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Notes -
Okay, let me try too.
Dangers and downsides to having the US air force firebomb Kansas City:
Economic benefits of the USAF firebombing Kansas City:
Ideological benefits (for various ideologies):
In general, firebombing is much more acceptable than nuking because of (a) the lack of nuclear fallout and (b) it does not contribute to the normalization of nuclear weapon use.
In conclusion, there are good economic and ideological arguments both for and against firebombing random cities, and experts in law, strategy and economy disagree if it is net beneficial or not. The fact that every administration before president Harris has refrained from burning down KC does not mean that she is wrong to do so.
Generally best to not make Swiftian style proposals here. It makes it harder not easier to have open discussions on a topic.
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This seems needlessly bilious. Yes, it is possible to make a cost/benefit analysis for literally everything. No, nobody is talking about bombing Kansas City, which is why you're using it as a reductio ad absurdam.
The point I was trying to make, unsuccessfully, was that in my world model, an economic superpower trying to fix their trade deficit by applying tariffs proportional to that deficit would be considered a terrible idea by a broad majority -- basically everyone except for "destroy all corporations" radical leftists, and lizardman's constant worth of outliers (some de-growthers, some sourvereign citizens, some fringe isolationists who want to see America 100% autark, even if that means giving up on oil and coffee, et cetera).
Naturally, here at the motte we have a proud tradition of taking fringe ideas far out of the overton window serious, and I am fine with that. I just feel that "starting a global trade war will actually go great" was plenty discussed here already, and I would much rather discuss the next fringe idea, perhaps "legalize marital rape" or "build a sub-aquatic habitat in the Mediterranean Sea for the Gazans". In my mind, the fact that someone has just announced a fringe idea as the national policy of the US should not make it less fringe than if a random poster had posted it here. I am not a fan of the forced neutrality displayed by the original poster. If party A wants the living room thermostat set to 280K, and party B wants it to be set to 680K, setting one's preference to 480 Kelvin is not neutral, but just about as insane as 680K.
I grew up vaguely left-wing and peace-y. Then Putin happened, and suddenly I found myself having to defend the North Atlantic Treaty and mutually assured destruction. Now Trump has taken a turn towards economic authoritarianism, and I find myself holding up the torch for libertarianism -- not because I think taxation is theft, but because I recognize that capitalism leads broadly to better outcomes than all the alternatives which have been tried.
I think your model of how people think is wrong. I would guess:
Noting that I don't expect these to be purely right or left wing positions. People's 'wing' is an alliance and various with which aspect of their identity is most politically salient. The total constituency for Trump's tariffs is probably 30% max - I don't expect them to be popular unless they turn out to work, but they're popular enough that Fox etc. can't dismiss them out of hand and neither can commenters here.
I would also suggest that going from discussion of tariffs to discussion of firebombing local cities is a bit like an anti-abortion activist saying, 'well, if we're discussing murdering innocent people, let's do the Holocaust next! Pros/cons of gassing all the Jews?'. It doesn't come across as a method of engagement, it comes across as a method of ridicule, and it's not likely to lead to a good conversation.
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That's the first time I've been accused of being too neutral! Let me try to be less so: Income taxes are bad. We have had them for over a century. Tariffs are bad. We have not had them to this extent for nearly a century. Yet in a world in which Trump EO'd the income tax to zero rather than implementing tariffs there would be the same hand-wringing, from the same people, who are currently saying tariffs will destroy the economy. The hypocrisy irritates me.
Trump EOing the income tax to zero without cutting defence or entitlement spending would be far more destructive than the tariffs - it would be full Weimar/Zimbabwe.
The income tax is a bad thing that we tolerate because the spending it pays for is good and at certain margins it is less bad than borrowing.
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Hypocrisy present only because of your head-canon isn't really hypocrisy. Certainly I'd be quite happy if Trump EO'd the income tax to zero (though alas he wouldn't get away with it)
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I can't tell if this is a parody of chat GPT or a legit prompt response and I love it.
Oh, it was generated by a squishy neural network, but in retrospect I might have had the chatGPT bullet point format in my subconsciousness.
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