Getting real tired of constantly seeing news articles saying “The economy is healthy! The US has never been richer.”
Meanwhile, cost of food has never been higher. Rent has never been higher. People are still getting laid off left and right.
I feel like I am being gaslit by economists. Are economists all just yes men who are afraid to tell their clients that their practices are unsustainable?
I mean, believe it or not the rate of people dying from infectious diseases decreased in 2020 compared to where it was at in 1918
Like, I guess I’m glad we’re doing better than 2008 and 2020 and other meltdown years like that, but with years like that weighing on the average better than average doesn’t mean much
… administration officials say Mr. Biden is keenly aware that prices remain too elevated for many families, even as key items, like gasoline and household furnishings, are now cheaper than they were at their postpandemic peak.
And yet there is a general belief across administration officials and their allies that there is little else Mr. Biden could do unilaterally to force grocery prices down quickly.
Ugh, I swear every single issue with this administration is just “We understand there is a problem, but you can’t expect us to do anything about it!”
Really, it’s Congress who should be trying to tackle the issues but they don’t want to make decisions so they’ve basically relinquished their powers to the President who can only govern by executive decision and the Supreme Court who were supposed to be the ones making decisions on unclear laws. At the end of the day, the President only has so much power and Congress is where people are failing to do their jobs.
I am so incredibly fucking tired of hearing this bullshit excuse over and over and over. Yes, Congress sucks and should do more, no, that does not excuse the Biden administration’s unwillingness to play hard ball with investigations and law suits and executive orders and the million and two other things they could be doing.
“But the courts would ju-”
I don’t care and neither do a lot of other voters. If a court throws your executive order out, change a superficial word or two and issue it again, and make them throw it out all over again. If a court enjoins you from doing something that needs doing, put on a silly hat and keep doing it, and tell the court “no, this is totally different, I’m doing it while wearing a silly hat, your order didn’t mention anything about this silly hat.” And when they enjoin your silly hat, get a silly wig and keep doing what needs doing.
Under our current laws a determined executive branch can move a hell of a lot faster than judicial or congressional oversight can, they just need to be willing to go for it. Until I see dozens of attorneys for federal agencies sitting in jail cells for contempt of court, don’t tell me this administration is really trying because they’re just not.
If a court enjoins you from doing something that needs doing, put on a silly hat and keep doing it, and tell the court “no, this is totally different, I’m doing it while wearing a silly hat, your order didn’t mention anything about this silly hat.” And when they enjoin your silly hat, get a silly wig and keep doing what needs doing.
Sounds like you’re okay with Fascism as long as the party you like is in power.
a) a democratically elected authoritarian government is not fascism. If I said “throw all the Mormons into prison camps and conquer Alberta for their tar sands, and if a court tells you no break out the silly hats and insinuate the judge is mormon” that would be fascism.
b) I’m not okay with it, but compared to sitting around wringing our hands while things get worse it seems like the lesser of two evils.
Yes, the lesser of two evils, the thing that brought us to our current situation in the first place. How about no evils? How about we actually hold those we elect accountable rather than just letting them throw up their hands and hope the President does something.
I know you and I are only two people but shouldn’t we encourage dialogue and finding common ground? I know one party is out of their mind right now but taking their agency from them and saying you don’t know what to do because your stupid and I know better doesn’t help, it breeds more discontent.
I agree with holding those we elect accountable, which is why I’m holding Biden accountable for the fact that his administration hasn’t been trying hard enough to help people. I breezed last it for the sake of the conversation here, but I absolutely believe our legislature can and should do more, and there’s some things even I will admit are going to require congress (e.g. I think we really need higher taxes on the wealthy and I don’t think there’s anything the president alone can do about that), but there are tons of things the administration could be doing that they’re not.
I know you and I are only two people but shouldn’t we encourage dialogue and finding common ground?
