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Zaktor

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Zaktor ,

Ethnic groups don’t trace back to single people, especially not ones from fairy tales.

Zaktor ,

How could Israel possibly need munitions after years and years of military subsidies? Especially just to fight Hamas (and do some retaliatory killing of civilians). This isn’t a Ukraine situation where a major power is invading a weaker enemy who has had to choose between military spending and social spending, this is the more powerful country attacking a weaker insurgency while being continually fed funding for their military from a superpower.

Zaktor ,

The billions of dollars they’ve received is more than enough to have stockpiled a large multiple of whatever rockets Hamas was able to somehow build up in secret. “We give you $3.8B per year” should also mean “manage your own munitions when fighting a small insurgency”. If they got into another war with Iran, sure, that could warrant big brother stepping in and turning on the missile spigot, but they’re not even at war with an actual nation.

Zaktor ,

Oooh, we got an expert explainer in the house, everyone! Let’s hear it expert, and cite your sources, we’d all love to learn from such a valuable resource.

Zaktor ,

People can make fun of your lazy argument without being drunk. It’s quite easy.

You want to act like you’re a deep expert and everyone who disagrees with your positions is ignorant, here’s your chance to prove it. If not for me, do it for everyone else, because right not many people seem to be upvoting your obvious brilliance. You do want them to understand and acknowledge your expertise, don’t you? Or was this just a tired rhetorical device people have been using for decades to posture on the internet when they believe they’re right but don’t want to go through all the effort of proving it?

Zaktor , (edited )

I’m not unaware of it, it’s just not remotely a threat that means $3.8B a year isn’t enough. Israel estimated 1,000 fighters were involved in the recent attacks. And that was considered a lot! Ukraine was invaded by 150,000 soldiers in a modern (ish) military with a full state actor behind it, not smuggled weaponry from a regional power which is still weaker than Israel itself.

Zaktor ,

300-400 people in Gaza were killed. Do you think those were just Hamas militants who had it coming? Including the 20 children? The kidnappings and wholesale murder of civilians were terrorism, but so is this. No one is proposing sympathy for Hamas, but whatever Israel claims about their “moral army”, they’re killing civilians.

Zaktor ,

And both combatant leaderships want the fight. It’s good for them. Hamas’s purpose for existence is killing Israelis and having Israelis kill innocent Palestinians. Bibi’s government is rushing authoritarianism so his corruption doesn’t bring him down. A good external threat and some holy fire rained on the enemies of Israel is great for him politically. The people making the decisions don’t give a shit about the people who die.

Zaktor ,

The British had no authority to decide who gets to rule where. It’s kind of the root of most of the problems around the middle east. “The British said” isn’t a justification for anything.

Zaktor ,

How are you committed to nonviolence, but buy a gun and bring it to a protest? That doesn’t mean he was looking to fight or that he didn’t prefer nonviolent resistance, but it’s pretty incompatible with a commitment to nonviolence.

Zaktor ,

If anyone has a powered cell phone they don’t want someone in their household to know about, power it off.

Zaktor ,

I’m in Hawaii. I can remember one being used. To create panic. Twitter was where the best attempt at quelling the panic was done.

Zaktor ,

While a lot of other institutions were caught flat footed, everyone in that office presumably got the alert as well and should have realized immediately it was a huge fuckup.

Zaktor ,

That was in her run before she became the DINO queen. They’ve since pulled support because she sucks. Before she was elected she appeared to be ok. Not great, but not obviously shit.

Zaktor ,

It wasn’t entirely about the rights to review, but also about their impotence to do more than just talk. The balance of powers isn’t just that Congress can impeach, but also that they can write laws that address the Court’s arguments directly and the executive can just tell them “no”. But we’ve let them just be the final arbiter of law with no response from either other body, so they’re now just unelected super-legislators.

When the court is embroiled in corruption scandals and abandoning precedent to strip rights from citizens, the other executive institutions in the country shouldn’t just be acquiescing to their demands. Instead we get “you may be unethical and corrupt, and firing off society shaking reinterpretations to settled law, but thems the breaks”.

Tiptoeing into calling their adherence to the rule of law into question is moving in the right direction, but very slowly. Maybe that’s the right way to do it, but I don’t really trust that it’s not just a misplaced belief in the system to work itself out so moderates don’t have to actually do anything that might be scary.

Zaktor ,

That was the context at the start of the country, it’s not really applicable anymore.

