Political Discussion

Joe Mac said:
We’re not breeding enough, or paying high enough taxes to be able to cover the cost of state pensions going forward. The state pension as a percentage of welfare span is shocking even in the more generous with welfare European countries. For the millennials and the generations after the debate really is between working forever or mass immigration on a scale that we aren’t willing to comprehend.
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This was true before Covid. I mean it’s pretty much been a given that Americans my age aren’t getting social security.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I am not going to pretend that there isn’t a housing crisis (especially on the west coast) but I hate these types of videos. They are used as propaganda in the urban/rural culture war. Posts like this are used to paint cities like Oakland, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit, Portland, Seattle, etc. as lawless unlivable hellscapes. Cities of all shapes and sizes need to do a better job of making housing affordable for everyone but most a cities skid rows are hardly representative of the city as a whole. For example, here is a video of what your average Oakland Neighborhood actually looks like…
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(a few days behind, sorry) I was in rural Oregon this weekend and the urban/rural divide is so damned annoying to me; maybe I'm just awakening to it more but I find it especially strident in my state, and equally made-up. I was in a Black Bear Diner, which I'd thought was a one-off local spot in Madras, but per the menu there exist dozens across the west coast and southwest. The menu (and website) describes the folksy origins of the restaurant, as two guys who just wanted to make good food and return to down-home roots, where people smiled and mothers didn't have to fear for their children. Yet they opened their second location within two years, and have over 150 spots today, after thirty years. That doesn't strike me as an "aw shucks, we just kept going" success story; it sounds like shrewd business planning and aggressive franchising, backed by serious money.

I guess the chip on my shoulder comes with how the rural side gets to co-opt concepts of friendliness, safety, and community; when those are all benefits of the city if you're willing to foster those attitudes in yourself. I've seen shady homes in the city, and shady homes in the country; the shanties in the linked instagram video don't hold a candle to some of the junk-strewn yards I've driven past on my way to Bend. I've been cycling in the country and had huge trucks roll coal on me and run me off the shoulder; I've also had strangers in identical trucks give me a lift or jump my car.

It's such obnoxious tribalism; I've seen it in my teenage nephew who immensely enjoys visiting us in the city yet also constantly spews "we do it differently out here" rhetoric about how he's a country boy (despite basically being a suburb kid). It's a terrible strain of pride; I think one should be proud of where they're from, but I don't see why local pride must come with the fear/hatred of anywhere else. We rely on both; all of us use products and services from the country and the city alike, and most of us move between the two with much regularity.

Maybe I'm too ambivalent in my nature, but I just can't wrap my head around slamming one milieu as being wrong or lacking in values; frankly I can't help but read racial anxiety and a certain misanthropy in fear of the city, which is ironic when talk of the country is typically shrouded in talk of friendliness and community.
 
BjorgenFjorgen said:
Man Biden and co. really are willing to rip it all up so that Israel can kill more civilians, hey? Total shame on my government for their total dogshit statement in the House today, too.
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Nuking your legacy as president and handing the reigns of the country back over to a blood and soil fascist because you just can't bring yourself to even remotely condemn a bloodthirsty psychopath that wouldn't give you the time of day. Pretty amazing, honestly.
 
epyon415 said:
All fun and (stupid) games until POTUS sends Seal Team 6 to visit Alito. The mental gymnastics these conservatives play is reach a whole new level.
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And It only applies to conservative presidents right?

I haven't been keeping up with things, so maybe people here know more information on what's what. But last week my father was texting me all kinds of stuff about the Mar-a-Lago raid and sending me tweets from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The sums of what he sent me was Biden broke federal law, and is in deep shit. It's not looking good for the Biden Administration. Something about how Biden authorized deadly force when they went in to raid Mar-a-Lago.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
And It only applies to conservative presidents right?

I haven't been keeping up with things, so maybe people here know more information on what's what. But last week my father was texting me all kinds of stuff about the Mar-a-Lago raid and sending me tweets from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The sums of what he sent me was Biden broke federal law, and is in deep shit. It's not looking good for the Biden Administration. Something about how Biden authorized deadly force when they went in to raid Mar-a-Lago.
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So the FBI has a deadly force provision on every warrant it issues. The conservatives lost their mind over this information. (I honestly don’t know how it was brought to light) The talking heads have been going on about how it was an assassination attempt.

It’s actual fake news.
 
TrainFan73 said:
So the FBI has a deadly force provision on every warrant it issues. The conservatives lost their mind over this information. (I honestly don’t know how it was brought to light) The talking heads have been going on about how it was an assassination attempt.

It’s actual fake news.
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The Right only work in bad faith and there are many useful idiots that will parrot the “outrage”. Anyone with even an a slight amount of depth understands how this all works but their whole party revolves around victimhood and this fits that narrative.
 
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