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Well the last part we walk straight into a linguistic beehive due to the US's use of libertarianism meaning the ascendancy of unrestricted capitalism compared to the traditional views of the movement. You last sentence is ENTIRELY correct, but the meanings of words shifting in common usage makes me weary of tying two very shouty ideological enemies together.

451's a neat example, because now that you mentioned it there are a lot of similarities between its intended meaning and Idiocracy. And then you can get weird with rabbit holes in this genre. Like Ditko's influence on the comic industry leading to a direct rebuke of the common worldview shown in this subgenre in Watchmen.

I think the people that view libertarianism as an ascendancy of unrestricted capitalism tend to be a lot of it's critics from the progressive left, who view that government is a necessary agent in maintaining equity. And yeah, to be sure, the left's critique of the Libertarian solution to the welfare problem, i.e. "Private charities should handle the welfare problem" actually is sound given that how many self-described libertarians absolutely refuse to ever volunteer their time to anything. Personally, I've always hated that element among libertarians (who's philosophy I strongly associate with), and have been trying to personally stand against.
My personal stance for the self-described Libertarians out there that if the greatest revolutionary antigovernmental act they can do is dedicate their time, resources, or collective power to strip the need of government to begin with. To me that means willfully creating sustainable and more effective private solutions that governments try to solve publicly. To put it simply I say to them this: Government welfare programs wouldn't exist if there was no need for public welfare. I admit I was partially influenced by Agorism.
And yes, I do my tiny part in it, well…at least until COVID. I used to volunteer at the local park to teach martial arts to kids and adults.

As far as "punk" suffix goes…I have so many conflicting thoughts on it. To me it seems the longer the punk-suffix is applied to a particular genre of art the more it seems particularly distant from the original punk ethic, aesthetic, music, etc. Then again, my personal musical and aesthetic preference is generally "post punk". ¯\(ツ)/¯

I can see a clear influence of punk in something like cyber-punk. Less so in steam punk. Somewhat more in diesel-punk. And I struggle to find it in solar-punk given that the setting of solar-punk tends to be a hell of a lot more utopian than dystopian.
Im ranting about it at this point.

I would imagine a libertarian would not be convinced that the government ever needed a legitimate need, that the government's charity-on-your-behalf is designed to buy votes and return favours rather than solve ills.

Remove the ill yourself would merely see them redirect the bureacractic machine towards ever more illusory causes and sisyphean endeavours.

Very good point.

Yeah I agree with what you are saying, adding to this is why I dislike objectivism and Ayn Rand, she made the world worse overall and this is part of the reasons why she highly contributed to the ¨fuck you got mine¨ attitude a lot of libertarians (not all ofc but still) take nowadays and their unwilligness to donate to charity, oh well.

Ayn Rand and Objectivism's explicit rejection of altruism, that is, the highest moral good is selflessness and self-sacrifice, underpins her belief in the value of selfishness. But selfishness in the context of how she used it was merely, concern with one's own interests. And that there is nothing wrong with someone putting their own interests first. Rand argued that if a person is selfish, they can have the self-esteem and self-empowerment to use their skills, talents and intelligence as best as they can, which benefits others. As an example, a doctor who spends all their time honing their surgical skills, medical knowledge, will in turn benefit society far better than a doctor who does not. She argues that the doctor does not need to offer their services for free as a moral good, they just need to pursue their interests and passions as much as possible, which in turn would be advantageous to others.

Another example I'd argue is that of capitalist like Elon Musk (love or hate him), even with the advantages he had in life, he still risked his capital on an endeavor that succeeded. Why should he work for free? Why should he work for the benefit of others (or be taxed at a massive amount), when you can make the case that through his endeavors he has created a net good for humanity as a whole: He jump-started the transition into EVs, he also greatly reduced the logistical cost of space-exploration, on top of his other endeavors. And on top of this, his endeavors have created factories that employ thousands of people, some earning high paying jobs. Why should the state strip him of his capitol and take it upon themselves to improve society when he is doing it on his own?

