Yeah, the whole platform is about Othering. The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was convincing the middle class that the poor are the cause of all their problems.
This one isn't even about middle class vs. poor. The immigration crackdowns are very popular across the entire (R) electorate, regardless of their wealth. It's all about picking out-groups, making them into enemies, and inflicting cruelty on them. That's what that side really wants out of their government. They have a long list of perceived enemies who they are expecting to be able to deliver cruelty to once they're done with immigrants.
> The immigration crackdowns are very popular across the entire (R) electorate, regardless of their wealth.
Sure. The rich (R) electorate gladly watch how the non-rich (R) electorate has taken the bait and is happy chasing after the newly othered.
They won't be happy if the non-rich republicans start taking their aim at lobbying, unfair tax-breaks for the rich, or any form of taxation that prevents them from keeping their ill-gotten wealth.
This line of thinking seems out of touch with the situation in LA. I'm only watching from a distance, and I can certainly believe that the media has misrepresented the situation, but I think there must be genuine rioting there, because the mayor has declared a curfew.
While the two parties fight about specific measures (as they always do), and don't trust one another at all, they both agree that extreme measures are appropriate in LA right now.
This discussion is about the situation in LA, and not just a generic partisan dispute we could read on any political discussion, right?
The curfew is because the force escalation has inspired more protests. When they called out the national guard, it was at the level of sports fans. The subsequent provocations have caused an escalation, and the mayor’s curfew is an attempt to break that cycle - and it’s still far below the level where a military response would be justified.
Hi. I used to live in Downtown Los Angeles, and would regularly walk a dog to where the protests are. My friends are saying the protests are roughly two blocks in size, in front of the administrative buildings and in the neighboring city park. Outside of that area, life goes on as normal. Inside that area, when the crowd builds up after work, people are playing music and dancing. Yes, some people (visibly different crowd than the protesters) have used that cover for some looting and vandalism. But the pretense of this needing the military is just silly. The most aggressive behavior I've seen is cops throwing flash grenades and shooting rubber bullets directly at people's heads.
Before Trump intervened, LA has had worse Superbowl afterparties than the protest was at that time. This is all very much manufactured rage.
Consider that your news sources are really biased.
Well, then we find ourselves finding each other out of touch!
I think your line of thinking might be either overly naïve, or maliciously turning a blind eye:
First, "both-sides"-ing, for lack of a better word, is — IMHO — a false equivalence that treats the current democratic transgressions of rights and freedoms from the alt-right government to, for example, democrat's normalizing that saying racist stuff is a faux-pas; i.e. some goons are actively harming humans and that isn't the same as racists being butt-hurt that they were banned from some site.
Second, in this particular case — where there is push back against fascists — trying to reduce the scope of the discussion is like trying to censor police-cam footage to just the split-second segments where the cops get scared and shoot, but that leaves out how the trigger-happy cop broke protocol, escalated the situation, and berated confusing orders at the victim. So, no... We need nuance and context.
I really hope people that find themselves what-abouting for fascists are able to escape whatever information bubble they find themselves in so that they may be able to stop willfully looking past other people's humanity before we all find each other on the wrong end of a power-tripping cop that won't even have to come up with a good lie to snuff our lives out.
LAPD are trained and regularly used for crowd control and protest dispersal. The guard isn’t. And for sure the Marines have no clue about policing.
I think LAPD is choosing a 1st amendment violation as the lesser failure than permitting any escalation involving the National Guard. That would quickly turn out badly for the guard, become a pretext for ever more violent authoritarianism in response.
So... I come from a country where police are still mostly respected. They also don't use rubber bullets usually.
From my point of view, this person was disobeying orders from police, which gives them the right to use force. Is a rubber bullet an appropriate amount of force? Probably not, but I don't see this video as a completely one sided interaction with one party being wrong.
The cameraperson or another bystander should have called 911, asked for ambulance (and maybe fire dept) to attend. In addition to medical care, that would at least get some higher degree of paperwork going from an accountability perspective.
"Blue lives" flags are intensely fascist, unpatriotic symbology and an explicit desecration of the American flag, that might be a good place to start your research.
State-sanctioned organized crime by white supremacist terrorists, that's the connection with Republicans. They pardoned the insurrectionists that violently captured the capital building and pay off murderers whose crimes achieve their political goals. It's mostly happening out in the open, brazenly. We're not rational machines, we're easily manipulated and it takes less energy to settle into beliefs others want us to have. "Flood the zone" works but reality is still happening.
I'm confused. I don't recall anyone ever saying that we need to get rid of the poor, but rather that we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor. Did I miss my scheduled indoctrination message?
Don't focus on words. Focus on actions. For example, the action of deploying the military on Americans does not make conditions better for us. Quite the contrary. The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us. That money could be going to education, school lunches, Medicaid, building bridges, etc. But it isn't. it is only going to stroke the president's ego. Most of his actions, EO's, deals, bills, etc., fall into this category.
