Philisophical political thread...

[Crazed_Insanity]

Forget about Nokia cell phones for now... are Scandinavians leading in the field of medical science as well? Sure, it's very nice that they have universal healthcare, but they're feeding off of medical advancements made by countries like US! So if the entire world becomes socialistic, it is very possible that medical advancements will slow... and everyone could very well be covered by universal healthcare, but it wouldn't be very good care. Just like Nokia phones are very nice, but that's probably all we'll be stuck with for a long long time...

Anyway, considering the wealth gap in the US, I'd agree the current US system is out of wack. The rich has to give away as much as possible to help the poor in order to stabilize the system. I'm just against the government forcing people's hand by heavily taxing folks. Also, we need to NOT have the expectation of the rich giving us hand outs, but be willing to give to our poorer neighbors as well. How much should we redistribute our own wealth? Well, as much as possible so that you won't starve your own family of course.

With regard to helping neighboring countries, yeah, US really should be helping Mexico a lot more. Investing in Mexicans directly will bring more prosperity for the US than investing in walls.

[Dicknose]

Anyway, considering the wealth gap in the US, I'd agree the current US system is out of wack. The rich has to give away as much as possible to help the poor in order to stabilize the system. I'm just against the government forcing people's hand by heavily taxing folks.

So you expect people to just do this themselves?
Thinking taxes are "robbing the rich" is part of that problem. The US tax rates are not that extreme (at $US70k its 25%, Australia's is 37% then jumps to 45% at $US140k while the US is 28% and its next brackets are at about $200k and $400k peaking at 40%). We do pay less tax at lower incomes - no tax till income about $15k then its 19% till about $30k. We probably "cross-over" around that point. Oh just saw that the rates are dropping for this year in the USA (and some of the brackets have gone up).

The US system is based on selfishness, everyone trying to make it for themselves. "land of opportunity" etc. Sure plenty of people are helpful, even donate to charity, but in general its a "whats in it for me" system. Its not that its bad, its just that it never fosters a "better for everyone" attitude.
Other places have a culture that is less self centred and that shows in many ways. Again, its a general attitude and they still have lots of selfish people (its basic nature). But as a community they are happy to help each other and share the wealth and burden. Is it a fair share - probably not. But people want the poor to be looked after, have housing, health services. Someone needs to pay for this. Currently the only system seems to be taxation.

Once you agree taxes are the way, its then just an argument over who pays what and where the money goes. And in the US that answer is "its mostly user pays" when it comes to many services that are seen as essential or important enough to be free or subsidised in other places..

Note - australia is not as socialist as it was in the 70s and early 80s. I got the advantage of a free university education, I got a couple of degrees and paid no fees to the govt run university. That changed, we now have fees, but again much cheaper than US colleges.

[Crazed_Insanity]

If money is forked over unwillingly, it is robbery, even if it's a small percentage. Of course, none can cheat death or taxes! People will have to get used to getting robbed by the govt, I'm not advocating we stop paying taxes, but perhaps govt can do things to help us actually want to pay taxes more...

Maybe in the future, rather than calling it tax, we can political correctly call it membership fees. Different % levels will include more membership benefits. People at various political spectrums can pay at a level they're comfortable with and receive benefits accordingly.

People are naturally self serving and greedy... capitalism does play that to its advantage... which allowed us to develop cool EVs and spaceships all on the promise of possible future profit. Of course things cool also go wrong such as the financial meltdown..., but in general, market is inching upwards on a longterm basis.

Socialism sounds morally better in theory but once you factor in people's selfish nature, more and more folks will end up abusing entitlements all the while producing less in return.

Early persecuted Christians were living in a pretty socialistic community, but that's based mostly on the richer giving out of their hearts rather than by taxation. Such practice obviously didn't last. Not sure if it's the rich Christians getting stingier or poor Christians getting lazier or they just grew out of it naturally... Socialism bailing/helping people out really should only be temporary emergency measures. Not longterm indefinite entitlements.

Pensions are less sustainable as life span increases... lots of companies are dropping them. However free higher education should be looked at as investments for the future... plus people tend not to remain students forever...

We definitely need to find the right balance... it'd be interesting to see if US or the Scandinavians got closer to the right balance...

I personally believe US needs to have free/affordable basic healthcare and higher education soon because we're on the verge of collapse..., but then again US govt just doesn't have the money and competency to fix the problem...

[Dicknose]

The US does have the money!
It’s simply a political decision where/how you spend it.

