anti_dan
3mo ago
A few points that I think are salient to the issues presented, but I don't think were appropriately discussed.
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The FBI, prior to J6 had many directives to investigate conservative orgs. There really was no rational and reasonable reason to be doing this, so it is very strong evidence (alongside the cornucopia of evidence discussed here) that there is serious anti-conservative bias at that organization, which obviously is a key cog in the "deep state" as defined in the discussion.
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Yassine didn't think entering the Capitol Building/encouraging that was all that dispositive, and I don't think this was pushed back against enough. Entering the Capitol IS why J6 is "JANUARY SIXTH". If no one enters the building its a boring protest outside the Capitol that has no political value to Democrats at all.
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More buttressing of the problems with J6 is how, if there is no inside job, its just a demonstration of outright incompetency. I will describe a generic building to you: Large masonry structure, at the top of a hill, with armed guards. What have I described? A fort. Julius Caesar could have held the Capitol building against the J6 crowd with 8 men in sandals equipped with no more than some sticks and a few shields. An the Capitol police lose it with dozens of times that manpower? That is, indeed, suspicious.
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Also, chronically under-discussed is how incredibly valuable "JANUARY SIXTH" has been to Democrats. Not only has it been an excuse to prosecute thousands of conservatives in connection to it, not only has it been an excuse to prosecute an opposition candidate for the office of the President, but its been nearly their only political argument for 3 years now. Without J6 they have nothing. That protesters were allowed into the Capitol has resulted in the largest political victory for either party in my lifetime. And that really should mean something to anyone discussing the events of that day.
anti_dan
3mo ago
Palestinians don't get any military aid from the West, only a few hundred million annually in humanitarian aid.
Without which the entire economy would collapse and they wouldn't be able to afford a single scrap of metal, let alone a bomb or weapon. Plus the international orgs that aid and abet Iranian resupplies. Its not magnitude alone that matters, its percentage. If we left Palestine 100% on a branch, they would have nothing.
anti_dan
3mo ago
Trump is too well versed in Greek mythology to make such a low brow reference.
anti_dan
3mo ago
But the Palestinians are far more dependent on US and EU aid than the Israelis are. We are much more funding the terror campaigns against Israel than the military operation in Gaza.
anti_dan
3mo ago
I very much disagree with your assessment as to what is destabilizing the region. If not for Israel some other excuse would be made. Stabilization in the Mid East is probably synonymous with aggressive depopulation and/or heavy handed colonialism.
anti_dan
3mo ago
They put a fat lady on the cover of the swimsuit edition. Then I think a trans "woman". This is referring to SI. I know the fat woman part to be true. The trans assertion is just sort of a thing I sort of think I remember.
anti_dan
3mo ago
I would push back on Congress not being able to write laws to fit the needs of a large government. I think it can, its just no one there wants to, and, in particular, no one wants to vote on regulations that inevitably kill jobs.
anti_dan
4mo ago
but would prefer to see equalization with other forms of transport of the gargantuan subsidies it gets for its enormous use of real estate, destructive right-of-ways, and effect on local health via air pollution.
Well, since you lead off with a false premise, its not going to end up going all that well for you. We spend less per passenger mile on cars than busses or trains.
Less flippantly, the problem with the premise is that every other form of transit has extreme failure modes when it isn't in an absolutely ideal environment. Walking has the issue of it being hard to go any significant distance quickly. Biking too. Both fail at the important task of lugging around lots of consumer goods (as does public transit in many ways) and also those two fail the weather test. Transit also often fails the weather test because getting to it requires exposure to the elements. When it doesn't, it requires expensive shelters, paired with frequent stops. The frequent stopping is a detriment to the system as a whole because it makes your transit slow, often meaning much slower than a car.
