Yes, The Real The New Awesome Primary Thread

Does the Donald also promise to pay your legal fees if the employees you coerce turn around and sue you? Or, are the contract's obligations strictly unilateral?

What scares me more is the idle speculation that's been going around about Trump considering Ben Carson to be "very involved with education, something that's an expertise of his."Please, no! I don't want my kids' education to be in any way influenced by a man who concluded the pyramids at Giza are grain silos because the Bible has a story about grain storage in Egypt, and nothing else in that country was big enough.And no, I don't care how many conjoined twins he's successfully* separated with his gifted hands: he's still not an expert on education! * Success, as defined by Dr Ben CarsonEdited by Blue Jay, : No reason given.

You two people with numbers for names aren't allowed to talk to each other: you might give the impression that this is upon us. Of course, since Bernie Sanders is ushering in the Dawn of Socialism in America, it's probably only a matter of time before we all have serial numbers for names and mind-altering PC drugs to keep us all in line, so perhaps we should all be voting for Trump too?

Hi, Xongsmith. But, negative press about Trump seems to just make more people vote for him.So I opted for parody instead.It's a coping mechanism.

Hi, Dronester. If you're going for style points, use this next time.

Hi, Dronester. If it's the cost in terms of human lives that you're concerned about, I would like to point out that Hillary is among the 60% of current presidential candidates who have not openly advocated war crimes. So, may I humbly suggest that your anit-people-dying anxieties have bigger fish to fry than Hillary Clinton?

Hi, Dronestar. It wasn't a false-dilemma fallacy, you artless, lily-livered minnow*. I said "you have bigger fish to fry," not "leave Hillary alone, because she's not a war criminal." To clarify, my complaint is that your obsession with Hillary Clinton's alleged war crimes is out of proportion to the concern it raises about our future.I'm willing to bet that, whatever atrocities Hillary Clinton may perpetrate upon taking office, Trump or Cruz would almost certainly perpetrate that and more. I therefore think you should spread your vitriol more proportionately across all likely human-rights violators, in an earnest effort to condemn war crimes. Your habit of passionately monologuing about Hillary makes it sound like the axe you wish to grind is rather more specific than the broad topic of "war crimes" (that is to say, you sound more like a Hillary-hater than a war crime-hater). *Seriously, try the Shakespearean insulter: your facepalm/chuckle/eyeroll repertoire is getting a bit stale.

Hi, Mod,I thought I'd jump in on a couple of your quotes here:

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I’m looking forward to a Trump presidency. When he is President, maybe people will realize the President doesn’t actually have all that much power.

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I can sort of agree with this sentiment: none of the candidates is really likely to accomplish the objectives they're setting out in their campaigns, because all their ideas involve legislation, which isn't the President's job.But, the "power" that Trump wields is the ability to rally the wackos. President Trump would probably function as a validation for a lot of extremists. He'd probably also release a constant stream of provocative speeches, which would embolden a lot of already-unapologetic people who really should be practicing more temperance. This is the kind of sociopolitical volatility that concerns me the most.

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I stand with Trump because, despite what the media says, he is the most moderate Republican running.

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Hillary isn’t an option because she is by far the biggest liar I have ever heard. Sanders promotes democratic socialism and although I would benefit from some of his plans, I don’t feel that free education and a $15 minimum wage would benefit our society.

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Frankly, I think the Sanders campaign is fueled entirely by unbounded optimism. Since I'm not a natural optimist, "feeling the Bern" seems like a euphemism for cognitive dissonance to me.

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Sanders is the spark of something big. Should he lose the nomination, I would vote Republican to see that spark become a flame.

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This doesn't just apply to Sanders: it applies to all the "one vote backwards to go two votes forward" concepts that people are sometimes talking about.Do we really think this kind of thing works? I have an autistic child. He doesn't learn from his mistakes very well, and has a difficult time getting out of his routines, even when he knows (intellectually) that his routine is causing him problems. So, the "Bruce Almighty" approach (give them the power so they can learn what happens when they use it wrong) never seemed like a good idea to me.

Hi, Mod. I kind of wish they'd divert some of their massive monetary contributions to research. Jeb Bush's pathetic campaign raised as much money as the global community of entomologists receives in a decade's worth of research grants. Our research on pest management and genetically modified crops is so much more meaningful than television ads that say "Marco Rubio is a flip-flopper."It makes me want to cry. Well, you'd need to define "nice" a bit more clearly. I do wish people would be more rational/logical with their decision-making processes, but it seems that society has always been hell-bent on stupidity, and democracy, for all its virtues, seems to only exacerbate that.I imagine that evolutionary psychology can provide a good explanation for all this, but perhaps that's a subject for a different thread? My first real exposure to Parliamentary politics came last night, when MP Skinner (?) was taken to task by the speaker (?) for calling the Prime Minister "Dodgy Dave." That sort of language is terribly unbecoming of a member of parliament.You guys are hilarious!

Hi, Big Al. I said I want rationality and logic, not conformity.My comment was specifically a reiteration of the age-old scientist's lament about the world prioritizing sensationalized but mostly frivolous things, such as political campaigns, over more obscure but potentially more valuable things, such as research.-----If you want my two cents, I believe basic rationality suggests we should be striving for a balanced budget, like the Republicans say. I don't think we can rationally defend the proliferation of federal programs that the Democrats want when we literally don't have the money to pay for them. It seems to me that these federal programs are more likely to become a burden on our society than an empowerment, especially given the electorate's opinions toward them, so I'm uncomfortable voting for them. I think we may need to see a generational shift before these ideas will work in America.On the other hand, it's not like Republicans are really thrifty: they want more military spending and money for a wall to cut off immigrants. These policies are highly likely to alienate us further from an international community that's already resentful towards us, and I'm not convinced that they're going to do much to protect us. I mean, Islamic terrorists are certainly evil and dangerous; but if it weren't for the psychological effects of terrorism amplified by the media, they really wouldn't be a serious threat to our national security at all. So, the Republican response to terrorism seems decidedly irrational to me, and Obama's response seems perfectly appropriate.Also, the phrase "fuck you" seems surprisingly rational as a response to anybody who thinks we need laws telling people how they should conduct their personal lives. I understand the discomfort that things like homosexuality and other "alternative lifestyles" can cause people, because they are, frankly, a bit "weird." Diversity (whether ethnic, religious, behavioral or other) can make things more complicated and messy, for sure: but diversity is reality, and trying to adapt to reality seems like a more rational enterprise than trying to adapt reality to ourselves.On the other hand, I have an inherent distaste for social crusades and protests. I am a conformist at heart, and have completely failed to make peace with the concept of organizations or institutions of any kind implementing punishments for social behaviors they disagree with. I feel like, as soon as these movements gain any traction, they turn into over-reactive witch hunts that pounce viciously on anything that even resembles disagreement with their cause.In short, I want moderation. In the past, the best way to achieve that in American politics has been to split my down-ballot votes between the two parties. But, the "balance of power" approach has recently only created gridlock and stagnation. So, I'm not so sure my split-ballot strategy is a good idea this time.

Hi, Big Al. What he's saying is that Ted Cruz prepared for a dirty game of politics, and Donald Trump prepared for a clean game of democracy. Since party conventions are not clean democracies, but are in fact dirty games of politics, Donald Trump's approach was incredibly naive. And, since the dirty rules were available for all the campaigns to see well in advance, Trump has no one to blame but himself.

Hi, Tanypteryx. Heh. Turd Cruz.

Hi, LNA. You must be using some non-standard definition of the word "interesting," of which I am not aware.

Hi Bliyaal. Yeah, a misogynist is more likely to keep a harem than a non-misogynist.