Political Discussion
- Thread starter David A.
- Start date
debianlinux
Well-Known Member
The most essential thing we cultivated in America was the peaceful transfer of power via democratic vote. To undermine that is sedition and treason at the most fundamental level. It all seems so short sighted. What does that end game really look like? A tyrannical dictator with a relatively small pyramid scheme of profit and power beneath him. Like, that arrangement is threatening to a corporate oligarchy. I just don't see it going down well for really anyone for very long. I won't be surprised to see it happen, though.
AnthonyI
Well-Known Member
I don't know what's more amazing, companies who have been bragging about this while condemning better working conditions and pay, or how many people don't see what's really been going on. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
I think it goes beyond ignorance at this stage. There’s been a divisive rhetoric in society for the last 40 years where the working/lower middle classes have been systematically divided to be conquered.
The narratives surrounding the poor are so toxic as to it almost being the case that the mildly better off view them with a contempt that makes out that they deserve their situations. I see this most starkly in the ideas you often see surrounding benefits debates and the idea that it’s “free money” and that “they’d only spend it on drugs/booze/fags anyway”.
In case any other of us Americans were confused thinking of something totally different.
As expected, the voting rights bill did not pass the Senate with Both Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joining in with Republicans for a no vote for eliminating the filibuster.
Their argument is if they eliminate the filibuster the Republicans will do the same next time they are in control and ban abortions.
However, political science people saying that's just an excuse. The Republicans come to the fight with an axe while the Democrats come with a butter knife. If the Republicans want to do something they will do it and not look back. It's just as likely that the Democrats not eliminate the filibuster and do not pass the voting rights act only to have the Republicans eliminate the filibuster once they are in control on a issue they are making a stand on.
We can't play by the rules and morals of if we don't do it they won't.
Meanwhile, states continue their assaults on voting rights and placing more restrictions.
www.cnn.com
Their argument is if they eliminate the filibuster the Republicans will do the same next time they are in control and ban abortions.
However, political science people saying that's just an excuse. The Republicans come to the fight with an axe while the Democrats come with a butter knife. If the Republicans want to do something they will do it and not look back. It's just as likely that the Democrats not eliminate the filibuster and do not pass the voting rights act only to have the Republicans eliminate the filibuster once they are in control on a issue they are making a stand on.
We can't play by the rules and morals of if we don't do it they won't.
Meanwhile, states continue their assaults on voting rights and placing more restrictions.
Plans to close all but one polling place in a rural Georgia county reverberate through a battleground state
Voting rights activists are closely monitoring takeovers of local election boards in a state that helped decide the presidency and control of the Senate in 2020.
No, that wasn't what I was referring too but is the same message. Wonder if what he said was recycled by some political scientists though in their take.
I didn't realize this was part of The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but to address driver shortages 18 year olds can now drive semi trucks on interstates and across federal lines.
Previously you had to be 21 with the local exceptions such as for farm use within the same state.
I'm not sure how I feel about lowering the age for the soul purpose of addressing driver shortages. If there are driver shortages there are other issues that need to be figured out. It's not just let's let younger people drive.
Previously you had to be 21 with the local exceptions such as for farm use within the same state.
I'm not sure how I feel about lowering the age for the soul purpose of addressing driver shortages. If there are driver shortages there are other issues that need to be figured out. It's not just let's let younger people drive.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
Deep man!
bettim84
Well-Known Member
Not sure this is the right place to share this, and the headline is very click-baity, but here it is:
No, Wharton students, the average U.S. worker does not make $800,000
No, Wharton students, the average U.S. worker does not make $800,000
Was reading this article & my immediate thought is it's insane something like this can happen, why would you allow people to own guns, never mind let people play with guns in built up areas. I don't mean any offence but I think a lot of UK people's feeling is US gun policy is crazy. Obviously we have a very different culture and don't really understand the American culture when it comes to guns. (I thought I know a whole bunch of Americans on N&G who can help me understand). What's the general reaction from an American? What do people think about gun ownership in America?