It looks like the military being deployed on rioters
Leaving aside the equivalence of "protesting" with "rioting," the United States has robust Constitutional, common-law and statutory guardrails against the use of the military domestically. The US military cannot, absent an insurrection in which regular legal order cannot be maintained, be deployed against US residents. The use of the military in the past has been limited to what were deemed by federal and state officials full insurrections (e.g., the Whiskey Rebellion), or, in the civil rights era, in response to governors affirmatively refusing to enforce the law regarding an end to segregation and the integration of public institutions. In this case we have state and local officials explicitly stating that the factual predicates of an insurrection aren't being satisfied (the protests cover a few square blocks in a metropolitan area that by itself is larger than Lebanon or Kosovo, in a state larger than Japan or Sweden). While courts traditionally give deference to executive determinations of this sort, they aren't beyond judicial review, and this is (I would argue) clearly pretextual.
What we're seeing here, conversely, is an attempt to sidestep this clear principle through not-particularly-clever tricks and semantic gamesmanship; for example, mobilizing Marines to "protect federal property," but then DHS officially asking DOD to give active duty forces arrest power. This is clearly unconstitutional and illegal, but, as with much we've seen recently, the hope appears to be that if you change the facts on the ground quickly enough, the clear illegality of the actions can be ignored.
In addition, the federalization of a state National Guard against the will of the state is unprecedented; I don't know of any previous example of this happening. In the American system, even though the National Guard is a vestige of the old state militias, it's clear that the states are at least assumed to have plenary authority over their own forces absent an invasion or insurrection.
As is usually the case, did the car burning happen before or after it was declared a riot, and the law enforcement agencies involved started using force? Did the riot start and then the police started using CS gas, rubber bullets, etc, or did the police use force and protesters with little recourse started damaging property out of anger and frustration because they can’t use force back against law enforcement?
This is the lie. At every step, immigration agents and police have instigated the violence. There are no riots. People are protesting and blocking access to vulnerable people. LA is not on fire. These incidents are in very small geographic areas even though media would suggest it’s widespread.
People are pushing back when rubber bullets and tear gas are being used, illegally.
U.S. citizens have a right to protest. This is baked into our constitution.
Since you're not American, a brief overview of our military:
1. We have 5 or 6 branches of military. The important one here is the national guard, ones meant to aid Americans in emergency or crisis.
2. The other branches have huge limits on when the federal government can deploy them domestically The Posse Comitatus Act that came as a result of the US civil war covers this.so having marines being deployed is a huge overreach.
3. The vast majority of the time, the national guard is managed by the state Governor, and Gavin Newsom has explicitly opposed this decision. The federal government taking command of the national guard is an exploit of The Insurrection Act that's been going on for a while.
All thst context being given: Newsom is right. This isn't trying to establish order, this is a meticulous escalation on a conservative president in a liberal city to make a show of force. For reference, there's reportedly some 600 rioters and they sent out 2000 (now 4000) national guard and 709 marines. This is all without including the LAPD which is comprised of over 8000 officers.
The amount of money and resources spent on this is utter overkill. And part of the point. They want an excuse to call martial law so badly.
It is the other way around. The military is being deployed on Americans. Whether they are rioters or not doesn't matter for establishing an authoritarian state.
GP said they don't live in the US, it's possible English isn't even their first language. If they are a non-native speaker and just made a translation/wording mistake, you might feel like a pretty big asshole twisting that to call them a fascist (which word btw, is pretty overloaded and has become essentially meaningless to a large number of people).
It's also quite possible they mean "Americans" in a general sense in that the Marines are not being turned loose on the American public. They are being focused on the rioters specifically.
Obligatory self-declaration since you and many others will probably jump to conclusions about my opinion (as for whatever reason, we seem incapable of nuance even to the point of understanding that not everything in life is completely black or white), even though I've said nothing of it until now: I think Trump's actions are grotesque, authoritarian, and fascist, and it really pisses me off.
I have neither seen nor heard anything that would lead me to believe most of the protesters are non-citizens or non-resident. You are not providing any evidence, just conveniently excusing this overreach by the executive branch by ignoring the rights of the protesters with a facile lie.
I really don't have to. You're arguing your talking points, but not to any verifiable reality. You should have said "if they're all citizens, they are american" which is the same thing you're saying, but without the implication you're adding that those people protesting have no rights. So you should probably say what you mean instead of this mealy-mouthed weaseling you're doing.
I don't know it re-establishes order but rather teaches the populace to up the ante. While I don't condone repeating history, it is instructive to look at history. When this military-type response was done at Waco, Timothy McViegh looked at that (he was there) and took out 10x as many feds as they took out citizens. And it sparked a very long period of militia movements, etc.
You guys have a stark division between the government employees and the not-government-employees. Isn't the US government "for the people, by the people"? Serious question. I'm not disputing what you said, rather I'm trying to understand it.
No feds aren't citizens in the US in any conventional sense. They have qualified immunity and a special kind of sovereign immunity that even state and local police do not have. They can initiate violence whereas citizens cannot. They can shoot a fleeing person as a citizen cannot. They can lie to you freely but if you lie to them (their interpretation of a lie), a felony. They generally can't be held accountable unless they are dumb enough to say the quiet parts out loud, and even then usually not.
