It depends on who the potential winning candidates are. If neither poses an apparent threat to democracy, the US, or the rest of the world, I have no problem with it.

When one candidate is a Trump or worse, I think it is completely irresponsible not to do everything you can to stop that candidate from winning, even if it's an epic nose holding if you really hate the other candidate.

And Trump is that bad. I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton. I trashed her on the email thing. And she doesn't take strong stands on things she absolutely should, like against big banks and what not. But she absolutely would not have emboldened racists and neo-nazis. She would not encourage hatred of the press and opponents to the point of dog whistling potential violence. I know that's a really low bar, but you can't have a functioning democracy without opposition that can feel free to oppose, a media that can resport basic facts without threats and being disbelieved simply because they report info contrary to what the President wants to be true, etc.

This was one of those elections that voting third party was simply not an ethical choice. Trump never hid what he was before he got elected. He was all these things in a very apparent way.

I am a moderate with no allegiance to any party. And I can say voting wise I did everything I could to stop Trump. I voted for the best chance against Trump in the primaries for my state, and I voted for Clinton in the general. I just wish more people did the same, because I think a year from now we are going to realize in a very big way how we really should have done everything we could to have stopped him from becoming president.

The hilarious part is that c-note is probably right about the cops. But he was being a total ass about it.

Alan Alda is great and I'm definitely going to watch this show.

But if you think that racism is only what you do, not what you say, I have a simple experiment for you.

Find a black/asian/jewish/hispanic person and do something nice for them. Help them change a tyre or carry their groceries. When they say thanks, reply "no problem, <insert ethnic slur of choice>", and watch them realise how not-racist you're being!

Last I checked, illegal entry is a misdemeanor.

Ans it's only the entry itself. If you enter legally on a temporary visa, and don't leave, that's not a crime. But you will likely not get another visa should you leave.

I get that it's a 'crime', but as a matter of legal seriousness, it's on par with jaywalking or disturbing the peace.

Not that legality and morality are in any way connected, so don't take my statement as anything more than its face value.

(As an aside : As a libertarian, as a matter of principle, I have no problem with people coming and going and having whatever relations with whoever consents to have them. It is, after all, none of my business.)

-scheherazade

If the wall would stop, or even reduce illegal immigration, that would be a tangible benefit. Unfortunately, around half of illegals entered legally and just stayed, and it's fairly well proven that making border crossing more difficult just means fewer go back home, leading to more illegals, not fewer.

If illegal immigration from Mexico is a problem, the ONLY way to solve it is to make it easier to get a good job in Mexico than in America....ending NAFTA is going to increase it exponentially, building a wall is going to increase it, their plans to stop immigration are totally ass backwards. Edit: fining employers that hire them might help, but that's also totally off the table for Republicans, God forbid they take responsibility for their part in creating the problem.

Trump has no problem ignoring his promises, Mexico paying for the wall, for instance, off the table already, prosecuting Clinton, off the table. "Trump promised" is meaningless.

'It's useless, but not the worst waste of money we're guilty of' is hardly a reason to spend tens of billions on a project that hurts us internationally for little to no benefit, no? I would rather we try to end the worse abuses instead of creating new ones.

I pretty much completely agree with you, but to play devil's advocate:

"Wasting resources and alienating our neighbors and allies with no tangible benefit." -- Stopping or even reducing illegal immigration would be a tangible benefit. I personally have no problems with immigrants, refugees, etc. coming in to the US, working (legally) and getting benefits like emergency and other health care, etc. But illegal / undocumented immigration can be a real problem.

I don't think the wall is a reasonable answer to that real problem, but it is part of the package that Trump sold to voters to get them to vote for him. As a result, he pretty much has to at least pretend like he's going to try to actually build it.


"I wish Republicans (since they have the purse strings) who bemoan the state of the country, would put fixing it first." -- A bunch of the people who voted for Trump consider illegal immigration to be a very important issue. Not all for racist reasons, either. Anyway, those people see the wall as Trump attempting to fix that issue -- something that other politicians haven't done.


I'd massively prefer Trump creating a giant jobs program by repairing interstates, railroads, and other transportation, building lots of solar and/or nuclear power plants to meet future demands with cleaner energy, etc. But Trump didn't run on those kinds of promises; one of the few concrete things he ran on was the border wall.


