Funny events in anti-woke world

[Ag3ma]

If you think Republican policy is to have people go hungry and die in the streets, you're fully buying into the Democratic propaganda. Republicans want to reform and manage and ideally minimize the need for welfare programs not because of we want the country to be a hellscape of social darwinism, but because abuse and corruption actively take away the ability to keep people fed.

Every time you read someone saying something like that they had to decide whether to buy food or medicine that week, you need to realise that's telling us we are not feeding our people.

Communism is a straw man. "Social Darwinism" is an absurdio ad reductam, although in truth the ideology of much of the Western political right heavily involves similar principles.

The requirements to keep the poorest housed and fed in a Western country are trivial percentages of GDP (and just to stress, this is not an issue unique to the USA and I am talking more widely). The argument of "corruption" is extremely dubious, as the money saved through ever more punitive and restrictive measures is generally chicken feed when compared with, for instance, rampant tax avoidance that tends to go much less commented upon. These restrictive efforts also often create the sorts of unwieldy bureaucracies that then can become problems themselves.

"Corruption" is mostly a cover for the more pressing motivation of wealthier people not wanting to pay taxes. There's lots of euphemistic rhetoric about "hard working" people keeping "their money" on the surface. However, dig down into individual comments, away from the politicians and journos who shy away from saying the grossly insensitive, and you rapidly find lots of people saying they hate their money going to lazy and incompetent bums.

 

[tstorm823]

Every time you read someone saying something like that they had to decide whether to buy food or medicine that week, you need to realise that's telling us we are not feeding our people.

Well this isn't true. Most of the time I read someone saying they had to decide whether to buy food or medicine, I remember there are a lot of people who lie on the internet for fake internet points, and then I click their username to find out they live in San Francisco and spend all their time on the antiwork subreddit.

Not to say there aren't people who find themselves in that position, just that there are more targets for your cynicism if you want to broaden the scope there.

The requirements to keep the poorest housed and fed in a Western country are trivial percentages of GDP

There are two screaming issues with this sentence, I have to tackle them both.

1) Percentage of GDP is meaningless. GDP isn't a pile of money, it measures economic velocity as much as size, you can't treat that number like a bank account.
2) The requirements to keep everyone housed and fed are almost literally infinite in scope. The houses and food are a trivial number. The logistics to put 2 and 2 together are exponentially higher a requirement. The ability to accurately identify every single person who is insecure in their food or housing, as well as who is not, is a system beyond what money could possibly pay for. Unless you've got Cerebro handy, you're trivializing a major roadblock.

The argument of "corruption" is extremely dubious, as the money saved through ever more punitive and restrictive measures is generally chicken feed when compared with, for instance, rampant tax avoidance that tends to go much less commented upon. These restrictive efforts also often create the sorts of unwieldy bureaucracies that then can become problems themselves.

I'm not suggesting there's an easy solution. The solutions are hard, and require expanding in some ways and contracting in others. If you accuse anyone suggesting a contraction of services of wanting people to starve, you can't actually try to help people. "We can only make it bigger, even when something isn't working" is exactly the performative nonsense you hate.

 

[Ag3ma]

Well this isn't true. Most of the time I read someone saying they had to decide whether to buy food or medicine, I remember there are a lot of people who lie on the internet for fake internet points, and then I click their username to find out they live in San Francisco and spend all their time on the antiwork subreddit.

This is just a trivial form of ad hominem of no great debate merit.

1) Percentage of GDP is meaningless. GDP isn't a pile of money, it measures economic velocity as much as size, you can't treat that number like a bank account.

Ultimately, this says nothing at all.

2) The requirements to keep everyone housed and fed are almost literally infinite in scope. The houses and food are a trivial number. The logistics to put 2 and 2 together are exponentially higher a requirement. The ability to accurately identify every single person who is insecure in their food or housing, as well as who is not, is a system beyond what money could possibly pay for. Unless you've got Cerebro handy, you're trivializing a major roadblock.

This is a load of waffly theory that appears to exist to obscure the practicalities of welfare delivery, not explain them.

I'm not suggesting there's an easy solution. The solutions are hard, and require expanding in some ways and contracting in others. If you accuse anyone suggesting a contraction of services of wanting people to starve, you can't actually try to help people. "We can only make it bigger, even when something isn't working" is exactly the performative nonsense you hate.

I'm sure they don't actively want people to starve. It's more that people starving is an acceptable by-product of them not having to pay taxes. Or, perhaps, what's the absolute rock bottom they have to do to stop most people starving to death on the streets (and human dignity be damned).

In a sort of away, I agree that contractions and expansions are desirable. One point I might note about welfare systems is how, in practice, a lot of it can be directed to relatively affluent people who don't actually need it. But this is really a way that wealthier people have nobbled the system to provide for themselves rather than the people most in need.

 

[Silvanus]

But it's not just at the exclusion of all else. Justice is the easy one: you can formulate a situation where mercy is preferable to justice. Even if there's no practical difference in outcomes, it can be better to forego justice if the victim prefers mercy.

That'd be "justice" at the exclusion of mercy and the principle that the victim should have some input.

It's fundamentally the same argument: that it's not an "innate virtue" if it can be employed poorly or negatively impact something else. The same is also true of peace and prosperity.

Well this isn't true. Most of the time I read someone saying they had to decide whether to buy food or medicine, I remember there are a lot of people who lie on the internet for fake internet points, and then I click their username to find out they live in San Francisco and spend all their time on the antiwork subreddit.

Not to say there aren't people who find themselves in that position, just that there are more targets for your cynicism if you want to broaden the scope there.

[...]

The requirements to keep everyone housed and fed are almost literally infinite in scope.

