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Because if we had a popular vote system, he would have lost.

There is no reason to believe that.

First: the gap between Trump and Clinton was so slim that it's within the Margin For Error- meaning we currently do not know who won the popular vote. Granted, it is more likely than not Hillary, but that's a 60/40 split on the odds. Those odds may work for Vegas and shitty reporters, but not for me or the future of a country. A nationwide recount would be required, one so thorough that we still, today would not know who won the election.

considering what was revealed during Jill Stein's short-lived push for a recount

Then there is this. If the trends from the recounts are accurate to the whole country (which I seriously doubt) then Trump won the popular by at least two or three million votes. But that would still be within margin for error here.

Plus, well, a lot of people see their vote as meaningless, so they don't vote. Over 90 million eligible voters simply chose not to. My mother, as an example, has never in her life voted for anyone. Full stop.

The largest percent of those voters? Live in "already decided" states.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-california-voters-20161107-story.html

Now, this is true of both Dems and Reps (states like Texas and California, respectively) but by sheer mass of population, a straight vote actually favors Republicans. Because, well, California and New York. California has 38+ million people, roughly. New York has almost 20 million (8.5 in the NYC itself). Another 11 mil scattered elsewhere.

Turnout in battleground states is always higher.

7.4% greater turnout. Which translates to roughly 15% more of the voting population turning up.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2012/12/23/voter-turnout-swing-states/1787693/

Now, if we look at NY's largest bordered neighbor, PA.

410px-2012_Pennsylvania_congressional_districts_by_party.png


That slammed hard to the Right this time around. Well... you can expect there'd be a lot of New York voters that'd go for Trump if they thought their vote mattered. Numbers would climb for Reps in the big states.

Compared to, say, Texas. Almost 28 million people. Which would get a bunch of Dem voters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Census

That's all states.

Now, if that 15% voting population increase favors the candidate that cannot win the state by even as much as 2%... (in short, a 6.5% for the winner, and 8.5% for the loser)... well... the only times in recent history that Democrats could have won would have been Obama and Kennedy. Both of whom had unusual and remarkable campaign and demographic outcomes. All other elections would have favored Republicans too heavily.

In other words: you should be glad the Electoral College is there. It's what keeps Republicans in Urban California from bothering to vote. Granted, it also keeps Democrats in Rural Montana from voting. But do you know how many people live in Rural Montana? Twelve. There are exactly twelve people living in Montana.

... On the other hand, a straight vote would force both political parties to behave completely differently to how they currently behave, and thus there is no reason at all to assume anything we know about American Politics would resemble anything as we think about it.

We're in the "so many potential x-factors in this alternate universe that there's a good chance none of our parents' parents would have ever met" realm.
 
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He's mostly right though; his only failing in saying that was not expanding his statement to include all polls being fake news. The fact that every single one said he was going to lose the election should have clued everyone in on that.

Are you going to actually contribute to the conversation, or are you just going to keep quoting sources without establishing context? Because if it's the latter, then I'm sorry; that doesn't constitute an argument, and you fail at debating.

Polls simply take a sample of population at random to get an example of what the larger group believes, since it is inefficient to ask everyone. It isn't exact, which is why margins on errors exist. People's opinions change overtime, so while 50% may support one thing today, 30% could support it tomorrow. Polls should not be used for prediction, which is why election polls aren't very useful since they are inherently trying to predict who is going to vote.

Gallup's poll right now is 52% Disapprove, 42% Approve, with a margin of error of ±3
http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx
So the actual number is somewhere between
55-49 Disapprove, and 45-39 Approve.
Unless there is a major fuck-up in methodology.
 
There is no reason to believe that.

First: the gap between Trump and Clinton was so slim that it's within the Margin For Error- meaning we currently do not know who won the popular vote.
No. 3 million people is not slim. We do in fact know who won the popular vote. Hilary.
In other words: you should be glad the Electoral College is there.
Yeah, no. Twice in living memory it has benefited the GOP by putting someone in office. Both times the candidate was far worse than the one they were running against.
 
