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Oh jesus, reading the "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States" EO is...rather 1984 worthy...

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
wrote:
Sec. 9. Sanctuary Jurisdictions. It is the policy of the executive branch to ensure, to the fullest extent of the law, that a State, or a political subdivision of a State, shall comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373.

(b)To better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions, the Secretary shall utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.

Sec. 13. Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens. The Secretary shall direct the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take all appropriate and lawful action to establish within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement an office to provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens and the family members of such victims. This office shall provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.

The only purpose I can think of for these in this context is specifically to rile up and exploit xenophobia.

Sec. 14. Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.

Awkward, lets make public that we're going to actively treat anyone not a US citizen as a data mining and surveillance target. Beeteedubbs, this is going to fundamentally sink the US-EU Data shield agreement that we just spent years negotiating following the Snowden revalations, which pretty much the entire US tech industry got behind, as the US will violate it by default and may result in US companies being unable to legally do business in the EU.

Yay!

To be fair to Frazzled, he said rather plainly a page ago what he thinks about Trump and the idea of a literal "Great Wall Guadalupe Hidalgo" as a border defense a page ago and he was not positive.

 Ustrello wrote:
It only took less than a month for Whembs to go to team trump

He's been it for like year+ so no news there.


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 LordofHats wrote:
To be fair to Frazzled, he said rather plainly a page ago what he thinks about Trump and the idea of a literal "Great Wall Guadalupe Hidalgo" as a border defense a page ago and he was not positive.

Well then he changed his mind as he's clearly in favour of it now based on his posts.

tneva82 wrote:
Well then he changed his mind as he's clearly in favour of it now based on his posts.

I'm more than happy to disagree vehemently with someone, but I will disagree with what they say;

 Frazzled wrote:

enhanced controls/surveillance is one thing, but a wall can be (and what wall do exist are) routinely defeated.

Oh yea, you need an Israeli style in depth system. Or flying monkeys with ray guns. I like ray guns.

To go to such lengths for such an ineffective measure, that will surely cause untold social, economic, and political strife, particularly when a minority of drugs and people are going through such routes (as most gain entry through normal, manned crossings), smacks of wasteful "stigginit" just for its own sake, or worse, particularly when we're the economic drivers of the cartels business.

Dude its Trump. Deep Thought is not the appropriate nickname here methinks.

Would it not be cheaper to "liberate" Mexico instead of building the wall? The cia could take control of the cartels, and the US would have a new state with low wage workers, second rate Americans, like the people that don't have the same rights as US citizens in other acquired countries.

It would not be cheaper to "liberate" Mexico.We'd just inherit all their problems, and still have to deal with a drug war except now the Cartels can claim to be rebels fighting for Mexican independence... Well some of them kind of do that already but they'd have a leg to stand on.

tneva82 wrote:
Other estimates I have seen have ranged from 12 to 25 billions...

That is money that could be used for lot more useful things. But nope. Wasted to boost Trump's ego instead.

Once we consider the cost of construction that's already happened, and remember those areas were by and large the cheapest and easiest section to build, $25b becomes a reasonable estimate. And that's just for construction. In order for the wall to do anything you have to spend money to maintain it and have agents monitor it. That pushes the cost up to something around $40b.

We had a chance to annex Mexico at the end of the Mexican-American War but just took Texas and California, I don't think the stance has really changed.

So to have a throwback to this weekend:

Park Service tweets pictures about crowd size.
Tweets then disappear. People here argue that Trump had nothing to do with that.
The White House officially denies that they ordered anyone to do anything.
Now it comes out that Trump personality called the Director of the NPS to complain about the tweets.

This is shaping the most alternative fact-filled administration yet...

 whembly wrote:
It's risk management for the everyone, especially the young folks...

So, a low premium insurance plan may have high deductibles and co-pays (because young'uns use it less), however, it's a good protection against massive debts if you get hit by a bus and face lengthy recovery.

The idea of insurance is that you remove risk. The idea that a person should get insurance, but only for some conditions and not others is utterly, completely fething bonkers.

