EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 5875
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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 | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3409 Posts
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Jankisa
Croatia1842 Posts
"These people have more support from the state then I do, and despite them having a very important job I will blame them and their unions for successfully negotiating instead of asking myself why does my pension suck and why I have no benefits" It's never, ever the problem of the system that causes you to be unhappy with your situation, no, we must attack others who get paid fairly. Same with immigrants, these guys don't want to work these jobs, they don't want their kids to change sheets in hotels or pick fruits, but they still want to sleep in hotels at a decent price and eat relatively cheap fruit, but someone has, along the way convinced them, despite all numbers saying otherwise that these people are "taking" from them, and nothing will convince them otherwise. It's not a zero sum game, but to a conservative, that's an impossible thing to grasp. I guess that's why they love Trump so much, he's the embodiment of this 2d thinking, trade deficit = bad, no space for nuance. Also, obligatory: oBlade, who won the 2020 presidential election (bump #6). | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46578 Posts
On July 24 2026 23:21 Jankisa wrote: Also, obligatory: oBlade, who won the 2020 presidential election (bump #6). oBlade also hasn't yet explained why/how Biden is a bigger criminal than Trump. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3409 Posts
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Billyboy
2605 Posts
That doesn’t mean they (most anyway) want to get rid of the union, that’s just the part they want fixed. But seems to exist in most unions. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France8213 Posts
Gotta say oblade refusal to answer a simple question exemplifies MAGA republicans cognitive dissonances in a fairly neat way. | ||
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oBlade
United States6623 Posts
On July 24 2026 23:53 Billyboy wrote: I would say unions are not without their warts. I’ve got plenty of friends and family in them. Their biggest complaint is that they spend too much time and money fighting for the 5% shit employees. It especially makes them mad when they fight for people who are dangerous or toxic to the other employees. They also do not like the protections for the just bad workers because it is frustrating to have to do more, and make the same as someone doing nothing. That doesn’t mean they (most anyway) want to get rid of the union, that’s just the part they want fixed. But seems to exist in most unions. Public unions are a big part of why essential services like USPS and public schools suck. It's not the 19th century and at a certain point collective bargaining for more "benefits" when your employer is the government, is just extorting the taxpayer because you can't handle the private sector. Luckily the US at least doesn't let transit unions go crazy. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3409 Posts
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Billyboy
2605 Posts
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Simberto
Germany12058 Posts
On July 25 2026 01:01 Billyboy wrote: US public schools suck because all the money goes to private schools and since the people with money power and influence put their kids in private they do not care how crappy public is. Imagine how good schools would be if all the ultra rich were forced to put their children into the same schools as everyone else, and then all the money for schools gets evenly split among all schools in the country (scaled only for amount of pupils). Of course that is not really something one can do. But just imagine them being really invested into the education of everyone (and generally the public systems), instead of being able to isolate themselves from any public system. Suddenly they would have to make education good for everyone if they want good education for their own children. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24418 Posts
On July 25 2026 00:38 Biff The Understudy wrote: Gotta say oblade refusal to answer a simple question exemplifies MAGA republicans cognitive dissonances in a fairly neat way. Would be nice if everyone refused to engage all the other nonsense and just repeated the question. Otherwise the people engaging it look like the fools. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46578 Posts
On July 25 2026 01:01 Billyboy wrote: US public schools suck because all the money goes to private schools and since the people with money power and influence put their kids in private they do not care how crappy public is. Private-school families still need to pay property taxes (some of which goes to fund public schools) and private schools generally have their own private tuition that private-school families additionally pay for, so I'm not sure I agree with you there. Charter schools, on the other hand, directly sap money from traditional public schools, because charter schools are publicly funded, not privately funded like private schools. | ||
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Simberto
Germany12058 Posts
On July 25 2026 01:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Private-school families still need to pay property taxes (some of which goes to fund public schools) and private schools generally have their own private tuition that private-school families additionally pay for, so I'm not sure I agree with you there. Charter schools, on the other hand, directly sap money from traditional public schools, because charter schools are publicly funded, not privately funded like private schools. The problem is that if rich people are not invested in the system that everyone else has to use, they have no incentive to make that system good, and every incentive to make it cheap. If your children are not going to public schools, you will view every cent spent on those as a waste, and try to reduce that amount. I also really dislike property taxes as a funding mechanism for schools, because it means that people who grow up in worse areas (who already have worse chances than those who grow up in a richer neighbourhood) get worse schools. Another system in place to make sure that richer people get better schools for their children, and poor families get worse education and stay poor. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24418 Posts
