|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On July 28 2023 23:56 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2023 13:05 Falling wrote:On July 28 2023 05:51 Slydie wrote:On July 28 2023 04:32 NewSunshine wrote:On July 28 2023 04:14 Slydie wrote:On July 27 2023 23:51 NewSunshine wrote: I really like "environmental lead". I probably won't consciously steal that in the future, but I may do it anyway. According to freakonomics the main reason was.... drumroll... More liberal abortion laws. More parents who did not think they could take care of their children 20-30 years prior did not have them. The criminals were never born. Well, if you're suggesting that, by contrast, Right-wingers rolling us back 50 years and banning abortion did so knowing it would exacerbate a host of social problems including poverty and crime, so that they can then point to the existence of those problems as evidence that we're not electing enough right-wing officials into office, and that it's some kind of vicious cycle... Well, I'd be shocked at the thought. That seems far fetched to me. Right wingers do not care about the social consequences of stricter abortion rights. They fight for foetuses and sexual moralism. Once the babies are born they could not care less. They won. This is a fun hot take in liberal circles. But by population, the pro-life crowd is one of the most likely groups to adopt children, which is no joke strictly on the financial end these days. As such, I don't see this as especially compelling argument except to gain internet high fives. Sounds like a groomer thing to do. Honestly, I always had this multilayered reaction anytime I see the couple with the "we will adopt your baby" sign. Like, there's a lot to unpack there, and ultimately I just feel fucking creeped out every time.
|
I would never read that Walgreens graph and expect that it is anything more than an indication of overall rate of theft. I don't see why you would read it as a complete record of all shoplifting. Especially in cases where shoplifting starts to enter x amount per hour, the resources you start to devote to merely recording the shoplifting just serve as a further modifier to what you lost. It isn't like there's a whiteboard posted in the back where, if you notice an incident of shoplifting, you wander back there and put a tally on the board and at the end of the day someone totals them up and writes it in the books. It is more likely that the reported incidents listed on that graph have some other conditions such as volume or value that merit their reporting, which by design isn't all-encompassing. You don't spend 10 minutes reporting a shoplifting every time someone pockets an o'henry bar.
|
Get these people outta here, gerontocracy has gotta go. All congress members should be subject to yearly cognitive exams and the standards should be high.
McConnell, Feinstein, Biden, Trump, Grassley, anyone over the age of 55 needs to be tested consistently. Why are we letting the old folks home run the country?
https://www.businessinsider.com/dianne-feinstein-confused-just-say-aye-senate-hearing-video-2023-7?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=insider-politics-sub-post
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday appeared confused and attempted to deliver a longer speech during a Senate hearing, the latest in a string of episodes that have raised further questions about her ability to continue serving in office.
"Just say aye," Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray repeatedly pleaded with her colleague.
https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-resign-health-freezes-1815654
McConnell, 81, abruptly froze and stopped talking for several seconds during the GOP leadership's weekly news conference on Wednesday before being escorted away by his fellow Republicans.
McConnell's episode has reignited debate about the cognitive abilities of certain elected officials, following calls for California Sen. Dianne Feinstein to step down, concerns about Biden's age heading into 2024, as well as that of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke in 2022.
|
Three senators are older than the chocolate chip cookie.
|
United States41955 Posts
Americans will use literally anything but SI units. edit: I checked and Feinstein is only 90% of the age of an American football field.
|
|
The Average Senator (aged 64) is older than the 911 program, zip codes, casette tapes, buffalo wings, and calculators!
|
On July 29 2023 04:01 KwarK wrote: Americans will use literally anything but SI units. edit: I checked and Feinstein is only 90% of the age of an American football field.
