A plea to our US contingent

[eastmidswhizzkid]

Is there an election?

bad time for chinese viagara copies.

[6FeetOver]

Is there an election?

bad time for chinese viagara copies.

Hee! Hur dur! Etc.

[Pista]

Is there an election?

bad time for chinese viagara copies.

[Microcosmia]

Is there an election?

[sultan2075]

All of our choices are awful. And the truth is, it doesn't really matter who wins. Neither one is interested in the rule of law. My hope is that we will get a profoundly divided government, and that whichever party gets the White House doesn't get the congress.

Civil War II. Thoughts?

In my darker moments, I think that's where this ends up.

More optimistically, I think a return to federalism could avoid it, though. Part of the problem is that the federal government has overstepped its boundaries, and has been doing so since the early 20th century. Woodrow Wilson, for example, rejected the idea that there could be any limits on government power in a democratic regime, because that would be a limitation on the will of the people. The American founders, however, thought that the natural tendency of human beings was in the direction of tyranny, and therefore the powers of government needed to be limited and divided (if men were angels, we wouldn't need government; if we were governed by angels, we wouldn't need safeguards. But this is a government of human beings by human beings, so we need to find a way to give it the power to govern effectively while obliging it to control itself).

Madison, in The Federalist says that one of the great safeguards to our liberties is the division of power between the states and the federal government, but this division has become more and more lopsided over the last 100 years. I think that the "nationalization" of American politics has not necessarily been good for the country. I think the concentration of power in the federal executive has not been good.

Worst, though, I fear that we have lost the moral character necessary for self-government; I fear that Tocqueville's account of democratic despotism in Democracy in America may be quite prescient. If we have to choose between equality and liberty, he argues, democratic peoples will choose equality every time - even at the expense of liberty.

eh, this is kind of rambling. Sorry.

[EvilBastard]

I rather think that the federal government started overstepping its boundaries in 1860-61. Since then it has only got worse. There are some things (like national defense, education, healthcare) that can really only be managed at a national level, but there's been way too much busy-bodying (by both parties) in states' affairs.

The best government, like the best laws, is the one that has the lightest possible touch on the lives of the people it seems to govern. Ideally you shouldn't know that the government exists on a day-to-day basis. But I fear that whoever wins tonight we're going to see a lot more of the fence-peering that we've seen an awful lot of in the past 16 years.

[abridged]

Oh my. It seems I was wrong. I thought people wouldn't be so stupid. There's still a ways to go but it's not looking good.

[EvilBastard]

Oh my. It seems I was wrong. I thought people wouldn't be so stupid. There's still a ways to go but it's not looking good.

Never underestimate the ability of large groups of people to be incomprehensibly stupid. If this shakes out like the polls are predicting then I think we're all going to be well and truly intercoursed.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

it's almost a done deal. what the fucking fuck? brexit and this in the same year...perhaps the west is just as fucked as it deserves to be but i live here and i didnt vote for either of these things.

i tell you, we'd better get a new fucking sisters album out of all this or i'm gonna have the right hump.

[EvilBastard]

i tell you, we'd better get a new fucking sisters album out of all this or i'm gonna have the right hump.

That would be the only bright spot on the horizon - before today I would have said that the only thing less likely than that tw@ winning was a new album. However, since hell appears to have frozen over I am quite looking forward to my threesome with Pippa Middleton and Angelina Jolie, an event which I predict will happen before a new album is released.

[EmmaPeelWannaBe]

Fuk, fuk, fuk. I'm so sorry. Americans are a$$holes

[Bartek]

<h1> <!--bright side note-->New album to come!</h1>

[Microcosmia]

She has conceded.... Sweet Jesus.

[iesus]

<h1> <!--bright side note-->New album to come!</h1>

Always think positive. At last all those millions of good American people wanted a nice bright new Sisters Album, and i didn't expect what they could do to get it. I hope it will be a double cd.

Sweet Jesus.

Thank you for the kind words

[nowayjose]

Trump comes across as a blundering fool but would you really have wanted more of this? :

http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 09639.html

[markfiend]

Both are equally s**t.

No. Trump is worse. Almost infinitely worse. I am genuinely in fear for the lives of a large number of my US-based friends. Friends who are LGBT. Friends who are people of colour. Friends who are native / first peoples.

Will the last sane person in the world please turn out the lights?

[euphoria]

Clinton, on the other hand, is a thoroughly corrupt creature with a mindlessly neoconservative foreign policy. If you liked GW Bush, you'll like HR Clinton.

"This", as they say nowadays...while it's not difficult to see the problem with a hot tempered clown in the White House, frighteningly many in Europe, even in the media, seem to have been convinced that a Clinton victory would have meant something like Obama 2.0 even when it comes to foreign policy. Nothing could be further from the truth. How do I know and why is it frightening that people have believed she is Obama 2.0? Because she has already been in the administration and regularly has shown that she, in contrast to Obama, prefers action by force. In other words, war.

