Gdanning
2yr ago
Incurring massive economic & social costs to America
Not really. $100 billion per year = about $300 bucks per American, or
Recouping power immediately after the occupation ended
Yes, but the key there is "after the occupation ended."
Did we learn any lessons?
Well, in order to learn lessons, we have to understand what actually happened, it seems to me
Gdanning
2yr ago
Jailing is also done by the police, not the prosecutor. And we don't know what bail is going to be set for this new guy, so bail is irrelevant.
Gdanning
2yr ago
the Iraqis and taliban helped them come to their senses with a firm and proper lessons in not sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong
Yeah, the Iraqis did such a great job teaching that lesson that they are still using the constitution that Americans wrote for them. Let's be clear: the Iraqi "insurgency" was not some sort of anti-Imperialist endeavor; it was a civil war. That is why the "insurgents" killed vastly more civilians than they did coalition troops.
And the Taliban was so good at teaching that lesson that they killed all of an average of 100 US servicemen per year
Gdanning
2yr ago
Assuming that is true, we are talking about the arrest stage, not the prosecution stage. Police make arrests, not prosecutors.
Gdanning
2yr ago
In the context of an altercation, voluntary manslaughter in CA requires that the defendant have the mental state required for murder.
Maximal charity to the guy results in involuntary manslaughter, rather than voluntary manslaughter.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Attempted murder in CA requires the intent to kill. The vast majority of people who punch others in the face do not intend to kill.
Murder does not require the intent to kill, but even someone who forms the intent to kill during an altercation is often guilty only of voluntary manslaughter.
But most accidental deaths resulting from a simple assault are involuntary manslaughter.
Gdanning
2yr ago
While I agree with the Rittenhouse verdict, the comparison doesn't work. Rittenhouse intentionally killed two people; when someone does that in circumstances other than those where self-defense is completely obvious (eg, defense of home), of course he is going to be arrested. In contrast, here there is no evidence that the killing was intentional. Moreover, the police had probable cause at the time to think that the Rittenhouse murders were premeditated.
Link includes a photo of him sitting around with an embarrassed smile on his face while Kessler is splayed out on the pavement waiting for an ambulance.
An ambulance which, according to the sheriff, he himself called. I don’t know exactly what happened nor what exactly this guy's level of moral culpability is (though he probably is guilty of at least involuntary manslaughter, but if his post-crime conduct is to be used to assess that culpability, then all of conduct should be included, not just some of it)
Gdanning
2yr ago
Is it just because Dems think it gives them an advantage?
Unlikely, given this press release from the PA GOP a while back
Gdanning
2yr ago
16? Too young to have sex
16 is actually the age of consent in the vast majority of states
Gdanning
2yr ago
The process for independent contractors in the US is essentially the same, except payments are made quarterly.
Gdanning
2yr ago
No one is comparing Pearl Harbor to the embassy attack. The comparisons are between:
- Americans being upset at Pearl Harbor, and Iranians being upset at US policy re the Shah. Pearl Harbor was an act of the Japanese govt, and US policy the Shah the actions of the US govt.
- The response of the respective govts to threats to their enemy's embassy.
And, for the record, the Iranian govt ended up supporting the holding of the hostages and using them as bargaining chips.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Dude, you are the one who started this conversation, by raising an irrelevant point in response to my comment. My comment was about X, but you only want to talk about Y.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Talk about apples and oranges. The Pueblo incident happened, and then it was over. The hostages were held for more than a year. Of course there is going to be vastly more coverage of the latter than to the former; eg, compare the coverage of "girl killed in fall" with "girl trapped in well," or "coal miners killed in mine accident" with "coal miners trapped in mine." Not to mention that the hostage crisis took place during an election year, while the incumbent was running for election.
Iran is still blockaded and starved.
- It is hardly starved, and 2) it has done some other shady stuff since then, no?
honestly, Iranians had incredibly good justification to be mad at Americans.
That is not really the point. The Iran incident involved an embassy. Americans had incredibly good justification to be mad at Japan after Pearl Harbor, but Japan's embassies and consulates were protected by US police after the attack.
Gdanning
2yr ago
OP said "mainstream conservatives", mindlessly repeat it, not conservatives as a whole. And, indeed, part of being in the mainstream is that you believe the standard line. Mainstream liberals think "corporations bad." Mainstream conservatives think "regulations bad." If they didn’t think those things, they wouldn't be mainstream! That they do so "mindlessly" is the problematic part of OP's claim, though even that is probably true of huge chunks of the mainstream.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I see that you still are misapprehending the topic.
