Politics 2025

[Buster's Uncle]

You rich, fat BOSSMAN!

[Metaliturtle]

At which point you'll just be benefitting from the environment created by immoral taxation.

I don't disagree... although I do pause at the assumption that morality plays a part in it, my most moral purpose is providing the maximum resources to my family with the least amount of hardship.  I use my First Amendment rights to speak against taxation in most forms, while also living my life in deference to the leadership and rules that come with living where I do.  Taking a 'moral' stand seems pointless to me because we're ruled mainly by the representatives of the majority, and regardless of my personal beliefs, willful disobedience to the rule of law is contrary to my highest moral purpose.

[Geo]

I'm over here as a registered libertarian, it's fun getting the hate from both sides.  I'd vote for a main party candidate if I saw one I could actually believe in... until then it's 'I didn't vote for them' anytime someone complains about el presidente.

Do you have to be registered though?
The large majority of people in my country aren't in any official way affiliated with whatever political party. People just vote on their preference when the time comes (or not at all).

[Geo]

Taxation is theft, which is why I own a business, to reduce the tax liability as much as I can.  Eventually I'll be to a point where I'm living off borrowed money instead of earned income and will be effectively not paying taxes.

So El Presidente is a thief in forcing import tariffs on foreign nations?

[Buster's Uncle]

More or less.  He's fundamentally a grifter by nature, and no doubt sees this as too good/lucrative to pass up.  The cost gets kicked down the road, and free money for the Pigsty meanwhile.

[Trenacker]

I have to catch up with a few different posts here.

First, Democrats are not the only ones with the circular firing squad problem. Republicans struggled throughout the Biden era to whip their own majority, resulting in embarrassing leadership fights. Right now, Democrats can't figure out whether they can afford to alienate the Far Left by moving right to appeal to swing voters who broke for someone as odious as [Sleezebag]--which means, inherently, compromising not just on politics, but on the basic dignity of certain members of their own coalition. The Far Left, meanwhile, is more able to influence change in the Democratic Party than to successfully battle [Sleezebag], so they have turned their most withering fire toward their own party. It doesn't help that a lot of people on the Far Left don't seem to appreciate that a political party is a corporate (little-c) entity that exists to push a particular platform, and doesn't just exist to follow the popular vote from moment to moment. Hence nobody should have expected Bernie Sanders, an Independent, to be able to rally the Democratic Party to his cause just because he was riding a wave of temporary enthusiasm back in 2015.

Second, the Republican tarring of Democrats as people obsessed with niche issues (or, in this case, the allegedly special interests of queer communities) only really works because Republicans have descended into total immorality. Decent people stand up to bullies, which is what the Democrats tried to do. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans like bullies. And too many others simply don't treat bullying as disqualifying behavior. Because conservative propaganda has convinced conservatives that they're being spit on, laughed at, and locked out, there's a very high tolerance for [Sleezebag]'s worst antics.

Third, don't discount Gavin Newsom.

[Buster's Uncle]

My sister, who keeps up far better than I on this sort of thing, didn't disagree about Mayor Pete, but did say Gavin Newsome to me just a few hours ago, and mentioned several others.  I should have taken notes.


The Republican party is profoundly schizophrenic, which is not circular firing squads, though it may look like, it's social "conservatives" not belonging in the same party with the small-government conservatives.  The Regan revolution had party discipline, at least, for all it's where the split personality comes from - and now has lost the party discipline, and nobody's in charge w/ a useful idiot hogging the White House.


OKAY - the fundamental mistake of Democrats collectively this century?  People -everyone, nearly- keep saying they just keep moving further left.  [nonsense].  -I typed the swear for emphasis. 

The Democrats meet an implacable foe on an irrational and unAmerican REACTIONARY track BY TRYING TO MEET THEM IN THE MIDDLE, the middle always further right.  That is spineless and it doesn't work, provably.  The fundamental error was stepping away from labor/working-class politics in 1975 post-Watergate.  That's where the votes were, and moving left on social policy -they have done that this century, and how- masks that they're only the LESS bossman-supporting party.  [nonsense].  Sorry, the gays and the minorities, the votes are with the working class, since suckered into supporting the slaver party.

[nonsense].  A better balance is called for.

