Sen. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, sponsored the legislation in the Florida Senate. Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, sponsored the House version of the bill and said it brings “parity” among elected officials.
Also sponsored by Republicans, voted for by a state Congress with a Republican super majority, I’d love to know what the catch is, but it’s definitely a law that should be everywhere, public servants should always have transparency to prevent corruption and as the sponsor said “bring parity” to local elections.
The law, for example, requires listing off every single asset you own that’s worth more than a thousand dollars. And punishment for errors is jailtime.
Absolutely obscene. Just thinking about my average apartment that would include 5 desktops, 2 phones, 2 tvs, couch, sundry jewelry, etc. Plus cars and other big ticket items. And I really don't have a lot of stuff outside my computer hobby. I'm almost certainly missing quite a few things, as well.
The law was written to specifically target city level officials (who are often Democrats) and includes jail time for any errors found during an audit.
The law specifically does not apply to state level officials (who are almost all Republican).
So it is an open question if depreciation is considered at all, because this law is not a Transparency Law, it's a "Punish Democrats we don't like with Jail" law.
Is that actually average in the US? I own not a single thing worth more than $1000 and I do have a job. I’m not trying to make a point or anything, just interesting to think how much people have.
Many computers are going to be more than $1k, especially when talking about laptops that aren’t shit hardware. Gaming desktops can easily move into the $3k tier now for high end systems, not even including other expensive components like gaming monitors which can be over $1k by themselves.
Then there’s large quality TVs and home theater projectors. While a large TV can be purchased for fairly cheap now, there’s a big difference in image quality and capability between a $500 TV and the $4k one sitting next to it even through they’re the same size. TV technology has a pretty wide range now, it’s no longer a simple question of resolution, size and maybe a couple simple panel categories like LCD or Plasma.
And for whatever reason flagship phones are in that range now as well. A new iPhone 15 Pro is $999, the 15 Pro Max is $1199. The Samsung Galaxy S23 and 23+ launched at the same price points. For the base capacity, without any upgrades.
That’s why I love my thriftiness! I have a gaming PC, not the nicest but it can run any modern games well enough at 1080p/60fps, it might be worth around 1000 but I’ve upgraded it slowly over years. I have no TV, I bike to work, I got my phone for 300 in 2019 and it still works great.
I looked into upgrading my phone recently, I can’t even find a phone that has better hardware that I would want for a reasonable price, the only major improvement would be the camera, all other stats on mine are just as good or better than comparable new phones.
I live in Florida too, just didn’t see what the catch was in this one instance, but I’ve been paying attention to the Monique Worrell fuckery that DeSantis pulled to get her out of office over her political affiliation. There’s been a whole lot of stupidly specific legislation to gain the Republicans meaningless or homophobic/racist political clout, my own in the closet state rep sponsored the anti-Drag show bill, while his wife hosts an event where pageant kids get sexualized. Overall the GOP are trying govern via legislation while doing all kinds of corrupt and inhumane shit like participating in sending migrants all over the country with our tax dollars, yet next election these idiots will keep them in office while they continue to not improve the state for anyone but the rich, white, and Christian.
Who Must File Form 6: All persons holding the following positions: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Cabinet members, members of the Legislature, State Attorneys, Public Defenders, Clerks of Circuit Courts, Sheriffs, Tax Collectors, Property Appraisers, Supervisors of Elections, County Commissioners, elected Superintendents of Schools, members of District School Boards, Mayor and members of the Jacksonville City Council, Judges of Compensation Claims; the Duval County Superintendent of Schools, and members of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation Board, each expressway authority, transportation authority (except the Jacksonville Transportation Authority), bridge authority, toll authority, or expressway agency created pursuant to Chapter 348 or 343, F.S., or any other general law, and judges, as required by Canon 6, Code of Judicial Conduct.
Of all my younger siblings/cousins/etc, the only ones with kids were accidents. Only I chose to purposely start a family, and that took me a decade of saving.
Choosing to not have children is becoming more and more accepted among younger people for a long variety of reasons, among them being climate and economy as well as “not going to ruin my body” and “well i just dont like children”
You pretty much nailed the entire reason for most of my friends and myself (mid to late 20s). We can all afford kids, but it’s just not something anyone desires except for one or two people in our group of 14.
Most of us don’t even dislike kids, but the thought of having our own is undesirable.
I feel the same way, but had already had my children at 21 & 23 before I got the chance to understand the options. I love them and don’t regret my choices, but I would have certainly had a life with different focuses.
I struggle to understand how people can get over how terrifying and unpleasant having children is. Kids can be okay, except when they aren’t, and that’s often.
That is simply not true. Kids can teach you many things about yourself that you never knew you cared about. They open a part of this life you would never see otherwise. They are this thing that loves you no matter what and if you are a good parent you do not take that for granted and give it all you got.
I didn’t want any for many years for all the same reasons as many here. And it changed. And it’s great, for me. But if you choose not to or have doubts, don’t. It’s horrible for the kid.
Another thing that can happen is you can grow up able to see clearly that you’re an obligation for your parents they didn’t want. You feel like they’re always angry with you even if you’re perfectly behaved. Then they tell you they gave up their entire life for you, clearly bitter and regretting that.
There is a non zero chance I could make my kids feel this awful for existing, and that already would be a non starter. But on top of that there’s like 14 other reasons.
I’m not sure what you’re protesting about what I wrote. I didn’t attack you. I just don’t understand how people ignore all the anxiety they will certainly have with kids in addition to all the other additional anxiety if anything about the kid goes especially wrong.
Well this comment at least tells us something about how you might have felt when younger. I did not always see eye to eye with my parents but in the end, I felt like they loved me and the amount of happiness I experienced as a kid is almost immeasurable. I’m on team #nokids, but for a lot of people, the love they can experience through children is unique and powerful, and understanding that is not that much of a struggle for me.