You might want to counter that a young person is less likely to need a hip replacement, and that's true. But then what happens is young people pay a lot less to have hip replacement covered, and the one young person who actually ends up needing their hip replaced gets covered by the millions young people who kicked in about 4 cents each extra in case they were the lucky one.

What you're suggesting is like getting house insurance, and picking whether you will cover for fire, flood, earthquake etc. It's fething bonkers to say 'oh it doesn't rain much here so I'll guess I'll just risk manage and not get the flood insurance.' What happens is you get coverage, but because flood is a low risk in your area it costs very little.

Now, there is scope for personalizing insurance. A person might want access to more expensive extras like private suites and shorter waiting times for elective surgeries, or a greater choice of doctors. That's fine. But the idea that a person might remove from their insurance basic medical care because it probably won't happen to them is a basic rejection of what insurance is.


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 whembly wrote:
The ACA isn't the ONLY way to achieve a " better system ". This is a trap you're going to find yourself... if you like the ACA, and think that repealing it is the worst thing ever, then post-ACA will never be good enough...

There's enough issues with ACA that I could get go on board with all kinds of reform. I could even get on board with repeal if a good replacement system were proposed.

The problem is that every single Republican proposal so makes things much, much worse. This is because Republican thinking on healthcare is essentially broken.

Republican thinking is essentially broken, no need to limit it to just healthcare!

 whembly wrote:
I get that there's uncertainty as to what the future will look like post-ACA repeal... and there's nothing anyone can say to allieviate that until we know more on what will transpire.

So given the events of 8 years ago, if there's uncertainty isn't it time to start talking about death panels? I mean, if it was okay for Republicans to scare people with ludicrous made up bs, isn't it right for Democrats to do the same now?

Consider this... the opponents of the ACA are simply saying "we can do better". Isn't that a worthy question to ask?

If Republicans had been attempting to suggest an improved system for the last 8 years, that line would work. But they've done nothing beyond 'repeal ACA'. No part of their motivation in this, starting from before we had any idea what ACA would even be, has ever been about looking for a better system. It's always been about absolute hostility to the idea of Democrats getting to drive policy.

I mean, even now if you read anything about why Republicans are looking to return to healthcare, you will see them say again and again that repealing and replacing was a core campaign promise. You won't find anything saying 'we think we can do better'... how could they even say that when they don't even know what their alternative might be?

LordofHats wrote:

Socialism isn't working.

Neither is Neo-Liberalism, and at least a mixed system has the advantage of not screwing everyone over for the sake of a lucky few while the rest of us pray for the glory of a 84 hour work week where we never get to see our friends, family, or engage in reality because we're so busy working we don't have time to look up.

The point was that since taking office, the business that my plant is in has fluctuated in insecurity to the point that there were several layoffs. One got me while I was working as an agency employee, and two essentially got me while working as a full time employee. The fact that we've called back all the layoff employees (at least the ones that would return) and started hiring agency workers again PLUS have enough work to get basically all the overtime we want is what I list as a positive. I make just north of $24 an hour, I don't hurt for money, but having enough business to earn extra and be able to splurge on things is more than a plus. That wasn't happening under Obama, and Clinton was intending to double down on most if not all of his policies.

So the Solicalist model will continue to fail unless you're willing to stagnate and figure out how to get the populace to forget about property. That's the only reason it worked for the Native Americans, and it's why it fails everywhere else.

Wow that old myth? Damn man.

One native Americans not only had a conception of property, they actually operated on a rudimentary capitalist system with a trade network that spanned most of Eastern North America while Western Europeans were still engaged in Merchantalism. The myth that the Native Americans were tricked by smart white people because they didn't understand concepts of ownership is a really old (and frankly really racist) myth about Native cultures. They completely understood the concept of property and land ownership, it's just that Europeans never engaged them economically with any intent to keep up their end. They manipulated the fact even Natives who learned to speak English or Spanish or French couldn't read it, and told them one thing while the paper actually said something else and that's when Colonists didn't just outright ignored the agreements when they became inconvenient. William Penn's sons are two really good examples. Soon as daddy died (and daddy wasn't exactly great, just not as bad) they tossed out every agreement he made with the Lakota and said "feth it we're gonna take what we want." EDIT: The Lakota actually filed suit in European courts, argued their case before the judge, presented evidence, and seemed to have a surprising understanding of English Common law practices concerning property rights. The Judge was really impressed that their feeble savage minds could make such a good effort before telling them to gtfo.

 whembly wrote:
We can debate of the merits/demerits of these plans/ideas... but, please stop this outright myth that the GOP doesn't have a plan.