How would you feel living next to someone who is not earning money? Unemployed, sick, full time caregiver and yes - maybe just lazy.
How do they survive? What would you do to pay the rent, get food?
Would they turn to crime or maybe prostitution?

It staggers me that anyone in a first world country can be “below the poverty line”. Doesn’t matter the reason, we can afford to support them so they can live with a roof, food and some small amount of dignity (ie not having to beg, having their own place to call home). Too often expel fall below this and it’s damn hard to climb back up.

Did you know that in Australia if you don’t have a job you are paid money irrespective of your previous work. It’s a set amount, not based on previous income. It’s possible to go 50 years without ever getting a job and still be paid.
There are conditions (I fail the asset test, so when I lost my job I couldn’t claim. You must seek work. You might have to do community work after a period).
If you want better protection you can get income insurance. Eg higher income earner with mortgage and/or higher standard of living, take your own income insurance.
But a basic safety net is there for everyone.

Sure a few people might abuse it, but they are hardly living “the high life”
And for what it costs the country it does mean we have very few beggars. Yes there are still homeless and it’s not perfect. The high cost of housing also means many people are living near or below the poverty line. Estimates put this at around 10%.
Similar numbers for the US put it not much higher at 15%, but other estimates have it as high as 30%. The number of families needing food support is huge. 1 in 8 Americans. 13 million children!
Why should any kid in the USA have to worry about getting event food?

Talk all you like about “isms” and “robbing” - why should a kid go hungry in our society?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Nobody should go hungry considering the amount of food we waste!

However, things are just not that simple. CA spent probably the most of all states on welfare for the poor. Feed and help the poor is definitely the morally right thing to do, but the end result is that CA is also the poverty capital of America. So are you sure we're not making it worse by trying to help?

Lastly, big chunk of our budget goes to paying down interests of previous debts, USA really isn't as rich as before...

[Crazed_Insanity]

Okay DN, I'm quoting you from the original political thread:

Japan is so different it’s not a model we could do. Eurpope, North America, Aus/NZ - we all have massive migration and you can’t undo that. Yes you can stop it, but that doesn’t change the fact that Japan is almost alone as a 1st world country that is racially/culturally homogeneous.

Yes, just like the pandora's box, you can't really reverse what has already happened. Just like guns in America. Also, America is a nation pretty much built on immigrants. If American can't figure out how to get it working, I don't know who else can. Everything comes at a cost, we just need to keep trying to adjust things in order to make the good out weight the bad. Whether it's immigration, guns or social media. Being a nation free from immigrants, guns or social media is not the American way...

To some degree the anti-intellectuals (vax/climate/flat earth etc) is always there. Weirdly they have taken onboard the “think for yourself” idea and used it to dismiss others who are smarter and do it for a living. It’s great to have your own opinions and not blindly follow, but that doesn’t mean ignore well established ideas just on principle.

I think this might also be part of the anti-establishment sentiment at work here. Folks who support Brexist would rather be poorer masters of their own fate, rather than a richer servants catering to the European Union. Humanity is rebellious like that. Teenagers would want to try things out for themselves rather than heeding to parent's warnings. Likewise with Adam and Eve.

The masters/experts of this world need to learn to be more humble rather than look down on the stupid deplorable people. They also need to be less corrupt... with regard to vaccines, no question we need them. However, can you guys really say for sure that drug company lobbyists didn't influence the government to mandate useless, maybe even dangerous, vaccines for profit motives? Can we really fully trust the government and the drug companies serving our best interests as if believers trust in God? Likewise with climate change..., no question we've fucked up our world, but do we really know how to fix it? Do we really have competent enough law makers making up the best laws to fix our problems? Or are they just being pulled by various companies different interests? Even without lobbyists influence, I've told you about the good intentions of CA lawmakers spending more money to help the poor than any other states, but CA end up with more folks living under poverty than any other states. Likewise, unless we know what we're doing, it is also very possible that our attempts to fix the climate would also end up making our climate worse and we end up paying extra for it. Anyway, besides the intellectual problem, there's also an issue of not having enough trust in the supposedly experts, or the 'establishment'. They need to establish a track record of competency and trustworthiness in order for more people to be content to not just rebelliously act out against them. Anti-establishment sentiment didn't just come out of nowhere.

Now, I don't really understand why some folks absolutely must believe in flat earth..., I don't think even Bible is insisting the world is flat... that if you don't believe in flat earth you'll goto hell..., but hey, we live in free societies! You know, flat earth used to be a pretty well established idea. Those people just don't want to let go I guess...