To be fair here, i think "older then the chocolate cookie" does sound amazingly old.
|
On July 29 2023 00:47 Fleetfeet wrote: I would never read that Walgreens graph and expect that it is anything more than an indication of overall rate of theft. I don't see why you would read it as a complete record of all shoplifting. Especially in cases where shoplifting starts to enter x amount per hour, the resources you start to devote to merely recording the shoplifting just serve as a further modifier to what you lost. It isn't like there's a whiteboard posted in the back where, if you notice an incident of shoplifting, you wander back there and put a tally on the board and at the end of the day someone totals them up and writes it in the books. It is more likely that the reported incidents listed on that graph have some other conditions such as volume or value that merit their reporting, which by design isn't all-encompassing. You don't spend 10 minutes reporting a shoplifting every time someone pockets an o'henry bar.
Right, that's the point. The data is so incomplete that it's basically useless. But it's being published by the largest newspaper in the area as evidence that shoplifting is not increasing and not a reason that businesses are closing down. The politicians repeat these statistics to try to gaslight people into believing that their lived experiences are not accurate.
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
|
On July 28 2023 22:58 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2023 18:57 BlackJack wrote:On July 28 2023 11:56 ChristianS wrote:On July 28 2023 05:57 BlackJack wrote:On July 28 2023 03:13 ChristianS wrote: (Edit: @Drone, I hadn’t read any responses after that before posting)
Yeah, I mean, I’m skeptical of anybody that tells too confident a causal story (especially a local one) about 90’s crime rates, considering crime was insanely high and nobody knew why or what to do about it, and then it dropped precipitously everywhere, all at the same time, again without anybody really knowing why. Like, if bee populations are dying off everywhere, it’s natural to seek a causal explanation, but it should be pretty obvious somebody insisting “it’s because this farmer in Iowa switched pesticide brands” doesn’t have the whole story.
In New York specifically, it more or less coincides with Jack Maple essentially “moneyballing” the police, reworking the whole system around measuring and responding to crime rates. It’s a nice success story, and plausible enough to me, although the next thing that happens is terrible and predictable: police departments everywhere rebuild themselves around gaming crime statistics, which has all kinds of negative side effects. Sometimes they’re incentivized to lower them, resulting in department-wide efforts to downscale any reported crimes; other times they’re incentivized to raise them, resulting in (at best) upscaling reported crimes or (at worst) sending out cops to find somebody, anybody, to ticket or arrest.
A bit of a digression: my dad’s Mormon LDS, and he used to tell me stories about when he went on his mission to Brazil. Apparently there were monthly meetings at the mission where leadership would talk strategy about how to improve performance. One month it was “We’ve had a lot of first meetings this month, but a pretty low percentage lead to people requesting follow-up visits. So this month we’re really pushing to get that percentage up!” The next month it was “Okay, the percentage went up, but now first visits are down. Let’s try to get out there and make more first visits!” But it was obvious what was happening: when they wanted more first visits, missionaries would report any brief conversation in the street as a “first visit.” When they wanted better conversion to follow-up visits, they’d only report “first visits” of people that seemed genuinely interested.
This is a fundamental challenge in data-driven approaches even if you’re genuinely trying to solve the problem. But another element to this is that when police departments get good at manipulating the stats, that gives them political leverage. Wanna get elected on a platform of criminal justice reform? Well how do the cops feel about your reforms? If they don’t like them, there’s a pretty good chance crime rates will be up next time you’re up for re-election. It doesn’t really matter whether your underlying philosophy about “addressing root causes” or whatever was right, because before you can worry about *actually* lowering crime you have to first figure out how to *seem* to lower crime, or you’ll just get kicked out of office.
Although that might be less of a factor these days because people just don’t care if the stats say crime is down. Trump’s whole “American Carnage” campaign was just completely dismissive of the fact crime rates were down basically everywhere; they just kept shouting “criminals are destroying your country” anyway and voters bought it. Or that SF recall election for Chesa Boudin or w/e that BJ keeps bringing up? My understanding is that crime statistics didn’t even show an increase! But a right-wing meme campaign made her name synonymous with rising crime anyway, so she was gone.
