alanschu

While true I am encompassing in general institutions that are able to profit off of incarcerated folk, I'm not sure your assessment is correct? "In 2019, privately operated facilities held 7% of state prisoners and 16% of federal prisoners." https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/p19.pdf

I had the impression from the subsequent post below that this isn't a view you genuinely hold?

Could probably get deeper with it and ask "what is crime?" And then expand whether or not a state that has private prisons that financially benefit from incarcerated persons might impact the rates of criminality among the population (or subsets thereof).

I mean I have general issues with James O'Keefe, but I find them to be untrustworthy, selectively editing source that attempts to "gotcha" people in order to serve their needs. Before he was Project Veritas there was already sketchiness about his "stings" with both Planned Parenthood and ACORN particularly around edited videos. The ACORN stuff is particularly sketchy since the original release prompted an aggressive response from the government. It also failed to take into account of varying types of appeasement that can occur to get someone out of the office, which Veritas used as proof that ACORN was doing terrible stuff despite the (later revealed) reality that once O'Keefe and Giles left, staff had immediately called police to report the crime. (O'Keefe actually ended up losing a lawsuit associated with all of this and was forced to apologize to the ACORN representative he was talking to, but ultimately ACORN was still dissolved so the goals were still accomplished even if O'Keefe had to pose as apologetic for a moment). This trend just continued after he officially created Project Veritas. The attempts to "prove" the Washington Post was biased against Roy Moore was the first real high profile case I remember hearing about them, which blew up in their face but luckily for them their financiers have deep pockets. TL;DR I think they lie at worst, and selectively edit at best, their political enemies for their own political gains and end up wasting a ton of people's time by attempting sting operations that aren't particularly well planned and leveraged in ways I feel are ultimately harmful.

LOL Oh Project Veritas.

There was brief engagement and his stance is basically "publicly traded companies are the public sector." Which is the second time I've seen a Canadian say that to me. (Had a person previously suggest of course I am a socialist because I work for Electronic Arts and they are publicly traded, which was an interesting way to make that connection). So indeed, no idea what a corporation is.

Hey man, I literally just had someone tell me that Canada's almost entirely left wing and this was part of his explanation!

Freest country in the whole world amirite!? It's funny because I already think minimum wage is way too low, but it just seems painfully obvious how a system that allows people to be paid so, so much less than the market minimum is one that would be primed for abuse in order to maximize profit.

There are two values of the Gini coefficient, one calculates pre-tax earnings and one is after-tax/disposable income (the wiki link you linked does discuss this). The high value for South Africa *is* pre-tax which doesn't account for benefits that social services provide. Reporting would be good to differentiate between the the two. The disposable income one from your link is 0.47: "African countries had the highest pre-tax Gini coefficients in 2008–2009, with South Africa the world's highest, variously estimated to be 0.63 to 0.7,[7][8] although this figure drops to 0.52 after social assistance is taken into account, and drops again to 0.47 after taxation." I've been trying to find a collated list of the after-tax Gini coefficients and I haven't been able to find one for the world (I did find some within OECD). I shifted gears to different measurements and I found this interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality In particular the ratio of richest 10%/poorest 10% and richest 20%/poorest 20% (based on income) Some countries have some very extreme differences with the 10% metric that go away when looking at the 20% ratio. Sierre Leone was very eyebrow raising. It's a ratio, so on some level those countries have VERY rich 10% combined with VERY poor 10%, but it's fascinating to see how that difference with an average (not even median) can go away. I'm inclined to think that it's likely the rich are particularly rich and if you were to exclude those richest you'd quickly reach "similar" (and likely quite poor?) income levels. FWIW I'm not sure what it's like within South Africa, but I'd be surprised if any of my peers considered South Africa the "worst country in the world" even if they knew of its Gini coefficient.

I think it's why inequality plays a role and not just poverty itself. Extreme poverty puts people in desperate situations, but I feel (this is just a supposition, I've not done nor read research) that people can also recognize circumstances. I've less impetuous against my neighbours if they are struggling in similar ways than I may be. There may also be other mitigating circumstances such as whether or not people empathize with each other's positions and provide any sort of community support, even if that support is low in absolute wealth. Doing a search I found this (bold emphasis mine): https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/10/07/south-africa-a-new-social-assistance-assessment-aims-to-help-strengthen-policies-and-programs-for-the-poor "The report finds that overall, South Africa’s system of programs is effective, well-targeted, and provides sizeable benefits to the poorest households. The social assistance system effectively reduces poverty and inequality rates. Cash transfer programs are having positive and important impacts on a wide variety of outcomes, including nutrition and food security, educational attainment, health, labour supply, and livelihoods. Furthermore, the grant system has established effective delivery systems that identify beneficiaries and include registration, payment, and grievance redressal processes which can be scaled up rapidly during crises such as the COVID pandemic." What's interesting is that this article talks about how social assistance reduces both poverty and inequality rates. I'm not sure the intricacies of how Gini coefficients are calculated, but it would be very interesting if the world leading inequality rates assessed by the earlier link still took into account the social services. That is, are the inequality rates still the highest in the world even with some of the more generous social services in Africa? Because that could mean the circumstances within the country would be even worse without any of the social safety net that the World Bank says is helpful. EDIT: Also interesting is there are gaps in data for crime rates in a lot of the poorer countries in Africa. When looking at Macrotrends.net many of them had their most recent data put in 8+ years ago. It's possible that the poverty levels of the country make assessing the criminality almost impossible? For reference, same link is able to show poverty rates for many of the same countries.

