Off Topic Politics Thread

Brian Blessed on Donald Trump...

 

Then you'd be SaintinBulgaria.

 

I feel like Trump is mostly more of a clown than anyone had even imagined. It's the people he has around him who are scary dangerous. Someone has to tell him to ditch Bannon and others, but he doesn't listen. Which means the fate of the free world might rest in the hands of Ivanka Trump.

 

Has anyone in the last month or so tried to renew their ESTA to get into the US? Mine runs out in a week and I am meant to be going to see my daughter in 3 weeks.

OMG, I am sure it wasn't there before, but it requests any FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Really?! I have always wanted Homeland Security to follow my every tweet rant etc. It also for the first time wants to know not only your parents, but where THEY were born and their nationality and previous nationality if they had one. As a Brit born and bred I am so against this. I have never lived anywhere else, can only speak English, but they want to know where my late mum and dad were born over 70 years ago?! Really uncomfortable about giving a future dictatorship all that info about me....

The question is do I want to really head over there? Sorry for the rant but is this really the land of opportunity and the land of the free?

 

If I could I would like to shake Speaker John Bercow's hand.

It's more than disliking Trump. I put that aside (It's hard but I'm really trying to get that together for this one instance) in that I'm thoroughly agreeing with Speaker Bercow. It's simply about doing the right thing. And it is the right thing.

 

That one's on Obama. The dirty secret about Obama is he really wasn't all that great a champion of individual liberty or freedoms. Or really, most liberal causes.

Of course now you see what he was up against, so it isn't totally his fault. Still, he spent up all his goodwill on Obamacare early on and was more or less a lame duck for 6 years.

GOP walked all over him, while complaining about him the whole time. I'm not sure history will treat him that kindly.

Anyway, come on over. The US itself hasn't changed. People just being crazy about political issues. And a lot of conservatives still in a state of denial about Trump, but they haven't fundamentally changed.

Keep in mind that virtually every heavily populated center cannot stand Trump. He won all the dying areas where no one goes.

 

I've already made the decision that I won't be going to the US while this administration remains in power. If a country built by immigrants is shutting it's doors to immigrants in general, & a specific religious group in particular, then they aren't getting any of my paltry tourist dollars. I don't have any family over there though, only a few friends (one of whom is half Mexican and currrently experiencing overt racism for the first time in her life).

I renewd my ESTA this time last year and there were no questions about my social media accounts, nor where my parents' were born. My dad was born in Istanbul, & despite him being half French and half Irish, & brought up in London, I can see that setting off a few alarms.

 

I have the opportunity (once in a lifetime probably) to go to Cleveland in June to see an old mate. He's got tickets to see Tom Petty with Joe Walsh opening and we'd planned to do the Rock and Roll museum there. But, reading this and knowing how much I dislike this current administration and their nazi-like tendencies, I'm now seriously considering not going. It's outrageous

 

A quick google search confirms what ISIRTP said. This was reported as a possibility last summer and started in December. So it's definitely not Trump's work.

 

Donald Trump's 'under-reported' terror list includes Paris, Berlin and Nice attacks

White House backs up president’s claim that media is deliberately ignoring terror attacks by releasing list riddled with errors

The White House has distributed a list of 78 terrorist attacks to support Donald Trump’s claim that the media is failing to properly report them.

But the list includes many atrocities that received blanket western media coverage including the Paris Bataclan attacks, the Nice truck killings and the San Bernardino shootings.

Many others including the Sydney siege and Germany’s Christmas market attackreceived wide international coverage.

The list also includes multiple errors and spelling mistakes, including ‘San Bernadino’, and for no apparent reason excludes terror attacks in Israel.

The document also includes spelling mistakes such as “attaker” instead of “attacker” and “Denmakr” instead of “Denmark”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...rror-list-paris-attacks-berlin-truck-killings

 

I'm seeing Tom Petty in London this July.. Get your pal to come here instead

 

Not Joe Walsh though, presumably?
Can't believe the guy's still alive.

 

Don't want to stand in the park for bloody hours - I'm too old for that. And, Archers, yes, it's Joe Walsh himself - still going strong. Presumably, "Life's been good"

 

Oh go on then, this is him last year. He's still got the chops!

 

Stevie Nicks, so not quite Joe Walsh. Looking forward to it still though

 

Atheism isn't a belief system.

I have at no point said that anyone with a different set of beliefs is wrong. I reject what the person believes in, not the person.

The point at which I mentioned atheism was, oddly, responding to a post by Benditlikeabanana in which he made a claim that all muslims behaved in a particular way. I mentioned atheism as a way of pointing out that mine wasn't a post made as a supporter in any way of islam. Once again, I commented on the point made not the person making it.

Vin

 

I can't help the fact that English has two words for similar things, though (a)gnosticism is strictly to do with knowledge while (a)theism relates to belief in a deity. So you can be:

1. Agnostic-Theist: believes god exists, but the existence of a god is unknowable
2. Gnostic-Theist: believes in a god for which he claims knowledge
3. Agnostic-Atheist: does not believe god exists, but it can't be proved
4. Gnostic-Atheist: believes it can be proved that god does not exist

I'm at 3.

You're right; I should have said "insufficient evidence". My mistake.

I agree about enforced atheism. However, a state where people had given up religion voluntarily would be a very different beast.

I think you're being slightly optimistic saying "most [religious people] would agree with that statement." I think you may be thinking of the relatively level headed religion we tend to have in England. If you were in the bible belt, Raqqa, Mecca, Israel, Palestine, Nigeria or parts of Northern Ireland you might not be so sanguine.

Vin

 

Bye US education.

Also LGBT+ students are ****ed.

 

Talking of Trump... I was just thinking... people are saying May should cancel the state visit of Trump to the UK and so on... but thinking about it, what's more likely to get someone to change their abhorrent views: screaming at them that they're wrong and refusing to talk to them... Or engaging with them in a civil manner?

 

It's Donald Trump and the answer to your question in this instance is neither.