My comment mentioned nothing about the positive sides to kids. They obviously exist. The point I was making is I am surprised so many people opt into the most anxiety I think you probably can opt into.
Fortunately we’ve had millions of years to evolve coping mechanisms for whatever anxieties we may feel as parents. Given that reproduction is key to life, you probably shouldn’t be as surprised as you are.
For millions of years we didn’t have birth control. We do now and that for sure is a huge factor. No one here is mad at you for having kids. I mean, if you don’t understand how some people find it scary that a small mistake equals a dead child , okay… I’m just on the opposite side of that feeling.
That’s the thing, having kids is a unique experience just like not having kids is a unique experience. Being an individual is fundamentally a unique experience. Yet this whole conversation gets wrapped up in normative language like this which clearly expresses social preference for the former.
When I hear someone say that having children changed them in a profound way, I don’t hear anything other than “climbing a mountain is profound” or “laying on the couch all day is profound.” There is uniqueness and profound cumulative existence baked into to every heartbeat, but apparently a lot of people have trouble with this simple idea.
Biology is bullshit. It’s not an excuse. It’s like saying segregation and greed are biology. Like rape and murder are. Negative things exist in our biology and creating other humans for one’s need to get high off of them is one of them i assure you will be widely recognized within the next decade.
You’re an idiot. There is no one creating other humans for a “asoteric high”. You’re own ego is your biggest flaw. Even if, you could convince someone to touch you without money exchanging you can’t prove with any certainty what the other party is thinking or motivated by. And even assuming so shows how stupid you are.
Shut up when you talk about things you don’t understand little boy.
It’s because your brain gets flooded with parenting hormones which give you superhuman delusion tolerance for the first few years. That’s why I’m always skeptical when people are like “it’s hard but I can’t describe how wonderful it is!”
Sure Ryan, that’s totally not just the brain worms talking, I’ll stick with dogs for my nurturing serotonin and I refuse to feel bad about it.
You shouldn’t feel bad about it. Do what you think is right for yourself. On the other hand, you should recognize that you have no idea what being a parent is actually like, which in a sense means that you don’t actually know what you are talking about. It’s life-changing and unlike any imagining.
It’s a life-changing experience that is unlike any imagining. I am a much better person for having had a kid. That said, I never found it even remotely terrifying or unpleasant, which is just to say that it’s definitely not for everyone.
I never found it even remotely terrifying or unpleasant,
That is absolutely baffling to me. I mean changing the first diaper alone would kill both those “Nevers” for me. Then I would imagine 20 times every day for at least 10 years there would be those feelings. Then when they drive. Then go to college. I mean do you ever worry about anything at all?
Two wrongs doesn’t make a right. Then again I have no problem polluting and using up 2 hours of shower water and take tons of baths because others who never cared are doing it. So if you’re being selfish, sure, go ahead.
Neither, really. More like are choosing not to go into child debt. Having a kid costs more than having a house. Good for this generation for taking control of their reproductive decisions.
Heliophysicst here. This is not true. The flare that hit Earth on December 14th was an X-2.6 flare. While this is a large flare and the largest of the current solar maximum, it is nowhere near the largest ever recorded. The largest was on November 4th, 2003 (referred to as part of the Halloween storms), which was so strong it actually saturated the detectors. It was measured at an X-28, which is more than two orders of magnitude larger than Thursdays, but was estimated to be much larger than that.
Good question! Scientists have estimated the solar flare that occurred prior to the Carrington event might have at around an X-45 (Elvidge et al, 2018). I believe that this was the first flare ever recorded, but as you mentioned, we obviously we didn’t have modern detectors back then for measurement.
I recall the Halloween ones. I was out with my brother and friends walking around on a spooky wooded sled hill out in rural Michigan and we had full on red auroras. Very uncommon to see them at all in that region, and when we did they were faint green or white at best.
Hey I have a solar flare/CME question that I have always wanted to know. What is the largest flare possible? And what would happen if the earth caught the full force of it? I have read about the Carrington Event and I assume that it would be worse than that.
How close would the flare come to earth? As in the light/plasmas emissions. Opposed to the partial emissions or is that a dumb distinction.
The theoretical limit for a solar flare is very high. These are called super flares. However, they are exceptionally rare and tend to occur in younger, larger stars than our sun. That said, it isn’t impossible for one to occur, and if a massive flare were to occur, the flare wouldn’t be the worst part. Simply put, a solar flare is magnetic energy being launched from the surface of the sun in the form of photons or particles of light. While this would create radio blackouts, satellite drag, and phenomenal aurora, it wouldn’t have a significant impact on Earth’s surface (except for the satellite issues). The real danger is the coronal mass ejection that would follow. A coronal mass ejection is protons, neutrons, alpha particles, and electrons being launched at insane speeds off the Sun’s surface. Because these particles are charged, they can impact our electric grid. And in an extreme case could, in theory, destroy it through massive electrical ground level enhancements. These enhancements would primary occur at higher latitudes because the charged particles would follow Earth’s magnetic field lines toward the poles, but could easily disrupt electric grids northward/southward of 30 degrees. That would mean most of Europe, America, much of Asia, Australia, half of South America and Africa all without power. Obvious chaos would ensue. The good news is governments are aware of this risk and have begun taking preventive mechanisms to prevent such a catastrophic failure. The other piece of good news is this type of event is very rare. The likelihood of it happening in anyone’s given lifetime is extremely low.
Every Ohioan needs to contact their representative and explain that we voted on what we wanted including where the taxes go
I already contacted mine. And yes, it’s passed the senate, contact them anyway, make sure they understand you don’t want the cops getting money, you don’t want this to go to building new fucking jails (like seriously wtf), we specified 12 plants per household, and we voted to treat it like alcohol so it’s really fucked up that they’re trying to ban sharing a bowl between adults or picking up some bud for your buds.
