RNC 2020 Thread

Fracking: see article in other post. This far, Biden has called for limiting new permits on fracking, and using 100% renewable energy by the year 2050 as a goal. Not too unreasonable of a timeline I'd say.

Iran: the inspectors limited steps towards their building if bombs in combination with sanctions as enforcement. How is it better now that they have no restrictions or checks?

Military spending: countries like China don't give out their numbers directly, but experts are able to make approximations based on their total shown spending, equipment purchase records, analysis of total spending minus other non-military projects, and other factors. The estimate is likely +/- a few billion, but even if their spending was outrageously higher (double for instance) we are still massively outpacing them. Especially when you consider military spending per capita.

 

Yes, fracking has been around a while and has gotten something of a bad rap by conservationists. We have achieved energy independence. You cannot begin to know just how liberating that is. I was a gas pumper back in the mid-70’s when we first discovered just how precarious our independence on middle eastern oil was. Gas was 35 cents a gallon. And suddenly overnight it was almost a dollar a gallon and gas stations had a very limited supply. Those were scary times. This outset of this recent pandemic reminded me how foolish we are as a nation to rely on the rest of the world for our needs....... Now the conservationists would have you think that the day after we elect Biden all oil should stop pumping and overnight our vehicles will run on butterfly wings and fallen tree leaves. The real world doesn’t work that way. I am comfortable financially, but I can only afford a new car every eight years or so. Imagine the impact an overnight change will have on the average struggling family. Most folks can not afford a new 30k vehicle forced on them to satisfy the conservationists...... These things flesh out in time and we have to let them. And energy independence is our greatest strength as we move toward alternate energy sources.

 

I definitely agree with you it may be a necessary "evil" in the meantime, have you seen Biden's plans? He would support existing fracking, but limit permits for new operations, moving towards 100% renewable energy by 2050, which seems like a measured approach.

Mostly I'd just like some common sense regulation of it like staying out of residential areas and areas with freshwater reservoirs. The pollution of water supply is the most concerning issue to me. It's a bit scary that it's causing some seismic activity too, but I highly doubt we have the technology to do major damage in that regard so long as we're not doing it near homes.

 

I have heard that plan. And I think that 2050 is an admirable goal. But that is rather like saying every young man is an adult at 18. We all know many of them aren’t. Maturity comes in its own time just as wholesale change does. But I’ll let you in on a secret that lurks in the darkest regions of my mind and I would surmise many moderate-conservative leaning folks minds as well...... Joe Biden has been part of the Washington establishment for decades. While he is a man of principle and character, he isn’t viewed as a particularly strong individual by many of us. I believe he doesn’t have the fortitude to carry out an agenda of his own and as a result his agenda will become the agenda of the most extreme and vociferous part of the Democratic Party. And those are the die hard conservationists. In many respects, Joe Biden is the most electable person that will be the ultimate face of an extreme agenda led by others..... Now you know my deepest fears. I don’t fear change. I don’t like it because I am old and set in my ways. However forced extreme radical change is dangerous simply because it is unnatural.

 

I appreciate the candid response there. I'll agree that I never saw Biden as particularly strong either. What's wild to me though is that most of the Democrats actually fall in line with his plan. The more "extreme" conservationists are people like Bernie and AOC. It blows my mind that people think Biden will be a "puppet" for a guy who isn't even part of the party and a woman who is one of the most junior/low ranking house of reps members in Congress.

 

Wrong . . . we didn't became a net exporter until 2019, and Obama really had nothing to do with that. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42735 . . . In fact, Obama pompously claimed to have made us energy independent after obstructing progress on both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, which President Trump is moving forward.

I was sure that Paleoclimatology had been employed (what else is there?), and it's use in this case needs to be very carefully managed to not arrive at conclusions which are not reliable. Temporal resolution and geographic gaps present enormous challenges to properly modeling climate impacts. The only fair way to compare the data from the past with data from the modern era is not to compare data from proxies against instrumentation-generated data, requiring correlation constants to make the proxy models convincing (how else to put a square peg into a round hole?), but to compare proxy-generated data from the distant past against modern data also generated from proxies. Like that's going to happen . . .