Bad faith debating
Citation of said stories. In order to compare to what Breitbart has done, they have to have outright sought from the start to make a false news story, to the point of having several people working on it.

No they don't. Please provide evidence of the NYT or similar papers doing something on par with the false ACORN scandal, or the planned parenthood scandal. Both of which were literally made up.
Were you not paying attention to the election coverage? Or is it that their reporting matched your own biases, and thus you accepted it as fact?

Fine then; just to prove a point, I'll indulge you. Now I don't follow the New York Times religiously, so I can only recall one major example that doesn't involve the election off the top of my head (as I suspect you'd immediately reject anything I posted regarding that), but do you remember the build up to Bush's war in Iraq? How the New York Times published various "scoops" from Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a man who's word the intelligence community considered highly suspect? Their reporting was instrumental in convincing the Democrats to go along with invading Iraq and marginalizing anyone who was opposed; leading to the deaths of millions, and a region that still hasn't recovered. I think that's quite a bit worse than anything Breitbart is accountable for.

Face it; the New York Times has been a mouthpiece for the political establishment for decades. The only reason they're against Trump now, is because they don't see him as being part of that.
 
Fine then; just to prove a point, I'll indulge you. Now I don't follow the New York Times religiously, so I can only recall one major example that doesn't involve the election off the top of my head (as I suspect you'd immediately reject anything I posted regarding that), but do you remember the build up to Bush's war in Iraq? How the New York Times published various "scoops" from Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a man who's word the intelligence community considered highly suspect? Their reporting was instrumental in convincing the Democrats to go along with invading Iraq and marginalizing anyone who was opposed, leading to the deaths of millions, and a region that still hasn't recovered. I think that's quite a bit worse than anything Breitbart is accountable for.

Face it; the New York Times has been a mouthpiece for the political establishment for decades. The only reason they're against Trump now, is because they don't see him as being part of that.

So they fucked up and did not do proper diligence. That is not the same thing as maliciously fabricating a story from whole cloth. That is an order of magnitude worse.
 
Bad faith debating
Citation of said stories. In order to compare to what Breitbart has done, they have to have outright sought from the start to make a false news story, to the point of having several people working on it.
Honey, you don't set the rules. I need only back up what I've said, not some set of goal posts a hundred yards from what I've said.

New York times publishes fabricated stories and indulges in plagiarism:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...6aca28-d45d-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html

Washington Post publishes fabricated story:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevle...ssian-hacking-of-the-power-grid/#4fa79fc0291e

CNN analyst parrots hoax:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/cnn-commentator-believes-hoax-story-mother-died-trump-travel-ban/
 
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So they fucked up and did not do proper diligence. That is not the same thing as maliciously fabricating a story from whole cloth. That is an order of magnitude worse.
In other words, you're giving them the benefit of the doubt; doesn't Breitbart deserve the same? Oh, right, they don't; because you despise their politics.

I'm done with you.
 
No they don't. Please provide evidence of the NYT or similar papers doing something on par with the false ACORN scandal, or the planned parenthood scandal. Both of which were literally made up.

Something more recent: the Jessica Leeds sexual assault by Trump story was one 'investigated' and ran by the NYTimes and then later found to be bullshit.

That one was just off the top of my head. It's really not difficult to find major political bullshit stories from every major news source.

CBS: the fake Air Force letter (GWB) that cost Dan Rather is career is another.

Brian Williams lost his anchor job at NBC for his fake story about being in a helicopter battle in Iraq? Of course he's on MSNBC now.

MSNBC: HAHAHAHA. Is there one story they cover that's actually true?

Katie Couric's: fake gun control scandal.

etc. Ad nauseam.
 
Honey, you don't set the rules. I need only back up what I've said, not some set of goal posts a hundred yards from what I've said.