At any rate, the net result is that when you have places (like SF!) clearly going through some dramatic and destabilizing changes, the only response available to governments is authoritarian: mandatory minimums, more cops, more military equipment, bigger police budgets. Anything else is political suicide, even though that’s basically the same shit local governments were trying in, like, 1982 and it didn’t really work. I don't understand, you seem to spend the first half of your post to illustrate the problems with crime states and data driven approaches but then end your post by saying states show crime in SF is not even on the increase. Is there some sarcasm I'm not picking up on? This reminds me of the SF Chronicle article that tried to throw skepticism onto the claim that shoplifting was on the rise and a root cause behind stores closing down in SF. They even included this bar graph in their article: First, it seems they don't even have enough respect for their readers to think they can interpret a bar graph because those graphs do seem to show shoplifting is a growing problem. It's either rising exponentially in the first 2 graphs. In the 3rd graph its rising and then plummets to almost zero. Perhaps the store stopped bothering to report it? According to the graphs most of the stores average about 2 shoplifting incidents per month. Clearly not a lot. Except when CNN went to a Walgreen's to report on shoplifting they witnessed 3 thefts in 30 minutes. Hmm... 3 thefts per month according to the reported crime statistics or 3 thefts in 30 minutes according to CNN's reporters on scene... which is the bullshit narrative.... A wise man once said "When the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it" Chesa Boudin was recalled because everyone in SF knows that crime is getting worse. They aren't locking up mustard behind plexiglass and running out of auto-glass to replace broken windows because they've all bought into MAGA lies about shoplifting and car break-ins. Bezos? You’re quoting Bezos? I’d love to tear into the quote and how it shows how incurious and egomaniacal he is, but looking up the context, it sounds like he was talking about receiving customer complaints. “Listen to customer complaints instead of telling them the data says they’re wrong” seems like fine advice to me; I don’t think it naturally follows that we should base public policy on vibes, do you? To be totally honest: my read on you is that you’re generally smart enough and reasonable enough, but for whatever reason you get your information and opinions from turbid right-wing meme tanks. Like, I’m not gonna dive into SF crime statistics (and meta-statistics like how many shoplifting instances CNN happened to notice while they were there) because it’s complicated and abstruse and I don’t live in SF. Do you ever pause to wonder if it’s smart to spend so much of your political education on one-sided deep dives on crime patterns in San Francisco and Portland, to the point that you reach for a modifier to describe liberal DA’s and your brain comes back with “Soros-funded”? But if you want to focus on the plight of San Francisco, here’s a quote for you: “men will not always die quietly.” Seems like for at least a decade I’ve been seeing articles about the continuously skyrocketing expenses in the city, and how cost of living is completely outstripping wage growth. It’s maybe a little puzzling how that *ever* worked, but I think a lot of the answer is that there’s a lot of unpleasant things desperate people can do to make ends meet. Share a small place with four roommates? Commute 2 hours to and from work from somewhere cheaper? Work 2 or 3 jobs? Sleep in your car, and shower at the Y? But all of that feels to me like pulling back a rubber band; you’re only gonna be able to pull it back so far. I mean, as I understand it, homeless populations have skyrocketed, and city services absolutely can’t keep up. Is it any surprise that crime (especially shoplifting) would go up, regardless of a liberal DA? I mean, if you’re so plugged in on SF crime patterns, you tell me: have things gotten better since Boudin was recalled? Or has the downward slope continued unabated (maybe even accelerated)? Did you google that quote to see who said it or are you just familiar enough with Bezos to know he said it? What's wrong with quoting Jeff Bezos? I think the quote is very apt. I think I demonstrated that well by showing that the crime data is showing only a few shoplifting cases per month when anecdotally CNN's reporters saw 3 in just 30 minutes. It's obvious the anecdotes are more true than the data. I think your