I'm not playing this game.
It's endless and tiresome.
#95 | Posted by BillJohnson

It's not a game.
It's you, refusing to reflect on yourself.

"while many Americans feel the country is not receiving a fair share of the benefits in return."

Those people rejected the benefits.
Because the benefit of all that Pax Americana that Trump is destroying was: Immigration!
Immigration of the smartest and hardest working people from around the world, who actually believe America is the land of opportunity.
Do you know how much richer America is because Jensen Huang is here, and not in some other modern country?
That's an extreme example, but he's one of tens of millions. Historically, hundreds of millions. This nation is 98% immigrants.

The benefits of American foreign policy sold you Slurpees when you were a kid, and their kids are your doctors today.
These immigrants benefit America.

"Many Americans" don't like sharing America with non-white Fresh Off The Boat Americans.
They don't think they should have to.

Do you disagree?

I'm not sure who Jared Leto is. Okay I googled him he has that Russell Brand look. I know him as the evil brainiac guy from the Blade Runner reboot.

So he's a Hollywood heartthrob with a band that can fill an arena.

I can't imagine a thing like that going to your head.

Americans NEED a Strong White MAN.
Stupid. Self Serving and ENTITLED.
AND DANGEROUS.
#6 | Posted by Effeteposer

Americans certainly need someone who can, say, bomb an Iranian School, if they mess with us.
The President needs to have a killer instinct. He needs to be perceived as willing to kill.
Notice how I said "he." With 95% of violent crimes committed by men, it explains why one of the complaints levied against Democrat hopeful VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 was that, as a woman, she wouldn't be "strong" enough to Push The Button if the Russians attacked.

"So Trump is operating by a different set of rules"

Indeed he is.
War with Iran is operating under Trump's "different set of rules."
You voted for that, BillJohnson.
Do you disagree?

"and no longer automatically supporting a system where America pays the largest share"

Now you're just being shy.
Give Trump the credit he deserves.
Trump is destroying systems America built.
Trump destroyed 25% of cancer research funding.
Trump destroyed USAID. Ended the organization and seized the building.
Ending USAID is widely credited with the ongoing Ebola outbreak being as bad as it is.
You voted for that, BillJohnson.
Do you disagree?

"while many Americans feel the country is not receiving a fair share of the benefits in return."
And what do they think now, that oil is over $4 nationwide?
"Feelings" isn't a legitimate complaint and should not form the basis for how to govern.
Do you disagree?

"Like it or not, America has been the stabilizing force behind much of the modern world for decades."

The irony of BillJohnson saying this is that BillJohnson voted for Trump to end America's leadership role in the world.
Trump explicity stated that's what he was going to do, to the love of Trumpers everywhere. And now, they cheer for a globally destabilizing war with Iran!

-----

Trump Has Launched a Second American Revolution. This Time, It's Against the World.

Just two months into his second presidency, Donald Trump is revolutionizing U.S. foreign policy. His policies will upend world order by destabilizing and ultimately destroying established institutions and patterns of international cooperation. Since 1945, the United States has been the leading champion, underwriter, and guarantor of an open, rule-bound global system under international law. Now, it rejects the logic of multilateralism, including any self-restraints on the exercise of U.S. power and any responsibilities for global leadership and stability.

In its scope and speed, this wholesale reorientation in U.S. foreign policy has few precedents in American history outside responses to surprise attacks such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11. One analogue is the sudden U.S. embrace of containment during the celebrated "fifteen weeks" of February-June 1947, bookended by the enunciation of the Truman Doctrine and the launch of the Marshall Plan. The difference today is that we are not at the creation but the destruction. American hands are shattering the institutional framework for global cooperation the world has long taken for granted. On the eve of the nation's 250th birthday, Trump has launched a second American Revolution. He is declaring its independence from the world America made.

"I didn't expect the corruption to be quite as widespread as it has been"

^
Someone didn't read Project 2025.

One supposes that the other 276 children killed elsewhere don't count, right?
#83 | Posted by Corky

BillJohnson is the type of person who says, you have no right whining about dead children when you support abortion.