We did that with the voting maps and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled the maps illegal, they ignored the Ohio Supreme Court and did as they please anyway.
Lawsuits have no power with the current administration here.
You mean the majority republican USSC that has already done some pretty insanely right-wing things like get rid of well established Roe v. Wade ruling on behalf of their party???
I’ve emailed my representative, Darrell Kick, twice now. Once before Wednesday’s vote and again yesterday while the house was discussing further changes to issue 2.
The onslaught of emails they received the first time is the whole reason why they started panicking and couldn’t get anything passed on Wednesday.
It worked, and I also highly suggest everyone do the same.
But please write your own email, hundreds of identical emails won’t send the same message as hundreds of unique voices all saying similar things.
Shouldn’t people who need medical cannabis be able to get their prescription reliably? It kinda seems like there’s a real risk of recreational users gobbling up their supply, leaving them without treatment for whatever they’re going through.
There have been issues briefly in other states of a shortage of supply after starting a rec program, caused by regulatory restrictions of course in the face of booming demand. After that, though, the issue has I overwhelmingly been an excess on the market… California, Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma.
The biggest issue in most states with legal recreational weed is excess supply tanking the market. I understand the concern, but it’s unlikely to pose a significant challenge in the short term, and it’s possible to legislate that some quantity be set aside for medicinal purposes if need be in the long term.
Yeah exactly I love it and want that to stay and that’s something we left for them to decide.
I am however wondering if we need a constitutional amendment granting a grace period for ballot initiatives to prevent them from being altered or repealed by the legislature for X amount of time. If after the effects of legalization have settled something needs changed sure let the legislature change it, but they seriously think they have the right to preemptively change it. My wife suggests 5 years so they have to be re-elected first.
I had sex at 17 with an adult and have 0 regrets. It’s pretty normal. I think I would’ve had more regrets if I refrained from doing it because people like you think that’s what I should do, lol.
To put things into perspective and why it’s always good to talk specifics, I was 17 and she was 20. I guess she’s a shitty person who raped me and should be in prison, lol. We ended up being together for years, it was a great relationship :)
But I guess from your ‘logic’, if this occurred in a different jurisdiction (or if I had waited 2 months for my 18th birthday,) then she would be off the hook for any and all judgement.
It’s funny watching you people always pivot to the law as though every law is just and people are good based on how well they obey laws.
I frankly don’t care how your relationship turned out.
Okay. Then why should I care about your input on such relationships?
Legally, she raped you.
Legally, I don’t really care. Legally, smoking weed was against the law but I did it anyways. So is piracy. So is jaywalking.
You clearly only care about what is and isn’t illegal. In your mind, it’s okay to have sex with 14 year olds under the right jurisdiction. In my mind, it’s not okay even if the law says otherwise.
I’d say my experience is more the norm than an exception, at least for males. I’m glad I don’t let people like you influence me. I’d say that would be way more traumatizing, lol.
Don’t you dare put those words in my mouth. That’s not at all what I said.
Really? You seem to only care about what the law says. So you admit that it’s possible for the law to be incorrect about consent? Is it okay to have sex with 16 year olds if the law says so? At what point do you draw the line between what you find acceptable and what the law finds acceptable? Your entire argument in this entire thread chain has been “it’s illegal” when I’ve said time and time again I’m not referring to the law.
None of those involve other people’s consent and are all victimless crimes. Dear lord how are you this dense.
Yeah, me having sex at 17 with a 20 year old was a victimless crime. However, I think you’re delusional and patronizing enough to ignore this fact.
You know what’s traumatizing? Being raped. My years of therapy agree.
I mean, that applies to you. Not me. Why would I avoid having sex at 17 because of what happened to you? Lol.
It seems your letting your own experiences dictate what everyone else should experience. Hopefully with time you will come to realize that’s just not the world we live in. Everyone is different, and most people are cool with having sex at 17 even if it’s illegal.
I mean, having sex with people of certain ages is illegal for a reason so it doesn’t actually matter if she was “willing” if she was under the age of consent. Also, drugging a person removes their ability to make an informed decision to consent so again, even if she did agree to it, her consent wasn’t valid on that point either. In other words, she wasn’t capable of consenting so, ya know, rape.
It increases the overall supply, brings more resources and stability to the housing market. Corporations that specialize in house rental have a opportunity to view market data. All this combined benefits everybody.
Only if these corporations are actually required by regulation to make these houses available for rent, and at market-adequate rates. If a company is as cashed up as this one is likely to be, they’ll only rent to people who are willing to pay higher rents, and if there’s nobody who wants to rent a specific property, they’d rather leave it sitting vacant than lower the rent.
This isn’t hypothetical, it’s happening in practically every property market where wealthy investors are buying up housing stock.
Please humble yourself and acknowledge that maybe you’re not an expert on the subject after reading “the basics of…” book about it. Just a thought.
Keep in mind that there are people who have dedicated their careers/lives to studying this stuff. Don’t disregard rebuttals just because your “basics of economics” or whatever book didn’t get there yet.
The real world just doesn’t work that way. But maybe if you went beyond Econ 100 level shit (or honestly, not even), you would have learned that.
USA has roughly 15 million vacant homes currently. If this company manages to fill some of them with people, that means there’ll be fewer vacant homes. Obvious net benefit for all.
edit I guess you guys enjoy that there are homeless people then
No, free market never works, because all people cannot be experts on all subjects at all times.
Because of that, you end up with people dying as “collateral damage” while the free market “corrects itself.” Things like: “Well they should have done their research and known that brand of car has faulty brakes, and went to a different company instead, so it’s kind of their own fault.” Or, “this is just part of the process. Now everyone will know (lol right) that this company makes cars with faulty brakes and stop buying their products,” while completely ignoring that these are fucking people that are dying. That’s not ok.
