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US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4189

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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
JimmiC
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada22817 Posts
April 16 2024 19:52 GMT
#83761
--- Nuked ---
rich20509
Profile Joined April 2024
United States2 Posts
April 17 2024 13:08 GMT
#83762
Thanks for sharing these insights mate as I found it very much helpful and informative.
Jockmcplop
Profile Blog Joined February 2012
United Kingdom9675 Posts
April 17 2024 13:27 GMT
#83763
On April 17 2024 00:25 KwarK wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 16 2024 23:54 Salazarz wrote:
On April 16 2024 22:15 JimmiC wrote:
On April 16 2024 22:01 GreenHorizons wrote:
When I talk about doing the necessary work of utilizing organized civil disobedience to disrupt the ability for the US to aid and abet genocide unimpeded, this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. It's got nothing to do with "lesser evilism" electoralism.









imo Democrats need to dig deep, find their humanity, and organize their own campaigns of civil disobedience to disrupt the US's ongoing support of Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign (or at least reconcile their complicity with their worldview/self-image).

I’d rather they picked a more black and white issue like China completely trying to erase multiple cultures from existence. But with China being totalitarian the news does not make it out in the same way, and with the main sources of propaganda being Chinese allies we are never going to see it. Not to mention China being the backbone of global consumerism.

Nice to see people using their right to protest. Also, really nice to see the democratic countries letting it happen. Imagine the blood shed if it happened in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, so on.

It is important when all you read are negatives about these big democracies to take a step back and look at them comparatively and realize that while there is a ton of work to be done, they are SO SO much better than a dictatorship no matter the branding.


Yeah, I'm sure all the dead, displaced, and starving Palestinians feel much better about their situation knowing that it's a democracy that is doing those things to them.


It’s mostly Hamas doing it to them. Just like it wasn’t the Allies fucking up Nazi Germany, it was the Nazis who decided to try picking a fight with the rest of the world.

We attempt to hold Israel to a higher standard because we can’t hold Hamas to any standard at all, but it’s important to remember that Israel isn’t responsible for the situation in Gaza today. Gaza was seized by a radical religious death cult that wants Israel to kill Gazans.


'Israel isn’t responsible for the situation in Gaza today'

I think this is a little vague. Israel is responsible for the lives Israel has taken, the infrastructure Israel has destroyed, and the aid Israel has blocked. No-one gets to wash their hands of those kinds of choices.
'The situation in Gaza' could mean anything though.
RIP Meatloaf <3
Simberto
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Germany11553 Posts
April 17 2024 15:05 GMT
#83764
On April 16 2024 23:59 JimmiC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 16 2024 23:52 Gorsameth wrote:
On April 16 2024 22:15 JimmiC wrote:
On April 16 2024 22:01 GreenHorizons wrote:
When I talk about doing the necessary work of utilizing organized civil disobedience to disrupt the ability for the US to aid and abet genocide unimpeded, this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. It's got nothing to do with "lesser evilism" electoralism.

https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1777439729723613586

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1779932740814860735

https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1778216546566898142

https://twitter.com/a15action/status/1780029018244342185

imo Democrats need to dig deep, find their humanity, and organize their own campaigns of civil disobedience to disrupt the US's ongoing support of Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign (or at least reconcile their complicity with their worldview/self-image).

I’d rather they picked a more black and white issue like China completely trying to erase multiple cultures from existence. But with China being totalitarian the news does not make it out in the same way, and with the main sources of propaganda being Chinese allies we are never going to see it. Not to mention China being the backbone of global consumerism.

Nice to see people using their right to protest. Also, really nice to see the democratic countries letting it happen. Imagine the blood shed if it happened in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, so on.

It is important when all you read are negatives about these big democracies to take a step back and look at them comparatively and realize that while there is a ton of work to be done, they are SO SO much better than a dictatorship no matter the branding.
And what should they protest in order for what action to be taken by the US government to stop China erasing cultures?

Don't send our weapons to Israel is a very easy, clean and simple action for the US to take. It costs the US basically nothing (plenty of other markets to sell said weapons to) and doesn't require the US to strong arm another nation directly. If Israel wants to do these attacks there is little we can do to stop them. But we can stop supplying them with the weapons to do so very easily.

