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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > You only get to choose between Trump or Putin
You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71226] Thu, 10 March 2016 22:59 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739




US President[ 9 votes ]
1. Trump 5 / 56%
2. Putin 4 / 44%

Given this choice and only this choice for the next US president, would you choose Trump or Putin

Please give reasons in a reply



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71239 is a reply to message #71226] Sat, 12 March 2016 03:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Geron Kees is currently offline  Geron Kees

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Location: USA
Registered: February 2016
Messages: 147



I pick Donald Trump. If the only two choices are both bellicose, self-serving, ignorant, vile, dictators hellbent on driving their countries into poverty and the world into war, I at least want the one that understands American invective well-enough to thoroughly get what I think of him.
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71249 is a reply to message #71239] Sun, 13 March 2016 06:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dgt224 is currently offline  dgt224

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Location: USA
Registered: May 2011
Messages: 81



I picked Trump, although the more I think about it, the more I think Putin might be the better choice -- Trump is, sadly, legally qualified to be President of the United States, while the election of Putin would precipitate an immediate constitutional crisis, which might well be the best outcome we could hope for out of that choice. (My vote was based on "better the devil I know," possibly influenced a bit by the reasoning of Geron Kees.)
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71268 is a reply to message #71249] Sat, 19 March 2016 01:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
James Matthews is currently offline  James Matthews

Toe is in the water
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: May 2015
Messages: 93



Maybe I have no right to an opinion here because I'm British and not American, but I really do think Trump is a breath of fresh air. He would be good here. In fact he would be much needed here as our politicians have wrapped themselves in such hysteria about talking openly about the big problems that THIS country has. As a British person who takes an active interest in national and world politics I am utterly convinced that if politicians spoke about what the general public is talking about then things might get done. But they are scared. They are scared of talking about these things through fear of being labled a rasist. We are all racists. We all want to live amongst our own culture, our own people, our own colour. It's natural. I'm sure if I turned up in Nigeria and brought a house there then the people would view me exactly the same way. 


We all know what sits at the centre of all the current rows that are going on and that is Immigration. As a British person I don't want mass immigration to my country. For me it's not about a squeeze on public services or a housing crises. For me its about not wanting to feel like a minority in my own country. I don't want to sit on a train while a group of Romanians talk loudly in their own language while claiming benefits that I have to pay for through taxes. I dont want the Muslim here who has come on the back of a lorry to preach hate on my streets and I don't want the Syrian family who claims things are that bad they skip Turkey, all of eastern Europe and manage to end up in the UK. I'm sorry but if you are that desperate you go to the next safest country. Most of it is bullshit, these people just want a hand out from a rich country like the UK because their own has failed. Sure, I cant blame them, but nor should we blame ourselves when we stand up and say NO we do not want you here. By the sounds of it, nor does Donald Trump. My point is, at least he has the courage to stand up and say - "Hey, I'm worried about radical Muslims coming into the US and blowing us up!" Its about having the mature debate to say, well, until we can sort out a proper system then a section of society needs to be kept out. Once a system is put in place then we can start returning to normal. When you are living in this situation and are running out of things that work then you have to start thinking outside the box. The world has tried to get a grip on terrorism for the last 20 years and we have failed. It's now time to let people like Donald Trump come in and suggest new ideas - radical ideas. You cant keep just doing more of the same. The same that is proven not to work.

I could write forever about this sort of stuff but I just end up winding myself up. If you wanted it in short form - The world is fucked and it's only gonna get worse! 

[Updated on: Sun, 20 March 2016 22:36] by Moderator

Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71270 is a reply to message #71268] Sat, 19 March 2016 11:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Matthew is currently offline  Matthew

Toe is in the water

Registered: February 2015
Messages: 73



Honestly, i'm not a political person and I'm English, so the American election doesn't really involve me at all, although it does affect the world i guess.

