Political Discussion

TenderLovingKiller® said:
You are ultimately correct. However I am sure there are still lots of people that could move if they wanted to. Especially most of the people getting riled up about this specific issue. Many of the poor folks that would not have the means to relocate have bigger fish to fry than getting riled up about a Greater Idaho Movement.
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That's very, very true.
I get awfully cantankerous when it's suggested that people "just move". We have a huge problem with this here in Louisiana. There's a region that we (not so affectionately) call "cancer alley" due to the large amount of refineries and the much higher cancer rates associated with living near refineries. As you can imagine, most of these houses are inherited and all of the people that live there are poor. They can't get out because no one wants a house in cancer alley. Where they live is literally making them sick, and they lack any other financial resources to move. If a kid is smart enough, he or she might get out, but given the school systems in these very poor areas, that's not a high likelihood. It becomes a catch 22 of poverty.

Indymisanthrope said:
More so than the urban/rural divide, this seems revealing to me in light of the voting restrictions being passed in red states in what it demonstrates about conservative power dynamics. If you ask me, the emerging trend is that conservative populations would prefer their communities to be devoid of liberal input. If you're in charge, prevent them from voting; if you're not in charge, consider secession. Neither mode incentivizes good governance that would be advantageous for, or persuasive to, people on the other end of the ideological spectrum.
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The brunt of the voting restrictions will be levied against poorer communities. I have to ask the question though, is it that Republicans would rather people not have liberal policies in social policy (like gay marriage or abortion rights) or is it that Republicans are more scared of poor people voting for liberal government structures (like Medicare for all and nationalizing the electrical grid)? I think the first one is a red herring that conservatives like to throw out there, but it's really the later they are more afraid of.
 
folsom_lives said:
I feel like you need to elaborate on "what city life entails" and "environment". What do you think we do in the cities that doesn't happen on a smaller scale in BFE?
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This is very difficult for me to break down because in many ways it feels like attempting to explain water to a fish. And all I can really say is that folks are more connected to, involved in, the community and its power structures where I live now than in any large city I ever lived in. Much more ability to control and influence what in the how my children are exposed to things in their lives. I don’t have that control in a large metro.

Indymisanthrope said:
More so than the urban/rural divide, this seems revealing to me in light of the voting restrictions being passed in red states in what it demonstrates about conservative power dynamics. If you ask me, the emerging trend is that conservative populations would prefer their communities to be devoid of liberal input. If you're in charge, prevent them from voting; if you're not in charge, consider secession. Neither mode incentivizes good governance that would be advantageous for, or persuasive to, people on the other end of the ideological spectrum.
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Not attempting to defend or condemn these different moves with regards to voter laws. I only speak to a possible mindset that may animate the push for them. Once a large urban area gains the political power to determine policy for the entire state, it isn’t ever reclaimed. At that point the folks outside of those liberal centers begin to feel completely disenfranchised from their government. So many of these measures are pushed as a prophylactic out of fear of losing any input or voice in their lives as the state has much more influence on the day to day than the federal government does.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I haven't seen this framed before as combating the feeling of disenfranchisement with actual disenfranchisement. It's certainly an easier default reaction than winning hearts & minds.
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Politics has never really been about winning hearts and minds, but the simple exercise of raw power. Everyone actually in positions of power knows this and only gives lip service to the rest.
 
Chucktshoes said:
This is very difficult for me to break down because in many ways it feels like attempting to explain water to a fish. And all I can really say is that folks are more connected to, involved in, the community and its power structures where I live now than in any large city I ever lived in
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I kind of had this feeling while living in LA. There was a general sense of not really belonging to a community. No real strong relationships and no ability contribute to create a meaningful community. Every relationship seemed so temporary or and interaction so surface level. Maybe this wasn’t what you were talking about, but your comment made me think of this.
 
Dtknuckles said:
I kind of had this feeling while living in LA. There was a general sense of not really belonging to a community. No real strong relationships and no ability contribute to create a meaningful community. Every relationship seemed so temporary or and interaction so surface level. Maybe this wasn’t what you were talking about, but your comment made me think of this.
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you know I was watching that doc on the Bosch painting that popped up in the cafe thread. One of the things that came to mind was how different community was back then. Community always Cleo closely tied to the church and relationships we so much more permanent. Violating norms must have mean something different than is does in most of today’s society where you can just pick up and take off to another community.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
I guess so, but there are two ways to attain that power. Get people to support you, or suppress enough of your opposition that it doesn’t matter.

The left spends a lot of time wringing its hands about “how to talk to” the right, how to activate their empathy, increase their tolerance for diversity, engage them in class solidarity, tap into their ‘economic anxiety,’ etc. The right spends that time strategizing about how to eradicate the left from the conversation.
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Maybe people like the folks on this board who aren’t actually plugged in to the centers of power do. But when you look at the actions of the politicians themselves, it tells a very different story.

The way folks here talk about how the Right has their shit together with regards to the exercise of political power are the exact same things that folks on my gun board say about the Left.
 
Chucktshoes said:
Maybe people like the folks on this board who aren’t actually plugged in to the centers of power do. But when you look at the actions of the politicians themselves, it tells a very different story.

The way folks here talk about how the Right has their shit together with regards to the exercise of political power are the exact same things that folks on my gun board say about the Left.
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And this is not pointed directly at you just everyone in general, but how would we go about proving either group is correct?
 
Georgia's Fulton County is going to join the Arizona style audit circus. A judge has greenlit the unsealing of 147,000 mail-in ballots. This will be the 4th audit of these same ballots which included a hand recount the state of Georgia performed last year.