And what if a company decides to hide things about their product from the public? What happens when that very product ends up giving people mesothelioma, but because that’s an illness that can take decades to manifest after exposure, there’s no clear causal link to the regular consumer. How does the free market correct that one? Or do we just let people suffer and die horrible deaths so that we can keep using the cheaper kind of insulation and save a few bucks?
Sorry but the loss of human lives is not ever acceptable “collateral damage”. Especially not when the loss is 100% unnecessary.
That’s not price regulation though, it’s more about quality control. I’m assuming there’s already laws in place that prevent glaringly faulty products from being sold (…unless the lobbyists start messing with stuff, but regulations wouldn’t really solve that either).
It was more about the “free market keeps prices low” argument. It does if we’re talking about easy-to-access markets, but it falls apart if the entry barrier is so high and the only parties can easily collude.
Do you know that real estate investment exists? A house is an asset, and unless the entire economy crashes (like in 2008), then owning homes (even if empty) will make you easy money. It’s an appreciating asset. I could be wrong, but I also believe it’s very good for laundering money.
Wealthier Chinese nationals have been doing this for years in the US and Canada (look at what Chinese real estate investment has done to the housing market in Vancouver, for example).
so, you think the reason that the homeless people don’t live in these homes is because… they wouldn’t be able to pay rich people money if they did?
how high do you have to be to make the statement “look I would love to not freeze to death, but only if I get to pay half my income to Amazon” seem reasonable?
They don’t know. Look at their comment above, the book they recommended to everyone was “the basics of economics” or something.
I really hope it’s a troll, because holy shit the narcissism it takes to read an Econ 100 level (if even that) book, and think you’re an expert on the subject. Wild.
And please explain the economic theory behind your post. We have history as far back as the start of capitalism. It shows your post to be completely out of touch with reality. If you have proof evidence or a functioning theory of why your post would lead to Las vacancies and more accessible housing for people, I am very interested in seeing it.
I’ve got a feeling though that you don’t have an adequate response or you would have posted it. So if you’re going to reply without a response, maybe all you need to do is post an apology…
So far they actually have nothing to say beyond “nuh uh you’re wrong”, which is effectively nothing at all. I’ve asked them to explain, we’ll see what we get.
A surplus of homes does not equal less homeless people. If their prices, either as rentals or for buying, is too high, it can actually increase the number of homeless people.
If there are 15 million vacant homes now, then a company made up of wealthy investors buying up heaps of them at the current inflated prices isn’t going to change anything. Those houses won’t become living spaces for poor and homeless people - they’ll sit vacant until someone comes along who’s willing to pay the exorbitant rent.
Kelsey Grammar has always been a bible bashing whack job.
Just go look up his late night interview where he talks about how he randomly opens the bible to answer the question ‘how long will I live for?’ And is satisfied that god answers him by saying he will live to 160 (or some other ridiculous figure I can’t remember).
Seriously he thinks the bible is a magic eight ball and god is guiding what page it turns to.
It’s important to remember that they don’t believe this stuff because they are simply stupid, but they have a confirmation bias that many reasonable people would fall victim to.
When you are successful and have the weird version of modesty where you are uncomfortable taking credit for your own work but somehow believe you are a personal beneficiary of “God’s Plan,” your faith will skyrocket.
If you really believe in God and believe you are blessed, you’d be an asshole not praise them loudly and publicly.
I’m an atheist myself, but I don’t think Christians who act this way are being crazy so much as consistent with their beliefs.
I seem to remember that you’re fairly explicitly not supposed to use it like that. Because it’s akin to fortune telling or something which is supposed to be bad under the Bible, a broken clock and all that.
No it is totally valid, people use fortune cookies the same way, if you look for these synchronicities you can have some weird predictions of the future or get a general Vibe for the way things are going. You aren’t supposed to take it too literally though.
I wonder if she wanted to kill someone’s because she was into true crime, or if she got into true crime because she already on some level wanted to kill someone. The latter is my guess.
It said that she scored high on their psychopathy assessment. She would have been a psychopath prior to the podcast if the assessment is valid, unless of course, she coincidentally also had some sort of accident that caused brain damage after the podcasts.
After the teacher let her in, she attacked the woman, stabbing her more than 100 times - continuing the frenzied attack even after the victim had died.
I’ve read the famous lottery post enough times to know the major bullet points to follow after winning (not that I’ll ever win, because I don’t play the lottery):
Don’t tell anyone.
Go to your nearest big city and hire a partnered lawyer in trust & estates from one of the big national law firms. Look them up on martindale.com, apparently.
Decide how you want to split your winnings and have your new lawyer handle the distribution.
Yada yada, typical personal finance investing advice (good to follow even without a lottery).
Pretty sure the math works out on even dumping the lump in a jumbo savings and giving you better dividends than the lifetime payment plan. You can obviously way outperform that with extremely stable index funds and other safe investments. You do you though
Getting a lump sum of $500m will forever alter your life for the better in the same way as receiving it over 30 years. You will have financial security for the rest of your life in either situation. Its better to receive it all in one lump sum and investing a larger portion now for bigger returns later rather than investing a sum yearly for returns you may not ever see
Are there any reports regarding 9+ figure winnings? Because I’ve definitely heard and read of 1-2 million dollar winners going broke quite quickly, but a billion dollars is an absolutely monstrous amount of money that I would struggle to spend entirely on purpose.
I briefly worked at a convienice store that sold lotto tickets, and people should be aware that the default is the smaller lump sum. The operators have to change a couple things when they get the ticket made.
However most people do a random “quick pick” over filling out the associated forms to select individual numbers, pay out type, etc.
That being said, mathematically if you do win, and take the lump sum and invest it positively, it can out “earn” the staggered payments, resulting in more money.
However, the mathematically inclined rarely play lottery type games, I mean they give you the odds on the ticket.