The hostility to objectivism comes largely from academia because Rand was extremely critical of contemporary intellectuals. And I've seen it a lot that people who are critical of Academia tend to be ostracized from Academia itself, it's an institution that refuses to take any large criticisms of itself. It's also despised by progressives, who I would argue have a position of putting altruism as the highest moral good. I've seen many cases of altruism in of itself while having a short term good, tends to have long term bad. For example, in geo politics: giving free food to a country that is having a food crisis is in the short term a good thing, you make sure people are fed, but the cost of that is also that free-food prices out existing farmers, who cannot compete with with constant pouring of free food. Those existing farmers risk becoming poorer themselves, they cannot employ field-hands, they cannot buy new seeds or equipment, which in turn effects the sales of that equipment, seeds, fertilizer, and the people that work there. So, in effect, a good deed can have deeply bad consequences. It's one of the reasons that for all the decades of international aid to impoverished places like Africa have done little to improve the actual conditions on the ground, why some have been begging for the aid to stop, and why even Bono who's been the champion of this, had to do a 180. Developing the economy does more good than handing out money.

The problem with the "fuck you got mine" attitude of a lot of the libertarians who are often objectivists is this: They often do nothing, absolutely nothing, to better their skills, bettering themselves, creating jobs or institutions that can benefit other people through your own self-interest.

As I said previously, my biggest beef with self-described Libertarians is that they dance around theory, and never put it into actual practice.

Pot, kettle- you know the rest.

Hypocrisy of the speaker aside, I really wish he wasnt wrong about the apathy part, the world would be a better place if "the state should be forced to leave well alone" garnered the same energetic enthusiasm that every stupid collectivist idea automatically accrues seemingly from the virtue of being stupid and collectivist.

*sociopathy

@Chewybunny

Personally, I've never been a fan of Ayn Rand (and I read Atlas Shrugged, or it's because I read it). I think she's a hypocrite, she often exiled those who contradicted her and her writing is horrifically judgemental. I guess that's a weakness of any utopian idea which relies on a guru, or a charismatic leader. Since I never really met or discussed with a libertarian, I have to admit however that my view of the whole philosophy is unfairly skewed, especially with my perception of Ayn Rand.

With the amount of authoritarianism that's rising, self-actualization and using the private market to do what the private market does best is a good idea. It's been observed that while a government can encourage the development of economic sectors, their efforts to directly build them instead of working alongside entrepreneurs and industrial groups has often failed. However, one issue I have with libertarians is that private companies encroaching on what should be the public domain (health, transportation) has had worst outcomes for most consumers.

Exactly as Adam Smith predicted.

The issues of the adherents not being the best examples of their ideology is concerning, but it's an issue with a lot of ideologies, especially fringe ones. It's the religious fanatics and far-right who do shootouts, and they're still an ideology.

To add to the above, while a lot is said about Elon Musk (I think he's over-hyped), the biggest source of progress we found with emerging technologies is niche commercialization followed by policy support for R&D (most of it is still done from universities and other institutions than private labs) and finally the increased spread of new technologies.

In terms of progress in manufacturing, it's "Wright's Law" in action, and while it's less 'sexy' than the story of a rock-star CEO, it's more accurate, I think.

I think the irony is that Libertarianism (in my very limited and maybe straw-man understanding of it) and Ayn Rand who are said to support hard work, actually ignores those who work hard. I'm not sure if Libertarians actually support them or not, but monopolies and blowhard 'visionary' CEOs aren't the only drivers of the economy, and hustler culture breeds rent-seekers and leeches more than innovators or creators.

Still, it's better than just giving money and thinking that will solve all issues.

I'd like to point out we just exited a period of increased mercantilism and trade wars and may be entering a cold war or are already in one.

Let's not have the memory of goldfish here, things have changed since the 2000's. With everything said about the libertarians or collectivist ideals, in the end they are almost non-existent on the global stage in comparison to national concerns, tribal concerns or concerns those of larger conglomerates being represented.

Some big players in failed mercantilism (forcing manufacturing back by governments wasn't that easy, reducing trade deficit, etc…) are the US and UK after all, I think that preaching on free-trade from them would be hypocritical.

Stupid' and 'hypocrisy' is very much in the eye of the beholder. I thought the wave of populism was absolutely brain-dead, and yet a lot of people got fooled by that, even when they only got damages and no real direct economic benefits from it. We're all human beings, I guess.

I keep looking for these mythical nations of mercantlism and all I find are husks hollowed out by addicts of power deluding themselves as men no tribe and yet every tribe at once.

