Election 2016

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:22 am

US Bombing this year: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.
China Bombing this year: nope.

US Military Spending: 46.5% of world spending.
China Military Spending: 6.6% of world spending.

The US invaded a bunch of countries and supported various pro-US regimes into power in rather bloody uprisings and repressions and so on in a lot of neighbouring states, including a few failures along the way. Most of that stopped with ... nah, still happening. some of that was good for the people there, most wasn't.

The US spent 15 years bombing Vietnam (and their neighbours Laos and Cambodia) to "stop communism" and then those countries turned into shitty communist states after the US declared peace by leaving. Killed millions of people, but less than the nutters that ended up with Cambodia.

The US spent 15 years bombing Iraq and Afghanistan (and their neighbours Syria and Pakistan) to "stop ... uh, fundamentalist terror?" and then those countries turned into shitty fundamentalist terror states after the ... same deal, basically. This one is still going.

The US also bombs parts of Africa. Libya, Somalia. No, I don't get that either.

Tibet claimed independence from 1912 to 1951, after Britain annexed it from China in 1906 (where it had mostly been since the 12th century, at least nominally), and China took it back in 1910, and then Tibet said fuck the both of you and gave China the bit it wanted and British India the bits it wanted and kept the stuff in the middle for the priests. The current communists basically disagree that China should have been split up by the European Imperial powers of pre-WWI like that, and are also an authoritarian state and so you may not disagree with that in any way while living there. None of that was good for Tibet, but it was rather a long time ago now.

The US and China both took sides in Korea. Obviously having the economic backing of the United States for the last 50 years was a vastly better deal for the locals. Though North Korea does hilariously have a lead in renewable energy and could actually win if they stick it out another fifty years.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:40 am

Tussok wrote:US Bombing this year: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.
China Bombing this year: nope.

You know how you are literally always wrong about absolutely everything? This is an example of you being wrong. I don't know how you wanna define "bombing" and maybe you have some bullshit definition whereby what China is doing in Balochistan and Mali doesn't count as "bombing." But China is part of the airstrike campaign in Syria and has been for over a year. If the US is bombing in Syria then China is by definition.

No one is saying that China has the power or the global reach of the United States. It is a less powerful country. But it is also a heavily militarized and aggressive country. Any and all claims that China is not a threat to other countries is ridiculous. And any person making such a claim is a fool.

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 2:49 pm

Look, China makes big territorial claims. They claim Taiwan, a state of 20 million people that has been operating independently for more than a half a century. They claim the vast majority of the South China Sea, including the parts other countries are currently using for civilian economic activity and shipping lanes, threatening other country's access to basic resources (like fucking food) and their access to international markets. They've broadened their claims on Japan's Senkaku islands (uninhabited islands on the very tail of the Ryukyu island chain coming off of Japan) into questions about the legitimacy of Japan's ownership of Okinawa (an inhabited island with a million people right next to the Japanese mainland). These claims are not moot or idle. China is actively trying to turn these territorial claims into reality. China deploys its navy to contested waters. China builds artificial islands in contested waters from which to project force and de facto resolve disputes about ownership through simple military presence. They have every intention of (eventually) making these claims a reality. If you are China's neighbor, you should be fucking terrified. They want your water and in many cases they want your land and they are legitimately coming to take it.

And that is the end of the story. There is no argument - none at all - that begins with "the U.S. did a bad thing to Iraq, therefore China gets to do a bad thing to someone else." That is incoherent. The entire reason you shitheads are bitching about U.S. involvement in the Middle East is because you understand that smaller, weaker nations are not actually objects to be played with at the whims of global superpowers, and yet here you are - in your frenzy to condemn the U.S. for everything it does - suggesting exactly that! Demanding that China be allowed to beat its neighbors with its dick on the basis that the U.S. is beating someone somewhere else with its dick. You are reducing these states to objects, commodities, resources to be divvied up tit-for-tat. "Oh, so the U.S. gets to invade Iraq? Then China gets to invade Taiwan. Suck on that, imperialist American scum! Fair's fair!"

Yes, clearly, the solution to U.S. imperialism in the Middle East is Chinese imperialism in East Asia. Makes perfect sense.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:09 pm

Ohio has 16 congressional Districts.

