[DEBATE] Presidential Election - 2016 (closing Nov 22)

1.) I think that's a bit extreme. I don't think its just the elderly that want an alliance with Britain. But if Britain doesn't want to be allies, that's fine.
2.) You assume too much. Refugees are not only there because of our bombings. ISIS is waging war on those countries. They cause the refugees. Both sides are contributing to the refugees. Placing the blame on solely the US is ignorant.
3.)Oh, you might not have seen it because it was an American movie. I forgot you lived in the UK. Sorry, I will provide a link to the movie wiki page or something. Its quite a fascinating story and movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Kyle

You didn't even explain why you are disregarding the rest of my post. Let me explain it to you again.

I was referring to the picture posted about it weighing the 2000+ lives of Americans against the lives of middle eastern folk. It does not outright say that those numbers relate to those killed because of 9/11. Plus, its idiotic because weighing an American tragedy verses lives lost in our war on terrorism is just horribly wrong. We were attacked by radical islamic terrorists and they must be stopped. So we waged war on terrorism. I would also be willing to bet dollars-to-donuts that they exaggerated those numbers to incorporate lives lost from terrorists as well. Or even those innocents killed in the, 15-ish now I think its been, years since 9/11 happened.

• An alliance based on the US giving us assistance if we get attacked (Argentina still wants the Falklands, and last time we went to war over them the US was ready to stab us in the back at a moment's notice), and us giving the US assistance if they get attacked - we don't want to go illegally invade Iraq again or be called traitors when not following you into Vietnam.
• I never said that was the case. Drone strikes contribute to a lot of it, and they're illegal anyway.
• k.
• I know what you were referring to. Its still 1 million plus people killed compared to the couple thousand killed directly as a result of 9/11, most of which were innocent people (providing they did in fact, as you say, inflate with the numbers of terrorists killed).

1.) I'm confused about what you think a president is. Let me explain something to you. If I want terrorism to be eradicated, and the president is supposed to represent me and my interests (or at least the interests of the majority), I will vote for the one that supports me and my interests. Trump wants ISIS gone. So, since I want that too, I will vote for Trump. That is only one of MANY reasons I am voting for him over Hillary by the way.

1.1) You also seem to think that terrorism cannot be defeated. You have said that several times. I will say it again because you keep saying the same crap again and I have to repeat myself, Terrorism will exist, yes, but it can be defeated when it forms and it can be dwindled in size dramatically if we crack down on them and keep them from gaining any ground using our military. History repeats itself, terrorism will rise again, and when they do, we will be there to eradicate it. But, only if we have a president who will take on these terrorists and not let them spread.

2.)It is not an easy thing to remove terrorism. You are right. But voting for Trump is a way to take steps toward removing ISIS. I'm not so sure Hillary is going to crack down on ISIS like Trump will.

3.)Well, I rest my case then. If you won't show me where I am contradicting myself, then my points are still valid. Opinions with no facts to back them up are useless and arrogant opinions. You just think I contradicted myself, but until you provide evidence, I (and hopefully others who see my logic) will not believe you.

4.) You refer to the conflicts with the dictators of Iraq and Syria as 'small'. I wouldn't call nuclear war with Israel and Iraq to be 'small'. That's just ignorant.

5.)No, American lives are not worth more than other's lives. But you seem to think the lives of the middle eastern people are more important than American's from 9/11. You are dismissing 9/11 and saying that the lives of those we affected are worth more notice than 9/11. The difference here is that 9/11 was a terrorist attack against the US while the lives of the 'innocents lost' was from the aftermath of 9/11 when American declared war on terrorism and Al Qaeda and ISIS arose. Those 'innocents' on that picture also likely displays those that have died from the terrorist side as well. Casualties occur from both sides. Innocents die because of both sides. ISIS flat out beheads people. ISIS has even killed other Islamic people. Their own people too. I will not dismiss the weight of 9/11 as you do. It is tragic that all those people die, but 9/11 cannot be 'compared' to those from its aftermath in the wars. Do not 'compare' lives. Its wrong on many levels. Plus, 9/11 was a singular day and it is being compared to years. Which is also stupid.

6.) You obviously are the one who doesn't understand what taxes are. Maybe if I put it in all caps you will understand? TAXES ARE NOT THE ONLY WAY THE GOVERNMENT MAKES MONEY!!!!!

7.)Restating that less conflicts occur now more than before without any evidence is worth nothing. It doesn't back anything up. You don't prove anything that way. Sorry.

8.)Yeah, Obama is spending money on schools and stuff. That's a good thing. But increasing taxes and cutting the military in my opinion is not the way to do it.

9.)Of course Russia didn't like us stopping them from attacking Ukraine. But it had to be done. They were taking it over because it was once part of Russia, but it may have started a much larger conflict if we let that continue.