Stop buying all the shit made by the slave labor of the people being erased would be a great start. Especially for leftists.

edit: I get that it impacts one live a lot more than showing up at a bridge and gets way less clicks and cool guy points but it is more impactful .


Sadly, it is incredibly hard to figure out which products exactly are a result of slave labor and abuse. Sure, one could just buy nothing at all, or nothing made in China, but the second doesn't actually help because thousands of components in a long chain of production are part of modern devices, obfuscating completely which products are produced ethically, and which aren't.
JimmiC
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada22817 Posts
April 17 2024 15:21 GMT
#83765
--- Nuked ---
Sermokala
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States13984 Posts
April 17 2024 23:30 GMT
#83766
On April 16 2024 19:34 BlackJack wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 16 2024 08:33 Sermokala wrote:
On April 14 2024 14:05 BlackJack wrote:
On April 14 2024 09:02 Sermokala wrote:
Who could of guessed who bj though was worth empathizing with. That poor lady having to rejoin the workforce after her company failed like many others do naturally in the face of capitalism. But forget the poors and forget capitalism a rich person is suffering.

Oh I guess they aren't rich anymore so fuck em right bj?


Unsurprisingly what you’re offering here is the same as all your posts. “I care more about the poor than you so I’m a better person, you capitalist” “I care more about grandmas dying of covid than you so I’m a better person, you anti-vaxxer.” The premise is always the same, the other words are interchangeable.

Funny how you take zero effort to actually explain why the policies you support are more beneficial than the policies I support. That’s irrelevant to you. What matters to you is making sure everyone knows that your motives are the most morally good, results be damned. It’s purely an exercise in vanity.

I love this post and everything it confesses from you. Being morally good isn't a reason to support a policy its just an exercise in vanity. Showing respect for and valuing human beings isn't beneficial to you and is irrelevant to your worldview. You don't even see a point in attempting to have any morals or values, so there's nowhere to start in trying to explain the benefits in any position. Capital is your god and anyone who gets hurt along the way is just the cost of doing business.


Ever heard of the expression the road to hell is paved with good intentions? See, all you care about is appearing morally good. You could give 2 shits about whether your policies are actually beneficial. It's just virtue signaling.

Let's look at another progressive attempt to help. In 2021 St Paul voters approved an ordinance for rent control so those greedy landlords couldn't raise the rent on poor people's housing by more than 3%. The ordinance was so marvelous that it didn't even make exemptions for changes in occupancy or newly constructed buildings.

In a stunning twist that could have only been predicted by anyone that has taken an intro to economics 101 class, building permits for new multifamily buildings were down 80% within the first 3 months of the ordinance passing. Eventually the necessary take-backsies were performed and the ordinance was rolled back significantly.

Despite this being a very elementary point about how removing the ability to obtain a profit on an endeavor could hurt the supply of housing for the poor, I have little doubt this will blow right over your head and your response will be "Omg BJ thinks poor people don't deserve the dignity to have housing without greedy landlords profiting off them" or some other nonsense. Unfortunately there are astonishingly many smooth brained individuals that can't think more deeply than "profit = bad. capitalism = evil." and that's the end of the discussion.

The path to hell being paved with good intensions feels a lot more appropriate when the ends are justifying the means. The cruelty being the point for conservatives is because they think the end goal will justify their cruelty, never having to face the fact that it was never necessary. Point in fact the quality of life of people living in red states vs people living in blue states. Minnesota being a top HDI state looks a lot like they know what they're doing and are focusing on the real issue of helping people. Missouri and Alabama being third world nations dependent on blue state transfers just shows that the ends will never justify the means when the ends are never justified.

Take a look at the other twin city that banned single family zoning. Gee its like trying different things to help people is possible when your focus is to help people. Oh you're saying that the council had the dignity to change their mind and switch paths when it was revealed that it wasn't working? Gee wilikers BJ if they just cared about just looking like good people why didn't they stick with the policy? No child left behind was designed at increasing the cruelty in school income by making the lives worse for people who were unlucky to be born in the wrong zip code with bad schools. States like texas who love kicking children off of healthcare and who refuse to take dollars to expand health insurance love it when people just go uninsured.

