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7th March 2020, 09:30 AM | #121 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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7th March 2020, 09:36 AM | #122 |
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Sanders has started to go on the attack over those things. Over the last couple of days he's been pointing out that Biden voted against allowing gay people to openly serve in the military and for cutting social security, while Sanders voted the opposite.
Speaking as an outsider, I think Sanders is the better candidate in terms of policy, history, and integrity. I think Biden looks more likely to win the primaries, but would be worse for the country if elected president. I'm not sure which would be more likely to beat Trump in an election. It's a fact that young people haven't been voting in the primaries, which could be indicative that they wouldn't vote in the election, which would be bad for Sanders. But, then, perhaps that's more a case of not truly understanding the importance of the primaries and they would turn out for the election after all. I'd need to see some historical data to form an opinion. I tend to think that if Sanders can get the youth motivated, then he potentially could beat Trump. I think that Biden is more vulnerable to Trump's attacks, and I don't see people getting enthusiastic about him. He doesn't seem to inspire passion in people. I think Biden could be another Hillary Clinton. |
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7th March 2020, 10:13 AM | #123 |
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7th March 2020, 11:28 AM | #124 |
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"Change you can believe in". Remember that? The full (secret) slogan was "Change you can believe in if you're gullible". I think he won a price for that. But of course Zig is right. Obama didn't run as a centrist. He ran as the hopey changey guy. He wasn't a centrist candidate, he just turned out to be a centrist president. |
7th March 2020, 11:40 AM | #125 |
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“Knowledge is Power; France is Bacon.” |
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7th March 2020, 11:45 AM | #126 |
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7th March 2020, 12:13 PM | #127 |
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7th March 2020, 01:01 PM | #128 |
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7th March 2020, 01:05 PM | #129 |
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7th March 2020, 01:07 PM | #130 |
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7th March 2020, 01:43 PM | #131 |
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Hitchens razorWP applies in this case.
Someone who doubts your claim that "Obama didn't run as a centrist" doesn't need to show that he did. |
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7th March 2020, 02:28 PM | #132 |
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True.
Obama was probably more right-wing than Clinton. |
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7th March 2020, 02:34 PM | #133 |
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7th March 2020, 02:36 PM | #134 |
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Yes, campaign slogans like "A vote for me is a vote for change!" and then "Hope & change!" plus even "My Presidency will be remembered as the time when everything in the whole world started getting better because of all my change!" can work, even when they come from someone who won't end up following through on them.
This is evidence that Biden could win the general election if he were to campaign on the same pretense at progressiveness that those guys did. But he isn't. His pretense at being like Bernie is limited to making up stories for his past, not campaigning as if he were progressive now. He should have been more attacky all along. He'd be in a better position now if he had. (Although, as always for him, his actual current position is better than it's generally presented; it's about a tie being treated as an utterly hopeless loss already, whereas if he were more willing to say bad stuff about his opponents instead of just talking about good stuff he wants to do, he'd be solidly ahead and the general story being told about it would be that it's approximately a tie.) Even people voting for Biden agree. They've never produced a single solitary argument for him on the issues, just the electability myth that's precisely the opposite of reality, while all of the polls on issues consistently show much more support for Bernie-like positions among all Democrats (and often all Americans), not just Bernie's. Biden just doesn't have actual support even among his own supporters. The idea that Bernie would depend on some wildly unprecedented wave of millions upon millions of roughly-20-year-old voters is a myth cooked up by his opponents as a straw man. Democrats have won Presidential elections before (and lost by quite close margins, not huge blowouts) without anything completely off-the-wall happening. And they've done it with voters who wanted policies like Bernie's and candidates who campaigned like they were going to push for such policies. |
7th March 2020, 02:41 PM | #135 |
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7th March 2020, 04:40 PM | #136 |
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7th March 2020, 04:48 PM | #137 |
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Oh yes, we have Donald *****' Trump. And then there is a non-Trump, but not nearly perfect. I foresee an endless number of posts like these if Biden is selected. As he has told several untruths and has had moments of some confusion. And these things are supposed to count as Biden is a Democrat. For sure as hell, they don't seem to matter the slightest bit to Republicans when it's about Trump - and to a far higher degree. In a perfect world, surely, there would be a combination of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill running against this despicable, corrupt person, but now it might just be Joe Biden. So go Joe, give them hell fgs.
