JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
23hr ago
It would be an appropriate comparison if the King, say, had a vote (and regularly used it) in the parliament equalling 2/3 of the sum of the votes of other members, or equivalent amount of power, and everybody would just go "well, we know it's only a relic based on a technicality but that's how it is and we're not changing it". Effectively, abortion in Germany beyond initial 12 weeks is banned, and something that many in the US consider absolutely barbaric, batshit insane, unconstitutional, bible-thumping far-right lunacy - is accepted as the norm. I find it very hard to reconcile with "perceived as harmless" - if anti-abortion movement is so harmless and is merely a decorative relic, why not do the same as the left in the US has been doing for years and roll out free abortions for all to the birth and beyond? The left hasn't ever been shy in implementing their agenda - even with the strong opposition, they often manage to go very far. If the situation is so that there's no opposition to speak of at all, except some decorative relics - why didn't they do that? The most plausible explanation would be that your assessment of the opposition to it being merely a decorative relic is wrong and if the left tried to push the consensus from the current settled point they would encounter a significant pushback, and a lot of people actually think that this compromise point is better than what the left can offer them. For the left to be using this fact as an argument along the lines of "Europe actually loves abortions and long they implemented what we're asking for and they're all fine with it" in this context sounds very misleading.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
That's because Europe hasn't had a US style batshit insane anti-abortion movement outside small rare niches.
Ever heard of folks called "catholics"? I am pretty sure they have some positions on abortion. I am not sure "batshit insane" can be considered as argument and not a spit-spraying, but I think it's reasonable to believe at least some of them hold views that abortion needs to be restricted. Moreover, if those people didn't exist, how exactly would Germany end up with laws like "Abortion is banned forever, but we decide to ignore it for the first 12 weeks" instead of "Abortion is allowed as a sacred right and nobody is to restrict it by any stupid terms or conditions" - as it is the official position of the US left and the official interpretation of RvW until recently? I mean if nobody is so batshit insane as to ban abortions, how does it happen abortion is banned? Was there an alien invasion or something? If everybody agrees banning it is batshit insane, why not just come out and say so and enshrine it like California etc. do?
where the nominal prohibition is kept due to a technicality
Kept from what? You just said Europe didn't have anybody wanting to ban abortion, so how do you "keep" something that nobody ever wanted? How did it got there in the first place? Why didn't they remove that "technicality" long ago - what's so hard about it?
as a way to allow conservatives to signal "morally appropriate behavior".
Are those the same conservatives you just called "batshit insane" and claimed they don't exist in Europe? If they don't exist, why they must be made allowances?
I'm sorry, I find your explanation to be a weak sauce.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
I'm not even sure in "up to birth" part: https://www.nationalreview.com/2008/08/why-obama-really-voted-infanticide-andrew-c-mccarthy/ I'm not sure where's the real line - when the fetus is old enough to vote? Drink? Collect Social Security? Who knows.
JarJarJedi
10d ago
He registered through the CBP One application in Mexico and was detained in San Diego when
OK so I get why he fled Venezuela. His life was in danger and he fled a dictatorial regime. Good for him. But then there's a bit of a gap. Once he got to Mexico, what exactly he was fleeing so urgently that he needed to get to San Diego without an entry visa? And, in fact, how exactly he ended up in San Diego? I am pretty sure if you just walk to the border and tell the agents "please let me in, I am a soccer coach from Venezuela and thus must get to San Diego urgently!" that's not going to work. When I was not a US citizen, each time I entered the US I had to get a visa and it was checked. I don't hear any mention of any visas in this story. How did it happen?
JarJarJedi
10d ago
Support for abortion in germany is in excess of 70%
If Wikipedia is to be believed, abortion in Germany is banned except for when it's necessary for saving mother's life and also the ban is not enforced for the first 12 weeks. I think that's something that not only 70% of US population, but the majority of Republicans would be ok to sign up with. It's interestingly how Germany with it's Euro-leftist tendencies and seemingly wide support for abortions, has the laws that if implemented in the US, would be universally called "far-right abortion ban".