New York times publishes fabricated stories and indulges in plagiarism:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...6aca28-d45d-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html

Washington Post publishes fabricated story:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevle...ssian-hacking-of-the-power-grid/#c0798da291e5

CNN analyst parrots hoax:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/cnn-commentator-believes-hoax-story-mother-died-trump-travel-ban/
Yes, an individual was able to lie on the NYT. But they had no part of that as an organization. Once he was exposed as a liar, they did not give him a platform to do more lies with.

The post link does not lead to any page.

Okay. So they believed in something that was not true.

None of that compares to outright setting out to fabricate a news story out of whole cloth, using deceptive editing to outright lie to people about what happened.
In other words, you're giving them the benefit of the doubt; doesn't Breitbart deserve the same? Oh, right, they don't; because you despise their politics.

I'm done with you.
No, I do not give Breitbart the benefit of the doubt because what they did was not a fuck up. They intentionally set out to fabricate a news story as a political hit piece. Twice. Show me a time when the "MSM" did the same. Not bad reporting. Outright premeditated lies, using deceptive editing.
Something more recent: the Jessica Leeds sexual assault by Trump story was one 'investigated' and ran by the NYTimes and then later found to be bullshit.

That one was just off the top of my head. It's really not difficult to find major political bullshit stories from every major news source.

CBS: the fake Air Force letter (GWB) that cost Dan Rather is career is another.

Brian Williams lost his anchor job at NBC for his fake story about being in a helicopter battle in Iraq? Of course he's on MSNBC now.

MSNBC: HAHAHAHA. Is there one story they cover that's actually true?

Katie Couric's: fake gun control scandal.

etc. Ad nauseam.
None of that is on par with intentionally fabricating a news story.
 
No. 3 million people is not slim. We do in fact know who won the popular vote. Hilary.

Yeah, no. Twice in living memory it has benefited the GOP by putting someone in office. Both times the candidate was far worse than the one they were running against.

Such balanced and accurate claims full of facts and logic. Many citations and proof of your stance. Much wow. ... Oh, wait, you provided none of those things.


Additionally... there will be one additional rule for this thread.
- Be ready to cite your source, admit that your evidence is anecdotal, or concede the debate.

I plan to start reporting people who aren't following this rule.

None of that is on par with intentionally fabricating a news story.
What about intentionally covering up news stories?

http://www.dailywire.com/news/8417/cnn-cut-out-what-milwaukee-shooting-victims-sister-chase-stephens
 
No, I do not give Breitbart the benefit of the doubt because what they did was not a fuck up. They intentionally set out to fabricate a news story as a political hit piece. Twice. Show me a time when the "MSM" did the same. Not bad reporting. Outright premeditated lies, using deceptive editing.
That's quite the large claim there, asserting that Breitbart "intentionally set out to fabricate a news story as a political hit piece". No doubt this statement feels emotionally valid to you, but I require something more: proof.

Cite your proof that Breitbart did as you have just claimed.

Such balanced and accurate claims full of facts and logic. Many citations and proof of your stance. Much wow. ... Oh, wait, you provided none of those things.

What about intentionally covering up news stories?

http://www.dailywire.com/news/8417/cnn-cut-out-what-milwaukee-shooting-victims-sister-chase-stephens
Not to mention deliberately representing what a person said, as being the opposite of what they said. "oooooh peaceful calls for peace" as opposed to the "burn the suburbs" bit they choose to edit out.
 
You guys remember when Scott Adams was mocked for this:
Note: I endorsed Hillary Clinton – for my personal safety – because I live in California. It isn't safe to be viewed as a Trump supporter where I live. My politics don't align with either candidate, but backing Clinton reduces my odds of dying at the hands of my fellow citizens. (And yes, I am 100% serious. It just happens to be funny by coincidence.)