Nope. That isn't how political parties work. Individuals can write up all the plans they want, but they are nothing more than suggestions until the party forms up around a single plan. This is because people want to know what they're getting. They want Republicans to nut up, and put one actual, real plan on the table that they are committed to actually trying to pass. This thing about repealing ACA and then replacing it with maybe Ryan's plan, maybe Price's plan, maybe the plan of those two centrists senators who think states should be able to choose ACA if they want, or maybe some other plan... that is fething nuts.

It also what the Republicans are trying to convince people is normal, functional politics. And it is a con that, like always, you've bought in to.

 Just Tony wrote:
They did not believe in owning land.

They did and you're wrong.

Get over it and move on.


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 Just Tony wrote:
The point was that since taking office, the business that my plant is in has fluctuated in insecurity to the point that there were several layoffs. One got me while I was working as an agency employee, and two essentially got me while working as a full time employee. The fact that we've called back all the layoff employees (at least the ones that would return) and started hiring agency workers again PLUS have enough work to get basically all the overtime we want is what I list as a positive. I make just north of $24 an hour, I don't hurt for money, but having enough business to earn extra and be able to splurge on things is more than a plus. That wasn't happening under Obama, and Clinton was intending to double down on most if not all of his policies.

What policies specifically kept your plant from being able to make whatever is that you make? Which of those policies has been reversed in the six days that that Trump has been President to allow you to work nonstop?

 Just Tony wrote:


See, it doesn't seem the same to me. You look at socialized health care across the board, it's nothing like a Medicare/Medicaid service with a private insurance option at all.

Sure.

Government taking over every aspect of a service gives them no need to be competitive, which leads to gouging (through taxes) which leads to people not being able to afford other necessities

Hrm, it may lead to higher taxes, but that income is just going to the government to provide healthcare instead of a private insurance company, the cost to the end consumer isn't really increased.

In fact, in just about every other developed nation, the average level of care is higher and the average cost per patient is lower, usually dramatically so.

This particular example is a few years old, but gets the idea across

https://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/usversuseurope/




Despite all those other nations having socialized health care to varying extents.

which leads to government expanding to take on more of these services which leads to higher taxes yet until in the fullness of time you hand your entire earnings over in taxes but get your needs distributed to you.

And again...in what nation on earth has this happened? I mean, there are other developed nations one can point to where tax burdens are much higher, but again, that income is just going to a different places, people's net disposable incomes aren't meaningfully different and they don't have to deal with the potential risk of crippling medical debt that's by far the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US.

Suddenly, what is your incentive to work a more technical job if you are essentially in the same boat as a gas station clerk? If you wind up no better off becoming a doctor, why would you bother? THEREIN lies the failing.

Except this failing doesn't exist in reality. Doctors in the UK or Germany get paid far better than a janitor. There's just less administrative overhead and profit demands sucking huge amounts of wealth out of the system in the process. Your average experienced British or German physician makes well into six figures if not multiple six figures, much like your average experienced US physician. Labor markets still exist, the need for incentives doesn't go away. Even in the highly socialist environment of the military (where everyone works for the government, all the equipment is owned by the government, the bases & land they're built on is owned by the government, etc), there are different pay scales based on skill, seniority, role, etc.

And something like socializing healthcare or housing is drastically different than organizing defense or rescue services.

Only in the methods, not fundamental concepts.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
So the TL;DR is that it's Trump's opinion that "millions" of people voted illegally (which we all know is just as good as fact), he doesn't understand the basics of research papers, and doesn't like it when reporters tell the truth if it isn't what people want to hear.

