Random political thought thread.

[DiscoBiscuit]

Regarding the Harvard situation. As I mentioned earlier this was the first strike in a larger campaign. And now Rufo confirms it. Get ready for a lot more of these. A lot of wealthy conservatives would be willing to throw some cash at this.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1742339419854770284

 

[Coriolis]

The problem here is that the dems got themselves into impossible situation. On one side they made this huge hype that Trump is the criminal anti-christ and on the other side if he is convicted open civil war is quite realistic possibility. In other words if he isn't convicted they will look like clowns and third of their voters will leave the party for good after the 10th major disappointment. This is exactly why I think that these people don't really have a plan. Since they basically short circuit the whole political system to the point that there is no easy way out.

What exactly will happen I don't know either. What is kinda why their choice of actions is kinda dumb. The tensions are too high for improvisations.

He should be convicted, because he is guilty, from what I am able to see of evidence presented publicly so far, to include his own recorded statements. If that leads to some sort of civil war, so be it. It is time people understand the stakes here, and take sides rather than fence-sitting and hoping it will all go away. As the slogan goes, freedom isn't free. It may be time to pay the piper.

I saw recently that the Ohio governor just vetoed a ban on gender affirming care for minors, with the explanation that the government should not claim to know what is better for children than their own parents and doctors do. I wish more Republicans would demonstrate this sort of internal consistency. If the GOP is to survive as a constructive force rather than simply an instrument of anarchy, we need more in the mold of Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, and John McCain, who know what personal integrity means, and can reason themselves out of a paper bag.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Could you explain this a little bit for me?

In the end it all comes down to the idea that the problem can be minimalized without the government interference.
I am from Europe and my government for something like 2 and half years was financially aiding small businesses in order to get them through covid. So almost all of them survived and all of that was paid with the fact that they survived. From what I understand that is pretty unorthodox way of doing things by US standards (and I have the right in the office, just for the record). For me doing lockdowns without providing financial assistance is just brutal. (from what I understand dems didn't do much better either). We even managed to completely remove COVID with the lockdown but sicne most of the world failed in doing that achivement was quickly nulified. Especially since we can't completely isolate from the world. In other words of you provide funancial assistance you can do a full lockdown and the virus will die off.


Also as you are probably aware I have the so called socialized healthcare so that can also suck in plenty of damage for not so big sums of money. Especially since if you have that people are more willing to risk with unwanted side effects of the vaccine. Plus various small perks that are in the system of living here. At my local level the only thing we really messed up is that we completely underestimated the anti-vax propaganda that will come from the internet. What lead to pointless deaths. However the general ride for the most was surely much more gentle than what happened in US. Which has some serious scars and medical bills after all of this. While here the damage is mostly absorbed and we continued with our lives. However that also didn't last for long since the mess in Ukraine blew up any sense of normal (I am just few hours on a highway from Ukraine). However due to that many programs and benefits from COVID era continued. This is why I say that US is simply too prideful to get off it's horse. So you march into tank battles on a horse and then wonder why everything went to hell. Get some protection, it really isn't a shame to do that if we consider all the things that will hit us or that are likely to hit us.

 

[Virtual ghost]

He should be convicted, because he is guilty, from what I am able to see of evidence presented publicly so far, to include his own recorded statements. If that leads to some sort of civil war, so be it. It is time people understand the stakes here, and take sides rather than fence-sitting and hoping it will all go away. As the slogan goes, freedom isn't free. It may be time to pay the piper.

I saw recently that the Ohio governor just vetoed a ban on gender affirming care for minors, with the explanation that the government should not claim to know what is better for children than their own parents and doctors do. I wish more Republicans would demonstrate this sort of internal consistency. If the GOP is to survive as a constructive force rather than simply an instrument of anarchy, we need more in the mold of Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, and John McCain, who know what personal integrity means, and can reason themselves out of a paper bag.

From purely moral standpoint you are fully correct. However I am not sure that you understand what modern civil war is. In other words mess that you see in the middle east will now be happening at home. Plus there will be complete economic collapse since supply chains will crumble completely. Plus you will lose many international positions since all of this will leave a vaccume in many places (which someone else will fill). Even the new Trump's persidency would be a minor inconvinience next to what genuine civil war offers. As someone who survived the war with his own federal governemnt I dare to say that you don't want to go there if it can be prevented (since you will be picking up pieces of your lives for decades). Ironiclly the dissolution of the Yugoslav union happened due to evident mismanagemnt and the guy with noticable hair that half of the country couldn't stand. The parallels with with modern US are impossible to ignore if you go into the detials. So I can really say: been there done that, and don't go there. I know that it is tempting to blow it all up but trust me it isn't really worth it.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Feds add allegations of Qatari influence against indicted Sen. Bob Menendez

2 Trump-aligned GOP operatives face foreign agent charges for helping Qatar


Based on what Quatar did across the world it seem that they really like to bribe politicians. At this point this is pretty evident trend.

