Yeah, their budget is now 90% secret police activities, and only 10% the kinds of things that are actually important… like interfacing with INTERPOL, and acting as a barrier to arms dealing and human trafficking.

Since we can’t abolish something 90%, we need to assign those duties to another organization, until ICE is left with nothing except evil/redundant duties, and THEN abolish it.

It’s literally from a Chick Tract. It’s an ancient meme… circulating for the past 10 years or so.

KYM

Whether the person posting it is right or wrong, it’s not really an endorsement of religion. It’s like “scapegoat”, or “omg”.

Apes of the Nation.

You probably live in a blue area. (Most people live in a blue area.) The actual situation is that we’ve polarized. People around you, in the blue area, have moved left. People elsewhere, in the red areas, have moved right.

Pew Research for some graphics.

In certain ways, this has been a victory for civil liberties. Gay people from small towns can move to a place where they might have entire neighborhoods of likeminded people. Trans people from small towns can move to a place where they won’t be shot on sight. Hell, someone in NYC who suddenly finds Jesus can go to a smaller town where no one will make fun of them for proselytizing AND they can hang out with likeminded people AND they get cheaper rent.

But it’s also more dangerous than it has ever been to be an immigrant. Wealth inequality has been rising. Increases in wages has been vastly outpaced by increases in the cost of housing and healthcare, and combined with inflation, we’re making more units of USD, sure, but we aren’t able to sustain any better a quality of life. Corporate Taxes were increased for small companies, and cut for large companies.

Depending on whether you’re more focused on the kinds of people living around you, or on the wide-reaching systemic changes that have been taking place, you’re going to notice different things. The really really important stuff that has shifted to the right is kind of boring, so you wouldn’t have seen much reporting on it.

I third Linux mint.

Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.

What if head government positions in general are attractive to corrupt, power hungry dictators?

The Weimar Republic wasn’t communist, and it got a corrupt, power hungry dictator.

The United States isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.

Israel isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.

I wonder if maybe there are other factors in play that you aren’t considering.

always

Always? Are you sure? Let’s say there’s a corrupt, power hungry person looking for a government spot. How would communism make it easier for the person to get into power, than in a capitalist system?

For jalapeños and other peppers, the pithy center is where most of the pungency comes from. It’s also more bitter than the rest of the pepper. If you chop into quarters lengthwise, it’s easy to cut the seeds and pith away from the flesh. You’re the left with a milder, sweeter result.

… in case you’re in an experimental mood.

shit like onions and actually use some real fucking spices from India and Mexico

… but… India eats a lot of onions… because as great as the spices are, onions are also great. You can have both. You should have both.

I don’t want a one-time, 5% wealth tax. I want a recurring wealth tax. At 0.5%, such a tax outpaces the one time 5% in ten years.

I would settle for one time 5%… but it’s just so short-sighted. 5% in one sudden movement is actually a big ask… and are we actually going to be able to pull that off more than once?

A recurring wealth tax 1) is better in the long-term, 2) is less disruptive to the stock market (which we should care about, as long as this is the sustem we have) 3) makes for a more predictable economic environment, so people with money might actually still want to live in CA.

They included the Spotify logo. It’s just <insert song here> rather than labelling the picture as “Fortunate Sons”.

It’s okay to say you don’t know the answer but one is obviously not the right one. Not everything can be known.

To be clear, I’m not asking you to provide a “correct” solution because I don’t know. YOU said someone was “intentionally failing to acknowledge [your] point about her “solution” being wrong.”

You don’t actually have a solution, and for you to pile blame onto someone who is already subjugated by a cruel government is just doubling the cruelty.

But if I were that involved…

That’s easy to say when we’re talking about one specific person in one specific high profile case. How many times do you think this kind of thing has happened since 2022?

How about this… instead of patting yourself on the back for “would’ve done the right thing,” when you already did nothing… you just… keep doing and saying nothing? Because you want these restrictive laws to be changed, right? You want this problem to have never been an option because she was able to just go to a doctor first, right?

Saying and doing nothing is more helpful for making that change, than you entering this conversation by blaming the victim of bad policy.

… Let’s unpack this.

1. Person points out this is just another case of wealthy and powerful people stirring up trouble between two groups of people. This is easy because people are easy to trick. If the headline is to be believed, even AOC, who isn’t stupid, believes boomers are the source of the problem.

2. You point out that, based on the people you know, there’s a conflict between boomers and millennials.

but… that’s not proof that the source of the problem actually IS either group. It’s still the case that this conflict is caused by a third group of people who have a vested interest in making sure the poors fight each other.

We all agree what got here there. No need to repeat that.

I disagree. I think it’s worth repeating that the STATE failed. I think it’s worth repeating that I hold the STATE to a higher degree of scrutiny than I hold a desperate teenager. The reason I think this should be repeated is that some people only understand policy in terms of rational people making rational decisions, when that describes absolutely no one who has ever lived.

The policy is bad, in part, because it will cause people to make mistakes.

The correct solution would have been pretty much anything that…

I don’t need every solution to be listed. I just want one specific solution that you think is the/a correct solution.

What would a correct solution have looked like, in your opinion?

My opinion is: this should have been a decision involving a doctor, but the state made that impossible. Whether she made a bad decision or not, the state failed first, and I, personally, hold the failure of the state to a higher level of scrutiny than the failure of a pregnant teenager.