HaroldWilson
1yr ago
?
Foot supported the Falklands war, Attlee and Truman initiated their respective countries involvment in Korea and the discrepancy with Vietnam can simply be explained by specific differences; chiefly, there the US was propping up an unpopular authoritarian regime rather than a functioning and genuine, if flawed, democracy.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Trade might happen without government violence (though they would still be involved in protecting the property of those engaged in trade), but the corporation as it exists in modern America is absolutely the product of government intervention, especially in terms of creating the necessary legal infrastructure for things such as limited liability companies. In addition government intervention assists corporate activity via patents and trademarks, regulation of union activity and most of all creating the peaceable environment that allows their private property 'rights' to have any meaning at all.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Well unions can/could reduce 'defection' both by securing sufficient benefits for their members that joining becomes rational anyway. If a union reaches a critical mass of membership where an employer can't really do without it in the short to medium term, a union can negotiate better terms that a non-unionised employee doesn't have the bargaining power to secure and if a certain size negotiate closed shop agreements with employers in a fully voluntary manner. Unions had no special legal protections at least until 1871 (and even then that's debatable, some would put it further forward in 1906).
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
We have survived most of history without them
Well sort of, but not very well. Peel didn't create the Metropolitan Police just because he felt like it, law and order in the early 19th century and before was a disaster, precisely because so much of the burden was placed on private citizens to bring cases etc. and they weren't very good at it. Violent crime in inner London dropped by as much as 40% on the introduction of the Met, with smaller reductions for property crime.
We also survived most of history without modern medicine.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
They can exist by no violence at all. For most of the early 19th century in Britain, the direction of violence was unquestionably from government and mill-owner towards unionist.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
But a core part of this to me comes from unions only existing because of government violence. Otherwise they wouldn’t exists.
Apart, as someone else has pointed out, being kind of meaningless since corporations only exist because of government violence too, it's also rather unhistorical. During the initial phase of the emergence of unions in Britain they were banned under the Combination Act 1799 - an odd thing to do if unions only exist because of positive government action. They often persisted in spite of such legislation in the form of friendly societies and the like. Even today in most of the West unions have at least many restrictions on their behaviour as they do protections.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
If the NYT picked up this story, do you think they'd have the nuance to highlight the shall we say questionable assumptions in this paper? Or would they just blare a giant headline stating "TIDAL POWER WILL KILL US ALL!" (Sub-heading: solar and wind the only way forward...)? Would they even link to the original paper? I think the world's complexity has surpassed the abilities of the average MSM reporter/editor/reader. Even if journalists are perfectly honest and impartial, they are too susceptible to manipulation to be trusted. Barring a drastic change in our media, the information content of the typical news article is now capped at zero.
If you want to criticise the press, you would do well to choose a real example rather than make one up and declare that if it occurred it would be a damning indictment of our media. In fact, the original initial version was first published in 2019. Not a single outlet, no matter how obscure, that I can find has covered this at all. In addition, from what I can tell this has never been published in any journal or been peer-reviewed at all. It's hard, therefore, to see this as anything other than lame culture warring. 'If this paper was picked up by the news or academic community, which it totally would, apart from the fact that it hasn't, but I know they definitely would if they hadn't, what rubes that would show them to be'. If anyone responds to this the inevitable reply will be 'the media is bad on science, look at X, Y and Z' or whatever, but then consider using one those real examples as the basis for a post rather than making up a non-existent story to get mad at.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
It wasn't just about tweets, it's about a letter he sent to Raffensperger asking him to decertify the election. Of course the law applies to everyone equally, but not everyone has an equal capacity to 'importune' to the same extent.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Because why create a whole infrastructure of voter verification where it isn't needed? If a compelling case that voter fraud is anything more than a very minor problem can be made then fine, but I haven't seen one yet, and if that continues to be the case it's best not to legislate solutions looking for problems.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
That seems infeasible. Wikipedia says that it took the FAA 10 years after the PATCO strike for staffing to fully return to normal, and that was only about 10,000 employees. The DoD employees 16,500 employees in D.C. alone, and 738,000 civilians worldwide; also, see how many quality applicants you get wanting to live and work in Wichita Falls.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Maybe it's time to repeal the Civil Service Act.