Republicans won 11 of them with a margin of 9 or fewer points. (But all still 3 3 points at least, most of them in the 3-6 range)

Republicans won 1 of them with a margin of 15 points.

Democrats won 4 of them, their margins were: 11, 15, 17, 30.

HMMMMMM I wonder who drew the congressional districts in Ohio.

Map:

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:15 pm

Kaelik wrote: HMMMMMM I wonder who drew the congressional districts in Ohio.

http://www.redistrictingmajorityproject.com/

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:20 pm

Maxus wrote:
Kaelik wrote: HMMMMMM I wonder who drew the congressional districts in Ohio.
http://www.redistrictingmajorityproject.com/

Believe it or not, I knew the answer. I was just using recent election stats to demonstrate the point.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:12 pm

Kaelik wrote:
Maxus wrote:
Kaelik wrote: HMMMMMM I wonder who drew the congressional districts in Ohio.
http://www.redistrictingmajorityproject.com/
Believe it or not, I knew the answer. I was just using recent election stats to demonstrate the point.

What gets me is how open they are with it.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:39 pm

Maxus wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
Maxus wrote:
http://www.redistrictingmajorityproject.com/
Believe it or not, I knew the answer. I was just using recent election stats to demonstrate the point.
What gets me is how open they are with it.

Well why bother hiding it? The Supreme Court has refused to take a position that political gerrymandering (that doesn't use race) is a problem. They get to keep 5 psychopaths minimum on the Court for another 4-30 years. Who's going to stop them?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:54 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:But China is part of the airstrike campaign in Syria and has been for over a year.

I have to wonder what odd propaganda outlet you are buying into here, by the looks of things something fact free, right wing, alarmist and Israeli. Because this claim on it's face appears to be how you say, not actually true.

With some digging you can find easily a years worth of rather obscure, questionable and inconsistent (and often followed by various retractions, denials and debunkings) about how China is totally going to join air strikes any day now but actually the thing is those stories continue to be "this will start happening any day now" up until the most recent ones within the last few months. There are also some thoroughly debunked "thousands of Chinese troops flood into Syria" stories apparently the work of a single known serial news hoaxer.

The actual apparent facts though? China has been staunchly and publicly against bombings and military intervention in Syria for years. The "presence" they have maintained for most of that time has been an embassy attempting to negotiate peace, with a focus on humanitarian aid and Chinese interests in a prospective reconstruction. This has it seems "escalated" to declaring "soft support" for Russia's "hard military presence"... in the form of offering humanitarian aid and expressing an interest in reconstruction, and maybe in wildly varying only rarely credible reports possibly providing "military advice" in wildly differing ways. This might be escalating to the point of providing some portion of air capability for the Russian airstrike campaign... any minute now? But then again, apparently not any minute now the last several times that the story has "oddly" kept popping up starting about a year ago.

China is incredibly slowly but seemingly increasingly being dragged into this mess in Syria the US created and escalated. They have for a while now been an ally of the Russian attempt to clean it up, however basically in a non-military role only. But as to actually flying airstrikes in Syria? Well if the latest "any minute now..." stories (as often as not found on sites under exciting categories like "Prophecies!") can be believed they're MAYBE just due to be started like, pretty much now... with no fan fare or media coverage of the actual event happening just the endless "in a month or two" prediction stories. Fucking western media not covering this shit and always with the pro-China cover ups!

So lets chalk up another one for "Frank utterly misrepresents the actual facts, yet again" this time basically trying to pretend "China supports Russia and Russia bombs Syria" equals "China bombs Syria", at the most charitable reading.

At this point though I'm going to have to say there is a point at which you are misinformed, there is a point at which you are falling for a large mainstream media misinformation campaign, but then there is this and this looks like going a long way out of your way to find some pretty fucking batshit stuff, and then misreading even that, to misinform yourself deliberately.

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:28 am

PhoneLobster wrote:China is incredibly slowly but seemingly increasingly being dragged into this mess in Syria the US created and escalated.

