rollin' on dubs
A look at the current mess shows that many Democratic mayors rolled over and let the police unions carry on - they are the reason there are few, if any review boards or outside discipline.
The GOP let the War on Drugs and The War On Terror go to their heads. All too often it was a "you are either a patriot or pro-terrorist" - as the TSA was frisking nuns and children. Conservatives have been calling for reform and an end to the 1033 program for years. But get blocked by the GOP higher ups every time.
Both parties are silent on civil asset forfeiture, both tend to look the other way when police brutality is brought up.
So I'm not feeling confident that either party can manage COVID-19. The Democrats want to give away the store and like us locked down, the GOP thinks that masks are tyranny as cases creep up.
It's not the mid-tier party members that are the problem, once you get to the Federal level, a lot of the GOP has this dry rot that makes for crigney moments.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....Also, the goal of the protests seems ill-defined to me. If they want "justice for George Floyd", well, Floyd's murderer is in jail waiting for the trial, it's not like he was let go freely. If they want to do away with "white privilege", "white privilege" is not on the institutional level (Jim Crow laws have been eliminated more than half a century ago), it's more on the level of "public sentiment" - and lootings and burnings of properties (with some of those properties belonging to black people) surely don't help to change this sentiment for the better.
It seems like we're in a state of everything being turned into a political issue, no matter what the issue is. I understand why people don't want to be forced to wear masks or put on lockdown, but I also understand COVID is a very serious issue, and it's not like there isn't precedent on shutting down a bit when it comes to pandemics.
That being said, I can't login to Facebook without seeing 50 posts about how brave people are to post jingoistic patriotic nonsense, and another 50 posts declaring everyone is to the right of exactly wherever that person who's posting happens to lie on the political spectrum is a hateful, fascistic scumbag deserving of the most horrible fate. I just want to see what my family and old friends are up to. That's it.
It's why I've consistently voted Libertarian since I turned 18. I'm tired of the Red Team v. Blue Team vile. I don't watch news anymore, I don't read major news publications, I get my political commentary from a comedian who hosts a podcast because it's the only one I can trust to not hate everyone and everything. Plus I get a few laughs out of it too. It's just exhausting.
"Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows." - Edward SnowdenThe way masks have been turned into litmus test for morality makes me want to howl.
Masks + social distancing + hand sanitizer are smart and prudent and decrease your chance of getting Covid 19.
However, masks are not the sacred object a lot of people think they are. In the hospital, the mask is thrown away after each patient encounter if it’s the patient who is sick (or at least they were before the shortage). Some hospitals require staff who decline the flu shot to wear a mask when on duty. In this case, don’t have to change between each patient, but only if it gets wet or visibly soiled.
But it makes me uneasy to hear people equate non-mask wearing with murder.
Move confidently in the direction of your dreams.
rollin' on dubs
As someone who goes to sites like Imgur or Reddit as a refuge from politics - it sickens me to see endless political posts.
At least I can turn down or block them on Facebook - I had to "snooze" a friend from highschool because I just can't take another "ORANGE MAN BAD" post. Asshole didn't vote in the last election so I don't want to hear it.
But when I go to other sites, I just wanna see content that isn't politics.
But no, even wikipedia has natter and vandalism (thankfully they caught it).
Edited by TairaMai on Jul 21st 2020 at 6:40:23 PM
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....It's really sad, because I enjoy discussing politics, I just don't enjoy arguing. I like to hear people our and explain why they thing X, Y or Z is a good policy, and then offer a polite rebuttal but that's almost impossible now without it being seen as "An In-Depth Analysis of Why Serenity 92 is a Person Without Morals: an Essay."
"Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows." - Edward Snowden
rollin' on dubs
"Or Why Taira Mai is a GOP/NeoCon alt-right thug", when all I did was say that "universal healthcare" isn't possible and I liked to Reason.com. Teh Horror!
I was in school at a time when teachers told us to look at opposing view points. I even brought my Dad's copy of Rush Limbaugh's "The Way Things Ought To Be" so she could read it - this was done after a discussion in Creative Writing.