I’m not sure exactly what this means in the context of this conversation, but I like answering this question when it comes up,
Yes, I think we should encourage dialogue and finding common ground, and actually I think I am, just in a more long term way. See, I have tried debating with Republicans to change their minds, and I have tried negotiating with Republicans to see if they would be willing to support policies I want in exchange for policies they want, and I have seen elected leaders do those things as well, and, well, look at how that’s turned out for us. So, I have become deeply convinced that they either can’t or don’t want to empathize with us or be fair to us, they just want to dominate us and take all the stuff they can consume and own. With that being the case, I think the only way we get them to behave better is to make them believe that it’s in their own interest to do so. Put another way, I think in the short term we need to make it so unbelievably painful for them to keep being bigoted and selfish that they’ll want to act tolerant and charitable whether they genuinely feel that way or not. Long term, we’ll all find that it’s a lot easier to just skip to the part where we treat each other with respect instead of going through the effort of fighting each other first, and I think that’s the only way this world gets better.
I think we agree on a lot but would rather see congress do their jobs and take responsibility than for them and the US public to have an over reliance on one person we hope will do the right thing.
I think the point of that article is to point out the absurdity of the top level comment that implies these economic articles never talk about how prices are still high.
This is because you don’t realise how bad life is elsewhere. You have a good home with running water and heating. That alone is something hundreds of millions can’t even dream of. Access to fresh drinking water alone puts you, as an American, way above many people.
American population is rich as fuck compared to the rest of the world.
Oh I assumed you were American! Well hey fellow Brit, sadly I got some bad news for you:
No we don’t, our public transport is dysfunctional due to endless strikes (which are due to shit pay and shit conditions) and the NHS is practically non-existent for dentistry, mental care and more due to years of neo-liberal austerity policies and “market solutions” that involve transferring money from our public purse to the fascists-to-be’s mates.
At least the US has brute force of capital to cushion it if you’re working some jobs and don’t have any serious health problems.
Here in the UK even senior software devs struggle to make rent. We live with exactly the level of public services the US has in practice and we have no money for alternatives. Absolute shithole country. Government is literally landlords. Only remaining export is Transphobia.
Cool story, bro. But, you see, I migrated to the UK 8 years ago from a poor Eastern European country with only €2,000 in my pocket and bought my own home in London 2 years ago. If you can’t afford life in the UK, the problem is with you. Sounds harsh, but that’s the reality. Yes, things could be better, but they’re better than in most of the world.
Ah yes, I stand corrected, all those poor teachers and nurses increasing food bank use should’ve just worked harder and took their €2,000 and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps /s
But according to American Community Survey (ACS) data from the Census Bureau, 522,752 US households lacked complete plumbing access in 2021. Of these households, 347,943 didn’t have a bath or a shower, 419,971 lacked hot or cold running water, and 246,884 had neither.
But sure. Homes in colder parts of the U.S. can keep heated. They might have to use a wood stove and keep themselves in the one room the wood stove heats, but they can keep it heated.
Please explain exactly how showing you the results of a census that explains that half a million people in America do not, in fact, have running water make me delusional?
Are you claiming I created the website I linked you to? Because that would be delusional.
First of all, half a million is a tiny proportion of US. It’s not even one city worth. Second, who are these people and where do they live? Are they your regular drug junkies who forfeited life in a modern society for their drug of choice? Or maybe they’re scientists living in a remote location? In any case these are not part of the general public and they are a very tiny proportion.
This is an extremely different situation when compared to India, for example. Where 91 million people don’t have access to drinkable water. That’s 91 million. And not just running water at home - any fresh drinkable water at all! And 746 million people don’t have access to sanitation facilities at home. Read: they don’t have a toilet and a bathroom. That’s double the US population! And pretty much half of Indian.
These oh so poor half a mil Americans… The US economy must be doing so bad!
I’m sorry… are you suggesting that someone deserves to not have running water if they use drugs? Should they also not deserve to have food? Should they just starve to death?
Economists are zealous advocates for their employers. Which is fine. If I hire a lawyer I expect them to be on my side. The only problem is when we pretend that they aren’t just saying what their employer wants them to say.
Meanwhile, cost of food has never been higher. Rent has never been higher. People are still getting laid off left and right.
