[UnderTheSun]

"Trump is a man of action" seems more of a glorification of his person than anything. Many of us think he's headstrong and stupid, and we don't trust his actions. It's not a matter of how confident he is, it's a matter of how competent he is, that's the problem.

Personally, I believe the reverse; Trump is just as competent as he is confident. To me, his ego and passion are assets. Of course, some find his charisma… deplorable. I'll show myself out...

Innocent people like the OP's spouse are being denied access to their families back in the US because of an irrational, wild form of discrimination, meanwhile professional business men and women are facing work-related crisises as they can't continue their international work.

If it were up to me, I’d appoint magic psychics that can just vet people in a few seconds, then either let them pass or send them back. But bureaucracies aren’t genies (even though they kind of rhyme a little), so now we wind up with cases like a women being unable to visit her family. Every played “Papers, Please”? It’s a bit like that. It hurts to be a moral person whose job is more ethically fit for robots.
If you ask me, it’s like our modern justice system; people who did nothing wrong are going to be punished, but it’s better than saying everyone’s guilty (as chaotic as the travel ban is, at least people are making it through), or that everyone’s innocent (so all the really dangerous people would make it through with the people who wouldn’t hurt a fly (not to say that it’s impossible that some have slipped through the cracks these past few days; that’s what’s impossible)).

Forgive me if I’m being stupid, but didn’t Trump say at some early point in his campaign that gross and overzealous safety procedures in airports were a problem we had to deal with? Maybe I misinterpreted or I’m remembering wrong, but that doesn’t really fit with what’s going on now.

I dunno. There’s no denying Trump flip-flops on many issues. Makes him hard to predict, but, on the bright side, it shows he’s willing - well, not closed off to - changing his mind on issues.

If Trump will really make it easier for people to migrate here legally and start a healthy American life, then I'm all for that, but I haven't really seen any indication of that. If anything, the message I've been hearing from him sounds more like he's trying to crack down on immigration all together and keeping people out more than anything.

Key word sounds. To me, it sounds like all he wants to do is increase vetting of immigrants for safety reasons. Of course, to you and the other fellows here, he’s John Adams back from the dead. All of us are taking what we’ve heard about him, and drawing our own conclusions.

That represents an entirely different issue that many others have been debating since its creation, and many have been calling for its abolishment. In fact, even TRUMP HIMSELF has stated before during his early campaign that the electoral college is an example of federal tyranny that must be abolished for the betterment of the American people. He said this, and then now he’s said the opposite because IT WAS THE REASON HE WON. This is one of the largest, most talked about examples of his hypocrisy. And of course now many more people are raging against it because here we are with Trump as our president.

I think the reason Trump changed his mind is worth consideration. During his campaign, as far as Trump could tell, the entire election system was being rigged against him. Even if he managed to win the election itself, the establishment could just get enough electors to go against the results for their states, and that would be that.
Obviously, that’s not what happened, so now Trump’s all like, “Huh, maybe the Electoral College isn’t so bad.” Not to mention I’m pretty sure no reports of vote rigging have been properly investigated yet.
(By the way, Trump changing his mind isn’t exactly hypocrisy, since he’d have to be rigging something himself. Hypocrisy is Trump saying that fit people don’t drink Diet Coke… as a drinker of Diet Coke himself. That got a good chuckle out of everybody (not saying he wasn’t joking))

Bitch the coast guard ain't shit. My neighbor and their 50 chihuahuas when I was like 12 swam their asses through the Gulf of Mexico and somehow hitchhiked their asses all the way to Nevada to start their new life and weren't stopped or caught a single time. I still meet people who pulled this shit off that are in the process of getting the appropriate documents to live in the states legally.

Are you sure that the Coast Guard of your childhood is the same as the coastguard of today? As you’ve said, anti-illegal immigration measures have vastly improved (certainly enough to be satisfactory, in your eyes). How does today’s Coast Guard factor into this?
(Also, how did that fella manage to do that with a bunch of dogs? People can’t just tell little fuzzy critters to follow them around like that. Sounds like something out of a video game.)