Trump is actually trying to argue that there's millions of illegal votes cast... in non-swing states. Because if those votes were cast in swing states Trump loses. Instead he's claiming there's mass voter fraud undertaken by people who are too stupid to do it in places where their vote counts.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so serious.

 Just Tony wrote:
Government taking over every aspect of a service gives them no need to be competitive, which leads to gouging (through taxes) which leads to people not being able to afford other necessities, which leads to government expanding to take on more of these services which leads to higher taxes yet until in the fullness of time you hand your entire earnings over in taxes but get your needs distributed to you. Suddenly, what is your incentive to work a more technical job if you are essentially in the same boat as a gas station clerk? If you wind up no better off becoming a doctor, why would you bother? THEREIN lies the failing.

Sorry, but this is just nonsense. We KNOW that the end result of government taking over health care doesn't lead down this bizarre slippery slope to nobody having the ambition to be more than a gas station clerk because there are countries where the government runs health care and there is still plenty of incentive to get a better job. You still get better working conditions, and you still get a bigger paycheck even if you pay more in taxes than you might in the anarcho-capitalist paradise.

I never said private property, as I was clearly talking about property from a real estate perspective got any better rebuttals?

Then your argument makes no sense. For your theory about socialism to make any sense you have to get rid of ALL property. If you can still own private property and only land is state-owned then there is still plenty of incentive for ambition and the capitalist system can continue to run just fine. You might not be able to own a piece of land, but you can still own all sorts of other desirable things.

Oh, for the record I'm glad to see you posting. After all the things you said about the current establishment I was worried that Mike Pence's Grand Imperial Republican Military Police of Christ had rounded up the entirety of the LGBT community and all their supporters into concentration camps.

Good to see you're taking the thread seriously and not just strawmanning things for cheap laughs. Oh wait...

 Just Tony wrote:


The point was that since taking office, the business that my plant is in has fluctuated in insecurity to the point that there were several layoffs. One got me while I was working as an agency employee, and two essentially got me while working as a full time employee. The fact that we've called back all the layoff employees (at least the ones that would return) and started hiring agency workers again PLUS have enough work to get basically all the overtime we want is what I list as a positive. I make just north of $24 an hour, I don't hurt for money, but having enough business to earn extra and be able to splurge on things is more than a plus. That wasn't happening under Obama, and Clinton was intending to double down on most if not all of his policies.

That's fair enough, but somehow I find it faulty to think that a guy who hasn't even been in office for a week yet was somehow responsible for it.

They did not believe in owning land.

Except they did. They even sold and traded land among one another, which is probably different in the East and West coast tribes I'm familiar with compared to those elsewhere. Plains Indian tribes switched to a highly nomadic society once the Horse was introduced to the continent, and may not have had conceptions of land ownership comparable to ours. The More sedentary tribes, like pretty much anyone who isn't nomadic of course believed in property rights. You can't manage a sedentary, or even a quasi-nomadic culture, without managing the expectations of land use. Natives engaged in private, familial, and communal land ownership. Land tenure, stewardship, fee simple, and feudal systems were all in use by different tribes. Land ownership was not remotely foreign as a concept, nor was it forbidden.

The Plains Tribes are the only ones I know of off the top of my head who didn't engage in it, and not because the concept was foreign but because it wasn't much worth to them. Once the Horse was introduced by the Spanish the plains Indians switched from be quasi-nomadic to be straight nomadic, but they still recognized a degree of land ownership in regards to tribal groups.

Useful link[. A good book that covers the issue to a degree is Looking East From Indian Country by Daniel Richter. TV movies and idealized notions of nature loving hippie Indians invented by environmentalists in the 70s are a really bad source of info.

The land was, to them, a very sacred thing.

That's just another myth...

It's mostly an invention of 18th century white folks arguing that it was perfectly fine to take Indian lands because they didn't own it anyway (which is funny cause they fought an awful lot over their borders with the US for people who didn't believe in owning land).

