Romney: the inevitable President.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just done the test.

Jill Stein 96%
Obama 81%
Mitt Romney 0% - yes, 0%.

[Serial_Apologist]

Whichever way they voted
They still got in
We're all doomed.

Seriously though, the best birthday present anyone could have given me.

[Lateralthinking1]

Whichever way they voted
They still got in
We're all doomed.

Seriously though, the best birthday present anyone could have given me.

Very many happy returns Serial_Apologist for yesterday.

[Serial_Apologist]

Very many happy returns Serial_Apologist for yesterday.

(Poor Lat!)

[ahinton]

Well, the news from America has been one of extreme contrasts, has it not? One the negative side, the sad and premature - yes, premature - death of Elliott Carter and, on the positive, the election of Obama with a rather greater majority than had been expected, even by some of his most fervent advocates.

[Flosshilde]

what I am dreading the most is the wailing drivel emanates from all liberal organs whenever a conservative is elected to any form of high office.

Or vice-versa.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, the news from America has been one of extreme contrasts, has it not? One the negative side, the sad and premature - yes, premature - death of Elliott Carter and, on the positive, the election of Obama with a rather greater majority than had been expected, even by some of his most fervent advocates.

I think Hildgarde Jone had something analogous about birth and death coinciding in this setting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KifiZlWkX8o

[Simon]

Granted, you have to be a bit of a legal eagle to get all this stuff.

Not really. It's mostly clear enough.

Civil liberties for Americans have been suspended over the last decade. America is now a police state. That's a fact.

I'm afraid I'm not with you there, Budapest, though I have been on many of your recent posts.

It's a fact that the authorities in the USA can now do things they couldn't before some of the statutes you mention were passed - legally, that is. But the USA is most definitely not a police state. Go and talk to some of those who lived in East Germany or some of the Russian satellite states before the wall came down. They'll tell you what a real police state was like!

[MrGongGong]

Go and talk to some of those who lived in East Germany or some of the Russian satellite states before the wall came down. They'll tell you what a real police state was like!

That's such a weak argument i'm surprised that you would even attempt to use it !
I"m sure our Hungarian friend is more than aware of European History

[Suffolkcoastal]

Just did the test to see what I scored:

Obama 89%
Stein 86%
Anderson 71%
Romney 7%
US Voters 56%

[Flay]

I scored:

87% Stein
82% Obama
66% Anderson
11% Romney
60% American Voters

I must be greener than I thought I was!

[Simon]

That's such a weak argument i'm surprised that you would even attempt to use it !

I don't expect you to be able to recognise a decent argument if it got up and mugged you, Mr Gong Gong. So please spare me your wisdom.

It is, in fact, a very strong argument.

That is because it gives real examples of something under discussion so that the variations may properly be seen and the degrees of difference clearly understood.

That said, you are, if you wish, of course entitled to believe that repression and the curtailment of individual and press freedoms in the USA today is at the same level as that under Honecker in East Germany. If you do believe this, just let us know, eh...

[MrGongGong]

Sorry Simon its a really weak argument even for you
It's the kind of crap the idiot headmaster at my grammar school used to say
implying that if you have any criticism then you should go and live in North Korea,Communist Russia etc etc etc

but as you so obviously have superior intellect to everyone else then i'm probably deluded

how DO you live with the certain knowledge of your superiority ?

[Simon]

Sorry Simon its a really weak argument even for you
It's the kind of crap the idiot headmaster at my grammar school used to say
implying that if you have any criticism then you should go and live in North Korea,Communist Russia etc etc etc

It dooesn't imply anything of the sort, and if that is what your HM used to say then I agree he was daft.

Will someone independent please help us out here? Because I sense he's genuinely misunderstood.

It's an argument that, as I stated above, simply does what it says: it compares different things so that the degrees of difference can be seen.

To say that the USA is a police state is simply wrong; that there are elements of authoritarianism in the USA - and most states - is fair comment. That it is anything like what history would regard as "a police state" is incorrect. The reference to a prime example of such a state is simply an aid to explaining the argument.

[teamsaint]

most of us have no absolutely clear idea about the state of civil liberties in the US.

But hanging around and saying nothing or doing nothing until its too late is not a option. The direction of travel is clear.
Just because they talk about the land of the free doesn't make it so.

Oh and where they go we follow...and already are.