These are statements that are literally almost always true. Prices always rise by design and there are always some companies going through hard times and paying people off.
Maybe you have an argument that it’s “unsustainable” and there is no doubt that the previous period of inflation is still putting massive pressure on people’s finances, but at the same time the outlook is good for the economy.
It might be tough to hear that because you are struggling, but you are not the economy, and where you are right now is not necessarily where you’ll be down the road in a year.
Meanwhile household debt is sky rocketing because those families can’t afford their necessities anymore and have little recourse but to put it on credit cards.
Meanwhile families are hitting the streets at record levels while layoffs are happening across the board.
Meanwhile tent cities are popping up all over the country at levels never seen before in the last 50 years.
While it would be better for America if she never held office again, she’s still young as far as a career politics and clearly shopping for power wherever she can find it. I’m guessing she’ll try for smaller office somewhere. City Council maybe Mayor of some really red small city.
Oh yeah totally free, just go ahead and put in all your info… Oh, looks like your at the last step and have spent a bunch of your time filling everything out. Oh darn! Look at that, you need to do something very basic that 99% of people need to do? Yeah that will be 75 bucks please.
TurboTax is nothing more than a “Legal” scam that pulls a bait and switch to steal money from people.
You don’t pay until you file for a lot of those services. I filled out the tax info for the past 2 or 3 years to see what refund estimates and what not each software came up with. Then I filed with the one that was cheapest since they pretty much all output the same thing. For me, FreeTaxUsa was the cheapest. I think its free for federal tax filing, but 10 or 15 bucks to file the state taxes.
I think people just need to see it to believe it if they’ve become accustomed to one brand of tax software. I find that they often have the exact same order of data entry. So just opened up 2 or 3 browsers and fill them all out at once. If your tax situation is simple, it goes pretty quick if you have all of your tax documents on hand.
“The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had — he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
One of my favorite books, but depressing people were pointing shit out 50 years ago and society at large is still ignoring it today.
It’s obvious from this excerpt that Adams was mostly talking about British Prime Ministers, who are elected by the government and do not wield much (if any) power beyond that of being a figurehead. Of perhaps the Royalty, who aren’t elected but hold even less power and are even more of a distraction.
The US president, by contrast, is not elected by the government and has a shit-ton of power, and increasingly so as the US congress is less and less able to govern due to Republican infighting. The US president can start and win a foreign war in less time than it takes congress to even form an opinion on the matter.
Zaphod spent two years in prison for fraud, meanwhile the US president is protected by more military firepower than literal nukes and has a chain of succession longer than most Kings because the US government literally cannot function without a President.
Adams was mostly talking about British Prime Ministers, who are elected by the government and do not wield much (if any) power beyond that of being a figurehead
I’m not British so I might be off-base, but my understanding is that like other European parliamentary monarchies, the PM is the effective head-of-state but their title rests entirely on the good graces of the MPs who can (and often do) replace the PM.
Furthermore the Executive branch of government isn’t particularly powerful, unlike the US. Maybe I’m fundamentally misunderstanding things but I don’t often hear about a British PM spending billions or starting wars without parliamentary involvement, which US presidents regularly do even if they don’t enjoy a majority in Congress (which is not a situation that British PMs can find themselves in by definition).
Of course the UK has the problem of FPTP voting which leads to (quasi) bipartism which means the PM has a rather symbiotic relationship with over half of parliament, but it’s still a very different dynamic.
The King would be the figurehead you’re thinking of. The PM may seem at the behest of his MPs (or the MPs of parliament in general), but, as we saw with Boris (fucking) Johnson and David (oink) Cameron, they can whip MPs, expel them if they defy the whip, prorogue parliament, call referenda, and many other acts which allow them to do as they wish if they wield their power in the ‘right’ way. There are things which the PM can do outside of parliament, as with any leader of a country; this includes starting wars, appointing members of the cabinet (and other branches).
No, that's the monarch (where it still exists) or the president in parliamentary democracies (not presidential democracies).