See BJ even the examples you think are slam dunks are again just examples that contradict what you are trying to say. The real smooth brains are the ones who convince themselves being a good person is the actual cringe to do.
A wise man will say that he knows nothing. We're gona party like its 2752 Hail Dark Brandon
RenSC2
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United States1063 Posts
April 18 2024 05:45 GMT
#83767
On April 18 2024 08:30 Sermokala wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 16 2024 19:34 BlackJack wrote:
On April 16 2024 08:33 Sermokala wrote:
On April 14 2024 14:05 BlackJack wrote:
On April 14 2024 09:02 Sermokala wrote:
Who could of guessed who bj though was worth empathizing with. That poor lady having to rejoin the workforce after her company failed like many others do naturally in the face of capitalism. But forget the poors and forget capitalism a rich person is suffering.

Oh I guess they aren't rich anymore so fuck em right bj?


Unsurprisingly what you’re offering here is the same as all your posts. “I care more about the poor than you so I’m a better person, you capitalist” “I care more about grandmas dying of covid than you so I’m a better person, you anti-vaxxer.” The premise is always the same, the other words are interchangeable.

Funny how you take zero effort to actually explain why the policies you support are more beneficial than the policies I support. That’s irrelevant to you. What matters to you is making sure everyone knows that your motives are the most morally good, results be damned. It’s purely an exercise in vanity.

I love this post and everything it confesses from you. Being morally good isn't a reason to support a policy its just an exercise in vanity. Showing respect for and valuing human beings isn't beneficial to you and is irrelevant to your worldview. You don't even see a point in attempting to have any morals or values, so there's nowhere to start in trying to explain the benefits in any position. Capital is your god and anyone who gets hurt along the way is just the cost of doing business.


Ever heard of the expression the road to hell is paved with good intentions? See, all you care about is appearing morally good. You could give 2 shits about whether your policies are actually beneficial. It's just virtue signaling.

Let's look at another progressive attempt to help. In 2021 St Paul voters approved an ordinance for rent control so those greedy landlords couldn't raise the rent on poor people's housing by more than 3%. The ordinance was so marvelous that it didn't even make exemptions for changes in occupancy or newly constructed buildings.

In a stunning twist that could have only been predicted by anyone that has taken an intro to economics 101 class, building permits for new multifamily buildings were down 80% within the first 3 months of the ordinance passing. Eventually the necessary take-backsies were performed and the ordinance was rolled back significantly.

Despite this being a very elementary point about how removing the ability to obtain a profit on an endeavor could hurt the supply of housing for the poor, I have little doubt this will blow right over your head and your response will be "Omg BJ thinks poor people don't deserve the dignity to have housing without greedy landlords profiting off them" or some other nonsense. Unfortunately there are astonishingly many smooth brained individuals that can't think more deeply than "profit = bad. capitalism = evil." and that's the end of the discussion.

The path to hell being paved with good intensions feels a lot more appropriate when the ends are justifying the means. The cruelty being the point for conservatives is because they think the end goal will justify their cruelty, never having to face the fact that it was never necessary. Point in fact the quality of life of people living in red states vs people living in blue states. Minnesota being a top HDI state looks a lot like they know what they're doing and are focusing on the real issue of helping people. Missouri and Alabama being third world nations dependent on blue state transfers just shows that the ends will never justify the means when the ends are never justified.

Take a look at the other twin city that banned single family zoning. Gee its like trying different things to help people is possible when your focus is to help people. Oh you're saying that the council had the dignity to change their mind and switch paths when it was revealed that it wasn't working? Gee wilikers BJ if they just cared about just looking like good people why didn't they stick with the policy? No child left behind was designed at increasing the cruelty in school income by making the lives worse for people who were unlucky to be born in the wrong zip code with bad schools. States like texas who love kicking children off of healthcare and who refuse to take dollars to expand health insurance love it when people just go uninsured.

See BJ even the examples you think are slam dunks are again just examples that contradict what you are trying to say. The real smooth brains are the ones who convince themselves being a good person is the actual cringe to do.