I have to admit that before this election stuff, i used to watch the apprentice and i liked Trump, i found him quite funny and entertaining in his role and i admit that, however, since he has been involved in the presidency stuff, i can't stand the guy, from what i have seen (i have to admit at this point, that the media plays a role as they more than likely have focused on the bad/funny part of his campaign) he has no actual policies and those that he may have, he has gone back and forth on depending on the audience in front of him

Again the media play a huge part in what we over in England have seen of his election campaign, but what we have seen, has not been good in my opinion, he seems to pander to whatever people in front of him seem to fear, like immigration (America is a country built on immigration and he makes it sound like everyone is a terrorist) he seems to either have no grasp for the law or very little respect for it, i think one week he was saying he would order American soldiers to torture and kill terrorist suspects families, (not terrorist, but suspected terrorists, there is a difference there) to get them to talk, i mean come on, really think about it, if the person is innocent and they're using torture, then that person is likely to reach a point where they would say anything, just to make it stop, whether it's the truth or not, they will say what they think the torturer wants to hear eventually, then we have to wonder how many innocent family membes of that person could also be tortured or killed before they reach the point where they realise the person isn't a terrorist and then what? do they just chalk it up to being good Americans and did what they had to do? that's a dark way to operate for a nation, especially one of America's size and power, but getting back to my point, one week he said that, then he got a backlash and the next week he is not only backtracking, but also trying to pretend that he was misunderstood, despite saying it in front of a live audience on tv for the world to see

There are so many things like that, that we have seen from Trump, where he says something, the people seem to lap it up, then a few days to a week later, he is either denying he said it or going a complete 180 turn on it, to me, he is a very devious and untrustworthy person and despite those being common traits in politicians it seems (i wish i was joking about that) he shouldn't be as far as he is in this election campaign

Also, i don't like his style at all, if he was serious and he had actual policies that would forward America and make them "great" again, then why aren't we hearing those policies over and over again (with no back tracking or pandering to whichever state he is in at any given time) instead of him just trading insults and poorly hidden threats at his opponents, who at this point i want to say are no better than he is, i mean if one of them had any common sense or a team with common sense, then they would have quit with trying to compete with Trump's tactics (which i think a child would be embarrassed to use at a school election) and actually just focused on what they had to offer and what their policies were, without rising to any bait that Trump tries to use against them, i think the public would have likely got behind them, maybe not straight away, but the novolty would have worn off from Trump and the people would have had their fun supporting him as a "screw you" sort of thing to the American goverment, but eventually they would have supported the serious campaigner, but because no one has done that, Trump has been able to somehow, get himself into a position where he only has to beat one more person and that's a little scary

I don't know much about Hilary (well apart from the obvious) but i think she will becomee the first female president, she doesn't seem the the kind of person who will get sucked into Trumps games and while early on Trump might get some sort of lead, i think we will see the American people taking more notice of her actual policies, over Trump's antics and pandering to them

Also, i'm not 100% sure if this is true, because i saw it referenced on a comedy show, so it could be false (i think it's real though) didn't Trump say in one of his talk things (i have no idea what they call those lol) that if his daughter was hot and if they weren't related, he would totally hit that (or something along those words) i mean come on, he said that on live TV, even if she is hot, that's your daughter and saying "if she wasn't my daughter" doesn't make what you just said okay, because she is actually your daughter and it's just plane weird and then there is the fact of why his daughter being hot is even in his speech and why mention it live on tv, i mean what does that have to do with him being president (well apart from some weird law changes in the future? lol) 

So yeah, i really hope that he doesn't become the next American president, he hasn't shown any consistency (well apart from lying and changing his mind on key things over and over again) he is just preying on the peoples fears and insecurities by using buzz words/phrases, the constant slogan of "making America great again" but not actually going past that and telling people the poilcies that will achieve this

Again, though as negative as this is towards Trump, i do have to point out again that I'm English and live in England, the stuff i have seen of Trump's campaign has been from the media and talk shows/ comedy shows taking the piss out of him basically, so i am open to the possibility that they just aren't showing us the good parts of his campaign and only the bits that make him look bad or make good tv
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71271 is a reply to message #71268] Sat, 19 March 2016 13:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



"Quote:"
WestcliffWriter wrote on Sat, 19 March 2016 01:26Maybe I have no right to an opinion here because I'm British and not American, but I really do think Trump is a breath of fresh air. He would be good here. In fact he would be much needed here as our politicians have wrapped themselves in such hysteria about talking openly about the big problems that THIS country has. As a British person who takes an active interest in national and world politics I am utterly convinced that if politicians spoke about what the general public is talking about then things might get done. But they are scared. They are scared of talking about these things through fear of being labled a rasist. We are all racists. We all want to live amongst our own culture, our own people, our own colour. It's natural. I'm sure if I turned up in Nigeria and brought a house there then the people would view me exactly the same way. 


