Negatory

Balance to the federal reserves balance sheet, does that make it more clear? Expected to hit upwards of $10T this year. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm

Predictable

I have quite a few. And I know that all it takes is for you to quote the one thing you disagree with for you to feel like I’m entirely wrong, but I encourage you to suppress that notion and respond in kind. It’s given my friends the courage to unabashedly post QAnon videos without a second thought. It’s allowed for people I once respected to just say “do your own research” and “fake news” about things that are scientifically proven, such as vaccines, global warming, or even eugenics. It’s allowed my friends that I grew up with in the South to feel comfortable saying “Why shouldn’t I be able to tell a black person I’m proud of the fact that I’m white?” The culture of discourse over the last 3 years has markedly worsened. People don’t feel like they have to back up anything. “The president doesn’t, why should I?“ A byproduct of the Trump presidency is that anti-intellectualism and racism has been allowed to grow significantly and unabashedly in the last few years. And these are people I know. As one comedian said, “not all Trump supporters are racist, but all racists are Trump supporters.” On top of that, he’s not doing anything to try to calm down tensions. I have a gay brother in law that was assaulted for the first time while out with his partner. It makes me feel like I live in a less unified country. On top of that, we have made no effort to improve our economy for the future, we have no significant effort to build infrastructure for me to live in in for the next 50 years, we’ve added more debt to the national debt and balance to the federal reserves than anyone, we’ve started an irrational trade war with China that we are going to lose based on poor planning - my family owns a soybean farm and have absolutely loved the last few years (sarcasm) - we pulled out support for the Kurds (after I spent 9 months of my life flying directly over them protecting them) in an irrational and unguided Middle East plan. Foreign policy is now just say “America First,” forget the “haters,” and disregard the last 30-40 years of geopolitics. America has slashed long term plans when it comes to Global Warming, which is a thing. In the last week we saw sea temps that were 10 degrees F above baseline near the poles. There is no plan to deal with rising wealth inequality in America - and that directly affects everyone. Tax cuts haven’t enabled me or my friends to create significant wealth, instead enabling us to earn pennies less when productivity has increased orders of magnitude. Our economy is almost entirely services based and only getting worse, and Trumps best publicized bet at fixing it is bring back coal mining. Ygbsm. Good luck with our airline jobs when they get automated. My nieces and nephews have no ability to actually earn money or move out of their house when they graduate college anymore due to lack of job prospects. I think I recently read a statistic that more people 18-34 are living with their parents than with a partner for the first time in history. America is trying isolationism in 2020, which sounds cool on paper - only care about yourself - but doesn’t work when China and Russia are laying seeds for productive alliances in Africa, Asia, and South America over the next 100 years. Our foreign policy vision is terrible, and it will affect the future of America if we try to maintain this course. We need fundamental national strategy change if we want to maintain our statuses as a superpower. In 2008-2016 we did make some progress as society and in the world, in my opinion. Only about 2 people here have actually talked about what they liked in this presidency, whereas everyone else (I’m pretty sure you included) just says that I’m wrong and won’t answer my initial question. I still don’t understand what policies the majority of Republicans push for that have been enacted in the last few years, and I’d love to hear them.

Agree wholeheartedly, but how do you quantify that? Most economic reports, when it comes to journalism, over the last few years have been that stock market going up = free market working well, when that's not necessarily true.

The S&P 500 is also nearly at all time highs, so i don’t get your point about the DJIA. Almost every index you look at domestically is doing well. With enough quantitative easing (expected to be up to $5T dollars this year, already at 2-3), you can prop up anything. Our balance sheet at the end of the year could be over $10T. YGBSM. Obama did it. Trump is doing it. But, the truth is, right now, we are in no place to do that. Our interest rates are almost 0. And most of that is due to not taking the chance to tighten when the economy was actually “doing well. There has been no meaningful QT at any point where it would have worked. Its analogous to the airlines doing massive stock buybacks to inflate their prices. You can’t take on debt forever to make it look like the economy is doing well. And, worse, QE disproportionately benefits stockholders over the rest of society. More meaningful improvement would be increasing median family wages adjusted for purchasing power. Something that no one has done in 40 years.

Highest unemployment rate in recent history and stock prices are hitting records. Not a great indicator.

Was with you til this. The DJIA only reflects a small minority of the economy and doesn’t relate to how the majority of people are actually doing.

Repeating, of course.

Discuss. Rabble rabble constitution rabble rabble. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288818160389558273?s=20

That’s one way to look at it. I’m sure both sides see it that way to a large extent. I’m sure it’s been that way for many many elections. It’s one of the large problems with the two party “lesser of two evils” election system we have. Now you don’t have to backup what policies you stand for - you can just say what you don’t want and hope it turns out okay.