Do you believe that everyone should have the same set of morals as you? Obviously you should believe your moral system is best, otherwise you'd follow different morals. But there's a reason why there are many different religions in the world (and other philosophical thinkers) with differing moral systems. People can't actually agree on what is moral and what is not. I don't pretend that my moral beliefs are the one true moral belief system and thus the word of God that everyone must follow. I don't think anyone else should pretend either.

One famous author would posit that (slightly paraphrased) "productive achievement is man's noblest activity." There's more to it than that part, but that part sounds quite reasonable to me. Does it sound like a reasonable start to a moral system to you?

Let's look at what that really means. Basically, it is moral to produce more than you consume. Conversely, it is immoral to consume more than you produce. In that moral structure, people living on welfare are immoral. They're taking more than they produce. In that moral structure, the government taking from the rich and giving to the poor is immoral as it favors the immoral over the moral.

The author is Ayn Rand and she's pretty big in American conservative thinking. Blackjack's original point sounded very much like an Ayn Rand argument. If you want, you can learn more of her philosophy in her most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged. It's good to broaden your horizons and understand the other side, but I do warn that the audiobook for it is 63 hours long, War and Peace is only 61hrs. I finally listened to it very recently and I'd say a lot of it seems far more relevant to issues today than 1984 the novel, which gets referenced more often.

I think the author makes some good points, but I also think it's a highly flawed book and goes way too extreme, but this isn't a book discussion thread. The point is that cruelty is not the point. It's based on a moral system that sees weakness as immoral and strength as moral. It's a system that sees giving to the weak as immoral and a government doing so is aiding and abetting immorality.

Another part of Rand's core philosophy is that "reason is man's only absolute." That seems like another reasonable statement to me. So your observations about the success of some liberal areas compared to some more conservative areas is a good point. But the cherry picking can go both ways. Latest episode of Real Time's closing segment ended up cherry picking some examples of things going wrong in Canada and Sweden (and a long anti-trans section in the middle) + Show Spoiler +
I'm pretty sure Blackjack watches as he'll often reference things from the show.

That's Bill Maher (who's a classic liberal who hates Trump) warning America about going too far left. He's been doing that a lot lately and I quite often agree with him. Just some things to think on.
Playing better than standard requires deviation. This divergence usually results in sub-standard play.
Salazarz
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Korea (South)2591 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-18 06:43:59
April 18 2024 06:39 GMT
#83768
You could make an argument about producing more than consuming being the 'moral' way of being in some ancient hunter-gatherer society, but in a modern capitalist civilization it is completely unreasonable. There's no way to adequately measure any individual's actual productivity since everything we do these days is hyper-connected, besides everyone's ability to be productive hinges on a vast number of factors including things that folks have very little influence over such as what type of family they were born into and what sort of education access they've had. Not to mention that a large number of enterprises and industries these days are bottlenecked by demand rather than their own productivity, so in a way from a capitalist's point of view consuming should actually be seen as 'moral' as it allows for further economic growth to happen.

Also, Ayn Rand was a raving lunatic, lol.


edit: Americans talking about 'virtue signaling' on the topic of forced labor in China has got to be peak irony, considering that slavery is straight up legalized in the US constitution. I assume people who try to make a stand against something like the situation of Gaza simply see the thousands of deaths and wide-spread starvation as a bigger and more urgent issue than forced labor, although obviously there are plenty of people who simply want to get on the latest hashtag as well.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25634 Posts
April 18 2024 08:08 GMT
#83769
On April 18 2024 14:45 RenSC2 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 18 2024 08:30 Sermokala wrote:
On April 16 2024 19:34 BlackJack wrote:
On April 16 2024 08:33 Sermokala wrote:
On April 14 2024 14:05 BlackJack wrote:
On April 14 2024 09:02 Sermokala wrote:
Who could of guessed who bj though was worth empathizing with. That poor lady having to rejoin the workforce after her company failed like many others do naturally in the face of capitalism. But forget the poors and forget capitalism a rich person is suffering.

Oh I guess they aren't rich anymore so fuck em right bj?


Unsurprisingly what you’re offering here is the same as all your posts. “I care more about the poor than you so I’m a better person, you capitalist” “I care more about grandmas dying of covid than you so I’m a better person, you anti-vaxxer.” The premise is always the same, the other words are interchangeable.