Outside of the socialization, no one really has any idea what the public education system should be preparing a new 1st grader for when they reach the job market. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1842 Posts
On July 25 2026 01:29 GreenHorizons wrote: Would be nice if everyone refused to engage all the other nonsense and just repeated the question. Otherwise the people engaging it look like the fools. Well, I'm doing my part, I'm definitely not replying to this guy's posts with anything other then that until further notice, I'd encourage everyone to do it, answering that question should be a very simple sanity check, with the refusal to answer it being almost as insane as the reality denial that he's trying to avoid because he'll out himself as a cultist. Unions, like every other organization in human history can be all different shades from good to terrible, individual branches can be rotten, while others are amazing and help the whole community. Notoriously, in US, police unions have been a large driver behind Police brutality, does that mean I think they should be abolished, nope, I think they should be reformed. It's so funny to me that USA still uses the red rag of communism to go after unions while the actual countries where communism left a deep impact have them and no one really even tries to attack them on this basis. Just goes to show how deeply ingrained the brainwashing is, from McCarthy to Regan, it's super effective! | ||
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oBlade
United States6623 Posts
On July 25 2026 01:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Private-school families still need to pay property taxes (some of which goes to fund public schools) and private schools generally have their own private tuition that private-school families additionally pay for, so I'm not sure I agree with you there. Charter schools, on the other hand, directly sap money from traditional public schools, because charter schools are publicly funded, not privately funded like private schools. That doesn't make sense, that would be like saying if you have three public schools, opening a fourth public school saps money from the other three. Budgets are not fixed and if you open a new school you can budget more money for it. How per capita spending looks depends on the jurisdiction. There is no strong evidence that per capita spending is correlated with outcomes anyway. If people went to a charter school and reduced public school population, it would make sense to spend less on the public school because there's fewer students. The same as if you have a middle school cohort that grows up and moves to a high school and leaves the middle school wanting, you wouldn't expect to still spend the same amount of money on the thing with fewer students. | ||
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Billyboy
2605 Posts
On July 25 2026 01:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Private-school families still need to pay property taxes (some of which goes to fund public schools) and private schools generally have their own private tuition that private-school families additionally pay for, so I'm not sure I agree with you there. Charter schools, on the other hand, directly sap money from traditional public schools, because charter schools are publicly funded, not privately funded like private schools. You’re missing the point. When you have no public schools the rich and powerful kids go. Those private tuitions turns into donations. They also are pressuring the government to, or making the choice themselves to make it better because their child and or grand child goes there. The fund raising goes through the roof and so on. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46578 Posts
On July 25 2026 02:34 Billyboy wrote: You’re missing the point. When you have no public schools the rich and powerful kids go. Those private tuitions turns into donations. They also are pressuring the government to, or making the choice themselves to make it better because their child and or grand child goes there. The fund raising goes through the roof and so on. On July 25 2026 01:50 Simberto wrote: The problem is that if rich people are not invested in the system that everyone else has to use, they have no incentive to make that system good, and every incentive to make it cheap. If your children are not going to public schools, you will view every cent spent on those as a waste, and try to reduce that amount. I also really dislike property taxes as a funding mechanism for schools, because it means that people who grow up in worse areas (who already have worse chances than those who grow up in a richer neighbourhood) get worse schools. Another system in place to make sure that richer people get better schools for their children, and poor families get worse education and stay poor. Those are fair counterpoints. It's clear to me now that you weren't talking about specifically siphoning out mandatory property taxes, but rather optional donations, interest in helping the public school system, using influence and power, etc. Thank you! | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States46578 Posts
On July 25 2026 02:27 oBlade wrote: That doesn't make sense, that would be like saying if you have three public schools, opening a fourth public school saps money from the other three. Budgets are not fixed and if you open a new school you can budget more money for it. How per capita spending looks depends on the jurisdiction. There is no strong evidence that per capita spending is correlated with outcomes anyway. If people went to a charter school and reduced public school population, it would make sense to spend less on the public school because there's fewer students. The same as if you have a middle school cohort that grows up and moves to a high school and leaves the middle school wanting, you wouldn't expect to still spend the same amount of money on the thing with fewer students. No, because charter schools play by entirely different rules than public schools. The top ten most upvoted responses to this thread address your concerns: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1nouobn/how_do_charter_schools_steal_money_from_regular/ | ||
