2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
10590 Replies
I find it almost impossible to take you seriously when you start using this sort of wild hyperbole.
The idea that any society which doesn't fully tolerate all direct enemies of itself living within is authoritarian is pure folly.
Having antibodies and using them isn't authoritarianism.
You guys are suicidally empathical if you can't come to your senses and accept that domestic threats can arise and legal, authorized violence is necessary to wipe them out.
Btw your side does accept that except they go fully Orwellian and claim the extreme right is such threat lol, even if the polar opposite is objectively true
I don't think you are going to help your cause much by shifting your focus to talking about permanent solutions to threats.
You think it's wrong to claim Germany needs permanent solutions to deal with neonazis?
Who thinks that domestic threats don't exist? Who thinks that no steps should be taken to address domestic threats?
Yes, the Germans definitely need to find a final solution to deal with the threat.
The point is that you no longer even appreciate the extent to which you have incorporated authoritarian rhetoric with dark connotations into your daily discussion of politics.
Or maybe you just don't care.
Don't mean to blow your mind here, Roc, but have you considered that the dude turboposting Nazi **** knows he's a Nazi?
You guys that attack me because I define a domestic threat and solutions for it on the topic itself rather than trying just to claim the specific threat I identify isn't , for you, a threat.
You aren't contesting my threat assessment, you are saying I am fascist because I identify a domestic threat and I want the state to fix that with legal state violence.
So, if you accept domestic threats can exist and they should be dealt with by state violence, why don't you just discuss whether radical environmentalists are such a threat or not instead of calling me a fascist?
So why am I being called a fascist to generalize the idea that democracies need to have those solutions in place to deal with threats in general?
If your claim is that millions of people whose ideas would.utrerly destroy society and make us live like animals aren't a threat to be dealt with on par as neonazis, claim that, the hell has this to do with fascism?
In general why are you ok with dealing with neonazism as an existential threat to society and not neomarxists which are at least as bad and much much much more numerous?
Whoosh.
On the off-chance that you are not just acting obtuse:
.Hey guys, stop calling me a fascist just because I’m a fascist. It hurts my feels :(
One of the first posts of Luciom's I ever read, I responded "Sieg Heil" and he got all in his fee fees about it. If only I knew then how right I was.
Jailing and killing all political opponents doesn’t meet the definition of fascism in Luciomtopia because the leader says it doesn’t.
To be clear, I don't agree with your assessment of the threats either. Abrupt abandonment of fossil fuels isn't practical or a good idea for many reasons, some of which you mentioned. But people who want to push the world in the direction of more environmentally friendly sources of energy are directionally correct, even if some of them are unrealistic about the timeline.
ye the "comrades with the heart in the right place" who just "slightly err in assessment", they simply request us to fully suicide economically causing more destruction and human suffering than a nuclear war, but think of the biodiversity they would preserve, they aren't a threat.
btw they don't want nuclear and hydro
Luciom, do you understand that you are being called a fascist at least in part because of the rhetoric you employ? I explained this to you at the time of the "Sieg Heil" post months ago, actually, so I expect the answer is "yes", but would be good of you to confirm.
Trump also uses it for the media when they exercise their first amendment rights and cover his corruption, incompetence and all around poor performance.
Yep, when I expressed outage at that about 8 years ago, I was reliably assured by the likes of bahbah that he is just stupid and doesn't know what he's saying or he is just being quoted out of context or something something stop calling him a fascist.
If I'm running the Trump campaign, I think I'm pretty tempted to backtrack and agree the 2nd debate. Trump was so bad in the first one, expectations for him will be so low. I know he's the master of not meeting the lowest of expectations, but I;m not sure what else they can do.
The gas taxes are because Americans are allergic to paying higher taxes on gas consumption. I mean I don't mind paying more in CA and would pay even more if it was asked, but it's a political thing. Also once again I would point out it's just easier for you guys to pass stuff because of your parliamentary systems. Governments are installed only with a mandate. I would say that California is seeking to ban the sale of vehicles with tailpipe emissions by 2035, which is one of those crazy genocidal policies you complain about.
State M4A is a red herring. The vast majority of taxation comes at the federal level, and state taxes are some of the easiest ways to drive businesses out of your state. Hawaii already has a competitive disadvantage in the sense that they are a tiny state with not a lot of industry that mostly relies on tourism. However, they do have a really low rate for those without health insurance (private or public) at around 3.5% in 2022.
The feasibility of state M4A has a lot of challenges. First of all, many of the healthcare programs within a given state are subsidized by the federal government through ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. In order to get the full benefit of those grants and appropriations, you have to follow certain guidelines. Another barrier to implementation is employer healthcare, which is generally exempt from state control if the benefits are self-funded. It would require some kind of tax to redirect those funds into a medicare for all style system.
My preferred method for universal coverage would be a public option that becomes mandatory for those that are uninsured, which can have means testing for exemptions of payment.
Also I feel you're conflating universal healthcare with a medicare for all style system. Medicare for all has never had the backing of the federal democratic party. It had been a popular policy of Bernie Sanders that something like 30-50% of the party at one point supported. So in that sense you have no idea what you're talking about. Nobody is lying by saying they support a policy that isn't supported by the majority of the party. They just support a policy that is not popular.
So in conclusion there isn't a medicare for all system at the state level due to feasibility of losing access to federal funds as well as employer-funded health insurance programs. In order to make it feasible there would have to be some kind of federal legislation, which is not widely supported. That doesn't mean that democrats don't support universal healthcare, it will just have to be done at the federal level.
Lastly, I just want to point out that there has been a shift to the left in the party since Obama, and Obama only left office 8 years ago (although it feels like an eternity). It will take some time for the Democrats to actually implement the policies they want to, and they will need the support of the people which they might not have. It remains to be seen.
You want to arrest people Stalinist-style for wanting to protect the climate? And we're the authoritarians? lol You're a parody of yourself.
Speaking of domestic threats.
Over 700 high-ranking national security officials endorse Harris
https://www.nsl4a.org/nsl4a-announcement...
Do you think even one would endorse Trump?
Substitute medicare for all with whatever you want to do to cover the uninsured of you think it's so important.
Just insure them at taxpayers expenses right? If you wanted you could do it at the state level everywhere you govern.
I am not sure why you think it's easier to pass that in Italy than in California, because of the parlamentarian system.
Democrats have super majorities in the legislature, they always have the governor, they can pass anything they want that doesn't violate the state and federal constitutions, and every time they don't they are telling you what they actually believe in.
Every resident of every state governed by a democrat trifecta could have health insurance, and they don't exclusively because the democrats don't want to cover them with local taxpayers money.
Every state could have European level gasoline taxes, they don't because residents wouldn't agree with paying so much "for the climate" ("or "because of Pigou").
So,you aren't (yet?) facing anything of the sort of what we face around here, which is why you don't understand the severity of the situation here nor you believe the slope is absurdly dangerous.
Maybe the USA won't ever shift to the left to reach where we are today in Europe, but point is, if it does, it's a tragedy of epic proportions.
Which is why every move to the left however small should be fought with full strength the endgame if they actually win is too horrible to even contemplate.
They aren't "directionally right", their direction is horror
Man they are being arrested already for blocking infrastructure and so on.
I want those associations whose members block roads, airports, bridges and so on to be labeled terrorist organizations, and longer jail sentences and criminal responsibility for donors and organizers and fund raisers and so on as well, as it is NORMAL for terrorist organizations.
They are already committing politically motivated serious crimes against society at large, that is political terrorism.
Let's start from that which shouldn't be controversial