I didn't get sent to the principal's office, the school didn't call my parents nor was the book taken from me.
That shit wouldn't fly today - I'd be in the principal's office and suspended for some -ism or another.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....Yeah I took a U.S. Government class in high school and since it was a non-election year at the federal level, but the gubernatorial primaries were gearing up, we were encouraged to research every candidate running, in every party. That was when I discovered the Libertarian Party and thought, "hmm... maybe there's a party that more closely fits me than the Republicans. Interesting."
With regards to universal healthcare, I feel a voucher system, such as the one in Singapore would scale best to a country with the population size of the US, but it'd be hard to sell to either major party, especially the Democratic Party since it's still run through a free market and allows for insurance companies to operate and compete, even though it still provides everyone with coverage of some sort or another.
"Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows." - Edward SnowdenYeah, politics is omnipresent. Can't go anywhere without hearing it.
I understand where anti-lockdown protestors are coming from, as people such as myself have been out of work for months. I think most people were on board with the lockdowns when they began and were expecting it to be more than a couple of weeks at most, but it's been months. I get the concern about feeding families and paying bills.
Not just Chuck E Cheese, but AMC too! That's something I've missed during this whole lockdown is going to the movies. And now I have to wait until at least September for TENET and I've been excited for that movie for a long time. There's only so many times I can rewatch Disney/Pixar movies with my 1-year-old.
And also to mention the companies that are only staying afloat because they cut employee hours and have managers volunteering to work without pay to keep some employees on the payroll when they otherwise wouldn't have been able to. And now I have to get yelled at for enforcing company and county policy by telling people they need to wear a mask in the hotel lobby.
I swear, in the last 4 years, the amount of people who have slung "I bet you voted for [insert whoever the person yelling didn't vote for here] didn't you?" as an insult is ridiculous. And they're always wrong too!
"Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows." - Edward SnowdenI feel you may be right on that, and the politics of it is just going to worm its way into most everything. I'm hoping to return to university either next spring or fall and the entirety of my continued education is going to be dictated by the policy decisions made going forward in regards to COVID.
"Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows." - Edward SnowdenDefinitely true. Had to take up a second job with Amazon at a warehouse to help make ends meet. Ech! I hate every second I'm there. The only upside is I get to listen to podcasts all night, but I'm slowly draining my backlog.
This whole situation is complete nonsense, and now it's just Trump trying his damnedest to look as good as possible, and everyone rightfully attacking his horrible handling of the whole fiasco, and then using that justified criticism to shame anyone who isn't on their team. Which then causes the other side to double down on their support of Trump which causes a feedback loop to the other side. And now I have a headache.
"Sometimes the scandal is not what law was broken, but what the law allows." - Edward SnowdenDo y'all have an ideal form of government?
I'm biased towards the American system, but it seems a lot of people have lost faith in it and have been calling for electoral reform.
I also really like the Swiss system.
I guess I don't really care that much as long as it respects basic rights and values.
rollin' on dubs
People - mostly those who either are upset their pet causes didn't make it through - are upset at the American system every decade. Either Time or Newsweek ran an editorial asking "Is Government Dead?"
Having the three branches at odds with each other has proven stable over time. As long as each branch has to be accountable to someone, things aren't too bad.
Every "solution" is really just some "expert" (Youtube Government Expert? Armchair Legislator? Are those tropes?) bitchin' and moanin' that they didn't get their way.
Honestly, it's the two parties - I think that one or both of them needs to die and new parties take their place.
As to an Ideal Govenment[tm] - there isn't one. Like those perfectly spherical chickens, friction-less pulleys and mass-less ropes in my physics textbook, an Ideal Government is a fiction.
The real world is always messy.
A conservative knows that government, like fire, is a powerful servant but a fearful master.
I tried to walk like an Egyptian and now I need to see a Cairo practor....

I'm disillusioned with both parties because they blame each other for bullshit instead of working together to solve problems when a pandemic isn't happening.
The legend has returned.