All good. Was just interesting to hear the discussion about wealth inequality when it seems like South Africa in particular is not a particularly good counter example to the idea that wealth inequality is at least correlated (if not in some way causal) with crime rates. Your last line illustrates other factors beyond just inequality that can also play a part though, so have a solid from me My link also had this to say about South Africa: "South Africa’s income inequality has become worse over the years. The top 1% of earners take home almost 20% of income and the top 10% take home 65%. That means that 90% of South African earners take home only 35% of all income. Incomes in South African remain to be racialized, gendered, and spatialized, meaning that white people are more likely to find work (and work that pays better) than their black counterparts; female workers earn about 30% less than male workers; and urban workers earn about double that of those in the countryside." Sharing that just to show how inequality can permeate and exacerbate other issues within a country. It's part of why I shifted away from my Libertarian-esque "fiscally conservative, socially progressive" politics. Ta-Nehisi Coates' A Case For Reparations was a very seminal reading in demonstrating to me how (in his example) racism, something I erroneously held as social and not economical, played a significant role in materially disadvantaging certain communities. What was especially eye-opening for me was the story of Bill and Daisy Myers. When they moved into an all-white neighbourhood, there was a lot of resistance based on "obvious" racism. What hadn't really clicked for me before, though, was a quote from a white owner about how he was sure the Myers were perfectly fine people, but when he saw them all he saw was the value of his house going down $20,000. An example of someone that is ostensibly not-racist, but ultimately upholding a racist system because to not do so meant real material costs. In this way I realized that social/fiscal stuff were a lot more intertwined than I had originally given credit.

I was curious and just did a (possibly naive) google search and South Africa is listed as the country with the worst wealth inequality by Gini Index in the entire world, according to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country Top 10 Countries with the Highest Wealth Inequality (World Bank Gini index): South Africa - 63.0% Namibia - 59.1% Suriname - 57.9% Zambia - 57.1% Sao Tome and Principe - 56.3% Central African Republic - 56.2% Eswatini - 54.6% Mozambique - 54.0% Brazil - 53.4% Botswana - 53.3%

Reading this and with topical news of the day reminds me of Joyce Arthur's column about how "The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion" which is a ton of anecdotes from health care providers about the times that anti-abortion activists received abortions. https://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml Some fascinating stories of people literally returning to protesting outside the same clinic the next day, to others judging the other people in the same waiting room it they were waiting in. (It was the latter that your post reminded me of)

Ah yes this was the building that was also definitely a Hamas stronghold or something along those lines IIRC?

It's funny because even acknowledging that our past has its share of ****ed up bull**** is enough to throw many people into a tizzy. I remember when there were protests about John A. MacDonald (our first Prime Minister who, among other things, looked to the US for inspiration on how to deal with that little "Indian problem") and my mom straight up asked me "How could he be bad if he was our first Prime Minister and we built statues of him??" I asked her what she thought of Lenin statues haha. I actually don't know much about Lenin beyond surface level which likely has its share of rose-coloring/smearing based purely on association with USSR, but knew it'd be an example that worked for her somewhat. Around the same time, I remember pointing out that Edmonton has landmarks named after Frank Oliver (A Liberal), known for bringing the printing press to the region... so he could disseminate racist propaganda to advocate against black immigration from the US. He also literally stole land from indigenous peoples (offered them $9/acre... the government declared the sale illegal but he somehow still ended up with the deed and didn't pay a cent) and while in office orchestrated the dispersal of two indigenous peoples off their land. I found this shut up conservatives in my mentions but also elicited some frustration from modern day Liberals. My mom's an odd one though. She is so singular in her disgust towards Justin Trudeau (largely because Albertans have convinced themselves that his father wanted to destroy Alberta when he was PM) that she will share anything on FB that criticizes him. She once shared a post detailing how his government has abandoned support for indigenous communities. Literally the very next post that she shared was about how he bends over backwards and give indigenous communities whatever they want while hating white people. I don't go on FB much but a good friend told me I had to check out her feed.