This audit is happening because of Trump's "Big Lie" and his base not trusting the election results. The previous 3 audits had found nothing. But if the audits are conducted by Cyber Ninjas, the same group that is conducting the audit in Arizona who knows what could happen. The audit has been described as very unusual and unorthodox. And there is worry they will manufacture issues to report on.

One of the things they seem to be checking on in the audit is the validity of each ballot, not how it was cast. They are looking for dumps of "manufactured ballots".
 
Yesterday Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law the deals with how social media platforms moderate online content.

Republicans have complained social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter censor their posts and opinions and that it's a violation of their freedom of speech.

The bill includes a section that prohibits tech platforms from suspending or banning political candidates in the states with fines of $250,000 a day if the if de-plaformed. $25,000 a day if the candidate is running for a non-statewide office.

Florida's legislation will also force the tech platforms to step back from moderating their site for any Florida tax payer. With many tech platforms not able to know if a user is a Florida tax payer, it opens the door for any internet user, from foreign extremist to trolls posting stuff that might not get taken down to be in compliance with Florida's new law.


Facebook, Twitter and Google have all stated that this new law is unconstitutional and plan on filing lawsuits against it immediately.

One thing that is important to note is taking down lies / disinformation is not the same thing as censorship.


Republicans are crying their voices are being silenced. Censorship and cancel culture by liberals and liberal corporations.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Yesterday Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law the deals with how social media platforms moderate online content.

Republicans have complained social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter censor their posts and opinions and that it's a violation of their freedom of speech.

The bill includes a section that prohibits tech platforms from suspending or banning political candidates in the states with fines of $250,000 a day if the if de-plaformed. $25,000 a day if the candidate is running for a non-statewide office.

Florida's legislation will also force the tech platforms to step back from moderating their site for any Florida tax payer. With many tech platforms not able to know if a user is a Florida tax payer, it opens the door for any internet user, from foreign extremist to trolls posting stuff that might not get taken down to be in compliance with Florida's new law.


Facebook, Twitter and Google have all stated that this new law is unconstitutional and plan on filing lawsuits against it immediately.

One thing that is important to note is taking down lies / disinformation is not the same thing as censorship.


Republicans are crying their voices are being silenced. Censorship and cancel culture by liberals and liberal corporations.
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Wait, so private operations are only privately operated as long as they don't step on conservative toes?
 
Chucktshoes said:
I would say that both groups are right and wrong simultaneously. Both groups believe that the politicians on their “side“ are actually on their side when I don’t believe that to be the case at all.
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Chucktshoes said:
The way folks here talk about how the Right has their shit together with regards to the exercise of political power are the exact same things that folks on my gun board say about the Left.
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debianlinux said:
Well, that is 100% true about them not being on anyone's side but their own.
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What are you guys looking at that you see it this way?
 
Dtknuckles said:
And this is not pointed directly at you just everyone in general, but how would we go about proving either group is correct?
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I think that neither group is all that correct.
After dealing with large organizations of people in public government and private corporations, what I find is that people have an awfully hard time coordinating anything that is extremely complex like a political strategy to get rid of guns or a political strategy to eradicate the welfare state. We are fickle creatures that have a hard time being dubious all the time. There is no well coordinated effort to steer our country one way or another. That doesn't mean there isn't an effort, but I contest that nothing right now in politics is all that well coordinated. I think everyone is constantly in knee jerk response territory right now. Everyone's looking to be the next pithy tweet that goes viral on all the news outlets--conservative and liberal--and I think sometimes it's that they want to appear a certain way online so they create several talking points and drill others on those points. This is about individual politicians who want a spotlight. I don't think this is any sort of coordinated effort, just a few very vocal politicians who saw the success Donald Trump had with Twitter and realized that was a good way to construct a base--for themselves...not necessarily their party.
debianlinux said:
Wait, so private operations are only privately operated as long as they don't step on conservative toes?
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They also can't get in the way of shareholder dividends. Things like paying living wages do this and therefore are also shunned. I'm not a big fan of censoring social media, because it's always the pro-labor, anti-monopoly folks that ultimately get censored more than anything. I don't agree with FB censoring content but if you don't like it, disengage from the platform.
 
www.usatoday.com

Southwest Airlines passenger who allegedly struck flight attendant charged with felony battery

The 28-year-old female passenger was charged with felony battery in the incident.
www.usatoday.com

I find this disturbing and all I can think of is Trump and the Pandemic lit peoples fuses.

Between April 8 and May 15 there were 477 passenger misconduct incidents on Southwest flights.

The vast majority of them have to do with passengers being non compliant to policy / direction. And these non compliant passengers are getting more aggressive as time goes on and such incidents are on the rise at alarming rates.

The latest incident resulted in a southwest airlines flight attendant losing two teeth after being assaulted by a non compliant passenger.

People do not like to be told what to do and disregard policies they don't agree with. Then get aggressive with flight attendants over it.
 
Yup, I'm not visiting Texas anytime soon.

Texas lawmakers sent a bill to the Governor's desk today that changes gun carrying laws to "permitless". It is expected to be signed into law.
 
I don't own any guns and don't really get the gun culture in this state but there was a bit of a panic about a possible increase in violence when concealed carry and open carry were passed here in Texas and it didn't happen. Yes, we have terrible mass shootings but not the random daily violence people thought might happen after those were passed. I rarely see any open carry people. I know the various police associations around the state aren't really thrilled with permitless carry though.
 
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