Achilles

Possibly true. But one of them *will* be president. Do you truly not care which? Do you genuinely think there will be no difference going forward? Yes, and I don't want to go to work every day or pay bills at the end of the month. Take comfort in your righteous anger as you live through the consequences of decisions that others will make for you.

Early in the epidemic, experts said that the number would need to approach 1% to be a big ****ing deal. Keeping in mind that many people who get COVID and survive are ****ed for life. If not by the major cardiovascular changes, then by the debilitating medical bills. Oh, and I'm assuming that "unregulated" is your attempt at humor?

Totally. EDIT: That felt dismissive. Look, I've volunteered for campaigns before. Do you know what they care about? Milking votes away from other candidates. If you don't vote, you're not on my list. If it's a primary and you're not a registered member of my party, you're probably not on my list. Almost 129 million votes were casts for the two major party candidates in 2016. <4.5 million is less than 1%, It's a rounding error. Again, I'm not trying trying to trash your politics, but the tail doesn't wag the dog brother.

What excellent timing! Today, one of our Supreme Court Justices has passed away. Under the rules of the Constitution, the current President of the United States (Donald J. Trump) gets to make a lifetime appointment of her replacement. If a citizen of the United States believes that there is literally no difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, then the short list of possible replacements should be almost identical and the impact of such an appointment should be negligible. Anyone who actually pays attention to U.S. politics should be laughing hysterically at that last part right now. That's just one example of why the differences matter. Neither candidate is perfect. No candidate ever is. When we elect a President, we elect a leader. One person is better suited for the job than the other. Neither one will accomplish all the things we want them to, and that should never be the reason why we vote for them. We are hiring for a skill set not an outcome.

Yes, because that was the only time in American history that the Republican party had environmentalism as part of their platform. You totally caught me!

I can assure you that I'm not well versed enough in either party to be making the assumption that you assume I'm making I just know that you can't effect change from outside and that neither one of these parties have any political capital. Not saying that to insult your politics or say that's how I think it should be. It just is what it is. No one pays attention to what these "fringe" parties are doing.

The part of this post that I agree with: yes, the timing on this is...dumb. If you want Trump out of office, then all of your focus should be on accomplishing that. We can talk about anything else later. The part of this post that I'm not sure I agree with: slavery is part of the United State's DNA. We were the last "civilized" nation to give it up and we fought a civil war over the matter (once upon a time the stat was that more americans died in that war that all our other wars combined, though I'm not sure if that's still true). We, as a society, do need to face our history and reconcile it. We haven't done that yet and I'm not sure we'll be able to move on until we do. My 2 cents.

Sorry, I'm old enough to remember when environmentalism was a republican issue. My personal opinion: political parties are stupid, but ala Rousseau, seem to be something humans are dead-set on having. We don't need a green party or a libertarian party to cause change. We need engaged voters paying attention and demanding that their representatives dance for their votes on the issue we care about. All registering for another party or thinking that not voting is gonna make a difference does is take you out of the game. No one is going to knock on your door, ask you why you didn't vote, and then use that feedback to shape the future of the party. On the contrary, if you do vote, and you vote within my party, I'm going to do everything in my power to convince you to vote for me. You don't need to volunteer for many campaigns to see this in action.

I’m not speaking to what it should be, rather to what it is. Until the U.S. implements rank voting or something like it, voting outside the two party system is akin to throwing your vote away. The idealistic part of me understands the appeal, but the pragmatic side just kinda shakes its head. I’m not sure I get people who looked at Trump and looked at Hillary and thought there really was no discernible difference. Same thing goes for Biden in this cycle. One of these two men is going to be president. If you really think that the future looks no different under one than the other, then vote however you want.

Some day we may have ranked choice voting and I think that will definitely be a move in the right direction. As it stands now, the U.S. is a two party system and voting outside of that system is ineffectual.

It’s definitely your vote and I respect your right to use it however you want

*sips rainwater and grain alcohol*

Wut? Man, I get that you're frustrated but come on. "Pick up a rifle" is just one of many way of becoming more politically engaged. I agree that political engagement is a response (and would argue that it's the best one), but disagree that violence is the only form that can take. It's amazing how responsive politicians are to the will of the people when the people make it clear that they are: paying attention going to vote on the matter Both conditions have to be met. People who are upset about something, but don't vote accordingly don't cause change. People who don't pay attention to what's going on and just keep voting the same congressperson into office every couple of years don't cause change. As for "voting for the lesser evil", I've never understood what that means. Do you think there's a stable of philosopher kings on standby that are conspiratorially being withheld from us? Every four years another reincarnation of King Solomon will arise in his new form from the heartland, but some evil power prevents the masses of ever learning of his existence? Every single person who has ever run for office, is running for office now, or will run for office in the future will be a human being. Not a single one of them will be perfect. Finding a perfect unicorn who matches your exact political beliefs and goals perfectly isn't going to happen. Furthermore, that would only be great news *for you*. All this to say, you will only ever have two options: The candidate who moves more of the things you care about closer to where you think they should go The candidate who move less of the things you care about further from where you think they should go Grabbing your rifle won't change that, because whatever system is put in place after this one will still present you these two choices. Sitting out elections only guarantees that other people make these decisions for you while you're home on the couch with your protest non-vote. If you really want things to change, you have to pay attention to what the power players are doing and then hold them accountable for their actions. That means voting, regardless of whether or not "your" candidate is on the ballot. That means supporting (either financially, if you can, or with your volunteer hours, if you can't) candidates you think are "better". Anything less than this is living in a dream world.