This is some weird stuff regarding some of the Catalonian independence movement. Catalonian leaders referred to the man who offered them troops and money to secede from Spain as “Putin’s envoy.” Reporters identified him as Nikolai Sadovnikov, a longtime diplomat who reportedly worked as a strategic adviser to the Russian foreign minister. https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/fueling-secession-promising-bitcoins-how-a-russian-operator-urged-catalonian-leaders-to-break-with-madrid

*looks around the world* **** seems kinda bad doesn't it?

I can definitely see this. Do you feel that the circumstance of the court is a culmination of "Court is so tilted for us now, failure to take any action will be politically bad for us" as well? To be clear I don't think McConnell himself gives a hoot about abortion access and it's just a means to securing power for interests he does care about. I do feel like this is a "placate those voters" type of decision. And fair enough regarding Cruz' doofusness. While I agree both McConnell and Cruz are mercenary, I get the impression that his contempt for his constituents comes out more easily than someone like McConnell, which leads to things that come across as personally (not politically) embarrassing from stuff like his initial reaction to January 6th leading to him ostensibly apologizing on Carlson's show, to some of the daftest optics for things such as his trip to Cancun. Ted Cruz is the type of politicians that made me reflect on my conservative politics, while I doubt McConnell would have bothered me as much when I was my most conservative. A projection for sure, but in those ways I find he's less savvy than someone like McConnell. I definitely cannot speak on Cruz's legal capabilities as I suspect I'm ill equipped to effectively comment.

I do understand what you're saying here. You can see it a bit with Conservative appointees still eventually upholding stuff like Obergefell which required votes from people like Kennedy and Roberts. Do you feel it still holds up in recent years were judicial appointments were literally roadblocked with IMO a bogus lame duck and then what felt like very, very deliberate criterion in recent years. I can easily see it being a degree of throwing a bone to single issue voters to ensure their support, but I think it'd be very short sighted of McConnell (a man I do not consider dumb or uncalculating at all) to not reasonably expect that action would be taken on Roe especially in light of what seemed to be a lot of recent state laws that seemed to be designed explicitly to challenge Roe. You mentioned before the "settled law" shouldn't mean much since there are a lot of examples of settled law being overturned. But I think there's egregious nonsense with Alito's remarks about how abortion access is not "deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions" which also comes across to me (a naive pleb I'll concede) as politicking as I'd expect a Supreme Court Justice to recognize that this isn't a great justification. I agree that Republicans are not monolithic. Though as it happens I actually had just noticed that there was an article where McConnell was talking about the implications of Roe. Fox Atlanta Link He does talk about how it'd require 60 Senators as he wouldn't compromise the filibuster for any sort of national ban. I could easily see this being a goalpost shift of still soliciting single issue voters now that the Roe angle wouldn't be possible. Do you feel that on some level this is McConnell essentially trying to do his best Icarus without actually getting too close to the sun? I could see that, though as I mentioned I do think we can't recognize his role in setting the stage of Roe being overturnable without him, on some level, at least being okay with that consequence. I think if he set this stage without thinking it'd actually come to pass that would be foolish of him, and I don't think he's a fool. I disagree with you about Ted Cruz. He is harping on the leak as well. But he did say "If this report is true, this is nothing short of a massive victory for life and will save the lives of millions of innocent babies." He has in the past been very direct about how Roe should be repealed. Granted politicians lie about things all the time, but I concede that Ted pings "doofus" in a way I never would for McConnell. I think that there's a lot of leaning on the leak because it's an easy way to frame "Liberals don't care about our sacred institutions" and also helps set any stage that if (huge if, I don't think it will) the actual ruling were to change, they'd then lean super hard into that. That said, I don't even think we can say for certain that the leak came from someone that wants Roe upheld.