Funny how you take zero effort to actually explain why the policies you support are more beneficial than the policies I support. That’s irrelevant to you. What matters to you is making sure everyone knows that your motives are the most morally good, results be damned. It’s purely an exercise in vanity.

I love this post and everything it confesses from you. Being morally good isn't a reason to support a policy its just an exercise in vanity. Showing respect for and valuing human beings isn't beneficial to you and is irrelevant to your worldview. You don't even see a point in attempting to have any morals or values, so there's nowhere to start in trying to explain the benefits in any position. Capital is your god and anyone who gets hurt along the way is just the cost of doing business.


Ever heard of the expression the road to hell is paved with good intentions? See, all you care about is appearing morally good. You could give 2 shits about whether your policies are actually beneficial. It's just virtue signaling.

Let's look at another progressive attempt to help. In 2021 St Paul voters approved an ordinance for rent control so those greedy landlords couldn't raise the rent on poor people's housing by more than 3%. The ordinance was so marvelous that it didn't even make exemptions for changes in occupancy or newly constructed buildings.

In a stunning twist that could have only been predicted by anyone that has taken an intro to economics 101 class, building permits for new multifamily buildings were down 80% within the first 3 months of the ordinance passing. Eventually the necessary take-backsies were performed and the ordinance was rolled back significantly.

Despite this being a very elementary point about how removing the ability to obtain a profit on an endeavor could hurt the supply of housing for the poor, I have little doubt this will blow right over your head and your response will be "Omg BJ thinks poor people don't deserve the dignity to have housing without greedy landlords profiting off them" or some other nonsense. Unfortunately there are astonishingly many smooth brained individuals that can't think more deeply than "profit = bad. capitalism = evil." and that's the end of the discussion.

The path to hell being paved with good intensions feels a lot more appropriate when the ends are justifying the means. The cruelty being the point for conservatives is because they think the end goal will justify their cruelty, never having to face the fact that it was never necessary. Point in fact the quality of life of people living in red states vs people living in blue states. Minnesota being a top HDI state looks a lot like they know what they're doing and are focusing on the real issue of helping people. Missouri and Alabama being third world nations dependent on blue state transfers just shows that the ends will never justify the means when the ends are never justified.

Take a look at the other twin city that banned single family zoning. Gee its like trying different things to help people is possible when your focus is to help people. Oh you're saying that the council had the dignity to change their mind and switch paths when it was revealed that it wasn't working? Gee wilikers BJ if they just cared about just looking like good people why didn't they stick with the policy? No child left behind was designed at increasing the cruelty in school income by making the lives worse for people who were unlucky to be born in the wrong zip code with bad schools. States like texas who love kicking children off of healthcare and who refuse to take dollars to expand health insurance love it when people just go uninsured.

See BJ even the examples you think are slam dunks are again just examples that contradict what you are trying to say. The real smooth brains are the ones who convince themselves being a good person is the actual cringe to do.

Do you believe that everyone should have the same set of morals as you? Obviously you should believe your moral system is best, otherwise you'd follow different morals. But there's a reason why there are many different religions in the world (and other philosophical thinkers) with differing moral systems. People can't actually agree on what is moral and what is not. I don't pretend that my moral beliefs are the one true moral belief system and thus the word of God that everyone must follow. I don't think anyone else should pretend either.

One famous author would posit that (slightly paraphrased) "productive achievement is man's noblest activity." There's more to it than that part, but that part sounds quite reasonable to me. Does it sound like a reasonable start to a moral system to you?

Let's look at what that really means. Basically, it is moral to produce more than you consume. Conversely, it is immoral to consume more than you produce. In that moral structure, people living on welfare are immoral. They're taking more than they produce. In that moral structure, the government taking from the rich and giving to the poor is immoral as it favors the immoral over the moral.

The author is Ayn Rand and she's pretty big in American conservative thinking. Blackjack's original point sounded very much like an Ayn Rand argument. If you want, you can learn more of her philosophy in her most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged. It's good to broaden your horizons and understand the other side, but I do warn that the audiobook for it is 63 hours long, War and Peace is only 61hrs. I finally listened to it very recently and I'd say a lot of it seems far more relevant to issues today than 1984 the novel, which gets referenced more often.