 

[Red Herring]

From purely moral standpoint you are fully correct. However I am not sure that you understand what modern civil war is. In other words mess that you see in the middle east will now be happening at home. Plus there will be complete economic collapse since supply chains will crumble completely. Plus you will lose many international positions since all of this will leave a vaccume in many places (which someone else will fill). Even the new Trump's persidency would be a minor inconvinience next to what genuine civil war offers. As someone who survived the war with his own federal governemnt I dare to say that you don't want to go there if it can be prevented (since you will be picking up pieces of your lives for decades). Ironiclly the dissolution of the Yugoslav union happened due to evident mismanagemnt and the guy with noticable hair that half of the country couldn't stand. The parallels with with modern US are impossible to ignore if you go into the detials. So I can really say: been there done that, and don't go there. I know that it is tempting to blow it all up but trust me it isn't really worth it.

They haven't had a war on their own territory for a century and a half.

 

[Virtual ghost]

They haven't had a war on their own territory for a century and a half.

I know, my point was that they never had MODERN war on their territory. That civil war from 19th century is actually something pretty romantic when compared with how all of that would look like with modern guns. Once you add tanks, missiles and air strikes it gets much much more devastating. Turning US cities into Ukraine or Gaza ... not the best idea.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

All the wanna be fascist chicken necks who like to advertise they suck cock for authoritarianism, all the sovereign citizens who try to get hard about how they'd have done the whiskey rebellions better, the weekend warriors who spend all their free time drilling, all the preppers, and the "Come and take them" gun guys. Believe that their glorious new revolution would be a ground conflict against a bunch of civilians. They fail to realize that they themselves are just a bunch of civilians and the United States Government fights its wars with Air Power and Space Power. They fail to realize that their Uncle Sam knows exactly who they are, where they are, what they're up to, and will have absolutely 0 compunction about a precision drone strike that leaves their little bunker homes busted like a house blown up to bits by a gas leak. All these semi-auto fire special magazine guns and special bullets and body armor don't mean jack shit against a little bit of good old fashioned Mors Ab Alto.

 

[Coriolis]

They haven't had a war on their own territory for a century and a half.

I know, my point was that they never had MODERN war on their territory. That civil war from 19th century is actually something pretty romantic when compared with how all of that would look like with modern guns. Once you add tanks, missiles and air strikes it gets much much more devastating. Turning US cities into Ukraine or Gaza ... not the best idea.

Romantic? The civil war was butchery. Slaughter. Anyone who takes the time to study it learns that. No, we have not had full out war here since then. Just as certainly, it is risky to draw parallels with other nations when so often the US has been shown to behave quite differently. Gun violence? Racial conflict? Income inequity? Even more positive forces like environmental stewardship often play out very differently here than in Europe, for instance, due to our different history, even geography.

Yes, armed domestic conflict wouldn't be pretty, and many people would get hurt. People already are getting hurt, if in less flashy and obvious ways. One lesson we might take from Europe is that appeasement doesn't work. It might bring the illusion of peace and stability, but does so by pandering to the worst in our midst, to use modern terminology, enabling very destructive behavior. Many metaphors come to mind: the stitch in time, the frogs in the slowly heating water. Acting rashly and in haste is ill-advised, but so it continuing to kick the can down the road until it becomes an enormous barrel out of everyone's control.

Put another way, we have laws against insurrection, election fraud, witness intimidation, etc. for a reason. If we are not going to enforce them because some vocal and dangerous subset of the population might take umbrage and act out, then we have already compromised the rule of law and headed down the path to anarchy.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Romantic? The civil war was butchery. Slaughter. Anyone who takes the time to study it learns that. No, we have not had full out war here since then. Just as certainly, it is risky to draw parallels with other nations when so often the US has been shown to behave quite differently. Gun violence? Racial conflict? Income inequity? Even more positive forces like environmental stewardship often play out very differently here than in Europe, for instance, due to our different history, even geography.