I said this in a previous thread about a similar topic, and I think even the discussion of breaking out of a fortified prison was brought up, but if someone really wants to get in/out of somewhere, they'll find a way. Someone really wants to continue their life in America? They'll keep coming back again and again no matter how often they're deported or detained, no matter how big and flashy the border wall is. Someone really wants to break out of jail? There's been several cases of people throughout history that became famous/infamous for constantly committing felonies and yet somehow always breaking back out of prison or just being savvy enough to get let out early time and time again despite the fact they really shouldn't have.

So we should give up on enforcing rule of law, since crime will always exist?

Except with the way our government is structured, the "tyranny of the majority" is not feasible. The POTUS is not an all-powerful figure head, they are a spokesperson for the country and are meant to represent us as a whole. They are meant to serve The People. Our system works on checks and balances, or at least it should, remember? If the president does something the people oppose, the legislature can overturn the executive branch because it's not what The People want, and the Executive branch must oblige. And there it is: The Legislature. The branch of our government that represents the will of The People. The way that there could never be a tyranny of the majority.

”If the votes represent the will, then Clinton should be President. It’s rather disconcerting that in one breath you claim this, then in the next you talk up the electoral college, which specifically functions to unbalance the value of votes and dramatically over- and under-represents many states.

Actually, there’s another aspect to “tyranny of the majority” that concerns me: if we elected our president off of the popular vote, the high-density, high-population urban states would be the only states with any political influence. That’s not a good deal for the rest of the Union. It’s the same reason why we have a legislature with two houses, one with equal representation from every state, and one with representation based on population size; with just the former, small states are given disproportionate power, while with only the latter, well, tyranny of the majority.

Tyranny of the majority is always a danger in political systems – but that must be balanced with the need for fair representation of people. Trump was not elected by the majority, yet now he is abusing his power and causing significant damage to the country and the minorities that do not have the power to oppose him.

If the Electoral College’s current structure poses a problem, then the solution is a Constitutional Convention when the time comes…Which, if Trump turns out to be a massive failure (as you infer will happen), isn’t too far into the future.

It’s you who is misinterpreting – any tariff will simply be responded to by Mexico raising prices, and buyers will raise prices to pass on that cost to the consumer. So Mexico still profits on its goods, while American consumers pay higher prices as a result of increased taxation. Americans pay for the wall.

I’m sorry, I need to clarify: The article does not mention any goods that Mexico holds an import monopoly over the United States. It gives an example of a Mexican product, formerly costing $100, that is now $120. That means the principles of consumer choice remain; consumers may choose between the taxed Mexican goods, or non-Mexican goods which are not subject to this tax.
Consumers, logically, choose the products remaining at $100 (or even lower), and lose no money; meanwhile, retail stores fail to make a profit, so they stop accepting the proverbial white elephants. Again, America is not adversely affected, rather, Mexico is no longer profiting on exports, damaging Mexico’s economy and industries.
Furthermore, Mexico makes well in excess of $25 billion in two-way export revenue. Rather, we mutually make, more or less, ten times the proposed cost of the wall. President Nieto would do well to negotiate with Trump.

Of course, as CEO for one of the largest automanufacturing companies, he is going to like policies of tax and regulatory cuts – which is what he is describing in your link, not the proposed tariffs. He is not a fan of the proposed tariff at all.

Source does not prove that Mark Fields is against the tariff, only that it has legal friction with, and may threaten, certain international agreements. It even mentions that Trump and Mark Fields have common ground on the TPP (which we recently pulled out of, under Trump).

”Is it really Hungary’s problem how the refugees feel” is an incredibly callous way to refer to one of the largest humanitarian crises of our times. Let’s remember: the refugees entering Europe are abandoning their homes and lives to flee from war, terrorism and persecution. They’re travelling thousands of miles and risking their lives for safety that they no longer have in their home countries.
Arguing that this is simply “not their problem” is nothing more than sticking one’s head in the sand. This is a global humanitarian crisis affecting millions of lives – you don’t get to turn your back on people in danger and claim any sort of moral high ground.

