*doublepromote exposing how humans have spoiled one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth. Notice how hard it is to differentiate between plastic bags and jellyfish. That's why most sea turtles have a stomach full of plastic bags.
As a species, we should really *fear the implications of the ocean food web collapsing but, clearly, arguing about politics, guns, welfare, collusion, trade wars, and pussy grabbing comes well ahead of actually working towards planetary survival on most people's agendas.

The last couple of decades I've really begun to see the military as corporate welfare. We have a force capable of crushing, literally crushing any non nuclear power nation 20 times over. We can never use that force against a significant nuclear power nation like Russia or China lest we risk WWW3, the war that will REALLY end all wars (by humanity at least). Our tech is also pretty much useless against a guerrilla force because they can melt across borders and into the local population.

Our outdated technology still would destroy any of the nations other than Russia or China. We have shit mothballed and decaying that would do so. We have a fucking stockpile of main battle tanks that we will never use, but we keep building them and storing them because, apparently, if you let the people go who know how to make them you can never replace that knowledge.

All the while, we let people get mired in school debt, credit debt, and increase our national debt because we need to crush some unknown force. We spend a fraction of what we should be spending on space exploration and colonization. I could go on, but why bother.

If you have any doubt, just look at the F35. By the time it is all said and done, we will have close to half a trillion sunk into that fucking debacle and it STILL isn't functioning capably. Russia and China haven't got anything close to it and we don't need it against anyone else. You could take that money and give close to 2 grand to every single man, woman, and child in the country. Instead we basically are lining Lockheed Martin's pockets.

I think this would count as another form of corporate welfare like walmart not paying their employees enough or giving them enough hours so that the employees have to claim foodstamps

Earlier today, I was sent a link to an article in Bloomberg titled Why Workers Are Losing to Capitalists. Marx in Bloomberg? Impossibru!

But nevermind Marx. That opinion piece is 800 words, give or take, on labour's share of income. Yet it doesn't mention policy once. Not a single time. It's automation, it's globalisation, it's Gremlins. But not a single peep on policy.

Nothing on union busting. Nothing on taxes on capital vs taxes on labour. Nothing on minimum wages. Nothing on welfare. Nothing on the public sector.

If you read about inequality and related issues in these papers, there's rarely any agency. It's always something abstract like market forces, globalisation, innovation, etc. Nothing on decisions made by people in power, parliament first and foremost, that often had the explicit aim of reducing wages to "increase competitiveness".

Lol, I read "imaginary Hiller" (and assumed you meant Hillary). My bad.



We have reasonable laws already.
Most things people ask for either already exist (and anti-gunners just don't know because they don't have to follow those laws), or only screw collectors and sportsmen while not doing anything to reduce risk (which I already covered, I assume you read the earlier part, eg California compliant AR15, etc).



Nobody expects to need to form a militia.
Nobody expects the country to go to hell.

The seat belt analogy is about preparedness for unlikely events.
Like, you don't "need" flood insurance in Houston - unless you do.

Owning a gun also hurts nobody.
By definition, ownership is not a harm.

Almost all guns will never be used to do any harm.
The very statement that "guns are all about hurting other people" is a non-empirical assertion.

Just shy of every last gun owner doesn't imagine themselves as Bruce Willis. Asserting that they do is a straw man.


You remind me of Republicans that complain that Black people are welfare queens (so they can redirect money out of welfare). Or Republicans that complain that Trans people are pedophiles in hiding (so they can pander to religious zelot voters). Creating a straw man and then getting mad about the straw man (rather than the real people) is self serving.


* Only the rarest few people think they are Roy Rogers. That is a straw man that does not apply to just shy of every gun owner.
* You don't need a gun for home defense... unless you do.
* Differences in likelihood of death armed vs unarmed is happenstance.
(Doesn't matter either way. Googled some likelihoods : http://www.theblaze.com/news/2013/02/15/how-likely-are-you-to-die-from-gun-violence-this-interesting-chart-puts-it-in-perspective/
You'd have to suffer death 350'000 times before you're at a 50/50 chance of your next death being by firearms.)
[EDIT, math error. Should say 17'000 years lived to reach a 50/50 chance of death by firearms in the next year]
* Technically, even 1 vote gets someone elected. You don't control who is on the ballot.



NRA and NSSF are on life support. They have to fight the influence of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, most major newspapers. They are way outclassed. Current events don't help either.
The "big bad NRA" rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. As is the rhetoric that the NRA only represents the industry.

-sceherazade

Is anyone surprised that this guy has a large personal collection of slavery mementos?

He doesn't get that he's right...
.....church, one that doesn't get set on fire or shot up...white privilege.
Jobs where you get paid a decent wage for hard work....white privilege......
Police there to help you, not see you as the enemy...white privilege.


This was just another 20 minutes of a display of pure ignorance and racism....of course @bobknight33 thinks this is "truth" that disproves white privilege....but it's really a display of white ignorance and deep seated hatred.

That slave story was utter apologist bullshit. That did not happen, a slave throwing a fit doesn't get their way and aren't just allowed to keep their family, they get beaten to death. Just pure bullshit....like most of what he says.

Southern white farmers/ranchers are the biggest, most entitled welfare queens around, I speak from experience.

I'm a white man who lived in East Palo Alto for years, and I walked through it alone dozens of times after midnight. No one bothered me. I have seen black men accosted in white neighborhoods for being black repeatedly.

This was pure bigoted ignorance and lies, bob. Don't be proud of this idiot, be ashamed. It's not Christian to denounce and deride others who don't have the advantages you have, nor is it Christian to pretend you and your free ancestors with rights had it just as bad as slaves and blacks that couldn't even vote and weren't considered humans.