That's at least as big a stretch as the one you're claiming Frank made. The mess in Syria was created by the Assad dictatorship and by ISIS - they have direct culpability. Yes the US, through a series of events beginning with the destabilization of Iraq and inadequate recovery efforts created conditions that allowed ISIS to come about, that is true, but it's not the only cause or the proximate cause. The rise of ISIS has much to do with the failures of the Iraq government and also a whole lot to do with the atrocious brutality of Assad in Syria. There are also, somewhat more distantly, foundational causes like climate change that destabilized the region and primed it for violence, and pretty much everyone on Earth (with the exception of un-contacted tribes) bears some responsibility for that particular mess, though you could argue the Americans bear a larger dose per capita.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:56 am

DSMatticus wrote:Look, China makes big territorial claims.

So does Portugal, for realz. A whole lot of countries have variously peaceful (with occasional shelling) territorial disputes about things that go back a very long way. People are pretty much over Florida and Texas being annexed, and most of the locals being murdered, but there are more recent things to disagree about, like Pakistan and India are not even close to terms over Kashmir yet, and shell each other all the time there.

Unlike, say, China. At all. For a few generations now.

They claim Taiwan

Which everyone accepts, they are "Taiwan, ROC". Ironically, Taiwan also claims all of China, both countries agree they are one country, they just disagree over who is the rightful ruler of it.

They claim the vast majority of the South China Sea

Everyone in the region is using bullshit claims over the South China Sea to forcibly exclude other parties once or twice and then go back to ignoring it and treating it as international waters. The international opinion of law is that all of them are bullshit. 100%. That is international waters and the claims of Vietnam and of Philippines and of China are all equally bullshit. Philippines is largely starting shit there, and China is having a massive overreaction, but really, not a single person has died.

That is not a war. That is not really anything. Portugal and Ireland have shit-fights about who owns which speck of nothing and the surrounding seas in the Atlantic, and have a go in the European courts at each other's fishing fleets, which are also mostly ignored and treated as international waters, even though one of them is likely right (though which one is a tricky question).

They've broadened their claims on Japan's Senkaku islands

Russia also has claims on Japan's various islands, in that they own them now and Japan disagrees with that, ooh, spooky. The thing is Imperial Japan annexed that independent kingdom in 1879, so ... I guess that's in the old enough bin and we ignore it.

Again, China isn't shelling that. No bombs. Not a thing. At all.

These claims are not moot or idle. ... If you are China's neighbor, you should be fucking terrified.

Look, if you're China's neighbour, you should be trading with China. Hard out. Send them exchange students, try and get more Chinese tourists to come and see your mountains and ancient temples and stuff. Be diplomatically aware that they have official truths and shit that you don't piss all over for no reason, even when they're wrong.

Maybe don't arrest their fishing boats in international waters and start a giant fucking thing that will not end well for anyone, because obviously China will play hardball there.

Even though they totally won't shell you, or sponsor militants to overthrow your government, or just fucking invade to protect their industry like the US regularly does with their own neighbours.

And that is the end of the story. There is no argument - none at all - that begins with "the U.S. did a bad thing to Iraq, therefore China gets to do a bad thing to someone else."

The argument is that China is not actually bombing anyone. Not putting their troops places the local government did not ask them to be put. They are posing in a very manly fashion, they match rhetoric and bullshit ploys with their neighbours. You put a fleet somewhere, they put a fleet there too in response, but that is not even Chinese aggression.

I get China are scary, to you, but what the population of Okinawa wants is the WWII era US military base to fuck off and not come back. Because those are foreign military troops in their country who are pretty much immune to local laws and rather act like it all too often. I get, as a US citizen, that you think you're protecting the people of Okinawa from the scary communists, but that is just you accepting your government's ideas as truth, and rejecting other government's ideas as problematic lies.

@Mechalich, the mess in Syria, fuck off, that was the United States. You find a county suffering drought while coping with millions of refugees from your invasion and destruction of the neighbouring country, and decide to treat that by cutting of the government as well as possible while funding and arming a militant uprising and talking a lot in public about the end of the government and looking forward to working with it's replacement, that shit is on you. That is, very clearly, starting a civil war.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:17 am

tussock wrote: Which everyone accepts, they are "Taiwan, ROC". Ironically, Taiwan also claims all of China, both countries agree they are one country, they just disagree over who is the rightful ruler of it.