The claim that I took issue to was that specific data (eg the CPI) was faked, which OP claimed to know to be true because the prices of the things he has personally consumed. As I said, the claim that specific data is faked is NOT the same as saying "the economy is doing worse than the government says," because the former is a purely objective claim and the latter is partially a subjective one. They are two separate questions, which is why I answered both questions.
Similarly, the fact that "the economy is more complicated than average heights" is obviously true, but also irrelevant to the question I asked. The CPI is a survey of average prices, just as my hypothetical is a survey of average heights. And, more importantly, my question was about the evidence used to claim that the data was wrong not about the precision of the data itself.* The claim in the hypothetical ("the height data is fake because my personal height is different") is exactly the same as OP's ("the price data is fake because my personal prices is different"). If the former is an invalid argument, which it is, then so is the latter.
Finally, again, your entire last paragraph is off topic. It has nothing to do with the logical validity of the argument, which is the only thing I have been talking about this whole time. If you don't want to talk about that, fine, but please don't waste my time.
Gdanning
2yr ago
That wasn't the question you asked. The question you asked, which was "do you think the economy is doing worse than the government says", cannot be answered "yes" or "no", as I noted.
Let me ask you a question: If I said, "the govt says that the average male is 5'9". That data is bullshit, because I am 5'11", what would your response be? Or if I said, "the govt said that infant mortality went up last year. That data is bullshit, because I know 3 women who gave birth last year and their kids are perfectly healthy," what would your response be? Yet, when OP says, "The govt says inflation was 5% in the last 12 months. That data is bullshit, because several things I buy went up more than that", your response seems to be different. Why?
Gdanning
2yr ago
Your sources are a yougov poll which says that people are financially coping... slightly less well as they were at the the worst point of covid disruption,
OP was claiming that his personal finances are far worse than three years ago,. The poll indeed indicates that that is a minority view, as I said.
And, isn’t "slightly worse" exactly how you would expect people would feel if inflation were precisely what the govt says it is?
and a low effort piece of blogspam with no data.
There is a link to a press release by the pollster in the blog.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Again, you are missing the point, because my answer isn't "yes." My answer is obviously "it depends." And, I was not talking about personal perception of the economy; I was talking about personal judgment about the economy, which is not the same thing. "In my personal opinion, unemployment is actually higher than the official data says, because that is my personal opinion," is a very different claim than, "in my personal judgment, other factors outweigh the low unemployment rate; hence, I judge the overall state of the economy to be poor."
Frankly, the question makes no sense. The govt doesn’t issue a "status of the economy" metric. Rather, it generates all sorts of data on aspects of the economy: data on unemployment, employment, inflation, poverty, gdp, housing starts, (at least two measures), and scores of others. Do I think that the data is basically accurate? Yes. But what the data implies about "how the economy is doing" depends on what one deems most important about the economy, as well as who you are. There is generally a tradeoff between unemployment and inflation, for example. And if you are an African-American teenager looking for work, the economy has never been particularly good. If your concern is inequality, things seem to be getting better recently.
Gdanning
2yr ago
No, I have not expressed opinion about the state of the economy. That is what I mean when I said you are missing the point. I was merely commenting on the OP's [mis]use of his personal anecdote to argue that all positive data must be fake.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Frankly, I think this is simply the norm among religious people- that ‘liberal’ or ‘acceptable to progressive’ types are mostly not practicing, or at least not practicing well.
Yes, that seems to be the case. But, I don't understand how they are not moderate. They obviously are not fundamentalists or religious zealots of some other stripe.
Gdanning
2yr ago
- Then I am a little unclear on what makes them representative of Muslims in general, since the reference to moderate Muslims being elusive surely is a claim that the norm among Muslims is to be an extremist.
- Where were they from?
Gdanning
2yr ago
Sorry, I missed one aside. Nevertheless, your entire post was about the legality of the practices in question. I understand that you meant to make another point, but surely you can understand why readers might not have inferred that. Which is fine; everyone here is less than completely clear on occasion.
Dude, of course there was "a case." As I said, I think the acquittal was correct, but that does not change the fact that there was probable cause to charge him with murder. It is rather low bar:
State v. Dabney, 663 NW 2d 366 (Wis: Court of Appeals 2003).
Rittenhouse was treated just like every other defendant who 1) kills someone; and 2) has a colorable claim of self-defense.
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