Yes, armed domestic conflict wouldn't be pretty, and many people would get hurt. People already are getting hurt, if in less flashy and obvious ways. One lesson we might take from Europe is that appeasement doesn't work. It might bring the illusion of peace and stability, but does so by pandering to the worst in our midst, to use modern terminology, enabling very destructive behavior. Many metaphors come to mind: the stitch in time, the frogs in the slowly heating water. Acting rashly and in haste is ill-advised, but so it continuing to kick the can down the road until it becomes an enormous barrel out of everyone's control.

Put another way, we have laws against insurrection, election fraud, witness intimidation, etc. for a reason. If we are not going to enforce them because some vocal and dangerous subset of the population might take umbrage and act out, then we have already compromised the rule of law and headed down the path to anarchy.

Ok, in that case I will go into the "story mode" since it is important. So bare with me through the twists.


I said romantic because many in US have some kind of a romantic view about that civil war in 19th century. It was bloody but plenty of art is trying to make it look "romantic". In other words when you add tanks and airstrikes you are losing even this illusion. Since in that case you will only get even more misery. Plenty of more misery.


However as I explained a few posts back, if you go into another full scale civil war you as a country are finished. Especially since with that you will loose all of your positions globally. What will basically be impossible to reverse. Therefore I would suggest something else entirely and that is trying to rise media literacy. Just start talking about this in mass and plenty of people will hook up pretty quickly. What should smooth some things out and most importantly this should face people with the fact that not everything that they read on internet is true. America has this kinda specific mindset that you can believe in whatever you want. However that in combination with the internet and weak education makes one very slippery slope. What is especially problematic is that average US citizen isn't aware of the fact that the internet has directly connected their house with the most undemocratic governments on the planet. Which are evidently using it for creating instability.


This is basically why the whole Trump thing doesn't want to go away even if that should have been the case long time ago if things were going even remotely towards common sense. But whatever they throw at him noting works. What is because the internet is keeping him politically alive, what is evidently made by foreign actors to some degree. This doesn't even mean he is really working with them, however they see him as the agent of chaos and thus they boost him. As a matter of fact you can do some pretty nice anti US propaganda globally if the Trump is on top. Just in that regard he is an asset of value. Something like "They will vote for Trump again, do you really want to be allies with those people ?". On the other hand plenty of drama heavy anti Trump messages are probably also coming from outside. Since the idea is to actually short circuit the whole country, so that it implodes from inside. What is easiest to do if you can make the country boil over under pressure (and that is why all of you regardless of the party have that feeling that you are slowly getting cooked). On my local forums in Central Europe Communists and various extremist people are openly saying that they are boosting Trump over the internet. They are almost singing songs about how Trump will be president again and there will be complete chaos in the USA. What will bring down the country. Which is exactly why I said that any kind of civil war or openly risking it is very bad idea. Since with that you are giving these people what they really want. The collapse of USA.


In other words you must recognize that the problem is abroad and in your own weak education system and poor media quality. Which make sure that people can't recognize false information when they see it, or they ignorantly hook up on drama. Therefore the problems you are having are for the scalpel, not the sledgehammer. Since sledgehammer will surely kill the patient, which is the county.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

In the end it all comes down to the idea that the problem can be minimalized without the government interference.
I am from Europe and my government for something like 2 and half years was financially aiding small businesses in order to get them through covid. So almost all of them survived and all of that was paid with the fact that they survived. From what I understand that is pretty unorthodox way of doing things by US standards (and I have the right in the office, just for the record). For me doing lockdowns without providing financial assistance is just brutal. (from what I understand dems didn't do much better either). We even managed to completely remove COVID with the lockdown but sicne most of the world failed in doing that achivement was quickly nulified. Especially since we can't completely isolate from the world. In other words of you provide funancial assistance you can do a full lockdown and the virus will die off.


Also as you are probably aware I have the so called socialized healthcare so that can also suck in plenty of damage for not so big sums of money. Especially since if you have that people are more willing to risk with unwanted side effects of the vaccine. Plus various small perks that are in the system of living here. At my local level the only thing we really messed up is that we completely underestimated the anti-vax propaganda that will come from the internet. What lead to pointless deaths. However the general ride for the most was surely much more gentle than what happened in US. Which has some serious scars and medical bills after all of this. While here the damage is mostly absorbed and we continued with our lives. However that also didn't last for long since the mess in Ukraine blew up any sense of normal (I am just few hours on a highway from Ukraine). However due to that many programs and benefits from COVID era continued. This is why I say that US is simply too prideful to get off it's horse. So you march into tank battles on a horse and then wonder why everything went to hell. Get some protection, it really isn't a shame to do that if we consider all the things that will hit us or that are likely to hit us.