This would be ridiculous in a modern economy. The spoils system had already had its day in an era where swathes of the country had effectively no federal presence except postmasters and other assorted odds and sods like lighthouse- keepers. America already has a relatively high level of political input in the civil service; even if you buy into the whole 'deep state' thing I fail to see how making thousands upon thousands of offices sinecures for party hacks makes things much better.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
They are well aware via plain reading of the second amendment and any of the surrounding documentation, as their is enough evidence that they did know the text of the second amendment or should have known such as makes no difference.
I think there is ample evidence that a reading of the 2nd Amendment vastly different to that which you advocate can reasonably be taken; even if you disagree with it there is a legitimate perspective that rejects what you consider to be the 'plain reading'. See, for instance, cases like Aymette v. State of Tennessee, which held that the right to 'bear arms' was a political and group right rather than an individual one, such that the 'legislature have the power to prohibit the keeping or wearing weapons dangerous to the peace and safety of the citizens', as the 2nd Amendment (and the provisions of the Tennessee state constitution) guaranteed the right to employ weaponry only in 'civilized warfare'. Hence it upheld a ban on the concealed carrying of knives. Also, because it exists as a 'group' right for the 'common defense' only, though the general right has to be preserved 'it does not follow that the legislature is prohibited from passing laws regulating the manner in which these arms may be employed'. See also Buzzard, City of Salina v. Blaskley and US v. Adams (1935, not 1966). This interpretation is not in fashion these days, but it is clearly a legitimate view, and indeed to my mind a very persuasive one.
But even if we allow that by your logic the tens of millions of democrats who have at some point said "The Second Amendment says this, that's why politicians need to get rid of it" Would thenforce be guilty anytime they advocated gun-control, and probably on every individual count.
I'm not so sure. While I don't think there are 'tens of millions' who would concede what they want is in violation of the constitution (most would surely give some rationale, either similar to the above, or arguing about 'well regulated etc. etc., or simply advocate changing the constitution), the level of 'solicitation' is vastly different between the incumbent President pressuring officials into changing election results vs. a man on the street with a placard in favour of a gun control proposal he deep down thinks is contrary to the constitution.
"the constitution was written by slaveowners, we don't need to listen to what slaveowners wrote about slaveowner's rights to own guns"
I think this sort of rhetoric is more about being in favour of a 'living constitution' interpretation, but either way what I said before still applies; we should hold an incumbent President to a much higher standard on this kind of thing than an ordinary person, as the extent and harmful effects of the 'solicitation' are vastly different.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Not necessarily tourists exactly, but yeah I do think they just meant generally don't look like ordinary people doing ordinary things. So either tourists or at least atypical Londoners. I suspect the 'in error' thing was to just shut the press up.
When I said 'mostly white' that was a bit misleading, what I meant is that the people you can see clearly are all white, its just that with any large street scene there are people you can't see clearly in the background whose race is ambiguous. But the people in the foreground are all white.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
A first generation American, Vivek was born to industrious immigrants who came to this land with nothing and went on to become a geriatric psychiatrist and engineer / patent attorney, respectively
Vivek seems to say this a lot but it's a bit stolen valour, he shouldn't get to trade off his parents' achievements. He had a sufficiently privileged upbringing to go to a private high school, so the whole 'American Dream' thing won't wash for him. But I guess 'I went to a private school from which 99% of students go to college, which has a $100 million dollar endowment and which has won a federal award for its excellence' doesn't sound good on the debate stage.
He's an impressive guy anyway, so why bullshit like this?
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
This makes the accusation of thought-crime highly suspect. The more that you try to force me to believe that the virus could not have come from a lab, the more suspicious I become.
Maybe, but conversely the more you try to tell me that opinion X is the Truth They Don't Want You to Know, the more suspicious I become. In general, it seems silly to try to second-guess our way to conclusions based on how those trying to persuade or dissuade one of a particular view behave. Just think about the issue on its own terms.
My guess is that for as many 'NPCs' you think 'ate up' the Narrative without thinking, a similar proportion of those who believe in the lab leak did so simply because they wanted to plump for whatever was the opposite of what they perceived the establishment position to be.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
that's done more out of the hope that one's team will win rather than the belief that they will.
To be fair, not sure this is true, especially in things like horse racing.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
If we're talking about core parts of identity, it is very much the case that gender might not be there.
I don't disagree with this in a hypothetical sense but that world is borderline unrecognisable from the one that exists today or has ever existed in the modern West. Except for a small number of people widely regarded as eccentric, gender has always been critical to almost everyone's identity in the recent past, and still is.
