SSCReader
7mo ago
But to go even further, mocking Trump's internal polls (which agree with yours) that say he has the election almost in the bag, like that's a sign of how deranged he and his followers are.
That is exactly what you should do. If your polls show you are losing and you believe them, then one of your only chances is to convince your opponents supporters that actually they are losing in the hope they decide not to turn out on the day, and to convince some people that maybe he is actually really bad. That's why biased polls are useful. Because the polls can influence what people actually do, that is why there is so much argument about them. So yes, you absolutely should lie and mock your opponents polls even if you are certain they are correct. If you can convince enough people that Trump is a threat to democracy then you can retrospectively make the fake polls true. It's a high risk tactic and does not have a great success rate, but if you are sure you losing, then it is worth a shot.
It isn't political malpractice, it is just politics. If they didn't try it would be malpractice. You can lie about your opponent being a communist or a Nazi why shouldn't you be able to lie about their poll numbers, and that them attacking the poll numbers shows they are a Nazi in the hope that convinces people?
SSCReader
7mo ago
Well free association means anyone can use any bathroom, otherwise someones right of free bathroom association is being infringed, but if thats your position that is ok.
SSCReader
7mo ago
But public bathrooms are a thing. If you have a whites only bathroom and a blacks only, and I am black and you are white, our right to free association is infringed. Because we can't as so many women do go to the bathroom together.
Whether thats the owners choice or not is irrelevant, one way or another someones right to free association IS infringed. Either black and white friends can't use the same bathroom, or a white guy who doesn't want to associate with black people has his rights ti not associate infringed when he walks in and finds P Diddy there.
Its impossible for someones right not to be infringed because they are conflicting. Thats different as to whether that should be legal. You can certainly argue people should be able to pick whose rights they want to infringe, but they are certainly going to be infringing someones, ergo we are admitting there is no general right to free association. We're just picking and choosing. It can't be a free country in this regard. The US has roughly chosen that the positive right to free association is of greater value than the negative right for historical reasons but don't get it twisted, thete is no option that preserves everyones right to free association. Its a logical impossibility.
SSCReader
7d ago
What if they preferentially hire whites the same way Indians favor Indians, or Jews favor Jews? What if they aggressively subsidize and import white residents the same way the federal government bombs small Midwestern towns with Haitians or Somalians?
I mean they did right? Even more than that actually. This is something white Americans already did. It's how you ended up where you are now. Do you think trying it again is going to work better? You have affirmative action and white guilt, people trying to make things up to black farmers and the like because this is what happened before and white people decided, actually this makes us feel pretty bad when we look at in comparison to our theoretical national values.
Whites had the nation you are envisaging and even more than that. Then they decided they didn't like it. Black people didn't have the power to change it. White people themselves did.
The things you complain about are already the tat for white peoples tit! (so to speak!), to try and make up for slavery and Jim Crow and so on and so forth. Instigated by white people themselves!
They already did the "What if?" You know how it ended.
SSCReader
11mo ago
Is it an unfortunate state of affairs though? Or is it just normal? My dad was more conservative than my mum, way back in time. They've been married 60 years. How much of our civilization is built between the different preferences of men and women pulling at each other? That men work to deliver what women want so that they can have women is as old as building a shack and a fire.
Just because there are differences doesn't mean its a problem after all. In fact the differences could be what drives our societies to improve. Signalling and status are huge motivators.
SSCReader
7mo ago
Sure, so if the local custom changes to disallowing race segregated spaces (as America has done) then that idms fine and dandy. Abd then if they decide trans women can use womens bathrooms that is also fine and dandy?
I agree that is a description of how the world operates. But it doesn't give you any information on how to decide if the local consensus is good or not. The local consensus is the local consensus is both true and not terribly helpful.
Plus the English tradition (itself obviously only important if it is the local consensus) does include positive rights.
Regardless society is quite capable of compromises, so while it may not be possible to perfectly reconcile equality and liberty, the most sucessful nations do make the attempt and perfect is the enemy of good enough.
SSCReader
2mo ago
When I told her I wasn't necessarily interested in ordering anything, but was very much interested in her thoughts on the 'strike' et al she gave me a stare that made a cow look intelligent. When she told me she didn't have anything to say about that, and would I like to order anything, I asked for a glass of water and if she'd mind if asked one of her colleagues instead.
Why would you expect a random employee to answer you honestly on a question that is obviously contentious with her employer and may get her fired if you are recording her or from management? Your "just for fun" is her job, and for a working class person can be very precarious. Retail workers are not dancing monkeys, especially when you weren't even going to buy anything or tip her!
I'd say the fact she treated you professionally is more than you had any right to expect, given your approach. She may well have looked at you and was judging YOUR intelligence for asking such a question right there in the open.