We’re not turning our backs; check out what Trump’s got in store to help those guys out. A much more long-term solution than just taking in people fleeing an ever-worsening part of the world; if they’re leaving because it’s dangerous, how about we make it safe? If a pipe burst, why desperately look for bucket after bucket to hold the water, when you can temporarily stop the flow of water and mend the pipe?
Trump says we shouldn’t pay for it (of course, he’s a conservative, so he thinks people (and countries) should fix their own problems, hence him wanting to get people off of welfare), but since the refugee crisis itself is a problem to us Americans as well (caused, of course, by the refugees’ disrupted state of living, which they can’t really fix by sticking around), then I see no reason not to pitch in. The only problem is how one would go about doing this.

Your example of Sweden is completely misrepresented, of course:
Gonna need a source on that chart there, and a source on your comments about Japan (although considering how xenophobic Japan usually is it doesn’t surprise me).

Here’s a very thorough explanation of Sweden’s situation. Personally, I disagree with the sources you present, since they handwave the issue. One concedes that immigrants are behind the increase, but then saying that it’s really the fault of xenophobic Swedes (despite Sweden being very multicultural and xenophilic) and poor management of refugee shelters (How refugees could be any worse off than where they came from is beyond me; what about halting the flow of refugees until better conditions can be provided?). The other skirts around the truth by saying it’s due to “socioeconomic factors,” blames it on the Swedes (despite cases of hate crimes, apparently, being speculation, based on cited articles), and shifts the issue to sexual assault in general (as if not looking into who the perpetrators are will help women and case studies in any way).

So when Trump campaigns on the issue, it’s a big enough deal that you dedicated two entire paragraphs of your post explaining it; but when Trump himself is shown not to practice what he preaches, you could care less. Gotcha.

All Trump’s saying is that outsourcing isn’t good for the country that’s losing the jobs (like us). Sounds reasonable. Since he himself put (not any more, he’s the president now) outsourcing to use, that implies he’s got a good grasp on how it works. At least, a better grasp than the establishment politicians.
Also, chalk it up to me being tired of “Trump this, Trump that” all over the Internet. And during the election. My ears kind of got numb to criticism of Trump after a while. Too much soulless vitriol. At least the pro-Trump crowd gets to joke about the senile old lady who yells at cartoon frogs. Maybe I’d be on your side of the fence if your crowd had enough soul and passion to make up entire sagas about Hillary in the DNC primaries. Instead, they went and called the pro-Trump crowd “deplorables,” whom took up that name with honor.
Speaking of joking around…

This isn’t 4chan, don’t greentext.

I deliberately put in greentext so that I wouldn’t be taken so seriously. When an online discussion becomes too serious, we run the risk of devolving into a flame war. Trying to keep things calm and casual wouldn’t be so hard if the tone of words on a screen wasn’t up to the reader to interpret.
Greentext, on the other hand, is inherently humorous. While this does sacrifice formality, it also drops tension in a way that normal text cannot, therefore averting flame wars. In addition, due to it being humorous by nature, it can be used in both self-deprecation and to show the silliness of what others are saying, without appearing overly demeaning. If the other user feels insulted, they can fire back with greentext of their own, and the would-be flame war instead becomes an arms race of who can construct the most elegant shitpost.
Another thing to consider: this is the Oddworld Forum. The Oddworld franchise is founded on sending a serious message about the world’s problems through entertainment laden with humor. Why can’t its community do the same? Greentext seems to be a reliable means of doing so.
It’s better than a flame war over a politician who hasn’t even been in office for a month. And better for the mods, that’s for sure.

Thoughts?

My friend.
My friend, that isn’t a picture of the Mexican border wall. It’s a picture of the fence on the Israel–Egypt border. It says so in the Snopes article you directly linked it from. There is no border fence between Mexico and Guatemala.
Fuckin’ fake news, right? Gets everywhere.

Yeesh, I need to check these things. Good catch.
Then again, it’s a good thing Mexico didn’t build a wall, since they need the money to pay for ours.