Election 2016

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 12:18 pm

Error 404 substance not found.

Look, PL, put up or shut up: explicitly make the argument you're insinuating or admit that you're a fucking shit-for-brains weasel who couldn't make a coherent argument if you wanted to (and you clearly don't want to because talking shit and lying is way easier, am I right).

You are seemingly trying to imply that the use of force is sufficient on its own to demonstrate wrongdoing, and therefore that the U.S. is always in the wrong everywhere it goes no matter what it does. Now, that's a stupid implication. The fact is that police use force every single fucking day; they use it to put serial killers in prison, and they use it to murder unarmed black civilians. One of those things is good and the other is fucking terrible. Your libertarian "the government should not do things, any things" attitude is fucking stupid, and because as far as I know you are not actually an ISP-tier libertarian nutjob if you stopped to think about that for one fucking second I'm sure you'd figure out how stupid you're being (HAHAHA no you wouldn't, you are literally incapable of introspection, and the day you change your mind instead of escalating to stupider and angrier ranting is the day the world ends).

It turns out that it is totally possible for the U.S. use of force in Iraq to be unjustifiable (both formally in the sense that there was no legitimate casus belli and ethically in the sense that the harm caused far outweighed any benefits) and simultaneously for the U.S. use of force in the South and East China Sea's to be justifiable (both formally in the sense that we are enforcing legitimate international agreements and ethically in the sense that the benefits of not having the region devolve into outright military conflict or be blockaded into submission to one of the most powerful authoritarian governments in the world is a positive which far outweighs the harm; appeasement of aggressively expansionist powers has a very poor track record for actually stopping them from murdering people and taking their lands).

PL, you are an idiot. The only thing you have to offer to political discussions is "U.S. bad," and while that is sometimes true (and likely to become much more true as the era of Trump begins), that has left you intellectually incapable of tackling a situation as fucking braindead simple as "China questions Japan's claims on Okinawa. Is the U.S. justified in projecting force in the region to help Japan, a country with whom they have a treaty of mutual security, deter Chinese aggression?" Because it turns out all you can fucking say is "U.S. bad," and oops that's not always the right answer.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 2:08 pm

I would fucking love to see PL try to make a results-based utilitarian argument for it being a positive development for the United States to unilaterally stop militarily supporting the regimes in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan without any explicit or implicit agreements from Russia or China to do or not do anything in particular. That really sounds fucking hilarious to watch. Ironically not unlike Donald Trump trying to explain his geopolitical strategies.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 2:46 pm

Meh, Hillarity, Trumb . . Doesn't matter. It raises chances of us getting to experience the assassination of an american president in our lifetime at least.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 2:52 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
maglag wrote:Trump takes a call and everybody's acting like he's trying to start WW III.

But when Obama was selling missile frigates to Taiwan, nobody batted an eye.
How are you so stupid and still able to breathe?

What makes you think that keep calling me bad names just to make yourself feel better for a moment will produce any positive results in the middle-long term?

FrankTrollman wrote: Great powers avoid war by keeping agreements that prevent war. One part of the agreement with China is that we will shoot the fuck out of them if they invade Formosa. The other part is that we continue to treat The Republic of China as a non-nation in order to let China save face.

Sending military forces to Taiwan is keeping the agreements. Having high level presidential meetings with the Taiwanese government is breaking the agreement.

So what the fuck do you call selling of long range weapons of mass destruction to Taiwan? Obama just happens to sell missile frigates to "non-nations" nowadays? Obama just happens to sell high-tech weaponry to people he never met?

There's a massive difference between "sending protection" and "selling protection".

In particular, "selling protection" demands that governments are desperate for protection to pay hundreds of millions for fancy "protection" toys in the first place.

Aka, the USA directly profits from keeping bad relations between Taiwan and China.

I can write it in even more simple terms if that's still too hard for you to understand.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 3:21 pm

Maglag, it would only take like 3 minutes on wikipedia to figure out that the entire purpose of the agreement where we, the US, agreed to pretend that Taiwan wasn't a real country politically, was so that we could provide them with defense against china and open commercial ties with them, without China feeling like we were undermining their claim to China.

Selling missiles to Taiwan, giving missiles to Taiwan, parking carrier groups in front of Taiwan, We bought the right to do all those things without starting WWIII, and the price we paid is THE PRESIDENT NEVER FUCKING SPEAKS TO TAIWANESE POLITICAL OFFICIALS.

So yes, when the president elect says "I want a refund on this product" the obvious implication is that China now has to treat everything that happens relating to Taiwan as an attack on China's claim to status as a country.