Zaktor ,

It would be super unpopular with the moderates

Gay marriage was super unpopular with moderates, until people made efforts to change that. No one in the country cared about drag queens until the conservatives made a concerted effort to make it a political issue. The political whims of the country are changeable, if you’re willing to try to change them.

Too many people look at politics as the job of reading an opinion poll and then staying within a rigid bound of the status quo rather than as leaders who should be influencing the public to adopt better policies. This continual worry about moderates’ beliefs as if they’re not the least ideological people in the nation is a flawed approach to politics that just puts up barriers and excuses for doing anything.

Zaktor ,

What do you think RATM would think about these “don’t criticize me for doing nothing” posts?

Zaktor ,

Do you really believe that if Dems win a majority in the House they’ll start impeachment proceedings? This isn’t a problem that started this year. His damn wife was involved in an attack on Congress.

Zaktor ,

roosevelt only pushed for congress to act.

That sounds like a good step. Where are Biden’s speeches on pushing Congress to pack the Court?

Zaktor ,

That’s literally no worse than simply submitting to a corrupt and illegitimate conservative Court.

Zaktor , (edited )

pushing a plan that would have devastating and immediate consequences.

It’s some peak white moderation to think that there aren’t already devastating and immediate consequences to simply passively accepting fascism to preserve “order”. You’ll croak about civics education while people are losing their lives due to a corrupt and illegitimate court being giving cart blanche to rewrite law.

Zaktor ,

The irony of you calling someone cowardly. You didn’t name your account “Tom Joad”, you named it in reference to the song, which is explicitly a social protest song from people willing to actually do something rather than complain about being shamed. This isn’t quite Paul Ryan loving Rage while being the actual machine, but what a monumental lack of introspection.

“Where there’s a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air, look for me, mom, I’ll be there.”

I don’t know what i hate more, being subjected to increasingly authoritarian christofascist rule in my country or having some punk looking down his nose at me and saying it’s my own fault.

Clearly Tom and Zach would echo this sentiment. Authoritarianism or someone looking down their nose at your inaction, who’s to say which is worse?

Zaktor ,

LOL. Coming back and replying a second time as the person who already read and responded to a grandchild comment tangentially about them really screams “I’m not bothered”.

Zaktor ,

The notable historical threat to pack the courts previously (which succeeded in moderating the court without packing) was done by a president. They don’t have unilateral authority, but they are the leader of the party. Stuff doesn’t happen unless leaders lead.

Zaktor ,

Shrinking it (through established legal channels) is impeachment and removal which has a high bar. Enlarging it is just passing a law, which is only hard because the senate has a policy (not a law) to effectively not pass laws without supermajorities. The latter could be done with a simple majority of politicians with a spine.

Zaktor ,

Laws like the Voting Rights Act or the ones that established the EPA or the CFPB? The problem here is we’ve let a rogue court assume ultimate legislating ability and the only real remedies to that are impractical supermajorities or open conflict between the branches.

Zaktor ,

Same thing with the BLM protests. The largest protest movement in American history and… nothing changed. COVID kills a million plus Americans and all that changed is OSHA was banned from enforcing worker safety measures. No extra disease tracking, no countrywide efforts to improve air quality. We’re stuck in a quagmire where leaders just wait out problems rather than needing to address them.

Zaktor ,

It was not a great move by roosevelt either.

And yet after it the votes changed and they allowed the New Deal. Courts become less extreme when their comfortable power is threatened.

What’s your solution to a corrupt court throwing away precedent and making law from the bench? Just pat Mitch McConnel on the back and say “shucks, you got us Mitch, guess we’ll just live the rest of our lives under conservative rule”? Because waiting for 67 Democratic senators or multiple conservative justices dying under Democratic rule isn’t likely to happen.

Adding more justices may instigate a tit-for-tat, but it’s no worse than just accepting that they get to make law for the rest of your life, and the credible threat of doing it (or the actual practice) is likely to lead to real functional reform.

Zaktor ,

I’m talking about Roosevelt as a model for Biden threatening to pack the court. This reply doesn’t make sense.

Zaktor ,

Nothing Biden could have done.

He could have attacked them. Called on their constituents to protest outside their offices. Politics is more than just filing papers and casting votes.

Zaktor ,

Yeah, the most scandal-ridden judge was appointed under H.W. Bush. They’re not a particularly worthy bunch even aside from shenanigans.

Zaktor ,

High-level politics should involve physical challenges. Put the judge chairs up a tall ladder and across a balance beam and we won’t see so many justices dying on the bench. At least from old age rather than balance-beam accidents.