To me, the word implies normative prescriptions
Perhaps, but I think overall you're being a bit restrictive here. In order for gender roles and gender to be important, it doesn't have to be some strict delineation between male and feminine roles, strictly policed, but could instead be merely about expectations surrounding patterns of behaviour etc. I think 'normative prescriptions' is also a bit restrictive, as such expectations can exist without any individual considering 'normative'.
Well if you think "a preverbal child unsnapping a onesie to make a dress / pulling out barrettes out of their hair is a gender expression" is quite "like that", allow me to introduce you to Dr. Diane Ehrensaft of Benioff's Children's Hospital
Watched the shorter clip and her statement, while I wouldn't necessarily agree with it, also definitely was not saying 'your child is a girl is they make their onesie a dress'. I think she was simply saying that children can be cognisant of gender from an early age, and so in doing something like that it's plausible that a child knows the gendered connotations of what they are doing. Again though, that doesn't mean they are a girl, and I don't think Ehrensaft is saying that, the point is just to show that children can be surprisingly attuned to gender norms. You could draw various conclusions from this, but I don't think her statement implies anything close to the level of 'if you want to wear a dress as a young child you're probably a girl'.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
they don't represent real Londoners
They don't. The word 'represent' doesn't have to mean race. Tourists on a day trip do not represent real Londoners. And again, what about the almost exclusively white street scene?
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
it's primarily discussed as a core part of your identity
I do think that gender is frequently a core part of people's identity, but in the first place I don't think that's something you can ignore by using different words, and secondly that doesn't mean I think it ought to be a core part of someone's identity. 'Your behaviours tend to align more with male gender roles' might be an argument for a woman to transition, but an alternative answer would be to simply stop caring about wanting to align your gender with the one usually associated with your behaviours. Me thinking that latter answer is often a much better response, however doesn't suddenly mean gender or gender roles don't exist, simply because I'd rather they didn't.
saying things like that
Well yes but it would depend exactly how 'like that' such statements actually were.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
I'm not disputing that they want racial diversity in their photographs. They clearly do, and that's fine. What I'm disputing is this bizarre notion is that because one of the 'bad' photos has white people in it therefore they think white people can't be Londoners, despite all the other white people in the good photos. What about the almost exclusively white street scene? That family actually doesn't look like an 'ordinary London one', the problem being their location especially along with general demeanour that makes them look like tourists.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
This is becoming a defining feature of culture in which add campaigns in places that barely have black people are full of them.
Aside from the fact that there are lots black people in London, the brand book actually does feature a broad range of races. Plenty of white people, plenty of people who are non-white but not black, and yes plenty of black people. Few Mongolians, presumably, because there are no Mongolians in London.
The family looks average and it isn't an overly set up shot.
Part of the problem is that they are right in front of the eye, which, combined with the general gaiety of the picture, makes them look like tourists.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
no photos in the guide which only include indigenous (BIPOC?) Britons
Really? Unless you're saying that you don't count the ones with Khan in them, which is almost all of them and therefore cheating really, there are several with just him and white people. There's one of him with two white police officers, with the white woman in the coffee shop (the only other person being a white guy in the background), with just a different white woman in the 'air quality event photo' and one with a white couple in their flat. The one with people strolling around the market square also looks mostly like white people, though maybe one or two in the background aren't white.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
Even though by now everyone knows who "real Londoners" are
Do we? I would say that the connotation of 'real Londoners' is basically just 'doesn't live too far out and isn't too rich'. So while yes an Afro-Caribbean from Brixton is one sort of person that comes to mind when one says that phrase, so is a white plumber from Bethnal Green, or whatever. It just doesn't include bankers, lawyers and people from Upminster.
HaroldWilson
1yr ago
I don't think this is about race at all. Plenty of the other pictures which are examples of good photos show the mayor with exclusively white people. The point is that regular Londoners probably don't spend their weekends strolling along the most famous and photographed portions of the river. With the eye just behind them it looks like a stock photo or like tourists/day-trippers, not average Londoners going about their business. Now, overall they do say they want diversity, but that seems perfectly reasonable, and there is no reason to think that they therefore believe every single photo must contain someone not white. It's just that overall the Mayor should be photographed with a broad range of people; young and old, white, Asian and black, people in hard hats and people in suits etc. etc.
Well this is kind of the point; despite his efforts all Kaczynski's 'legacy' consists of is occasional discussion of his ideas on various obscure internet fora. He himself may be remembered as a minor footnote in American history, but his ideas are already on the ash heap of history, which is of course where they belong.
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