Turning to public transit only, it suffers from an intermittency problem. Buses and trains can't come all the time, as is they already are losing to cars on a fuel per mile basis. This pairs with inconsistency to create a crises in commuting. Sure, if the bus always came at 8, and always got me to the train at 8:10, and that train always came at 8:15 and got me to work at 8:30, hunky dory. But that isn't how it works. Sometimes two buses come at 7:56 and 7:58, then one at 8:15. Now you missed that 8:15 train and have to wait till the 8:45 train, that is delayed, and now you're very late. So its the TSA problem at the airport, except every day of your life. OTOH, cars are simple. You leave 2 minutes late, you are 2 minutes late, more or less. There's no transfers, no cutoffs, etc. You don't know how many times I've seen a train leaving the station right as my bus is pulling into the station only to see the next one is coming in 25 minutes, on a line that is supposed to run every 10 during rush hour.
And then there is the next major problem with public transit, which is lack of directness. Because they are financially irresponsible even when simply transporting people in a hub and spoke system to the major downtown areas, they are downright impossible to operate while connecting spokes. So, lets say you live in Lil Ireland, and have a friend in North Burgandy. A 20 minute drive, being a hypothetical 30 minute bus, but no such bus exists. Instead, you need to take a 30 min bus to Corpopolis, then a 20 min train to South Burgandy, and a 10 min bus to North Burgandy. And you have to hope you don't have long layovers in between.
But how does XXX town make it work? They probably don't. You probably just don't visit people out of your neighborhood that often. This is enforced with violence, or by some sort of violence-adjacent policy that keeps a neighborhood's "character" pure. The kind of things which would face endless lawfare in most of America. Plus you make more of your own food, live in a smaller home, smaller room, etc.
anti_dan
4mo ago
I'm just looking at your source.
CIS has the total illegal pop in the us at 11.3 Million.
https://cis.org/Report/Estimating-Illegal-Immigrant-Population-Using-Current-Population-Survey
Pew has an older figure that had it at 10.5
anti_dan
4mo ago
That is the illegal immigrant population for Texas only, and is from 2019...before the current swell.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Indeed. The world doesn't work without rules enforcement. It can either be through social condemnation, or police force.
anti_dan
4mo ago
She does, generally. She is, in fact, doing it her whole time while maintaining the air of politeness. Who gets complimented and who does not. Who she asks if they want another serving of pasta and who she does not. Etc. Schoolchildren are often more blunt, but they must be, they are 8 years old and they don't have the subtle touch of a 65 year old grandma intimating to her daughter that her granddaughter is fat.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Whats missing from the story about your grandmother is the key component that everyone knows what she is doing. They know that they are being shamed for being fat, even if she is not voicing shame. And they feel the shame. She doesn't talk about her diet, she simply demonstrates superior behaviors, and the granddaughter knows they are superior and feels shame for not living up to said standards.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Transgender medical procedures as the modern day lobotomy is, IMO, the correct framework. Low to negative evidence of efficacy. Violates the principles of prudence and caution. Makes no sense from a more grounded scientific POV. The only way Trans "science" is right, is if they navigate a series of very narrow channels, and they haven't demonstrated even one at this point. Its all bullying on that side of the ledger.
anti_dan
4mo ago
This vacillation in American foreign policy has long been known, and both Iran and North Korea were very hesitant to enter into these particular agreements for fear of the US not following through
TO elaborate, this isn't a 1 sided fear. The reason the US vacillates is because Democrats trust these regimes to follow through, while Republicans have not. There is no domestic buy in in the US from an entire major political party. IMO for good reasons, the JCPOA, in particular, looks like it was drafted by college freshmen writing for their Intro to Middle Eastern Poly Sci class (wherein they probably don't even note or know that Iran is not majority Arab).
anti_dan
4mo ago
To what end? Staffed with who? Lets say you are France, probably the international leader in nukes. How are you going to get thousands of good nuclear plant employees in Ethiopia? The locals are out. They don't have the training. So you are going to have to use French engineers and operators, and heck, even janitors. And whats the premium you are going to have to pay them to live in a country either in a civil war, or on the brink of one for much of the last half century? a 100% premium? 200%? And how are you going to sell that electricity? The Ethiopians can barely afford the electricity coming out of a coal plant, let alone nuke energy that costs 3x what it does in France.
