Politics Princess' Sweet Sixteen

[Hurlshort]

I have been saying for years that the NRA needs to step up when these shootings happen and advocate for responsible and safe gun ownership. They haven't done that, and after reading the response they issued about the marches, I've got to say they are absolutely delusional. 

 

 

 

 "Today's protests aren't spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones."

 

That reads like a crazy person's response.

[Guard Dog]

 

 

Even if every word of that were true that is not the way to go about it. If you discovered space aliens were living under your house and plotting to take over the world would you go tell the cops they are there? They would lock YOU up! No you tell them someone hid drugs under there. You don't just go right at something, you go diagonal. Flanking attacks are far preferable to frontal assaults. 

 

As far as this particular situation goes, sometimes it best just to STFU. These protest movements will go one of two ways. They will either burn themselves out or be hijacked by the radicals who really do dream of kicking down doors and taking everyone's guns by force. Either way this all blows over. My advice would be not to make yourselves look like jackasses before it does. But, of course that advice comes unheeded and too late. 

[smjjames]

I have been saying for years that the NRA needs to step up when these shootings happen and advocate for responsible and safe gun ownership. They haven't done that, and after reading the response they issued about the marches, I've got to say they are absolutely delusional. 

 

 

 

 "Today's protests aren't spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones."

 

That reads like a crazy person's response.

 

 

They've been delusional for years.

 

 

 

 

Even if every word of that were true that is not the way to go about it. If you discovered space aliens were living under your house and plotting to take over the world would you go tell the cops they are there? They would lock YOU up! No you tell them someone hid drugs under there. You don't just go right at something, you go diagonal. Flanking attacks are far preferable to frontal assaults. 

 

As far as this particular situation goes, sometimes it best just to STFU. These protest movements will go one of two ways. They will either burn themselves out or be hijacked by the radicals who really do dream of kicking down doors and taking everyone's guns by force. Either way this all blows over. My advice would be not to make yourselves look like jackasses before it does. But, of course that advice comes unheeded and too late. 

 

As far as the protest movement goes, this time around seems different in some way or other. So far, they seem to have control of their message, which is generalized gun control and pushing Congress to do something.

 

The generalized and diverse messaging may be an advantage here.

[Fiach]

 

It's my understanding that Trump had to pass the bill and had no choice. If not passed there would be a shut down?

Is this because of lack of support from the Republican Party, he couldn't veto it?

I don't know enough about it tbh. Any insight would be appreciated.

 

He could have signed it, vetoed it, whichever he chose. It would be unusual for the President to veto a bill passed by a Congress controlled by his own party. But hardly unheard of. Obama did it once and George W Bush did it a number of times.  And if it shuts the government down then shut it down. Better to do nothing than the wrong thing. 

 

Cutting taxes cuts revenue in the short term but raises it in the long term. That may sound paradoxical but it is absolutely true. The reason is capital in the hands of consumers and investors gets used. The citizens want widgets. If they have more money they buy more widgets. The means revenue growth for the people who sell widgets, make widgets, deliver widgets, make the parts to make widgets. Revenue growth means re-investment, expansion, hiring, which means more taxes. More people with jobs means more taxpayers. More revenue means business pay more. The effect is exponential becoming larger  the further down the road you get from the cuts.  Ultimately the government has more money even though it cut taxes.

 

Buuuuuut, it DOES mean less revenue in the short term. So if you are earning a little less you need to spend a little less right? Not here. The spending is utterly and completely out of control. And no one is even suggesting cutting it any more. Now it's a race to see who can spend the most. So when you or I run out of money that's just tough tittie for us. Break out the Ramen noodles for dinner. Governments don't run out of money. They create deficits by spending money that does not actually exist. That can lead to currency devaluation due to inflation and other bad things.

Cool, thanks for the insight Guard Dog

[213374U]

Cutting taxes cuts revenue in the short term but raises it in the long term. That may sound paradoxical but it is absolutely true. The reason is capital in the hands of consumers and investors gets used.

Not anymore it doesn't. Thanks to financial markets, capital no longer needs to be invested and work to create tangible wealth to make investors a profit. Indeed, it's undeniably riskier and potentially less profitable to put down a few hundred millions to bankroll Ol' Musky's gigafactory than it is to speculate with some investment "vehicle" that hedges risk onto low-income homeowners or Joe taxpayer. Hell, even crypto investments are more profitable than investing in a business that produces something and employs people.