JarJarJedi
14d ago
Again, my point is that the lie wasn't "it's zoonotic". The lie was "it's zoonotic and there's nothing to discuss anymore, and anybody who keeps saying it's possible that it's not zoonotic is a racist idiot". "The truth is X" may be true or false, and we may not know which for a while, but "the consensus is X and there's no good argument for Y" is a proven lie. It still may turn out X is true, but - at that point of time - the claim that there was no good argument against X is what was the lie. And that was definitely a deliberate lie, not a mistake, because people who claimed it knew that there was a good argument against zoonosis - good enough to convince BND. Maybe BND was ultimately duped - it can happen. But it at least established a strong controversy and not a consensus. However this controversy is resolved, the lie had happened.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
That's my point - if you have a strong presence of the people with non-"standard American" tastes, then you can sustain authentic cuisine. If you're just in a random place without large fresh immigrant population, you probably won't find a lot of authentic.
JarJarJedi
15d ago
I am not talking about one specific medical expert, which can honestly be convinced it's zoonotic (or not). I am talking about governmental and scientific establishment that have been for extended time pushing the dogma that only one version of the events is possible, and others are not just incorrect, but wild conspiracy theories driven by ignorance and racism, and anyone who even considers them, even gives them a platform by discussing it, should be immediately expelled from the polite society. This is what the big lie was, and this is what should have lead to consequences. Disagreement about complex subjects is normal. Suppressing one of the sides - and yet, with knowledge that there are at least very good and very strong arguments behind it - and making openly discussing the merits and arguments of the sides impossible - this is the big problem. It's not taking one side that must be rejected - many very smart people and very honest people sometimes took a side that turned out to be wrong, and there's nothing shameful in that if they honestly defended what they thought was true with honest arguments - but trying to put the jackbooted foot on the scale is what is wrong. And what makes it infuriatingly wrong is that at the same time they knew that what they are suppressing is not some random cookery (which shouldn't be suppressed either, but at least here you could understand why they made this mistake) but the position that had at least as strong, if not better, argument than their own. It was pure anti-scientific and anti-societal exercise of power, and society should have reacted to it much stronger than it did. Since it did not, it will happen again.
JarJarJedi
16d ago
So, now we know they lied - which we knew for a long time - and now we have an undeniable proof they lied. The question is - will there be an consequences at all, or the society would just say "well, oops, tough cookies, nothing to do about it" and move on, to the next Big Lie, and the next one after that?
I am not very optimistic about that - even in the US, while Trump was elected, I don't see the society en masse realigning enough to deliver real consequences to the liars. The folks on the right who hated them on principle, still hate them. The folks on the left who defended them on principle, still do. The middle-ground folks are largely eager to forget everything and move on - and to believe The Experts the same way next time, because how can you not believe The Experts - are you one of those awful Science Deniers that The Experts warned us about?! And that's the US, where some degree of irreverence to the establishment has always been a virtue. In Europe, I don't have any hope at all for any change at all.
JarJarJedi
16d ago
I'd assume most of ethnic food restaurants catering for general US public would be somewhat inauthentic in some way. Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, Vietnamese, whatever it is - they would make some adjustments because otherwise Americans would just not go there. It's not that people's tastes never evolve, it's just it takes a long time to get used to something genuinely new, and the restaurant may not survive that long without customers. This is not true where there are a lot of relatively recent immigrants which have "old country" tastes, then the restaurant can rely on them and slowly expand their clientele to others but if that's not the case then they'd have to do something "inauthentic". I am personally fine with that - as long as it tastes good for me, I don't care it tastes differently thousands of miles away from here.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
I can't say this was my "eye opening" moment since my eyes were already opened by then but that was the headline I'll never forget from the Coronavirus era, because it showed me the rot goes all the way down, there's no bottom: https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-trump-peddles-unsubstantiated-hope-coronavirus
JarJarJedi
19d ago
Not exactly. USAID was somewhat unique as it was created by an executive order, not by an act of Congress, and thus can be also destroyed by another executive order. However, many of the independent agencies are created by the Congress, and some like CFPB are even provided with financing schemes that makes them immune from future Congresses defunding them. Thus, the agency created this way is basically immune from either legislative or executive control (and until recently also from judicial control due to Chevron deference). The premise that Congress can create agencies which are further uncontrollable and self-perpetuating is highly questionable, just as the premise - that a lot of people on the left are advancing - that the President can only execute a very remote and hands-off control at best over those, like removing clearly criminal officers, but can not participate substantially in political control over them (somehow they never object about Democratic presidents controlling them, go figure). In a Republican (not as party, but as system of government) system in the US, this just doesn't make sense, and I am glad that Trump is pushing back on that.