They are also effectively impossible to sue, so you'll probably never see any justice in the courts if they act unlawfully. Even if manage to get the lawsuit going they will play fuck-fuck games with jurisdiction until you lose (as I found out when trying to sue feds for stripping me naked, cavity searching me, and executing a fraudulent warrant on a fabricated dog alert -- no one would take my case because they had lost similar cases every time).
> I can understand having the military in the streets, when the news is full of people waving foreign flags while torching vehicles in the streets.
Yes but the news (in the US) is a fully for profit organizations most of which are owned by the right-wing folks. (i.e. Much of the newspapers, CNN, Fox News are run by boards that are right-leaning)
They are intentionally pushing a narrative that the family I have in the area believes is simply a very small number of incidents that are nowhere near as bad as what is presented.
> This does not look like the military being deployed on Americans, rather it looks like the military being deployed on rioters. Whether those rioters are Americans or illegal immigrants really doesn't matter for the purposes of reestablishing order.
I suggest you stop looking at this through the lens of an Israeli and do some research on the US system of laws :)
Deploying the military "on rioters" and whether they are "Americans or illegals" is actually quite important. Using the military as a police force is illegal and the only real open legal question is if using it against "invaders" who are not here legally is technically allowed.
You are acting like these people are Hamas, when in reality, they are nowhere close to even 5% as dangerous.
Correct. But for some reason "flags" and "not white/christian/jewish" somehow makes them the OTHER TRIBE and therefore the laws don't matter to conservatives.
I don't feel particularly safe in the US with the government making lists of people like me based on the medication we are taking.
White/Christian and jewish are absolutely not the same tribe.
I think what we're running into is an issue many empires have run into in the past: once you scale things internationally people just don't get along. For some reason we thought computers and secular science changed that aspect of human nature (the same way Rome thought democracy and military doctrine did) and we're finding out once again people don't work that way.
> White/Christian and jewish are absolutely not the same tribe.
They are similar enough that they are not actively being openly attacked even if hateful people exist.
See: The Israeli ITT agreeing with the American conservative position and making common cause. Etc.
That person would not have made those comments if he thought the American conservative position was jewish == other tribe == bad. Even if it is for a decent chunk of that population of conservatives which is why people I know are confused why they get asked if I'm jewish. Because they don't realize the person that they were talking to is a bigot going off my stereotypically jewish features.
> I think what we're running into is an issue many empires have run into in the past: once you scale things internationally people just don't get along. For some reason we thought computers and secular science changed that aspect of human nature (the same way Rome thought democracy and military doctrine did) and we're finding out once again people don't work that way.
No, that is buying into the framework the Conservatives use that globalism is the failure point.
This is not correct. The failure point is the number of gullible people who take things like waving foreign flags as reason enough to ignore the law.
*EDIT for the response below 'cause I'm lazy and don't feel like waiting and coming back*
No. You are arguing because 'everything fails eventually, failure is inevitable' but that isn't true in human lifetimes. Dozens of generations have existed in multiple empires without seeing the empire's end.
The fact gullible people eventually bring an Empire down just means, yes, thousand year empires do not exist but we've already had 3 generations live, grow old, and die entirely within the globalist period. So...for those people, it never ended.
You just want to be "right" without considering the other person's point of view as equally valid.
So, yes, technically just because something ends does not mean the end during a given lifetime is inevitable.
But yes, excluding misinformation and open deciet from the process of running a Democracy is theoretically the goal I would say. That requires none of the things you state because you seek to bait me into responding into "gotcha" extremist positions that have never been real or needed to achieve a goal.
Simply saying "You cannot intentionally lie and misrepresent a 1 square mile protest as a reason to break the law as the government who upholds the law" should not be a controversial position you feel the need to argue against, yet you do, like the Israeli above precisely because you've been lied to.
>It's not a problem with people, just these people that I happen to want/need to incorporate.
You're arguing my point for me. People are what people do and the fact that people do these things (and consistently do these things throughout history) means that these large scale international empires are impossible to maintain. The problem may very well be conservatives, so what do you do? Exclude them? Put them in concentration camps? Now you're back to agreeing with me again.
EDIT: (for your response)
They don't bring it down "eventually" this happens very quickly. It's been known since ancient times that this happens (ibn Khaldun wrote about these things for example.) The problem is that "conservatives" from different "tribes" look very different (this is obvious if you've spent time trying to understand politics in foreign countries) so once you deal with the majority conservative group you just end up with a new one from the plurality. It's not an eventually thing, it's a critical mass problem. The only way international states work is if there's a single majority that excludes outsiders (like the Arabs used to and sometimes still do for example.)
> They don't bring it down "eventually" this happens very quickly.
You are redefining terms to "win", m8.
Entire lifetimes within the safe confines of an empire is not anyone's definition of "very quickly" in English. Please educate yourself on what you are talking about and do better research.
There is no point in engaging in a one sided conversation with someone who is either being dishonest with himself or truly misunderstanding the topic in question to the point phrases are needed to be redefined to some absurd parameter measured in 60+ year spans as "very quickly".