I think the author makes some good points, but I also think it's a highly flawed book and goes way too extreme, but this isn't a book discussion thread. The point is that cruelty is not the point. It's based on a moral system that sees weakness as immoral and strength as moral. It's a system that sees giving to the weak as immoral and a government doing so is aiding and abetting immorality.

Another part of Rand's core philosophy is that "reason is man's only absolute." That seems like another reasonable statement to me. So your observations about the success of some liberal areas compared to some more conservative areas is a good point. But the cherry picking can go both ways. Latest episode of Real Time's closing segment ended up cherry picking some examples of things going wrong in Canada and Sweden (and a long anti-trans section in the middle) + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XflM-LKXOW4
I'm pretty sure Blackjack watches as he'll often reference things from the show.

That's Bill Maher (who's a classic liberal who hates Trump) warning America about going too far left. He's been doing that a lot lately and I quite often agree with him. Just some things to think on.

Yeah you make some good points there sir!

Maybe some members of the thread could actually discuss things rather than assuming bad faith, or popping in to drop a ‘bomb’ and then noping out…

I don’t really mind interacting with folks who operate from different base moral frameworks, indeed I find it quite enlightening and productive but I mean, interact is the operative word here.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
GreenHorizons
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States23294 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-18 09:31:04
April 18 2024 09:30 GMT
#83770
On April 18 2024 15:39 Salazarz wrote:
You could make an argument about producing more than consuming being the 'moral' way of being in some ancient hunter-gatherer society, but in a modern capitalist civilization it is completely unreasonable. There's no way to adequately measure any individual's actual productivity since everything we do these days is hyper-connected, besides everyone's ability to be productive hinges on a vast number of factors including things that folks have very little influence over such as what type of family they were born into and what sort of education access they've had. Not to mention that a large number of enterprises and industries these days are bottlenecked by demand rather than their own productivity, so in a way from a capitalist's point of view consuming should actually be seen as 'moral' as it allows for further economic growth to happen.

Also, Ayn Rand was a raving lunatic, lol.


edit: Americans talking about 'virtue signaling' on the topic of forced labor in China has got to be peak irony, considering that slavery is straight up legalized in the US constitution. I assume people who try to make a stand against something like the situation of Gaza simply see the thousands of deaths and wide-spread starvation as a bigger and more urgent issue than forced labor, although obviously there are plenty of people who simply want to get on the latest hashtag as well.

The US still literally keeps people in dilapidated cages and forces them to work without pay under threat of torture and it's all legal. Meanwhile, products from Xinjiang (made with slave labor or not) are banned in the US unless/until they can prove the negative.

Imagine being one of many a slave in the US, knowing that if you were doing the same thing in Xinjiang, the company you're working for would be banned from selling the products you were making (or anything else) in the US out of ostensible concern for your human rights. But since you're a slave in the US, you don't get those protections for your human rights and the (bipartisan) slavers point to the cost savings your enslavement provides as a rationalization for it. Talk about a mindfuck.
"People like to look at history and think 'If that was me back then, I would have...' We're living through history, and the truth is, whatever you are doing now is probably what you would have done then" "Scratch a Liberal..."
BlackJack
Profile Blog Joined June 2003
United States10574 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-18 11:02:51
April 18 2024 11:01 GMT
#83771
Byo
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Canada207 Posts
April 18 2024 12:52 GMT
#83772


Let's look at what that really means. Basically, it is moral to produce more than you consume. Conversely, it is immoral to consume more than you produce. In that moral structure, people living on welfare are immoral. They're taking more than they produce. In that moral structure, the government taking from the rich and giving to the poor is immoral as it favors the immoral over the moral.



Fair point to start, but philosophically speaking I would say it's not moral if nobody is consuming the excess that you produced. And the government is assisting in that as the government is most equipped to identify those who are not producing enough to match the needed consumption, and those who produce more is likely concentrated on just producing more. It's perhaps immoral to claim the government is acting in an immoral way if you had perfect visibility of the situation.