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/156778990841/berkeley-and-hitler

https://regiehammblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/this-hitler-nonsense/
There are some fundamental things to understand about Hitler:
1. He took over a small, failing state that didn't have separated government, enumerated powers or checks and balances. It's difficult for a guy like that to show up here, in this system.
2. His entire political career was violent from the beginning. There was always death in his wake. He didn't just suddenly "turn" violent. It was a pattern …as it always is with sociopaths. This is THE most important thing to watch; the violence. I always keep an eye on who is rioting …breaking things …throwing rocks and bombs. It doesn't make them Nazis. But it signals how far they're willing to go.
3. He entered office with his own personal military construct (the SS) with allegiance to him ONLY. They would carry out things the regular military would never carry out: i.e. the murder of private citizens and political opponents. Nothing like that exists or COULD exist in America. We simply wouldn't allow it.
4. He didn't start out just killing Jews. He started out euthanizing people with special needs …for the betterment of the care-givers' lives. (You can decide which side of the aisle favors the extermination of "inconvenient" people).
5. He disarmed the population, then nationalized healthcare and education. (Two-out-of-three of those are Bernie Sanders moves …But, guess what? Bernie isn't Hitler either …not by a long shot)
The list goes on and on.
-Skip-
But if you study enough about it, you realize the guy vetting and banning refugees is probably not Hitler …the guy CREATING refugees probably is.
If we keep looking for Hitler in every United States president we disagree with, we're not going to recognize the real one when he actually shows up …in a different country.
Sharing is caring.
 
None of that is on par with intentionally fabricating a news story.

The Dan Rather story was intentionally fabricated from the beginning. That's why he lost his job. The type writer they used to fabricate the story false document, from scratch, hadn't even been invented yet. That was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Brian Williams story was a flat out lie, intentionally fabricated to make himself look good in a situation he was never in. There were too many witnesses and he and/or the network couldn't get to all of them before the story was broken wide open.

Katie Couric intentionally had a video tape edited to make her story look and herself look good. The actual unedited video came to light and they couldn't cover it up.
 
Such balanced and accurate claims full of facts and logic. Many citations and proof of your stance. Much wow. ... Oh, wait, you provided none of those things.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/

Bush, 2000. Trump, 2016.
That's quite the large claim there, asserting that Breitbart "intentionally set out to fabricate a news story as a political hit piece". No doubt this statement feels emotionally valid to you, but I require something more: proof.

Cite your proof that Breitbart did as you have just claimed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN..._by_the_U.S._Government_Accountability_Office

http://www.alternet.org/election-20...ced-and-promoted-breitbart-news-and-new-trump

And now we reach the part where you make up reasons why this does not count.
 
Bush, 2000. Trump, 2016.
You proved he apparently lost the popular vote- which I never disputed. Save to point out it's well within margin for error.

You have shown NO argument against ANY of the rest of it. No facts, no evidence, not even logical argument. Just claiming you're right and I'm wrong.

Citation or concession needed.
 
First: the gap between Trump and Clinton was so slim that it's within the Margin For Error- meaning we currently do not know who won the popular vote.
You proved he apparently lost the popular vote- which I never disputed.
:rolleyes:
You have shown NO argument against ANY of the rest of it. No facts, no evidence, not even logical argument. Just claiming you're right and I'm wrong.
The rest of what? My claim that Bush and Trump were both worse? Bush got us involved in a fucking useless war in Iraq, a massive unforced error. He outright ignored warning that Bin Laden was determined to attack the US.

Trump is an incompetent manchild who has no idea what he is doing. He is utterly destroying our soft power with regards to other nations.
What, what is that supposed to prove?
He asked for a citation of the popular vote thing and the EC benefiting the GOP. I provided it.
 
Rule 1, bad faith in politics. This is your final warning.

. Save to point out it's well within margin for error.

Cherry pick, much? I mean, it was literally the following sentence. Not even a different paragraph.