Now, there are sane ways to attempt to address this problem, and before the President Elect COMPLETELY FUCKED UP ALL HOPE OF ACTUALLY DOING IT BY PROVOKING CHINA AND PICKING A "SIDE" BEFORE NEGOTIATIONS EVEN STARTED, there was at least a theoretical possibility that at some future point, we could all agree that Republic of China no longer exists, and Taiwan can be it's own country with no claim to China. But you can bet, that the President just having a fucking chat with the people we agreed to never acknowledge as a country is not the fucking way to do that.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 3:53 pm

Shouldn't we start an America:Nightmare Mode Edition thread instead of clogging up the election thread with all the horrid things that God Emperor Trump [is|will be] doing?

Because he'll be doing a lot of these, but the 2016 election itself is over.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 3:58 pm

I can see an argument for keeping the thread open until the electoral college officially meets or even until he's officially sworn in. Certainly January 21st is the latest we'd want to start a new thread.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 4:23 pm

maglag wrote:What makes you think that keep calling me bad names just to make yourself feel better for a moment will produce any positive results in the middle-long term?

I can't even imagine what it must be like to have a sense of entitlement like that. Do you honestly imagine that posting glib nonsense about how competent realpolitik conducted by professionals with an eye on maintaining the status quo is basically the same as fucking Orange Hitler shitting all over decades of agreements and precipitating multiple extinction level crises for the United States and literally life on Earth doesn't offend people? Do you really think that?

Because news flash: it isn't true. Your offensive nonsense is offensive nonsense and it offends people. Get it through your fucking head. When you say shit like "Aka, the USA directly profits from keeping bad relations between Taiwan and China." as if that's some deep insight that excuses your earlier offensive nonsense of:

maglag wrote:Trump takes a call and everybody's acting like he's trying to start WW III.

But when Obama was selling missile frigates to Taiwan, nobody batted an eye.

That's still offensive! You're offending people. Also you are stupid, because if you honestly believe that shit, it's like whoah that's a fucking stupid set of things to believe and only a stupid person would believe those things. So don't act like you even have a high horse to get on when people hurt your precious feelings, because you've been an insulting clod trampling on other people's feelings the entire fucking time.

When I tell you that you're a mouth breathing idiot, I understand that I am insulting you and you being offended by that is an entirely expected outcome. When you say any of the offensive shit you say, does it not even occur to you that offensive statements offend people? What's the weather like up your own ass?

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 6:43 pm

maglag wrote:What makes you think that keep calling me bad names just to make yourself feel better for a moment will produce any positive results in the middle-long term?

Will it make you post less? I consider that a positive result.

Look, you are actually an idiot who refuses to do basic research and wants to cram the world into whatever tiny narrative makes you most comfortable. I suppose it's entirely possible that if we were very gentle and held your hand we could eventually guide you out from under your rock and into something approaching sanity, but honestly I would really rather you were just someone else's problem.

The fact is that the PRC and the U.S. have a diplomatic agreement in which the U.S. refuses to openly acknowledge the legitimacy of Taiwan and in exchange China won't retaliate when we provide military support to Taiwan. Remember - the PRC's official position is that Taiwan is currently a province in rebellion, and that means military support for Taiwan is military support for a rebellion against the PRC. Imagine if Hawaii rebelled and then the Chinese parked their navy nearby and started selling weapons to the rebels. That would start a war. And that is happening, except in reverse. Not only is it happening, the PRC is officially turning a blind eye because they have agreed to do that.

Is this a stupid diplomatic agreement? Yeah, it really is.

China likes it because 1) if they can keep Taiwan from being internationally recognized as an independent nation, then maybe one day the winds will change (say, someone like Trump will come along and pull out of the region) and they'll still have legal standing to get aggressive with Taiwan, and 2) by not having the international community acknowledge Taiwan's fight for independence as successful, they get to save face.

The U.S. likes it because 1) fuck communism (at least if you go far enough back), 2) it gives our defense contractors something to do, and 3) China is genuinely an aggressively expansionist state in the vein of the British Empire or Nazi Germany, and if they are not deterred there will be wars and those wars will almost certainly escalate to WW3. I was not kidding when I said this year the Chinese government questioned the legitimacy of Japan's claims on Okinawa. That is a thing they did. It's insane and dangerous and if they are the biggest dog on the block they'll try lots of stupid shit and it is in all of our best interests that they not do that.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 8:33 pm

DSMatticus wrote:You are seemingly trying to imply that the use of force is sufficient on its own to demonstrate wrongdoing,

No you god damn idiot who knows fucking nothing about geopolitics and recent history.

