Random Politics Thread

[ceecee]

People who bitch about their taxes being too high and make more then, oh 80K are whiny shits. Yes, they take a chunk out. Are you suffering and struggling as a result? If so and you're single you are probably the one with a massive spending problem, not the government.

Sure they do. But as a household that makes significantly more than 80k, I know the wealthy pay less in taxes than we do. They buy legislatures to make sure of it. That's where my my issue with govt/taxes comes in.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Sure they do. But as a household that makes significantly more than 80k, I know the wealthy pay less in taxes than we do. They buy legislatures to make sure of it. That's where my my issue with govt/taxes comes in.

Yeah, in some cases, they pay nothing.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Pew Research: wide partisan divide on whether voting is a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities
Interesting how education influences this.

 

[Coriolis]

Pew Research: wide partisan divide on whether voting is a fundamental right or a privilege with responsibilities
Interesting how education influences this.

This is mixed up. Voting is a right, and like many rights, comes also with a responsibility. I would not object to requiring citizens to vote as I think they do in Australia. You could choose "none of the above", but you would have to cast a ballot.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I get that lots of people aren't where I'm at. What I have a problem with is people who see themselves as "pragmatic" and "sensible" who nevertheless prefer to attempt working with obvious psychos than actual progressives, despite having lots of evidence that those people are not willing to play ball. .There's nothing pragmatic about that. This is why I think it's entirely reasonable to question the motives of the people at the top who think like that (rank and file might be more genuine; most people don't care that much about being consistent or making sense). I'm referring to stuff like praising Liz Cheney and Dubya as patriots and heroes while blaming Sanders for Hillary losing. That's the kind of stuff that is eye-rolling inducing at best.

If you're so desperate to find "good Republicans" you're willing to include a woman who sold out her own sister for political gain and a guy who presided over the impetus for the decline of the American empire and played a major role in our losing the war in Afghanistan, that goes a bit beyond any question of political pragmatism for me and enters into an array of either confused thinking or pathology. Republicans aren't going to turn out and vote for Democrats in droves now that you think Dubya is a swell guy; Trump is the new God-Emperor... Dubya is old hat.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

This is mixed up. Voting is a right, and like many rights, comes also with a responsibility. I would not object to requiring citizens to vote as I think they do in Australia. You could choose "none of the above", but you would have to cast a ballot.

I take some issue with how ambiguously phrased the distinction is: "voting is a privilege that comes with responsibilities and can be limited if adult U.S. citizens don’t meet some requirements." I think there's a big difference between saying a citizen has to earn the right to vote with certain responsibilities and saying all citizens are born with the right and they lose it when they shirk some of the responsibilities they are invariably born with as well. I can't think of any hypothetical examples of the latter that I agree with, but I can't definitely say I'm not somewhat open to that possibility. I'm on the fence about serial killers being able to vote, for example. But I unequivocally disagree with the notion that citizens should have to earn the right to vote.

An additional problem with the ambiguity is that people in general aren't very good listeners and it wouldn't surprise me at all if a significant percentage of GOPers heard "if adult U.S. citizens don’t meet some requirements" without hearing the "U.S. citizens" part, instead focusing on how people who aren't citizens don't meet requirements. From what I gather, there's a belief that this seems to be a "huge" problem in elections - propaganda about illegal immigrants voting - and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people instinctively agreed this is a huge problem simply because they selectively ignored the fact that that single requirement (citizenship) is necessarily already met.

So I think the bipartisan results of this poll are questionable. But I do find the education level comparisons interesting. (Because the more people truly know, the more they know how much they don't know - and won't feel so confident limiting votes to certain adult parts of the population). I don't always think the academic educated/uneducated dichotomy is an especially good predictor of wisdom, and often think there are some people with little or no college education who I'd consider more educated that others with doctorates (e.g. I have more than a few friends without bachelor degrees that I'd considered far, far more educated than shits like Ben Shapiro - who imo, seems wildly uneducated despite his actual degrees). But in this case, the results are reflecting the wisdom correlating with the academic dichotomy.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

The specific words he used are "the plateaus on their watch are stunning" because this administration started "with so much wind at their back."

It truly is getting harder and harder to believe anyone voting for this disgusting shit stain of a human being deserves any respect. No matter how far they are in that news bubble, how can a person reconcile this bombastic bullshit with all the vaccine fear-mongering the right has been doing? "The communists are going door to door to force vaccines on people, also it's the left's fault that vaccines have plateaued." How can anyone with a conscience NOT see it?

How do these mentally deranged vats of moldy chum have ANY constituency left?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The specific words he used are "the plateaus on their watch are stunning" because this administration started "with so much wind at their back."

It truly is getting harder and harder to believe anyone voting for this disgusting shit stain of a human being deserves any respect. No matter how far they are in that news bubble, how can a person reconcile this bombastic bullshit with all the vaccine fear-mongering the right has been doing? "The communists are going door to door to force vaccines on people, also it's the left's fault that vaccines have plateaued." How can anyone with a conscience NOT see it?

How do these mentally deranged vats of moldy chum have ANY constituency left?

They live in a fantasy world.