You’re more likely to be hit by lightning on a clear day than winning the jackpot.
But hey, a couple bucks, some wishful thinking, and its cheap entertainment for a short while imagining what to do with the winnings.
I realize the odds are totally stacked against me, but when it gets to 1b I’ll buy a ticket, just on the off chance, lol.
In this case, I assume he was attempting to follow that advice except he had to tell the mother of his child for child support reasons. He did have her sign an NDA, she’s the one who told.
If you trust a lawyer (I’d trust a lawyer with a contract far more than I’d trust family with a million dollar ticket,) you can create an llc and have them claim it on your behalf. The name of the llc is what then gets published.
You can then distribute the winnings out of that LLC into one or more that then holds the cash or, holds the big assets (like a house).
This is particularly useful for inheritances and such like. Because the contents of that llc are secret to only the people managing it in trust and the owner, there’s less ability to fight over it.
Also maintain physical control of the ticket, maybe consider a bank safety deposit box. And if privacy is a concern create an LLC to claim it under, since many (most) states require public disclosure of who wins (possibly including the news broadcast with a Big Check. If you trust them you’re new best friend- the asset protection lawyer you got referred to by the afore mentioned estate lawyer can claim it on the llc’s behalf.)
If you like the ideas of the Green Party, vote for them at the local level. The fact that they don’t seem to want to govern at the local level is enough for me to ignore them as an option.
Gayle McLaughlin used to be the Green Party’s best example of what they could do at the local level, until she left in 2016 to vote for Bernie Sanders. I’m fairly certain she is the outlier.
Right. I do believe that many members of the Green Party are good political options. It’s just they as a party don’t rally around them. They only seem to push for the presidency. I don’t see how they can hope to accomplish anything when they seem to shoot for the moon every four years, and only manage to spoil things.
Until I start seeing good options on the ballots from the Greens, I will just continue to hope the progressives win the dem. primaries for my local seats.
Politics NEVER changes from the top down. You don't elect some absolute newcomer who circumvents all the normal paths and then completely revolutionizes the country. (At least not in a stable, functioning society.) Politics in the US happens from the ground up. Not top down.
If any third party was serious about changing society, they would start at the local level. Then, after proving that they can enact meaningful change and bridge the divide between the huge political span that Americans hold, they would sweep their state elections and federal elections.
All of these pie-in-the-sky parties who think that they will win the presidency and then somehow enact society-changing legislation (_the president doesn't make laws!!!_) are either fools or charlatans.
They only run in a handful of local races. I’ve lived in both a red state and a blue state- Indiana and California- in multiple districts and I have never once seen a green party candidate on the local level.
That is literally my point. Ignore them until they seem to want governance as opposed to only seeing them in national headlines tilting at windmills. It’s worthless.
If you like Stein’s platform, voting for Stein will decrease the likelihood of you ever seeing such a policy implemented. If, say, a state rep. runs on a Green platform, they would likely get my vote.
Cool. I really hate the English use of “you” when “one” is really the word one wants. But when one uses “one” as opposed to “you”, one sounds crazy.
I honestly think a lot of online defensiveness arises from this construction.
I’m saying, it sounds like I’m saying “you need to do blah cuz you’re wrong about blah”, when I would prefer it to be read as reiterating my earlier point of “if one wants to see Green policies enacted, one would do well to ignore Jill Stein.”
I’m a voter, my friend. I can complain about a party all damn day. If you think that a political party is going get a dime from me before they can even convince me to vote for them, you have strange spending habits.
It’s not that I don’t care about local politics. You sending a link that’s relevant to other people’s local politics is completely irrelevant to me. Until the GP option is common on local ballots, not just 5 featured ones, I do not want hear about a presidential run.
By the way, I do commemorate you on your outreach and activism. You’re getting shit on in this thread, and you’re still politely getting your links out. Good work.
This was the goal the whole time. Probirth people don’t give two shits about babies and children. Expect sexual violence against children and women in that town to sky rocket. Expect the poverty rate to increase as well. Except infant and pregnancy deaths to go up as well.
I would imagine their goal was to enforce their moral code on everyone, regardless of the reality of life. This is the result. I do agree that Republicans don’t give two shits about children or women who they don’t have emotional investment in. This is a “major issue” they can say they made progress on, since they can’t claim they did anything else.
That’s a part of it. But ensuring a poor, unhealthy, uneducated, and subservient population is the main goal. Moral codes are just a shield to hide behind as those making these rules are the most corrupt and immoral people in the world. They know emancipation of the working people is the end of suffering and the end of their (white wealthy men) control.
Yeah abortion was considered a weird Catholic issue in Christianity until the religious right was looking for a new bogeyman after their opposition to desegregating private schools became a losing issue.
I have doubts the actual seated Republicans have the brains to have that as a goal. I can believe those politicians have fanatic beliefs and the ends justify the means ideology. I am of the opinion that the think tanks, who they get their talking points and directions from, are pursuing the goals you stated in order to keep power.
Walkability has plummeted. It’s too dangerous for me to even walk from my house to the gas station about a mile away because there are no sidewalks and cars come hurtling down the road I would have to walk down.
I live in a small city/large town now. I used to live in L.A. and, unlike a lot of people, I walked all the time. And took the trains. I miss being able to walk to the supermarket or down to the donut shop for breakfast and coffee.
The town I grew up in was very walkable, and I’d like to move back there one day if housing ever gets cheaper, but until then I’m stuck in this town where they want us all to drive everywhere.
Yeah basically the country was blowing up in birth rates and suburban expansion post WW2 at the same time the car was becoming a big thing and people were able to afford them. So auto companies lobbied and campaigned heavily to make everything very car-centric in the US and now this is the result. It really fucking sucks.
Also doesn't help that the country is so damn big, but that's a poor excuse for the lack of proper transit at the metro area level.