Elimination of USAID however, while welcome, is unrelated to that because USAID was always on a very weak foundation compared to many other agencies which have been established on much stronger legal grounds. IMHO sometimes too strong.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
All kinds of things like CFPB which has recently been in the headlines, but there are a ton of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_federal_government and at least some of them seem to be under impression that they are not responsible to anyone. While there may make some sense for agencies like the Fed for which independence from the fleeting passions of day-to-day executive operations may be a very important feature, for most of the agencies I think being isolated from control by executive also means being isolated from control by pretty much anything. That was especially bad combined with Chevron deference, which means basically the agency, at least within its own domain, is the supreme sovereign without any check on their power. Even with that gone, having a myriad of agencies inside the government that basically conduct their own policy without any input from anywhere does not feel right.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
First of all, this hour's stock ticker is not "the economy". If you failed to notice for the last 200 or so years, the stock market is volatile. What happens to "the economy" remains to be seen in much longer timeframes than a couple of days. And that's btw why it is wrong for most people to engage in active trading - they trade with their feelings and not their brains (as they do most of the other things too, including - unfortunately - voting) and unless they happen to be exceptionally gifted or exceptionally lucky, they get taken to the cleaners.
I personally am not 100% happy with how Trump is handling foreign policy. The whole Ukraine thing remains very far from both "peace in 24 hours", which obviously nobody believed in, and any peace deal at all, and his actions do not seem so far to yield any results there. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and judge by the results, but unless any positive result happens soon, I must conclude the whole thing was a big failure for him. In general, he seems to have an idea of himself being this yuge peacemaker, but there are places which are not ready for peace, and trying to make peace by force there only makes things worse. It's pretty much a tradition for this to happen to Israel, and Trump doesn't seem to help there too by conducting parallel negotiations with Hamas. Same with Iran, which doesn't seem to be open to peace, so why bother? The whole Canada thing seems to be totally unnecessary - while I understand why one would want to rough up Mexico a bit with regard to what is happening on the south border, I don't see the northern border as a big priority and I don't see any use in a public fight with Canada - moreover, it could help the Left to stay in power there, which is a stupid strategic blunder, there's not many non-leftist governments in the West.
I am not disappointed with his approach on dismantling the taxes-to-GONGOs pipeline but the real battles are ahead. The budget is stuffed with all kinds of pork and spending targeted at enriching special interests, and Republicans' hands are as much in this cookie jar as Democrats are. It's one thing to cut off a woke NGO and another thing to cut off a subsidy that a Republican district benefits from. If the latter is not done, than there's no hope for any real change in budget deficits. I would still see disrupting the flow of grift money as the positive, but whether or not it will fix a real fundamental problems and whether Trump administration ends up to fundamentally reverse the course or just be a flash in a pan and the next Democrat president would just reverse everything he has done in a week - that remains to be seen. I also am happy he's taking serious steps to dismantle the DEI system, hopefully he does enough damage to it to make it hard to recover in the future. It will likely try to resurrect and reassert itself after Trump is gone, but hopefully not in a comprehensive envelope that is has been up to now, when every major company or organization must have a big DEI department and every scientific work has to have at least one section describing how it helps a preferred DEI cause. I am very interested in his efforts of reasserting the power of the executive over the unknown (this is literally true, nobody knows how many of them even exist) number of government offices that so far have been pretty much living their own lives controlled by nobody and doing whatever the hell they want. The major battles in this campaign are in the future, and likely to be fought in SCOTUS, and I hope he manages to get some good lawyers on his side, because the other side will fight him very hard on that. But at least he's trying.
I am also not sure what he is doing with tariffs makes sense. He has some bold ideas, but I am not sure they are thought through enough to actually produce results that he expects, or the ones I'd like. In some places - like established grift pipelines - the disruption itself is a good thing, but in other places just shaking things up is not enough.
