I don't think it's common sense that everyone having guns would result in less gun violence. I could only see that resulting in more violence, not less. Either way, the U.S. already HAS the highest amount of guns per capita and yet has quite high homicide rates, especially for a high-income country. So this argument just doesn't make any sense.

I mean once again, look at Texas. Very lax gun laws, tons of gun ownership. They have a very low crime rate.

Also, the overall homicide rate in the US is on a downward trend.

Good point, but still, perhaps total gun prohibition is not the solution? I can see how an increase to our education system can do a lot more for the crime/poverty in Chicago than an all-out gun ban could. If we improve our pre-schooling systems than more educated will come out of Chicago rather than criminals. http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/early-learning/ELCLinkCrimeReduction-Jul02.pdf

I just find the notion to ban "assault weapons" outright kind of ridiculous when the vast bulk of these weapons aren't the ones used to commit homicides. Even though I cited 3% of all homicides in 1993 were committed with rifles, half of them could very well have been bolt-action sporting rifles. In evidence lockers throughout the nation right now, plenty of the weapons involved in homicides are very budget minded and cheap pistols such as hi-points, etc. seems to indicate that there are socioeconomic factors at play.

If you were to remove several of the gang violence hotspots throughout the nation I can guarantee that our homicide rate would be more in line with that of other nations.

Obama and Hillary didn't know shit about healthcare either. They supported the most disastrous healthcare reform we have ever seen in this country. Obama either totally lied about his plan for healthcare reform, or was incredibly naive when he made promises like "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" and "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." Thanks to Obama my healthcare shot up from $200 to $330 a month in 1 year and should be going up by another 20% in 2017. That is basically a doubling of rates in 2 years.

Also how naive are you to think that a man that has been a MD for years doesn't know anything about healthcare reform, how insurance works, and what patients want from doctors. I'm guessing you'd nominate someone from a pharmaceutical company or some hospital exec that will do nothing but shill their way to increase profits for the insurance companies.

Various spokespeople, Gingrich, etc seem to be rowing back on some of the more fantastical promises already. "Campaign device", "campaign talk" are the phrases being thrown out. Be interesting to see whether this is official Trump positioning, or whether these are attempts to pre-emptively dampen down his promises and there will be friction with the party.

Frankly I think it is a good idea that it be left to the states because I think that is an issue that is more easily solved on a smaller scale amongst a more homogenous group

in my honest opinion one of the worst parts about the 100 day plan is his plan to drop out of climate change agreements. that is huge and something that can be easily done. everything else on the list is either a change that will likely NOT happen because he needs other people to be on board (term limits, the wall - which mexico has officially stated it will not pay for, etc) but dropping out of those agreements is pretty easy especially with these idiots in congress. as majority leader and science and technology committee chairs, no less (sorry for linking huffpost, but its got all the quotes that are necessary)!

Violence worshiping socially alienated populace.

Reminder to all the Trump supporters in this thread that your candidate is currently trailing by over 600,000 votes and if the U.S. was a modern democracy he wouldn't be our next president. :)

But hey, we elected a man who sexually assaults women and demonizes muslims so I guess we aren't a modern nation anyway.

trying to have a discussion with trump supporters on climate change is impossible because they just downfrag you and ignore your post because it doesn't fit their view

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlt_fXJC8K0 is this what you call a modern nation?

You'd be right if the US was an actual democracy but it isn't. It's a Democratic republic.

If the US was a true democracy the president would pretty much be decided by California, Flordia, Texas, New York, Illinois and like 2 other states

Also if you were to elect Hillary you would have elected a woman who deleted 30,000 emails from a private government server, something that if any one else did they would be in jail for the rest of their life

I'd like to preface this by stating that I didn't vote for Trump, Hillary or any third party, but you are wrong. Just because people agree with Trump one on thing doesn't mean they agree with him on everything.

For example If I were to agree with him wanting to deport illegal immigrants that doesn't mean I also believe climate change is a hoax

Can we please have a sub for Politics so I can unsub from it but still be subbed to the world events one so every once and a while there actually is a world event that isn't political, (like the olympics or a natural disaster,) people can talk about it without it being lost in the retarded political discussion?

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/how-trumps-tax-plan-may-impact-your-returns.html?doc=104093382&_tsrc=lgwn2012-07-29.html2012-07-31.html%2F

LUL

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Alright, time for a nerd essay on a political theory that my history professor gave last year that I found incredibly intriguing.

In short, he stated that the general political leaning of the country was similar to a pendulum, with a general conservative leaning being at one side of it and a liberal leaning at the other end. And what he had suggested (since this is only a theory), is that after a certain number of years, the general political leaning reaches its apex of a certain side, and similar to a pendulum, will begin to swing in the other direction.

The exact timeline of when these shifts are going to happen is unknown, but the beginning of when the pendulum is going to start retreating in the opposite direction can sometimes be pinned on a certain event. World War II or even the Afghanistan war can be seen as one of those points where after the war, the general consensus wanted something different than the wartime government that was running the show during that time of war.

