anti_dan
5hr ago
I'm open to being convinced, but I have not seen evidence connecting his actions to actual people of clout. Instead I've seen lots of evidence of a niche community of abnormals that radicalized him.
anti_dan
15hr ago
The triumvirate of childcare, housing, and healthcare is the problem. This is pretty clear to me. These are all affected by genuine Baumol effects, but they are also severely compounded by government intervention.
Welfare makes everything more expensive for everyone who isn't getting welfare. Not only do we pay taxes (or inflation) for it, but also people who previously wouldnt have competed for a good, mainly those three + food, now compete and bid up the price of those goods. Heck, unemployed people now often have new SUVs via some magic. The working poor is basically extinct. They simply dont work. The stockers at my local grocery store make enough money to afford everything a person needs. A trustable babysitter for me to go see a movie with my wife is either several hundred dollars or its my in laws doing a favor. People who should be doing childcare and other trusty work now do crappy work because the crappy people just leech off the system and dont work at all. And we subsidize that, heavily.
Immigration also changed housing, of course. Along with your social trust points.
Crime changed things. Crime is now statistically quite low, but its more random. I have had my car burgled twice for, in absolute terms, basically nothing. They stole my quarters and my kids car candy. But, it feels unsafe to have kids in a place where people break into cars. So I had to move. Now my housing is more expensive and all my neighbors have ring cameras, I might pony up for one if it happens in the new place.
And I think affirmative action (and related, student VISAs/H1B) changed a lot of this too. In a world prior to it, me and all my siblings probably all get good deals to go to local universities. I certainly should have been offered a full ride scholarship to the flagship state school instead of having to forum shop the whole country given the fact I had a crazy good ACT and SAT and won the state chemistry competition. Instead they insisted I pay full freight. Same happened to my siblings, so now we live in 3 different states, because we went to schools in 3 separate states. My parents moved to where my sister lives(did she is moving). In a less manipulated world we probably stay together, at least in part. Perhaps one of us gets into an Ivy and takes a decade to move back to the area, or maybe never, but its still probably the one who left staying where their partner's home base is. A familial home base is awesome and now increasingly rare.
Lastly, for me, for now, is the just dumb things. I can populate this section with many things I think are just dumb, like most humanitarian aid (which I feel many people here are in favor of and will defend my position if questioned). But again its a tax. I will respond to any random program you think is good and tell you if I think it is also good or why I think it is not.
anti_dan
16hr ago
A very appropriate topic for this forum because stochastic terrorism is also very often employed with a mote-n-bailey style. The way a college professor or editorial writer might employ the idea is certainly overly broad and highly partisan. But there is also a fairly defensible core truth that thought leaders and politicians do generate incentives, carrots and sticks if you will, for their followers. If you encourage and celebrate behavior you are going to get more of it, if you punish it less.
Some people take this concept too fair, IMO, and apply it to people like the Gabby Giffords shooter or the Charlie Kirk assassination. But it is real. We are seeing it today with the ICE interference. All the people who have been killed by ICE think they are heroes and are going to be socially and even financially rewarded for doing something that is incredibly stupid like following around law enforcement officials performing official duties while honking at them, blowing whistles, and using your car/body to impede their movement. This has inevitably led to several of these goaded on "heroes" intentionally, or unintentionally, placing the lives of officers in grave danger, with very unfortunate outcomes. We, of course, also saw this with BLM where politicians were literally paying bail for people who were burglars, arsonists, thieves, etc. On the right this sort of outcome has largely not led to politicians giving permission for (mostly) low level crime, but instead manifests as internet nastiness, but if the right gained more media power (particularly outside the 60+ age group) and NGO/Government Bureaucrat influence it could plausibly escalate into the BLM levels. Or not, prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future, moreso about a future that probably wont exist in any of our lifetimes.
I also would add that a thing about stochastic terrorism as a concept, is it does also appear to have a specific flavor of the modern day sort of discourse where everyone wants to portray themselves as, basically, the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars and portray the enemy as The Empire, or failing that, a faceless unflappable Borg threat. Your goal, even as an objectively powerful person like a tenured professor, NYT Op-Ed writer, or Congressman(woman more likely), to pretend you have little power and the forces you struggle against are unflappable and vast (meanwhile, they are 4chan posters and what were formerly known as twitter eggs). Its a sort of thinking not even worthy of being called a conspiracy theory, its one level stupider than almost even the stupidest conspiracy theories wherein you, again a professor at some place like Harvard, get into a twitter spat with some writer at a mid tier internet publication. And following you losing the debate and turning tail, one of the other guy's followers start DMing you butthole pictures you think its a good argument that he should be fired and banned from Twitter, because of the butthole pics from a rando.
I feel like I rambled a bit here, but these are my thoughts.
anti_dan
6d ago
That is certainly a way to spin it, but scandals and polling don't line up perfectly enough to make that a strong theory. It is equally plausible that he was polling like generic Democrat when the populace didn't know him well enough to make the distinction, but as they learned more, partially the scandals, but also about his positions, the general populace like him less. One of his softer parts in the polling, after all, is non college white men, which is what the eggheads that recruited him thought hed be strong with.