I was flat out telling you that it is fucking spectacularly hypocritical to point at a response to YOUR nation's significantly larger, more aggressive and more distance "projection of force" in order to justify your nation's fucking militaristic bullying bullshit.

No, the other nation DIDN'T make you hit them USA. Not even if they hit you back afterwards. And when you jump into their own backyard with a bunch of weapons and start going on about how they're next on you long long history of beating kids up for no good fucking reason it isn't particularly their fault if they start getting together a few immobile defenses in their own backyard.

Where's you mother USA does she know what you are doing? Oh that's right your stupid fucking electorate don't know or care, or even care that they don't know that they don't know or care, especially as long as a democrat is in office, because then the endless fucking wars and warcrimes are invisible.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 8:55 pm

Jesus Christ PL, you are such an idiot. When China conquerors Tibet, that isn't the them hitting back the US that hit them. When China says "Also we are going to conqueror Taiwan" that also wasn't them hitting the US back. And when they say "And now we are going to conqueror Japan" that's also not hitting the US back.

You can make a really dumb and stupid argument that the US is at fault for creating the PRC in the first place, but that's a really really stupid argument to make that only idiots would make, and at no point does any part of that argument get you even anywhere close to "China is justified in conquering Japan because the US pissed them off in WWII by supporting the existing chinese government against Japan to the exclusion of the communists for too long."

Your absolute inability to comprehend that other countries have goals and power outside of their relationship to the US and belief that therefore all actions that occur anywhere in the universe are traceable to an ur-cause of US action is stupid. And your retarded Both Sidersism, where you want to pretend that preventing wars by preserving a status quo and then when the war starts anyway, involving yourselves is exactly the same as planning an executing a war that destabilizes that status quo for no reason is also stupid.

Everything you say about US policy is stupid. You are literally the Australian Labor Party cutting off your nose to spite the green party when you defend republicans and communist china as good guy non aggressors while decrying evil bad democrats.

Also, I'm really curious, if the US is to blame for "hitting China" in the 40s and 50s, and therefore China can roll in and conquer Taiwan tomorrow and murder as many people as they want to subjugate the government and be totally justified because they are hitting back the US, does that mean you support Chinese conquest of Japan since we now allow conquest for events that happened at least 60 years ago?

What is the statute of limitations on Just Conquest In Vengeance for Evil Bad Hitting 65 years but not 70 years? Or is the statute of limitations magically different for US actions than Japanese ones?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:12 pm

PL are you equating US presence in southeast Asia as an evil just because those waters aren't close to the US or are you saying that you believe that the force we project there is the same as the force that the Chinese would project if we weren't there? Both of these ideas are stupid, don't get me wrong, but if it is the l latter do you actually believe that China would play nice with these surrounding smaller states?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:30 pm

MGuy wrote:PL are you equating US presence in southeast Asia as an evil just because those waters aren't close to the US or are you saying that you believe that the force we project there is the same as the force that the Chinese would project if we weren't there? Both of these ideas are stupid, don't get me wrong, but if it is the l latter do you actually believe that China would play nice with these surrounding smaller states?

I'm saying contemporary China has invaded and bombed basically nobody while the contemporary US invades and bombs EVERYBODY. They are, in comparison to the USA not an aggressive dangerous nation. Their military escalation in the region is in direct response to the presence of an aggressive nation, the US, and it's military escalation in the region. I'm saying that Military escalation and constant explicitly threatening military "maneuvers" in distant foreign regions to threaten a major power is NOT how you avoid war it is how you end up starting one and making it bigger. But it IS how you feed your fucking stupid and destructive military industrial complex at the risk of starting world war three, and since your nation cares about the first thing but apparently not the second, hey guess what you do?

You want China to have a smaller military? Stop threatening them with your bigger Military. As it is every time the US escalates something, every time they weaponize Taiwan or Japan some more, every time they put more US boats in the region China shrugs and says "fuck it I guess we need to build more navy".

The USA is not in Asia defending democracy and freedom and the little guy. The US doesn't give a shit about democracy and freedom in foreign nations. Your track record suggests if anything the USA is the biggest enemy of those things the world has ever known. You are in the region to sell arms, make money and threaten a nation you still stupidly think you can stop becoming a bigger economic and diplomatic world player than yourselves by any means short of world war fucking three. And news flash to greedy stupid Americans, another nation becoming more important than yours is a much better outcome for everyone, including you, than world war fucking three.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:42 pm

You have done nothing to show how America leaving Japan to fend for itself would at all be a good thing. The US abusing considerably smaller nations is not the same thing as the US starting ww3 with China. I'll ask once again. Are you saying that if the US left Japan to fend for itself against China that would be preferable for you? Yes or no?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:52 pm

MGuy wrote:Are you saying that if the US left Japan to fend for itself against China that would be preferable for you? Yes or no?