Zaktor ,

I have no solution except impeachment and indictment

You get that this is functionally no solution at all, right? Even in Obama’s first term there were only 60 Democratic-caucusing senators and a few of those were unreliable DINOs. 67 is a fairy tale. It’s only marginally more likely than just hoping they get raptured.

And if that’s the case, which do you prefer:

  • Living the rest of your life under a conservative court making up law as it goes.
  • Legally changing the size of the court as has been done before, but in the process breaking precious norms.
Zaktor ,

What? There were like 16 Senate Republicans total in Roosevelt’s time. It had nothing to do with sane Republicans coming around. The threats worked because Roosevelt and his policies were incredibly popular and if the court didn’t stop blocking them the court packing bill likely would have passed.

Zaktor ,

Manchin’s constituents are heavily red, but his voters are mostly blue.

Zaktor ,

Joe Manchin won his last election with 49.6% of the vote. Presumably Biden voters all vote for him. 29.7% is more than half of 49.6%.

Zaktor ,

Adding justices takes 50 votes. Impeaching takes 67. That’s a world of difference. It’s not going to happen if everyone up and down the party continually prioritizes making excuses for what can’t happen, but if Biden (and other Democrats) continue to make their case that the court has lost its legitimacy and is in need of reform (i.e., lead) there’s nothing fantastic about getting there.

Zaktor ,

Biden has influence over whether Democrats (even red state ones) can win primaries and/or reelection.

Zaktor ,

What makes you think this is supposed to be a vote that must occur this instant with this congress? Do you think the Democrats will never have 50 solid votes ever again? And thinking that 15-17 Republicans would ever impeach a sitting Republican justice to be replaced by a Democrat is just wildly out of touch with reality. They wouldn’t impeach Trump after he had his followers storm the capital that they were actual in.

Zaktor ,

AOC’s been targeted because she’s talented. There isn’t a second sleeper AOC who’s just as charismatic and politically talented, but no one’s ever heard of them. The amount of targeted smear campaigns in conservative media will correspond closely with how much potential the GOP thinks someone has.

Zaktor ,

forcing employers to keep paying their employees even though they’re not working.

That’s the whole fucking point of unemployment. The insurance rates are paid by companies, but it’s not their money to direct as they please for their own benefit. They’d very much tell ex-employees to go fuck themselves if they could, but they’re forced to pay into the fund that supports them.

Zaktor ,

He also vetoed a few other progressive bills. He’s gone from a “politically uninspiring, but at least he’s got fight” to “no, thanks” with this active hippy punching shit. He didn’t even need to do anything, passively signing bills that were voted on by his legislature wouldn’t blow back on him at all, but he’s actively signaling hostility to progressives because he wants to curry favor with people that oppose them.

Zaktor ,

Regulation is coercive (and good). Businesses aren’t maintaining safety standards and supporting their out-of-work employees out of pure altruism. The real objection for businesses is not that unemployment rates might be marginally higher (people are just regular unemployed way more often than they’re striking), it’s that this increases worker power.

Zaktor ,

Unemployment isn’t endless, isn’t 100% of your pay, and doesn’t allow you to take other work. It’s still always financially better to go back to work. This is exactly the bullshit conservative argument against having unemployment at all, “it makes workers not want to work”.

And yes, more monetary support for striking workers would increase worker power, I already said that. It wouldn’t necessarily cause long strikes, but it would make employers unlikely to be able to starve out a strike. That’s a good thing. Corporate/worker power is so amazingly out-of-balance that strikers are basically always in the right. Maybe with more power they could eventually get to the point where it would be abused, but currently anything that biases things towards workers is good.

Zaktor ,

Applying criminal conspiracy laws correctly is good and incorrectly is bad. Pretty easy.

Zaktor ,

This almost seems to be retaliatory. The solution to unaddressed harassment and assault is punishing the wrongdoers and those who ignored them, not punishing everyone with the implication that alcohol caused the assault (or caused “blurred lines of consent”).

The NSF said it’s also instituting several new measures during the current southern hemisphere spring and upcoming summer that are aimed at preventing sexual harassment and assault at the base, where typically around 70% of workers are men. These include enhanced training, a new survey to collect data and monitor trends, and visits to the ice from experts.

Ah, the long-proven solution to workplace harassment, training videos! Sure to be paired with no-fail quizzes with tough questions like “is it ok to send an unsolicited dick-pic to a coworker? y/n”.

Zaktor ,

Need government regs on corps if you wanna solve poverty.

Regulations like “what is the minimum salary you can pay your employees”?

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