obfuscator

Agreed. When it comes to non-citizens, you open a whole other can of worms as well. For example, the US is currently waging a completely illegal war in Syria at Obama's behest (it was never sanctioned by congress); not to mention drone strikes in other countries. As I understand it, America hasn't been in a war since ww2. Everything since has been executive actions, even after the maximum 6 weeks or whatever that the president is supposed to use to seek approval from Congress. Source: my high school Poli sci class Interesting. I'm pretty sure congress authorized the Iraq War, though (not that they should have). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

Agreed. When it comes to non-citizens, you open a whole other can of worms as well. For example, the US is currently waging a completely illegal war in Syria at Obama's behest (it was never sanctioned by congress); not to mention drone strikes in other countries.

@Bonez: The other issue is that your hypothetical scenario (in which we can be completely sure that the courts have gotten it right) is just that; hypothetical. If capital punishment were to only be allowed in these cases, I suspect the cost of even maintaining the infrastructure to do so would be prohibitively high for how few of these cases there would actually be. Another interesting fact is that capital punishment does not seem to act as a deterrent; at least no moreso than long-term imprisonment. Not that anyone brought it up, but it's still interesting.

This isn't remotely true - 4% of executed inmates have been exonerated - and that says nothing about those who were innocent but have not been exonerated: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-study-4-percent-defendants-innocent

“I would like to make it crystal clear that I do not regret what I did. I am not sorry. I have not shed a tear for the innocent people I killed. I do feel sorry for the innocent white children forced to live in this sick country and I do feel sorry for the innocent white people that are killed daily at the hands of the lower races. I have shed a tear of self pity for myself. I feel pity that I had to do what I did in the first place. I feel pity that I had to give up my life because of a situation that should have never existed.” I'm not a fan of the death penalty, but I'm not going to argue against it after reading that Yeah. I'm 100% against the death penalty, and that goes for this guy as well. But if anyone deserves it, it's got to be him.

On a more somber subject, the charleston shooter was sentenced to death today. I'm curious to see how many people agree with the death sentence for this case. Thoughts?

green hair :s

FTFY

"Ex"citing? ;)

6 more votes!!!!

hobgoblinpie is a pretty specific username it's not like it was XXkillapussyslaya69 or something

looks like he made that reddit post and then deleted his account

I love how in your first two sentences you say not to stereotype and in your third you stereotype ;)

When Estonia ever gets to 50 degrees in the summer, let me know. Till then, comparing your weather system/tolerance to mine is pretty much irrelevant. you should be aware by now, Estonians are utterly flawlessHey, this forum wouldn't be suitably diverse without the requisite Estonian nationalism.

(trico)Finally!

Business formal usually means full suit. Not sure what your finances are like, but you should be able to get a decent one for 250-300, or a crappy one for 100 or so. It is useful to have one in your wardrobe as well, for miscellaneous fancy occasions. You'd want some nice shoes, a dress shirt, and a tie as well.

Not to be *that* guy, but the slaves were freed by a republic president amongst heavy objection from much of the democratic party...

stop spreading your tolerance on me!!!11!!

No problem.... Anyway, I get what you're saying about bush, but really; what did he do in his second term that was so awful? The Iraq war was already underway (that was a first term thing) and the financial crisis was not really *his* fault. I just think it's easy to get sucked into overreaction to every little thing a politician does when you don't align with them (I've certainly fallen into this trap before) but their actual policies end up not being nearly as bad as the initial panic projects. My Bush issue is No Child Left Behind. Not great policy, sure....but something that had bipartisan support and could have easily been implemented under a democrat.

No problem.... Anyway, I get what you're saying about bush, but really; what did he do in his second term that was so awful? The Iraq war was already underway (that was a first term thing) and the financial crisis was not really *his* fault. I just think it's easy to get sucked into overreaction to every little thing a politician does when you don't align with them (I've certainly fallen into this trap before) but their actual policies end up not being nearly as bad as the initial panic projects.

This is a pipe dream. You will be subsidizing industry indefinitely (there are jurisdictions that do so). To subsidize industry takes tax dollars; which means less money in the pockets of American citizens, which doesn't fix anything. The industry never does reach the point where it can be profitable. Consumers will always choose the cheaper options, which motivates companies to cost cut (either with outsourcing or automation). There's no magic number for tariffs. Every point you lower them leads to increased productivity and profitability, and as consumers experience cheaper goods and services, the urge to outsource grows again. Sure, but *employment* by itself is not any sort of goal. If every american had a job earning $1 an hour, would you consider that a success? Of course not; because the purchasing power of that salary is not significant. Whether that number is $1 or $100,000, it's the relative purchasing power that's important; and it is a well understood fact that the decreased efficiency of isolated economies leads to an erosion of purchasing power, not an increase. This line of reasoning is strange, to say the least. If the American economy would be better off with increased tariffs, it stands to reason that any other country would also have the same experience. By that token, every country should be totally isolationist in its economic policy. In fact, why even limit it to countries? Let's create trade borders across states - why should someone in Florida be able to buy a car made in Georgia, and vice versa? In fact, this is exactly what Canada has (inter-provincial trade barriers). It is estimated that their removal could boost Canadian GDP by something like 10% alone; that's how bad they are for efficiency and productivity. The same holds true for trade barriers worldwide.

They shouldn't, but the point is that on average, free trade deals do benefit America. It doesn't mean every single person in America benefits equally (which as I said is a separate policy issue). See above. Question: What do you think Trump should do to fix this supposed problem? Most of his suggestions deal with imposing large tarrifs and tearing up free trade deals. This sounds nice at first glance, but is not something that consumers will tolerate in the long term. The second the price of a new smartphone quadruples (make no mistake, it will if all manufacturing was done domestically) people would riot. Essentially, globalization and free trade allow for increased economic efficiency - people in the western world get high quality, affordable goods; and people in developing countries get increased work opportunity and the social mobility that comes with it. It is effectively impossible to have the best of both of these worlds; and consumers at large make the choice for free trade with their actions; day in, and day out. This is not something that can be legislated away; short of turning to communism. If I were to predict the state of things four years from now, I'd say that this will be what people will be most disappointed in Trump for. He's made it a big part of his platform, but it's the one thing he has essentially no real control over.

To be fair, Trump is pretty far from mainstream republicanism in many respects. It's far from a given he and congress will just play nice and get along...

Trade deals are a net positive for the economy, not a bad thing. Sure, we can start making iphones in north America; but that just means they start costing $3000 instead of $700, and only the top 10% will be able to afford them. We don't live in a closed system anymore; today's economy is a global one, and misguided attempts to rollback the odd trade deal won't change that. The heyday of manufacturing in North America is gone; it is not coming back. What outsourcing hasn't killed automation has taken care of, and we're only getting better at that. Of course, this doesn't mean globalization benefits every single person. There are always victims, and how their condition can best be improved is a valid question; but the answer is not increased tariffs and isolationism.

Fair enough. Still, I think it's reasonable (at least when it comes to this particular issue) to choose a vote for "possibly bad" over "definitely bad". At any rate, it's a done deal now. Time will tell...