I’d say it’s more the influence of the industrialist class and the oil barons tbh.
Like for example, modern medicine is also extremely based on petroleum and it’s extremely dependent on the oil industry. This is a manufactured end caused by the oil barons (you can google “How Big Oil Conquered The World James Corbett” for more details).
But for transport, the early automobile corporations literally bought the streetcars in all the major cities and just dismantled them. They lobbied to stop existing subway projects, and all future projects that came to be for rail etc. For a modern example see Elon Musk and his Hyperloop almost killing California’s high-speed rail project.
All in all, the US has been controlled by old-money, big industrialists and Wall Street since forever. If you want to know why something happens, just follow the money. Everything has happened according to their interests.
It's frustrating because so many of the older city and town centers actually have decent walkability, even if growth made things a little more complicated. It's mostly the later development surrounding the cities where the only thought during planning was how the cars get from point A to point B and then park, and now the barriers to fix that situation are enormous. Some of them will update their ordinances to require sidewalk construction during new development, but it's not all that helpful when you end up with sidewalk stubs connected to nothing. It also doesn't fix the existing arrangement of buildings and drives that make everything so hostile to pedestrians.
I live in a very walkable part of the world with great public transportation, and still people don't seem to walk anymore. It's electric scooters and these weird electric mopets.
I was in the city the other day and walked in between some people. There was a tram arriving and most people around me started to pick up because they had to catch it. They looked like they were running, but were barely faster than me walking, and some of them were slower, because they had to catch their breath on that epick 100m sprint. I think wall-e wasn't too far off.
39% of adults in the world are overweight or obese Globally, 39% of adults aged 18 years and older were overweight or obese in 2016. Being overweight is also defined based on body-mass index: the threshold value is lower than for obesity, with a BMI equal to or greater than 25.
To be fair, BMI is kind of a bullshit measure, but I think there is definitely an obesity epidemic and, while it is especially bad in the United States, it is global.
For population-level studies, particularly over time, BMI is perfectly fine. It's not as if the general population of America suddenly all became big boned or extremely muscular.
Most people i know have a bit of a skewed idea of what is overweight and what is not. A lot of people i know grew up with dads who got fatter and fatter when they got older and a lot see it as some sort of normal progression. My friends were all really fit in their 20es and now even my old skinny roommate got a good old belly. One of the guys from back then doubled in size and he keeps saying that he's married now and it doesn't matter har har har. I heard all my life that i should eat more, like you know, the thing old people say. I know that BMI is'ln't the end all be all, but my BMI is and has always be 20. I do not want any more weight, i don't see the point at all. I see my dad who is morbidity obese and he doesn't see a problem. He walks like a penguin and gets out of breath when he gets into a car. I'll never feel bad for him or other people like him. He always tells funny stories how he's gonna end up with a nice young nurse who takes care of him. Yeah you gonna lay in tour own shit for a few hours because the poor nurse can't wash his fat ass alone.
My sister is "normal" according to her. And yeah she's not fat, but it's like she's 15 years older than despite only being a year older.
I feel like I live in the least walkable city in the US. I live 2 miles away from work and I’ve walked it a few times and here’s the annoyances I have to deal with:
Sidewalks are blocked by obstacles such as overgrown vegetation and cars.
Sidewalks are broken up so badly they aren’t safe to walk on.
Segments with NO sidewalks around blind curves.
Basically you have to walk in the road most of the trip.
But fuckin’ hell, we need to increase taxes to pay for that new jail! I really hate my town.
I live in a midwest city (not even a small one), and it’s so frustrating that sidewalks will just end suddenly. There are no obstacles, it just ends. Or the sidewalk stops on one side of the road and literally picks back up on the other side of the road. But the road is a 4 lane road with a 45mph limit (so everyone does 55+) so it’s too dangerous to cross.
Last year there was a bunch of construction near me to build a brand new sidewalk down a long stretch of road. …and they just ended it a half block away from the next light so you have to walk in the grass.
Between stupid garbage like that and bad bike infrastructure (which here is actually not the worst I’ve seen), you definitely feel like US cities hate their citizens.
My kids have friends about a block away, and both ways to get there have massive spots of missing sidewalk with almost no space on the edge of the roadway. My neighborhood has decent sidewalks, but we’re a little island surrounded by areas with huge gaps in the sidewalks. In some areas you can stay on the sidewalk if you keep switching sides of the road though…
It’s like whoever designed the roads forgot that people live in residential areas…
If that’s how you interpret “pro life” then you must be okay with this execution if you’re “pro choice”. The state “choose” to execute this man after all.
I’m pretty sure the context that “all life is precious” applies here. That’s what pro-lifers claim. But apparently someone who may be innocent still deserves to be executed according to the people pro-lifers knowingly vote for.
The guy absolutely convinced he understands “pro life” proponents’ intent based off a dictionary reading of their slogan better than they do is now offended that somebody else thinks they know him better than he knows himself based on what he says.
I wonder why you lied when you said we were done? Is it the same reason you lied when you said I was a partisan or do you have separate reasons for each lie?
Brewer has long expressed remorse for the killing and a desire to apologize to Laminack’s family.
“I will never be able to repay or replace the hurt (and) worry (and) pain I caused you. I come to you in true humility and honest heart and ask for your forgiveness,” Brewer wrote in a letter to Laminack’s family that was included in his clemency application to the parole board.
He did not dispute the guilty verdict. He is guilty. He admitted guilt. He has not claimed innocence. Quite the contrary, he explicitly claimed to have committed the murder.
He disputed the expert testimony of a witness at his sentencing hearing who claimed he would forever remain a danger.
Ya. It doesn’t make sense at all. That’s like saying anti abortion legislators are Pro choice because they are choosing to force you to have that rapist’s baby.