 

Taxes shmaxes. It doesn't matter. Raise them? Capital flight and tax evasion. Cut them? "Healthy" upwards wealth redistribution, happy carefree financial shenanigans, and fiscal engineering will ensure that what isn't covered by the cuts will be ensconced safely away from the taxman anyway.

 

It would take a coordinated global effort to put that genie back in the bottle, and it ain't happening unless **** gets ugly.

[Guard Dog]

Never mind. It was a nasty comment.

Edited March 25, 2018 by Guard Dog

[Zoraptor]

 

Cutting taxes cuts revenue in the short term but raises it in the long term. That may sound paradoxical but it is absolutely true. The reason is capital in the hands of consumers and investors gets used.

Hell, even crypto investments are more profitable than investing in a business that produces something and employs people.

 

 

That's not really a change though, except in method- while the crypto craze uses modern methods it's still at its base Tulip Madness and similar to every other bubble, underpinned by the willingness of people to pay an even more ridiculous price for something than the previous buyer. I don't think anyone really believed that a tulip bulb was worth $40k each or whatever the peak price was, even if theoretically you got a physical bulb instead of some ephemeral 1s and 0s.

 

The modern funny money banking/ share market/ derivative etc tools though, absolutely. Most of them take things that used to enable normal people to make money as well and turn them into the preserve of the elites, usually to the detriment of the normal people. A standard human share trader not only has a far harder time of it than some automated algorythm making trades every 5ms but will often be actively manipulated by them.

[Guard Dog]

An excellent argument for limiting investments to commodities and real assets. Real estate, gold, silver, etc might not make you rich but they have a real value not tied to any one currency (real or imaginary) and will never be worthless.

[Blarghagh]

I have been saying for years that the NRA needs to step up when these shootings happen and advocate for responsible and safe gun ownership. They haven't done that, and after reading the response they issued about the marches, I've got to say they are absolutely delusional. 

 

 

 

 "Today's protests aren't spontaneous. Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones."

 

That reads like a crazy person's response.

 

Apparently they also told the Parkland teens "no one would know who you are if your classmates were still alive" as if it were some kind of taunt?

 

[Pidesco]

The NRA has been a bunch of evil bastards for quite some time, now.

[Malcador]

Eh, mostly just bad PR

[Guard Dog]

The NRA isn't evil. I'm a member. A lifetime member. It serves a purpose that no other national group is doing. Even those that claim they are dedicated to defending rights. The problem with the NRA is a guy named Wayne LaPierre. He takes great joy in diving into the political pig pen and wallowing with the worst of them. And he has made the NRA a fundraising arm of the Republican Party. That is something it never was in the past. The cause would be better served by being more apolitical and more "colorblind" in support of candidates on both sides of the aisle.Rather than antagonizing opponents it's better to focus on electing allies. The cause would also be much better served by focus on one simple message, stay on that message, don't say ANYTHING that varies from that, and for God's sake don't publicly attack teenagers. Nothing good comes from that.

[Pidesco]

Puppy mills.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/02/11/1186236/-Toi-Hutchison-s-NRA-questionnaire-and-support-for-puppy-mills

[Malcador]

Related, Remington filed for bankruptcy - https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/26/gun-maker-remington-americas-oldest-files-chapter-11-bankruptcy/457709002/

[Guard Dog]

Related, Remington filed for bankruptcy - https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/03/26/gun-maker-remington-americas-oldest-files-chapter-11-bankruptcy/457709002/

That has been a long time coming.

[Guard Dog]

Puppy mills.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/02/11/1186236/-Toi-Hutchison-s-NRA-questionnaire-and-support-for-puppy-mills

OK, first of all this is the Daily Kos. Not exactly a bastion of unbiased journalism. Second of all they are attacking a strawman here a little bit. That question is less about puppy mills and more about probing a candidate's stance on enforcing an existing law rather than piling new law atop old law. The favored tactic of anti-freedom legislators and executives is to not enforce existing law through executive order or funding cuts. Then claim the moral high ground when lack of enforcement results in a crime and tout new and stricter laws (which will also go unenforced because the end game is prohibition). Third of all the puppy mill situation is one I know well having worked in dog rescue in the past. It's a nasty business that absolutely is and should be illegal in most states. But anti-puppy mill laws are often (as most laws are these days) not evenly enforced and construed to shut down legitimate private breeders who actually do a good job managing their animals. The wording of the law is key when defining what is or is not a criminal enterprise. It's often vague and left to the interpretation of law enforcement. If our history has taught us anything it's that when things are left to the cops to interpret they are going to do so in an abusive and heavy handed way 99.9% of the time.