The organs of the nation mortgaged and sold for magic beans with "progress" and "safety" stenciled on their skins; only poison in their flesh.

Well, one can't keep on ignoring the present, can we? Sooner or later the rhetoric has to be updated past 2010 and see what has been done since then, for failure doesn't absolve one of intent. Time to see if there was any worth to the grand claims of rejuvenation, or if it was just sawdust and lies.

Danger, weakness and stagnation for those who now fear not only the ways progress and safety are used, but despises the very notion of those words. How does one rail against an entity, and yet demand that it brings back whatever imagined or real glory was lost? A chaser of shadows, who blames them for his woes, instead of actually seeing who props the marionettes.

At the very least, those nations should instead look within, because for all the hatred of the mixed and the wordly, it's always countrymen and family which betrays, not strangers. It's the definition of betrayal.

@Gilan
>However, one issue I have with libertarians is that private companies encroaching on what should be the public domain (health, transportation) has had worst outcomes for most consumers.

I am going to push back on this. On economic things the biggest things that the Libertarians have argued is the following (generalization here):
1) Government (specifically the US government) is inefficient, and incapable of efficiently and cost-effectively produce services, whether they are social, defense, infrastructure.

2) Government inefficiency leads to massive waste of tax-payer resources, which would be better utilized by the individuals, rather than a state. An example is the patchwork of regulations, social programs, that have resulted in an explosion of costs for something like US healthcare.

3) Private entities, be they charities, or companies are far more efficient, even as a natural monopoly, than the government can ever be, especially for the consumer of the charity, the good, or etc.

4) Government regulatory policy greatly impacts the cost effectiveness and efficiency of private entities, most often far more than necessary.

Obviously, some regulation that protects the common good is necessary. Obviously the government's role in enforcing contracts is a necessity. But we also have the practice of over-regulations that began in the 1950s. My personal pet peeve is licensure laws. In this day and age where social media has the capacity to give us a clear 5 star rating to virtually any business there is, the necessity of some standardization committee controlling who is licensed and who is not is arbitrary. There are so, so SO many professions that require a license, that is unnecessary. And I will give props to the Obama administration for at least trying very hard to fight against unnecessary licensing. Licensing – which often is misused to create artificial barriers of entry to control service providers – enforced by the state, is terrible.
Funny enough, I wanted to write this yesterday, however, it's serendipity that I waited, because there is a youtuber who made a video detailing the reason the US government is so inefficient.

I also don't know why something like "healthcare" or "transportation" should be the purview of the state. I think the state should guide it, rather than implement it. In fact, that's my ideal role for the government: guide not implement.
As I mentioned earlier Healthcare costs in this country is largely due to the patchwork of systems that are so interwoven, so utterly over-regulated (compared to Europe we are far FAR more regulated), and so utterly broken that is it no wonder that the ACA passed by Obama was literally 900 pages? Here's a brief summary of how fucking asinine our system is and why it costs so much:
Most Americans don't know the cost of the medical services they are getting, instead it is done through a third party (health insurance) which negotiates the costs with healthcare providers (hospitals or doctors). Hospitals but to far lesser extent Doctors, not only negotiate with health insurance, but they also negotiate with Medicare and Medicaid (on top of other State programs). Hospitals on average lose money for every Medicare or Medicaid patient they have to deal with, since the Government has tremendous leverage in negotiating prices of services, private practice doctors whoever benefit tremendously from Medicare or Medicaid patients because there is far less overhead and they employ third party medical billers (like my Dad and Step Mom). So here's where it get's seriously problematic.
The vast majority of Americans are insured through their employer (a relic of the Great Depression), and the employer can negotiate with the insurance company through leverages. That is, the employer is bringing the insurance company 300 new clients, so the insurance company offers a major discount. The employer then takes the insurance policy out of the paycheck, by paying half. However, if you are not employed and you need insurance, (and you do), the insurance company is going to charge you a far larger premium – sometimes 3x the cost of what you would pay under employer-insurance. This is because a) as an individual you have no leverage from where to negotiate prices from, and b) instead of the employer covering a part of your policy, you are responsible for all of it. And by the way, because of the ACA, the employer is now by law supposed to insure you.
When you go get your medical services done, especially at a hospital, you pay a small premium, and the insurance company pays the rest (often negotiated). If you are one of the 8% of Americans that are uninsured, YOU are responsible for paying the medical treatment in full because you have no position to negotiate from. Because Hospitals tend to lose money on every Medicare and Medicaid patient (which consists of 30-40% of all their patients), the Hospital needs to make up the difference in losses by increases costs on regular patients, and because the profit margins for hospitals are 2-4% on average, when they deal with a upper lower class or middle class uninsured patient, guess what? Since you don't know the cost of services before you get them, you will end up with a massive bill that you cannot pay. And if you just so happen to be one of the few people in this country where you are so poor that you don't even have a bank account, such as an illegal immigrant, or homeless, the Hospital effectively treats you for free, it loses 100% of it's money on you.
And this is just me generalizing it. Because there are so, so SO many additional layers here. But to sum up, there are too many interests in making sure the costs remain high. Government regulatory policy, and it's partial involvement in healthcare distorts costs because it forces healthcare providers such as hospitals to effectively lose money, forcing the hospital to charge more on patients. Insurance companies further distort the healthcare markets, on top of constantly expanding regulations make it unbearable. And the alternative, Universal Healthcare, is simply not going to solve any of this, unfortunately. We need to rehaul the entire the entire mentality behind it.

