After this's all over, I hope the U.S. gov't bills Trump for the damage he's done to our reputation

[fcknoise]

Hey thanks man, it's always nice to hear people who enjoys your occasional ramblings.

That last repub debate was the funniest shit. When Ted Cruz lashed out at Rubio in Spanish that was intense. Swedish politics are sometimes boring enough to make the clocks stop ticking, it's refreshing to see some real bloodlust

[UglyCasanova]

You're forgetting the most important day in Swedish politics:
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/KjxL5bc

[Chankgeez]

Hey, your Minister for the Environment's kinda cute for a Minister for the Environment.

"Greetings, Minister for the Environment."

[UglyCasanova]

Denmark wins at cutest minister for the environment

[Chankgeez]

It's too bad Arne Næss isn't still alive. He was the cutest:

[fcknoise]

You're forgetting the most important day in Swedish politics:
http://m.imgur.com/gallery/KjxL5bc

You might be forgetting about the time three parliamentary politicians got drunk a Friday night, found a famous comedian and called him the Swedish equivalent of the n-word for people from the Middle East, called a random girl a whore and found big iron pipes to beat another drunk dude up. And they filmed it all themselves. And someone accidentally sent it to the biggest newspaper

[taco satori]

That last repub debate was the funniest shit. When Ted Cruz lashed out at Rubio in Spanish that was intense.

Yeah, I dislike them both so much that it kind of sucked when I felt a super-brief pang of sadness for Cruz trying to use his not-so-great command of Spanish on Rubio, mostly because my Spanish is also not very good and because his relationship to the language is so close (his dad) yet so far (there wasn't much of a need or desire for him to pursue it)

[D.o.S.]

Ted Cruz isn't close to anything human, don't feel bad.

[taco satori]

I know, I know. I'm working against all that conditioning whereby we sympathize with the villain.

[Faldoe]

There are a LOT of lies regarding muslims that are floating around. Judaism is a religion, but throughout history jews has been blamed in conspiratorial ways, harassed, and discriminated which culminated in the holocaust. In essence it has always been about pointing to something people perceive as different and blaming them for stuff. I think mostly being aggressively critical of islam is a very simple way to view the world. There has been no causal relationship between islam and crime versus say, a christian given that every thing else stays the same. Saying that it is then is in fact, racist, because it build on some idea that even though evidence shows that this particular attribute does not make a person more violent they wont take it. If any observation is made about muslim people committing more crime than par, you have to look at surrounding factors. Islam and race is equated because all the surrounding factors of old school "I hate their skin color"-racism are still in place. Of course it's alright to criticise specific religious practices and stuff, but there are a lot of people using the critique of islam to cover up their actual racism too. Personally I don't believe that religion should have anything to do with politics.

The rape-thing is something that is debatable too. honestly. While it seems that men who are taken away everything often resort to taking pride in extreme masculinity, and this can lead to sexual violence, it's hard to actually show evidence that rape is more common among these minorities than with native people. It's really a infected debate, and sexual violence is an issue that is viewed from a lot of angles. Pro-women movements claim that the same people calling immigrants rapists are the same that doesn't do a thing for women otherwise, and more often than not are people who are very sexist.

We have a smaller government, but even our government delegates responsibility to regions, who delegates responsibility to the municipalities. So most of it is run on a micro-level. The US has states who are probably capable of doing more or less the same thing, and redistribution of wealth doesn't require any more advanced redistributionary infrastructure than is already in place. But of course, these things aren't that easy to predict.

There seems to be very little that we actually agree on politically, but that's fine with me I don't mind people having different opinions. But I think we are gonna have to agree to disagree in the end.

I missed this post.

Judaism is a religion, but throughout history jews has been blamed in conspiratorial ways, harassed, and discriminated which culminated in the holocaust

People surely have tried blaming the Jews are X, Y and Z but I don't think the people being critical of Islam now are ALL doing the same thing. Most certainly there are people that just perceive all brown people from the "middle east" as terrorists - even people from India, cause said persons just have a general lens of perception of seeing brown people as bad.

I think the Israel/Palestine issue is a good example of "both sides" both engaging in similar fallacies in logic. I put quotes around both sides cause I feel this issue encapsulates people's problems with being unable to look at incidents in a case-by-case basis - say if a particular attack or strike occurs - but they just choose a side and defend that side even when their side does wrong.

There are those on the Israel side who have made this error in logic where they label criticism of Israel's policies - even just ones - as anti-semitic. There are also those on the Palestinian side that take valid criticisms either of Hamas and other Islam as "Islamaphobic." Both sides have blind spots to their own misbehaviors and errors and logic and they overlook them and project them unto "the other"

There has been no causal relationship between islam and crime versus say, a christian given that every thing else stays the same. Saying that it is then is in fact, racist, because it build on some idea that even though evidence shows that this particular attribute does not make a person more violent they wont take it.

When you have women being raped by men that are migrants/refugees - there is evidence to support the claim that refugees are engaging in violence. It is of course important to note how many and or that NOT ALL refugees and thus all Muslims - granted those committing the acts are Muslim - are rapists.

My issues is that because of Political Correctness, it seems more difficult for people - in government especially - to bring these issues up to discuss them. And to discuss them reasonably. Not in some witch hunt manner, but it seems because a more possible reasoned discourse is stifled. Anger and resentment builds in the populous because no one is talking about it and then the right-wing flares up cause they will only talk about it.

Thought stories like this have come out recently:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/01/europe/ge ... ape-false/

https://www.rt.com/news/330180-police-v ... es-sweden/

http://time.com/4182186/sweden-feminist ... -refugees/

[D.o.S.]

Can't we just agree the electoral college is a good thing?

[Mudfuzz]

Can't we just agree the electoral college is a good thing?

no.

[D.o.S.]

Ok. But you're wrong, you know.

[Mudfuzz]

no.

[Chankgeez]

Electoral college is where delegates go to party, right?