EvanTh
1mo ago
And I have a value disagreement with the people like that: No, having one's interests represented in government is not a human right.
And, if it were a human right, it would follow that we urgently need some Congresscritters pumping up astrology, others fighting to recriminalize adultery, others defunding traditional medicine and subsidizing homeopathy and acupuncture, and still others demanding free alcohol for all teenagers. People's interests (as they see them) are very diverse.
EvanTh
26d ago
If you're going to be crushing the prisoners' balls to extract confessions absolutely NOTHING they say can be trusted.
What evidence do you have this happened, or was even threatened, at Nuremberg?
EvanTh
1mo ago
Seems to me the Kitos War, a rebellion against the occupying Romans, counts as that too.
EvanTh
1mo ago
This works well and we don't have any voting fraud here.
How do you know you don't have any voting fraud?
EvanTh
10hr ago
No, they don't know it. I volunteer with the VITA program doing tax prep for low-income people, and most of my clients don't appreciate that the government is taking money from their paychecks to pay tax. I explain it to them every year, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't stick.
I'm pretty sure half my clients don't even read their W-2's or other tax forms, except to go "this's a tax form from my employer / bank / charity / etc; guess I'll bring it when I go do taxes."
EvanTh
26d ago
But on the other hand, individual knowledge can make a difference.
If I sell my neighbor a gun, ordinarily, I'm fine. But if I've heard my neighbor talking about wanting to shoot his ex, and then he goes and does that with the gun I've sold him, I might be in trouble. I'm comfortable with there being some similar point at which parents are responsible not to let their teenager have a gun.
(Do these particular parents meet it? I don't know the facts well enough to confidently say.)
EvanTh
26d ago
Indeed!
This spread dates back to the Civil War, when there were a lot of traitors whom the government would rather not put to death. In the event, most of them weren't even charged, but Congress wanted to have that option available.
EvanTh
1mo ago
And they often needed that maid, because modern household appliances didn't exist yet.
EvanTh
1mo ago
but republicans have mostly won on the issue.
Not while an election-swinging share of states don't have it.
You could say they've won to the extent they realistically can, but that's different.
EvanTh
1mo ago
Or if they're inside a spoiler block, so you can look at them if you want and ignore them otherwise.
EvanTh
2mo ago
This, especially given the Antonine Plague that struck during Marcus Aurelius's reign. It might've killed a quarter of the Empire, population it never had a chance to gain back afterwards. The Empire couldn't bounce back after Commodus's tyranny because it had just been seriously weakened.
The IRS does publish just that, with two pie charts and text, at the end of the Form 1040 instructions!
Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, hardly anyone reads it.
More options
Context Copy link