Sorry, but Obama was nowhere near stifling illegal immigration to the extent Trump has. There was a good reason the Border Patrol was so insistent on the need for the Border Wall. Obama's lip service just wasn't getting it done.

Iran test-launched ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear payloads . . . a breach of the agreement. Trump, looking for a reason to extract us from a deal that did not stand in the way of Iranian nuclear arms development, withdrew us from the Iran Deal as a result.

I did look into other information than just that plot. Of greatest importance to minimizing the North Korean nuclear threat and its leverage in international negotiations is the fact that NK has not test-launched a single ICBM - its single greatest threat to America - in nearly 3 years time.

Aside from administrative expenses, such as paying the President, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the maintenance of their respective infrastructure, provision of the National Defense is the only function our forefathers granted the federal government for which a budget should have been necessary.

Mindful of the fact that we substantially alleviate the need for our allies to maintain much greater military capabilities on their own, they really should not be included in the above comparison. Beyond that, consider the bang one gets for their buck before jumping to the conclusion that we necessarily outspend as greatly as you say. For examples, in terms of real purchasing power per currency of the above non-US-allied nations, the picture is considerably more bleak than you paint it.

Conservatively assuming China to be our only adversary, their military purchasing power far exceeds ours, as indicated by the following article by a . . . ready for it? . . . a liberal.

http://www.fahamu.org/ep_articles/c...mRKxxjqq1qZ55kKpAU05TPc9HWvbeAW-LozrxC1CgPNsg

Most do not comprehend the danger that lurks behind the faux smiles of the Communist Chinese leaders, strategizing and executing their long game for global expansion. It's difficult to even try and think about all of the facets to their strategy, but the alternative is to react to it once it's been successfully employed . . .

Furthermore, our next most serious rival, Russia is a potential Chinese ally in a communist Axis, and enjoys military costs just 1/5 those of our own.

Perhaps even more important are the other nations with similarly oppressive inclinations and lower costs of militarization, such as North Korea and Iran . . . they seem to drop off the public radar screen simply because of their low USD-equivalent investments in their military. Fortunately, our intelligence agencies know better than to overlook such threats.

I'm sure we'll see some when China comes back to the table during Phase 2, looking to reduce / eliminate the tariffs.

 

Do you read much? Russia and China are enemies.

 

You should review the lyrics to the “Scarecrow” song from “The Wizard of Oz.” “If only I had a brain” ... That’s Joe Biden. Only a Democrat loyalist can fail to see that he has lost more than few steps. He never was much of an intellectual or a Senator. The man he beat in 1972, Calib Boggs, had as many brain cells left as Biden does now. I know because I heard Boggs speak when I was a student at the University of Delaware. After that, Biden rode his incumbency, term after term. Many incumbents do that, including Republicans.

Biden has nothing left. If Trump controlled the Democrat Party, he would go along with him. The man is an empty vessel. You know that, but you Democrats support him because he has the image of a “moderate” who will win the election for you, and hand over the presidency to Harris who might or might not have a mind of her own.

 

So in walks granpa to trot out the joe biden is senile trope. this has been disproven and trump is even wailing about drug testing him now.

 

Strange bedfellows, yes . . . enemies, no.

They have a common cause . . . to bring down democracy.

 

Once old Socialism, Socialism, Socialism! gets a hold of a Fox New Trope, we actually see who is suffering from dementia.

 

Gentlemen...this has been actually one of the most constructive and reasonable threads I’ve read here recently, especially @GeneWright and @toughcoins very detailed and thought provoking claims regarding Trump Era achievements, provided sources and claims, and I was actually very impressed. We are on a good path of civilized discussion.

Here’s some of my other takeaways from this thread so far...

@JoeNation might just need to cool the jets on the excessively angry comments. Especially when those posts include unnecessary profanity. The jest towards @JohnHamilton regarding cancer? Highly distasteful in my opinion. Frowny Face for you —>

@Mopar Dude I noticed a few personal anecdotes and your concerns for the civility and ethical behavior of the world, I believe we all share the same concern, no matter what side your on, we can all agree the world is a bit insane right now.