We muddle our way forward and hope that the idiots don’t take us down with them...

We're all idiots in varying degrees. However, regardless of how stupid we are, we are still smarter than any other known life forms on earth! Plus, there's no reason why we can't work hand in hand with flat earthers to solve our climate problem? Plus, if Adam and Eve's story is true, there is also a incorruptible loving Master working to solve this human problem by humbling dying as a Servant for all on the cross as example for us to follow.

So I'm hopeful of our future... once we've all learn to be better masters and better servants oursevles.

If we don't repent, learn, adapt, evolve, then naturally we die off.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Okay, out of respect for MR2, I'll stay away from the usual political thread a bit, but I want to respond to Swervo...

How easy is it to be falsely accused of rape?

https://twitter.com/jeremycyoung/sta...56287929356289

That tweet is good and quite informative! I actually enjoyed reading that long thing...

Now, I'm assuming you brought this up because of my response to 359?

Anyway, just to be clear, I think Kavanaugh most likely did it. I don't even doubt the accusers of Al Franken. I not trying to victim blame nor do I have anything against women nor am I trying to protect my own special asshole from being accused from the numerous women I've assaulted in the past...

Just trying to stay as real as possible. If there's a 10% chance... if there's a 2% chance... or as Neanderthal put it... 1/100,000 chance..., there's still a chance, right?

Commercial air travel today is so safe, odds of your flight crashing is 1/11,000,000! However, who can really give you the guarantee that your next flight WON'T crash? Likewise, everything Jeremy Young said made a whole lot of sense, but why would he go about making the claim that men won't be falsely accused? The more accurate language should be men 'most likely' won't be false accused, right?

We need to try to stick to the issue and not allow our judgements to be clouded by another group of more oppressed people. That's the danger of identity politics IMHO.

I think we can all agree only some psycho might completely make up an accusation. Considering Kavanaugh's drinking habit and the culture back then, it's really not that hard to believe Dr. Ford's claim.

Now we tread into the gray territory. How serious is a drunken 18 yr old's action? Was that out of character or exactly his character, FBI should be able to figure that out.

How serious is the crime of a comedian going slightly off script and stuck his tongue in his coworker's mouth? Taking a picture pretending to be grabbing her boobies on a long boring flight?

Yes, of course, the most honorable way as 359 has said is just to not fuck around in the 1st place. Simple. Yeah, isn't it simple for all of us to just live in utopia? Why Adam and Eve had to do stupid shit to get us kicked out of paradise? I don't know why we do stupid things. Millions of reasons... or perhaps no reason at all...

So when the misdeed is done, what's the appropriate amount of punishment?

These are the kind of things we need to figure out rather than just say fuck them. Women have suffered way more... so now you powerful men are gonna pay...

I just think we need to leave politics out of this issue. Weinstien and Cosby cases are pretty straight forward and I'm pretty sure there's bi-partisan support, right?

Franken's case was pretty stupid IMHO... Democrats was just allowing the movement to gain momentum and to sacrifice him to show that they are the party on the moral high horse and expect republicans to do the same. Yeah, right. Stupid wishful thinking.

This current Kavanugh case really shouldn't be rushed. Dr. Ford shouldn't be exposed like this. Of course Kavanaugh probably deserved it, but political plays on both sides have ruined both of their lives.

If Kavanaugh wins, we all lose.

If Kavanugh loses, conservative based will be renergized... and maybe not lose control of congress and we'll get another conservative dick in the court anyways.

[Tom Servo]

Does this mean my ban on this thread is lifted?

It wasn't just your response to him. It's that I feel like you continue to insist that things are now worse for men being accused than they are for women being raped, which I find abhorrent. The boogeyman you keep going back to doesn't exist. People who have done bad things are getting their comeuppance. Of course there's a chance, and that's why, if it comes down to actual criminal prosecution, there will be investigations and trials. In the meantime, the vast majority of these people have, at worst, lost their jobs. I lost my job for accidentally pushing debugging code to the production website. It's not the end of the world.

Your air travel comparison is pretty apt. Lots of people are afraid of flying, but your chances of having something bad happen on a flight are crazy small. You're significantly more likely to die from a bee sting, or drowning in your own bathtub. These things are so incredibly unlikely that even worrying about it is probably worse for you than not.

I'd take exception to the "identity politics" part of this. It's not that "any woman can accuse any man." You say we can agree that a psycho might completely make up an accusation, and that's true. It's also true that we'd quite likely determine that said psycho is a psycho. The thread I linked said as much. The people who do falsely accuse men of sexual assault are usually pretty easy to spot.

