Sandwich

Actually, isn't Hillary up in election polls right now? I haven't gone and checked since I don't care for either of them, but that's what I keep hearing.

The whole 97% of scientists is false. Again I really don't want to open that debate. Nobody wants to hurt the environment, except maybe BP. Pollution is simply a byproduct of industries. And an average hoe can stop a corporation from cutting down a forest and I don't mean by doing something idiotic like chaining yourself to a tree. Protest with your dollar. If you don't like what they're doing don't buy their product and encourage others to boycott too. Companies are driven by capital and if people aren't buying they will shut down or change their practices. I will say however that a minimal amount of regulation should be put in place to protect certain endangered species or to prevent unintended consequences. Does that require an agency to manage? Maybe but at the very least it ought to be heavily deregulated. I'd rather he shut down planned parenthood but he's actually in favor of them - another thing I don't like.

Trump doesn't want to sever ties to allies either. But they have to pay their fair share that they agreed to. That's a serious problem, other countries are taking advantage of America's military and if they aren't going to pay then they shouldn't get the service. I can't recall Trump saying it's an inevitability. I mean of course you can stop another country from getting nukes and indeed nonproliferation has been quite successful, arguably. That doesn't say anything about whether or not it is or isn't better if we allow other countries to get their own nukes. I don't see an issue with letting our allies get nukes if they don't want to pay their fair share. Either pay your rent or defend yourself.

Nukes are still very much relevant. Yes anti ballistic missiles exist but not every country has that technology. If a country like Iran got the nuke, only Israel, Pakistan and India has a nuke or abm themselves to challenge Iran's power. And if the US and Russia were to engage in total war against each other, more than few nukes would pass through.

That's a good point about dollar protests, I didn't think about that.
But regardless of all that I think the EPA should still exist in some form, because there are scenarios in which dollar votes aren't as effective, damage to the environment more immediate and less reversible. So I can definitely agree with keeping around, and also with cutting off anything which is needless.

As for the nukes I can see where you're coming from if they're taking advantage us in these treaties. In that case it would be better to back out or at least demand they pay up. But at the same time I still think the world is safer with less nukes than with more. And I do mean that even if we have lots of missiles to shoot them down (Thanks Deathmob). It could simple threat of a nuke flying across the ocean and destroying dozens of thousands of lives that throws people into mass paranoia. And another issue could be the potential for technology that counters those missiles to be developed over time.

Probably gonna peace out for now. Thanks for the talk guys, it's good to get other perspectives.

The EPA is fraught with useless wasteful programs which is what I think is what is motivating Mr. Trump to try to abolish the agency. He's going to find that outright eliminating it is going to be extremely difficult. Hopefully he'll realize the futility of the effort and instead direct his attention on removing the spurious boondoggles.

and as for climate change... The United States has done so much to cut down on emissions and seek out alternative energy sources. There's really not all that much room for improvement. If anyone really cared that much about the environment, they'd campaign for bringing the hammer down on China, the worst polluter in the world. They were given free reign to absolutely screw over their own environment, and the entire world, by the Kyoto Treaty. Mr. Trump has mentioned a few times how China is doing this, which gives me at least a small hope he might muscle his way in to do something about it, unlike our past presidents and presidential candidates who have acted ignorant about the problem.

I think "removing the spurious boondoggles" is probably the best way to address the EPA...
Also the next president would definitely do well to say something about China's pollution.

I can agree with most of what you said. Just a couple of things, though:

When it comes to the EPA, part of the reason I think they're important is because they impede those who mean to hurt the environment. We don't need them for working towards fixing the environment, you're right. People can handle that. But there's also a lot of people who don't care about the environment and are still causing damage to it. That's where the EPA plays a key role: stopping people or firms from causing further damage to our environment and worsening the effects of climate change. A group of average joes can't force a corporation to not cut down that forest.
So if Trump wants to get rid of the EPA my main concern is whether he'll provide any kind of replacement, but he doesn't seem to offer anything like that. His main concern is that the EPA costs money and stops businesses from doing what they want. But my concern is worsening the effects of climate change. It's very real, proven over and over again by scientists to the point where over 97% of the scientific community accepts it, and we really have to do as much as we can to mitigate the effects it will have on our lives.

Also about the nuke thing. It's not that he's thought about it at all. Every president has and should do that. However what people are worried about is how open he is to use of nuclear weapons. He says that more countries should have nukes, and that full nuclear proliferation is an inevitability. Now, I see what he means. Clearly he's saying that the world is safer if everybody has the deadly weapon, so no one will use it for fear of being hit back. That's one way of looking at it, but I'd prefer to avoid cold war "duck and cover" scenarios where tensions between nuclear powers lead to mass paranoia.
And a lot of studies suggest that he's actually wrong about inevitability, since the US has been quite successful in it's efforts to limit nuclear proliferation.



Yet Trump says that he will move away from the alliances we've built up over the years unless our allies make major financial concessions. If he does, that his prediction will come true, I guess. But that's not what I want to happen.

Edit: Also sorry Arlong but I'm going to have to report your post for use of a hate symbol

Honestly I just don't see any reason to vote for him. I used to dislike the two equally: Trump was a fool and Hillary dishonest. But now, Trump is beginning to tell as many if not more lies than Hillary.
Just in the recent debate between the two it was counted by one article (probably leaned left, to be fair) that Trump said around 34 things that were either wrong, misleading, or complete lies. Ironically Hillary had much less.
A good example is when he denied saying that "global warming is a chinese hoax" during the debate, but it's pretty obvious he did if you literally just go through his twitter:




Not to mention him lying about the Iraq war. While there are sources showing his public support for the Iraq war before we went in, all he had was "ask Sean Hannity".
The article he cites about him being against the war was when they were already a year in.
There's him refusing to release his tax returns, and blaming ISIS on Obama even though he wasn't even president when ISIS started.
There's the whole birther movement that he continued to press even after Obama proved himself, and then him trying to say Doyle said it too even though she actually didn't.
Recently his Trump Foundation which ran for years was forcefully shut down because they actually lacked the certifications to take money from the public.

In addition to making a fool of himself there's a whole other list of idiotic things that Mike Pence or Trump's campaign people have said as well. It's just too much...

I'm not fond of Clinton either. She told some lies too at the debate, and that's not to mention the email mess, her continually lying about the classification of the emails, and denying for a while that she did anything wrong. I was surprised when she admitted fault in the debate.
There's also DWS and the DNC in general screwing over Bernie Sanders which was pretty lame. When DWS resigned after the leaks, Hillary immediately made her the honorary chair of her campaign. That had me livid.

Yet, I find myself leaning towards Hillary after that debate.

I'm curious what Trump supporters think about all this stuff.