Most other tribes lived a nomadic life, which didn't involve possession of land in the Western sense.

This is also a myth. Native Tribes in the American South were very sedentary, as were those in the South West, North West, and North East. The Plains tribes eventually became nomadic, but only after the introduction of the horse.

They had territories that they had to defend from rival tribes from time to time, but no true property ownership.

This is self contradictory. Either you recognize that you can own land, or you cannot. if you're defending territory from other tribes then you recognize that the land is yours. Fee Simple is not the own form of land ownership. Most of Western Europe hadn't even established Fee Simple ownership by the time of colonization, and was still operating on a loss tenure/steward system. The exception was England where a large number of people owned their own land outright, and these stereotypes you're falling back on are very classic Anglo assumptions about Native tribes.

That is why they didn't protest the land deals in the back

Except they did... What you think all those wars were just because they didn't like the smell?

You also didn't touch the part about technological stagnation and lack of innovation, but that's because there is nothing to dispute.

it's faulty to assume that just because natives didn't achieve the technological level of Western Europe that they weren't capable of innovation at all. By the time the US was expanding westward the advanced civilizations of North America were largely long dead or had declined from their progress in the wake of forced relocations, violent conflict, and disease. The Pueblo peoples, and the Mississippi Mound Builders for example. The former are still around, but they stopped living in those famous mesa towns and their farm manors by the 19th century, and the Mississippi Mound builders were probably wiped out by diseases that traveled rapidly along their advanced and well developed cities and trade routes.

You're operating on an extremely broad brush here. The Pueblo people were a quasi-Feudal society when the Spanish first encountered them, complete with manor houses and multi-story buildings. The Iroquois moved around when a large group of Iroquois moved, they didn't just pack up tents. They disassembled an entire village and carried it by hand as much as a week away and rebuilt it, then built earthwork fortifications. They'd stay in one spot for as much as thirty years. It's not even clear what drove the movement; resource depletion in the initial settlement area, or simple generation movement to a new location from an old one. The classic American log cabin? The Europeans developed it by mixing knowledge from Europe with knowledge gained from Indians. A tribes practices were defined far more by the economic activity they engaged in than some overarching concept of the holiness of the land. The Iroquois were hunters and farmers (lots more hunting when the fur trade became profitable), the pueblo had complex and well developed irrigation systems, and the North West tribes created some of the first fish farms.

The Americas were settled much latter than the Indus, or the Middle East. Native Americans were a vast group, and if anything stunted their development it was the sudden arrival of Europeans who'd been sedentary and developing for much longer than they had. By the time Pre-Columbian groups began building complex cities, the Europeans, Asians, and even Africans, had been doing it for over 2000 years.

You didn't want to go with Rawhide? Since I was borne in '74, maybe a John Wayne western would be more appropriate. I shouldn't even dignify this with a response, but I want to make it clear that it isn't affecting me in the way you'd hoped

I'll be honest. Blazing Saddles and Bonanza are like the only western TV shows I know by name (though Rawhide does come to mind now that you mention it).

And honestly, if you don't want people to talk like you're getting your history from TV, you could try not falling back on long disproven stereotypes (and that's without even pointing out the sweeping brush you're using).

 sebster wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
So the TL;DR is that it's Trump's opinion that "millions" of people voted illegally (which we all know is just as good as fact), he doesn't understand the basics of research papers, and doesn't like it when reporters tell the truth if it isn't what people want to hear.

Trump is actually trying to argue that there's millions of illegal votes cast... in non-swing states. Because if those votes were cast in swing states Trump loses. Instead he's claiming there's mass voter fraud undertaken by people who are too stupid to do it in places where their vote counts.

It'd be funny if it wasn't so serious.

I'm sure it went something like this:

Illegal voters: Hey, there's like five million of us. Where do you want us to go?

Democrats: Umm... how about California and New York?

Illegal voters: Are you sure we shouldn't go to swing states to secure a victory?

Democrats: Nope. Just those two states.