The PM is in fact the leader of government and relies on the good graces of the governing party or parties, not unlike the US president candidate effectively needs to unite his party behind him.
The difference is mostly the ability to get removed/replaced hy his party but usually no term limits, where presidents are term-limited and there are explicit regulations how the parliament can remove them (something that is already inhently given in parliamental systems where the government leader is selected via parliamental majority in the first place).
I think you brush over a detail too fast. The US president needs to unite his party… until the last ballot is cast. That very instant, this stops being true for four years. Combined with a powerful executive that keeps the president very powerful even without legislative support.
Of course by definition any democratic system has checks and balances and ultimately ends up being representative of the will people in some way, but my point is that British PMs are a lot closer to being “harmless distractions” such as Zaphod than US presidents (also Douglas Adams was English).
My favorite part about all this is both sides just kind of ignoring that their candidate can’t string together a coherent sentence, gets confused a lot, and mistakes people for others all the time as if those aren’t signs of cognitive decline.
Cheers. Thank you for doing your part to ensure this never changes.
I’m not being pedantic nor using straw men. You are, however, being dismissive and reductive (and dense). I am simply observing, as a consumer of media, that, no, in fact, everyone is talking about their fucking ages. Your statement of “… both sides just kind of ignoring…” is false.
Here's an excerpt from the very beginning of Biden's speech two weeks ago:
In the winter of 1777, it was harsh and cold as the Continental Army marched to Valley Forge. General George Washington knew he faced the most daunting of tasks: to fight and win a war against the most powerful empire that existed in the world at the time.
His mission was clear. Liberty, not conquest. Freedom, not domination. National independence, not individual glory.
America made a vow. Never again would we bow down to a king.
And here's an except from Trump's speech from his most recent rally just a few days ago:
By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley … did you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it? All of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security, we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, national guards, whatever they want. They turned it down.
Biden is old, just like Trump. Nobody denies that. But surely you aren't trying to "both sides" this one by equating the two mentally or physically, right?
In the winter of 1777, it was harsh and cold as the Continental Army marched to Valley Forge. General George Washington knew he faced the most daunting of tasks: to fight and win a war against the most powerful empire that existed in the world at the time.
Wtf, is this gibberish even English?? /s
Sure feels like astroturfing going on around the campaign with all the people making completely bullshit claims like “both sides can’t string words together”. But maybe far more people talk out their asses than I realized lol.
Then maybe Trump should quit "riffing" until he can string a coherent sentence together.
Because Biden is over here giving solid speeches on how this moment reflects American history, while Trump is so completely confused (and, let's face it, that's being fucking generous) that he doesn't even know that Nicky Haley (who worked in his cabinet and who is running against him as a Republican) isn't Nancy Pelosi.
Am I cherry-picking? Has Trump said anything coherent in the last 12 months? On prompter or off. That's a serious question by the way.
Time to face the facts, Biden may be a bit old and doddering, but Trump is now straight-up demented.
It's no wonder he's afraid to debate, because he seems to have barely any idea what's even going on anymore. Why else do you think his handlers have him taking cognitive tests?
In 2020, his campaign had to stop scheduling evening events with Buden because he would start sundowning. He’s an 80 year old man who is clearly starting to show signs of his age.
I agree with you that he’s showing signs of his age, but isn’t it possible he simply gets tired by 8PM, and since hes the boss, he can simply say “Dont schedule me for late nights thst arent necessary”?
There’s a whole lot of daylight between that and “sundowning”.
He was a favorite in the 1988 presidential primary because he was such a a great public speaker…
He got over his stutter when he was a child, and a stutter doesn’t make someone say something completely different than what they meant to. Hell, he wasn’t even doing it while Obama’s VP, and he was in his 70s then.
Stop pretending he just has a stutter, he’s 80 years old and he gets confused sometimes. It’ll happen to all of us if we’re lucky to live that long.
That doesn’t mean he’s still fit to be presidet, and he sure as shit isn’t the best option for a Dem candidate even if he is mentally fit for office.