Please understand you really should learn something on these topics rather than quoting stuff you clearly show a shallow understanding of that is unique to a certain political group and not even the intellectuals in that group would argue as you have.
*EDIT TO REPLY*
> I agree entire lifetimes would not be very quickly. I'm arguing once you have a plurality population these things tend to blow up within a generation.
?? but Americans were Christian white male conservatives as the majority during the generations in question and were arguably more conservative as even people like the Irish and Italian were "outside parties" like you view jews.
Are you arguing the American situation deteriorated multiple times in the 20th century (1900-2000) and somehow resurrected its Empire each time?
This is just a bizarre conversation at this point but I'm morbidly curious.
Btw, the official definition is 1890s to now for the American Empire as you are talking about. So...idk how you square it failing in the ??present day?? and later with multiple generations being born and dying during that time period.
I agree entire lifetimes would not be very quickly. I'm arguing once you have a plurality population (where the populous are all considered peers) these things tend to blow up within a generation.
> Keep calling normal things people like or need fascism and you'll find yourself surrounded by legitimate fascists.
M8, it is hilarious how easy conservatives trying to normalize that stuff in the wild is.
I was just curious since you were trying to play the "I am playing devil's advocate" card when you are clearly a card carrying conservative.
Look, idk how you are concluding this kind of craziness but it _is_ craziness from a fact based point of view. I'm only opposed to conservatives in the US for three reasons:
1) They are against my access to life saving medical care, potentially forcing me to flee the country to where I can afford it.
2) They are very comfortable courting anti-Jewish extremism in the US which is why I have to keep track of which bigoted asshole cares I'm jewish so I know who will try to knife me in the back professionally/personally.
3) They are less fiscally conservative (when it comes to the debt/deficit) than Democrats with their tax giveaways, guaranteeing the eventual failure of the United States financially. Similarly, their economic policies are sprinkling fairy dust and pray the long term consequences away.
As a supporter of Israel (the part that isn't hurting the cooperating palestianians anyway), a fiscal conservative, and so forth, it is bizarre to me I have no party in the United States but the Democratic Party to vote for.
> Once again you argue my point for me. A place for everyone is a place for no one.
And you agree people like me should be removed from the country (even thought we are citizens) based on the kind of solutions the Nazis used before they moved on to camps.
10/10 glad the guy berating people for calling people fascists openly admits he is one.
EDIT:
Just noting for posterity, the guy agrees the above is correct in his current response but "wants to know what solution I have" as his only critique.
I'm done, no point in arguing with an admitted fascist/nazi adjacent type.
> How do you propose the problem is solved? Ban every kind of conservative from all the tribes you'd like to incorporate?
> That would still include you by the way since you'd like to conserve Israel. That's not a moral failure on your part that's just how people work and it's why international states can't work.
I'm just amazed how easy he took the bait to confession pipeline.
How do you propose the problem is solved? Ban every kind of conservative from all the tribes you'd like to incorporate?
That would still include you by the way since you'd like to conserve Israel. That's not a moral failure on your part that's just how people work and it's why international states can't work.
EDIT: Regardless of how you feel about it your proposed policy has a clear contradiction. You can dislike it, you can call me a nazi for pointing it out, but if you don't have an answer to this then your idea simply isn't practical for everyone else to adopt.
> EDIT: Regardless of how you feel about it your proposed policy has a clear contradiction. You can dislike it, you can call me a nazi for pointing it out, but if you don't have an answer to this then your idea simply isn't practical for everyone else to adopt.
You feel I should be exiled from my home country for the same reasons nazis were killing people when that planned failed. That isn't calling you a nazi, that is you being a nazi.
The fact you are in denial isn't my problem, I'm just glad you are dense enough to admit it to people.
EDIT:
It is hilarious the guy who ignored the point repeatedly now freaks out and calls me "emotional" about how _but I'm not a nazi_ when he agreed with Nazi talking points multiple times. When you agree with Nazi talking points but don't like the label, yeah buddy, you are a Nazi.
The only "emotion" I'm feeling is hilarity and how oblivious you are to your own talking points.
Think about things like agreeing people should be forced out due to medical conditions, etc. and obvious basic eugenics shit you agreed with earlier. And ask yourself, why am I suddenly panicking about this when it was fine a few posts ago?
Hint: It is because you know you lost the argument on you being a nazi. Maybe facts will make you realize your feelings are not facts. Maybe not, but it was worth a shot to try to make you see the way the world sees you.
> I really hope you to acknowledge this at least for your sake: your own ideology is not self consistent and ultimately excludes you regardless of what it means for everyone else.
You feel my right to buy reasonably priced (on a national crowd based level for my age) insurance is an ideology and that I should be exiled from my country because of it.
So yeah, buddy, that alone makes you a nazi. I don't need to point out the other talking points so you can't hide later from the truth when you get called out again because you didn't realize how many times you repeated you were a nazi in coded language.
> EDIT: I know it's hard, but you really need to focus and think clearly here, think carefully about the ideas themselves. If you don't things are only going to get worse for both of us.