As a libertarian, Trump is very far from being my ideal candidate, and I always knew that. But domestically, so far he's doing better than I expected, though it is very tentative given how little time has passed. I'd wait at least a year to make some conclusions. In the foreign policy, so far it has been rather disappointing (I don't count border control etc. as foreign policy) - while kicking Europe's asses enough to make them finally wake up and smell the Russian bear at their doorstep is encouraging, it's not enough. Unless he delivers some results - and that would require making a turn from disrupting to dealmaking - I don't see him as winning there. I am not regretting my vote, but I am certainly regretting his choices there so far.
JarJarJedi
19d ago
The Congress does not approve arms shipments though. They authorize the President to use allocated money - or, rather, usually the existing stock within the limits of allocated money - to send the shipments, but the actual shipments are entirely within the discretion of the President and Secretary of State. It is entirely constitutional and within President's authority to stop those shipments temporarily or even permanently - there's no demand for the President to spend all the money or any part of it. See for example: https://www.state.gov/bureau-of-political-military-affairs/use-of-presidential-drawdown-authority-for-military-assistance-for-ukraine for reference. If you enjoy this kind of thing, check out the actual text of the FAA, it specifically spells out that the President is the one who makes the determination.
People have taken a habit lately to use "unconstitutional" as a replacement for "anything that anybody does and I don't like" but that word actually has a meaning, and that's not what it means. You may hate what Trump does, and it's completely within your rights to do so, but there's absolutely nothing "unconstitutional" (the Constitution doesn't say much about it in any case) or illegal in his actions. If you're going to criticize him, at least bother to get some facts correct.
JarJarJedi
23d ago
But that's complete bullshit. First of all, nobody is muzzling themselves - Trump is being criticized all around. Second, there's no evidence of even a single person prosecuted for criticizing Trump (I don't mean shooting at him or stuff like that, but just coming out and saying he's a bad person or racist or hitler or anything like that that is being done thousands of times a day). There's also absolutely zero evidence that the threat against leftist congressmen has increased. I imagine all politicians with public profiles constantly receive threats from all kinds of wackos, but nothing really changed here, at least no evidence has been provided it did. The only actual evidence in the article is Musk calling somebody names on Twitter (gasp! unprecedented!) then regretting it and praising them instead (that's even more insidious somehow!)
And of course many presidents - from Lincoln to Obama - fired top military brass when they saw fit. It's absolutely within the President's authority as Commander in Chief, and many precedents exist. Pretending as any attempt of Trump to actually govern is a grave threat to "our democracy" is bullshit, and that's about 100% of what that article is. You of course are free to speak out and stand up for anything, included whatever misguided notion of "democracy" that doesn't involve actual democratically elected leaders controlling anything, you have - and absolutely nobody would "suppress" you. Yes, Musk could call you names on twitter. So fricking what?
JarJarJedi
23d ago
The arms that are sent to Ukraine are mostly already manufactured. There's a second-stage effect of having to replenish the stocks after part of it had been sent to Ukraine, but it doesn't have to be 1-1 match or done instantly. It is true that manufacturing capacity is lagging severely, but it can't be upgraded instantly. As I read, making a new shell producing factory takes about 2 years (that's if it doesn't have to pass Californian environmental reviews, otherwise it's probably closer to 22) so the process has started but nowhere near completion or even reaching the necessary capacity. I am not sure what would happen now with Trump's pivot - I don't remember even reading a consistent position from him on military budget. Is he going to expand it? Cut it? Reprioritize it? Honestly I have no idea, Republicans traditionally have been big military budget party, but Trump is in no way a traditional Republican. I hope he keeps and increases the capacity upgrade, but who knows. Maybe he thinks his awesome dealmaking skills are enough.
JarJarJedi
24d ago
But it does. If we send X dollars to Ukraine to fight Russians, and only 0.1X actually gets to the goal, it's fundamentally different situation than if the whole X were used as intended. Note I am not claiming this exact number is correct, but the question of corruption is highly relevant - moreover, I have a suspicion the corruption contributed a lot to the reasons why Ukraine lost so much territory already in this war and why it's losing more. Not the only factor, but a contributing one.