Keep in mind the image is comparing a singular day of a terrorist attack to years of occurrences after 9/11. Of course the other numbers will be huge. It was one terrorist attack versus an entire war for 15+ years? Its just not a good picture. You can't compare a one-day-tragedy to 15+ years of war. Its just stupid. I will not compare a one-day-tragedy of 2000+ American deaths from terrorists to 15+ years of war.

Everything else you said is fine. I just wanted to add onto the 9/11 thing.

A President is as a President does, or at least what a Congressional Assembly will let be done.

Colonialism should never be defended. It has no place in the 21st Century, besides those colonies that the UK and France have held onto because the people there don't want to separate from us.

It wasn't Russia anyway. It was part of the Russian Empire - an effort to create pan-slavism and spread Russian culture throughout Eastern Europe (read: Russofication, the forceful conversion to Russian culture whether you want it or not). It's why Russia got involved in World War I - because Austria-Hungary threatened that position in their attempt to annex Serbia. It's why, despite their close cultural ties and incentive to work together as two Communist states, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia did not like eachother because they both sought to be the dominant country in the Slavic world.
/endpetprojectrantlol

I've said previously, I'd be fine with them taking just Crimea - there's a valid reason (I don't agree with letting them have it, but hey, the UK kept Northern Ireland which is a similar situation, so I don't see why not) to in my opinion, but that's not the case. They're attacking Ukraine and funding rebel forces against the pro-EU government. That's unacceptable and shouldn't be allowed to continue at all.

1) The president may work for your best interests, but you can't just vote for a president and expect terrorism to disappear.

1.1 (idk why you added this?)) Terrorism can't be defeated. It's not the same crap again, you're just not understanding complex global issues such as terrorism. It's physically impossible to eradicate terrorism. It's a goddamn THOUGHT PROCESS.

2) You're confusing terrorism and ISIS. ISIS is a terrorist organisation. Terrorism is a thought process in which people want to cause terror.

3) omfg fine.

• In https://empireminecraft.com/threads/debate-presidential-election-2016.56738/page-56#post-1233263 you say you want the US to focus on the US but then want more global focus with military powers.
• In https://empireminecraft.com/threads/debate-presidential-election-2016.56738/page-56#post-1233284 you say that it's not your role to fix or not fix a country, but also say how the US was right to kill dictators because of their oppression.
• You're also implying that oppression is bad but in https://empireminecraft.com/threads/debate-presidential-election-2016.56738/page-56#post-1233279 say that the US should be feared by people so they don't rebel. This is the exact same as oppression.
• In https://empireminecraft.com/threads/debate-presidential-election-2016.56738/page-56#post-1233290 you say the US's best interest is to "watch over the world", but when it comes to econmic downfalls, the US shouldn't play a role? Are you watching over the world or not.

4) Israel and Iraq didn't have access to nuclear weapons at that time.
5) I'm not dismissing 9/11 nor am I saying that a middle-eastern life is worth more. What I'm saying is that the war of terror has drastically increased the loss of life.
6) You're actually damaged. You put:

And I said that cutting taxes increase income. You either made a typo or have no idea what you're typing.
7) This will teach you everything about deaths from war:

8) It's the best way to do it. Military is a huge expense which can be cut nicely.
9) So they're not going to be friends with America.

I know how you feel on this thread. I've been ripped up on here before too. I am absolutely no fan of Hillary I assure you. When the people on here from the UK etc... tell you they hate the US they aren't joking. They hate the US. As the world hates the US. We spend billions each year in so many ways trying to get other countries to love us and guess what, it ain't working. Let me give you another scenario. We stop trying to get involved in everything that happens everywhere. Let some of them take care of themselves once in a while. They hate us anyway. You said Iraq threatened nuclear weapons against Israel. Iraq had nothing near nuclear weapons. And Israel has done a pretty good job of defending itself in the past.

Let me give you a different idea. We get the rich to pay their fair share in taxes. I used to perform tax planning services for the wealthy and they are jumping up and down at how fortunate they are that we don't figure out they are paying a fraction of what the middle class is. There is a reason that Trump is not turning over his tax returns. And don't say because he is being audited because the IRS has already said it would not affect that. He knows he is paying virtually nothing on millions of income. Romney released his and he paid 14% on over $13 million in income. What is your tax rate? Ok, then you cut military spending significantly. We can still spend twice as much as China or Russia and save billions. Then you reinvest this money for this country. Bizarre I know. How about educating our people. You talk about cutting taxes to generate more revenues. The old trickle down has worked so well, not. Take a look at how much revenue can be generated by the increase in productivity created by education. Not to mention the decrease in incarceration and welfare and so on from that. Ya, that's the big money maker for the US's coffers. Got kids or ever plan to? Just another perspective.