@Chewybunny
That's fair. I'll do my own rebuttal on the push-back:

1 & 2) That's more of a claim, and countries like Korea and Taiwan have shown being capable of developing with their model. It's not the ideal, but it's a counter to the claim that all government efforts are wasteful.

Social: As Adam Smith said, one of the reasons why public goods are subject to the government and to the populace is that it's design is a public service, not to generate revenue. One that generates revenue in the end actually impoverishes a society, so it's a net-loss.

Instead of worse outcomes for consumers, I should have said worse outcomes for citizens. Not to mention, you yourself have said on the issues of private charities and inadequate public schools. Privatization seems to sap services and doesn't replace them.

I've even had an argument with someone that said that the private sectors shouldn't be interested in public welfare, and they had a point. Issues is however, that neglected social issues tends to eventually topple societies, it's a lesson that somehow must be re-learned.

Defense: What do you mean by this? The Military-industrial complex? Mercenaries? I don't think they're a good example, as the mix has shown to cause conflicts of interest which leads to atrocities than pure citizen armies. Than again, those aren't really possible and were still subject to atrocities. It's a thorny issue…

Mercenary armies like the one of the Italian city-states? Those were disastrous.

Infrastructure: I'll sort of repeat what was said in social, but the US's infrastructure is crumbling, from what I've in comparison to every other developed country I visited. Now there's the argument to be made that it's public neglect, but countries which have a public department on this with funding don't have the issue in the same extent (I'm not saying it's perfect, but the US seems to have gone through outright neglect).The laying of fiber optic cables in Australia has been a disaster as well, so it's not unique to the US, I've read of too many private publics contracted on behalf of the government being bungled.

Privatization of public goods can even be considered theft and has caused a skyrocketing of ticket prices and lowered services to what is necessary. I think of the UK's trains, but I've heard there were similar issues for other nations.

3) I think with the multiple failures of the Washington consensus, it's not true on a macro level, and the orthodoxy of the Neo-liberal school has squandered a lot of the influence the US had after the Cold War. Monopolies have been disastrous for societies, as seen with banana republics.

In the micro level, I mentioned smart cities, because individual led projects that fail have the same weakness as autocratic governments ironically enough, in that there's no accountability, just one's ego. From what I've seen from the work and sometimes dealing with the private and public sector, the idea of one or the other being more efficient is a myth.

Now, the threat of a private company being broken up, competed out of business or judicially prosecuted, and the threat of governments being superseded or being so economically inefficient that they fall behind other countries and both being subject to new technologies.

Entities being subject to constraints and competition, a form of 'creative destruction' as said by Schumpeter, that's what makes entities efficient and is necessary.

4) It should be noted that private sector doesn't mean streamlined. Remember when I mentioned rent-seeking behavior? A host of smaller private interests to balloon costs for their own cut is exactly how private sector can become inefficient.