Japan is a valid example and a valid post, but I believe that it's pointless to debate you any longer. There are clear cut counterexamples to your poorly written first point. We're not engaging in academic thought anymore if you refuse to acknowledge that. And to your point that "Who gets to decide? The government. It ain’t free bubba." - The United States of America has had plenty of cases where freedom of speech wasn't just a clearcut happyland world that you make it out to be. Who gets to decide in the end? Oh, the government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Supreme_Court_cases_involving_the_First_Amendment I'm done playing 6 dimensional chess inside of your brain.

Also, I'm not the one with burden of proof. All of this conversation has been in response to an outlandish claim by a member of this forum when he said "An entitlement only afforded to you in the US. Free speech isn’t legal anywhere else in the world." The greatest thing about a positive claim is that, to disprove it, you only need one example as a counterpoint. And since semantics arguments are accepted here (apparently) and you made an extremely over-extended claim that the entitlement to free speech is literally ONLY afforded to you in the US and only legal in the US, I present one counterpoint (enjoy): "The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Article 5: Freedom of expression. (1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures, and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources." This example both proves that the US is not the only place in the world where freedom of speech is afforded to you, and, furthermore, shows that free speech is legal somewhere else in the world. Boom, both parts of your argument are done, gottem. This way of arguing is f#$@ing stupid. Try to understand my point and not pick apart my words. I'll do the same for you. I understand, for example, that your point was that America's level of freedom of speech is unparalleled. I agree that, when it comes to strict censoring, you're correct. You can say more here in America than probably anywhere else in the world. But when it comes to talking about most things in common discourse/debate (politics, viewpoints, government criticism), you get the same protections across many first world countries.

It's not blame shifting, @Guardian, it's pointing out double-standards. Don't misconstrue the argument.

Mark it off for the technicality here, congrats. Even though no one in this thread would argue with the fact that in an actual fire, no shit, you can say there is a fire. Guardian even said this is "the only place in the world where it is legal to speak your mind and as long as you aren’t yelling fire in a crowded movie theater," which is totally 100% technically incorrect by your logic, although I'm pretty sure you understood his point. The point is that that America's freedom of speech is almost indistinguishable from many other nations'.

I agree, everyone should not have equality of outcome, they should have equality of opportunity. All men are created equal. Which is why I’m certain you support a 100% redistributed inheritance and death tax, right? (I’m actually sure you don’t, and I’ve never understood this stance).

I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on many points, thanks for the opinions.

Am I in a never ending semantics argument? Is this about can vs may? The courts ruled your first amendment rights don’t apply when there is a “clear and present danger.” “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Also, I'll give it to you that you never said explicitly that what I said was only allowable in America. Although I still don't understand why you pointed it out other than to implicitly hint that I wouldn't be able to share my viewpoint unless I was here. Because in reality, what I said was perfectly allowable in the vast majority of countries, which is why your comment was so out of place and received multiple "why you saying this?" responses from not just myself.

And talking condescendingly to someone about how they should read books and take classes to learn how to focus their thoughts is a typical strategy to belittle and ignore someone's points (an ad hominem attack) when you aren't hitting the substantive parts of the argument. You are now just attacking me, not my argument. Focus.

Other countries have freedom of speech. Your argument is that America has the only real freedom of speech because other countries prohibit some things like hate speech. Well, as you said, you can't say fire in a crowded movie theater, so I guess by your logic, no one has true freedom of speech. Focus.

I read about it and I agree. Democrats are shameful in this case.

I agree wholeheartedly with your first paragraph. The second paragraph, in my opinion, tries to make a non-partisan issue partisan and cast blame. Crime and Punishment and the protection and the over-empowering of the criminal justice system/police in the US is just as much Ronald Reagan’s fault as it is Bill Clinton’s (and those that support them).

You aren’t addressing my point because I was being sarcastic? I could have said literally everything I said in this forum in almost every first world nation on this planet and suffered no potential consequences. Freedom of speech and political opinion is protected in almost every comparable nation to a HUGE extent. The main thing that separates the US is that hate speech and intentionally inflammatory words are also protected here.... which I honestly don’t think I’ve ever taken advantage of. I do not see the benefit of US freedom of speech vs European freedom of speech in nearly all reasonable discourse. If you can please explain something that I said that would have gotten me in trouble, I would appreciate it (you already implied America is the only place that would let me talk like this). Because there is literally nothing. Also, the press freedom rankings are not useless or a deflection. They serve the point to prove that just because America has a bill of rights and constitution that says something is free doesn’t mean the societal model automatically makes it happen or matter. I.e. we espouse freedom of the press as one of our societal rights and then do a bad job of it. Cheers.

I guess I’m lucky to be in the US, because it allows me to spout my totally socialist viewpoints unabashedly. Whereas if I was in any other country I would be liable to be arrested or fined immediately. Obvious sarcasm if not noted. On another note, did you hear about the Press Freedom Rankings? I hear we are working our way up there, hopefully one day we’ll be as free as all those other first world countries! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index#Rankings_and_scores_by_country Arbitrary buzzwords about freedom are not helpful, it comes across as thinly veiled threats about how I’m lucky to even get to talk.