The loudest are often not the majority and often do not speak for "they". Just look at Brexit. They actually like and support Brexit, but certain sites try to give the impression that the opposite is true.

I understand what you are saying and 'they' was a huge term to use. But it is also hard for Americans to understand that the rest of the world really doesn't like us. We think, 'well we saved the world during world war 2 and we protect them and we spend so much money helping the needy'. They don't see it that way. Americans are probably the most ethnocentric culture on earth. It's like, 'everyone should love us, why wouldn't they love us?'. In general they want us to leave them alone and stop interfering in their affairs.

Maybe they do love us, and it's only the ones that hate us that are being vocal about it

Dude, I wish it were true. We need to let them do their own thing and do our own thing. Sure, work with the the UN but beyond that let it go.

I agree with a lot of what you said. The rich do need to pay their fair share. The rich are cheating everyone. I know that the world doesn't like as all that much. What you say is what I have been trying to say in my earlier posts. That America should be more focused on the problems at home and only interfere elsewhere if it directly threatens our security or the security of our allies. That's it. I don't want America to become isolationists, but we should keep to ourselves to be honest.

To touch one last time on the Iraq thing with nukes, we did not know for certain if they had nukes or not, but Bush decided to go in and attack anyways. It was a risk he was not willing to take in the off chance they had nukes. They might not have had nukes or anything close to it, but we still did the right thing by our principle of defending our allies.

I still think our military should remain large with the conflicts of terrorism, because I still think that taking out ISIS is the right thing for us to do. ISIS could become a very large and very dangerous threat if we let it continue. North Korea is still trying to have their war with us, but that's a joke. Russia is the only last concern possibly with our security, but I think they wont try anything too aggressive. So, alright, I see your points. The military could be cut a little bit, but I still want to see these threats dealt with. I want ISIS off our planet, I want North Korea to be defeated so this whole joke of Kim Jong Un can stop, and I want the tensions between Russia and China to be lowered with the United States. After that, I say we can lower our military a bit and just worry about protecting our borders.

With the education thing, I do believe in education. I'm a college student currently studying to become a Geologist. I value education and I hope to see it improved further with government spending, sure.

The last statement I will make, is I am still a conservative Republican and I believe in America's capitalism. I think trickle-down-economics works and increasing taxes only frustrates the American people. Our country can thrive much better without such large taxes.

Ah boy, the presidential election, kinda wish there was more mentioning of the other party candidates than Clinton and Trump, reminds me of all the buzz around consoles and pc just being on the side cx.

1.) I don't expect terrorism to just up and leave for electing Trump, but I do expect Trump to keep to his word about taking out ISIS. That's all i'm saying. I want ISIS defeated, Trump promises that, i'm voting Trump. That's it.
2.) I am tired of repeating myself, but I will say it again and again until you understand. I agree with you that terrorism is a thought process. I am 100% in agreement with you on that, ok? What I don't agree with you on is that it cannot be defeated. By you saying it cannot be defeated, you are saying, "We should give up on defeating terrorism because they are invincible." Which is totally false in my opinion. Terrorism cannot be defeated, that is true, but the groups causing terrorism CAN be defeated. We can show the world, that groups of terrorism will not be tolerated and will not be allowed to exist. There is no sanctuary for terrorism on this planet and we will hunt them wherever they are. That's what I am saying.
3.) This ties into number 2 here. ISIS can be defeated. Terrorism cannot. But if we show that we take out groups that take on jihad, then more terrorist groups will be less likely to exist because they will think twice before instigating a war with us. Thus, fear.
4.) Finally, you stated where you think I contradicted myself. Lets go through them, shall we?
- I did not say I wanted America to become totally isolated, which is what I think you are thinking from that. I wanted America to focus more on home issues than issues of other nations. I wanted the problems of America to come first. We should still be connected to the world and keep our military power in the looming threat of terrorism and potential wars later on.
- I said that it wasn't our job to reinstate a form of government after we took out Saddam Hussein. We took out the dictator to remove the threat of nuclear war with Israel, or the potential nuclear war I should say. He was oppressive to his people, so there was that as well, but that was not the only reason we went in. We removed the threat against our ally, and left. Simple as that. We did our job, it was up to Iraq to fill the power hole with a new form of government, but, unfortunately, ISIS took over before that could happen.
- Firstly, I did not once use the word 'oppression' in that post. So, I have no idea where you are getting that from. Second, why is it so bad that terrorists should fear us and not vice-versa? They should fear our military power, or at least think twice before declaring war against us and beheading our journalists in front of the world.
- I was talking about how America needs to stand ready when war comes. Because, believe me, there will be a time when war comes. It is in our best interest to stand watch over the world. I did not say we needed to engage in every conflict however. I did not say that we should fix the world's problems either. You confuse the word 'watch' with 'act'. I have said, however, that the only time we should act outside of the US is if it directly threatens our security or the security of our allies. That's it.
5.) Israel did have nuclear weapons at the time. That was why we moved into Iraq when they said they had nukes. Iraq said they had nukes, our intel said they might have nukes, we moved in. Israel said that if Iraq launched nukes, Israel would retaliate. Boom. Full scale nuclear war. That, would be a problem for the whole world for sure with all that nuclear radiation. That is in no one's best interest.
6.) Alright, I agree with that. I still don't like the idea of comparing one day to 15+ years, but I do agree that the war on terror has brought death of innocents. I do not deny that. So, yes, I agree with that statement.