@FryDaddyJr I definitely did not consider your comment of “feeble old minds” with regard to certain member(s) here to be inappropriate. Frowny face for you —>

@JohnHamilton I saw a lot of heavy claims regarding the threat of communism and stances about President Obama, while your claims are there, and conservatives would definitely most likely agree, sources would definitely help really secure your position.

 

Disproven? Prove it!

 

I didn't either

 

I suspect CB meant the opposite when he used either "did not" or "inappropriate" (but not both).

Big Frowny Face for you . . .

​

 

He can't see my posts anyway. He has chosen to not hear anything he might disagree with. So where is the harm?

 

How many times has old Socialism, Socialism, Socialism called Biden feeble-minded? Live by the sword, die by the sword.

@JohnHamilton is so feeble-minded that he misspelled Florida in his own profile page.

 

Energy independence: you're totally right, my bad. The original graph I was looking at was only for net natural gas imports/exports. Still though, I hardly think this counts as a victory for Trump any more than Obama if it's truly attributable to fracking.

Climate change: this could be a whole thread on its own. I'm going to just leave this one saying I believe the scientists around the world who have dedicated their lives to studying this phenomenon.

Immigration: I don't know what to say. You and the border patrol may say one thing, but the numbers say another.

Iran: still not understanding how this is better than we were before.

NK: counterpoint, they've only launched ICBMs while Trump was in power.

Military spending: I still think it's quite excessive when you imagine the good we could do domestically by forgoing the purchase of just 1 F-35 (~$100,000,000, for purchase alone, over 1 trillion estimated in maintenance over its lifetime). However, I do agree our spending does some good in alleviating need for our allies to spend nearly as much of defense. Thinking about that though, is it the right path for us to spend so much on military supremacy while our allies get things like paid college, universal health, and the like?

Seems like a truly "America first" president would cut military spending to a point where we could defend ourselves adequately and then use the rest to enrich the lives of our people at home. Not that I'm necessarily pro "America first" but it was just a thought I had.

 

Two things I'll offer;

• Hand congress one hundred million and they aren't going to spend it to benefit you. You may not remember the smokescreen of Obamacare. The average voter that didn't invest themselves in the facts truly believed he was getting free health care. And the administration did nothing at all to dissuade that thought process because it was good for votes. In effect all the act accomplished was to make health care a requirement or deal with an IRS penalty. Don't fool yourself into thinking that congress will ever spend any available cash in a manner that doesn't benefit their own voter base.
• I served in a stripped down armed forces. You do not want that. Outdated equipment that half works. A level of morale that is more akin to a losing football team. You don't want that keeping you free...... And further, you can rest assured that the enemies of our nation would like nothing more than to see American pull its shorts down and expose its soft white underbelly. The challenges that we face now would pale in comparison.

 

Other than the fact that Trump approved the pipelines, but wouldn't you know it? They're once again tied up in a partisan judge's courtroom.

Good scientists don't compare apples and oranges, and that's exactly what they are doing. If they truly want to produce credible results, they must derive the compared results from data generated in the same format. Otherwise, all they are performing is climactic alchemy (I "coined" that one myself).

I'm not arguing that the numbers stopped at the border crossings weren't high for Obama. The numbers stopped at the border crossings were high for Trump too . . . but Obama was ineffective at stopping those entering between the border crossings, yet Trump has been much more aggressive and effective in that regard.

Because the EU now feels more pressure to hold the line with Iran which they would not do when the USA was involved.

My own counterpoint . . . which they developed while Obama was in power, and Trump pressured Kim Jong Il to put a quick end to that testing in particular.

Yeah, I don't like the cost of that plane. If it was the same platform for all 3 branches, it would have been much more affordable. It started out that way, and then scope creep destroyed the project.

$1 Trillion seems quite high for maintenance . . . $1 Billion I could believe.

Have you not heard Trump pressuring our allies to foot more of the bill for defense and military preparedness? He's not exactly out of touch with regard to how much it costs us to be the world's police.

There's that liberal propensity again . . . It is not the government's job to enrich the lives of the people at home . . . that job belongs to the people themselves.