Its sort of strange that even morality is a zero sum game, as if everyone was extremely moral then that would be just the norm and it would make no one's action in particularly notable or noble.
JimmiC
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada22817 Posts
April 18 2024 13:26 GMT
#83773
--- Nuked ---
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25634 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-18 21:22:28
April 18 2024 21:22 GMT
#83774
‘Why don’t the left actually do something instead of virtue signalling?’
* Does something*
‘Well… why aren’t they boycotting China?’

Totally doesn’t get tiresome
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
JimmiC
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada22817 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-18 22:14:16
April 18 2024 22:05 GMT
#83775
--- Nuked ---
GreenHorizons
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States23294 Posts
April 19 2024 01:07 GMT
#83776
On April 19 2024 06:22 WombaT wrote:
‘Why don’t the left actually do something instead of virtue signalling?’
* Does something*
‘Well… why aren’t they boycotting China?’

Totally doesn’t get tiresome

Regardless of how 2024 turns out, Democrats and their supporters are going to regret looking at Biden's support for Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign (along with the slavery, rampant constitutional violations, cop cities, immigration crackdown, etc) and trying to shame and blame voters into obsequence instead of demanding Biden/Democrats be less horrific to people and do things like not arm an ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign or even try to stop legalized slavery in the US

That ending the legal enslavement of US citizens and other residents in the US and refusing to arm an ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign (in part through organized civil disobedience) is considered an impossible ask for Democrats/their supporters well into the 21st century should help people understand how Democrats rationalizations for these appalling crimes against humanity don't just rob the obvious victims of their humanity, it chips away at the humanity of those obliged to internalize them.

They also help lay the groundwork for fascists to use these established Democrat rationalizations for when Democrats are arming genocide, exploiting slaves, cracking down on borders, illegally spying on citizens, building cop cities, increasing police budgets, using the military to police the public, and more, for the open fascists own more unabashed fascist intentions.

Fascists will be repeating Democrat talking points to rationalize rising fascism and it'll work wonders on the Democrats/their supporters that would rather do whatever job they currently do, except for the fascists, than risk solidarity with the people being targeted by the fascists. All as if they've never heard the Niemöller quote...
"People like to look at history and think 'If that was me back then, I would have...' We're living through history, and the truth is, whatever you are doing now is probably what you would have done then" "Scratch a Liberal..."
Salazarz
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Korea (South)2591 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-19 02:37:21
April 19 2024 02:36 GMT
#83777
On April 18 2024 22:26 JimmiC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 18 2024 15:39 Salazarz wrote:
You could make an argument about producing more than consuming being the 'moral' way of being in some ancient hunter-gatherer society, but in a modern capitalist civilization it is completely unreasonable. There's no way to adequately measure any individual's actual productivity since everything we do these days is hyper-connected, besides everyone's ability to be productive hinges on a vast number of factors including things that folks have very little influence over such as what type of family they were born into and what sort of education access they've had. Not to mention that a large number of enterprises and industries these days are bottlenecked by demand rather than their own productivity, so in a way from a capitalist's point of view consuming should actually be seen as 'moral' as it allows for further economic growth to happen.

Also, Ayn Rand was a raving lunatic, lol.


edit: Americans talking about 'virtue signaling' on the topic of forced labor in China has got to be peak irony, considering that slavery is straight up legalized in the US constitution. I assume people who try to make a stand against something like the situation of Gaza simply see the thousands of deaths and wide-spread starvation as a bigger and more urgent issue than forced labor, although obviously there are plenty of people who simply want to get on the latest hashtag as well.

Are you talking about prison labour? Pretty easy products to avoid and makes up such a tiny part of the economy. Vs in China where outside of the elite few billionaires it is almost everyone and that is before we get into the continued attempts of destroying multiple cultures, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Even your blatant whataboutism is lame. Did you get this straight from the dictators propaganda mouth piece or social media? What an awful awful hot take. Not only have you compared a kernel of corn to ship full of watermelon but you can actually be against both!