Just listening to him talk about it just shows you how bizarre Trump really is. He claims that he didn't campaign to win the popular vote and that doing so would have been easier (it wouldn't have) but if he wanted to he could have and that he didn't lose the popular vote because of all of the millions of "illegal voters" but he also did lose the popular vote because he wasn't actually campaigning for it. Also, the fact that he sat on national television and claimed he never campaigned in California or New York shows how effortlessly he lies. He was in A Whale's Vagina (San Diego) in June, after he had secured the nomination and all other candidates had dropped from the primary. He was in New York ten times after the RNC, most of which were 'off the record' but two were actual campaign stops.

Trumpian logic is weird, man.

 LordofHats wrote:
The Americas were settled much latter than the Indus, or the Middle East. Native Americans were a vast group, and if anything stunted their development it was the sudden arrival of Europeans who'd been sedentary and developing for much longer than they had. By the time Pre-Columbian groups began building complex cities, the Europeans, Asians, and even Africans, had been doing it for over 2000 years.

While this would intuitively seem to be the case, its actually a different factor entirely. The development of complex civilization; towns, cities, etc, was indeed stunted in a way, but not due to any inherent trait of the Native Americans themselves. Rather, North and South America do not have any large animals that could be domesticated for labor. Europe, Asia, and Africa had cows, oxen, elephants, horses, while the Americas had... Llamas. More importantly, your point stands that it had nothing to do with the government systems in place (which were quite diverse).

 Vaktathi wrote:

Sec. 14. Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.

Awkward, lets make public that we're going to actively treat anyone not a US citizen as a data mining and surveillance target. Beeteedubbs, this is going to fundamentally sink the US-EU Data shield agreement that we just spent years negotiating following the Snowden revalations, which pretty much the entire US tech industry got behind, as the US will violate it by default and may result in US companies being unable to legally do business in the EU.

Yay!

Fething hell. Am I reading that right? If i come to the US for a business trip i have essentially no privacy rights at all? Does that apply to things like data? If my foreigner self uses a US based email host, I have no privacy either?

That really will s rew to over your access yo European business. The Uk won't mind, May is a massive proponent of spying on her plebs.

 CptJake wrote:
If Mexico stops aiding folks from further south (they tightly control who passes through and aid in their passing) because there is not an easy way to pass them through, a lot of it stops at Mexico's southern border.

I live in a country surrounded by water, and people still get in. It is easier (and much cheaper) to walk over a land border, but if a person is going to cross through three countries to reach Mexico just to cross that border, then it is very stupid to think that one wall at the final border is going to stop them.

And your Asia point is borderline silly. Illegal immigrants from our south may be declining, and from Asia may be increasing (generally visa overstays), but the NUMBERS from each are still significantly different. Add Mexico to South and Central American nations and you have many times the total from Asian nations, and it isn't even close.

You say my point on Asia is silly, while you yourself raised South America... by your own figures 1.78m compared to 1.17m. So you're arguing that we really need to talk about 1.78m, but mentioning 1.17m is borderline silly. Funny stuff.

Anyhow, moving past the little debate holes you dig for yourself, and on to the substance of the issue, I'll repeat my point. People without visas from Asia are growing, people from Mexico without visas are declining. Trends matter. Declining illegal immigration from Mexico suggests a problem that is solving itself, primarily through improved economic conditions in Mexico. Arguing you need billions to build a wall for a problem that is solving itself is incredibly stupid policy.

It's a particularly stupid policy when it is likely to downgrade the Mexican economy and give Mexicans greater incentive to get into the USA.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
Mexico is going to bend the knee. The peso was already at an all-time low...today's cancellation puts it at a steady -1%. Nieto is facing two options, (1) bend the knee, (2) face near-certain economic ruin. Have fun with that.

This would make sense if bluster and idiocy was able to influence trade laws. But here in the real world international laws exist, they even apply to the great orange one.

Hence Trump's rather pathetic call to put a 20% tariff on Mexico, that got walked back as just a suggestion the same say, when it was explained to Trump, Pence and the rest of those idiots that you can't actually just create a single nation tariff because you want to. It breaks GATT, it breaks WTO, and those are things the US needs in order for its economy to exist.