Welcome to Starbucks - we hate people who ask questions that might get us fired (and aren't even going to tip), seems like an entirely reasonable position.
Honestly you come off as being very entitled here. Did you even consider that if she did answer you and was reported she might get in trouble or lose her job, or that she might worry about that? Would that be worth sating your desire for an anthropological survey, with absolutely nothing to gain for her? Heck anthropologists at least brought shiny beads to gift their subjects!
As for Starbucks itself, it's overpriced but the benefit is as with all chains that you know roughly what you are going to get. The little Ethiopian coffee shop down the road is probably better, but may not have such a broad selection, is much more variable and harder to find.
SSCReader
6mo ago
- Far from the fever dream of immigrants doing useful labor such as building new housing, the new arrivals are competing aggressively for the same sort of high wage sinecures and government benefits that native-born Canadians previously thought they were entitled to.
There's a disconnect here no? If you are using a points based admission system to get the best qualified immigrants, they aren't going to be building houses. For that you want low skilled immigration (or work visas). You can't expect to only get the highest quality immigrants AND that they will do construction.
SSCReader
7mo ago
I am neither confemning or condoning. There are incentives put in place by our actions, those incentives lead to where we are today. A principled political consultant gets out competed and replaced. Politicians who are truthful and humble are outcompeted buy those who are not.
Those are the outcomes of our actions as voters and our actions as voters are downstream of the psychological make up of humanity.
Whether that is good or bad is irrelevant really. It simply is.
There isn't anything any individual can do about it, its a massive coordination issue, and there is no-one outside of humanity that can coordinate a better outcome.
The good news is this equilibrium is still better than the alternatives. Political engagement ebbs and flows and people are always very good at tricking themselves into thinking this time it will be different. This time the politicans will be better.
We had terrible disengagement in the 70s and it came back. No reason to think it won't happen again. Our ability to fool ourselves is one of our greatest strengths.
SSCReader
7mo ago
The only thing that matters is consent.
Segregation was ended by the force of bayonets. That was unjust. Even if segregation itself was an ill.
But segregation was also IMPOSED by the force of bayonets. No-one was asking black people if they consented to it. Doesn't their consent matter?
And while I am not English (rather British) I lived in and worked for the government in England for a number of decades.
The right for anyone too old or too infirm to be housed and fed by the state stretches back to the 1300's, was codified in various laws from the 1600's onwards in one form or another, and birthed the modern welfare state. Also the right to petition the government, the government can't just let you speak against them (covered by free speech and assembly), but put in place measures to listen. Even if they don't have to act. Which birthed the modern day MP's surgeries where constituents can go and talk to their representative face to face. Which is why in the US taking about the right to petition:
"But the majority of state constitutional petition provisions — in 32 states — frame the right as a positive one (an entitlement), rather than a negative one (a restriction on the government)."
It's true that negative rights were certainly more common, but it was by no means exclusive, and even some of the negative rights stretched into positive ones, the right to a fair trial, in English tradition requires other citizens to serve on a jury. So you are entitled to people doing something for you, even if they would rather not. To stand between you and the state before you can be jailed.
SSCReader
10mo ago
Just to point out the UK does not have a wholesale ban on guns. A shotgun license is pretty straightforward to get. Rifles slightly less so. Handguns are generally banned except perhaps ironically back home in Northern Ireland.
SSCReader
11mo ago
Even if your position was entirely true, aren't you now taking the same actions as the addicts you dislike? You are deliberately shitting up the metaphorical sidewalks here, because you feel some other people get away with it?
Even if true that isn't going to get you a less shitty sidewalk. Just means more shit to be shoveled.
You're not just defecting against other defectors, you're defecting against everyone else. If you see two people shitting on the sidewalk or breaking into your car, does it matter one is only doing it because the other gets away with it? I would suggest you are likely to be pissed off at both and both are making the place worse.
SSCReader
7mo ago
There is no right to be associated with. Blacks had much more solid grievances in the systematic destruction of their own institutions, or indeed the original source of this whole mess in being imported as slaves.
Well sure there is we were just talking about it. The right to free association. And of course that wasn't the worst thing done to them, but if you think segregation shouldn't have been done away with without consent then their right to free association should not have been removed without consent. You can't have it both ways. And it doesn't matter what they wanted collectively does it? If a single black or white person did not want segregation then their rights were removed. And therefore when their rights were restored with the removal of segregation they were just going back to the status quo.
As for voluntary segregation people can do that today. Many areas in the US are either exclusively or almost exclusively segregated. You just can't use race when offering services, and you can't have legal segregation that the government will enforce. It is now up to you to avoid black people (or vice versa), and if that means you have to move rather than them, then that is the right you have. You just can't legally force someone else to move. Your beliefs, you have to be the one to make the effort to abide by them. You want no black people in your neighborhood, you have to move neighborhoods, you can't make them move. Otherwise, you are trying to force people to act a certain way to accommodate your beliefs. You are not entitled to force people to change their behavior. You are entitled to move to rural Montana or Amish country or wherever you can find that meets your criteria.