Huh?
My ability to not die is something I need to think about?
Nice edit but it still points to you being a nazi if you think that is a true statement because my medical conditions make me unprofitable in a for-profit healthcare system.
The hilarious part is you really are just tripling and quadrupuling down on eugenics as a key part of your position. Which makes you a nazi. Congratulations! You win all the prizes!
> EDIT2: I feel like, for your sake, I should add that I stopped caring about how "the world sees me" long ago. I've been called a nazi just for living normally and peacefully with people around me, the word has no meaning to me any more. I'd encourage you to stop getting hung up on it and focus on the practical realities of today not things that happened in another country with other people a hundred years ago.
Yeah but you aren't being truthful here or you'd have stopped responding and trying to deflect the clear pro-nazi/eugenics statements in a public forum.
You can lie to yourself if you want but the truth is when you go to bed, you know deep down, you care. Or you'd have stopped this shit show when it was 50/50 you were a nazi. Instead you kept insisting you weren't while insisting you were right on the basis of eugenics among other reasons.
You didn't even have the sense to claim I wasn't right in calling you out for being pro-eugenics and pro-denial-of-care-for-minorities-to-force-exile. Because it is your belief system and too integral for you to refute until its pointed out to you repeatedly.
> EDIT3: I did acknowledge that. The problem is that insisting on what you're arguing for degenerates rapidly and is not practical. I even tried to steel man your position for you with the idea that maybe you could exclude conservatives (both from the original majority population and the eventual plurality) and pointed out how that would ultimately result in the same mass exile problem you're upset about.
How did you steel man position exactly? How is the fact the majority of the EU can deliver what I say is a critical and life threatening problem or the fact the US currently works that way (but the GOP consistently attacks it and has repeatedly failed by very thin margins to force me out of the country due to medical costs)?
You can lie to yourself all you want but I'm already on 6+ month waiting lists for basic care with private for-profit health insurance. I am better off _today with insurance_ on flying to Mexico or Malaysia or whatever for healthcare. And you want to make it worse for me. When the rest of the world doesn't have this problem. Somehow its magic to you and you insist its not a viable philosophy to have medical care for people like me.
Once again, not being pro-eugenics, is proven to work in the real world. You are a nazi. I'm done because you can't seem to deviate or defend your position in any rational sense beyond "My feelings tell me this isn't true"
> I don't think you're quite cut out for political discussions. You seem to be very hung up on rhetoric and emotion and unable to really think about how things scale. I don't know how to help you with that. Maybe read some philosophy books and spend more time around different people?
All you have is ad hominem m8. It is hilarious as it is sad.
> I actually know people in two countries with public health care: Colombia and Canada. I've watched both of them use it. It's far worse than anything in the US (the way Colombia in particular treats immigrants IMO is absolutely horrifying.) But if you think you'll get better care in a place like that you should go ahead and see for yourself what it's like.
I've gotten medical care in Malaysia, Portugal, England, Germany, and so forth.
I got into these places with something as simple as a broken nose faster than I'd get through the line at any American hospital. And got better and cheaper care.
You can lie to people who don't have real world experience but not me, buddy. Good luck out there but all you seem to do is lie or use fellow conservatives as sources. I'm not sure which is worse.
The sad fact is, I'd actually want to vote for conservatives but just not US ones that are against my access to health care out of self preservation.
You seem to be convinced I'm some ideological foil to conservatives by saying you shouldn't be able to lie and propagandize. You should probably look inward and ask yourself why you need to lie to people to get through the day.
The sad fact is, outside of local ambulance service in places like Malaysia or Colombia, most of these places have private hospitals for a Westerner that is quite affordable. Yet somehow, just allow them to exist adjacent to public care never seems to cross a cosnervative's mind to admit such things exist. (Hint: They benefit from the same economy of scale as country-wide buying of medication and so forth. Combined with lower labor costs for similar nation-wide markets with guaranteed demand, it actually has been shown to lower costs but you wouldn't ever have researched real information to figure that out)
> That's a little wild to hear from someone who's called me a nazi half a dozen times and seemed to think that changed the validity of his argument.
You agree with Nazi talking points. There, does that make you happy?
>Malaysia
They do, its called a golden visa buddy.
>England
> No. They do not have a functioning public health service. I don't know much about the other two states but if you put England in that list it makes me question the validity of the rest of it.
Yeah, buddy, please unplug from conservative outlets.
>The sad fact is, outside of local ambulance service in places like Malaysia or Colombia, most of these places have private hospitals for a Westerner that is quite affordable.
> So you're in favor of private health care? I'm still not even sure why you've even brought all this up. Furthermore if you can afford private health care than why is public health care "a matter of self preservation?"
Are you not understanding I basically have to leave to have affordable access to emergency care if Project 2025 (or even the proposals that failed in 2016) gets their way?
Idk what hole you hide in but that has to contain some amazing powers of self-deception.
Good luck, I'm just done man. You can't be this oblivious without hiding in some conservative bubble that bans all dissent.
>All you have is ad hominem m8. It is hilarious as it is sad.