I'm not advocating for state control like communism, I wouldn't say I'm even a statist, I'm just saying that the healthcare issues seems incredibly complex, but I think that making it purely private wouldn't solve the issue and instead just continuing the current status quo. It's a sort of economic 'fundamentalism' that I've actually sort of had to face in the opposite direction when meeting communists.

I do agree however that it seems to be an issue of mentality and existing players and incentive system, and that's way more complicated. I'll try to make another reply after reading more on the healthcare in the US.

Texas GOP declares Biden to be illegitimate, demands end to abortion

We are in hell.

Once again, what a shithole.

Perhaps it's karma for the landgrab against Mexico?

Seriously though, news like that such as a province or region which refuses to accept overall election results are normally warning signs before a democracy falls apart, you just hear that more often from countries in the global south (what with the tribalism involved). It's playing with fire.

Democracies faced with this dilemma have the cornelian choice of either having a breakaway state or enforce an election result (which is of dubious democratic right at best). Still, this isn't the first time the US itself has had this rodeo, "Make America great again", indeed, it's a return of history.

There's a third option, but it's harder and unlikely to be popular among career politicians: identifying and understanding the reasons why people are skeptical of the election results, and working to fix those issues.

This also all feels like a natural escalation of things since the turn of the millennium. A small amount of people thought that Dubya Bush was "not their President", and it's only gotten more extreme with each new guy in the Oval Office. We've finally reached the point where it can't escalate any further: things will either break, or something will come about that pushes the issue into the background for a while. I don't think this will cause an outright civil war (unless something absurdly stupid happens), but something wacky like a bunch of states applying the "sanctuary state" logic to everything the current administration is doing seems plausible.

Problem is, that means fixing broken trust in a democracy. That almost means going back in time, or identifying all the corruption, lies and sliding standards that led people up to this point.

It also means taking responsibility, for a lot of people. I'll be frank, some who dispute the election defend Jan 6th and what happened beforehand, there has to be an honest conversation on whether the skepticism is based on good faith or sour grapes. This also goes back further into the past into bipartisan hatred and coming to terms with Obama, Bush and others on the political climate they oversaw. It also means trying to put the genie back in the bottle in terms of political language, claims and violence and of defending extremists because "they're on our team".

There's also an issue in some Global South Republics, where it's just a team sport in an almost artifical country (due to lack of overall national bonds), so if an election is lost people talk like they're occupied, because their region is outright harmed or neglected. For example, when I called Texas a shithole? I didn't come up with that, a New Yorker did in some magazine I read in response to the time after Texan officials denied aid for Hurricane Sandy in the loathsome moralist manner they like. This means a ton of healing, of trying to find common ground, of solidarity.

I'm not exagerrating about this being serious by the way, I've seen too many people who larped about a civil war and wished for it, the protection of irony for such positions has worn out. We're in a much more fragile and dynamic world, if a country and it's people wants to fuck itself up, they have their destiny in their hands.

The last bit about our world isn't reserved for the US or even the West either. I wonder what the Russian nationalists are truly thinking, below the propaganda, now that they truly get to experience a part of their Great Patriotic war?

"Hard times create hard men, hard men create good times, good times creates soft men and soft men create hard times".

You know even if God turns out to be real there is the MASSIVE problem that NOBODY I mean NOBODY seems to know what God really wants. Look how many Bibles and religions there are and how different they all are.

Also is God a communist or a capitalist? NOBODY knows, cause the guy apparently hates rich people but God is super vague about A LOT of things.

You would think this has nothing to do with politics but dear lord….it does.

anyway yeah politics based on what God does and does not want are flawed cause…what does God want? teologans clearly cant agree on it anyway

I've always thought of any godlike entity as a kind of Deus Ex Machina, a machine god, a transcendental intelligence. A force of nature, and praying to them is like praying to the forces of gravity and time. Imagine the alternative, a petty and emotional god, something which is overlooking a giant simulation, what a senseless universe that would be.

A god who cares how the monkeys order the distribution of resources, and which one is the leader of the troupe? That's pure ego in action, and I heard pride was the most deadly sin.

This issue can be classified in the category of: Don't worry about it, we already have enough problems just dealing with ourselves.

So, have you guys seen the Texas GOPs proposal list from the recent texas republican convention?