Yes, especially and specifically in the case of Japan. Because without US intervention and without Japan acting as an extension of the US in the region Japan and China in the contemporary era would NOT be at risk of going to war. Well, barring a strong faction in Japan that wants to become an aggressive militaristic power again, but they lack public support and very possibly would crumble (and very definitely wouldn't have existed after world war 2 in the first place) without US backing anyway.

Taiwan is a harder answer, because Taiwan and China would very possibly be at risk of going to war without US intervention... but then again they would also be at risk of some sort of peaceful settlement that isn't going to happen with US intervention either, and the entire Taiwan situation existing in the first place is because of historical colonialist intervention in the long term that never should have happened.

What other artifact of foreign colonialist intervention desperately in need of rescue from something something maybe human rights abuses? because the US totally isn't rife with them, are you going to complain about next? Hong Kong? Because newsflash. Hong Kong may have it's problems but it is in a far better place than it would be if you assholes were bombing it into the stone age to save it's freedom and democracy.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:07 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:Because without US intervention and without Japan acting as an extension of the US in the region Japan and China in the contemporary era would NOT be at risk of going to war.

There is literally nothing in the universe any person could ever say to discredit your claims more than you have yourself in this sentence.

I mean, you apparently forgot that Tibet used to be a country before the PRC totally didn't invade them at all in your last post, but damn kid, this is like 6 different layers of hilariously stupid in one sentence.

angelfromanotherpin · Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:12 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:I'm saying contemporary China has invaded and bombed basically nobody while the contemporary US invades and bombs EVERYBODY.

I'd ask what the weather is like on your planet, except it seems to be 'US munitions, all the time.' Sounds unpleasant. Maybe try living in the real world?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:21 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I'd ask what the weather is like on your planet, except it seems to be 'US munitions, all the time.' Sounds unpleasant. Maybe try living in the real world?

How many nations is the USA bombing right now? Is it more or less places than it was bombing since Obama took office? How many tens of thousands of bombs has the US dropped on other nations recently?

Do you even begin to grasp the scale?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 11:44 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:I'd ask what the weather is like on your planet, except it seems to be 'US munitions, all the time.' Sounds unpleasant. Maybe try living in the real world?
How many nations is the USA bombing right now? Is it more or less places than it was bombing since Obama took office? How many tens of thousands of bombs has the US dropped on other nations recently?

Do you even begin to grasp the scale?

At the moment, just ISIS. You know, the guys who have sex slavery as a recuiting pitch, the only group in the modern world that has an actual claim to being pure evil.

We're also drone striking some guys, but drone strikes are different from bombing. It's in the name.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:06 am

hyzmarca wrote:wrong answer

angelfromanotherpin · Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:10 am

Well, with all the facts and figures and sources PL has mustered to support his positions, I don't see how anyone could doubt him. Rhetorical questions and pronouncements of 'WRONG!' are irrefutable.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:20 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Rhetorical questions and pronouncements of 'WRONG!' are irrefutable.

Apparently.

angelfromanotherpin · Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:58 am

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 3:47 am

PL will never admit or relent because his entire political persona is to be against things, US exertion of force specifically. This isn't about logic, facts, knowledge or anything; just the narrative. And he's a stupid Tu Quoque cocksucker in general, but more the first thing.

It is increasingly clear that there are a lot of people like PL in the world today, and they will kill us all.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:24 am

PL wrote:I'm saying contemporary China has invaded and bombed basically nobody

I'm gonna stop you right there. Literally nothing you say after that can be taken seriously. Contemporary China has threatened war on literally all of their borders. Contemporary China is physically occupying lands blonging to India and Vietnam because get this: they invaded those places. And you can't even use the excuse that those places were American puppets that they were fighting to keep themselves from getting encircled or some stupid thing - India and Vietnam were Socialist allies of China that China invaded because they were pretty sure they could get away with it and nothing more.

The nations of Tibet and Uyghurstan are a bit tore up about not existing at all because contemporary China has invaded them and conquered all of their lands. There is no sign of those occupations ending ever.

Basically, you pretending that China hasn't invaded anybody is so fucking surreal that it renders everything you say on this or any subject highly suspect. Pretty much any time from now until the sun goes dark if you make an asertion people can reply "Remember that time you claimed with a straight face that contemporary China hasn't invaded anybody? Yeah, Citation Needed motherfucker." And that will be sufficient for them to win the argument unless you produce some scholarly fucking citations. It is difficult to overstate how much of your own credibility you have set on fire by choosing this particular hill to die on.

-Username17