He was a favorite in the 1988 presidential primary because he was such a a great public speaker
Were you alive back then? As I remember it, he was a perennial also-ran because he couldn’t help but stay stupid shit now and then. It’s as if the word “Gaffe” in politics was invented to describe stupid things Joe Biden said. And saying stuff like that stopped campaigns cold back then. (remember when Howard Dean’s campaign got killed over screaming the wrong way?)
But then Trump happened, and all of a sudden saying stupid shit all the time was no longer a liability.
I was alive and eligible to vote in 88 but I was a dumb kid that voted but didn’t pay attention to the primaries so I don’t remember him at all.
And he wasn’t a “great public speaker” in that he was known for saying dumb shit as you say. (If anything gaffe was a term that applied earlier to Dan Quayle, former VP).
I don’t recall for sure if the stutter was present then or to what degree.
I also don’t see a lot of evidence that he is mentally unfit (for his age) as far as I am aware.
I also don’t see a lot of evidence that he is mentally unfit (for his age) as far as I am aware.
Curious, have you even heard of his gaffes and other funny stuff (Corn Pop, pony soldier, trueananashabadapressure, falling, not knowing where to go after a speech)? There are so many funny moments from his speeches. People put together “best of” compilations on every video site. They don’t get reported on CNN and stuff, you do have to look for them.
The mental fitness stuff is exaggerated for the most part, but he does lose track of his line of thinking when speaking off the cuff, without a teleprompter. He will start reciting a story he’s told 1000x, then he just sighs and says, “anyways…”
I would say, as with Trump, to go to as original of a source as you can. Watch an hour long campaign really or whatever to hear the whole speech in context. Don’t just read a headline or synopsis from the media.
Were you alive back then? As I remember it, he was a perennial also-ran because he couldn’t help but stay stupid shit now and then
Actually, yeah.
But why does that matter? Sure, Biden is old, but his first presidential.primary isn’t ancient history, we don’t have to have actually seen it to know about it.
Biden was initially considered one of the potentially strongest candidates as campaigning began in 1987.[6] This was because of his image as a political moderate, his speaking ability on the stump (rated second only to that of Jesse Jackson), his appeal to Baby Boomers, his high-profile position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, looming for the Robert Bork confirmation hearings, and his fundraising appeal—his $1.7 million raised in the first quarter of 1987 was more than any other candidate.[7][8] By the end of April he had raised $2 million, using not just contributions from Delaware but also establishing a base of support among young professionals and Jewish voters in a number of urban- and suburban-oriented states.[9] He had no campaign debt, and Fortune magazine termed his “most impressive start” a “surprise”.[9]
The only speaking difficulty Biden has had up till the last decade, has been when media press him on a challenge, he gets pissed and starts insulting them. The deathblow to the 88 campaign was when his speech plagiarism lead to reporters finding out he cheated in school and lied about being active in the civil rights movement.
He might have survived that, but he started insulting reporters when they asked. A pissed off presidential candidate yelling about how much better he is than the worker man sells a lot of newspapers and it’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to get out
He was still doing it last campaign, he’ll do it next time.
He was still doing it last campaign, he’ll do it next time.
No, he won’t do it this time because he isn’t going to campaign with the public. The instances he got angry with the public were pretty early in the primaries mostly. They won’t let that happen this time. It will be even smaller audiences than last run (heavily vetted people) or zoom speeches from the basement.
I do think that you’re right here. Parents could give a placebo to a child without realizing that it is a placebo, calm down, causing the child to calm down. Children are like dogs and stare directly at the faces of the adults around them to know how they should react to a situation. A calm parent can make a calm child.
You forgot the most important rule of humanity: everything is normal to a child. That child thinks that all kids get pills shoved up their asses every night and doesn’t think anything of it.
That’s child abuse. But it’s also an example of how strong beliefs in homeopathy can arise. With fluctuating conditions, people often seek a solution when symptoms (or the child’s cries) are at their worst. When they get better soon after, it creates an illusion of effectiveness.
A similar illusion is at work with the MMR vaccine. Autism becomes diagnosable at around the same age as the first shot is given, creating a powerful impression that the two events are connected.