Don't blame me; I voted for Bernie the time before.

[Trenacker]

Eh, at this point, it's not clear to me what the laboring class wants that isn't culture war garbage--which Democrats can't give them without becoming contemporary Republicans. That is, to wit, philosophically rootless people who have taken up performing anger and inflicting humiliation and set aside the work of solving shared problems.

Democrats are too quick to complain that [Sleezebag]'s voters are being suckered. They aren't. They would rather have a form of spiritual absolution from Donald [Sleezebag] than an extra $200 from a Democrat. It just feels better.

[Buster's Uncle]

They ARE suckers. 

Money.  Everybody wants money to buy them some more American dream.  I would go into politics myself and prove it can be sold if I wasn't a mentally ill hippy pauper...  I'd sell them a square deal for the gays and minorities, to boot -once I'd gotten some traction going- them being our brothers in the same boat.

[Geo]

I always wonder what's going to happen first in the USA: another secession attempt, or a third major political party. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Literal secession, like a state trying to leave -unlikely- or just more treason -very likely, already going on IMO-?

Third major political party?  Never, it looks like; the small government Republicans -note the lack of Ks- should have migrated to the Libertarians and turned it into a real party nine years ago.

[Green1]

The real issue is the very rich and the very poor. The very rich want to keep the things going on that keep them very rich. The poor would really rather not be poor.

The problem is that there is no upper limit to wealth. There IS a lower limit to poverty. While yes, you can have a negative number on some database somewhere saying you have negative worth, past owning nothing it's all imaginary numbers.

And it takes A LOT of poor people to make one person wealthy. So they have to fight other wealthy people.

They also control the narrative on many, many forum boards, YT, the major news, etc to distract and divide from this fact. The people in power must keep workers commuting harsh commutes, having to be at places, having to pay large percentages to rent so they can't save up to not work, and tie everything like healthcare to work as to make them a second class citizen if they don't work and are not rich. Then feed you media and video games the only time you have to yourself to pacify you. Or make you drink/ take drugs but ONLY the ones they want. You can drink till you pee out bits of your liver and get addicted to oxies but smoke weed you are barred from even some menial jobs.

AI is going to accelerate what has been going on for decades.

I predict a time when there are no websites on search. Just an AI that tells you what the AI company has been paid to show. Google is almost there and most of the halfway legit searches point to Reddit, which is in itself heavily altered and I predict will be mostly AI posts.

But there are changes coming. Big ones I don't think anyone is ready for. What if there is not much work and everything is AI?

Andrew Yang may be right...

[Buster's Uncle]

It's all about what's fair, isn't it?  This is a great deal of what the suckers harp on when they're not being simply racist - welfare is unfair to the people supporting it.

They're being short-sighted, not seeing the worth of collective action that would NEVER BE in a privatized context, not accounting for they're a bad week or two from It Happening To Them, but they're still not COMPLETELY wrong.

[Green1]

It's all about what's fair, isn't it?  This is a great deal of what the suckers harp on when they're not being simply racist - welfare is unfair to the people supporting it.

They're being short-sighted, not seeing the worth of collective action that would NEVER BE in a privatized context, not accounting for they're a bad week or two from It Happening To Them, but they're still not COMPLETELY wrong.

The problem is fairness is a matter of perception.

For instance, if you ask the insurance companies if denying stuff is fair they will point to false claims and people trying to get over. Plus, they need mansions and private jets too. Plus, some of those people brought it on themselves. After all, they are idiots and if they can be rich and someone else can't something must be morally/spiritually/culturally wrong with them and they deserve it.

But you ask the guy on medicaid who has cancer that get denied because they are broke and worked all their life, that would be far unfair.

I am sure Bezos and Musk having private space programs and multiple lovers and doing whatever they want is fair to them.

[Buster's Uncle]

As I said...

I mean, pretty much all of politics boils down to what people think is fair.

You've been homeless in the Big City, I've been a homeless-adjacent migrant laborer in a showbiz venue that counted on not paying most people enough to afford to live in a trailer.  Our world view is fundamentally not Elok's or Rusty's or Trennacker's as a result.

I'm not really a liberal outside of labor issues - but in these extreme times, the labor issues are everything.