That's a little wild to hear from someone who's called me a nazi half a dozen times and seemed to think that changed the validity of his argument.
>Malaysia
I forgot Malaysia just lets anyone immigrate and call themselves Malaysian. It's crazy how accepting Asian countries are. They're all such a great example of how you can simultaneously have public health care and open borders.
>England
No. They do not have a functioning public health service. I don't know much about the other two states but if you put England in that list it makes me question the validity of the rest of it.
>The sad fact is, outside of local ambulance service in places like Malaysia or Colombia, most of these places have private hospitals for a Westerner that is quite affordable.
So you're in favor of private health care? I'm still not even sure why you've even brought all this up. Furthermore if you can afford private health care than why is public health care "a matter of self preservation?"
Yes, if we focus on actions, the action of causing public disorder is a glaring example of things we do not want in civil society. We also do not want tanks in our streets. Both seem like bad things, honestly, so I'm wondering how we got here.
It's fine if you personally don't support more extreme actions. Time has shown again and again the most important thing civilians can do is to refuse to condemn other civilians who are acting in the same goals as you. We must focus on why everyone is acting in those goals: we have armed, masked men invading communities, who have made attempts at trafficking children, stolen away elderly women, detained citizens accused of no crime, and are being incredibly disruptive throughout the country.
That article says is that one kid has been trafficked, since the 1980s. That's the most you can use it to demonstrate. It certainly does not support KittenInABox's claim.
These events are not the opposites you're implying. Both are being directly caused by the same person! Trump is needlessly escalating the situation, to create a divisive crisis, for which he will force his "solution" of even more chaos and destruction. This guy turns everything he touches to shit, which should have been strongly apparent to everyone based on his first administration. Too many people were unwilling to put aside their gripes with the government and listen to their fellow citizens telling them this is exactly what would happen.
"dunno" what? There are many causes for why people wrote off their country and turned to Trump. I understand, sympathize, and even agree with many of the frustrations! But the fact remains that people listened to the siren song of a hollow con man instead of their fellow citizens telling them what a disaster his first term was, and his second term would surely be. There are root causes for that too, and they are endlessly debated in threads about social media polarization and the like. But in the context of this topic where American troops are now pointing guns at Americans, it is important to keep the focus on Trump and the need for him to be deposed.
What alternative do you see to the current events? The only one I see is remaining quiet and tacitly supporting fascism.
This guy is not going to stop on his own. He's attuned to operating in a business context where there is some other singular entity who might back down when the damage from the chaos gets too high (or he backs down when the pain is too high for him, like with tariffs). But in a society based on individual liberty, backing down is not on the table until the whole society has been subjugated.
Longer term, if we actually manage to get through this to meaningful elections, one would hope that the abject failure of Trumpism would make enough of the electorate wary of more "strong" man fascists promising easy answers. This should have happened after his first term, but Trump's main skill is deflecting blame and Covid was one heck of an excuse.
And as far as underlying issues driving polarization and disconnect from reality, those are going to be there regardless of my statements.
The top level comment was me wondering how we got here. This has nothing to do with what we should do now. You decide that for yourself, but I see wisdom in looking at how we got here and trying to not do more of that.
There are many directions to come at that from, discussing most of them will end up insanely political and polarized, and they have been discussed quite often in other threads. So it's a bit weird to be throwing that open-ended question out in the discussion of a specific alarming escalation - as if we have just been missing some simple answers that could have been done to pull up from this, or avoid it in the future.
I'd say we are at the point where the people who enabled the fascists just have to accept they were wrong and take their licks for the damage they've caused to our country. Similar to the bits of soul-searching that are going on amongst Democrats about the overbearing DEI groupthink. Will some small reconciliation grow into a trend and create a lasting deescalation, or do we have to continue working to actively reject the extremism? Let's worry about that when the mad king no longer has the reigns of power, lest good-faith attempts hold us back from getting to that state where any of this might matter.
This is a well-understood and popular problem.
I've tried the five-whys on this, and always end up at unnecessary escalation and righteous idealism (not by any particular party or person, just kind of by everyone). But the book Righteous Mind does a better job on this issue than I ever will.
> Clearly if these people torching the cars are waving foreign flags, they are a foreign enemy and thus the military is appropriate, no?
No. Torching cars is already a crime and the city and state were already restoring order. The kind of flag waved while a car is torched does not change the calculus. Critically, a US citizen does not cease to be a US citizen because they waved a foreign flag; we have free speech in the United States, and flag-waving is protected by the first amendment.
Also worth noting that none of this would have happened if the regime didn't deliberately provoke it in the first place.
Honest question: how does this calculus change when the person waiving a foreign flag on a burned out vehicle is actually not a citizen and armed with a weapon.
Liberty or death. If sometimes in this country a non-citizen gets away with burning a car, and the only way to prevent is is drag-net mass gestapo enforcement actions by federal police, then, I choose the country with no gestapo enforcement actions and occasionally burnt cars.
Apparently LA agrees with this fundamentally American idea.
