@bi4smooth Hmm. Well, I will say that, although I normally agree with everything Raph says, I think he's being a little heavy on you, not sure what happened between you guys. I'm am also a centrist, and I did not vote in the last election. Trump let me down. With all this vaccine stuff, and Biden is worse. But even though I do educational videos about Christianity, Christianity is better than the alternative anarchy. Whether we like it or not, Christianity has laid a safety net for our society to prosper, and that's why billions of people wanna be here. And I'm fine if they do. It's not like the first Americans came in legally... But Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. And we are paying taxes for law enforcement to protect us from them. Because they are violent. It's the gray between the lines and the law, but violent people are a problem for others and we don't have anarchy. That's what it comes down to and it can be unfair but we're working on it. This is the country that everyone wants to come to. And it usually doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat. But Democrats are like Golem, and we will not allow it.

@raphjd and I are like adopted sisters - raised in the same Republican Party, but now locked in an argument about what it means to be a "True Republican"

The thing is, I am a scientist - and I apply the "Scientific Method" to my politics as well... when new information comes in, I'm not afraid to look at old assumptions (even firm beliefs) and question them.

Case in point: I was all-in on the War on Drugs in the 1980s... but it didn't work. You cannot look back at a 50-year-old campaign of trying to stop illegal drug production (while all-but ignoring the mental health crisis that is the demand-side of illegal drug use) - and call it anything BUT and abject, complete, and total failure. We need a new approach.

Another: I was fully in favor of GW Bush's approach to pumping money back into the economy when Lehman Bro's went bankrupt and $Billions literally disappeared out of our economy. Looking back, the idea was good, but the execution (trying to distribute it through private banks) was an awful idea. It made the whole program take FOREVER to show the full results, propped up the very industry that put us INTO the mess to begin with, and we didn't get guarantees from the banks that they'd actually LOAN OUT the money, resulting in most of it being "hoarded" as "paper profits" for corporations who had just taken huge "paper losses". Trump's idea to put the cash directly into people's - working people's - hands was a much better idea... and it quickly showed! (Sadly, the Dems looked at that and said "do it again, daddy" - and the result is going to be an overheated recovery and inflation).

As I've stated here before: I'm not arguing that Mexico isn't a problem... I'm arguing that putting up a wall won't do anything rational or reasonable to help solve the problem. (If a rain storm comes, it makes sense - at first - to close your doors. But not so much if there is no roof on the house to begin with! Most illegal immigration is not people walking across the border. Yes, many do get here that way... but MOST come in legally, then overstay - or come in via ports, airports, and other 'border-ish" locations. Seriously, you think walking thru the dessert is the smart way to sneak into this country? Putting up a wall is akin to plugging a leak in the middle of the dam, while ignoring all the water spilling over the top.)

I'm not a know-it-all... I don't know the best way to handle immigration at the Southern border... but I do know that the left-wing idea of "open borders" is a catastrophically bad idea, and the right-wing idea of closing the borders is equally bad (and would be economically devastating!).

So how do you fix it? You try different things (at the same time), and look at what works... expand those programs that work (even if only a little), and ditch the programs that do not work... Scientific Method!

@bi4smooth Yea, Biden sucks, dude. You're trying WAY to hard. The Truth is simple.

LOL - If you'd take off your "Trump Blinders" and look beyond the SPIN of both parties, you'd realize that both sets of extremes have legitimate gripes and legitimate goals... the problems with both extremes is that their "solutions" are usually over-reaches and violate the concept of freedom.

Freedom is not only my right to carry a gun, it's also your right to shoot back!

You are either extremely delusional due to your extreme TDS or just full of crap.

You will find any reason to prop up Honest Joe, the Pedo.

@bi4smooth Biden is not better. He's worse in every way possible. He doesn't know where he is. Nobody voted for him (you can tell because he had 3 people at one rally), so it makes the country look like there is no country anymore. Very bad, the way this affects people's spirit. He's destroyed the economy by cutting off the pipelines, which will make the cost of gas go up meaning the food prices as well. It's more polluting to ship it overseas. He's done nothing about the border (nothing), so all those kids have ended up in the hands of pedophiles and the drugs pouring over will make the coyotes richer and more powerful. Mexico is the second most dangerous country in the world because it's got gangs, and Biden's policies are enriching them. Let me count the ways. That Democrats are worse.