www.theguardian.com
British man killed by stray bullet as he lay in bed in Atlanta
Matthew Willson from Surrey was shot in ‘reckless’ shooting as he was visiting his girlfriend
www.theguardian.com
Guns are one of those things that's tied up in the mythos of America. We conquered the west with guns. We broke away from England with guns. While guns aren't necessary for life in a rural community--a life ranching or farming, guns are a tool that many rural people (ranchers especially) say they could barely do without. In these communities, responsible gun ownership is prized and children are taught gun safety at very early ages. And it's normally this group of people--rural, responsible gun owners--that the NRA and other pro gun groups point to when making the claim that Americans need guns. The other thing many pro-gun people will talk about is that given the insane volume of guns in America right now, the only people you would be taking them from are law abiding citizens, because criminals don't care about having illegal guns. Thus, you would be arming the criminals while leaving law abiding citizens no way to protect themselves. And it's this second argument, the argument that if criminals have guns, I need one for protection, that I think, is currently suppressing and anti-gun sentiment over here on this side of the pond. Legal gun ownership has gone up significantly since the pandemic with women arming themselves at a much higher rate than ever before. It's this nervousness in the zeitgeist, or maybe the very real rises in violent crimes since the beginning of the pandemic, that has kept guns from even being talked about. We should be going nuts over the fact that a foreign national was able to purchase a gun over here, but we aren't and probably won't do anything because people are genuinely concerned about the amount of tension and think that the best idea is to arm themselves.Was reading this article & my immediate thought is it's insane something like this can happen, why would you allow people to own guns, never mind let people play with guns in built up areas. I don't mean any offence but I think a lot of UK people's feeling is US gun policy is crazy. Obviously we have a very different culture and don't really understand the American culture when it comes to guns. (I thought I know a whole bunch of Americans on N&G who can help me understand). What's the general reaction from an American? What do people think about gun ownership in America?
British man killed by stray bullet as he lay in bed in Atlanta
Matthew Willson from Surrey was shot in ‘reckless’ shooting as he was visiting his girlfriend
I can empathise with the need to protect yourself and to get a gun to do it. But it's a really scary thought that people feel they need to buy guns to protect themselves. Also very scary that the controls are so lax foreign nationals can buy guns
My grandmother had a gun and a concealed carry license when my grandfather was in Charity Hospital with lung cancer. She got it because the area around Charity was notoriously dangerous and she was a little, old lady. I just feel like this is the same justification we have for keeping nukes, which to @Indymisanthrope's point is gross, senseless and terrifying.
It's ends up like any arms race. If the first instinct is to buy a gun to protect yourself, it will just perpetuate the problem.
IRS will require facial-recognition to access online system - UPI.com
The Internal Revenue Service will require taxpayers to take selfies and verify their identities through ID.me to access online accounts starting this summer.
www.upi.com
Welp, well hello there big brother.
I also wonder how this will play out in states where privacy policies prohibit the collection of biometric data without first notifying you in writing what they want it for and getting your written consent.
ID.me appears to be a private entity the IRS is using. Which adds a little bit of complexity to this.
Six Flags recently just settled a lawsuit with the state of IL over violating their policy by using fingerprints for entry into it's parks.
Max Sterling
Well-Known Member
On guns: Rural Canadian who moved to the rural South and now lives a stones throw from the article in question.
@nolalady said pretty much everything that needs to be said but I wanted to throw in my two cents.
I was given a handgun by my grandfather when I was around 11 or 12, I was given no bullets and didn't have any access to them. It was impressed upon me that it was not a toy, and that I should learn how to take care of it. I took it apart to clean it and couldn't get it back together again, so I gave it to my uncle. I grew up firing guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles, whatever, pretty much my whole life. I was surrounded by people who had grown up the same way. Whether they were hunters, farmers, military, most of the people around me owned multiple guns and it wasn't uncommon to go out in the back yard and shoot cans or the like.
It's difficult to convince people who have a culture of gun ownership and gun related hobbies that something they enjoy should not be allowed them, especially in a country so indoctrinated with the false aura of "freedom" they hold onto. I'm generally a pro "freedom" kinda guy, I've always resisted the idea that "guns shouldn't be allowed to anyone." I was more in the camp that it should be much more difficult to obtain a gun, much like how I believe it should be much more difficult to obtain a drivers license, but those of sound mind and ability should have the opportunity to attempt it.
