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shavenferret 16 hours ago
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SanAndreasX said:
shavenferret said:

The people that take this seriously are just bored and don't have anything of substance to discuss.  And I believe that not everything a politician says should be taken seriously, especially by someone who turns spectacle into an art form.  

This is the very definition of the slippery slop fallacy, chicken little kind of stuff.   

I'd sooner beleive the kind of thing in the attached gif than trump wanting to annex another nation by force or pressure: 

Easy for people in the U.S. to say. When it’s the head of state of a country with a long history of engaging in military intervention under spurious pretexts making these threats, you can bet that Canadians, Panamanians, and Europeans will take it seriously. Both Canada and Panama have been on the receiving end of U.S. military intervention, after all. It’s also being echoed by members of the majority party in the lawmaking body of that country, who have the right to declare war. This is the international relations version of yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater, whether falsely or not.

Regardless of whether the convicted felon makes good on his threats, this is going to screw up international relations for decades to come. International relations are built on trust, and that trust is being eroded. 

Alright, but "taking it seriously" has different levels.  At the lowest, you'll have people laughing but still thinking that Trump is an asshole for ssaying that.  The next hypothetical level would be politicians making speeches over this.  And finally, you'll have the military getting ready for war.  I'm just curious as to whether this has happened or not.  If not, then the remarks should be be dismissed.  

And Ryuu was quite correct, that the remarks will bring some amount of discord and make the United States look very irresponsible.  But I don't care about any of that.  All that concerns me is just how seriously these comments were taken.  In the 80's, Reagan was referring the USSR when he said that the "bombing will begin in 5 minutes."   But everybody knew that he was just being an asshole and i'm fine with that.  It was a bit irresponsible but nothing happened so no big deal.