Because being okay with a mother choosing the outcome of her own pregnancy is pretty much the same thing as being okay with the government bombing a school.

But if course it's not the same, or BillJohnson would be okay with abortion, like he's okay with the government bombing schools.

But those minor details aren't important to him.

Snoofy,
I actually didn't realize until today just how dense you really are.
#82 | Posted by BillJohnson

We know you've thrown in the towel when you resort to the ad hominems.

We're pretty sure you know it too.

"Democrats need to get away from New England liberals."

I dunno. I might be coming around on Trump.

"However, it is necessary to step back and view how that back and forth has gotten us into an environment that is enabling bad behavior"

Republicans and Trump gave ICE $150B to terrorize civilians at their homes and jobs and churches and schools and hospitals and travelling on the roads.

ICE began violently ramming suspect cars with their cars, smashing windows and dragging people from vehicles before even being given a chance to exit freely. Shooting at civilians and lying about it afterwards. Detaining people including citizens for days on end with no charges filed. Detaining immigrants for weeks on end at tremendous taxpayer expense for no legitimate purpose. Causing prisoners to die when they were not allowed their meds. Violently killing prisoners in severdl cases. For a detained population that is overwhelming free of any criminal history.

ICE unilaterally escalated violence against the civilian population. Republicans cheered it on. Enterprising criminals decided they could go ahead and use the same tactics that ICE is using against civilians, knowing that Republicans don't mind when civilians get dragged from their cars and their homes broken into.

That is how we got here.

The left did none of this.

It's all Trump, all Republicans, all the Cops.

And little Eichmanns like you who say we need to take a step back and investigate how we got here, instead of calling a fascist pig a fascist pig.

Snoofy, there is a difference in ones actions leading someone else to take actions that cause you to take actions... ad naseum.

By not wearing name tags, people getting home invaded don't know if it's desperate criminals or Federal agents with body armor. One of those you can fight back against. The other will disarm you and execute you on the street without so much as a public inquiry.

ICE made it easier, not harder, for thugs to to home invasions.

ICE created that risk. Nobody else.

You might as well just plonk me if you're too dumb to figure that out, because I am going to run your stuoid face in your own stuoid ---- until you learn, you hear me boy?

"Ultimately someone will do something stupid(pose as a fake agent) but that doesn't mean you are at fault."

The police are at fault for not wearing name badges.

Nobody else.

Why is this so hard for you to agree with?

"However, it is necessary to step back and view how that back and forth has gotten us into an environment that is enabling bad behavior, in order to try to unravel the bad situation."

That doesn't change who's to blame, and that doesn't change who's responsible for how the police conduct themselves.

So. Why is it necessary here? What purpose does it serve?
How will it help us unravel the fascist police?

You go ahead and do it
Step back and explain "how that back and forth has gotten us into an environment that is enabling bad behavior"

Now explain how seeing that is going to help us try to unravel the bad situation.

I'm 98 percent sure you're just making noises intended to sound rational and level-headed, but not actually saying anything.

Pretty sure you're lying. Pretty sure you don't see anything that's going to get the ICE thugs to put on name tags.

So please, prove me wrong. Show me what you discovered by taking a step back, that's going to get the ICE pigs to put on name tags.

Both Sides are to blame for the escalation that's happening at CBS News.
--KWRX25

"Iran does place military infrastructure near already existing civilian areas."

You mean like this:

Is The Pentagon "Military Infrastructure?"

Whe we built The Pentagon in 1947, did we place it near the already existing civilian areas of Alexandria and Washington, D.C.?

"Iran does place military infrastructure near already existing civilian areas."

So what?
The United States does that too.
It doesn't make it "okay" to bomb the civilians because there's military nearby.

If Iran bombed a school, you wouldn't be defending it because the school was near a military base.

Trophy Hunting is somewhat out of fashion.

So it's not impossible to believe TR would have simply picked up a ridiculously overcompensating manly hobby of our time.

Like building his own private rocket ship.

When America does it:
"There's always a large perimeter of civilians that develops around military posts."

vs.

When Iran does it:
"The difference is deliberately putting the military in the middle of a residential areas."