Well, I have never been "completely ideologically" behind any party (Canada, or US, or otherwise). My slice of preferring Democrats/centrists was more in response to my distaste towards what I felt was an increased willingness for conservative parties to lean into the social conservative policies. I voted Conservative up until 2011 (when I voted for Canada's NDP party largely because my MP seemed like a decent person and I was voting for an opposition that wasn't the Liberal Party of Canada). I voted Trudeau/Liberals as there were some significant aspects of his campaign that I preferred (particularly election reform. I dislike First Past The Post and feel that any system the undermines a person expressly supporting the person/platform that they want has serious issues. I was hopeful for some form of proportional representation/ranked balloting so that people wouldn't feel they needed to support a "lesser evil." In general I think he's largely been a ponce and feel that there's structural issues given that doing the right thing in this case would definitely undermine the power the LPC has since they are the most likely to obtain majority governments. They're just fine with risking that Conservatives also have that avenue. I don't really consider myself a "populist" though I do think there's very strong power imbalances in our society (I feel most strongly as it's class based, though obviously other types... I tend to feel that class percolates through a lot of reinforcing mechanisms for race and whatnot). If you were to classify me I'd probably walk a line between Democratic Socialist/Social Democrat. I'm not staunchly anti-capitalist, though I think capitalist class acts in near sighted ways for their own short term benefit while ostensibly being very confused white stronger far-left and far-right sentiments have become espoused. It's likely a factor of varying degrees of privilege and my being a bit of a bleeding heart lately, but on some level I suspect that I can probably relate to the lived experiences of a friend of mine that just recently shared that they are anti-vaccination, Trudeau is a dictator conservative than say, Nancy Pelosi. I find the perspectives frustrating (especially in light of reading about very staunch oppression to war resisters in Russia that crunch anything I saw in Canada... and I say that as someone that believes it is always important to examine and critique any application of emergency powers that Trudeau invoked), but get more angry with people with much larger platforms (and often economic power/security) that broadcast a lot of this stuff for what I see as typically grifting/self-serving ways. While I don't agree with my friend's politics, I can empathize with financial insecurity. What I don't like is when our "Tax Payers Federation" puts forward that the "average" family of 4 pays $2400 to equalization in Canada without breaking down how that burden is split between my friend's family of 4, and the billionaire hockey owner and the oil companies that post 9 digit profitable quarters. Never trust someone discussing "averages" when you have a lower bound of $0 and no upper bound. But I get it, I'm sure he would love an extra $2400 and that would be helpful. I think police forces in general exercise excessive use of state sanctioned power often without anything resembling accountability, where ostensibly "left-wing" media will often happily act as stenographers for police statements. Despite ample evidence of police abusing their power, institutionally we must maintain that they are somehow more trustworthy and less likely to lie for their own benefit because otherwise we'd have to pause and reflect on how just our justice systems can actually be. When I think of police funding, things I think about are examples such as citizens/cities being on the hook for abuses committed by police officers. A lot of this started around 2008-2012 when I started more critically looking at my belief structure and seeing how it held up to what I felt was actually best for the country and its people. Interestingly, I've arguably never voted in my own best interest, as I was a staunch Conservative in my early 20s as a student/low income earner and now I'm a lefty when my income is significantly better.

Stuff like this is why I struggle to agree with your earlier post that Republicans recognize that going after abortion would not be in their best interests (I think it was you that said this... apologies if I am incorrect!). I suppose it remains to be seen if this is actually the case, but it does feel like Republicans in recent years are playing the game with a different approach that earlier in the century. I don't feel that Trump was specifically the catalyst, but rather a symptom of movement within the the GOP (and I feel a wider movement coalescing in a lot of countries - from Tea party stuff to further right fractions that took over control of conservative parties in Canada/Alberta) that almost seemed like a flip in what significant parts of of the voting base held as key/important and the resulting pivot we saw in a lot of GOP politicians, new and old, shifting their public calls to action to much more direct and aggressive measures in policy pursuits. My first feeling for stuff like this was probably McConnell not only lame ducking Garland, but the subsequent and explicitly stated wishes of GOP Senators stating that they wouldn't do so for the duration of Clinton's president should she win in 2016. It was a red flag, though one I probably didn't take seriously enough as I definitely felt that it was super unlikely that Hillary would lose the election. It does feel like conservative politics has shifted to a much stronger stance. Unfortunately I get the feeling from a lot of long time, entrenched Democratic politicians that this is a blip and bipartisanship can be restored with relative ease but I'm not particularly convinced that this approach is the best one Democrats can do. Though admittedly my politics have slid past the DNC as well and I am often not a particular fan of a lot of their **** either so... /shrug

The point of my post is that no one is going to super strongly advocate for this repeal without the hope that changes actually occur. Their claims that "ultimately nothing will change" are at best naive, but frankly just feel like disingenuous lies. Especially given that many states already have legislation in the works (or literally already passed legislation that has a trigger condition if the repeal happens). Claiming nothing will change is grossly incorrect when you have literally passed laws that have a condition of going active if Roe v. Wade is repealed.

I'm enjoying all of the "This doesn't make abortion illegal. It just means it's up to the states as it should be. This doesn't change anything." Just this idea of "I'm so committed to the overturn of this ruling, so that ultimately nothing will change" is so laughably disingenuous hahaha.

I think there's a practical assessment as well in terms of having more direct say in how/where their money is used and to specifically make sure their kiddos get the maximum benefit. But yeah, there's a hefty belief in the idea that private must mean more efficient/effective (anyone that remembers me from years past on this forum knows it was a position a lean in support of as well, though no realize isn't the always true axiom I once thought it was).