This is not a small disagreement. I work with a Taiwanese citizen and he fucking HATES what most people would call China and is fucking terrified of Trump's presidency because he actually has skin in the game. You don't get how terrible Trump's fuckups are until you actually have a stake in that shit (I certainly didn't). Trump is a goddamn idiot who is going to maybe (probably?) ruin several million people's lives. And that's not counting the people in the US he's going to fuck over by pushing regular Republican bullshit.

I also have family from the Philippines who are horrified of what might happen thanks to Trump being too stupid to comprehend the US' agreements with other countries. Fuck you, real people are suffering because of Trump's stupid shit and you're telling them it will be fine from a position of complete ignorance. Like, I'm dumb as shit when it comes to international politics, but I've learned a lot from very concerned friends and family members. They have good reason to be terrified, and I really hope Trump wisens up to be less of a shitdick.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:38 am

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:
tussock wrote: Which everyone accepts, they are "Taiwan, ROC". Ironically, Taiwan also claims all of China, both countries agree they are one country, they just disagree over who is the rightful ruler of it.
This is not a small disagreement. I work with a Taiwanese citizen and he fucking HATES what most people would call China and is fucking terrified of Trump's presidency because he actually has skin in the game. You don't get how terrible Trump's fuckups are until you actually have a stake in that shit (I certainly didn't). Trump is a goddamn idiot who is going to maybe (probably?) ruin several million people's lives. And that's not counting the people in the US he's going to fuck over by pushing regular Republican bullshit.

I also have family from the Philippines who are horrified of what might happen thanks to Trump being too stupid to comprehend the US' agreements with other countries. Fuck you, real people are suffering because of Trump's stupid shit and you're telling them it will be fine from a position of complete ignorance. Like, I'm dumb as shit when it comes to international politics, but I've learned a lot from very concerned friends and family members. They have good reason to be terrified, and I really hope Trump wisens up to be less of a shitdick.

No see, it's fine. Because China and Russia are global forces for peace and happiness that have only ever and will only ever try to make the world right, and definitely in no way shape or form have any motives that will end badly for other countries.

We know this, because they aren't the US, and since only the US can ever be bad ever at all, it must be that they are great.

WAIT A MINUTE! If Trump as US, decides to team up with Russia? Does that make Russia bad guys when they definitely haven't been ever before because now they are working with the US? Man, this "all bad comes from the US" from the tiny shit former British Colonies team of "no totally we don't need to know anything about foreign affairs to know that the US is at fault" is really starting to hit a next level!

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:21 am

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This is not a small disagreement. I work with a Taiwanese citizen and he fucking HATES what most people would call China and is fucking terrified of Trump's presidency because he actually has skin in the game.

So what? Because the thing is there isn't a workable solution here other than gradually deescalating the conflict which is directly counter to self proclaimed US interests and explicit US foreign policy in the region. Regardless of Trump or no Trump.

Not to say Trump isn't a danger for provoking China in some way. But the fact is that provoking China has been a core part of Obama's policy for years and is basically bipartisan and you can go ask the state department, or wikipedia if you want quicker answers, about "Asian pivots" and "China Containment Policy" if you want to.

Trump offers a small hope that he might just stop doing that because he doesn't give a shit about (or really understand) the whole China Containment thing, but on the other hand he also really wants more navy for no reason, likes military posturing and also wants to start huge protectionist trade disputes. So he has plenty of ways to piss of China, he just will do it accidentally instead of deliberately deciding to hold some of the biggest "war games" in history right on the border of Chinese waters to conspicuously and explicitly provoke China by demonstrating openly how you plan to blockade of 80% of all their international trade with military force to stop them from challenging you economically.

Hillary in the white house would have avoided a stupid phone call that is little more than a handy minor propaganda beat up pretext that isn't going to start a war on its own. But she would only have been continuing the same major provocations through deliberate large scale concrete actions. Needlessly risking a war which, very possibly very early would destroy Taiwan, and then maybe you know, everyone else.

