I'm not versed in American politics, but I think your country needs someone like Bernie Sanders. It's mind-blowing to think that people in the US try to avoid e.g. seeing a doctor or riding the ambulance after an accident because of how costly it is. Free healthcare and education should be human rights.

I've not been a fan of any modern time US presidents. To name a few things they've regularly done or promoted: warmongering, torture prisons, war crimes (see e.g. the Nuremberg principles and compare the US' actions to those brought up in the Nuremberg trials), and toppling of foreign governments.

I think the entire system of voting for a single person/organization to represent all of your opinions is wrong. I’m an advocate of direct democracy. It could still have all the positive characteristics of democracies where you choose a knowledgeable representative; you would simply extend it to give each citizen the opportunity to vote on every single question, should they want to (otherwise their vote defaults to whatever representative they have chosen in that area of politics). Furthermore, citizens should be able to submit motions and vote on what should become a proposal

Yesterday President Trump was interviewed by ABC News and asked a couple questions regarding polling and the election. The comment that got the most attention was from President Trump after being asked if he would accept information on 2020 opponents from other government(s) or if he would alert the FBI about it. Trump said that he "maybe you could do both" and that he would listen to what the government had to say and that there is "nothing wrong with listening." He also said that the even though the head of the FBI would say to alert them, he thinks that he's wrong.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said: “I think my view is that if any public official or member of any campaign is contacted by any nation-state or anybody acting on behalf of a nation-state about influencing or interfering with our election, then that is something that the FBI would want to know about."

There is a federal law in place that states: "Contributions and donations by foreign nationals in connection with elections. A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election."

Here's a clip with snippets of the interview including the question and answer mentioned above:


What do you think about a statement like this? Do you consider it illegal under the phrasing "or other thing of value" in the law?
Would you find it wrong if government leaders in your country did this? Do you find anything wrong with it?

@Redtunnel  It SHOULD be human rights but with the way everything has been run for over 200 years, I don't foresee anything that major changing.  There's the never ending debate of "Well who is going to pay for that free healthcare, education, etc, etc?"  The answer is American citizens through taxes.  But some people don't like the idea of their money going to those who refuse to get a job because the government is literally handing them a check for sitting around and doing nothing.  I'd be lying if I said this doesn't upset me sometimes, because it does.  And this sort of thing DOES happen.  I've seen people with my own eyes who purchase up to $400 worth of food at the grocery store using food stamps, meanwhile they're using a brand new iPhone and putting their free food into their Escalade.  Then it makes me question, "does this person actually need food stamps?  They look like they're doing just fine."

I agree with you on the representative democracy.  I've never been big on it because even though democracy is government "By the people.  For the people"  We elect a single person then that's it.  Every decision afterwards is up to this one person.  And we're forced to live their decisions even if they're based off of bias or personal agenda.  But honestly, with the way things in America are now and the type of people living here, I can't see direct democracy being any better.  It's a losing battle in my opinion.

This week on Wednesday and Thursday night, the first Democratic Presidential Debates took place. Because there were so many candidates the debate was split into two nights and names were randomly drawn for who appeared on each night. 20 candidates qualified for the debates so 10 took to the stage each night.

Debate Night #1:
Bill de Blasio
Tim Ryan
Julián Castro
Cory Booker (Currently 7th in national polls)
Elizabeth Warren (Currently 3rd in national polls)
Beto O’Rourke (Currently 6th in national polls)
Amy Klobuchar
Tulsi Gabbard
Jay Inslee
John Delaney

Full debate:


Debate Night #2:
Marianne Williamson
John Hickenlooper
Andrew Yang
Pete Buttigieg (currently 5th in national polls)
Joe Biden (Currently 1st in national polls)
Bernie Sanders (Currently 2nd in national polls)
Kamala Harris (currently 4th in national polls)
Kirsten Gillibrand
Michael Bennet
Eric Swalwell.

Full debate:


Takeaways from night 1 were that Elizabeth Warren came away with the "win" but Julian Castro had a breakout moment during the debate as well. No other candidate really stood out and Cory Booker and Beto O'Rourke, both who were expected to step up, fell short, with O'Rourke doing particularly poorly. The debate was relatively civil and low energy with talk about policy and not many direct attacks on candidates. This was expected with few high polling individuals.