We're not talking about the NHS by the way holy or otherwise. That is healthcare not housing and feeding, which is administered by entirely different bodies, primarily local governments. The right to healthcare is a relatively modern invention. The right for people in England to be fed and housed if they could not do it themselves is hundreds of years older. It is heavily framed within English common law AND statutory law. Whether people would fight to the death about it is not the definition of a right, otherwise the right to bear arms or the right to freedom of speech both of which have been restricted are also not rights.
SSCReader
7mo ago
Lies are a social technology with a purpose. In and of themselves lies are neither good nor bad in my opinion.
Trump doesn't really lie more than your average politician but he does lie differently. More the lies your boastful uncle tells than the more crafted non lie lies politicians generally aim for.
At a population level it doesn't matter if some individuals don't vote for liars, if the majority do.
SSCReader
9mo ago
Just pointing out Rick Wilson is an anti-Trump Republican though, he is certainly not a Democrat, given his positions on anything except Trump. And the attempted shooter at the golf course had also voted for Trump before sharply turning away from him. How much of this is about dissident Republicans or supporters who feel very strongly about Trump?
This is not to minimise it, I really do not want Trump to be assassinated. But sometimes those who hate the most are those who feel betrayed by their own side/choice. Splits or schisms within religions or ideologies are often more vicious than between opposing ideologies. We expect the side we don't like to suck, but when its your own side it hits deeper. See Protestant vs Catholic, Night of Long Knives, Stalin vs Lenin/Trotsky etc. Both Wilson and Routh clearly hate Trump, but neither are examples of standard Democrats.
SSCReader
10mo ago
If I lived in a town of 60k and 20k people almost exactly like me, moved here from across the country without my town's consent in a matter of years, I would still consider it extremely destructive to my town's character.
Arguably the town's character had already been degraded though. It's a Rust Belt town, that lost 30% of its population and had one of the worst drops in median income in the US (almost 30%) and a crime rate that was increasing, along with drug problems. It's like so many Rust belt towns hollowed out and dying, you either let it die (bad for the people there) or you inject fresh blood (arguably also bad for the people there). There is no non-destructive outcome at this point most likely. It's just picking your poison.
Notably the local government believes it was a network of local companies that coordinated to attract the influx as they wanted to take advantage of very cheap real estate but there were not enough workers in the city.
"Springfield officials were in the dark about the possibility of a large immigrant relocation to the area, Mayor Rob Rue said at the recent Springfield City Commission meeting, but a “network of businesses knew what was coming.”
Investigation by the city’s Immigrant Accountability Response Team formed in October of 2023 has revealed the possibility “there were companies that knew they were going to make an effort to bring in individuals who were crossing the border based on federal regulations that they could do that,” Rue said. "
SSCReader
11mo ago
Because they also want and vote for economic growth. And both parties internal projections show limiting immigration prevents economic growth and also that the economy is most people's driving issue.
It's a simple straight forward calculus. When we did (when I worked for the Tories) internal polls and asked people would they accept an overall lower standard of living in exchange for reduced immigration they said no. Overwhelmingly. Over and over and over again. Everywhere.
So the recourse is to start actually valuing lowering immigration over other factors. Just like the Tories flipped on lockdowns in record time they will do the same on immigration. They aren't attached to it for principled reasons. Simply practical.
SSCReader
9mo ago
If I could Thanos snap every privately owned gun away in the US (and future proof so it any other gun or firearm disintegrates as soon as it is made or brought within the border) I probably would, I think it would indeed make the country safer. However given that I can't do that, and that regardless of the laws, there are so many guns, and so many ways to import guns or make them, I think banning them would be overall counter-productive for the average citizen as it stands. Which I guess makes me a theoretical gun grabber and a practical 2A supporter, give or take.
SSCReader
10mo ago
Except that doesn't account for the Boomers as above. Who are more likely to be conservative themselves. The motive that best explains the turn is simple fear.
As I'll keep repeating every time this was brought up, the Tory British government did not want to mandate lockdowns and the like, the original response was not to do that. But so many MP's got inundated with letters and emails and phone calls from fearful constituents that they made a very public U-turn. Particularly from older voter's who are more likely to be on the right.
Conservative UK Boomers were not trying to purge their political enemies, they were simply scared. Now you can certainly make the argument that they were wrong to be so badly scared (though of course age did make them more susceptible than younger folk), and you can certainly make the argument that the media et al was part of why they were so scared, but they were not calling for tighter controls and lockdowns and vaccinations as an excuse to purge political enemies. It simply does not pass the smell taste. There was simply no reason for them to want to do so. Indeed, unlike in the US, Conservatives were more likely to be Covid vaccinated than Labour voters.