And neither Trump nor Hillary has ANY strategy to offer to save Taiwan other than helpfully bombing them into the stone age to save their freedom and democracy in the event of a Chinese invasion.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 5:34 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Trump offers a small hope that he might just stop doing that because he doesn't give a shit about (or really understand) the whole China Containment thing, but on the other hand he also really wants more navy for no reason, likes military posturing and also wants to start huge protectionist trade disputes. So he has plenty of ways to piss of China, he just will do it accidentally instead of deliberately deciding to hold some of the biggest "war games" in history right on the border of Chinese waters to conspicuously and explicitly provoke China by demonstrating openly how you plan to blockade of 80% of all their international trade with military force to stop them from challenging you economically.

Oh look, another idiot who has been paying no attention to Trump's cabinet picks and totally missed how this whole thing was orchestrated by Chinahawks who have been advocating exactly this escalation for years, but being told no by other presidents, but who still thinks they are allowed to have an opinion about how Trump has the potential to be less confrontational with China.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:01 am

Kaelik wrote:but being told no by other presidents

Not, apparently, including Obama.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:36 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Kaelik wrote:but being told no by other presidents
Not, apparently, including Obama.

PL, for only the 100th time, your ignorance is not in fact a kickass defense against all arguments.

Just because you don't understand the difference between maintaining the status quo and taking action deliberately designed to demonstrate that you are going to tear up the Shanghai Communiqué and the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, doesn't mean there isn't a difference.

Or more specifically, because if Obama had done it, you would definitely be all up in your own ass whining about how the evil bad US is escalating, but because it's Trump, you want to pretend it's not any different from abiding by the terms of those agreements, so that you can rail at the US Democrats some more.

No PL, back in reality, Obama didn't escalate things in the South China Sea, and you are an idiot.

There's a reason Trump ran around saying Obama was weak and pathetic and other countries don't respect us as a country anymore, and it's because some of his advisors are the warhawks who have been complaining about how they couldn't get two straight bushes to escalate things against China, and they also didn't like Obama's "Appeasement" of you know, not starting a war and just matching fleet movements and maintaining existing arrangements. Which is why they wrote articles about how a real manly president would recognize Taiwan, and this would make China back down and cave to our demands on everything, and then told Trump that, and then set up a fucking call with Taiwan's Prime Minister.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:45 am

Kaelik wrote:Obama didn't escalate things in the South China Sea

That's just plain factually false.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:49 am

"Our longstanding policy on arms sales to Taiwan has been consistent across six different U.S. administrations," he added. "We believe our consistent policy has contributed to the security of Taiwan, and has also supported the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."
Taiwan welcomed the announcement of the sale, calling it "a comprehensive display of America's pledge to provide security to Taiwan," according to a statement.
...
China, which views Taiwan as part of its indivisible territory, has consistently opposed U.S.-Taiwan weapons sales and reiterated that stance Wednesday, summoning Deputy Mission Chief Kaye Lee of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The statement from Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang called the deal "a serious violation of international laws ... as well as China's territory and security interest."

Clinton dynasty, Bush dinasty, Obama, Jimmy, RR, they've all been provoking China directly over Taiwan for decades now while cashing in profits of billions.

"Why yes China, we agree that Taiwan is not a country and don't have direct diplomatic relationships with them, we just happen to be directly selling them tons of our old murder toools for their 'defense', of course they need all that to remain safe, it's not like we don't have a fleet already parked there for that."-six different USA presidents before Trump.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:10 am

PhoneLobster wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Obama didn't escalate things in the South China Sea
That's just plain factually false.

And we know it because of all that evidence you keep providing for all your nonsense.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 8:51 am

Tussock, you are a disgusting human being. Your determination to cram every conflict in the world into a lazy narrative about U.S. dickitude is forcing you to be despicably blase about an issue involving the welfare, sovereignty, and lives of hundreds of millions of people. Yes, really.