Another thing I'd take exception to is the minimizing you keep doing of these things. "A drunken 18 year old's action". He appears to have done this multiple times throughout college, and you know the problem we all have with you essentially saying that "if you're drunk, then it shouldn't be held against you." "slightly off script and stuck his tongue in his coworker's mouth". I would disagree that that is slightly off script. I've both worked as stagecrew and performed in live theater and I have never been witness to that. I have a number of comedian friends and people who do improv, and that just doesn't happen. At best, it's massively disrespecting a coworker.

As close as I thought I was to having you understand things in the other thread, it's clear that I was nowhere near it. Where have we said that "powerful men are gonna pay." As far as I know, not a single man in all of this was innocent. A bunch of men who are guilty of differing levels of harassment got differing levels of punishment. Cosby's going to jail for drugging and raping people. Hopefully Weinstein is too. Louis CK has people walking out of his impromptu shows. Franken had to stop being one of the most powerful people in America. Boo hoo.

I'll agree that it is wishful thinking. At this point, I'm not sure conservatives in government give much of a shit what women think. I saw a pretty good post from a woman that this is almost an allegory for rape. A privileged man wants what he thinks he's entitled to, and the more you say "no" or "hang on, wait a minute", the angrier he gets and the more he and his friends try to ram it all through. I hope that you're wrong about the conservative base being reenergized though, Kavanaugh appears to have historically low approval ratings (lower than Bork), so it's my hope that the only base that's reenergized is the same base that was going to vote all red anyway, so no net difference.

It legitimately worries me that, in my opinion, you keep sticking to this idea that lots of men do bad things, and that there's a ton of excuses for them. I'll agree that many men do bad things. Most of them don't. The ones who do bad things make me question their judgment. It makes me question that they'll be good senators, or supreme court justices, or presidents. You'll notice none of this happened to Gorsuch. We all get that you're upset about what happened to Franken, but maybe try framing it less that he was the victim of other people and instead the victim of his own self. He had agency when he did what he did, nobody made him do what he did. I'd be fucking livid if someone did that to me, and I feel like rightfully so. Being a comedian isn't carte blanche to do what you want to other people, and most people understand that. For whatever reason, he didn't, and it makes me question his judgment.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Does this mean my ban on this thread is lifted?

Did I ban you in this thread? I don't remember. If I did, sorry about that. I think I just wanted you and now MR2 some peace and quiet in the other thread...

It's that I feel like you continue to insist that things are now worse for men being accused than they are for women being raped, which I find abhorrent.

Now, please note the bolded part. Now that's just something you imagined. The whole point of let's not play identify politics is precisely that. We don't need to compare those 2 different issues. No need to compare one group with another. My concern for those who might very unlikely be falsely accused is exactly that. I just don't like the idea of guilty until proven innocent. We don't need any proper investigations, please just resign. I find that just wrong. What's the big deal of having a proper investigation rather than just allowing the press to say whatever they want to say and public opinion sway which ever way it want based on that? That reminds me, who fucking leaked Dr. Ford's story?

Anyway, I can understand why you 'imagined' those bolded text because I can make the same mistake too I suppose:

As close as I thought I was to having you understand things in the other thread, it's clear that I was nowhere near it. Where have we said that "powerful men are gonna pay." As far as I know, not a single man in all of this was innocent. A bunch of men who are guilty of differing levels of harassment got differing levels of punishment. Cosby's going to jail for drugging and raping people. Hopefully Weinstein is too. Louis CK has people walking out of his impromptu shows. Franken had to stop being one of the most powerful people in America. Boo hoo.

The bolded quoted text I suppose is out of my 'imagination'. You guys never said that...

But as you well know, Franken losing his job seems like a big deal to me though.

As a Christian, I know the concept of everyone being 'guilty'. But you have to agree that the current 'process' in place doesn't work very well, right?

It worked to remove Franken, but Trump is still there! If we have a process that's really 'fair', they'd both be able to keep their job or they'll be both be booted off!

It'll also be easy to use that process to properly determine whether if Kavanaugh should be the 9th Justice.

I want a fairer process in place. We don't have one... and we can't agree to one. Hence we have a super politically charged circus. I hope you can at least agree with me on this point.

[Godson]

IIRC, If a false accusation is made regarding rape, you can be prosecuted to felony level prosecution. I could be wrong though