Wow ... Biden is bad - especially for our economy, but I don't have to make stuff up, be hyperbolic, or use a straw-man to prove my point:

• Biden's mental capacity is no better or worse than Trump's -- DRAW
• If you argued that most of the 80+million who voted for Biden were really voting against Trump, I'd buy it! (That's where I fall!) But it's hard to ignore 80+million votes....
• I'm clueless what you mean by "it makes the country look like there's no country anymore"... how many people show up to a rally is a measure of how interested people are, not how many people there are...
• The gas and oil pipelines Biden has put a stop to are/were not for local distribution - they're for getting oil & natural gas to the ports for export. It won't affect our gas prices, at least not directly. BUT that's not to say gas prices won't go up! All this federal spending and stimulus is putting extreme pressure on prices overall... inflation is here! Look at gas prices, true - but also look at home prices (hard to pin that on pipelines), food prices, equipment prices.... all are going up fast and Biden IS the root-cause, with all the extra cash flowing into the economy - especially cash with high velocity (which comes from giving it to the people directly).
  NOTE We DO have an infrastructure/distribution problem in this country - but the pipelines Biden has shutdown weren't for that.... We have a TON of "deferred maintenance" problems with our infrastructure... but since we've just pumped $2T in cash into our economy, ALSO spending what's needed on Infrastructure at this time will just exacerbate the inflationary pressures we're already seeing!
• Pollution from shipping is a minuscule DOT in the oceans when compared to the RAW SEWAGE our major cities dump into the waterways, and the floating "seas" of garbage out there... I agree it all adds up, but if you owed someone $100 million, would you spend your time counting $1 bills?
• The border was a mess, it's still a mess. It's going to remain a mess until we find a way to stop people from coming here. It's like the illegal drug trade: so long as people want it, they'll find a way to get it (whether the "it" is cocaine or to live in Miami)... people are inventive as hell! Sadly, the idea of a border wall is 15th-Century thinking to solve a 21st-Century problem!
• Kids that were being held in prison-like conditions are indeed being released to families - foster families around the country. Not pedophiles.
• Mexico is indeed a problematic neighbor - but pointing a finger and shouting "bad boy" is not going to solve anything! We can't kick them out from being our neighbor! We need to try to help them gain control over their own country - and one way to do that would be to find a way to eliminate the extremely lucrative illegal drug trade... legalize (but control) recreational drugs, and you take away their money-line. But that's only one facet of the shit-show that is Mexico these days...
• Biden's policies are bad, in most cases, IMHO... but he is applying his political beliefs to the problems (and not ignoring them). Do I look forward to voting him out of office in 3 years? YES! But only if the Republican nominee is someone other than Trump!

Keep posting your lies.

You hate Trump so much that you are willing to end his middle-east peace deal, financially destroy the country, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc,..........................................

You are a true liberal.

@bi4smooth

OH PLEASE.

You are a fake as fuck conservative. The fact that you can't go past a pro-liberal argument that you won't defend, shows what you are.

Keep telling yourself that Biden is better than Trump.

You voted for Honest Joe and Camel Toe, so you don't get to say anything bad about them, not that you ever would.

You remind me of those "fag for Islam". You are so desperate to virtue signal that you are willing to shit all over yourself, everyone else, and the country.

You have no memory or no brain (I'll let you decide).

I've written extensively in these forums about the peril we are in with all the spending Biden is proposing, and the inflation that will inevitably result.

Biden is bad... Trump was worse. Not for me personally, but for our country.

Country before Party before self!

OH PLEASE.

You are a fake as fuck conservative. The fact that you can't go past a pro-liberal argument that you won't defend, shows what you are.

Keep telling yourself that Biden is better than Trump.

You voted for Honest Joe and Camel Toe, so you don't get to say anything bad about them, not that you ever would.

You remind me of those "fag for Islam". You are so desperate to virtue signal that you are willing to shit all over yourself, everyone else, and the country.

@bi4smooth

I hope you realize that according to your boy Honest Joe's own words, he is far more of a dictator than Trump ever was.

Honest Joe is more of a dictator in that he is going through the military, Secret Service, National Guard, and Capitol Police and chucking out those that are not loyal to him personally.

I'm not sure how you get the idea that I'm pro-Biden!
NOT liking Trump is NOT the same as LIKING Biden! You present a false dichotomy (not at all unlike you, BTW.... just sayin'!)