He asked for a citation of the popular vote thing and the EC benefiting the GOP. I provided it.
Untrue. I asked for citations to disprove everything I said and provided citations for. You provided none of those. Your actual citation was to disprove something I never actually said.

I brought the math. You brought ad homonyms, unsubstantiated claims, and your belief that you can see the future and alternate realities.

You're turning into another ugolino. Please stop that.
 
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The fact that in a few recent elections the electoral college's result has diverged from the nationwide popular vote, in a direction favoring the modern Republican party, is in fact just an epiphenomenon of its real purpose. It is a fact that, in the written constitution, the presidential election process is defined in terms of the electoral college, making no mention of the nationwide popular vote at all — or, indeed, any popular vote. Originally, the selection of electors by a statewide election was the extent of the popular participation in the presidential election; it certainly wasn't expected that a state's electors would unanimously and unconditionally vote for the candidate that won that state's popular vote. The US written constitution is consistent here as everywhere else: the federal government is called so for a reason, as a federation of the then-sovereign states, and the election of the highest federal office is a matter between the states, not the states' populations. This is just one instance of the broad pattern by which federal government is, constitutionally, administered by elaborate republican processes designed specifically to provide substantial isolation from pure majoritarianism. The "nationwide popular vote" is in fact a completely meaningless quantity, a statistical aggregation which, for purely contingent reasons, often aligns with the result of the (modern) electoral college; acting as if it either substantiates or vitiates the legitimacy of a presidential election betrays only complete ignorance of the actual intended structure of the federal government.

In practice, under the modern system in which electors are de facto unconditionally allocated by individual statewide popular vote, the electoral college retains one important aspect of its original purpose: it distributes power among the states. To do otherwise hands quite disproportionate power to the larger states, who could deliver an election based on a 60% or 70% victory, utterly regardless of the intent of the rest of the nation. Many are not eager to hand control over the entire nation to California and New York, particularly given that under these circumstances the actual popular vote winner would take weeks to determine (how long did it take to nail down California's final tally, again?).

From the modern view, this looks like it "benefits the GOP", given that in the modern calculus the Democrats are the urban party and the Republicans the rural. But it exists for important structural reasons, and tearing it down because of transient party advantage is utterly short-sighted and destructive. Which is hardly unexpected from the 20th-century entropic Left, but those who actually know how to think should at least consider the consequences of their advocacy.
 
Untrue. I asked for citations to disprove everything I said and provided citations for. You provided none of those. Your actual citation was to disprove something I never actually said.
You said this:
Such balanced and accurate claims full of facts and logic. Many citations and proof of your stance. Much wow. ... Oh, wait, you provided none of those things.
In response to this.
No. 3 million people is not slim. We do in fact know who won the popular vote. Hilary.

Yeah, no. Twice in living memory it has benefited the GOP by putting someone in office. Both times the candidate was far worse than the one they were running against.

You asked for sources in response to a specific post. I provided them.

Untrue. I asked for citations to disprove everything I said and provided citations for. You provided none of those. Your actual citation was to disprove something I never actually said.
Please stop lying.
I brought the math. You brought ad homonyms, unsubstantiated claims, and your belief that you can see the future and alternate realities.
Being able to predict that Gore would not get us in a war with Iraq and would pay more attention to Bin Laden is not some magical power. It is common sense.

Similarly, it is easy to tell that Hilary would not have done shitloads of poorly made and illegal executive orders.
 
Mod action = threadbans now.
We started a brand new thread, and you will remember that it is no longer in Rants. I will no longer tolerate moving goalposts, evidence that does not support your assertions, and the kind of nonsense that you got away with in that subforum.

This is my ONLY warning post. Every other moderator action I take in this thread will result in a minimum threadban of one day, escalating based on previous behavior in this and previous threads.


Were you not paying attention to the election coverage? Or is it that their reporting matched your own biases, and thus you accepted it as fact?