For the most part, the protestors are peaceful, not rioters, and there are plenty of scenes of police and national guard being marshaled against them. In one clip, a couple dozen police officers opened fire on a kid with a skateboard. In another, they open fire on a journalist giving a live report. In another, they're beating back protestors holding signs.
And "reestablishing order" is an obvious farce, because the Trump administration was deliberately provoking this conflict by sending in masked agents to abduct people and at least in one instance, running over a protestor. The administration has been consistently escalating the conflict, which is not something you do to "reestablish order", but it is absolutely a tactic of 20th century authoritarians to acquire emergency powers which they then use to prevent elections, jail political opponents, etc.
> The action of having a military parade for the president's birthday is expensive and doesn't benefit us.
The funds for the "United States Army 250th Anniversary Parade" were allocated before President Trump was elected, during the Biden debacle. The fact that it falls on June 14th is what is called a "coincidence".
Be careful about blindly accepting propaganda as fact.
> The funds for the "United States Army 250th Anniversary Parade" were allocated before President Trump was elected, during the Biden debacle.
Um: "The Army’s 250th birthday celebration has been in the works for two years, Army officials said. But adding a parade was the Trump White House’s idea, so planning for that began only two months ago." (Emphasis added.)
I would agree with your "coincidence" explanation if it weren't for the consistent pattern of "coincidences" in which Trump does something dictator-like and right-wingers rush to his defense with "coincidence". It's just a coincidence that all of these foreign diplomats invest in his meme coin or some family business and then suddenly are granted meetings with the president! It's just a coincidence that Qatar sends him a luxury airliner and his rhetoric about Qatar does a 180 degree flip! It's just a coincidence that he tried to interfere in a presidential election! It's just a coincidence that he consistently claims Article I and Article III powers for himself! It's just a coincidence that he's rounding up people and sending them to foreign prisons!
The date is entirely unimportant. I suppose it's just a coincidence that Trump is following project 2025, step by step, since day one¹. And also a coincidence that many of the people who wrote project 2025 are in the Trump administration²³. It's just a coincidence, but of course trump didn't and doesn't know anything about it. Stop playing stupid.
The date is exactly what was being discussed. I was responding to the mischaracterization of "a military parade for the president's birthday", which is factually inaccurate. Plus, the plan was made during Biden's term.
> I suppose it's just a coincidence that Trump is following project 2025, step by step, since day one
He's following Agenda 47, which was published on his campaign website. He stated he agreed with some of Project 2025, but not all of it.
It's unsurprising that some involved in writing Project 2025 are working for the Trump admin.
"They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats."
That was the president lying on a nationally televised debate, the purpose of which was to lay the groundwork for exporting poor people who were here legally.
The term "create stories" in this context does not mean made up the story it means create a story out of the report the way journalists create a story out of a news event
Even if Trump was just relaying local racist rumors (he wasn't, it was entirely fabricated), would he be justified in it? There was absolutely zero evidence of it, and there still isn't.
It's just a lie in service of fueling hatred toward the most poorest people in this country. Fascism 101.
The mayor of the town (a Republican) came out and straight up said Trump was lying about his town. The only people reporting it could barely point to the town on a map.
Maybe not "get rid of" but plenty of other fingers are pointed at them. They get "free housing" (which they fill with drugs and kids), they get "free food" (which they use instead to buy alcohol), they get "free cellphones" (which they use to run drug rings), etc.
It's usually about how the poor get Foo for free, which everyone else has to pay for, and also about how they misuse Foo for nefarious reasons. The commons then get riled up, either because "Hey, why do they get free housing when I have to spend tons of money?" or because of all the nefarious things they supposedly do.
If people say the "free Foo" being offered, I wage many would choose to keep buying better quality Foo. These people are not offered luxury. It can barely be considered essentials.
I agree with your point, but food stamps can be used to buy drugs and alcohol... Buyer generally pays ~50% cash value. Very common for addicts to hand the EBT card over to dealer on the 3rd, but the vast majority receiving assistance use it honestly.
When you say "they" are you talking about the local US citizens doing these things, because "they" are doing it too. Comments like yours that word it so that it sounds like all crimes are being committed non-citizens which is such a fallacy it's laughable.
I used the word "they" on purpose, because the target seems to change often. It might be lower class, it might be immigrants (illegal and even legal), it might be $racial_minority, political faction, etc,. As long as it's a group that people can blame, it works.
> we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor
Explain how work requirements to qualify for Medicaid makes conditions better to ensure there are fewer poor people. Doesn't this just harm people who can't work due to disability, and practically ensure they will never get better enough to work and contribute to society?
Sure saves a lot of money for wealthy people though.
But isn’t Medicaid just healthcare. Being able to go to a doctor when you are sick or injured doesn’t really sound like coddling someone, “able-bodied” or not. Maybe I am misunderstanding and Medicaid is actually some new fancy handbag.
The government isn't subsidizing businesses when it gives low-wage workers welfare. Those workers would be working just as hard without the welfare, if not harder.
