The General Political Thread

[Theodin]

The entire system is build to withstand a major nuclear attack. Or at least it was 30 years ago.
I am sure the government will do fine.

The military yes, the electrical grid? I don’t think so, especially the never equipment

[Olafson]

Yes, ofc.

What I was trying to say is what Riddlez said, There are backups for the military and government in place to keep everything going even after a nuclear disaster. The question is how up to date these plans are. For example I know that they had them in Germany in the 80s and stuff, but after the fall of the soviet union, I think it all collapsed. I believe no one is keeping this stuff up to date, and I am pretty sure that if something like that were to happen right now, it would be way worse than if it would have happened in the 80s.

[Riddlez]

Command structure in major military countries will almost definitely be kept up to date. Not just because of EMP strikes but also because a system not connected to the grid is unhackable unless you were to gain physical access.

[Olafson]

That is true. But I doubt that the agency responsible for lets say, agriculture is very up to date on this kind of problem. And that is a problem, because something like that is just as important as the military.

[Karth]

A few years ago, when I was thinking of joining the Army instead, they had so many radiological and nuclear specialist MOS roles available, damned if I actually followed through on that (and you need atleast a 90 on ASVAB I'm pretty sure to be considered for them)

But military is prepared, although certain readiness tests didn't have expected results, but I'm sure they are actively making sure all defense systems and capabilities are up to date.  Actually there was a documentary on all this, on history channel or something

[William]

Now that we talk of EMP's, I'm pretty sure the world would descend into anarchy if a solar flare hit the globe and knocked out all the electronics seeing as how dependent everything is on them from the world market to militaries.

[Olafson]

Except solar flares are only half as deadly as people want to think they are.

Simply orienting your car into a different direction could already save it from frying. Solar flares are not thaaat bad.

[Edwin]

Are all americans robots, or how the hell are 90% of all americans going to die by shutting down the power grid?

It'll disable all the electronic insulin dispensers

[MrTiki]

And then people will just get injections. It's not hard, millions of people just jab themselves several times a day and there's already a massive number of diabetic specialists and nurses around, so you just run group sessions teaching people how to inject. Pretty straightforward. The loss of pacemakers would be FAR worse, as you can't just manually replace them and fitting each new one would take an operation in and of itself. Diabetes is the least of your worries.

It would be awful to deal with for sure, but it'd more be devastating from an infrastructure and economic meltdown point of view than people dying directly from it.

[Riddlez]

It was a joke, Tiki.

[Edwin]

It's Halloween and the politics thread is back from the dead with another terrorist attack!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/31/nyc-terror-attack-leaves-8-dead-several-injured.html

- At least 8 dead
- Driver was initially shot by the police and has been taken into custody

In other news, which is actually quite relevant in regards to Islamic extremist in the west:

Terror suspects including jihadis returning from fighting in Syria are to be offered taxpayer-funded homes, counselling and help finding jobs to stop them carrying out attacks in Britain.

The top-secret Government strategy, codenamed Operation Constrain, could even allow fanatics to jump to the top of council house waiting lists.

Official documents seen by The Mail on Sunday reveal that up to 20,000 extremists previously investigated by MI5 will be targeted with what critics last night described as ‘bribes’ aimed at turning them away from extremism.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5027683/Council-house-bribes-UK-terror-suspects.html

What a fantastic conservative government! #Tories2020

[Riddlez]

Ignoring people's feelings completely, this is actually a very smart solution

[Edwin]

Not really, and now Gavin Williamson has been appointed Defence Secretary! Yet another disastrous decision to add to May's ever-increasing collection.

[junedragon]

Ignoring peoples feelings basic logic that anyone fanatical enough to kill innocent men, women, and children for their interpretation of islam will never be dissuaded by material goods (what is a house compared to eternal gifts from Allah?) completely, this is actually a very smart solution

Corrected that

[Riddlez]

OKay, so as a government, you have a returned jihadi. You kind of want to know what he or she is up to when theyre back in your country and youre kind of that they want to kill more people.

What better way to keep an eye on them is to put them in a location of your choosing (in other words, social housing in te middle of Dundee, Scotland, so no chance of there being fellow radicals). You can bug the shit out the house and basically keep an eye on the jihadi almost all the time. That also increases the chance of getting to know his or her network.

If this isnt entirely the case and the jihadi has returned slightly cured of his ISIS zealotry, it may be a decent shot at reintregration thereby making sure attacks dont happen too.


I get that it goes against a more conservative approach of people having to be punished for what theyve done, but youre not going to stop radicalisation if you just put them in a cell. This is controversial, but pragmatic.
Dont forget these kinds of decisions arent usually made by politicians, but by the intelligence services. They kind of know what theyre doing.