Fine then; just to prove a point, I'll indulge you. Now I don't follow the New York Times religiously, so I can only recall one major example that doesn't involve the election off the top of my head (as I suspect you'd immediately reject anything I posted regarding that), but do you remember the build up to Bush's war in Iraq? How the New York Times published various "scoops" from Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a man who's word the intelligence community considered highly suspect? Their reporting was instrumental in convincing the Democrats to go along with invading Iraq and marginalizing anyone who was opposed; leading to the deaths of millions, and a region that still hasn't recovered. I think that's quite a bit worse than anything Breitbart is accountable for.

Face it; the New York Times has been a mouthpiece for the political establishment for decades. The only reason they're against Trump now, is because they don't see him as being part of that.
This does not support your assertion that the New York Times is as unreliable as Brietbart. You will post in good faith or you will not post here.

Honey, you don't set the rules. I need only back up what I've said, not some set of goal posts a hundred yards from what I've said.

New York times publishes fabricated stories and indulges in plagiarism:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...6aca28-d45d-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html

Washington Post publishes fabricated story:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevle...ssian-hacking-of-the-power-grid/#4fa79fc0291e

CNN analyst parrots hoax:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/cnn-commentator-believes-hoax-story-mother-died-trump-travel-ban/
I do set the rules, and RobotNinja's request is perfectly reasonable in my eyes. This does not support your assertion that the New York Times is as unreliable as Brietbart. You will post in good faith or you will not post here.

Cherry pick, much? I mean, it was literally the following sentence. Not even a different paragraph.

Untrue. I asked for citations to disprove everything I said and provided citations for. You provided none of those. Your actual citation was to disprove something I never actually said.

I brought the math. You brought ad homonyms, unsubstantiated claims, and your belief that you can see the future and alternate realities.

You're turning into another ugolino. Please stop that.
You will post in good faith or you will not post here. No shifting goalposts.
 
You will post in good faith or you will not post here. No shifting goalposts.

I did not shift goalposts. I made assertions in a 500+ word thread with multiple citations, some math, and logical conclusions.

There is no reason to believe that.

In other words: you should be glad the Electoral College is there.

Which includes these things, the more or less beginning and ends to that 500 word mini essay. They were framework points. To which this was the response.

No. 3 million people is not slim. We do in fact know who won the popular vote. Hilary.

Yeah, no. Twice in living memory it has benefited the GOP by putting someone in office. Both times the candidate was far worse than the one they were running against.

Which is effectively claiming what I said was wrong. Which is fine, that's kinda how debate works. But he's consistently refused to back the argument up or show why my original post that he's attacking is wrong in any way.

It's not shifting goalposts to expect him to defend his original claim that I was wrong, by showing HOW I was wrong, especially when I already provided my part of the logic chain in advance.
 
If you cannot explain how my argument is in bad faith, how am I supposed to correct my behavior in the future?
This does not support your assertion that the New York Times is as unreliable as Brietbart.
I am not in the habit of repeating myself. This lack of reading comprehension shows that you are either unwilling or incapable of debating in good faith. Take a one week vacation from this thread to think about how you can improve.
 
I do set the rules, and RobotNinja's request is perfectly reasonable in my eyes. This does not support your assertion that the New York Times is as unreliable as Brietbart. You will post in good faith or you will not post here
Oh, look. A wild leftist appears, glad to make the political personal and use whatever authority is at hand to favor leftist agenda.
I am not in the habit of repeating myself. This lack of reading comprehension shows that you are either unwilling or incapable of debating in good faith. Take a one week vacation from this thread to think about how you can improve.

A claim was made that Breitbart fabricated stories, when I claimed that other news outlets were no different. I then provided proof that said news outlets fabricated stories. Then you show up and attempted to pretend that the case had not been proven. Fucking sad.

Everything that you do on the Internet, I will pay forward against leftists politicians in actionable positions. This is your only warning.
 
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