How is it relevant whether it's easy to avoid the products of American slave labor or not? The point is, if your country is directly profiting from legalized slave labor it's ridiculous when the very same country goes and accuses someone else of using slave labor and insists there need to international actions taken against them. It's fake, it's hypocritical, and it's why not only the so-called global south but also more and more folks in traditionally US-aligned nations are growing disillusioned with the supposed 'rules-based order.'

Also, how in the world is 'nearly everyone in China' is a victim of forced labor? Incredible how you can spew this sort of garbage while simultaneously talking about 'propaganda mouthpieces' and 'social media.' Like, that is some facebook-grandma level idiocy right there.
JimmiC
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada22817 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-19 03:14:37
April 19 2024 03:06 GMT
#83778
--- Nuked ---
JimmiC
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada22817 Posts
April 19 2024 03:12 GMT
#83779
--- Nuked ---
Salazarz
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Korea (South)2591 Posts
April 19 2024 03:27 GMT
#83780
On April 19 2024 12:12 JimmiC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 19 2024 12:06 JimmiC wrote:
On April 19 2024 11:36 Salazarz wrote:
On April 18 2024 22:26 JimmiC wrote:
On April 18 2024 15:39 Salazarz wrote:
You could make an argument about producing more than consuming being the 'moral' way of being in some ancient hunter-gatherer society, but in a modern capitalist civilization it is completely unreasonable. There's no way to adequately measure any individual's actual productivity since everything we do these days is hyper-connected, besides everyone's ability to be productive hinges on a vast number of factors including things that folks have very little influence over such as what type of family they were born into and what sort of education access they've had. Not to mention that a large number of enterprises and industries these days are bottlenecked by demand rather than their own productivity, so in a way from a capitalist's point of view consuming should actually be seen as 'moral' as it allows for further economic growth to happen.

Also, Ayn Rand was a raving lunatic, lol.


edit: Americans talking about 'virtue signaling' on the topic of forced labor in China has got to be peak irony, considering that slavery is straight up legalized in the US constitution. I assume people who try to make a stand against something like the situation of Gaza simply see the thousands of deaths and wide-spread starvation as a bigger and more urgent issue than forced labor, although obviously there are plenty of people who simply want to get on the latest hashtag as well.

Are you talking about prison labour? Pretty easy products to avoid and makes up such a tiny part of the economy. Vs in China where outside of the elite few billionaires it is almost everyone and that is before we get into the continued attempts of destroying multiple cultures, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Even your blatant whataboutism is lame. Did you get this straight from the dictators propaganda mouth piece or social media? What an awful awful hot take. Not only have you compared a kernel of corn to ship full of watermelon but you can actually be against both!


How is it relevant whether it's easy to avoid the products of American slave labor or not? The point is, if your country is directly profiting from legalized slave labor it's ridiculous when the very same country goes and accuses someone else of using slave labor and insists there need to international actions taken against them. It's fake, it's hypocritical, and it's why not only the so-called global south but also more and more folks in traditionally US-aligned nations are growing disillusioned with the supposed 'rules-based order.'

Also, how in the world is 'nearly everyone in China' is a victim of forced labor? Incredible how you can spew this sort of garbage while simultaneously talking about 'propaganda mouthpieces' and 'social media.' Like, that is some facebook-grandma level idiocy right there.



The slave labour is not remotely the same, which you know. Stop being so dishonest with your points.

No Im sorry there is a ton of choice, freedom, fairness, forced relocations within the totalitarian regime currently tightening their grip, their massive amount of billionaires and wealthy along with their even larger number of poor.


I agree that it's not even remotely the same, given that USA straight up has legalized slavery writ into its constitution whereas in China it seems most of the forced labour schemes are various local bureaucrats skirting the edges of what is permissible to turn a bigger profit while the higher ups let it slide rather than the government being so brazenly open about their use of slave labor. Not sure where the dishonesty lies, though, but you're welcome to elaborate.

What choice? What freedom? What fairness? What forced relocations? For a guy who is supposedly so strict about using proper terms for things, and who is so against 'buzzwords' and 'virtue signaling', this sure reads like a lot of hot air with no real meaning behind it. It's also weird that you'd bring up China's amounts of billionaires and the poor when the US has significantly greater wealth inequality than China does. Tell me more about the propaganda mouthpieces though, please.
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