Seriously, I know you want to spend the next 4 years cheering on Trump now that you've got one of your team in the whitehouse. But if you just cheer him on each time without reading what he's written, you're going to end up looking like an idiot, a lot. If you have any interest in not looking like an idiot, you are going to need to read a fair bit about Trump's ideas, and not just assume they must be awesome because they came from team red.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
The Americas were settled much latter than the Indus, or the Middle East. Native Americans were a vast group, and if anything stunted their development it was the sudden arrival of Europeans who'd been sedentary and developing for much longer than they had. By the time Pre-Columbian groups began building complex cities, the Europeans, Asians, and even Africans, had been doing it for over 2000 years.

While this would intuitively seem to be the case, its actually a different factor entirely. The development of complex civilization; towns, cities, etc, was indeed stunted in a way, but not due to any inherent trait of the Native Americans themselves. Rather, North and South America do not have any large animals that could be domesticated for labor. Europe, Asia, and Africa had cows, oxen, elephants, horses, while the Americas had... Llamas. More importantly, your point stands that it had nothing to do with the government systems in place (which were quite diverse).

Gah. That's a terrible answer to the question brought to us by my dear frienemy Jared Diamond

A lack of labor animals is an impediment to developing complex agriculture, but it didn't stop the Pueblo, Inca, Omec, Aztects, Maya, or the Mound Builders from developing such systems The first Americans arrived 24-14,000 years ago from Asia (possible some later migrants arrived from the Pacific somehow as there are genetic traces that suggest a possible link, as well as the Sweet Potato mystery) Compare that complex agricultural societies didn't even appear in Eurasia till 10,000 years ago, so really the Americas were making faster progress Though realistically they likely learned of some advanced agricultural techniques from late arrival settlers who appeared on the West Coast as late as 5,000 years ago. EDIT: Speaking of which, there's also a theory the Vikings introduced some improvements to the crop systems used in the far Northeast when they arrived Vinland over 1000 years ago.Viking Artifacts have been found as far south as Maine, though they likely traveled via trade rather than by actual vikings. Even funnier, there's an account in one of the Sagas of a war between the Vikings and the Native tribes of Vinland (called the Skaldi), and it turns out the natives kicked the Viking's asses so hard they were compared to demons XD

Our distant ancestors first began to leave Africa 70,000 years ago, reached India 50,000 years ago, and Asia/Australia (weird right? We got to Australia first) 40,000 years ago. There's still a bit of lag in the Americas, but the most straightforward explanation for it is that food was an abundant enough resource throughout most of the Americas that moving around was more economical for some time linger than it was for the Eurasians (and the geography was somewhat unfriendly to the develop of cosmopolitan societies in many places).




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Herzlos wrote:


Fething hell. Am I reading that right? If i come to the US for a business trip i have essentially no privacy rights at all? Does that apply to things like data? If my foreigner self uses a US based email host, I have no privacy either?

That really will s rew to over your access yo European business. The Uk won't mind, May is a massive proponent of spying on her plebs.

Don't worry. We don't have any either. Not with cell phone and telecom companies selling all our data to the police for millions of our tax dollars

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's a particularly stupid policy when it is likely to downgrade the Mexican economy and give Mexicans greater incentive to get into the USA.

Yeah, this is the incoherence that is Trump. He wants to build a wall that won't actually stop people, and at the same time he wants to create economic chaos in Mexico that will actually drive an increase in people wanting to come to the US.

 sebster wrote:
Yeah, this is the incoherence that is Trump. He wants to build a wall that won't actually stop people, and at the same time he wants to create economic chaos in Mexico that will actually drive an increase in people wanting to come to the US.

And it all comes back to this: 60 million people voted for this insanity. Weep for this country...

The mexicans could argue that they will take down this wall and the americans are going to pay for it.

 wuestenfux wrote:
The mexicans could argue that they will take down this wall and the americans are going to pay for it.

But will they do a slid Reagan impersonation when they cry "Mr. Presidente! Bring down this muro!"