That sounds a bit like "talking about free speech means you're a Nazi". You can worry about corruption in Ukraine without wishing Russia to win. In fact, I think people wishing Ukraine to win should definitely worry about corruption in Ukraine because it's a drain on their resources going to somebody's pocket instead of going to get weapons and supplies. Of course one could dishonestly pretend to care about corruption while having a true aim of cutting off all aid to Ukraine and thus make them lose, that happens, but that's not the only possible option at all. Just as being a Nazi is not the only reason to want free speech, being a Russian propagandist is not the only reason for talking about Ukrainian corruption.
JarJarJedi
27d ago
wasn’t it a bit unwise in his position to bank on the Democrats winning both the presidency and the senate in 2024
Yes, it was. He should have started making peace with Trump (including sucking up to him, yes, if necessary) months ago, preferably before the elections, when it was clear he has a good chance to win. As I said, there was a lot of chances for that - Trump's government is full of ex-Democrats that switched sides, and he has absolutely no problem with them, if anything, he's proud of accepting people who previously opposed him. Instead, Zelensky chose to bet on antagonizing Trump and relying on anti-Trump forces in US and Europe, likely hoping they would support him out of pure spite if not anything else. I think it is extremely unwise strategically. Maybe it stems from the same attitude, but one has to change when circumstances change.
JarJarJedi
30d ago
Exactly, it says "Mr. President, you have $300M to help Ukraine". So, the President can't just take these $300M and use it for other things. But it never says "you must spend it all of it to the last cent" and it never says what it has to be spent on. So the President can just ignore it and pretty much nothing can make them spend it on sending weapons to Ukraine if he doesn't want to, based on that bill.
JarJarJedi
30d ago
I thought that was mostly a Congress thing.
That depends a lot on what Congress actually authorized. If they said "X dollars must be spent on Y" then there may be claims that if the president refuses to spend on Y, he's going too far. Even then it's not entirely clear how to make him do that, given that he owns the executive branch and is effectively immune to any court decisions while in executive capacity, but there might be ways, maybe. However, in fact the Congress rarely says anything but "up to X dollars are allocated to spend on Y", and then it's up to the executive to decide how much is spent and what exactly is bought. The reverse is easier - if the Congress doesn't give money, the President can't spend it, so it's relatively easy for the Congress to defund. But if the Congress authorized the President to spend money, they usually can't really do much to actually spend it if the President doesn't want to. And, as correctly noted in other comments, most of Ukraine aid is not even money per se - it's military equipment that already exists somewhere in storage and then being sent to Ukraine, and the Congress just controls how much of this can be done. If the President wants none of that, Congress can'd do much here I think. And especially when we're talking about foreign country, I'm not sure Congress would even want to get in fight with Trump over this.
JarJarJedi
30d ago
Talking to Trump is not a problem per se. He's a dealmaker, he is used to negotiations and bridging disagreements. A lot of people talked shit about him and then made peace with him (Vance himself is one of the many examples) and Trump has no problem forgiving such things. All his latest boasting and grandstanding is just establishing a position for negotiation, he clearly wasn't hung up on any details or specific numbers. His ego, while indeed massive, can be dealt with, behind closed doors, and he is known to go back on things he promised many times, if he's convinced later it's for his advantage. But challenging him in the Oval Office, publicly, right in front of the cameras and essentially saying that all his efforts are worthless and he doesn't know what he's talking about, right at his seat of power - that's some otherworldly arrogance right there. I mean what did he think would happen - Trump would say "oh sorry, thank you for educating me, I was totally wrong and stupid, please teach me your ways?" Of course he'd blow up when challenged like that. Vance actually told Zelensky a couple of times to take it offline but he just kept pushing. Mind-boggling failure of awareness. Or, alternatively, a calculated play to blow up the whole thing - betting on Congress to go around Trump and keeping Ukraine financing despite his wishes. Which looks like an extremely dangerous and stupid gamble, IMHO.
JarJarJedi
30d ago
Looks like nothing is being signed now. The biggest public political fuckup I can remember in my lifetime. I sympathize with Ukrainians a lot, but it looks like they are up for some very tough times now. Utter disaster.
That can change if things get warmer though. Also, Greenland is near the Western (US/Canada adjacent) route, though it's the less usable now, but again could change in the future.
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