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7th March 2020, 05:00 PM | #138 |
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Biden's speech at his St. Louis rally was 7 minutes.
He still managed to get in "I'm an Obiden-Bama Democrat" and slipping Kamala's name in with Beto, Amy, and Pete, possibly leaking her endorsement before it is official. |
7th March 2020, 05:36 PM | #139 |
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We keep being told that Biden has dementia/is in mental decline blah, blah, blah. What do they present as evidence? The same type of things he's been doing for decades.
Quote:
When Biden confused Burlington, Iowa, with Burlington, Vt. last summer, that must be a sign of dementia. But Trump did a similar thing when he mixed up Concord, NH with Concord, MA in February. When Trump commented on the shootings in Toledo, OH he confused that city with Dayton. Surely these gaffes must be a sign that Trump is also suffering from dementia? Is Biden's age of concern? Yes. So is Sanders' who is even older. So is Trump's. I certainly would have preferred a younger candidate. But it's either going to be Biden or Sanders vs Trump and spreading this allegation about Biden having dementia based on nothing more than him doing what he's always done is not going to help get rid of Trump. It's just counterproductive. |
7th March 2020, 06:01 PM | #140 |
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Hypocrisy by some partisan figures in regards to this claim don't actually have anything to do with the veracity of the claim.
"But Trump" simply can't be the answer to all criticism. Either that or we don't really have a problem with whataboutisms and are being hypocrites ourselves. |
7th March 2020, 07:39 PM | #141 |
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7th March 2020, 08:07 PM | #142 |
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7th March 2020, 08:38 PM | #143 |
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“Joe Biden has always been demented.” Yeah, a great presidential candidate. Trump will definitely not dine out on that during the run for the top job. Trump will destroy him.
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7th March 2020, 08:39 PM | #144 |
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7th March 2020, 08:42 PM | #145 |
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7th March 2020, 08:42 PM | #146 |
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7th March 2020, 08:48 PM | #147 |
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7th March 2020, 08:51 PM | #148 |
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7th March 2020, 08:52 PM | #149 |
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7th March 2020, 08:55 PM | #150 |
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7th March 2020, 08:56 PM | #151 |
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Maybe. But you still have failed to provide any evidence that Biden has any form of dementia but your own proclamations.
As I've said, to think that Dr. Jill or his family/close friends would support Biden running for POTUS if they thought he wasn't mentally up to it is absurd. |
7th March 2020, 08:58 PM | #152 |
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7th March 2020, 09:00 PM | #153 |
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7th March 2020, 09:13 PM | #154 |
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Слава Україні! **** Putin! |
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7th March 2020, 09:21 PM | #155 |
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7th March 2020, 09:23 PM | #156 |
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I see the Bernie Bros are doing Trump's dirty work for him.
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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7th March 2020, 09:23 PM | #157 |
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The broader question is whether his brand of old-school political accommodation is the right answer to the right-wing's slash-and-burn borderline fascism. Trump is a symptom, not the cause, of where we are now. What will Biden do to appeal to the people who thought Trump belonged in the White House? I think there's a real possibility that Trump could beat Biden.
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7th March 2020, 09:27 PM | #158 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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7th March 2020, 09:31 PM | #159 |
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7th March 2020, 09:32 PM | #160 |
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Joe Biden is a ‘healthy, vigorous’ 77-year-old, his doctor declares
[...] “The only test that hasn’t been done is the cognitive functioning test,” Olshansky added. https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...1a9_story.html |
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