Its legitimately the most insane document for mask offing I have ever seen

For full perusal, heres the full document

https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/resolution-passed-by-a-texas-gop-party-committee-at-its-2022-convention.pdf

No surprise at all. It's a sad testament to current politics, but it's a good idea to take an indepth look at the ugliness involved beyond just the election claim.

To keep it short, I'd like to point out a paragraph on a piece of hypocrisy that you also see often on this site:

"Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi cast the deciding vote on the move to bar the group that has advocated for LGBTQ Republicans for decades. "I think it's inappropriate given the state of our nation right now for us to play sexual identity politics," Rinaldi told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram"

As someone said on the "groomer" page, the very existence of the LGBT is an offensive sexual act to some of the far-right. I think it's no longer hyperbole to call out Gilead, too bad it had to get so bad first.

Texas reps are handing the state to the dems on a silver platter
or maybe giving the libertarians or some sane conservstive party the chance to have some actual congressmen

This may be the most optimistic thing I've heard being said about this situation and may be a healthier mentality. Hopefully the Texas GOP won't call voter fraud if they lose, because that's a bad habit of some faltering South hemisphere democracies and now the US.

I'm sort of curious what those for whom this isn't preaching to the choir think. On this site there was already entrees about calling the LGBGT groomers, abortion and rights of women and a stint on the "replscement theory" and I have to say, I'm not proud at all of the response of some on this site, to the point I can predict how some will respond (with attempts to ignore this situation being the best case scenario).

However all of that at once mixed in with the Jan 6th style conspiracy? It's not the slow trickle of news anymore, there's little deniability. I never thought I was someone who cared about identity politics, but there's a line that has been crossed.

Oh I WISH it was a silver platter, but Texas has been gerrymandered to fucking hell and they're living a nightmare to claw back to a semblance of normal democracy. There is so much more blue in that state than most people think and it's an awful awful thing that such insanity has taken leadership because the GOP actually rigged it so bad.

Might have more to do with the democrats hopes being pinned on the hispanic immigrants without considering how their focus on lgbt issues has the side effect of alienating the highly socially conservative latino community.

Similar in vein to how they ended up turning the cuban exiles in florida hard red by going soft on Castro.

Add in the souring of public sympathy over the drag kids and school secret keeping fiascos; In machiavelli terms, as long as they dont go full "back in the closet" (never underestimate the republican's ability to fuck up) the republicans have much to gain and little to lose by pivoting and cutting the log-cabins loose.

Also, never underestimate a republican's capacity to promise the moon and then do nothing once in office.

Wanting to abolish the DoEd is pretty based tbh, though I have to wonder what their reasoning for it is. My reasoning is that it's become an ineffective money sink, made worse by acts and laws like No Child Left Behind. The DHS is still worse though

The Department of Education is a necessary part of having a functional education system in a country as big as the US, even if it does use a lot of money. We need SOMETHING to help coordinate schools so their isnt a massive and impassable gap in school quality between poor and rich / small and big towns, and the DoEd is the only real way to do it. In case you missed it, they dont want the government giving any of its roles to other governmental agencies either, which means they just want the government to completely abandon any attempt to regulate education.

If the DoEd was abolished, we would have small towns all over the country either let their education be completely dictated by religious teaching, let them fall into complete disrepair from lack of funding, or straight up get rid of schools entirely leaving their kids without any form of formalized education.

I just remembered the democrat governer cadidate is Beto O'Rourke.

Gun Grabber Goon Trying To Turn Texas Teal.

No wonder the texas republicans are going ham, the green party candidate is probably more of a threat this year.

It's clearly not doing a very good job, since test scores have only improved marginally in comparison to its funding ballooning out of control, becoming more a nightmare of bureaucracy than anything actually pertaining significantly to education. As of now, every US state (and every populated territory) has established its own education department; if we're not to outright abolish the DoEd, we should at least minimize its bureaucracy and grant more power to the individual states in matters of education. There's certainly some benefit to be had in national-level coordination, but whatever we've been doing up until now hasn't really been all that effective, so we ought to change it up in some manner.

Test scores are really not important in comparison to a lot of other necessary work they do. Funding, dealing with schools that decide to teach creationism, collecting data on all schools in the nation, etc. Without them, a school in Texas would have no way of even knowing how well their students are doing compared to other states, and would have to create new taxes to fund their schools.