This is a map of the South China Sea territorial dispute. China is that big country you can barely see at the top. That red dick-shape you can see across the entire fucking sea is China's claim. Notice how every other claimant on the map has made their claims with respect to their coastline? Notice how China literally just said fuck you it's all mine, and that their claims stretch through the whole sea along every single other country's coast? Hey, remember that artificial island China built? The one I keep talking about? The one that's basically just a military airbase, complete with runway and radar? I want you to guess where it is on that map. Hint: if you picked a point closer to China than any other country at all, you are wrong. If you drew a line from Ho Chi Minh to Brunei, it would almost be on that line. Portugal? Are you fucking stupid? This is a map of Portugal's sea claims. Notice how, unlike China, Portugal's sea claims do not wrap completely around Spain's coast, and that they aren't building military bases off of Spain's coast to fuck with them? That is the comparison you tried to make. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about and it's genuinely offensive! You're a piece of shit! It is not okay to be this fucking willfully ignorant just because you'd rather fap your dick to hating the U.S. than be assed to actually learn something about the world. I'm fucking sick of it.

Tussock wrote:Which everyone accepts, they are "Taiwan, ROC". Ironically, Taiwan also claims all of China, both countries agree they are one country, they just disagree over who is the rightful ruler of it.

You said this before and it was fucking stupid. How do you take yourself seriously? How did you manage to type that through the crippling shame a normal human being would have felt in your shoes? Do you really not understand what an idiot you are? Are you oblivious? How?

Taiwan and China are different, independent governments resulting from a shared civil war who do not recognize one another's legitimacy. Their refusal to recognize one another's legitimacy does not make magically make them the same country any more than the Union's refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Confederate States of America puts Jefferson Davis into lists of our presidents. Jefferson Davis was the president of that other one. You know, because there actually were fucking two of them. Now, Taiwan has zero chance in hell of ever acting on those claims. It is not a threat, and the only thing they get out of refusing to acknowledge the PRC is they can offer it up later as a dinner mint at the negotiating table when the two sit down and formally agree to go their separate ways. But China could sneeze and accidentally invade Taiwan, and the only reason they haven't done so is because Taiwan has better access to support from the international community than, say, Tibet.

Tussock wrote:The argument is that China is not actually bombing anyone. Not putting their troops places the local government did not ask them to be put. They are posing in a very manly fashion, they match rhetoric and bullshit ploys with their neighbours. You put a fleet somewhere, they put a fleet there too in response, but that is not even Chinese aggression.

If I showed up on the road outside your house with a gun, you wouldn't call that me being aggressive? Unsurprisingly, it actually matters where you put your fleets. If you put them in your neighbor's backyard, yes, you are being belligerent and aggressive, in the same way that people who exercise their "right to open carry" outside of polling places are trying to intimidate voters.

Again, I understand that both sides bullshit comes naturally to you, and that therefore everyone is always equally the bad guy (except the U.S., who is the extra bad guy), but it's time for you to actually look at a map. Go back to the South China Sea map I linked again and open it. Look at that map and tell me China is "matching rhetoric and bullshit ploys" with their neighbours, as opposed to "claiming the entire South China Sea, and then putting military bases near their neighbors to make good on those claims." It's very obvious at even a quick glance that there is no actual parity in those claims. China simply isn't making claims in good faith, and the claims they are trying to enforce are exactly as insane as the claims they say outloud.

maglag wrote:"Why yes China, we agree that Taiwan is not a country and don't have direct diplomatic relationships with them, we just happen to be directly selling them tons of our old murder toools for their 'defense', of course they need all that to remain safe, it's not like we don't have a fleet already parked there for that."

I honestly do not know what your point is. Yes, the U.S. sold arms to Taiwan. We did so because:

1) It was an excuse to give money to defense contractors, which is historically something our government likes to do. Yes, that's a real problem we have. Yes, it gets us involved in stupid conflicts we have no business being involved in, like Iraq. But "defense contractors make money off of it" does not immediately make it EVIL!!1!. Sure, there's a correlation - but it's not causative. Private businesses in the U.S. made a lot of money off our government's decision to help the Allied Powers resist Nazi Germany, and that was a good thing to do. Hitler bad.

2) We don't actually keep a fleet parked next to Taiwan 24/7. If China really does try something, we will have a relatively short but absolutely non-zero response time. Taiwan needs to be able to either keep Chinese boots off their soil OR deal with any forces that make landfall on their own, because there is a big line between us getting caught up in a naval battle and being forced to put boots on the ground to keep Taiwan from collapsing regardless.