I mean, the original comment was pretty shit too. That was kinda the point. Knowingly taking words out of context as a gotcha does absolutely nothing useful and only serves to annoy literally everyone involved. You’re not clever
And “pro life” is for fetuses not convicted murderers.
It’s interesting how partisans view the world though. Anything I post pointing out this discrepancy is voted way down. But the “hurr pro life” post is voted up.
Apparently. Can you point that out to me? What I read said he was convicted and twice sentenced to death. And the defence only challenged the death penalty claiming “Richard Coons, falsely claimed Brewer would be a future danger” without any details about what that means (the article seems to be taking their word for it).
And I see a letter from him apologizing for the murder.
Let me spell it out for you why this is a ridiculous argument.
A person who is “pro-choice” believes that the law should give each affected individual the choice of what to do. It is about individual liberty, and definitely not about a government having a choice. There is simply no way to extend this to mean what you’re saying.
If that’s not enough for you, a person who is “pro-life” believes that the law should not allow an individual to decide what to do. They believe that this individual liberty is not as important as the life of a fetus. So, it’s rather easy to extend this one. In fact, when you hear a pro-life person trying to explain why they are right, virtually all of their rationale also works for people after they are born. But then when you try to show the ramifications of their arguments, they simply don’t accept them.
The problem is that these are not two equal sides. Pro-choice people can actually argue consistently and with conviction. But pro-life people cannot, unless they throw in all this other stuff. So, when people mock “pro-life” in this situation, they are actually mocking the idiotic actual views that these people hold, and contrasting them against an ideal pro-lifer who actually believes what they say.
Congratulations. You’ve managed to read the first sentence without reading anything else. Let me TL;DR it for you. The “shitty logic” you’re referring to is actually pro-choicers giving pro-lifers the best possible interpretation of their own logic. But on the other hand, there is no way to do the same thing to the pro-choice side, because the pro-choicers already believe in the best version of their argument.
Congratulations. You’ve managed to read the first sentence without reading anything else. Let me TL;DR it for you.
Thanks - being brigaded by libs means I’m kinda skimming responses at this point.
I’m saying maybe use the interpretation of their argument that they use and not the one you wish to shoe-horn onto it. Whenever I’ve listened to pro-lifers (at least the better versed ones) they clearly only intend to stop what they view as “actively killing an unborn child.” Their logic, taken from that POV (and assuming a BUNCH of their premises are true) seems to be reasonably consistent and would have no bearing on the death of a convicted murderer.
they clearly only intend to stop what they view as “actively killing an unborn child.”
It doesn’t matter where they intend to stop.
If I say, “one apple plus one apple is two apples,” and my stated justification is “1+1=2”. And then later, I say, “one orange plus one orange is three oranges,” you would be right to say, “Your justification 1+1=2 also works for oranges, so somewhere in your arguments you’re incorrect.” But here, you’re saying that I can respond, “I only intend to stop at apples,” and that this is “reasonably consistent.”
This is some sort of cognitive dissonance sophistry that simply doesn’t work. It’s not reasonably consistent.
If I stated that all people deserve to be free, but I actually meant except for criminals, then that is something that I can be challenged about and I can revise my statement, and I could say, “All people except criminals deserve to be free.” But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about people who believe in absolutes, but never defend the actual ramifications of those beliefs.
No, you only like to dish out condescension with phrases like, “I wouldn’t read a post that starts with ‘let me spell it out for you’ even if you’re completely right.”
There’s no confusion. I quoted YOU. How strange is it to suggest that I was confused about who I was talking to when essentially the entire comment was quoting the person I was talking to. I’m being generous and assuming that you didn’t just get confused because you’re trying to utilize multiple accounts that you own, and that you forgot which account you used to make which comment.
And my point was that you used a condescending tone when it suited your argument, which puts us in exactly the same boat. The main difference seems to be that I was originally condescending to a person who used an embarrassingly poor argument, which was worthy of condescension.
I randomly happened to notice how you downvoted that comment a rather long time ago, like at least 20 minutes. So presumably, you spent quite a long time writing your reply. I’m guessing, you tried writing an actual response first, and realized that you couldn’t find a way to make yourself look good, so you resorted to this… thing.
Yes, I happened to look at my own most recent comment when I logged on this morning. What a weird thing that only a stalker would do! I must be stalking myself, and that’s something that only an insane person would do! As you say, that’s the most likely explanation.
Anyways, you’re just insulting me and saying the dumbest shit. I’m disappointed. If Mister Rogers was still alive, he’d be disappointed in you, as well.
Disregarding my personal views on this subject, this is a straw man argument.
You have very noticably left out that pro-lifers view the fetus as one of these individuals you say the Pro-choice regard so highly. The Pro life argument is that it should be systemically illegal to end the life of what they view as innocent individuals.
Which… yes, is kind of similar to the general take on this article, regardless of your views on the individuality of fetuses
regardless of your views on the individuality of fetuses
While I can appreciate what you’re going for here and will even relent that your argument is topical to the discussion at hand. I do feel the need to point out that a fetus is, by deffinition, objectively, not a human being.
I get where you’re coming from and I respect that you believe these 2 things are equitable. But, feelings aside, capital punishment for a human being is very very very different from removing a small collection of half formed cells. Its like comparing the death of an animal to that of a tumor that was removed in a surgical procedure. The tumor died, but it’s not the same thing as killing an actually sentient aninal
Except tumors don’t have the potential to grow into sentient animals, so those are pretty different things too. Also, where are you getting this definition from? I study biology for a living and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t consider the term “human being” to include the whole life cycle of the organism.
Frankly, I think a lot of the issue lies with where you decide the value of a life comes from.
Species? Speciesism is kinda fucking the world right now as we make tons of species go extinct to make room for humans above all things.