Most here aren't arguing it's exceptionally difficult to find some kind of a job or education opportunity to meet the requirements. We're mostly arguing about adding all the additional bureaucracy to add additional requirements that will need to be documented and validated. And arguing that many who should be eligible for exceptions will end up not eligible because of some paperwork or bureaucratic oversight.
There is about the same amount of money allotted to help states stand up new programs to validate these requirements as the federal cost of Trump's birthday party.
The obvious answer is education and vocational training programs to help people develop skills that are needed today. Unfortunately, the people most affected by the changing demands of the modern economy are also people who have been negatively polarized against education.
Ahh, so you fell for the spin. What about the "able bodied" laid off in the economy and no one wants to hire? What about the "able bodied" who just graduated and can't even get an interview because everyone wants 5 years of experience? What about the "able bodied" who can do basic math and realize that $8/hour can no in fact pay for rent that sky rocketed to $1200 a month?
Business and removing jobs and being rewarded with tax breaks while American workers can't find anything. Whose fault is that?
What you just described isn’t spin. The requirement clearly applies only to the able-bodied. You’re saying being able-bodied doesn’t guarantee you can get a job—so you're arguing the requirement is unfair. I completely disagree. In this economy, anyone can get a job. Welfare—whether it’s taxpayer-funded medical care, cash payments, or food stamps—should never be unconditional. It’s funded by people who are compelled under threat of imprisonment to pay taxes. No one is entitled to it.
Putting a burden on people who aren't able bodied is harmful to them, because it means you accept some threshold of fasle negatives -- people who aren't able bodied but who will not qualify for the support. What will they do? They can't work because they aren't able bodied, but they can't qualify for assistance because the government doesn't think they're broken enough. That person will become homeless, and then their existence is essentially criminalized in many places.
For the pragmatic- and not -empathetic-minded, means testing still creates a huge bureaucracy, making useless government jobs and costing money to chase down people whose lives already suck
Costs that will be borne by the state and become unavailable to actually assist and help people.
Bonus points: we'll be able to remove people that should have had eligibility but failed to get the right paperwork in place. And we all know those who are severely disabled and unable to work are always excellent on filing their paperwork correctly and on-time and always make required meetings.
> Coddling people like this isn't doing them any favors.
Yes. Yes it is.
Pray you never find yourself in a situation where you can't work anymore or rely on anyone. Because under Trump's, this means guaranteed death. In the richest country ever.
Trump, speaking to his nephew about their disabled son [1]: "Maybe you should just let him die"
I look for the message of helping the poor, but it’s frustrating that politicians can evade it and their self-attained devotion to Christianity go unchallenged.
The phrases to look for are “infested” and “purge”. Some politicians consider low-income to be a character of a person or a group (all the way up to a nation). Those same politicians laud language from Hitler about infestations and metaphors of racial purity.
That was an answer to a trick question. The inquisitor was trying to get him to admit to defying Roman rules so he could get him imprisoned. And he gave an answer that the coins that have Roman emperor faces on them belong to the emperor, implying people could stop using those coins.
Even the most generous pro-government take on that passage would have him believing that the state should be separate from the church, so church doctrine should not be imposed through state decree.
Did the historical Jesus really say that? He wasn't one of the religious authorities who had a deal with Rome. Many Jews didn't like Roman occupation as seen by the revolts. If Jesus had issues with the Jewish authorities, he probably did with the Roman ones as well. Apocalyptic Jews would have believed God was coming soon to overthrow the kingdoms of the world, which were controlled by evil spirts.
You willfully ignore the 'Big Beautiful Bill' which will make the poor poorer, taking Medicaid from millions of people and making the richest of the rich richer with tax breaks.
> Former President Donald J. Trump, in an interview broadcast Sunday, doubled down on his description of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, language that echoes Hitler.
> “Why do you use words like ‘vermin’ and ‘poisoning of the blood’?” Howard Kurtz, the media critic and interviewer, asked on Fox News. “The press, as you know, immediately reacts to that by saying, ‘Well, that’s the kind of language that Hitler and Mussolini used.’”
> “Because our country is being poisoned,” Mr. Trump responded.
"we should try to make conditions better for everyone such that fewer people are poor" and similar arguments is how the government scams you and everyone else into their racket. You always had the option to give to the poor, you didn't need a mob going in your pockets to do that.
"But muh roads and hospitals and police." Lol, that is covered by the ~0.5% of my salary I pay in property taxes and a little extra in use taxes and county and state sales tax. The federal portion, what do I get? Massive subsidies for people who stick their boot down my throat, military provocations that make us all far less safer, the worlds largest prison population (and near the top per capita). None of it makes sense -- the stuff that matters was achieved with the feds spending 2% of the gdp (and I might add, pretty much open immigration).
"Helping the poor" is one of the worst mistakes the USA ever undertook.
History shows we've historically been pretty shitty at doing that at an individual level.
> The federal portion, what do I get?
Ignoring FICA, a large chunk is debt servicing, public health, earned income tax credits, food assistance, SSI, science programs, global trade security, and more. Most isn't "people who stick their boot down [your] throat", unless you're someone looking to abuse workers or food production or happens to be outside in LA these days.
