I think it’s a great idea to move to the #1 ranked Texas! /s

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/13/10-states-worst-quality-of-life-america.html

I was referring to closely guarding shit online mostly. In real life it’s just kind of absurd.

Ah yes, online, where you can keep everything closely guarded…

What are you even talking about? Keeping something “closely guarded” online is perhaps more absurd than trying to do so in real life, where at least the people had to show up physically.

Any popular libertarian movement is destined to be co-opted by larger groups if it’s not closely guarded, and libertarians suck at being exclusive to ideas.

Ya dont say.gif

Who would’ve thought that “rugged individualism” doesn’t scale well, and that collectivism of any sort in politics (a fucking popularity contest with real world stakes) will obviously trounce individualism politically? /s

“If not closely guarded”? What does that even look like? A tiny political party destined to get 0.25% of the vote? Politics is a numbers game, it’s not your favorite indie band, or a recipe handed down from your grandma.

It reminds me of political posturing on other issues, like everyone says they believe the climate scientists but they sure as fuck ain’t acting like it.

Here too it really seems like those sounding the alarm aren’t alarmists at all. Trump is a fascist. But everyone’s still pretending like it’s completely fine to lose to him.

One of his better nuggets for this crowd is his suggestion that they “take the guns away first and do [sic] process later”.

The top plop of shit is just as indistinguishable from the rest of the shit, it was just plopped more recently.

I put myself as a top plop on the pile, friendo.

I’m convinced I’m pretty immune to being sucked into a cult, but aside from that I consider myself about as stupid as your average people.

EDIT: I also don’t think of us as “sheep” or “glassy-eyed automatons”. I think we, as a species, are a different type of stupid. We spend most of our lives deluding ourselves into thinking that we’re somehow above (or the winners of) the natural order. We spend enough time in denial to buy a second home there. Our true nature isn’t all that much different from a monkey picking flies off of its shoulders in the jungle…just with more zoom calls.

Mass media has been pivotal in expanding and inflating the reputations of larger-than-life individuals (real and imagined).

I mean people belong to cults. I don’t think they joined because of the news (which doesn’t even cover them). People are idiots.

Its strange to see the American right

I’d agree full stop right there. They’re a strange beast. In a way it’s possible (though not something I’d bother with) to feel somewhat sorry for them…what with them being so anti-immigration in a country teeming with nothing but immigrants.

Reagan wasn’t hit by Iran Contra until '87, and it nearly sank the Bush '88 campaign for President.

My apologies for getting the timelines slightly mixed up. In my defense I was 4 at the time. However, Bush winning in '88 despite being neck deep in an administration full of openly admitted liars doesn’t exactly bode well for your argument that US voters aren’t pretty A-OK with corruption.

The idea of a single all-power Ubermensch Superman isn’t a socialist view.

Nah, it’s a human one, and one that’s extremely common in the US despite our governmental structure all but guaranteeing that one guy alone can’t fix things.

We love simple power structures, because we’re simple beings. It’s also why I think there is more to horseshoe theory than people want to admit. Communists claim to want gay space communism but seem A-OK with some stupid asshole being basically a dictator as long as its their type of stupid asshole.

Once we formed up larger civilized order, it took us millennia to conceive of a different type of governance aside from “what one stupid asshole says goes”.

Time and again, large cooperative campaigns of mutual aid provide better outcomes than the public putting all our hopes on a handful of aristocratic elites.

I somewhat agree? I think? But I’m not sure it has much to do with anything we’re discussing.

I don’t think the US voter base is any more accepting of corruption than any other constituency.

Counterpoints: the US voter base re-elected Nixon (and largely wanted him to stay in office)…elected and then re-elected Reagan (despite him openly admitting to lying to the American public and exchanging guns for hostages)…elected Trump in the first place, cast more votes for Trump in 2020 than they had in 2016, and now look like they might just go ahead and put the corrupt gasbag right back in there despite the fact that he’s openly corrupt, brags about it, and will likely get more corrupt in any second term.

The only thing that can save America from itself is a new socialist turn.

So there’s your version of superman. Within the current political environment, I just don’t see this happening without another depression or similar (so perhaps even decades more of what we currently got). I also am decidedly not someone in favor of eliminating democracy in favor of purportedly “temporary” one-party rule (that never fucking ends).

Agreed, so why squabble with people pointing out that the US is more corrupt than other countries? It is.

And it’s more corrupt because not only are we more accepting of corruption, but “we” (like you) largely don’t believe in incremental change or taking small measures to problem reduction…we largely believe in our version of “superman” arriving…I dunno what your thoughts actually are…maybe some gay space communism revolution that’ll never occur?

I gotta tell ya at this point we’re much more likely to get full, mask-off fascism complete with gas chambers than we are to get any kind of communist revolution in the US.

You can make this same, tired, ultimately invalid argument about anything you look to improve.

You can’t prevent the spread of all communicable disease, so why bother taking any precautions?

Someone could build their own gun, so why bother preventing a convicted felon from buying an oozie?

Someone could evade a line item tax by hiring a fancy lawyer and setting up bespoke legal structures around themselves as an entity, so why bother looking at closing any of the existing tax loopholes?

The answer is that because it’s not fucking all or nothing. Sure, someone could hypothetically do lots of things to evade any precaution that you put in place around dangerous or bad things, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ineffective. If it’s too much of a hassle, some people won’t bother. Some people will actually get caught. Hell, with the existing lax corruption laws and lazy ass enforcement in the US people are still sometimes found in violation of them.

It isn’t a “if you ain’t first you’re last” situation. Reasonable safeguards, laws, standards, practices, and the like save and improve lives.

Sure, but that doesn’t mean that even discussing real or hypothetical measures to reign in corruption is inherently worthless because you can sometimes get around some of them.

I hate the US “either we solve everything, or nothing is worth doing” mindset that’s pervasive in this country, and the only reason I responded is because you’re providing a good example of it.

IIRC, people were talking about places in this thread that aren’t the US.

As stated, political bribery in the US is nearly 100% legal. You can even study it in school and make a career out of it.

Eh… There are a variety of end-runs around this mechanism.

There are any number of hypothetical end-runs around just about anything you can think of, that doesn’t make protections, mechanisms, controls, or safeties useless.

In the US, political bribery is nearly 100% legal. I’d rather have some hoops for corrupt officials to jump through. We don’t even make them break a sweat in this country.

Dude literally staged a coup to stay in power and we are debating whether or not he’s too much of a racist or antisemite to be President again.

I hate to break it to you, but you switch arguments every twenty seconds and basically advocate for Trump and then call yourself a “leftist”.

You are a shill.

Geezus… Why is it that Democrats keep saying, “by advocating for better policies and more progressive ideas you’re a Trump supporter!”

That’s not even what you’re advocating for, you’re advocating for fantasy land like candidate switches months before the election.

But leave it to you, a person, place, or thing that is definitely not a concern troll, bot, or plant to wait a day and come back with an entirely new argument about why you’re totally not a shill.

Yep because as it turns out none of those people are running for president, won’t be running for president, and in 2016 there was a whole Russian effort to push “alternative candidates” to Hillary Clinton just like you’re doing.

You’re all about sowing discord and writing “Biden bad” in various ways across various threads, and you strike me as a concern troll trolling for Trump.

You don’t understand why Trump is so popular to the right.

Not the person you’re responding to but I certainly don’t understand their love for him, but that’s probably because I’m not a right wing shill that’s in love with Trump and wants him to win like your posts strongly suggest that you are.