We all know what sits at the centre of all the current rows that are going on and that is Immigration. As a British person I don't want mass immigration to my country. For me it's not about a squeeze on public services or a housing crises. For me its about not wanting to feel like a minority in my own country. I don't want to sit on a train while a group of Romanians talk loudly in their own language while claiming benefits that I have to pay for through taxes. I dont want the Muslim here who has come on the back of a lorry to preach hate on my streets and I don't want the Syrian family who claims things are that bad they skip Turkey, all of eastern Europe and manage to end up in the UK. I'm sorry but if you are that desperate you go to the next safest country. Most of it is bullshit, these people just want a hand out from a rich country like the UK because their own has failed. Sure, I cant blame them, but nor should we blame ourselves when we stand up and say NO we do not want you here. By the sounds of it, nor does Donald Trump. My point is, at least he has the courage to stand up and say - "Hey, I'm worried about radical Muslims coming into the US and blowing us up!" Its about having the mature debate to say, well, until we can sort out a proper system then a section of society needs to be kept out. Once a system is put in place then we can start returning to normal. When you are living in this situation and are running out of things that work then you have to start thinking outside the box. The world has tried to get a grip on terrorism for the last 20 years and we have failed. It's now time to let people like Donald Trump come in and suggest new ideas - radical ideas. You cant keep just doing more of the same. The same that is proven not to work.

I could write forever about this sort of stuff but I just end up winding myself up. If you wanted it in short form - The world is fucked and it's only gonna get worse! 

--
In 1939 my father was a refugee from Austria, then known as Germany. He and his family managed to escape. Each of them had a huge red J on their passports, something caused by the Swiss, who refused to have Jewish refugees into their nation and required an easy way to turn them back at the borders.
http://forum.iomfats.org/?t=getfile&id=2418&private=0

Without acceptance of genuine refugees, as opposed to economic migrants chancing their arms, the world becomes less civilised.

The Romanians I know in my home town are here to work, and to do jobs the English refuse to do reliably. They work in catering. They speak English, some with more accent than others, but they are here to work and to benefit themselves. They pay our taxes and our National Insurance contributions. They work hard and honestly.

My father served in the British Army. He was evacuated from Dunkirk. He continued to work hard after the war, setting up a business which ran for several years until his business partner ran off with the cash. He worked after that as a commission only self employed salesman. Apart from speaking Accent with a trace of English, he became more English than the English.

I disagree with almost everything you have said. I understand why you think some of the things you have expressed, but I believe you have not looked behind the headlines enough. Without my being the son of a refugee you would not have this platform to express those ideas. When you look behind things then the things you find can surprise you.

I should add that a great many Jews were not allowed into the UK. It was just the lucky ones who made it. Those who were not allowed here and could find no other home perished in the Holocaust. You could only come here if you had a job to go to. His sisters were given jobs in domestic service through a Jewish support organisation. I imagine, though was never told, that those jobs were bought, though the funds were then used to help other Jewish emigrants to leave. I don;t know enough, but I know my father was part of the Gildemeester organisation.
  • Attachment: big red J.png
    (Size: 491.22KB, Downloaded 1503 times)

[Updated on: Sun, 20 March 2016 22:37] by Moderator




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71272 is a reply to message #71268] Sat, 19 March 2016 15:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Matthew is currently offline  Matthew

Toe is in the water

Registered: February 2015
Messages: 73



"Quote:"
WestcliffWriter wrote on Sat, 19 March 2016 01:26Maybe I have no right to an opinion here because I'm British and not American, but I really do think Trump is a breath of fresh air. He would be good here. In fact he would be much needed here as our politicians have wrapped themselves in such hysteria about talking openly about the big problems that THIS country has. As a British person who takes an active interest in national and world politics I am utterly convinced that if politicians spoke about what the general public is talking about then things might get done. But they are scared. They are scared of talking about these things through fear of being labled a rasist. We are all racists. We all want to live amongst our own culture, our own people, our own colour. It's natural. I'm sure if I turned up in Nigeria and brought a house there then the people would view me exactly the same way. 