It first occurred to me that my perception of guns was not ubiquitous when I was out with some family at a park in a VERY rural part of GA. We heard some shots ring out, pretty far away, across the Chattahoochee, and a couple of my family members who have always lived closer to cities were freaked out. In my mind, it was just some hunter, or whoever shooting their gun out on their property. It's a common occurrence, it didn't phase me, but they were scared. If you hear gun shots in the city, there's very few reasons for it and none of them are positive.
I'm still of the opinion that education, in a more reasonable world, is much more favourable than prohibition. HOWEVER, in light of recent trends and my absolute loss of trust in humanity, I'm leaning more towards more laws and consequences that protect those who can't protect themselves.
Changing the collective minds of those from the camp I grew up with is nigh impossible and their ideals and values sadly control most of our governments. It's very much a "I can handle the responsibility, so you can too" situation. Mix the availability of firearms with a growing disparity in wealth in a city like Atlanta where the youth are trying to find a way out and are only offered "support" through less than legal means and you get this terrible fallout. Which of course escalates when Bubba pulls out his sidearm in "self defense."
And a general worry is that if every law abiding person turned in their weapons, the only people left with weapons would be the criminals, and we'd all be robbed and murdered within the week.
Hopefully this gives you a bit of a window into the American gun predicament. Much like it's not enough that people are dying and we could help prevent it by getting vaccinated to persuade a large amount of people to just get vaccinated, the existence of gun violence is not enough to convince gun owners that they should maybe rethink the whole thing.
@nolalady said pretty much everything that needs to be said but I wanted to throw in my two cents.
I was given a handgun by my grandfather when I was around 11 or 12, I was given no bullets and didn't have any access to them. It was impressed upon me that it was not a toy, and that I should learn how to take care of it. I took it apart to clean it and couldn't get it back together again, so I gave it to my uncle. I grew up firing guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles, whatever, pretty much my whole life. I was surrounded by people who had grown up the same way. Whether they were hunters, farmers, military, most of the people around me owned multiple guns and it wasn't uncommon to go out in the back yard and shoot cans or the like.
It's difficult to convince people who have a culture of gun ownership and gun related hobbies that something they enjoy should not be allowed them, especially in a country so indoctrinated with the false aura of "freedom" they hold onto. I'm generally a pro "freedom" kinda guy, I've always resisted the idea that "guns shouldn't be allowed to anyone." I was more in the camp that it should be much more difficult to obtain a gun, much like how I believe it should be much more difficult to obtain a drivers license, but those of sound mind and ability should have the opportunity to attempt it.
It first occurred to me that my perception of guns was not ubiquitous when I was out with some family at a park in a VERY rural part of GA. We heard some shots ring out, pretty far away, across the Chattahoochee, and a couple of my family members who have always lived closer to cities were freaked out. In my mind, it was just some hunter, or whoever shooting their gun out on their property. It's a common occurrence, it didn't phase me, but they were scared. If you hear gun shots in the city, there's very few reasons for it and none of them are positive.
I'm still of the opinion that education, in a more reasonable world, is much more favourable than prohibition. HOWEVER, in light of recent trends and my absolute loss of trust in humanity, I'm leaning more towards more laws and consequences that protect those who can't protect themselves.
Changing the collective minds of those from the camp I grew up with is nigh impossible and their ideals and values sadly control most of our governments. It's very much a "I can handle the responsibility, so you can too" situation. Mix the availability of firearms with a growing disparity in wealth in a city like Atlanta where the youth are trying to find a way out and are only offered "support" through less than legal means and you get this terrible fallout. Which of course escalates when Bubba pulls out his sidearm in "self defense."
And a general worry is that if every law abiding person turned in their weapons, the only people left with weapons would be the criminals, and we'd all be robbed and murdered within the week.
Hopefully this gives you a bit of a window into the American gun predicament. Much like it's not enough that people are dying and we could help prevent it by getting vaccinated to persuade a large amount of people to just get vaccinated, the existence of gun violence is not enough to convince gun owners that they should maybe rethink the whole thing.
Jan
Well-Known Member
So Mitch McConnell is trying a more honest approach
“The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” McConnell said.
www.theguardian.com
“The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” McConnell said.
Mitch McConnell’s viral Black voter comments cause widespread furor
Republican Senate minority leader’s comments came after party members blocked voting rights bill and changes to filibuster rule
www.theguardian.com
What a strange political environment we live in when school board meetings have to address things like, no, they do not have litter boxes for students who identify as furry.