And given the government didn't want to actually take the steps they ended up being forced to take also suggests that they weren't using it to purge political enemies, again because the government was a Conservative one, and didn't even want to do the things they ended up doing in the first place.
What group of people who are statistically more likely to be unvaccinated do you think the Conservative government driven by Conservative voters were trying to purge?
SSCReader
7mo ago
You cannot setup a village of only your group and only hire people who are part of it.
Correct. Because to do so is to step over someone else's right to free association as I pointed out in my example. What you can do is move to an all white area. What you can't do is stop a black person moving in. Nothing stops you moving to another white area and another. Because your neighbors have the right to associate with black people even if you don't want to, and black people have the right to associate with them. That is the part you must come to grips with. Your neighbor has the right to sell his property to anyone including a black person. Therefore you are the one who must take steps if you have this particular belief. Like a vegan going to a Thanksgiving dinner, you have a right not to eat the food, you do not have the right to demand other people also stop eating turkey.
SSCReader
8mo ago
In 2020 PA was not called until November 7th and may well be similar this year if it is as close. We are not allowed to start counting mail in ballots in advance as some other states are (like Florida I believe), so it is likely we won't be done counting for a few days. The State might still be called in advance of the count being complete if the gap is wide enough of course.
Yes indeed. Though largely you can't want a gun for those purposes. Again excepting Northern Ireland where you can get a firearms license for that reason alone.
Edit: Though this has nothing to do with the correction that the UK does not have a wholesale ban on guns. The rest of jeroboams post may or may not be true, but that particular statement is straightforwardly incorrect.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I think it's fair to say that the right-wing culture which is suspicious of academia and other "not real work" kind of jobs is their own fault. But there are other factors here which aren't their fault.
Setting aside the word fault. If you have a culture that is suspicious of academia and other not real work, then it is likely the people in those positions are going to react and to be suspicious of you in return. I don't think it is either sides fault. Its the chicken or the egg. I think it is the outcome of the structural and systemic differences in value sets between tribes. Blues mock Reds for being dumb hicks and Reds mock Blues for being effete intellectuals. The result is any space that leans slightly one way or the other is going to cascade. Whether anyone is deliberately planning it or not.
90% of farmers are Republicans and that is ok. It is ok for your values and preferences to determine that some areas will be dominated by one tribe or the other. At scale individual choices are overtaken by systemic differences. There likely isn't any way to have a 50/50 split in academia for Reds and Blues short of changing what Reds want and hence what Reds are. Likewise with farming and Blues.
SSCReader
6mo ago
I am not actually willing to extend a friendly welcome to that position, but it exists and people can argue for it if they wish.
Why not? It is basically the stance of the Catholic Church. Why can't you be friendly to people who have opposing views to you (or is it just this specific view for some reason)? That's a real question, as that's the more interesting part in all this in my view. I am friends with people who believe all abortion should be outlawed AND people who think it is the woman's choice. And yes with both supporters and opposers of the death penalty. Why shouldn't we extend a friendly welcome to both? They are both pursuing what they think to be best morally. And without access to the underlying moral logic of the universe, I can't tell either one of them for certain they are right or wrong.
If it was proven to you tomorrow that the death penalty definitively increases the evil in the world and you now opposed it would you then be unable to be friendly to people who held your previous position?
So your answer is people have to carry their birth certificate with them to prove which bathroom they can go into? I know the UK gets a bad rap for having licenses for everything, but I've never had to show one to go to the bathroom. So in the spirit of your query:
What happened to the free market solutions in the freest country in the world? Why are you jumping straight to a government solution? If you want a female (or male) only bathroom, you can pay for a subscription and the private company will demand proof (DNA perhaps, they can buy out 23andMe, I hear that is going cheap) before you get put on the access list, for their chain of male/female/unisex W.C.s across the nation.
The free market, not the government is the best way of determining what the value of a bathroom free from the opposite sex really is, by finding out what people are willing to pay. Who wants unelected government bureaucrats making these kinds of decisions? Have you heard how much the army pays for toilet seats? These birth certificates will be printed by equipment sourced from the lowest bidder, and will be easily falsifiable. No, let's let the invisible hand of the free market deal with it, that is what America is about. That way, as the amount people are willing to pay rises, companies will convert shops into toilets and perhaps the incentives will lead to exciting new developments in toilet security technology, as they will want to ensure people do not take advantage. Let's see the Russkies keep up with the unleashed might of the American bathroom dollar! If they thought Western supermarkets were startling, once the toilet boom takes off, all we will have to do is install a few American toilets in Ukrainian towns about to be overrun, and Putin will be out on his ear in no time.
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