Edit: JSC is right. Never mind.
Again, this goes to my original point.
You and JohnT are voting on the basis of fear and partisanship, not on the basis of reason. If you and JohnT did not vote and the Republican versions of you and JohnT did not vote, then the world looks like an entirely different place. I’m talking about the election system on Mars and we’re voting for Martians, so far as visualizing this goes. You need to wrap your brain around how different the world would look, first, before getting all testy.
Like I said, on Mars, Trump and Clinton would never be candidates. People who are reasonable would never have accepted either of them into the election.
Coming back to my second point, I accept that I do not live on Mars. And I accept that depending on the Martian strategy is bound to fail because reasonable people are outnumbered and unreasonable people continue to vote.
Here on Earth, reasonable people are very constrained in our ability to affect the system when it comes to popular voting systems.
But, using reason, one can do better than a person who runs purely on fear.
Yes, if I was operating on fear then voting for Clinton, despite living in a solid blue state makes sense. Not mathematical sense, but it makes sense in terms of that I’d not be able to prevent myself and I’d feel panicked about the idea that someone else hadn’t voted the exact some way. If I lived on Mars and was a Martian and yet, despite that, the options were still only Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, then it would make the most sense to vote for Hillary Clinton because there’s no reason to vote for Donald Trump in a land of all reasonable people. There’s no strategy to game the system for a better outcome.
But I don’t operate on fear and I don’t live on Mars. My state will vote for Hillary Clinton. All of the electoral college points are going to her. There’s zero doubt on that. There’s zero doubt that there are enough people thinking like me to change that. Hillary Clinton will be our state’s choice in the Presidency.
As someone who is not blind to fear and who can do that math, it would serve zero purpose to vote for Hillary Clinton. She’s a lock-in. The sole and only reason to vote for her would be out of irrationality.
That you believe that there must be some magic pathway whereby I could have made my state have a bonus electoral vote is nonsense. That’s not how the Electoral College works.
While yes, asking partisan people to not vote is also talking about magic and wishful thinking, that was a Pitting, not an actual belief that such a thing could happen. Believing that it could happen or acting in a way that assumed that such a thing could happen would be irrational and silly.
I’m not going to trust that partisan idiots will stop voting. Why are you trusting that there’s some magic that could defeat the Electoral College?
If… assuming… %'s pulled out of nowhere…
Prettt strong argument, guy. :rolleyes:
Are you of the opinion that the Democratic Party has a say in who runs?
Ya know Sage Rat, some children wish for ponies. Good luck with that.
It was KNOWN long ago that trump is a corrupt moron. He is what needed to be beaten with any means necessary. No, I don’t particularly like Clinton. But it would have been much better than the situation that we find ourselves in.
Unless, I suppose if you would prefer civil war?
I only voted for Clinton because I lived in Michigan and the polling showed a non-negligible chance of Trump winning it. I would have voted for Johnson if the polls had been a bit more in Clinton’s favor for the same reason as Sage Rat. It’s more important to me to boost the profile of another party than it is to tighten the noose around the neck of an already dead body. I even voted for Kasich in the primary because I wanted to do all I could to defeat Trump. Voting for Clinton in a state she was going to win anyway is pointless when you can send a real message by voting for another party that needs more public support.
That’s not to say that I like the Libertarian Party very much, but I think it’s the best hope of a real third party, and it can draw people from both sides of the aisle. Why it’s always thought that it’s right-wingers that are more libertarian I don’t know - I was brought up with liberal beliefs about the brotherhood of all nations, but not so much the transfer of wealth between classes. I’m not a anti-government person at all, but libertarians (note small “l”) are closer to me idealogically on many issues than Democrats, enough so that I don’t vote for Democrats unless it’s close or it simply doesn’t matter (like Wayne State U Board of Governors and U of Michigan Board of Regents - why are we voting on these?).
But, ahem, that has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation.
The thick plottens.
I pretty much assumed Russian intelligence was involved.
Karla wouldn’t have got caught.
Georgia, you say? Well, a quick look at the voting data should indicate if there were any irregularities oh wait…
Dude. Yuck.
Besides, I don’t want anyone dying themselves out of their deserved public humiliation and subsequent incarceration.
“Shady” is probably a reasonably accurate description of the Clintons - a lot of backroom wheeling and dealing that may violate the spirit of the electoral process while taking care to stay just on the right side of the line of the letter of the law. But if they’re “shady” then most successful politicians are, and despite over two decades of investigations no one has yet to demonstrate that they’ve gone beyond “shady” into “openly corrupt” in the way that the current crop of Republicans have.
If the only thing that you knew was what is going on right this second, that the president who is under investigation for colluding with the Russians was meeting with the Russian leader and he absolutely insisted that meeting happen with no witnesses, you would be suspicious as hell.
Tut, tut, consenting adults should be allowed some privacy.
Is one of them asking for asylum?
Why can’t they hold hands in public like Bush?
It’s between him, Putin, and the doctor who treated his patella-bone spurs.
If you can think of a simpler way of exchanging long protein strings, I’d like to hear it!
Not sure what you’re saying here - Trump has admitted to grabbing those, but not in public.
I know it’s old news, but I’m watching Gohmert question Strzok. It is so sad that 38% of Americans see no fault in despicable scumbags like this. It begins with misleading questions that Gohmert never lets Strzok fully answer. Then the nauseating asshole starts insulting Strzok. Fireworks erupt at the 4:00 mark when Gohmert calls Strzok a liar. When objections were raised, the Chairman (Gowdy?*) always replied, in effect, “No disgusting pile of shitty lies and hatred is out of order if it’s directed against people who supported Hillary.”
(* - or an acting Chair? The voice didn’t sound like Gowdy’s.)
Give the Chairman credit for one thing however. After Gohmert’s time was up and Strzok given a chance to comment on the pile of shit, Gohmert chimed in with the idea that since he hadn’t ended on a question, the witness was not allowed to speak in response. Chairman gave Strzok a few seconds (7:33 to 7:58) to respond to the filth, but when Gohmert interrupted to inject more filth, Chairman silenced both. He later gave Strzok another 20 seconds to answer a specific lie by Gohmert; Gohmert interrupted again.
NRA member and gun rights advocate, Russian national Maria Butina, has been arrested for working as an agent for Russia.
DOJ Charges Russian National Maria Butina With Acting As Foreign Agent | HuffPost Latest News?
Maria Butina: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know includes the .pdf of the criminal complaint.