7.) This is what you said, and, yes, I had a typo in the post you were referring to. I didn't mean to put "cutting taxes isn't the only way the government makes money." I did mess up there. I meant to not put the word 'cutting' there. So, I hope that that clears that up.
8.) I watched the video, it makes sense. But, Russia attacked the Ukraine and they fund rebel groups against them. So, clearly, war still exists today. It might not be big and mighty like WW2 or nothing, but its still quite the conflict. Perhaps I should just say, armed conflict still exists and we need our military to protect us from that threat.
9.) Ok, so cut whatever you need to cut in the military. As long as our military remains large enough to protect everything of value to America, then I am content.
10.) Russia can be friends with us. Trump will definitely make allies with them. That's a big plus. At least to me it is.

So, all in all, I do agree with a lot of what you say. There is some that I don't and that's fine. I hope that cleared up everything. Last statement from me is I never contradicted myself. Hopefully I cleared that up now that you gave me something to work with. I was careful not to contradict myself when typing every one of my responses.

Alright. Did you see what happened to Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for president. He was being questioned by a reporter about Syria and was asked what we should do about Aleppo. His answer was "What is Aleppo?". There was awkward silence and he never did figure out what Aleppo was until being told. That's gotta hurt.

Yeah, I saw that. Goes to show that politicians are still human, and that they still make mistakes, even the "clean" ones. Which is why it's pretty much just a matter of choice in terms of who people follow.

I so wanted to give you a 'like' and probably could have even though I don't necessary agree with all the hawkish stuff but then I got to this. To everyone that doesn't know what trickle down economics is: I remember it first used during the Reagan administration. It was the idea that if you gave the wealthy more money they would spend it. When they spent it it would create demand. As you all do know that demand would create a need for supply and create jobs and economic growth. Thus, the trickle down thing. This was to be done by significantly decreasing the rich people's taxes. You might ask me, "Why not just decrease the tax burden on the middle class to also create the same effect?". Because Ronald Reagan was a republican. Anyway, as I studied significantly in business school as well as saw some discussion recently about, it didn't work. Guess what, surprise surprise, the rich already had everything they ever wanted. When we gave them more money they didn't spend that much of it they invested it. So, it did not have the desired effect. In fact it would have been much more effective if it was given to the middle class as they would have spent much more of it than the rich. Ce la vie. As far as the individual tax rate in the US, it is among the lowest of any developed nation. Our friends in the UK have a significantly higher tax burden. I do think you are a democrat in training though. A real republican would skin you for saying the wealthy should pay their fair share or we should invest in education.

After the recession in 2008/2009, the Bank of England tried the exact same thing to stimulate the economy. They cut taxes of the rich and put more money into the economy in an attempt to have some trickle down to the lower classes. It didn't work. It's a bad economic stimulate due to human nature. Greed.

The vote is split 50/50. Scotland now wants to split away in the event Brexit actually goes through, our government doesn't want it to happen (their opinion is what matters - the people's opinion is considered advisory and can be ignored if so pleased), and polls have consistently shown that opinions on the EU fluctuate and it was pretty much only old people who wanted to leave - the country will be pro-EU in pretty much no time at all and polls also show lots of people have changed their mind on the Brexit side of things, since the Brexit campaigners admitted to lying about everything and it never went how they hoped.

Personally I think it was a ridiculous decision to give the vote on this to the people. The EU is a complex machine and very few people actually know what it brings and what it does - to English people (not 'British' people, which don't exist) it's an autocratic, dictatorial union dedicated to oppressing cultures and letting 'filthy Eastern European immigrants' in (yet they'd gladly immigrate to those places). It's far, far, far more than that, and nobody seems to realise that.

Point being it's wrong to say 'they like and support' Brexit when the reality is neither option has a majority (Remain is popular amongst young people, who are becoming a bigger voter base, 'Leave' is popular amongst the older people, who are shrinking, so one side will have very pissed off majority soon enough).