This is why Belt and Road is kind of a joke. At best it gets China some raw material mines in an exploitive posture. Developing the Congo has proven elusive because the locals are bad employees.
anti_dan
4mo ago
That is an argument for minimum wages in prisons. A totally different argument than an argument against slave labor. You paired it with an argument against the state subcontracting incarceration to private corporations. Again, a different argument.
Forced labor is part of a great number of criminal sentences, because it is often the humane alternative. Lets say you are in Illinois and pick up your first ever DUI, and there is nothing special about it. The statute says you are eligible for the following penalties: Up to 364 days in jail, $2500 in fines, revocation of your drivers license for at least a year, or any combination thereof. However, prosecutors and judges are allowed to offer/sentence different terms. For example, a prosecutor on a 1st time DUI can offer 2 years of court supervision + 100hrs community service in lieu of asking for jail time or a large fine (which many DUI offenders could never end up affording). In most counties their are 3 tiers of community service: 1) Independent CS, 2) Supervised CS; 3) Sheriff work program. In the first, you just go to your soup kitchen or church, work your hours get a certified letter from your boss and come back with that at the day your supervision is being terminated. Done, you are back to being a free citizen. Terms satisfied. In the second, you report to a social services worker, they assign you to a job. You report in with both regularly. Again. Do the work and you are done. In the third you report to the sheriff, and they essentially run a garbage pickup grew for 8 hours a day. 100 hours would take you 12 days, then you report in, and you are done. Again, this is all forced, unpaid labor. And almost every defendant prefers it to going to jail.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Yes, and that is another example of a subset of people without very good arguments.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Vegans can be successful athletes but it is more effort to do so. I dunno if one can be among the best athlete and a vegan.
It certainly is, Novak Djokavic is proof that you can do it, for at least a period of time.
But the rest are all very valid problems with veganism. Adding meat to a diet often is a panacea to various health problems in the same way cutting cigarettes is for respiratory problems.
anti_dan
4mo ago
no one has the guts to point this out you end up with people advocating to redirect the malaria net funding (which saved 100,000+ lives) to saving chickens instead.
I mean. I have to say I think you should do neither and just give the money to a car dealership for a Corvette.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Strong disagree. The reason we have few vegans and anti-car people is because those ideas always crumble under pressure. The reason, "[w]hat these groups all have in common is a strong ability to signal these things emotionally to people similar to them and form a consensus, but also a generally terrible ability to discuss these things reasonably[,]" is because generally these positions are based on emotion rather than logic and almost always develop within bubbles where they don't get challenged. Its almost like being an anti-slavery advocate in 2023 America. What kind of real debate skills do you have? You just assume slavery is bad, everyone else around you assumes the same, so if some sincere pro-slavery advocate came around, you would be confused and, in 99.99% of cases, your only "plan" would be to go with ad hominem attacks. We see this pattern quite often with certain online topics that are associated with left of center groups.
anti_dan
4mo ago
Haley's voters, aside from the establishment big money types you see on twitter, are largely the "sorta Republican" Republicans that exist in a decent number in some areas, but lack any passion for politics at all. So you wont see them talking shop, almost ever.
anti_dan
4mo ago
The reason Ron Desantis is still a much bigger threat is almost 80% of Desantis voters have Trump as 2nd choice. Knocking him out hurts Haley. OTOH almost all Haley voters dont have Trump as #2.
anti_dan
4mo ago
The reasons that Romney was a clear escalation are many:
- He wasn't close to winning, so why do it at all?
- It was his family as well, mostly his children and sick with MS wife.
- The attacks on him were so incredibly deranged, like the binders full of women one.
Overall, the Romney attacks exposed a pathological desire to grip power that was like Nixon on steroids, except without the real enemies.
I disagree. 14 billion looks like a bigger number because the spending is asymmetric. Iron dome is expensive suicide vests and rockets are cheap. Defense against this kind of aggression is easily 100x more expensive, probably closer to the 10000x multiplier. So its not clear that Israel is coming out ahead.
Israel. If they have nothing, Israel needs nothing. But we give them a lot, and they divert much of it to waging terror campaigns.
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