It’s why we have randomised controlled trials. With no control arm for comparison, your friend has concluded that abusing their child is somehow useful.
I myself am note sure whether they are any useful or effective, to each of their own. It’s not like I can talk him out of it. I wouldn’t spend a dime on any homeopathic at all.
Placebo is a real peer-reviewed thing and a powerful tool in the right hands. But it has to be authorized and prescribed by a real doctor who knows what they’re doing…
At its roots, it’s like PETA–originally started out by nice people who wanted people to be nice to animals. Over time, the whackadoos took over and now they are a hateful org.
Homeopathy had its origins in treating the whole person and not just the disease, but was quickly taken over by quacks and placebo salespeople.
Homeopathy had its origins in treating the whole person and not just the disease
That’s actually holistic medicine, not homeopathy. Homeopathy was invented in the late 1700s as an evolution of the medieval belief in humours.
Homeopathy’s premise is that ‘like cures like’ (a substance that causes symptoms in healthy people can cure them in sick people), coupled with a belief that water has a spiritual memory that can be unlocked by ritually diluting and shaking until no molecules of the active ingredient remain. Common dilutions are 1:10^60 or higher.
And thats because those “fat” children eat way more fast food than those that don’t need the program because it’s cheaper and quick. The parent(s) have to work more hours so they can’t cook healthy meals as often nor have the income for the high price of groceries.
But Republican politicians don’t have the hardware necessary upstairs to root cause issues logically, just acting on incorrect assumptions all around.
This is becoming a common refrain in Texas. The Uvalde shootings were bungled by multiple Texas agencies; it was Border Patrol agents who eventually stopped the shooter.
Yeah, and sure he can pass a drug test if you consider:
LSD: 12 hour wash-out time for a blood test
Cocaine: 24 hour wash-out time for a blood test
MDMA: 24-36 hour wash-out time for a blood test
Ketamine: 24 hour wash-out time for a blood test, and it's easy to get a prescription for off-label use to treat depression
So basically, do all the drugs you want Friday night, by Monday morning you'll be clean enough for a blood test.
I am from Russia and i am frustrated with how stupid and misleading this news is.
Presidency is ending soon and Putin need to go through the voting.
Everyone knows it’s a circus with clowns yet Putin need to convince everyone he will be legit president. For the fifth time, after rewriting constitution, hahaha
Also Putin need a timeout to make weapons and train new army. While there is “unlimited” supply of bodies he can throw to die at Ukraine, it’s already costs him some money and gives idk how much payoffs. Just assume not much, cuz i haven’t heard anything about war in the country.
But i shouldn’t be taken as a reliable source of information from here. I can’t stand watching russian propaganda tv
I’m really sorry you have to live under those conditions. I can understand how maddening that must be. Hopefully Lemmy has been able to help you see past the Russian propaganda machine.
Yeah, pretty much my takeaway. It’s just a tactic. Delay, regroup, bullshit election, then more “denazification” (Christ on a shitstick).
Sorry, bro, but you’re fucked. I don’t think Russia comes out of this thing in anything resembling a decent, stable, thriving country. Putin fucked you, no lube. Demographic realities imply that your population will continue to shrink for generations to come.
If you follow the constitution, the right to bear arms is for a well regulated militia. Not for a stressed 18 year old buying an AR-15 at Walmart to shoot up rioters from another state.
You might not like where that logic goes. The Supreme Court took a stance in United States v. Miller (1939) that the NFA’s provisions on short barreled shotguns could be enforced on the basis that it’s not a weapon that would be used by a well-regulated militia.
That brings us to a conclusion that literally nobody likes. The government could ban shorty shotguns and .22 rimfire, because those aren’t militia weapons. It could not ban fully automatic weapons or even rocket launchers.
We have to come up with something. I am a gun owner. There are legitimate uses for them. But a rifle marksman course requirement? Gun safety classes? 30 day waiting period? Mental health screening? Accountability if you buy it for someone else who uses it to commit violence? Anything?
