Renzatic on 8/10/2017 at 02:40
His militancy shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, considering his hardline rhetoric is what helped him win the presidency. He openly claimed he'd fight ISIS head on, utterly destroy them, even if he did occasionally contradict himself by claiming to pull us out of the Middle East.
And he did escalate it in the sense that we now have a few thousand boots on the ground in Syria. The whole point of Obama engaging in a proxy war using Syrian rebels was to prevent that, which, yeah, you could view as a cynical workaround to his claims that he'd engage no more troops in ME affairs.
Starker on 8/10/2017 at 02:45
Tony, if you don't see the difference between a clandestine operation and a full-scale invasion, I don't know what to tell you, really. You are basically equating the bombing of terrorist camps to military invasions. Not to mention that some of those terrorist groups are a threat to the US.
Also, many of these conflicts were not started by Obama, they were inherited from Bush or a direct consequence of Bush's actions. Some of these countries were also bombed by Bush, btw.
Also also, Obama withdrew troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and at least decreased the population of Guantanamo, even if he wasn't able to close it.
ffox on 8/10/2017 at 09:27
This was an interesting thread until Tony took it off topic. Can we get back to talking about gun control please?
Dahenjo on 8/10/2017 at 12:31
I agree with ffox - it's a very broad topic with widely differing viewpoints, but let's please try to keep it on the subject of whether gun control could have made a difference in these mass shootings such as the latest case in Las Vegas.
@Tony_Tarantula - maybe open a separate thread on the successes/failures of Obama's presidency, foreign policy options under Trump, etc. which are also likely to stimulate much discussion, but it's just too much for one thread.
Thanks to all for your comments & on-topic opinions.
icemann on 9/10/2017 at 06:36
In 10 years time people will remember Obama with fond memories, whilst laughing about how dumb Trump is. I fully supported him back the beginning, but he's just an absolute idiot plain and simple. His lack of action against the racists last month (until he was pressured into it) and his choice of words when speaking to some of the survivors of the recent hurricane were just arrogant and completely inappropriate. He's a complete disgrace of his own making.
Medlar on 9/10/2017 at 10:02
Going back to gun control, how could it be possible for the USA to change to a European style gun law country? Even if the 2nd amendment was removed from law I wonder what percentage of US residents would voluntarily turn in their weapons...
Perhaps the answer would be to issue an automatic assault rifle to all on their 18th birthday and make it mandatory to carry it at all times. I believe the gun lobbyists would support that.
demagogue on 9/10/2017 at 11:17
There are so many layers to that question you might not be sure what you're really asking.
Gun laws are largely state law. So first of all there's 51 different sets of laws, one for each state and DC. (I guess Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, etc, too if we're being technical.) Certain laws could be municipal, at the county or city level too.
The 2nd Amendment isn't plain old legislation. It's a constitutional amendment which would have to go through the arduous process of being re-amended. There are various ways, but it's something like passage by 2/3 of 50 state conventions, and each state is probably going to have its own procedure for that too. But even removing it isn't going to change a single law, since there's still all those state laws. All the 2nd Amendment did was stop some extreme anti-gun laws; but you don't even need an amendment to stop extreme anti-gun laws since majority vote will do that for you anyway. So it's not really doing anything for you having it or dropping it.
As for what you'd need to change the laws in 51+ state jurisdictions, that also differs for each state. Some states already lean anti-gun, and some lean heavily pro-gun, and some laws are easier to change than others, in terms of legislative procedure. Some states could have gun protection written into their own state constitutions (for all I know).
And once you're on that path, of course it's not like one single law (for each jurisdiction) does the whole thing. You need different laws to about buying/selling guns, about possession, about gun use, on hunting, about modifying, about confiscation -- well that depends on what you mean by "European style". Do you mean we keep all those guns out there and just change the laws to keep the status quo of hundreds of millions of guns still out there (which I wouldn't really call European style at all), or do we confiscate them so we have the gun possession numbers you see in Europe along with the laws? And good luck with that. That's the purified nightmare fuel that generated so much hate for Obama and Hillary and has helped push the GOP into the loony bin.
Medlar on 9/10/2017 at 14:07
Ok, I was asking rhetorical questions. There is no way the USA could practically change gun laws that would improve the situation it finds itself in. Unless there is a huge ground swell of opinion among voters and I believe a political party formed that has no connection to pro gun lobbyists for the ground swell of voters to vote for.
The alternative, everyone carries guns all the time and is taught to use them from an early age. Kill or cure?
demagogue on 9/10/2017 at 14:35
There's a bright side to it too. Because it's 51+ different state policies, some states actually can have pretty decent gun control, and won't be held back by the other jurisdictions. So you don't want to be too pessimistic and miss actual opportunities.
Also, if the recent trend in politics has taught us anything, it's that politics of the next generation is going to be very reactionary, and the youth is heavily skewed in Bernie Bros' direction. A groundswell of fuckyouism to the right, starting with strict gun control just because they know it'll piss them off the most, is actually in the cards, I think. It's like the mirror image of Trump. Both sides want to make the nightmare of nightmares come true for the other side.