Yup :(

He's counting on his supporters not knowing the difference.

FTFY

When Florida is gone, Arizona will rise up to take its rightful place as the ***hat capital of the United States.

Currently reading:

I'll go back to my first response to repeat, "I can see how this may be true for countries other than the U.S." We *can* "just accept immigrants" because for almost all of our history, that has been our calling card. We are a nation of immigrants. As for the second point, we're wealthiest nation in the history of the world. Not bragging, just stating a fact. Lastly, see my previous response re: "growing and functional economies". Economies only function when lots of people take turns handing each other money. Poor people stimulate the economy in ways that wealthy people don't. Not saying they are better, just saying that it might be a mischaracterization to label them categorically as a "drain". If those countries have immigration centers that conduct themselves like ours do, then yes, they would also be inhumane and cruel. It may be that other countries are significantly better at this than the U.S. and you're mentally applying whatever standard you're familiar with to this conversation and wondering what all the fuss is about. The fuss is that we're really being ***holes with ours. The concern isn't that we have them, it's what we're doing with them. I suspect there may be a similar "gulf of shared understanding" with regards to the term "illegal immigrant". The immigration system in the U.S. makes it intentionally impossible for a vast majority of people to enter the country legally. Not just criminals or suspected terrorists. Everyone. So, if you're used a much more reasonable immigration process, then you, again, may hear people from the U.S. discuss this and wonder what all the fuss is about. Best of luck with your RL stuff. I look forward to your response, when time permits.

FWIW, they keep children in cages in Omelas also.

I suspect that if we were forced out of our countries of origin, we would ask for nothing more than this.

Marriage was considered the gateway to adulthood 70 years ago. They got married young and started families earlier because that's what was expected of them. The fact that norms are different now isn't necessarily a signal of societal decline. People put off marriage and babies now for the reasons that you listed, but also because some of them have things they want to do before they start a family. In some cases, like mine, people don't see marriage as a box that needs to be checked. In some cases, like my son's, bringing more people into the world doesn't feel like the responsible thing to do.

Likewise Obviously anything could happen, but evidence shows that having more people at the party increases the amount of food and alcohol available, overall, not lessens it (see my earlier post about my Vietnamese barber who owns two small businesses) The gist seems to be (and please correct me if I am wrong) that there might be economic concerns that should trump humanitarian ones. An "economy" is load-bearing fiction that members of a society share. It functions when people exchange goods and services for something else (usually currency, which is the stored value of work). It fails to function when people don't participate in these exchanges. So, how do you increase economic output? You make it easier for people to participate. Adding a bunch of people to your population then making it difficult to participate in your economy is a problem. Adding people alone isn't.

Imagine a beach. Some people are there, enjoy the sun and the surf. A while later, more people show up and eventually run most of the first group off, then put up a sign that reads, "Beach Party! Everybody welcome!". People see the sign and join the party. Then more people. Then even more people. The area gains a reputation for being a welcoming place where people can go to do beach things. Many years later, the people who happen to be on the beach at the time decide that the beach party is over. They don't take down the sign, but some of them start quietly passing the word around to their buddies that if they see more people showing up, they should make it plain that no more people are welcome. There's still plenty of room on the beach. The ocean is still there. The sun still hangs in the sky. But for whatever reason, some of the people currently occupying the beach have decided that they have domain over it. So, what gives the people poo-pooing "Beach Party! Everybody welcome!" the right to do this? They didn't find the beach. In fact, just like every other person there, they only know about it because their parents brought them to it as children. They didn't put up the sign. In fact, they proclaim loudly to anyone with ears that this is the greatest beach mankind has ever known and that they are special people for spreading the principles of "Beach Party!" and "Everybody welcome!" all over the world. It's a point of pride that people from other beaches envy this one and want to come to it. Are they right to want to keep criminals off the beach? Sure, I think it's reasonable to ask people to patrol the parking lot and make sure that ***holes can't get in. But that's really it. That's the extent to which any kind of restriction is justified.

I can see how this might be a valid argument somewhere other than the United States. We are a nation of immigrants and the country founded on principles that we claimed were universal. Our legal process is a joke that makes it well-nigh impossible for the vast majority of people who want to come here, leaving desperate people to make desperate choices. We don't even consistently honor the parts of the legal process that aren't a joke (i.e. should be straightforward) I agree that legal immigration is ideal, for lots of reasons. We should do a lot more to make it easy.