The sum of a being’s autonomy or it’s life experiences? Kinda ableist/ leads to saying children have less intrinsic value than the elderly (which is not exactly a common viewpoint)
It’s potential for life? That would mean we should value fetuses above all other life
Sky Daddy said so? …doesn’t really need any criticism as it’s so inherently problematic
My personal feelings are almost entirely mixed and agnostic on this subject, so I’m trying to keep them out of this discussion, but my point here is I don’t think you are seeing double enough to realize how easily a different perspective changes the whole argument into a “righteous” one.
The people you are arguing with ABSOLUTELY have hypocritical stances, but we should focus on attacking those, not straw man arguments that don’t take into account that they have ENTIRELY alternate world views, that are frankly, not simply as dismissable as saying “well, WE define it differently”
A tumor is a collection of cells that have one or more missing flags that would normally restrict cell growth, allowing it to grow and multiply far beyond what your body is built to allow for. The difference is that as it grows, a fetus will eventually reach a floor of cognitive ability to allow for sentience whereas a tumor will just spread.
I’m not here to discuss the philosophical quandary of valuing one life over another. I don’t want to debate the ethical ramification of arguing on the behalf of a hypothetical man who has never known true autonomy, or a diefic figure who simply decides that from a utilitarian perspective your life is worth less than that of your neighbor. I’m simply saying that sentience is the defining characteristic of intelligent life. I don’t think that should have to be a controversial statement.
An embryo may have the potential to become a human one day but at the moment it is not. Just like an acorn is not an oak tree. I wouldn’t sit under an acorn for shade, nor would I hang a tire swing from it, because it isn’t a tree. It’s an acorn. And an embryo is not a thinking and feeling human being. It’s an embryo.
Now where am I getting this information from? Well I suppose I am applying my own personal understanding of it since I don’t have an exact quote or reference for you. I do not have a degree in biology, but I know someone who does, a lot of someone’s actually. Off the top of my head I can think of 5 people in my close, immediate circle who have studied biology at length, 1 of which has multiple degrees in the discipline and another 2 are doctors. And yes, I HAVE heard “human beings” described as having started to exist in that state from the point of sentience. Matter of fact, while I’m sure some do see it like you do I personally have never heard someone refer to a zygote or embryo as a human being… They call them zygotes and embros… Because that’s what they are, despite what they may potentially become.
But that’s all beside the point. I can see you are just trying to be reasonable and explain that I will not convince anyone this way. And you’re probably right; but I will make a counterpoint. This is not a strawman. Despite what one feels or believes on the subject a fetus under a certain threshold of development is not capable of the very barest minimum required cognitive functions to be considered a human baby. And suggesting that it has more rights Than it’s fully formed human mother is fucking insane.
I don’t really have a counter argument that I would like to make, because it’s not and never was my goal to convince you that your opinion was wrong I only intended to critique the way it was made.
However, I am curious where you would personally draw the line on a human infant becoming sentient. This not intended as a trap or an argument- as a conflicted person, your certainty is interesting.
(By the way, that downvote didn’t come from me. I upvoted you just to counteract it.)
I don’t understand what you are saying at all. I don’t mean that the argument is unclear. I mean that your sentences don’t make enough sense to me to convey the information to me that you clearly want to convey.
I think you have to be extremely clear when you say that somebody is making a straw man argument. What exactly did I say that was a mischaracterization, and why does it make it easier for me to argue against their point?
Because as I read this, you are setting up the argument to be:
Pro choice believes in protecting individual autonomy, as opposed to Pro life, which believes in telling people what to do, because of insert any number of reasons here
This is pretty true of a lot of the pro life apologists and political campaigners, but I feel is a pretty ineffectual argument against the people who truely believe this as an ideology.
The people that truely believe in pro life genuinely don’t see a difference in values about protecting individual autonomy- they believe that’s what they are doing by banning both murder and abortion (something that they don’t differentiate between)
Plenty of these would agree with you that this execution was in fact a murder.
I’m against capital punishment because convictions can be overturned, but executions cannot.
That said, your crimes against logic are clear and convincing. Ironically, they’ve also convinced me to change my mind. You, definitely deserve to be executed for this clear case of language perversion and aggregated rhetorical idiocy.
It’s your misunderstanding, not theirs. The origins of the pro-life movement is Catholic and absolutely includes opposition to capital punishment, as well as abortion.
No, I understood what you were saying. But the Christian fundamentalists hypocrisy doesn’t invalidate the critique that being pro capital punishment is antithetical to being pro-life.
I mean… If the person making the argument tells you that they only believe in death penalties for people who have been convicted of a heinous crime… You’re telling me that contradicts their belief that an innocent child should not be killed before birth (their believe - not mine)?
Texas has cheap housing outside of the cities. It’s what lets idiots brag about “cheaper cost of living,” ignoring that it’s because the state is less urbanized.
Doesn’t really seem like it? A quick lookup of single detached prices in and around Jackson seems to suggest that the prices range from 600-700k with some outliers breaking $1mil+.
Are you talking about the middle of butt fuck nowhere, because then you’re comparing apples to oranges. Middle of nowhere Texas is also dirt cheap but I specified Austin.
Housing is way cheaper in rural Mississippi than rural Texas.
You may be able to find similarly priced houses in Texas, but they will often be dilapidated compared to what you’ll find in Mississippi.
You seem like the kind of person who thinks life outside of major cities doesn’t matter, so I don’t expect you to care about the price of homes outside of major cities.
That’s fair. I was comparing prices of houses outside of major cities since the vast majority of Americans will never be able to afford a house in or around one.
At least Mississippi doesn’t pretend to be god’s gift to humanity and the greatest nation to ever exist. Texas is high as shit on the smell of its own farts.
Not nearly as bad as Texas. They have nice beaches, and decent cities.
Shame about the whole swamp and going into the water thing, but it’s still a pretty nice place to be. And of course their politics suck, mostly driven by old people, rich people, and idiots who succumb to them at their own expense.
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