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Introvert
United States5065 Posts
On July 24 2026 16:34 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote: The fundamental power, again, of the unions, are that the workers can go on strike/quit. If the union were working against the workers' interests then the workers themselves don't have to actually go on strike, whatever the unions decide would immediately have no legs. My understanding is that teachers in parts of California that did strike, overwhelmingly voted to do so, the union is merely the organisational body through which they have done this. I don't know how well Californian teachers are paid, maybe they are being unrealistic, I don't know. Though my understanding throughout the US is that teachers are generally a poorly paid profession for it's occupational requirements of expertise/work. I would guess that Californian teachers are actually also a poorly paid profession compared to other professionals in their area (I understand pay and cost of living is higher in California), but if they are indeed overpaid, I haven't the prerequisite familiarity to disagree. But your problem seems to stem from the workers themselves making unrealistic demands than anything else. Given that the actual workers in question appear overwhelmingly in favour of these strikes (97.6% authorization vote for the San Francisco walkout according to google search), I don't see how it could be the union's fault that the teacher's are demanding more pay. Maybe the teachers have unrealistic demands, the union is just doing it's job. Depends on which leftists you speak to, they are not a monolith. I would consider myself vaguely leftist (for where I am anyway, in the context of the US I'd be pretty far left). I am being exactly as skeptical of unions as I am of corporations. In that I don't have a problem with the existence or purpose of either unions or corporations. They aren't really that different. Both exist to serve the material interests of its 'shareholders'. I'm not against the existence of corporations, that economic power that it leverages exists whether or not corporations exist. "maximize shareholder value" is neither good nor bad, it's just a description of how the corporation would likely act. While I don't like with how profit gets distributed between 'ownership' and 'work'. I don't think corporations are the problem. It's an organisation leveraging a underlying power dynamic that already exists. Likewise with unions, "further material interests of workers" is neither good nor bad, it's pretty much just a description of what a union does. I am likewise not against unions, because it is leveraging an underlying power that already exists. While in the context of our societies, I would like for profits to be more distributed to 'work' over 'ownership', which generally conforms more with what unions do than corporations, this doesn't make unions fundamentally better than corporations in my mind. "Further the material interests of/maximise shareholder value" aren't really propositions you need to be agreeing or disagreeing with, they are just descriptions of what these organisations will do. Some do these badly, like unions who over-ask and all it's members lose their jobs, or corporations who end up losing their owners money. Some are corrupt, embezzlement by the leadership in both cases can exist. But fundamentally they are just expressions of an underlying leverage that already exists. Sometimes the material interest of these shareholders run contrary to 'the public good'. But I don't think these are really arguments against the organisations existing, these seem to be more of an issue of people pursuing their personal material interests over whatever the public good happens to be, which is always a difficult line to draw. It seems like you have more issue with particular people (yes, as a collective) pursuing their own personal interests above the public good, rather than the actual mechanism through which that collective power is expressed, eg a union, or a corporation, or a voting block. In this case, being against even public sector unions because public servants can ask for too much is like being against defense lawyers because rich criminals can hire really good defense lawyers to get away with crime. It sucks that they have this power, but it's not the lawyer's fault. To say you are against unions for public servants because a teacher union with overwhelming support is asking for (maybe unrealistic) higher pay, is saying you are against public school teachers having the ability to organize their collective leverage. It's a strange choice over just, maybe those teachers shouldn't be asking for more pay. Going back to: Are you also against corporations? In fact, lets narrow it down, are you against any corporations that receive government contracts? If not, then you are in fact more skeptical of unions than corporations. You are right that I have been very generous in assigning most of the problems to the unions and not mentioning the rank-and-file. The issue with all those words you used is that they barely apply to public sector unions. There are no price signals or a mutual understanding that an imbalanced deal ends up with no company and no jobs. There will always be teachers and I don't see a great movement to stop using taxpayer money for schools. LAUSD has hundreds of thousands fewer students than a decade ago but the payroll has expanded in that time. They demanded more of a school district that has finances that are public so everyone can see they don't have the money. Sorry, if the incentives for a teachers union are not mitigated by external factors then I require them to act in a prudent manner of their own accord. Moreover, much of that doesn't really address the problem. Union laws are not set in stone. If they are working contrary to the good of the district they serve then we change it. If we go back to your first bit, the "teachers used their power and voted for it so what does the union have to do with it" sounds like an excellent reason to abolish the union. Your talk of being "descriptive" is just besides the point unless you think there is nothing that can be done. | ||
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