We all know what sits at the centre of all the current rows that are going on and that is Immigration. As a British person I don't want mass immigration to my country. For me it's not about a squeeze on public services or a housing crises. For me its about not wanting to feel like a minority in my own country. I don't want to sit on a train while a group of Romanians talk loudly in their own language while claiming benefits that I have to pay for through taxes. I dont want the Muslim here who has come on the back of a lorry to preach hate on my streets and I don't want the Syrian family who claims things are that bad they skip Turkey, all of eastern Europe and manage to end up in the UK. I'm sorry but if you are that desperate you go to the next safest country. Most of it is bullshit, these people just want a hand out from a rich country like the UK because their own has failed. Sure, I cant blame them, but nor should we blame ourselves when we stand up and say NO we do not want you here. By the sounds of it, nor does Donald Trump. My point is, at least he has the courage to stand up and say - "Hey, I'm worried about radical Muslims coming into the US and blowing us up!" Its about having the mature debate to say, well, until we can sort out a proper system then a section of society needs to be kept out. Once a system is put in place then we can start returning to normal. When you are living in this situation and are running out of things that work then you have to start thinking outside the box. The world has tried to get a grip on terrorism for the last 20 years and we have failed. It's now time to let people like Donald Trump come in and suggest new ideas - radical ideas. You cant keep just doing more of the same. The same that is proven not to work.

I could write forever about this sort of stuff but I just end up winding myself up. If you wanted it in short form - The world is fucked and it's only gonna get worse! 

--

Honestly, i think there is a little bit of what can be viewed as racist in most people, but whether or not it really is racism is another matter and subjective, myself, i'm not someone who considers himself racist, i work with multiple different nationalities at my work place and i don't really care, they're working, they speak the language (some better than others, but they've all made the effort) now i don't buy into the foreigners are harder workers or do the jobs english people don't want, that's true in some situations and does happen, but it's a generalization and something people like to throw around too often.

But yeah, for me a human is a human, i don't care what colour skin they have, what accent they have, as long as they work/contribute to the country, then i see no problem

Now for immigration, it is a tough topic to discuss, because labals get thrown around too easily and it often becomes more about the people arguing and insulting each other, rather than actually being about immigration itself, for me if the people coming into a country (aany country, not just england) than they should be working and contributing to the country, not being given a free ride, which happens quite a lot, but probably not as much as the media leads us to believe it does and it's a shame that people will use that as fact of what every immigrant does, the media is quite happy to put stories of immigrants getting all these benefits or giant houses for free, but they never really show the stories of those that come into the country and actually contribute

As for refugees, that's tricky, i think every country that is able to help those poor people who need help, has a duty to help, does that mean let everyone come into any one country, for me that would be a no, there still needs to be some sort of control and checks over who comes in, but it doesn't have to be over the top and complicated, there are people in power in our countries that are paid a lot of money to come up with solutions to these issues and they should be doing their job

Myself, i on't have any ideas of what would be fair or safe and that sort of thing, that's not my job and i'm in no way qualified or experienced enough to come up with something and i think as much as we have come to distrust poiliticians and goverments, we need to trust in them to make the right decisions, because the public in general can be very hypicritical

The best example i ccan come up with of that is when that poor little boy washed up on a beach after having drowned (1 of too many people to have died that way) last year (i think it was last year) and i remember people hounding and condemning the goverment for not taking in these refugees and calling them heartless and monsters, because they were letting these people die, when they needed help the most, yet after what happened in Paris, a lot of those same people condemning the goverment and politicians for not taking refugees in, where then calling for all borders to be shut to refugees and that letting them in will harm our country

I know there is generalization in the above and a hell of a lot more details and things to consider, but it was more about showing how people are often easily swayed to change their views.

So yeah, i don't buy into everyone is a racist, but some just won't admit it, i think some people hide behind that, to try and justify their own beliefs and not to look as bad as they think they will be perceived

I myself will never understand racism, people are people, it's as simple as that, i know a couple down my road that are quite racist, yet they adore dogs and they have 4 dogs now and two are black and 1 is white and the other is a golden lab, now that's a wide variety of colours, so why can they love and care for dogs of different colours, yet hate another person just because they're a different colour, i know i've heard them say things like "go back to your own country" or "go back to where you were born" yet the people are english, they were born in england, for several generations, so they're english, they're human and yet, because they have different skin colour, to this couple, that is all that matters, it's something i will never understand and it is a shame that people just can't move beyong such petty views

[Updated on: Sun, 20 March 2016 22:38] by Moderator

Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71275 is a reply to message #71268] Sun, 20 March 2016 05:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dgt224 is currently offline  dgt224

Toe is in the water
Location: USA
Registered: May 2011
Messages: 81



"WestcliffWriter wrote on Fri, 18 March 2016 21:26"
.... The world has tried to get a grip on terrorism for the last 20 years and we have failed. It's now time to let people like Donald Trump come in and suggest new ideas - radical ideas. ....