Biden is bad

Trump would have been worse

We are where we are because we had options of bad and worse available to us... that's the system though!

I hope you realize that according to your boy Honest Joe's own words, he is far more of a dictator than Trump ever was.

Honest Joe is more of a dictator in that he is going through the military, Secret Service, National Guard, and Capitol Police and chucking out those that are not loyal to him personally.

@bi4smooth Oh yes, Obama didn't meet that criteria! LOL and yes I do like Trump's personality. "You shut up, you're stupid, you go fuck yourself..." I like that, because I understand how corrupt those assholes are.

Rice is racist because it's white

@bi4smooth No that's what you're doing. You're saying that American Nationalism is Fascist by nature. You are the one conflating the two, I'm the one pointing out that Nationalism isn't fascist by nature. There's a difference. When Chinese Nationalism - is brought into the conversation, Nationalism in the way that you describe it loses the profundity you associated with it. Why don't you just be more specific in what you're really trying to say. Why don't you just be honest. You MEAN to say, straight white men are Hitler. You're just being very sneaky in the way you go about it.

I don't claim Trumism is Nationalist - I claim it is a cult of personality, and that it meets all of the criteria to be Nationalist Fascism.

The 2 words go together to mean something more specific than either of them alone.

@bi4smooth Yes well your argument falls to pieces because China is pure nationalist.

Nationalist yes, but Nationalism is not the same as Racism... you sure can conflate different topics, can't you...

@bi4smooth Trump is a God in a sense... You may not worship him, but he represents a powerful force that speaks and has billions. It's not going away if Trump goes away. It's here to stay, and so is nationalism, which is not fascism. Especially compared to nations like China where you're only allowed to be one race.

My British friends - who married Chinese women and became Chinese citizens - would be surprised to hear that their race was illegal in China... hmmm... maybe you've been reading too much propaganda!

Let me be clear - I would NEVER become a citizen of another country! We have our problems - and more today than in most of my lifetime, including the Cuban Missile Crisis! But I would never "abandon" my country for another. I might live abroad, but I'm an American - for good and/or bad! I'll work to make it better, but I'll never abandon her!

I also have little "love" for the Chinese Government... but if you ever get a chance to travel the world, you'll see that in most places, the people are NOT reflective of their Governments...

Whites (and blacks - you should investigate just how much China is INVESTING in Africa! And in doing so, supplanting the US as the "major power" with the most influence in the region!) are not illegal in China. But their country was "closed" for much of the early Industrial Revolution in the West - and as a result, their population is more "pure" in a racial sense... but at least according to my friends, they are NOT racist.... at least nowhere NEAR the racism you see in the US!

@bi4smooth Here you go again starting off with those flawed statements in the very beginning, meaning I can't read anything else past the first sentence. You start out talking like you are a Republican Speaker, trying to twist their words around. And sure they do a little but how come you never mention any democrat scandal? EVER? When there's literally one every day.

I'd love to talk about the massive inflation Biden is leading us into... but who can get a word in edgewise when all anyone wants to talk about is Trump Trump Trump!

The border is a mess... the VP (who was "put in charge") is trying to pretend it doesn't exist anymore... I think she's supposed to be "flitting about" the country talking about infrastructure these days... infrastructure like... welfare programs, healthcare, and social safety-net infrastructure... not like planes, trains, & automobiles infrastructure!

The $6 (almost $7) TRILLION dollar budget is a .... I don't even KNOW the word for it... a disaster is so underwhelming for how awful, scary, and harmful it is!

There's plenty of BAD on the Democrat side... but as long as you/we continue to let Trump suck all the air out of the room, we'll never be able to discuss it!

@bi4smooth Sorry but everything you just said is demonstrably false and you are living in lala land and cannot answer.

Yup - it's all a conspiracy! Google is changing definitions of terms so as to make Trump look bad.

198 countries around the world have been falsely reporting COVID-19 numbers, solely to make Trump look bad.

As I've said in another thread... I'm stating facts, not trying to convince you of anything. You're as unlikely to be persuaded that you're wrong as an elephant is unlikely to scuba-dive! You're so deep into this conspiracy-laden belief system, you'll never come out... even if Trump himself came out and said "Look, it was all a lie - I'm sorry, I should have just accepted my loss and come back in 2024" - you wouldn't believe it! You'd claim it was an imposter!

Another term to lookup - and then look in the mirror: Cult of Personality