Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Krill]

Guys you all need to start having kids.

That way you'll be too poor to do anything except play PB games during the night whilst coddling the newest baby.

[greenline]

Congrats, France.

The thing that's concerning to me is I don't exactly see these far-right groups going away anytime soon. The reality is that Europe especially (and the US to a smaller extent) has a demographic problem. Aging population + low birth rates = economic stagnation. That's oversimplifying things a bit, but for the most part, it rings true. You can seriously counteract that through heavy immigration, but... obviously that's a contentious issue in virtually every major western democracy right now. As the population aging continues it's going to steadily get worse, and that'll fuel the fire for these fairly extreme political parties even further. As Commodore kind of implied, there's an air of inevitability about it all.

There are ways to stem this I suppose, but it sure feels like some of these populist cans have just been kicked a little further down the road in the countries that have thus far avoided it. Is there any plausible way around this? "Accept a ton of immigrants" seems like the right answer to me, but that's apparently a political nonstarter to a lot of people.

raise retirement age, but that will never happen because geezers vote in flocks
(immigration will never be a highly regarded solution because it's stealing from the poor to help the somewhat poorer   )

[Dreylin]

Guys you all need to start having kids.

That way you'll be too poor to do anything except play PB games during the night whilst coddling the newest baby.

Ahahahahahaha ... ha ha ha. (Did that get a touch hysterical at the end there?)

[TheArchduke]

Guys you all need to start having kids.

That way you'll be too poor to do anything except play PB games during the night whilst coddling the newest baby.

Really the only thing everyone needs to do apronto in the western world.

The first thing.

[AdrienIer]

Getting out of the Paris agreement ? Seriously USA ?

[DaveV]

Sorry, world (and upcoming generations). I certainly didn't vote for him...

[Commodore]

Getting out of the Paris agreement ? Seriously USA ?

Most green treaties are First World countries shoving their polluting industries into China/India/Third World countries (intentionally or no), I'd be curious to see what, if any, effect this reversal will have.

[AdrienIer]

Considering that said third world country had agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emission too, I disagree. We had also agreed to fund their transition to better energy sources/non polluted sources, which is at least as important as our own emission reduction.

[Mardoc]

Getting out of the Paris agreement ? Seriously USA ?

So if Wikipedia is to be believed, the Paris agreement has no enforcement mechanisms at all, no defined cut amounts, and so basically being a member or not makes no difference whatsoever. Which makes it perfect for both Obama and Trump as a symbolic victory with no associated cost or effect.

Oh, and on top it wasn't ratified by the Senate so wasn't legally binding here to begin with, and our CO2 emissions have been falling anyway due to non political reasons. (Probably fracking and hybrids/LEDs).

[Singaboy]

Most of those agreements are more symbolic in nature. Most of what Trump does is symbolic, at least to me. For example bowing to Middle Eastern ISIS sponsoring Despots, being friends with Duterte, Erdogan and Putin while being very hostile to moderate democratic forces in Europe.
Getting out of the climate agreement to show how important the USA is to him while he couldn't care less about anyone else.

The rest of us should learn how to deal with such a rogue nation. The earlier the better.