Takeaways from night 2 were that Kamala Harris controlled the debate and proved herself to be an extremely viable candidate. She went after Biden successfully with an emotional story about herself and her childhood as well as went after his policies that affected her as well as his talk of now deceased segregationists that he worked with in Congress. Besides her, the other individual that was said to have done well was Pete Buttigieg who proved himself to be calm, level-headed, well-spoken, and that he was suited to be on that stage. He was challenged as well with a current racially charge situation involving a police shooting in his city, but besides this, he excelled. Joe Biden took a lot of hits and seemed to fall really short while no other candidate really stood out besides Marianne Williamson who took had a very strange approach and odd answers to many questions she had, causing many memes to be made of her.

Did anyone watch all or any of the debates, and if so, what were your thoughts? Did any policies excite or aggravate you? Do you think their positions are too moderate or too progressive? What are you overall thoughts?

I watched both debates just to educate myself on everybody's position even though I will probably never vote Democrat again. I knew Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders positions going into it. Also, I currently live in Texas so I know all about Beto being a great talker with absolutely no policy.

The "free stuff" message will always continue to aggravate me because nothing is free. Somebody has to pay for it. I pay over $25,000 a year in taxes (income, medicare, social security, sales, and property). I can do a lot with that kind of money. I understand that Bernie plans on making Wall Street pay for free education but he is planning on making everyone pay for Medicare for all.

Objectively, Kamala Harris stood out from the bunch. She was tough and was very poised.

There are some people that come off as authentic and others pandering. I believe people like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie to be authentic in their beliefs. Corey Booker and Beto O'Rourke seem to be the latter.

Bill de Blasio was just obnoxious.

Also I loved Marianne Williamson in terms of entertainment lol.

Quote from: Powerless on June 30, 2019, 05:58:19

Did anyone watch all or any of the debates, and if so, what were your thoughts? Did any policies excite or aggravate you? Do you think their positions are too moderate or too progressive? What are you overall thoughts?

I watched both debates just to educate myself on everybody's position even though I will probably never vote Democrat again. I knew Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders positions going into it. Also, I currently live in Texas so I know all about Beto being a great talker with absolutely no policy.

The "free stuff" message will always continue to aggravate me because nothing is free. Somebody has to pay for it. I pay over $25,000 a year in taxes (income, medicare, social security, sales, and property). I can do a lot with that kind of money. I understand that Bernie plans on making Wall Street pay for free education but he is planning on making everyone pay for Medicare for all.

Objectively, Kamala Harris stood out from the bunch. She was tough and was very poised.

There are some people that come off as authentic and others pandering. I believe people like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie to be authentic in their beliefs. Corey Booker and Beto O'Rourke seem to be the latter.

Bill de Blasio was just obnoxious.

Also I loved Marianne Williamson in terms of entertainment lol.

@Shady - First, I agree 100% with Marianne Williamson. I watched so many memes about her and after laughing just watching her performance during the debate the memes made it even better. 

I understand how a lot of people are frustrated with the "free stuff" message but couldn't you argue they aren't saying it's free (besides public colleges, universal pre-K, etc. that, like you said, are majorly being paid for by the extremely wealthy/wall street)? "Medicare For All" or "Universal Healthcare" I've never really seen being touted as "free" healthcare. Of course people are going to be paying for it. Their point is that people pay for it now but with extremely high costs since insurance companies, like any company, is out for profit. If people pay for their healthcare through taxes in a government run system, then everyone is covered and it isn't being done by profit-hungry companies. Of course this doesn't touch on possible wait times, quality of care, how doctors will be affected by it, etc. But the logic solely behind the "paying for it" portion seems to make sense. Would you agree?

Also, you say you'll never vote Democrat again. Why's that? Are you a huge fan of President Trump? Do you just typically align with Republican policies? Is the Democratic party moving too far left for you? Just curious and hungry for discussion. 

Quote from: Shady on July 03, 2019, 05:47:18

Quote from: Powerless on June 30, 2019, 05:58:19

Did anyone watch all or any of the debates, and if so, what were your thoughts? Did any policies excite or aggravate you? Do you think their positions are too moderate or too progressive? What are you overall thoughts?

I watched both debates just to educate myself on everybody's position even though I will probably never vote Democrat again. I knew Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders positions going into it. Also, I currently live in Texas so I know all about Beto being a great talker with absolutely no policy.

The "free stuff" message will always continue to aggravate me because nothing is free. Somebody has to pay for it. I pay over $25,000 a year in taxes (income, medicare, social security, sales, and property). I can do a lot with that kind of money. I understand that Bernie plans on making Wall Street pay for free education but he is planning on making everyone pay for Medicare for all.

Objectively, Kamala Harris stood out from the bunch. She was tough and was very poised.

There are some people that come off as authentic and others pandering. I believe people like AOC, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie to be authentic in their beliefs. Corey Booker and Beto O'Rourke seem to be the latter.