Now, how good or bad Trump or Clinton or Obama are in domestic policy, that's another thing and not really my business, it's only up to the American people to decide. I'm a foreigner, so foreign policy matters most to me. But arguing that people should have voted Clinton because of a better foreign policy? Hardly. I don't think it's a coincidence that we didn't see any "Vote Clinton" message on our paramount leader's web space.

[Silver_Owl]

They chose the wrong Clinton to stand against him.

[shivarising]

People just couldn't cope living in a world without Lemmy and Bowie.

[sultan2075]

I rather think that the federal government started overstepping its boundaries in 1860-61. Since then it has only got worse. There are some things (like national defense, education, healthcare) that can really only be managed at a national level, but there's been way too much busy-bodying (by both parties) in states' affairs.

The best government, like the best laws, is the one that has the lightest possible touch on the lives of the people it seems to govern. Ideally you shouldn't know that the government exists on a day-to-day basis. But I fear that whoever wins tonight we're going to see a lot more of the fence-peering that we've seen an awful lot of in the past 16 years.

I would largely agree with this, but the 1860/61 argument doesn't persuade me much. I definitely agree with the second paragraph; I'm not a big fan of the department of education (I work in higher-ed, I've seen what they've done first-hand), and the ACA was (and is) an unconstitutional use of federal power (Romneycare in Mass. was legal because it was a state program, but the ACA violates the 10th Amendment; additionally, taxes must originate in the House, but the ACA originated in the Senate, etc. All sorts of problems there despite the best of intentions).

Both are equally s**t.

No. Trump is worse. Almost infinitely worse. I am genuinely in fear for the lives of a large number of my US-based friends. Friends who are LGBT. Friends who are people of colour. Friends who are native / first peoples.

You've been propagandized I'm afraid. Trump is a crude jackass from Queens. He's a dick. He's a blowhard. He's got questionable judgment. He runs his mouth without thinking a lot of the time. He is, to my eyes, and immoral man. But I don't think he's a racist; he's a nationalist, and that is not the same thing, at least not in the American context (his views on immigration are substantively identical to Bernie Sanders' views, for instance). He's been an open supporter of same-sex marriage for a very long time. He's the first Republican candidate to hold up a rainbow flag and openly embrace the LGBT community. Part of the argument he has made to voters is that his policies will actually be good for minorities because he will help provide jobs and economic revitalization to their communities.

He is less likely to start a major war than HRC. This is the point I have heard over and over from my millennial students. "Why do you back Trump?" "Because I'm old enough to get drafted."

More importantly, his election is an attack on the uniparty that has run this country for a long time, i.e., the Washington establishment.

I hope his election will lead to a rediscovery of the importance of checks and balances and a limitation of executive power. I'm not happy that this election was The Crook vs. The Douche, and while I'm not happy that he won, I am glad that Hillary lost, if you get my drift.

So... when does that new Sisters record drop?

People just couldn't cope living in a world without Lemmy and Bowie.

And why would they want to? Let it burn

[Alex66]

They chose the wrong Clinton to stand against him.

Indeed I have been saying it since Clinton 1
I woke up to seeing Trump was almost won, I wondered if someone had slipped a bad hallucinogen for my pain killers. I have given up hope of that being the case now so I won't be coming round to a different set of events.

[EvilBastard]

More importantly, his election is an attack on the uniparty that has run this country for a long time, i.e., the Washington establishment.

I hope his election will lead to a rediscovery of the importance of checks and balances and a limitation of executive power. I'm not happy that this election was The Crook vs. The Douche, and while I'm not happy that he won, I am glad that Hillary lost, if you get my drift.

I think this is a very valid point. If Trump's election puts the US back on the path to consensus politics, if it gets people thinking about how to work together instead of pursuing the partisan approach that has for too long been the hallmark of its government, if it persuades people that it is only by cooperating that anything meaningful can be achieved, then we can take something away from this. Perhaps the thing that shocked us most about the result was not that HRC didn't win (despite the pollster promises), but rather that someone who seemed to espouse the most hateful ideologies, someone from so far outside the Beltway and its spheres of influence, could win. Maybe this will be a wake-up call for us, teach us that if we want to live in something that calls itself a democracy then we actually have to work at making the democracy work. It's not enough to sit around and go "meh, voting changes nothing". If last night taught us anything it's that voting can and does change things.

[6FeetOver]

Well, it's official: the U.S. is the biggest joke on Earth.

[EvilBastard]

Well, it's official: the U.S. is the biggest joke on Earth.

We're prepared to offer you Nigel Farage as the punchline. Bozzer Johnson too. And Tessa May can do one, and all. Maybe that's the lead that America should take now - not "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses," rather "give me your fuckwits, your tw@s, your politicians who think that running for office is an excuse for self-enrichment and aggrandisement. Pretty sure we can find jobs for them - I mean, look at the wankstained bag of hammers we just elected to lead us. Come one, come all."

[6FeetOver]

Hmmm... Perhaps New England can secede, now!