I really don't mean to defend the idea of a border wall, which I agree is extremely problematic for many many reasons. However, it wouldn't be the most egregious and pointless waste of taxpayer dollars. We spend *way* too much money on the Military-Industrial Complex, although that isn't entirely a waste (merely 75% wasteful ). And the TSA, which I mentioned in the previous post, is set to cost us $7.6 billion in 2017 alone -- half to a third of what people suggest the wall would cost to build in total. And the TSA sets the bar for pointless, in my opinion. Absolutely nothing of value would be lost if it was eliminated, and actual travel security would probably get better by simply reverting to how things worked before Bush inflicted it on us.

So really it's more "You either allow ALMOST every type of speech (with some very narrow exceptions) or you give up ALMOST every type of speech (with some very narrow exceptions)".

Excellent, we have agreed that freedom of speech (like everything in the grown-up world) is not absolute.

Now we're just arguing over WHAT the exceptions should be.

Personally, I have no problem with adding things like inciting violence against minorities (aka hate speech) to that list.

It's very important to distinguish between criticism of ideologies and attacking members of said ideology.

Saying "I think the westboro baptist church is a disgusting organisation" is not the same as saying "you should punch WBC members in the face".

@enoch, you seem to be under the impression that you or I or anyone else has some kind of right to say whatever the fuck we feel like saying on the sift.

We don't. This isn't some public forum, it's a privately run website and @dag or @lucky760 have the right to decide if they don't want @gorillaman calling Obama a "nigger prince".

The sad thing is, I mostly agree with his post, but that one stupid epithet undermined his whole point and made him look like an ignorant fool.

And yeah, I'll fucking say it, calling Obama a "nigger" offends me, and not in some sensitive snowflake way. It should fucking offend you too, and frankly, I have no problem whatsoever with either dag (in his Siftler guise) or us as a community deciding that that's not cool and we don't want it here.

Free speech is not absolute, and anyone who thinks it is is deluding themselves. There are well-documented limits to free speech (yelling "fire" in a public theatre, joking about bombs at airports). Once you accept that something is not absolute, you then simply have to argue the degree to which limits apply (same as gun control, if you accept that civilians can't have nukes, then you're already in favour of gun control, you're just arguing over the extent).

Plant the pear trees, make a deal with your local butcher to offload the unwanted animals for a steal, the various folk musicians will presumably leave at the end of each day, or at least at the end of christmas, or if you actually somehow own them then I guess sell them to a european brothel, no problem - and then twelve days later you're still FORTY GOLD RINGS up, quids in on the discount meat and all the steak and game bird you could want for the foreseeable future.

Not all. Some of us DO see humans as potential protein sources, but that protein is highly contaminated in most cases. I have no problem contemplating smoking and eating (or better, using as livestock feed) some wild caught, free range, pure organic long pig...or soylent green once the purification process is perfected. ;-)

That's no problem for a mathematician. They barely admit the real world exists, and it holds no constraints on them whatsoever.

I was afraid I wasn't being clear, having separate leagues is fine and needed at a professional level. As long as girls aren't being pointlessly excluded at schools that's no problem.

What I meant by male only sports was those where women are never expected to play, even between among themselves. Football seems to be one of those last remnants. . . of course it could also be that there generally aren't enough women who give a damn about it to make up two teams.

Thank you Trump, for being such a thoroughly disgusting person that even Republicans can't support you anymore.
Thank you Trump, for being such a cry baby that you have begun attacking any Republican that doesn't support you to the end, actually telling your followers to not vote for them.
Thank you Trump, for likely handing the control of the government to the Democrats. Barring more unforeseen surprises, that is. It seems probable that Trump will end up being the most important Democrat in recent history, doing more for the Democratic party than any other 10 politicians combined.
It's gratifying to see that even zealous right wingers have a line they won't follow their leader past....I was honestly beginning to wonder. They had no problem at all with him repeatedly saying he wanted to screw his daughter, repeatedly failing in business, repeatedly not paying his bills, repeatedly being caught as an adulterer, repeatedly making blatant racist claims and plans, etc.... it seemed there was no line to cross for them.
I can only hope that the tapes of him repeatedly saying the "N word" among other unacceptable disgusting behavior from the unaired Apprentice tapes come out in the next weeks. I find it hilarious that there's actually a go fund me page trying to get $5 million to pay for the non disclosure penalty if someone leaks them. Anonymous, where are you? Go hack MGM and get those tapes to Assange.

Clinton....make an offer to release the transcripts of your speeches if Trump releases the Apprentice recordings....please OH please.

Well said Newtboy .

They resemble gangs / thugs more often than not anymore with absolutely no problem fabricating lies to try cover up the truth every time someone gets killed.
I'm no fan of lies coming from the left or right, cop lover or cop hater so starting with the telling the truth police.