This will be a fundamental impasse between us. And I doubt we'll get very far if we try to have discussion here, but I'll offer a response to which you can reply or not should you feel the need to.

A belief in centralized gov't power leading to better outcomes is (I assume) fundamental to your world view as it is anathema to mine.

The social democracies of Europe with gov't provided healthcare are supported by two things which are basically nonstarters here. Higher levels of taxation at all income levels, and lack of military spending.

There aren't any with living memory of a time before these things existed. I would assume you can't really imagine a world without these things as you've been living with them for so long.

But the umbrella of American security guarantees that allowed them to grow in the first place is going away. Europe is already beginning to remilitarize (Ger sending 5000 troops to Lithuainia for ex). The trade ensured by these security guarantees is also going away.

In my view America paid for tickets to an 80 year free ride for Europe that is now going away. I assume y'all will have to change the way you do things in the coming decades but doing so will be a slow and contentious process.

American healthcare (and education for that matter) is not a perfect system as I'm sure we can all agree. Pharma giants ludicrously over price drugs and large medical players in our system are able to capture regulation in our system in a way that further increases cost.

My blame for this is that healthcare in the US has turned into a jobs program for useless administrators. Healthcare and education aren't produced efficiently here due mostly to gov't involvement as I would argue this chart shows

It is my belief that both the education and healthcare bubbles will eventually pop over here. The education bubble is already popping (if slowly), just look at declining college enrollment.

The healthcare bubble has a while before it will pop because one of our largest populations (the boomers) are getting into retirement and will need end of life care for years to come.

But eventually it too will pop. I think our disagreements here will be founded in a fundamental difference in the way we see the world and the way we think it "ought" to be so I don't really see us agreeing on much, which is just fine. We don't have to agree or even come to an understanding on everything.

Hope you have a great 2024 and thanks for your reply.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Virtual ghost]

This will be a fundamental impasse between us. And I doubt we'll get very far if we try to have discussion here, but I'll offer a response to which you can reply or not should you feel the need to.

A belief in centralized gov't power leading to better outcomes is (I assume) fundamental to your world view as it is anathema to mine.

The social democracies of Europe with gov't provided healthcare are supported by two things which are basically nonstarters here. Higher levels of taxation at all income levels, and lack of military spending.

There aren't any with living memory of a time before these things existed. I would assume you can't really imagine a world without these things as you've been living with them for so long.

But the umbrella of American security guarantees that allowed them to grow in the first place is going away. Europe is already beginning to remilitarize (Ger sending 5000 troops to Lithuainia for ex). The trade ensured by these security guarantees is also going away.

In my view America paid for tickets to an 80 year free ride for Europe that is now going away. I assume y'all will have to change the way you do things in the coming decades but doing so will be a slow and contentious process.

American healthcare (and education for that matter) is not a perfect system as I'm sure we can all agree. Pharma giants ludicrously over price drugs and large medical players in our system are able to capture regulation in our system in a way that further increases cost.

My blame for this is that healthcare in the US has turned into a jobs program for useless administrators. Healthcare and education aren't produced efficiently here due mostly to gov't involvement as I would argue this chart shows

View attachment 30014

It is my belief that both the education and healthcare bubbles will eventually pop over here. The education bubble is already popping (if slowly), just look at declining college enrollment.

The healthcare bubble has a while before it will pop because one of our largest populations (the boomers) are getting into retirement and will need end of life care for years to come.

But eventually it too will pop. I think our disagreements here will be founded in a fundamental difference in the way we see the world and the way we think it "ought" to be so I don't really see us agreeing on much, which is just fine. We don't have to agree or even come to an understanding on everything.

Hope you have a great 2024 and thanks for your reply.

Ok, but I think you overlooked a few things here. A few very important things.


The first one is that I can't picture the world without socialized healthcare. What is simply false since I am a man with pretty developed abstract thinking. Plus I pay close attention to what is going on in USA. So when you combine those two it really isn't rocket science to put those two into vision how private healcare looks like. I am advocate of socialized medicine exactly since I can see the alternative. Therefore I think that I am better off like this. The fact that you can't really be driven into medical bankruptcy is real perk in life. Especially since in that case you can basically live as real freelancer. But you don't have to count every $ in your pocket and live in fear over potential medical problems. I mean you guys in US really made too much drama out of even thinking about thiss social program. To me socialized medicine is like law enforcement, fire department or military. If your life is danger they have the duty to save your life anyway they can, and you will pay that through taxes. However the key element is what happens when you go broke because life is being life. In that case you will get a free ride in the healthcare system until you get your life back in order (your children are included into the mix). Plus if you have a real emergency they tend to take you over the line since this isn't business transaction. Since they aren't after money so they tend to leave one slot open for energencies. What overal is really a stress reducer and thus much less people are popping like popcorn. Therefore having less of social tensions is evidently paying for itself. After all healthy people tend to be more productive in general. What then provides more in taxes that feed the system.