Amazing how quickly "feed the hungry, clothe the cold, shelter the homeless" becomes "they might be lying about being hungry/cold/homeless, so don't trust 'em", and "well its too hard to help everyone anyway".

Your commitment to these Christian principles is skin-deep.

 

[Chimpzy]

Alabama congressman introduces bill to make AR-15 the ‘National Gun of America’

There are several distinct American things: American football, country music, biscuits and gravy. However, Alabama congressman Barry Moore wants to add to that list.

whnt.com

I don't know, you'd have to be pretty tall to put an AR-15s buttstock up against your crotch while still being able to fellate the muzzle.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Alabama congressman introduces bill to make AR-15 the ‘National Gun of America’

There are several distinct American things: American football, country music, biscuits and gravy. However, Alabama congressman Barry Moore wants to add to that list.

whnt.com

I don't know, you'd have to be pretty tall to put an AR-15s buttstock up against your crotch while still being able to fellate the muzzle.

I might be a bit more than a 'bit' drunk but that's fucken idiotic and I also hope other arms manufacturers sue him just for shit and giggles.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Alabama congressman introduces bill to make AR-15 the ‘National Gun of America’

There are several distinct American things: American football, country music, biscuits and gravy. However, Alabama congressman Barry Moore wants to add to that list.

whnt.com

I don't know, you'd have to be pretty tall to put an AR-15s buttstock up against your crotch while still being able to fellate the muzzle.

See, you know this is the most purile of bullshit virtue signaling because the US has so many better guns for something like this. The Thompson "Tommy" Gun. The Peacemaker. The Colt '45. The M1 Garand. The Browning .50 Cal. The Model 97 Shotgun. The GAU-8 Avenger 30mm Gatling Gun goes bbbbbrrrrrrrttttttt

But the civvie gun with zero historical, cultural, or patriotic cachet? Hot garbage choice made by fake patriots.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

 

[Baffle]

Jesus christ I read the replies. What an Idiot I am.

 

[Dalisclock]

Yeah, he looks like exactly the sort to come up with that.

I like the thought experiment "Pascals Mugging".

In short: A mugger comes up to Pascal and says if Pascal gives the mugger his wallet now, he'll get $100 sometime in the future. Pascal says no and the mugger keeps upping the promised amount until it's something crazy like a billion dollars and saying "If I'm right, what do you have to lose?"

Pascal eventually gives up his wallet to the mugger on the promise of a shit ton of money.

 

[Chimpzy]

It's a nice cat tho.

 

[Dalisclock]

I was slightly alarmed today when having a conversation with a colleague who stated their admiration for Jordan Peterson. I very tactfully detailed some of my reservations about him.

A co-worker once asked me about my thoughts on JP and I bluntly said "I don't' care to think of him at all" in probably the closest "Shut up" voice I could manage while still being civil. He immediately took the hint and dropped the topic.

 

[Absent]

It's a nice cat tho.

 

[Gordon_4]

See, you know this is the most purile of bullshit virtue signaling because the US has so many better guns for something like this. The Thompson "Tommy" Gun. The Peacemaker. The Colt '45. The M1 Garand. The Browning .50 Cal. The Model 97 Shotgun. The GAU-8 Avenger 30mm Gatling Gun goes bbbbbrrrrrrrttttttt

But the civvie gun with zero historical, cultural, or patriotic cachet? Hot garbage choice made by fake patriots.

I’m also noticing a significant lack of the works of Colt and Winchester as well.

 

[Kwak]

I'm sure they don't actively want people to starve.

But, they can justify it when it's framed as a matter of personal moral failures, failures to pro-actively utilise available opportunities, or not applying themselves 24/7 to ambition and material goals.

 

[Trunkage]

Then why did you post lies!?

Take what you think I think about him and go back and reread what I first wrote.

I feel I was being incredibly kind. For example, I didn't point out that, during the medical emergency abortion debate, Eastmen stated that RURAL NATIVE women were deliberately getting pregnant so they can get a trip to Anchorage.

Eastmen is a guy who keeps going on about quotes he states are being taken out of context. Like Trump, when you place the context back in, the context makes Eastmen look way worse. If Eastmen just stated that it's f'ed up that we are trying to itemize child abuse, I'd be on board. Instead, he said it was a saving which is more about him thinking these children are useless and can't eventually earn taxes. Because of course, only poor useless children get abuse.

I could go on about how this trolling shows up Eastmen's prejudices if you like. Because he has many. But I'm sure those are lies too

 

[Kwak]

Alabama congressman introduces bill to make AR-15 the ‘National Gun of America’

There are several distinct American things: American football, country music, biscuits and gravy. However, Alabama congressman Barry Moore wants to add to that list.

whnt.com

I don't know, you'd have to be pretty tall to put an AR-15s buttstock up against your crotch while still being able to fellate the muzzle.

It's certaintly the national symbol of school shootings, which is also the national symbol of America, so, I guess?
What other activities are there where it is a standard fixture?

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's certaintly the national symbol of school shootings, which is also the national symbol of America, so, I guess?
What other activities are there where it is a standard fixture?

Well, it's the civilian variant of what they've just decided to replace as the standard infantry weapon. A few years ago this would have...not made sense, but there'd be more behind it.

 

[davidmc1158]

I’m also noticing a significant lack of the works of Colt and Winchester as well.

*unboxes special pedantic hat*
I think the AR series is produced by Colt, so while the iconic weapons of the Old West (or the Dirty Harry movies) aren't being used, it is still a Colt weapon.

 

[tstorm823]

I feel I was being incredibly kind.

I don't care what you think of him, or how kind your post was relative to your actual feelings. I care that you are deliberately distributing misinformation. I swear you were once a reasonable person, but you're descending rapidly toward Seanchaidh levels of deception, posting links that you know are misleading hoping that people will just react without investigating.