 

Short answer, the Daily Kos is oversimplifying a complicated issue to create a strawman to attack a political foe.  

 

Of course the questions and example itself is just weapons grade stupid on the NRA's part. But they do stupid better than most other groups I'm sorry to say. If there were another nationwide group for 2nd Amendment advocacy that was better managed I'd join it. Unfortunately that clown college is all there is.

[Guard Dog]

Oh my God! Someone on the internet doctored a photo! Someone on the internet LIED! Our democracy has failed! The internet must be banned! https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/us/emma-gonzalez-photo-doctored-trnd/index.html

 

Here is some smelling salts for the hysterical types who think Russia stole the election of think Emma Gonzalez really wants to destroy the Republic: No one with half a brain believes what they read on the internet!

 

Hell I looked for a recipe for zucchini corn bread and still felt I should cross check it with other sources.

[smjjames]

The NRA isn't evil. I'm a member. A lifetime member. It serves a purpose that no other national group is doing. Even those that claim they are dedicated to defending rights. The problem with the NRA is a guy named Wayne LaPierre. He takes great joy in diving into the political pig pen and wallowing with the worst of them. And he has made the NRA a fundraising arm of the Republican Party. That is something it never was in the past. The cause would be better served by being more apolitical and more "colorblind" in support of candidates on both sides of the aisle.Rather than antagonizing opponents it's better to focus on electing allies. The cause would also be much better served by focus on one simple message, stay on that message, don't say ANYTHING that varies from that, and for God's sake don't publicly attack teenagers. Nothing good comes from that.

 

Perhaps you should run for NRA president?

[smjjames]

Trump has expelled 60 Russian diplomats and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle in a move that he personally made.

In response, the Russian embassy in D.C. is asking the twitterverse what US consulate in Russia they'd choose to close.. I can only assume that they're trying to make the Russian move look as non-political as possible.

[Zoraptor]

Expulsions are always political and they're always reciprocated, asking where to close is just trolling and nothing else. Russian embassies troll very frequently, admittedly it's extremely easy for them to do so considering how eminently triggerable and credulous the average westerner is. Only question is whether the reciprocation will be absolute equivalence or proportionate- and proportionate would be worse. The UK expelling 23 Russians was 40% of their staff, Russia expelling 23 Brits was considerably less than 40% of theirs. Most countries (including the US) have way more diplomats in Russia than the reverse, hence Russia expelling 755 (!) US diplomats last time to bring the numbers back to even.

 

One would not want to speculate on why there are so many more diplomats in Russia than the reverse, but I'm sure it's 100% innocent and none of them carry out activities outside their station.

 

The only surprising thing is the attempt to do expulsions from the UN by the US, which is on extremely dodgy footing. Time to move the UN to Switzerland or make its territory fully non national.

[majestic]

We're currently having a lively debate about tax-funded esotericism after it became public that a certain hospital currently under construction that already has to deal with major cost and time overruns has been "energetically cleaned" by a quack claiming to be able to "permanently protect a building from negative energy" by creating an "energy ring" around the estate.

 

For the small change of only 95k €. 's pratically a steal, right? Can't have that negative energy seeping into already sick patients and all.

 

Perhaps that'll raise public awareness a bit, because so far there's been no outcry that hospitals wasted good money on Grander water which is very much on the same level of quackery.

[injurai]

Just another charlatan interest group feigning new-age ignorance to gouge the system. I find it hard to believe that people don't know better.

[Sarex]

For anyone who cares.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

On Twitter, Kosovo’s deputy prime minister Enver Hoxhaj

I thought he was Albanian and dead.

[HoonDing]

Everytime I read there are 300-400 million guns in America I can't help but think of that ancient Chinese practice to create the ultimate poison.