Another thing that was mentioned was how those that don't accept the changes, will be left behind and struggle until they realize that the world around them is changing. As someone had mentioned earlier in this thread, this election wasn't exactly as much as a Democrat vs Republican vote, it was an establishment vs anti-establishment decision. And if you're going by the theory that I had presented, then this election could certainly indicate that the pendulum has reached it's peak, and is beginning to swing back in the other direction. And those that are "resisting" this change are the ones that will be left behind, and it's not going to be pretty for these people.

Am I saying that any protester against Trump is going to be "left behind" according the theory? Absolutely not. You have the right to protest (peacefully) whatever you wish. It's a part of having free speech. But I thought this would be an interesting theory to share, since there is a lot of evidence to signify that we are in a time of a shift in the theoretical pendulum that shows where the general population leans.

devil's advocate: imagine living in the blue areas and having the grey areas vote against you

That's not how that works lol

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-electoral-college/2012/11/02/2d45c526-1f85-11e2-afca-58c2f5789c5d_story.html

didn't know the devil was that dumb

ok my post was worded porly. the whole point is, you guys say it's unfair that if you live in the grey areas and those counties all vote democrat, then without an electoral college democrats would be elected.

maybe republicans should try to appeal to them then?

if a majority of people want x as president, then x should be president. why isn't that intuitive?

it would also prevent gerrymandering and that bullshit

i remember a stat i saw where you could become president with like 30% of the popular vote, how is that fair??

i guess the whole point of this is why you're acting like votes from people in less densely populated areas should count more than votes from people in densely populated areas

Oh jeez catface I did not know that the area of land was directly proportional to the number people living there!

Thanks my man!

u sound like u just finished ur pols 1101 class

please bless me with your knowledge enlightened one

the rate of healthcare premium growth (2nd derivative) has been increasing since before Obamacare. example You can see that the actual growth isn't increasing, it's holding to what it was. Calling the ACA an outright failure because it didn't deliver on campaign promises and didn't reverse a 20+ year trend is myopic as shit because it discounts the actual advantages that the ACA has given and implies that repealing it would somehow both reverse the trend and end end up with more people insured.

You also ignore that states that fully embraced Obamacare have seen much better returns than those that neglected to fund the state portions (example). Compare this with a map showing states that accepted medicaid expansion and you'll see a reasonable correlation that shows that Obamacare isn't inherently evil.

I'd pick someone who actually understands healthcare administration, which is a COMPLETELY different field from actual medicine. Management and floor work aren't the same, and the crossover between the skillsets isn't inherent. Assuming that pharmaceutical companies or hospital execs don't want universal coverage is kind of dumb too. Hospitals lose money on uninsured people for a multitude of reasons. Even people who go in debt at the emergency room tend to not be as good of investments as people with insurance because people who have crippling medical debt also tend to be sick and not able to earn much money. You could argue a conflict of interests as far as premiums go, but premiums are always increasing due to the way demand works in healthcare and as a result any administration that doesn't attempt to cap their growth will see the same problems with healthcare costs.

The problem with trying to be fair is that it isn't fair in the end. 51% of the population agreeing on something that is very divisive means that 49% gets completely screwed. The point of the electoral college (modern) isn't to make it so that rural states count more, but make it so that you can't just appeal to 10 cities and then say you'll give Arizona a tax break to be president. Spreading out the vote insures that its impossible for a single base to control the entire election

I think the EC has failed and the results end up similar, but the way it has failed is still probably better than pure democracy. Right now you have to appeal slightly to your parties' locked states and then campaign across a few relatively diverse swing states ensuring that various types of Americans get some campaign time. Pure democracy would basically be decided by New York, California, and Texas and the democrats would never lose just because they could promise to do whatever the big cities want and then play nice with a few localized regions to push them over 50%.

So no, the EC isn't fair, but its less unfair than pure democracy so its not likely to leave soon.

the problem with this is you could argue Trump supporters are the ones being left behind in a globalizing world with a fair amount of evidence.

Theories are all nice and great but trying to be predictive in such broad strokes with geopolitics is difficult.

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I can only assume that this is the result of some kind of anchoring effect where your current perception is so focused on the idea that states elect presidents that this would continue to be the case.

In a true democracy the President would be selected by millions of equally weighted individual votes regardless of location. Pieces of land or lines on a map would have no votes. The millions of currently arbitrarily disenfranchised voters, democrat or republican, would be empowered.

If a state currently has disproportionate influence due to it's status as a swing state, and it's swing voters have disproportionate influence, that is bad for democracy and a failure of representational politics. Turnouts would improve, voters who have been ignored their entire lives would suddenly find themselves relevant and localised complacency would be exposed.

I can't think of a rational reason for continuing with the current system, but then again I have no idea why the UK persists with our system either other than vested interests and fear of change. Still, the US is at least making progress towards sanity http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/