Something has to stop the senseless violence.
I know that it won’t stop it.
People in Brittain use knives… Acid in the middle east.
The difference there is that the harm is limited to a few people and not these mass casualty events.
Hey don’t cry about unborn babies but be pro school shootings there bud. The founders had single shot musket rifles not semi automatic rifles. If you want to be constructionist then ban the sale of anything other than breach loaders with separate shell and powder charge and have a good day.
First off, I’m pro-choice. I’m just not an ignorant naive tool like you seem to be. The founders weren’t idiots they knew tech wasn’t going to stop, you could also own warships during those days, the equivalent of owning a nuclear attack sub basically. If you think the 2nd only applies to single shot muskets, then the Internet isn’t covered by the first amendment in your mind. Being ignorant of history doesn’t magically make you correct.
Look, there are ways to make this work. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have guns. I own one myself. However, maybe there should be a 30 day waiting period? Mental health fitness assessment? Anything?
If you’re actually wanting to solve our violence problem, you go to the root of our societies issues, not the tool used. All of these things below would curb our violence as a whole 1000xs more than any new gun control can.
We can start with:
Single payer healthcare
Ending the War on Drugs
Ending Qualified immunity
Properly funding our schools and not just rich white suburb schools.
Build more schools and hire more teachers for proper pay so the class room sizes aren’t 30-40 kids for one teacher.
UBI (at least start talking about it) once AI takes over most of the blue collar jobs.
End for profit prisons
Enforce the laws already on the books
Make sure there are safety nets for poor families so the kids don’t turn to violence/gangs to survive.
Increase the minimum wage
Recreate our mental healthcare so kids don’t turn to the internet for support. And to help veterans not end up as a suicide number.
Actively make a law to solidify Pro-choice rights. More unwanted children do not help our situation.
Banning Insider Trading for Congress
Term limits
Ranked Choice Voting so we can move away from a 2 party system
I wish they’d bring back the draft. Draft men and women over the age of 18 for like two years; it doesn’t need to be for combat roles either. You get job training, you learn self-discipline, how to work in a team, really a lot of life skills. And then when your enlistment is up, you get training on how to find a job, how to write a resume, how to pass an interview, you get to use the GI bill and (in my hypothetical scenario) would keep Tricare. And more people would care about where and when we deploy our military, because they actually have a stake in it now.
If people learned how to defend themselves and then also everyone knew how to use them suddenly gun culture changes and it’s like a tool instead of a status symbol. If you don’t want to serve, there are non-combat roles. If you don’t like it then hey maybe you should invent bullet proof kids.
Mandatory conscription is probably my most “out there” political belief. I think the benefits would be vast! I don’t think it would prevent mass shootings in America, though.
Conscription doesn’t mean war. It means being prepared. And yes maybe we could be more prepared to deal with this stupidity and remove the gun culture if it wasn’t special anymore.
I think one of the benefits would be less war since every citizen would be personally affected by it. Also all the public works and infrastructure. And healthcare. It could be great! Maybe it would help with all the “lonely men” culture that we hear so much about, and likely plays into some of the gun culture. I guess we’ll never know since that won’t happen here, though.
All of the companies that would instantly start losing a billion dollars per second would never allow this to happen. This isn’t some 3rd world country where Google and Apple and Facebook aren’t headquartered. The internet will always be happening here. They’re completely dependent on it and their customer’s constant access to it.
Our econnomy is heavily tied to the Internet at this point. Billions in commerce are conducted directly and many billions more in enabled (“what’s the closest pizza place?”). Not to mention stock trading, banking, government services, healthcare, etc. You’re very much on track here and I don’t think it’s hyperbole.
While it could technically happen that our government could legally shut down the internet, it wouldn’t last long or it means we are under attack (perhaps internally) and need to control damage/messaging.
The alphabet agencies are fully capable of doing whatever is needed, they’re the ones that patch peoples systems for them or hack PCs through the power grid and other crazy shit.
If the American government wants the internet to be cut off they’re capable of doing it without the assistance of the ISPs
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