Is there a deep state or cabal [spelling corrected] that is controlling the government?

Well Kong Kong or Taiwan would not be a problem if China tried to take it over in the past. But all these years and now China is interested in Kong Kong or Taiwan.

Not to say China and Japan playing tick tack with the military than one day the fighter planes or ships are going fire and start a war. Or China getting into sea disputes with the Philippines and India.

And China building islands and building army bases on it.

It clear China is not interested in Kong Kong or Taiwan they just want buffer zone and empire.

What does any of this have to do with a deep state or cabal controlling our government?

Well if China tried to do that in the 80s and 90s the US and even Europe would put sanctions may be even embargo on it like Iran or Cuba.

But because businesses make money by things being built in China for dirt cheap and people would protest when the store shelves of many stores go empty the government will look the other way.

And that the grandkids worry about China rising.

China has been “interested” in Hong Kong and Taiwan for their entire existences. This is not a change in their position.

It’s clear that you have no knowledge of Chinese history.

Jillwood77, can’t you slow down a little and reread your posts before hitting “Reply” so you don’t make mistakes like writing “Kong Kong” instead of “Hong Kong”?

Don’t be so quick to criticize. I quite like his idea of having the “Vatican keeping every preacher on a lash”.

Maybe the Chinese reallly like Law and Order.

KONG KONG

What gives the Deep State credence is that it, in a certain sense, does exist - if going by the argument made earlier that “People just doing their jobs properly are considered the Deep State” if doing one’s job properly means foiling Trump.

Bolton rightfully criticized Trump’s woeful behavior, and was labeled a Deep-Stater. Pence rightfully declared Biden the winner (he couldn’t have made Trump president, as some fantasized) - and was labeled a Deep Stater.

But this is specious – alien reptilians exist if one defines “alien reptilians” as “Tom Hanks and his close relatives”.

Exactly - if you define “Deep Stater” as “a person who doesn’t do whatever Trump wants all the time”, you’ll find a lot of “Deep Staters” but you won’t really have demonstrated the existence of a “cabal” or a conspiracy.

Even simpler, if you define “Deep Stater” as “a person who doesn’t do whatever Trump wants all the time”, then your definition is wrong.

How many legs does a dog have, if you count a tail as a leg?

Charles Krauthammer probably said it best: “Is there actually a deep state? If you mean entrenched bureaucracy, then of course there is. If you mean a government-wide conspiracy, then the answer is almost certainly no.”

A broader issue with the idea of the “deep state” or cabal secretly controlling the U.S. government is that it, like all CTs, depends on the enduring, loyal silence of very large numbers of people, which is, honestly, so highly improbable as to be effectively impossible.

People blab. People brag, and want to impress others with their insider knowledge. People turn “state’s evidence.” People slip up, and say something they shouldn’t. And on, and on. The more people who know about a secret, the more points of failure that secret has.

To a large extent you have conservative jurist (and Saturday Night Massacre assassin) Robert Bork to blame for this.

Basically he changed the interpretation of the laws to the view that being anti-competitive was only a problem if consumers were hurt. So long as people are happy getting their packages from Amazon, they can gobble up or crush any competition to their hearts content, while at the same time preventing their competitors from organizing opposition against them.

Or so they want you to believe…

Forget the blackjack!

It’s hilariously ironic that the CTers can’t wait to spread their rumors all over the internet, said rumors always relying on thousands of people not divulging a huge secret.

The difference now is not that shady politicians are in the pocket of China, it’s that basically everybody is.
The Chinese economy is 40x as big as it was in 1980, and while the popular image, particularly in the US, is of China as a sweatshop-driven manufacturing center, the reality is that China is actually the biggest buyer for a whole range of consumer products from cars to beer. Plus of course they make massive foreign investments into the US and EU.

So any sanctions against China are necessarily going to be somewhat toothless, unless China forces everyone’s hand with a bloody military invasion.
If this seems unfair, bear in mind this is still far from the immunity that the United States enjoys. The US can broadly ignore international laws, because no-one can afford to sanction the US.

ETA: sorry china isn’t the biggest buyer of beer, I got confused because I heard a stat that China buys the most Budweiser

Please read some history. Before the British took over Hong Kong, in the 19th century, it was part of China. Taiwan also - how do you think the government thrown out by the Communists went there?
Go look at a map of Hong Kong. It isn’t buffering anything. But until recently there was a free flow of information there.
And the islands have nothing to do with anything. Please try to get better educated.