Bill de Blasio was just obnoxious.

Also I loved Marianne Williamson in terms of entertainment lol.

@Shady - First, I agree 100% with Marianne Williamson. I watched so many memes about her and after laughing just watching her performance during the debate the memes made it even better. 

I understand how a lot of people are frustrated with the "free stuff" message but couldn't you argue they aren't saying it's free (besides public colleges, universal pre-K, etc. that, like you said, are majorly being paid for by the extremely wealthy/wall street)? "Medicare For All" or "Universal Healthcare" I've never really seen being touted as "free" healthcare. Of course people are going to be paying for it. Their point is that people pay for it now but with extremely high costs since insurance companies, like any company, is out for profit. If people pay for their healthcare through taxes in a government run system, then everyone is covered and it isn't being done by profit-hungry companies. Of course this doesn't touch on possible wait times, quality of care, how doctors will be affected by it, etc. But the logic solely behind the "paying for it" portion seems to make sense. Would you agree?

Also, you say you'll never vote Democrat again. Why's that? Are you a huge fan of President Trump? Do you just typically align with Republican policies? Is the Democratic party moving too far left for you? Just curious and hungry for discussion. 

 Admittedly, in 2008, I did not know much about policy so I voted on the fact that Obama was such a cool dude and he was going to be the first black president. As stated, I voted Obama in 2008, Ron Paul 2012, Gary Johnson 2016 (held my nose for that one). I'd rather vote for a person rather than against a person. By that I mean I'd rather vote for a person that I somewhat believe in rather than voting Hillary because I hate Trump.

I believe in a women's right to choose. I am against tariffs/taxes of any kind. I am for people being able to freely move across borders. Those three would automatically disqualify me as a Trump supporter.

In regards to the free stuff, the candidates themselves don't say it is free but whenever we talk about other countries, like Canada, we always refer to it as "free healthcare". Ironically, "free healthcare" comes at a cost. You can't just ignore those points when it comes to health care. Wait times, quality of care, etc needs to be factored in. When you socialize healthcare, everyone gets the same mediocre healthcare. I am relatively young so I have a basic crappy plan that doesn't cost too much. I love being able to choose this option. Someone that puts more importance on healthcare should be able to choose to pay more and get better quality insurance. I have always had my healthcare paid for by my company since I am single but as I understand it, family plan premiums have gone up drastically since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. That wasn't even socialized healthcare, it was just a few provisions and some subsidies to the lower income class.

In regards to the education aspect. I believe taxation is theft and I don't believe the government should be taking money from anybody. However, I do believe if my money is going to be taken, I would rather it go towards social programs rather than towards the military. I understand my beliefs are not pragmatic at all and are pretty extreme but I'm a big advocate for freedom.

The thing that boggles my mind is that everybody knows that government is inefficient and corrupt yet we want to make the government even bigger. DMV wait times. People sending their kids to private schools in order to get a better education. Just in Illinois alone, my home state, two back-to-back governors were sentenced long-term prison sentence for corruption. In Chicago, mayor Rahm Emmanuel was accused of hiding the LaQuan McDonald's murder video (by a cop) until after his election.  The last thing we need to do, in my opinion, is make the government bigger.

That's the very ironic part.  A lot of people I know whom are very left thinking, come off as not just anti-Trump (although they make that point very clear), but anti-government completely.  They want less government but the things they want to happen in our country require an enormous government presence.  Bigger than it has ever been.

That's the very ironic part.  A lot of people I know whom are very left thinking, come off as not just anti-Trump (although they make that point very clear), but anti-government completely.  They want less government but the things they want to happen in our country require an enormous government presence.  Bigger than it has ever been.

Yep a lot of my friends went from Ron Paul to Bernie Sanders.. not understanding that they are almost exact opposites when it comes to fiscal matters.

In regards to the free stuff, the candidates themselves don't say it is free but whenever we talk about other countries, like Canada, we always refer to it as "free healthcare". Ironically, "free healthcare" comes at a cost. You can't just ignore those points when it comes to health care. Wait times, quality of care, etc needs to be factored in. When you socialize healthcare, everyone gets the same mediocre healthcare. I am relatively young so I have a basic crappy plan that doesn't cost too much. I love being able to choose this option. Someone that puts more importance on healthcare should be able to choose to pay more and get better quality insurance. I have always had my healthcare paid for by my company since I am single but as I understand it, family plan premiums have gone up drastically since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. That wasn't even socialized healthcare, it was just a few provisions and some subsidies to the lower income class.

The US doesn't have a higher quality of care than countries with universal healthcare and comparable GDP per capita (see e.g. reports by WHO and OECD).