The timeline also doesn't show gradual erosion of trust from party elites, rather a cascade that is centered around the polls being definitive at that same time a 2nd rape accusation allegation pops out (with the victim also seemingly previously motivated not to come forward for partisan reasons, its no stretch to see why that switched at the same time). All the party elites, we basically fine having a nazi tatoo having, reddit crazy posting, homophobic gay rape home invasion fantasizing, port a potty masturbating, serial domestic abuser, one time sexual abuser man as the candidate, and that flipped when there was a second, equally old, equally serious sexual abuse allegation? That is a silly assertion to make.
anti_dan
7d ago
This is all why Republicans in this thread will post, and not without justification, that the real scandal is that he was losing, nothing else mattered to the party at all.
anti_dan
16d ago
If you thought Obama was a centrist, the "there is no pleasing you" just expands.
Obama is a radical.
Hillary was a radical, far to the left of her husband.
Biden was a corpse, who's regime was run by radicals.
Kamala is a radical.
anti_dan
16d ago
Disinterest is an option everywhere. In Israel the results would be worse for Islam.
anti_dan
17d ago
All illegals are already escorted around by people with guns as part of their removal. That's just a silly objection.
As to the host country, the hard way is just escorting people off a plane and leaving. There are also shipping containers and barges thanks can just be dropped off at a coast for very cheap (they can even be recovered after people leave, because what does a Somali know what to do with a barge?).
anti_dan
17d ago
I’m asking what perceived tangible political risk is there in them parting ways with the Israel Lobby and refusing to yield to them anymore.
All the people with money and brains seem to still like Israel. Or at least understand that it is a significantly lesser evil than the regional alternatives.
anti_dan
17d ago
How would you get rid of immigrants if Somalia etc. won't accept them?
Just drop them off on the shore and??
anti_dan
17d ago
Why are you bringing up American Indians? They are clearly not granted citizenship by the 14th Amendment, it had to be granted later by statute.
So whatever "subject to the jurisdiction" means clearly excluded them, even if they could be prosecuted for crimes committed off of the reservation.
anti_dan
17d ago
Because they have power and can't afford to be that stupid.
Israel may be unpopular, but Palestine is genuinely run by an evil regime that would behead every American if they had the power to do so. And it's not just a bad regime, its popular. If you have power you can smile nicely at the "queers for Palestine" people, but you still have to keep the reality in your head that not only would those people be beheaded in Palestine, you probably would too
anti_dan
18d ago
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations says that the host country can't prosecute an accredited foreign diplomat, an accredited member of the administrative and technical staff of a foreign embassy (except an host-country resident employed locally) or the accredited family members of those groups - and this absolutely applies to crimes committed outside the embassy.
Yes, but it can be ignored. Certainly if a defendant attempted to bring such a claim in the Southern District of New York no judge would entertain it (or perhaps some goofy one might, only to be swiftly overturned).
In any case, I only even bring up the diplomats because it highlights the absurdity of the proposed interpretation of "subject to the jurisdiction" is by the parties suing the administration (the American Indian precedents are even more devastating and voluminous). Their sole legitimate claims are all statutory (which are actually strong). But the 14th Amendment can not mean what they are claiming it means, because then the children of diplomats would get birthright citizenship unless they are born in the embassy.
anti_dan
18d ago
The Georgian government waived Makharadze's immunity - which is within the rules. (The immunity belongs to the sending state, not the diplomat). But the US would not have had jurisdiction without Georgia's permission.
Its not like that. Governments get waivers and give them to avoid international incidents. But honoring sovereign immunity is entirely at the discretion of the host country. If you are a Swedish ambassador and rape a girl, then Sweden doesn't waive, and America tries you anyway, you won't have a colorable claim in court to assert sovereign immunity.
Like all international law, it is ultimately fake and boils down to power and a gentlemans agreement that is breached when the breach is worth the hassle.
anti_dan
20d ago
Nobody is trying to claim those they are US citizens though is what the case is about
They may be saying that, but their arguments taken at face value would mean the children of diplomats are US citizens unless they are born inside the embassy.
anti_dan
20d ago
We are talking about what happened on US territory (because that's where the births in question occur). If in 1866 an Indian stabs an American or another Indian in Iowa City, they would have faced the Iowa criminal courts. Thus they are at least somewhat under the jurisdiction of Iowa and the US.
However we know that does not mean they are "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" as stated in the 14th because if that same Indian gave birth in Iowa City the kid would not be a citizen.
anti_dan
20d ago
But see Gueorgui Makharadze (1997). Dui homicide. We held him in the country for years then prosecuted him.
Diplomatic immunity is like the pirates code in the Johnny Depp movies, "the code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules."
anti_dan
20d ago
True but all this is irrelevant to my point that we can and have prosecuted foreign diplomats for crimes committed in the US while the diplomat was serving in that function.
anti_dan
20d ago
Diplomatic immunity is waived voluntarily by the host countries in major crimes to avoid an international incident. But we can prosecute without a waiver, and there is a specific US statute that says diplomats are not immune from state traffic laws and have to pay their traffic tickets.
Movie diplomatic immunity is fake.
anti_dan
21d ago
The children of diplomats exception doesn't make sense under the theories presented by the parties suing the Trump administration though. Its not like a diplomat (or their child) can commit a homicide and the US will just ignore it and not prosecute. The same is true of an Indian who wandered off a reservation in 1900 or a Canadian who drunkenly boats into American waters and rams another boat. All those people get prosecuted in American courts for said crimes. So that cannot mean what "subject to the jurisdiction" means.
Opposed, assuming it's the formula program I'm thinking of. While every welfare program will have success story outliers, one can not support self licking ice cream cones as a general principle.
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