 

[Red Herring]

How do these mentally deranged vats of moldy chum have ANY constituency left?

They promise to keep the black people, women, gays and youngsters with college degrees at bay.

 

[ceecee]

This Company Got a $10 Million PPP Loan, Then Closed Its Plant and Moved Manufacturing Jobs to Mexico — ProPublica

 

[Virtual ghost]

I kinda got annoyed so I made 2020 map by what is basically international standard. Left is red, right is blue. If I am not mistaken a few decades back this was even the case, but they changed the colors for some reason. However towards some old school wisdom the map should look like this.

 

[Stigmata]

This Company Got a $10 Million PPP Loan, Then Closed Its Plant and Moved Manufacturing Jobs to Mexico — ProPublica

There was so much theft of that PPP loan money that'll almost never be uncovered because Republicans intentionally blocked all attempts to establish proper oversight over how the funds would be dispersed.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

There was so much theft of that PPP loan money that'll almost never be uncovered because Republicans intentionally blocked all attempts to establish proper oversight over how the funds would be dispersed.

Yet they'll complain about out of control spending.

 

[ceecee]

There was so much theft of that PPP loan money that'll almost never be uncovered because Republicans intentionally blocked all attempts to establish proper oversight over how the funds would be dispersed.

This is correct. And it's the same in all areas of government when it comes to R's. Even at the lowest levels. I attended county commission meetings because I was an elected official and county party chair. Back in the spring the Republican county sheriff wanted a new boat for patrolling the many lakes in the county. A new boat was needed, that was never in dispute. The sheriff had two boats to pick from, both were well over $70k. And the Republicans on the commission did not even question this price, once the sheriff told them that a fast boat was required due to the size of some of the lakes. As a person who lived on the biggest lake in the country, I lol'ed right in the meeting, loudly, reminding them that the boat would not be used for about 4-5 months of the year.

I appreciate that the days of rampant political apathy seem to be waning. But the inability of the average American to even have time to devote attention to their local political processes is by design - those county commission meetings I went to, in person and on Zoom, were at 9am every Thursday. They wouldn't even entertain the idea of some meetings in the evening or weekends so more people could attend. All Republicans and had been for decades so no bothsideism here

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I kinda got annoyed so I made 2020 map by what is basically international standard. Left is red, right is blue. If I am not mistaken a few decades back this was even the case, but they changed the colors for some reason. However towards some old school wisdom the map should look like this.

DSA takes the color red back.

By the way, this convention only dates to 2000 and the way that election dragged on until the Republicans subverted it (they've already done that; I'm not sure why people are pretending like subverting elections is a new trick brought on by an evil Cheeto). Apparently there was a tendency to alternate by year or different networks to use different colors, and that just happened to be the colors used in that particular year.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The sheriff had two boats to pick from, both were well over $70k. And the Republicans on the commission did not even question this price, once the sheriff told them that a fast boat was required due to the size of some of the lakes. As a person who lived on the biggest lake in the country, I lol'ed right in the meeting, loudly, reminding them that the boat would not be used for about 4-5 months of the year.

Lake Superior or Michigan-Huron? I would have thought it would be Lake Superior but Google is treating Michigan and Huron as the same lake, which I suppose makes sense because they are actually connected by a strait.

 

[ceecee]

Lake Superior or Michigan-Huron? I would have thought it would be Lake Superior but Google is treating Michigan and Huron as the same lake, which I suppose makes sense because they are actually connected by a strait.

Oh no no these are inland lakes within the county. This is the largest lake and it's where we lived for about 10 years. Most are far smaller.
Gun Lake (Michigan) - Wikipedia

We had a boat. It was nowhere near $70k.

The sheriffs of the counties on Lake Michigan have big boats, but they also have the Coast Guard right there in Grand Haven.

 

[Stigmata]

Yet they'll complain about out of control spending.

Yep. You're already hearing it now with the inflation cries, despite the fact that two of the three major covid relief spending bills were passed under Trump. It's all such disingenuous bullshit.

What's worse is that they get away with it everytime -- Trump prettyAs the midterms approach, "soaring" inflation and the fabricated border crisis that somehow magically became a major issue on January 21st (nevermind several decades of destabilizing of democratically elected leaders in South American countries that fueled the current state of affairs, across both Republican and Democrat led administrations-- nope, all Biden).

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I wish I knew how to let anger motivate me to action. It just makes me tired/too foggy for action. There's too much warranted cause to hate people (certain politicians and everyone who supports them) all around the past four years but it's especially bad today.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Lake Superior or Michigan-Huron? I would have thought it would be Lake Superior but Google is treating Michigan and Huron as the same lake, which I suppose makes sense because they are actually connected by a strait.

I don't think local governments have jurisdiction over Lake Michigan? I would guess local territory officially ends along the shore. (I tried looking it up just now, but it's all pdfs; I'm not willing to load pdfs to my phone).

ETA: I live two miles from the Lake Michigan shore in Indiana. The FB page for local happenings is constantly reporting every single altercation the police deal with (so much so it's pretty funny). They never mention anything happening past the shore. That's why I assume their jurisdiction ends at the shore.