quote is a good one too. I don't know who said it. I'm not going to google it because it doesn't matter to me. It could be something Hitler or Stalin said and I still wouldn't come back and say "You're quoting Hitler?!" Just because you find someone disagreeable doesn't make every thought they've ever had and everything they've ever said wrong. I think you're an intelligent guy but I think maybe it's you that's gone too far into the left-wing echo chamber when who is saying something matters more than what is being said. Btw I get the large majority of information about SF crime/politics from 2 sources, The first is SFChronicle which is a left-wing newspaper that endorsed Chesa Boudin in the recall election, for which I am a paying subscriber. The other is reddit.com/r/bayarea which is a Subreddit of Bay Area reddit users that share posts/links of topics and events relating to the Bay Area. fyi the reddit user base is generally left leaning and bay area residents are also generally left leaning. I don't blame just liberal DAs for the predicament SF is in. I think there are many variables, but I do think stupid woke policies are the common theme among those variables. Eventually people will have to take responsibility for their bad policies instead of just insisting that SF is doing great and the rest of us are just captured by MAGA narratives. + Show Spoiler +P.S. my coworkers car got stolen today, it was parked right in front of a hospital and next to a police cruiser. the boldness of the criminals here is pretty impressive, i'll give them that. + Show Spoiler [aside about quotes] +I always look up a quote if I’m gonna engage with it! Knowing who said it and when and why is pretty valuable in understanding what a quote is getting at. There actually is a Hitler quote I think is worthwhile – “What luck for rulers that men do not think” – but I do think that quote loses some of its value if you don’t know who said it. So no, I don’t dismiss the quote just because Bezos sucks (although you bet I’m gonna bristle at the “wise man” apellation). I think the quote is basically right in the context that he said it, and more generally gestures in the direction of some problems with data-driven approaches that I agree with. But like the old “lies, damn lies, and statistics” quote, I think it’s significantly at risk of people just using it as an excuse to ignore data they disagree with, which I think is a way bigger problem than people overly trusting poorly compiled statistics (though both certainly happen). Wait, do you actually live in SF? If so, my apologies – for some reason I had it in my head you were somewhere in the Midwest. Detailed study on the issues of a local race is totally reasonable if you live there; I had seen a lot of right-wing campaigns nationally that fixated on either the Boudin recall election or Portland crime rates, and in both cases I thought it was weird and dumb to fixate that much on another city’s local issues (especially since the main purposes seemed to just be for mudslinging). I’m trying to pull back and figure out what we disagree on. I don’t know enough about Boudin as a DA to actually have an opinion on that recall – I reflexively react against it when national right-wing media fixate on a local race, but that doesn’t mean the recall was wrong. Anyway it’s in the past, if I didn’t research it enough then I’m certainly not gonna do it now. We agree police crime statistics aren’t always trustworthy, and we agree San Francisco is obviously going through some shit right now. I’m pretty skeptical it can be attributed to “woke policies” but without knowing what exactly you’re referring to its hard to even say for sure I disagree. It certainly sounds like you’ll know more specifics than me; I’m not even that read up on San Diego issues, and I actually live here. My quote, by the way, was John Maynard Keynes, and I believe the context was economic analysis of interbellum Europe. Keynes sometimes gets criticized for being overly sympathetic to Germany in that time, but I think he does a great job of demonstrating the economic inevitability of extreme ugliness in Europe’s near future (without knowing WW2 is the form that ugliness will take). Personally, I’d look for economic analysis of San Francisco to understand what’s happening, because to me it feels like big cities across the country are going through some similar problems that seem connected to an underlying rise in cost of living; San Francisco being the most expensive, it makes sense they’d catch it the worst. But I’m not an economist, and I’m not especially qualified to do that analysis myself.