--
But Donald Trump isn't suggesting new, radical ideas. He's suggesting the same things that power-mad racial-purity sorts have suggested time after time before. His ideas have never worked out well in the past; I don't see any reason to expect that he'll do better than his predecessors. And we have to give up so much to follow the Trumpster -- everything I was taught, when I was young, that America is supposedly based on. Ideals like equality and freedom that we haven't always lived up to particularly well, but Trump would have us turn our backs on them completely.

In any case, Trump appears to be all image and no substance. He recently made it clear that he is his own foreign policy advisor; apparently running a number of businesses into the ground has given him enough experience in dealing with all you non-Americans that he doesn't need anyone's help. He plans to solve our problem with undocumented immigrants by building a wall between the United States and Mexico; he also plans to make Mexico pay for it. (The use of the word "plan" here is perhaps a bit charitable, as there is little evidence that his announced "plans" are more than the response of the moment.)

If it came down to a choice between Trump and Putin, I would start stumping for a new Constitutional amendment, requiring that "None of the above" be an available choice on all ballots; if "None of the above" were to win, the election for that office would be held again, with none of the current candidates eligible to be on the ballot.
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71276 is a reply to message #71275] Sun, 20 March 2016 16:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mark

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Location: Earth
Registered: April 2013
Messages: 275



Trump is, as Matthew pointed out, using the fact that a lot of people are scared and angry over a lot of things to his advantage (when to  POTUS delivers the yearly State of the Union address, the opposite major party delivers a response of their own; this year the Republican response was delivered by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who, without naming Trump specifically, sad to resist the "siren call" of the "angriest voices"; Trump later ran with that at a rally by declaring a "Yes, I'm angry!" response and using it to explain his stance on several issues).  He is, in short, telling the people what they want to hear, as any successful politician does (I remember in a History class in high school where the teacher explained that was essentially how Adolph Hitler managed to both get and remain in power).

I certainly realize that a lot of immigrants and Muslims are good people, and that it's really the few proverbial
"bad apples" that are giving the vast majority a bad rap.  At the same time, it can be hard when it seems like everybody is expecting us (in the U.S. specifically, but also in the "West" in general) to help out everybody else all the time when we've still got a lot of problems of our own to deal with.  Would I vote for Trump.  I don't know.  Probably not, if there were any other real choices (I'm not too crazy about Hillary either, though for different reasons).

I did, in a general sense, like Dgt224's comments about having a "none of the above" option for presidential elections.  I'm reminded of an old saying that states that it's amazing that there are 52 choices in the "Miss America" contest but really only 2 choices for U.S. president.

A couple of interesting U.S. presidential election tidbits:

*There hasn't been what could be considered a serious "3rd party" (a term often collectively used to refer to all other official political parties in the U.S. besides the Democratic and Republican parties) contender since at least the 1968 presidential election, when George Wallace of the American Independent Party grabbed 46 of the available 538 electoral votes, though Republican Party candidate Richard Nixon won with 301 electoral votes, while Democratic Party candidate Hubert Humphrey received 191 electoral votes.  (The last time a "3rd party" candidate received any electoral votes was in the 1972 election, when a single "faithless elector" from the state of Virginia voted for Libertarian Party candidate John Hospers.)

*You have to go back almost 160 years to the election of 1848 to have the winner be from a party other than the Democrats and Republicans, when Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor won, though he was not the last non-Democrat/Republican president; that distinction would go to fellow Whig Millard Fillmore, who had been vice president under Taylor and who wound up ascending to the presidency upon Taylor's death in 1850 from what would ultimately be blamed on acute gastroenteritis.
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #71287 is a reply to message #71276] Thu, 24 March 2016 10:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ivor slipper is currently offline  ivor slipper

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http://forum.iomfats.org/?t=getfile&id=2427&private=0
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #72690 is a reply to message #71226] Wed, 01 March 2017 20:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
bobynike is currently offline  bobynike

Getting started
Location: Canada
Registered: February 2017
Messages: 7



I would go with Trump
Re: You only get to choose between Trump or Putin  [message #72692 is a reply to message #72690] Wed, 01 March 2017 21:19 Go to previous message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Quote:
bobynike wrote on Wed, 01 March 2017 20:32I would go with Trump

--
Seems quite a number of other folk did, too. Many reports indicate they got both Trump and Putin.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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