A big thing that you are forgetting is dissolving the Department of education would be equivalent to getting rid of federal subsidies and funding for schooling, meaning all of the funding would have to come from new local taxes. And its basically impossible to pass new local taxes in a lot of the country, so huge portions of America's kids would suddenly be attending drastically underfunded schools.

Well, let's see out of the two reactions we have:

1) Greyblades outright supports it, adresses it and considers it a good move. Fine, as someone who has tribal worldview of someone who didn't care what the leaders did as long as they remained loyal to their tribemembers, it's in character. The cards are on the table, it's "honest".

2) Spaghetto deflects to the department of education to ignore everything else. Which is also in character, with the last exchange of us calling each other crooks and other bird names. The thing with any reconciliation is it has to be two sided, not just a feint to get the other side to get their guard down.

We didn't even mention environmentalism, divorces, spousal rights, mental health, the separation of church and state and pornography. I'd like to point out once again how stupid the alliance of co-operation or inaction some of the American Right (and followers) have made with the evangelicals, at least those not hiding theocratic intent.

With all my criticisms of Libertarianism, it or any other idealogy would be better than what's going in Texas. A militarized police force for one (losing any benefit of having a civilian police since Scotland Yard was formed) with large expenses, no public oversight or duty to protect. They actually harrassed parents instead.

Was this what you meant you said the private sector could do security better @Chewybunny? Because on the micro level, security guards are better than crooked cops.

As for the Department of Education, have I ever told you the story of Samuel Paty? I know you tried to use him @Spaghetto shallowly, but he was a teacher at a center of a social media and political smear campaign by a backward religious group who didn't even bother to fact check their lying source (daughter of the head now being prosecuted).

Then when it caused a nutcase to commit an attack, they tried to backpedal or wash their hands of the businesses. Half a dozen are now awaiting trial. I put a lot of American Right on the same level with what they're doing with their lies and mania on "groomer" trachers. The hypocrisy of it with what their real religious re-education that is planned.

I hate to admit you've succeeded in goading me out of detached analysis.

I support 1 because I believe it, 143 because no group should be given privelegde over another, 144 and 135 because I consider stunting a child's growth and render them sterile for the sake of a mere chance of assuaging a mental condition the height of cruelty, 117 because the centralisation of educational policy of 50 states to a single body is a massive strategic mistake, and 42 only because mainstream enviromentalism has devolved a shitshow of doom mongering and selfsabotage of such stunning degree to be approaching china in… well damn near anything china has done the last 80 years.

The rest I am indifferent or dissaproving but see the strategic sense in at least being seen to persue. Besides, not much point in being angry at texas being texas if you havent spent the last 10 years pretending it can be turned into east california.

That aside Kiss my ass.

So for 143, if a gay person was murdered for the sole reason that they were gay, and no other reason, that shouldn't be considered a hate crime?
For 135, how is abolishing a mental health resource for kids a way to stunt their growth and sterilize them? It's a resource that kids who could be in rough situations can make use of.
Also, for 144, it doesn't just stop at kids, it also includes ages 18-21, so unless you think we should also massively restrict other rights and freedoms for that age range, why the need to deny them gender affirming care?
Also, while it has it's flaws, the Department of Education is the current thing allowing for something of a standardization of schools throughout America. Abolish that, and we're going to see the education system plummet even more as schools get even less funding.
Also, for the election being illegitimate, what proof do you have? It has been studied and investigated to death, and Biden did not win by some mountainous landslide of fraudulent votes.

Hate crimes are redundancy inserted into law for the sake of political posturing and turns trials into circuses; the prosecution and defense are incentivised to quibble over motive for the sake of pushing career stats long past the point of guilt being proven.

A dead man doesnt become deader if he was killed for his gayness over any other reason but a murderer can become less guilty by lying about his reasons? It's absurd and a slap in the face of equality that an immutable characteristic is valued as more heinous to wrong than any other.

Centralization renders the whole reliant on the competence and loyalty of the one department, the one man. Putting something as all important as the education of the youth of the whole nation iin the hands of a singular authority is a folly that outwieghs any benefit; a massive target for usurpation.

Going to the election is a topic far outside my endurance to unpack; the drama around maricopa county alone is a dissertation in and of itself; but what I would highlight is the absolute rabid refusal to even contemplate any proposal of certification on the part of the "victor", the heel dragging obstruction against any and all attempts at clarification and the shear deluge of indignation at the very idea of impropriety even to this day.