Yes, I moved to SF Bay Area in early 2020, which is probably around the time you would have noticed me being active in this thread despite being a member of this forum for 20~ years. If I hadn't moved here I probably would have carried on being generally apathetic to politics. It's too much of a culture shock to see the bullshit that people put up with here and just accept as part of life. Not to mention that so many of the news stories from here sound like an article from The Onion despite being 100% genuine.
|
|
Canada11265 Posts
On July 28 2023 23:56 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2023 13:05 Falling wrote:On July 28 2023 05:51 Slydie wrote:On July 28 2023 04:32 NewSunshine wrote:On July 28 2023 04:14 Slydie wrote:On July 27 2023 23:51 NewSunshine wrote: I really like "environmental lead". I probably won't consciously steal that in the future, but I may do it anyway. According to freakonomics the main reason was.... drumroll... More liberal abortion laws. More parents who did not think they could take care of their children 20-30 years prior did not have them. The criminals were never born. Well, if you're suggesting that, by contrast, Right-wingers rolling us back 50 years and banning abortion did so knowing it would exacerbate a host of social problems including poverty and crime, so that they can then point to the existence of those problems as evidence that we're not electing enough right-wing officials into office, and that it's some kind of vicious cycle... Well, I'd be shocked at the thought. That seems far fetched to me. Right wingers do not care about the social consequences of stricter abortion rights. They fight for foetuses and sexual moralism. Once the babies are born they could not care less. They won. This is a fun hot take in liberal circles. But by population, the pro-life crowd is one of the most likely groups to adopt children, which is no joke strictly on the financial end these days. As such, I don't see this as especially compelling argument except to gain internet high fives. Sounds like a groomer thing to do. Got 'em.
On July 29 2023 00:28 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2023 23:56 KwarK wrote:On July 28 2023 13:05 Falling wrote:On July 28 2023 05:51 Slydie wrote:On July 28 2023 04:32 NewSunshine wrote:On July 28 2023 04:14 Slydie wrote:On July 27 2023 23:51 NewSunshine wrote: I really like "environmental lead". I probably won't consciously steal that in the future, but I may do it anyway. According to freakonomics the main reason was.... drumroll... More liberal abortion laws. More parents who did not think they could take care of their children 20-30 years prior did not have them. The criminals were never born. Well, if you're suggesting that, by contrast, Right-wingers rolling us back 50 years and banning abortion did so knowing it would exacerbate a host of social problems including poverty and crime, so that they can then point to the existence of those problems as evidence that we're not electing enough right-wing officials into office, and that it's some kind of vicious cycle... Well, I'd be shocked at the thought. That seems far fetched to me. Right wingers do not care about the social consequences of stricter abortion rights. They fight for foetuses and sexual moralism. Once the babies are born they could not care less. They won. This is a fun hot take in liberal circles. But by population, the pro-life crowd is one of the most likely groups to adopt children, which is no joke strictly on the financial end these days. As such, I don't see this as especially compelling argument except to gain internet high fives. Sounds like a groomer thing to do. Honestly, I always had this multilayered reaction anytime I see the couple with the "we will adopt your baby" sign. Like, there's a lot to unpack there, and ultimately I just feel fucking creeped out every time. Hypocritical if they don't. Creepy if they do. It's a Catch 22.
|
|
On July 29 2023 03:33 Gahlo wrote: Three senators are older than the chocolate chip cookie.
On July 29 2023 04:01 KwarK wrote: Americans will use literally anything but SI units. edit: I checked and Feinstein is only 90% of the age of an American football field. This is politics. Duration should be measured in appropriate units, such as the Truss or Scaramucci.
EDIT: Somehow I managed to leave out the rest of the post, and only include the bad joke.
Anyway.
On July 29 2023 01:15 Zambrah wrote: Get these people outta here, gerontocracy has gotta go. All congress members should be subject to yearly cognitive exams and the standards should be high.
