not necessarily banning guns, but how they are purchased:

The Dark Elf wrote: TeleStrat wrote: I certainly agree that going to Iraq was a mistake but how could our being there create a void?  While we were there no one even knew who ISIS was. I never even heard the name until after our troops were gone. The void was created when Obama pulled out all of the troops without leaving even a small security force to help stabilize the country until the government was able to handle it themselves.  As far as directly blaming Obama for the Orlando shooting, I can't agree with that at all.  Being from the Detroit area, I have several Chaldean friends (Iraqi Christians), who predicted fairly accurately what was going to happen when we invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam. Iraq is not a country, it is a geographic construct implemented by the Brits (much like Trans-Jordan, Palestine, etc.) made up of different peoples (Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds, Chaldeans, Yezidis, etc.) who basically can't stand each other. They were kept together by the repressive Ba'ath party, led by Saddam since 1979. He kept the country together through murder, torture and oppression of the people. Once Saddam was gone, it left a vacuum. It doesn't matter what the U.S. did, because our kind of democracy will not work there - Iraq should and probably will eventually split into 2-3 countries (Kurd, Sunni, Shi'ite). It will not work in Afghanistan either (something ever invader from Alexander the Great to the Brits to the Russians discovered). So either the U.S. maintains thousands of troops in these countries forever, or get the hell out and not risk wasting another American life. Because its not worth wasting our lives in what amounts to eternal tribal and religious hatreds that have been ongoing for millennia. Obama did the right thing and got the hell out. Stabilize what? You can't stabilize quicksand. You have pyhrric victories for a day, a  week, a month, but sooner or later it will collapse back into chaos.

emigre80 wrote: on a lighter note, check out dailykos for the fall and rise of my presidential candidacy: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/06/17/1539798/-I-Concede,-but-My-Cause-Will-Go-On   It's the comments that make it art (to paraphrase The West Wing).

ClemofNazareth wrote: *frinspar* wrote: What's funny to me, not ha-ha funny but irony funny, are the same people who refuse to have honest discussions about gun laws in this country, are many of the same people now clamoring to save the world (my hyperbole) from alligators because of that child's tragic death at the Disney park. And many are the same folks who are passionate defenders of human fetus when it comes to the abortion debate, but also support the death penalty, mandatory sentencing laws, cutting off immigration and eliminating Obamacare after that fetus is born. Sanctity of life indeed. Never forget though that at the heart of the gun debate is a deep (and justified) mistrust of our own government. And given the long, long history of Feds running headlong down a slippery slope any time civil liberties or constitutional rights are legally restricted, that paranoia is to a certain extent justified.

I'm a liberal , but I'm currently in a conservative state. I eat lunch withAgriculture professors and university police, both groups lean conservative, but I still don't understand this claim I've long heard that Conservatives mistrust the government, and therefore I don't put much credence in it. How can a party and individuals within it claim to mistrust the government, supposedly because they (the government) are the ones with the guns, when they are also incredibly hawkish and reliably vote to increase funding for military spending? All I see from Republicans/Conservatives is an array of issues, some which they're for and some which they're against. I don't find the supposed Conservative mistrust of government as offering much explanatory value at all. It seems more like a post hoc rationalization. Otherwise, they ought to have sided with the protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

Edited by HackettFan - June 18 2016 at 23:20

The Dark Elf wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: One shouldn't consider that. That's not how a legal system works. Amendments. They've been implemented throughout our history. The document isn't static. It took almost 100 years to add the 15th Amendment that prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on color or creed, and 150 years to adopt the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote in 1920. An Amendment has even been repealed. So yes, that is how the system works.