US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2714

On October 06 2020 00:49 Arghmyliver wrote:


Imean this is exactly my point. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force them to drink. When you have a bunch of actors like Danglars here who believe that being hella ignorant is an "ideological difference" and that science is a matter of opinion. Like, I could honestly care less what your political beliefs are, I defy you to live on a planet inhospitable to life. As long as you offer SOME kind of solution, I'm honestly ok. Even if your solution is dumb as hell, at least you acknowledge the problem and try to fix it. This idea that denying science is a valid political stance is toxic and detrimental.

On October 06 2020 00:42 Mohdoo wrote:


Its not as simple as "They want abortion, those other people don't, so lets agree on half abortion"

The form of compromise being sought by conservatives is to essentially let governors decide. So abortion could be something you go to prison for, or it could be paid for by the government, depending on borders within our country. That isn't a good solution, it's a decision to just ride solo.

On October 05 2020 23:20 GreenHorizons wrote:

So long as you don't live in France you have no obligation to their economy in exchange for your citizenship? Your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you reside if you're a US citizen. So my taxes would still go toward such atrocities even if I lived in a country that was a social democracy where the exploitation is mostly outside the nation's boarder and more subtle/indirect than a place like the US.

But I don't want to attempt to maintain an intentionally exploitative system and make it just palatable enough to stave off revolutions in the metropolises. I want a vision of a society that is working to end, not maintain, the exploitative relationship between capital, natural resources and labor for a more holistic vision of the world that understands conscientização as our pursuit, not profit.

If you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien of the United States and you live abroad, you are taxed on your worldwide income. However, you may qualify to exclude your foreign earnings from income up to an amount that is adjusted annually for inflation ($103,900 for 2018, $105,900 for 2019, and $107,600 for 2020). In addition, you can exclude or deduct certain foreign housing amounts.

On October 06 2020 01:02 Neneu wrote:


Do you think a nation's government should not reflect its citizens?

When a nation are not able to compromise anymore between its citizens' values, they have a strong tendency to either split or turn authoritarian.

On October 05 2020 23:04 Biff The Understudy wrote:

French but I guess I'll get a norwegian one as soon as I am allowed. My mother is Argentinian, and her family were themselves immigrants, so the emigration thing runs deep in my blood

On October 06 2020 00:13 Danglars wrote:
Let's have a nice, amicable country split where all you would-be revolutionaries can take on your rapid change in political representation and new "system," and you leave middle America and rural America alone. The American system is designed to slow down change in order to preserve liberty and protect the Republic from the whims of a mob. From this thread, it sounds well suited to prevent the "upend the current system" types from achieving their bad ideas too quickly for a democratic backlash.

Biden's got Bernie advisors, so you'll probably be much of the somewhat-sane things you want. The big systemic changes will require constitutional amendment, and that requires ratification of 3/4 of the states. That's an important check on all the things discussed here.

Have your radical de-industrialization to stop climate change, and free health care, and the rates of taxation to do both and fund the welfare state, but do it in your blue states and blue enclaves. Don't foist it on the rest of America that think you're bozo utopians with a penchant for demeaning ideologically different Americans. (With all this talk of revolution, I'm becoming more and more glad that my side has enough guns to make revolution against my "tribe" or interests plenty bloody)

On October 06 2020 01:06 Mohdoo wrote:


No, that would have been very bad for interracial marriage. Here is a history of support for interracial marriage:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-whites.aspx

It was legalized in 1967. "the will of the people" and similar tropes are not helpful and have no relevance in questions of ethics. Ethics is always independent of public opinion.

On October 06 2020 01:12 Neneu wrote:


I think you are taking this out of context when it was about a revolution from a political minority.

On October 06 2020 01:05 Liquid`Drone wrote:


Bringing up a bunch of european countries that were invaded/occupied by the soviet union as evidence against revolutions? What's the point with that?

I mean, I am an incrementalist rather than revolutionary, and that comes from a combination of two factors: 1) realizing that the short term consequences of a revolution are likely to be highly negative and 2) attachment to my current privilege. (I would to some degree be very happy about an erosion of this privilege - I want Norway and the rest of the west to focus on increased prosperity and economic output for poorer regions of the world rather than increased prosperity and economic output within Norway and other wealthy western nations.

But I wouldn't be happy with my standard of living immediately dropping down to match that of the global average - even if it is my eventual political goal that no country or region should be worse off than the rest of the world.

However, I can't really blame people who find themselves in the bottom half, who notice that climate change represents and existential threat for them, who still have to hope that 'well, if I work incredibly hard and make all the smartest choices I possibly can, then perhaps my grandchildren will live moderately decent lives', who think 'the fact that these god damn western fuckers are living lives of obscene lavishness and gross consumption which directly contributes to the destruction of my environment is driving me mad to the point where I want them to be toppled, violently if need be', especially not when I realize that I have much of the same thoughts for the rich kids on instagram group.

Anyway.

There are 0 examples of a poor country undertaking a violent revolution for then to quickly become a prosperous, well functional nation.

But there are also 0 examples of the opposite - a prosperous, well functional nation undertaking a violent revolution which turned the country poor. A revolution does not happen unless a very large amount of people in a country are so disheartened and desperate that they feel like they have nothing to lose. This is why white, reasonably wealthy (not within Norway, but certainly in the world) people like myself, who observe the gross inequalities in much of the world and think 'that sucks and is really unfair', still won't join in; we have too much to lose. But fucking hell, I at least want to increase the increments by which the world becomes more equitable, because I am the one with the moral failing here, not the downtrodden masses who scream faster or not enough.

"Racial Justice is Climate Justice"

A bill that would have fought pollution and environmental racism by mandating a buffer zone between California residents and oil and gas wells was voted down last week in the California Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water. The bill, AB 345, would have required a setback between oil and gas wells and the 5.4 million Californians currently living near drilling sites. Almost 92 percent of the Californians who both live within a mile of a well and are burdened by pollution are people of color.

Three Democratic senators voted against the bill: Bob Hertzberg from the San Fernando Valley, Ben Hueso of Imperial County, and Anna Caballero of the Salinas Valley.

Two of the three Democratic senators who voted against the bill received substantial campaign finances from the oil and gas industry during the last election cycle

On October 06 2020 01:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I agree with Biff in that I find myself in the same situation as him. I disagree with him in that I think we're both morally in the wrong.

I would not want to live through the french revolution. I am nonetheless extremely happy that it happened. There are many reasons why you can't draw a strict parallel from 1770-1850 to today (for one, I imagine that the guillotine was somewhat limited in terms of how quickly it could kill people compared to modern weaponry), I just think it's a bit rich for reasonably wealthy people living in the top 5-10 most functional societies on earth to tell impoverished people in much less functional societies that they are asking for too much. We should instead loudly state that we are giving too little.

On October 06 2020 01:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I agree with Biff in that I find myself in the same situation as him. I disagree with him in that I think we're both morally in the wrong.

I would not want to live through the french revolution. I am nonetheless extremely happy that it happened. There are many reasons why you can't draw a strict parallel from 1770-1850 to today (for one, I imagine that the guillotine was somewhat limited in terms of how quickly it could kill people compared to modern weaponry), I just think it's a bit rich for reasonably wealthy people living in the top 5-10 most functional societies on earth to tell impoverished people in much less functional societies that they are asking for too much. We should instead loudly state that we are giving too little.