On the other hand I would dare to question your math in this topic. For example USA has defense spending of something like 3.5% of GDP the last time I checked. On the other hand France is spending about 2% but it has all kinds of social programs that are basically unthinkable in USA. Social medicine included. So how is that possible ? The key is that France is doing the other 97% of the economy differently. This is why I would dare to say that your math about ending of such programs in Europe is questionable. So even if our military spending doubles or even triples we will surely find the place in the economy to keep things going. As a matter of fact I will say something that probably never even occurred to you: exactly because we have to rise our defense spending we can't really afford getting off socialized healthcare. In other words private/individualized healthcare like the one in US is heavily profit based and that is what makes it expensive. In other words if you don't have socialized medicine you also have to pay: all kinds of advertising, maintenance and utilities of various offices that work with clients, sales managers, lawyers, plenty of shareholders, people who do lobbying, .... etc. While in genuine socialized medicine you just need to pay the doctor, guys who makes meds and medical equipment, and the guys who build your local hospital. I have signed my socialized heathcare contract with the government years ago and that it is, the offices don't see me. Therefore when you compare those two options it isn't that hard to figure out which option has cheaper daily operations. You are saying that these mechanisms are about to pop in US and that is probably true. Since you have added way too many of the middle men to what are critical basics (healthcare and education are the foundations of civilization and without them you have nothing). Therefore if we have to spend more on the defence that is probably bad news for anyone that wants private healthcare. Since financial room for growing that will be sqizzed quite a bit.




Plus you said that USA support is going away due to geopolitical reasons. That may be true but there is one catch, USA is also the biggest and basically the only advocate of private healthcare in Europe. So if the influence of US on Europe severly drops then who exactly will lead this transtion to private healthcare? Which btw pretty much no one wants and we evidently need more money for defence. Therefore I am pretty skeptical about your interpretation of where thing are going in Europe. I think that it is more likely that you were told that you are paying for my wefare state just so that "they" have the excuse not to build similar system in US. Since that system would be much cheaper and that means that someone would loose a lot of easy money. This is exactly why I mentioned France, since France is nuclear power with about 300 nukes (UK has about 200 more). In other words open war between Russia and Europe would still bring massive nuclear devastation even if US doesn't move a finger in all of this. Thefore when you sum it all up you aren't fundamentally paying for my wefare state. You are simply from the country that likes massive army and where heathcare is basically a scam. I don't want this to sounds like an insult but when you scratch the surface that is kinda the impression that stays in the mouth. Socilized medicine started to spread across Europe in 19th century, what is long before USA had and significant impact on the continent. So the odds are that this will survive even if USA leaves the place completely, as presented that actually boosts the odds that the mechanism will survive.

As a matter of fact you want to have institutional goverment based healthcare system that will treat you even when the Reds invade, and when economy and people's incomes start to severly buckle because of that. In the case that Ukraine doesn't have a form of socialized healthcare it surely would have socially imploed by now. Since pressures on the local population aren't exactly small and general hygiene of people is probably put into question. So formal and stable backup is evidently needed if things become this bad. This is exactly why I said that I don't see the difference between law enforcemnt, fire department, socialized healthcare and the military. For me these are just sections of the same sistem that provides general social security.



I know that you wanted honest opinion so here it is.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

Get Informed.
Stay informed.
Just in case any rando ignorant chuckle fucks use rhetorical devices to try and anger you.
And always remember to ask yourself why they might want to do that...
​

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Get Informed.
Stay informed.
Just in case any rando ignorant chuckle fucks use rhetorical devices to try and anger you.
And always remember to ask yourself why they might want to do that...
​

"The people who wrote the constitution were very sensitive about the word treason, because they all committed it!"

lol

 

[The Cat]

"The people who wrote the constitution were very sensitive about the word treason, because they all committed it!"

lol

Thats a big reason why the Whiskey Rebellions would make a good historical comedy series.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Thats a big reason why the Whiskey Rebellions would make a good historical comedy series.

They probably would.

 

[The Cat]

They probably would.

Especially if you Cast Donal Logue as one of the leads.