3) Taiwan wants them. They understand that things change, and for whatever reason the west may one day stop offering them protection - at which point the only deterrent they have left is whatever they have in the armory.

Yes, the U.S. really does have a massive and corrupt military-industrial complex. That does not imply that every geopolitical conflict boil down to "U.S. bad."

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 12:36 pm

Trump taps Ben Carson for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

Dr_Noface · Post by **Dr_Noface** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 3:38 am

Should we expect a Trump-Putin teamup against China?

erik · Post by **erik** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 4:59 am

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/opini ... trump.html

*sniff*

If I lived in this guy's district, I'd vote for him.

I've heard of others, but it seems like it is too late for this to get momentum and broadcast media largely ignores it.

It would be interesting if enough members vote for a third candidate and the house of representatives picks the next president. It presumably would be a republican, but maybe they would broker a deal with Clinton. In my wildest dreams.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:39 am

DSMatticus wrote:It is not okay to be this fucking willfully ignorant just because you'd rather fap your dick to hating the U.S. than be assed to actually learn something about the world. I'm fucking sick of it.

Fuck off DSMatticus. The international opinion is that the South China Sea is international waters. Philippines claimed a lot of it as theirs after building "airports" on bits of rock that do not count as islands (the world accepts legal definitions of what islands are because you can claim the economic sovereignty of the sea around them for a very long way, so barren bits of rock and protruding reefs don't count).

Philippines used their claims to exclude the Chinese fishing fleet. China took them to the UN, and won, that was illegal and bullshit. And then a US carrier fleet parked it's ass in there in support of the bla bla bla bullshit. So China said, oh, hey, cool, you support airports on rock as islands? Here's a fucking airport on a rock, you support that too? Oh, hey, we're arresting your fishing fleet because it's near our "island". You support that too? Dicks?

The UN again told them they were both full of shit and to both stop it.

That is the history. China is being dicks. Philippines is being dicks. Vietnam, coincidentally, is also being dicks, they also claim things as islands that are not islands to extend their claims of economic sovereignty. It's a thing in the South China Sea. You know who else is there being dicks? The USA.

It's a mess, and everyone mostly ignores it and treats it as international waters because that's what it is. Yes, a while back China arrested some fishing boats, they were making a point, the point has been made, people are mostly back to being sensible. Done.

Bombs dropped, zero. People killed, zero. Problem solved. Yes, China has claimed a stupidly large piece of ocean as theirs, which was them making a point so they could go make all fish extinct the same as everyone else is doing.

Tussock wrote:Taiwan and China are different, independent governments resulting from a shared civil war who do not recognize one another's legitimacy.

Yes. That's what I said. Why do you think you disagree with me, again?

If I showed up on the road outside your house with a gun, you wouldn't call that me being aggressive?

Last guy was a cop, they got a call about gunfire and he was asking around. Guy before that, wanted to shoot some rabbits. Guy before that, rabbits. Guy before that, rabbits. The neighbours have guns, we have guns, people sometimes have their guns with them. You may be talking to the wrong person.

P.S. We got a cat now, so there's less rabbits just sit out and make people wonder if they could shoot some for us. But you know, people are still neighbourly.

The local army's running around the north of the Island at the moment, preventing people travelling, and ... oh, right, we had a massive earthquake, so that's them providing food, water, medicine, and fuel along badly damaged (as in, often submerged in new lakes) roads to the isolated populations and keeping out the people just wanting a look. With guns.

Like, our country also invites various countries warships into our ports. China turned up once, with their warships. At our ports. No one was terrified, they invited the media on for a guided tour, it was on the news. Seriously, major trading partner, been in less wars than New Zealand in my lifetime by pretty much infinity.

The thing is, when dealing with China, they have no sense of humour at all about having things taken from them. Like fishing access to international waters. They are also super keen on being treated as equals at all times, because communists.

China simply isn't making claims in good faith,

That's what I said. Why do you think you disagree with me? Taiwan also, they really super dealy seriously doodly do claim all of China as theirs, which is a big part of why they don't like the Communist government, on account of it occupying most of their land.