Those confident of propriety in victory do not act like this. It is a telegraphing of weakness and desperation at a level supassing parody. They do not believe they won; why should anyone else?

Unfortunately I cannot answer 135 and 144 because I have the eye of a mod who isnt above giving warnings even over statements of indisputable fact that he doesnt like to hear, and sadly my enjoyment of discussion on this site outside his pet topic outwieghs my desire to elucidate.

Good, that means you have a working sense of honour, shame and/or pride. Apathy is not a strength or defense, it is a deficiency.

Unfortunately, I think 40k oracle did a better of responding than I could to the specific points. Especially since as much as I like to type, you just summarized a repetition of what I just said, although I guess I can add "being cynically opportunistic", not that it really changes much. I remember someone here saying it's a rot in politics, guess that's another standard thrown to the wind.

It's not even close to Eastern California, this is beyond the scale of even the most 'conservative' towns that I know of in France, Germany or the UK. You should know this.

Closer to Western Saudi Arabia, or Western Moscow, considering the commonalities and how the American Right mentioned Russia…

>Kiss my ass

Ooh, how forward. Luckily we're not in Texas.

I won't harangue you on 144 simply due to our sheer differences in belief, other than that if the kid in question reaches the age of 18, they should be allowed to get gender affirming care since they're technically an adult, but I will on 135. There is nothing bad at all about children having access to mental health resources.
In our day and age, we have the knowledge and capability of helping children that are in positions or situations where they have no one else to turn to. Children having someone they can talk to about issues affecting them is not "stunting their growth", nor is it "deluding them about reality". At the very least, it can simply provide a safe group that a kid can vent to.

Oh joy, a juvenile attempt to get a base reaction out of me. How boring. I focused on the DoEd, not out of any interest to "deflect", but because 1) it was the most interesting topic, since it hadn't been explored nearly as much and 2) it was one of two points I could say more about than just "I disagree with that, that's stupid".

The other point was 144a. I've pointed out before that puberty blockers carry a huge risk of causing bone problems in the early to mid 20s, as puberty is the timeframe where bone density increases the most. This, among other things that develop heavily during puberty, such as height, can't readily be repaired through later hormone treatment.

There's another issue: as seen with cases such as Jazz Jennings, the impact that puberty blockers have on the development of the sexual organs can make SRS very difficult, if not completely impossible.

The problems with puberty blockers don't really matter for those who are 18 (at which point puberty is mostly over). There could be some merit to the idea of having more extreme options locked behind slightly more neurological development, but that's a separate can of worms.

Sure is fun having a conversation where one side is cowed into silence by a thirst party. truly this is the debate of the century.

I am sorry, I may regret saying this, but I need to say this.

This twitter post is total CRINGE

I really wish I could criticize this type of post more without people getting the wrong idea and/or me looking like a bigot or helping some far right weirdo because I need to be honest it is cringe. Harmless….but ugh…

Not always I swear but there is just SO MANY times nowadays with this type of thing where I am like ¨I dont disagree with the message but this is fanfiction level cringe¨ but there are so many I feel so many times I cant say anything because people wont believe me its the cringe I have a problem with.

But I have to this time cause….ugh….I am tired at this point….idk

Well, what can you really expect from people who do it for free?

While I understand your views on gender are completely different and I completely disagree with you but understand your rationality behind it
There is no rational reason to deny anyone acces to mental healthcare, if you don’t think somebody should be allowed it, you are a bad person

I can only assume you're referring to the mod who happened to be the one to actually press the deliver button on your most recent warning, in which case:

*she :)

Agreed. There wouldn't be a problem if they were calling for some good oversight of what schools are providing though. In my experience, public schools tend to go with the lowest bidder on everything except for sports stadiums, which is unlikely to provide any degree of consistent quality when applied to mental healthcare.

Really, a big problem with everything in the document is that they are calling pretty much universally for abolishing things instead of reforming them, even making it impossible to reform them for several things. I'm willing to say pretty much everything they talk about getting rid of could be given a go over to make them run more smoothly and cheaper, but they just want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on all of the programs they talk about, which is wildly irresponsible.