McConnell, Feinstein, Biden, Trump, Grassley, anyone over the age of 55 needs to be tested consistently. Why are we letting the old folks home run the country? I'm not a particular fan of any subjective standard, but if we inflict standardized testing on Congress, I could see that weeding out the really problematic fossils. I could also see cheating scandals in the future.
|
Canada11265 Posts
On July 29 2023 08:07 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2023 07:47 Falling wrote:On July 28 2023 23:56 KwarK wrote:On July 28 2023 13:05 Falling wrote:On July 28 2023 05:51 Slydie wrote:On July 28 2023 04:32 NewSunshine wrote:On July 28 2023 04:14 Slydie wrote:On July 27 2023 23:51 NewSunshine wrote: I really like "environmental lead". I probably won't consciously steal that in the future, but I may do it anyway. According to freakonomics the main reason was.... drumroll... More liberal abortion laws. More parents who did not think they could take care of their children 20-30 years prior did not have them. The criminals were never born. Well, if you're suggesting that, by contrast, Right-wingers rolling us back 50 years and banning abortion did so knowing it would exacerbate a host of social problems including poverty and crime, so that they can then point to the existence of those problems as evidence that we're not electing enough right-wing officials into office, and that it's some kind of vicious cycle... Well, I'd be shocked at the thought. That seems far fetched to me. Right wingers do not care about the social consequences of stricter abortion rights. They fight for foetuses and sexual moralism. Once the babies are born they could not care less. They won. This is a fun hot take in liberal circles. But by population, the pro-life crowd is one of the most likely groups to adopt children, which is no joke strictly on the financial end these days. As such, I don't see this as especially compelling argument except to gain internet high fives. Sounds like a groomer thing to do. Got 'em. On July 29 2023 00:28 NewSunshine wrote:On July 28 2023 23:56 KwarK wrote:On July 28 2023 13:05 Falling wrote:On July 28 2023 05:51 Slydie wrote:On July 28 2023 04:32 NewSunshine wrote:On July 28 2023 04:14 Slydie wrote:On July 27 2023 23:51 NewSunshine wrote: I really like "environmental lead". I probably won't consciously steal that in the future, but I may do it anyway. According to freakonomics the main reason was.... drumroll... More liberal abortion laws. More parents who did not think they could take care of their children 20-30 years prior did not have them. The criminals were never born. Well, if you're suggesting that, by contrast, Right-wingers rolling us back 50 years and banning abortion did so knowing it would exacerbate a host of social problems including poverty and crime, so that they can then point to the existence of those problems as evidence that we're not electing enough right-wing officials into office, and that it's some kind of vicious cycle... Well, I'd be shocked at the thought. That seems far fetched to me. Right wingers do not care about the social consequences of stricter abortion rights. They fight for foetuses and sexual moralism. Once the babies are born they could not care less. They won. This is a fun hot take in liberal circles. But by population, the pro-life crowd is one of the most likely groups to adopt children, which is no joke strictly on the financial end these days. As such, I don't see this as especially compelling argument except to gain internet high fives. Sounds like a groomer thing to do. Honestly, I always had this multilayered reaction anytime I see the couple with the "we will adopt your baby" sign. Like, there's a lot to unpack there, and ultimately I just feel fucking creeped out every time. Hypocritical if they don't. Creepy if they do. It's a Catch 22. Can you please post the source to prolifers adopting more, I can not find any info on it. Not saying it’s wrong but everywhere I look it says there is no data. It came out of a post-debate wrap up from Destiny, himself pro-choice and arguing the pro-choice position. He talked about which arguments he thought fellow pro-choicers should drop. To the 'pro-lifers don't care once your born' he pointed to their heavy involvement in both adoptions and charity work as evidence that they do care, just not in the way of supporting governmental policies he and others on the left advocate. He therefore thought it's simply not a worthwhile argument for the pro-choice side to make. I think that's significant as were it the opposite, I would imagine he would use it without mercy in his debates.
