ajuuiomml
8mo ago
I’d need a more careful analysis to ascertain whose delusions are more delusional. In terms of harmful narratives, the notion that we could round up over ten million people, deport them, and we’d like the result is on top of the list. I’d consider that equally harmful to forgiving all student debt or further expanded entitlements when the current ones are insolvent.
In terms of party cohesion, the left is very strongly aligned against Trump but is split hard on Gaza (not in numbers but in terms of unwillingness to compromise). Once again, we could use some charts I think.
ajuuiomml
9mo ago
This is the wrong standard for combat sports. A contestant being both 40% stronger and objectively bad doesn’t make the event safe!
ajuuiomml
9mo ago
Giving Hamas a nuclear weapon would be a disaster. If Israel got word, it would preemptively nuke Gaza and then launch against Iran. If Hamas lobbed first, Israel may choose to launch all nukes against all targets on the theory that more are coming anyway. Surely Iran is not that insane? I suppose someone will be eventually.
ajuuiomml
9mo ago
Even if you don’t like Trump, his assassination would be the quick path to civil war. At the very least, we’d see a whole bunch of reprisal attempts and ensuing escalation. The response to the attempt is having me consider voting for Trump.
ajuuiomml
9mo ago
Biden controls the war chest, and second, forcing him out is not the same as him stepping down for the good of the country. One is Brutus, the other heroic. Superdelegate2.0 won’t go over better. Besides, you can’t defect until you can coordinate universal defection or you get punished.
ajuuiomml
9mo ago
Yeah, I provisionally voted this way although I am a citizen. It’s not just a problem for citizenship, but also identity in general. You can show up and claim to be anyone with no proof beyond a signature. I believe they only count those ballots for runoffs, but still it’s absurd.
Ca has implemented a system that is structurally incapable of catching voter fraud. It does not catch voter fraud. Ca claims the lack of convictions for fraud means none exists!
It is willfully bad epistemology.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
An institutional setting isn’t required, exactly. Ordinary and frequent contact and authority are the actual requirements. We could get those out of public housing with daily/weekly welfare checks. Then, we just need to identify some privileges - could be better accommodations (without a room mate or with a private bathroom) or perhaps, less frequent and intrusive checks.
I’d expect some terrible abuse (like with the old institutions).
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
Smaller incentives with escalation would work better. Punishment should be relatively immediate and certain with increasingly severity - as in, start with losing privileges or perhaps, gaining them.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
Rape charges would move the needle. The FBI/CIA are still in play and, I don’t think there is any way to push out Biden if he doesn’t want to go. Biden has stated he doesn’t care what pundits think, he doesn’t believe in polls, and doesn’t really care what other leaders in his own party think either - it would literally take the direct intervention of God to get him to step down. I’d buy Biden at those odds.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
This is not a good take as it’s clearly not the best we could do. The problem is the filter, not input.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
I appreciate your take. A few thoughts:
Biden is running on the platform of respectability and saving democracy itself. Regardless if he wins or not, it’s pretty clear he will not be running the country after 8pm. Whoever will be will not have been elected to do so. That does not look like saving democracy to me. As to the side of respectability, imagine the president literally falling asleep at state functions. This is going to happen, and it will be taken as a personal insult because it is! Crisis at 3am. Oh well, it can wait. The most respectable thing to do would be to step aside.
If Biden were running on delegating responsibility, that would be an honest campaign I could vote for.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
Her negatives include public speaking and generally negative charisma. She is less likable than Trump and Biden alike.
I don’t think the HRC campaign strategy will work better the second time around.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
None of those other figures are subject to the jurisdiction of blue states.
Maybe Trump really is just unusually shady?
I really doubt that. I do think he is unusually hated and the rhetoric we use to describe him is off the chart heated.
Generally, the ruling makes sense to me: neither Congress nor the States may criminalize the presidency itself. Acts such as firing generals or political officers at the agencies are protected and are not subject to review. Acts further away from the core are subject to commensurately more scrutiny. Just the same, the States may not criminalize the act of ruling against them in court and then arrest judges. Assassinating uncooperative judges is not a core function of the office and would be subject to review.
Clearly we need some balance here. A narrow ruling would result in opposing states’ AGs bringing endless criminal charges against the sitting president, effectively making the office subservient to the states.
The peaceful transfer of power will only exist as long as we don’t prosecute our political rivals as such. If the penalty for holding office is jail, may as well just hold onto it for as long as possible.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
Set up automated contributions into the s&p 500. This is the greatest return on 10 minutes of effort you will ever have in your life.
ajuuiomml
11mo ago
The Pacific Ocean is much nicer than the Ohio river. The one has barking seals while the other has slugs. Pittsburgh’s rivers are its historical interstates and still feel that way today.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
NPR very clearly has a mission of political advocacy. The angle on literally every single story is “how does it affect people of color/women/minorities”. Frequently, resulting in bizarre, inappropriate, or completely uninformative segments.
This is the segment when I turned off marketplace for good - which advocates for “prioritizing black women” via the “black women best” framework. In the whole segment, no policy position or course of action is actually advanced - at all. Very little evidence is offered to suggest that prioritizing black women will actually benefit everyone (trickle up) or that any interventions would be cost effective. The guest even goes as far as to suggest nothing at all will work:
The system of, like, systemic racism and just embedded discrimination in our economy is, it is multifacited, it is, like, self-reinforcing. I imagine that if somehow we could break it down it would, like, re-create itself. It’s so many things at once.
…with the only proscription being:
Jones: It really does have to be a true conversation about power. I think it’s a lot of people who are holding positions of power really just like being willing to share that, being willing to share that.
The segment is so off putting that I come away taking the position opposite than it advanced even though I agree it’s not great that black women have a higher unemployment rate.
Nations do win wars though. The Confederacy was conquered after its armies were defeated and its cities razed. The kingdom of Hawaii is long gone though the spirit of aloha remains. The Comanche likewise are gone. The allies actually did conquer Nazi Germany and Japan. Their leadership was executed and their countries remade in the image of the US. Neither has waged war or even raised an army since.
At some point, a people lose the will to fight. Total war tends to be convincing to that end.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Disregarding pimp my ride, it’s hard to say the platonic ideal is male or female, right? Why would going from the one to the other violate that ideal, so long as you arrive at the right spot (theoretically)? We could claim the ideal is that of a man for a man, etc, but then we are back to disagreeing about the initial state.
To my non-catholic understanding, I’d be down with someone transitioning if it is to serve God. That’s a pretty damn high bar, but who knows.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Thank you for translating.
What would you say the pope would say if we had actual etiology with a highly predictive biological test for trans? I also wonder what progressives would say for those who tested negative and want to claim the identity.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
The problem with our Covid response was the urban/rural divide. Policies for the one don’t work for and aren’t wanted by the other. Unfortunately, that bifurcation closely corresponds to our political parties. It also didn’t help that the public health administration is seemingly tightly aligned with the Democratic Party. Covid functioned more like a mass shooting in the realm of the Culture War.
Accountability literally anywhere in government would be great…
He isnt bad because republicans don’t like him sufficiently. He is bad because he is uniquely reviled by his opposition. The Democrats coalition is one of not-Trump.
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