But even if you do not accept this view as it's just Destiny, and he's a girl, you have to admit it's not like the 'pro-lifers don't care' claim is thrown out as some great data driven analysis. It's background radiation that's just tossed out there and normally passed over because most people have a similar view. However, I find those cheap shots rather annoying to read and bothered to draw attention to it, and for that I guess I'm right-wing memeing and projecting. I don't really want to make this a large discussion but did want to highlight where our arguments are less than stellar.
|
|
United States41955 Posts
Pro life voters are generally members of organized child abuse groups so it’s hard to take them too seriously on welfare of kids. Like we all know why they’re desperate for more vulnerable kids to be born to parents who can’t look after them. Don’t worry, they’ve got Magdalene laundries, choir boys, after school programs, youth pastors, and an ideology built on shaming victims into silence.
|
It’s incredible how I haven’t seen any Destiny content in probably 5 years, but still immediately recognized “that sounds exactly like a Destiny take.” I can even hear his voice saying it.
I think he’s wrong though. Even if conservatives do give more to charity or adopt more (and I wouldn’t mind work being shown on those points), it’s still been my consistent experience that conservatives’ anti-abortion fervor is not paired with matching concern for the mother’s or child’s well-being. It’s a mix of motivations, but the biggest underlying one is “I want to live in a society where it’s universally understood that everybody should live by the principles I espouse.” The mother isn’t sympathetic, she’s probably a fornicator – part of The Enemy if anything – and the kid’s still too hypothetical to elicit much sympathy.
Maybe Destiny means tactically the left should stop saying it (even if it is true) because it won’t win arguments or elections? That might be right, idk. I try to avoid thinking too much like that though.
|
On July 29 2023 07:28 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2023 21:27 BlackJack wrote: Don’t worry, I’ve been told this Twitter site won’t exist soon anyway due to Musk laying off 2/3 of the staff. The only reason it’s still online is for the same reason a Jet with no fuel can stay in the air for a little while. It should be offline any day now. How confident are you in Twitter, I mean X, these days? Down over 50% in revenue, negative cash flows (stats from musk), new competition with threads. It looks like it is doing worse than before musk took over. Am I missing something? Crazy thing is even if it goes belly up Musk losing 44bn or whatever it is doesn’t really even matter with how crazy rich he is. It's only going to be an issue if he does something hilarious like rename the company to something that can't be used as a name in app stores or starts up a crypto currency in 2023.
|
On July 28 2023 12:33 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 28 2023 11:43 cLutZ wrote:On July 28 2023 06:41 JimmiC wrote: I find it pretty funny that conservatives are even mad about it. Shouldn't the businesses just invest more in security? government should be hands off no? Who is going to pay for all these jails for all this shoplifting and long sentences? Not republicans. Let the free hand of the market deal with it. They can't hire security that is actually effective in many cities, because if they stop a person shoplifting, they are the one who gets charged eventually by the DA. Or, at best they've stopped one guy who the DA drops charges against. I've seen this at our local grocery store. It is 99% not poverty driving this. First incident I saw was a group of 3 guys with huge blueish like heavy duty garbage bags. They just went into the laundry aisle, shoved every box of Tide pods into the garbage bags and sauntered out. Another time it was similar, but the bags were green and the target was powdered baby formula. They took it all. The latest incident I saw was two ~15 year olds walk in, pick the lockbox to the expensive liquor and load up their backpacks with Patron. Never have I seen a real homeless person stealing like a 40 or food. Its always people either obviously stealing to sell shit for a profit, or people stealing expensive booze. You assume the people doing this grew up wealthy? Why is that? Edit: or are you suggesting they have bootstraped themselves up by the only realistic opportunity they had?
I'm sure they aren't exactly vacationing in the Hamptons, but every store around here would hire a dozen more people at $20/hr right now for the low low expectation of showing up on time and doing a braindead job. I've seen people do the math on the Tide theft rings before. They aren't living in poverty, they are choosing theft over jobs because it is easier.
|
|
|
|