The only message of truth I see is the truth that many white southerners are insanely ignorant and completely devoid of empathy for others or rationality....but just try to take their farm subsidies for not growing corn and you'll hear about how they are the true downtrodden in society and the blacks are in control, all on welfare, and are the ones destroying the country.

I picked out this singular point of yours, because it seems like a very common issue getting worse over time.

The professional class has been rather successful at pushing a definition of "progressive" that is in line with their own interests. It's now mostly restricted to social issues, with SJW being the fringe element of it. Economic issues? Gone. Welfare issues? Gone. Foreign policy issues? Gone.

If you look at it that way, Obama has been good to the managerial class, the credentialed class, the professional class, the Silicon Valley types, the affluent liberals, everyone who was already profitting from the neoliberal status-quo. The rest, not so much. The opiod epidemic in the US, born out of mass despair, combined with your excuse of a healthcare system, is class warfare, plain and simple. "Die faster" is the message coming from not just the establishment, but also the professional class, aimed at the plebs, the servant class, the deplorables, the white trash, everyone not inside their bubble.

I've had more success in discussions by making it clear from the get-go that social victories mean very little when you are too poor to enjoy any of them. Your progressive issues mean nothing to me if you still insist on neoliberal economic policies that are a tool of class warfare against the poor.

It's as clear as day in France this days. The liberal intelligentsia calls you scum if you don't support Macron, the darling of the elite, who is liberal on social issues, but a hardcore neoliberal on economic issues. A spokesperson of the Melenchon campaign described his policies as "the Uberization of society", something in clear opposition of what the left stands for.

Describing my views as left rather than progressive or liberal has also helped in these discussions.

If the media had more of this kind of stuff in the past few decades instead of sensationalist or partisan bullshit, we wouldn't be in a position to need it.

It's easy to call media fake - a lot of it has been for a very long time. We who watch and discuss politics videos here would be celebrating Sanders if he was on TV right now talking about how biased a lot of media was.

The left and the right have a lot that makes them different but essentially they want the same things - security, happiness, prosperity. They disagree on how to get those things and that's all ok, but we agree to a level playing field so that things like Hitler, Trump, etc. can't happen. The playing field has to be level for everyone or people get angry. When people get angry under a theocracy or dictatorship they revolt. When people get angry under democracy, they vote for populists.

We need to hope that the playing field can be levelled again. People aren't happy with a rigged system - crony capitalism, profits before people, corporate welfare, tax dodging...

You know how people were saying it should have been Bernie vs. Trump? Well, that's because ordinary people on the left and right saw unfairness everywhere.

The left weren't going to seriously mobilise for a wishy washy weathervane like Clinton. But the angry right had their ideal candidate and they DID seriously mobilise. The kind of mobilisation that has teeth? You only get that when people believe they've got the right guy.

In my opinion, an Ocean's Eleven style heist occurred some time ago involving, basically, businessmen. People who wanted money. The best way to make money was to be involved in politics. So some businessmen joined political parties, or donated money to them and demanded a few favours. A few politicians think, hey i could use some extra money, and make a few promises. This goes on for long, eventually business and politics become the same thing and policies are designed around business and profit.

People aren't happy, the system is rigged. Trump is the immediate problem, but concessions must be made by those with money and power or another Trump will happen. He is a symptom not the cause. Desperate people place desperate votes.

I suppose, but as you say, they are table scraps of money for all the good they do.

Homeless people should be getting money from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) (aka welfare) but that money has, in a bi-partisan way, been misappropriated and the broad language of the law signed in 96 basically let states do whatever the fuck they want with that cash. $16.5 billion is spent on stupid bullshit like dance parties to help out shitty marriages when it should be doing what that money is named for.

see: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/moneybox/2016/06/_welfare_money_often_isn_t_spent_on_welfare.html

Point being, $445 million < 16.5 billion And I argue there is spending happening that contributes a lot less to society than PBS, NPR, etc. do.

That TANF fund is just one example of a program that's pulling down billions and dumping it, unsurprisingly, into the pockets of for-profit companies that are more than happy to scoop up TANF dollars or any other funds the Federal Government throws at them.

Also, Big Bird.

If he wants to add billions to welfare, better to just do that and not make a ridiculous jobs program wasting resources and alienating our neighbors and allies with no tangible benefit.
I'm all for repairing existing infrastructure first, plenty of jobs to me made there, and many more permanent ones if we actually do proper upkeep this time, but I see absolutely no need to create a new enormous piece of infrastructure mostly in the desert first, leaving nothing to pay for the rest and few willing to work there without ridiculous bonuses at taxpayer expense.
I wish Republicans (since they have the purse strings) who bemoan the state of the country, would put fixing it first.

So what your saying is... the places where the people are... have the most people on welfare...

MInd.... BLOWN...

Course they have the most people not on welfare too... and the most people who drink water and breath air... its almost like this was my exact point... as enoch pointed out.

That site is conservative run and compiled, and even so, just do the math, divide by population. Start with Alaska, firmly red.
But, much better, look at REAL numbers instead of that rabid Trump supporter's totally unverified numbers, these with the math already done for you at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

California spends $8,967 per person while taxing $7690 (honestly worse than I thought),
New York spends $9,940 and taxes $10,279.27,

Alabama spends $11,743 taxes $4,330,
Alaska spends $14,375 taxes $6,697 (I think only DC is worse),
Arizona spends $10,157 taxes $5,318,
Arkansas spends $9,635 taxes $8,578
(and because you mentioned them, Texas which spends $8,865 and taxes $8,421.59, not so bad)

....and that's just comparing the A's to what you would expect to be the most social service friendly firmly democrat states. Clearly, looked at per capita (the only way it makes sense) red states take far more than they give on average, then complain that they're supporting the inner city with their farm taxes, it's just not correct.

EDIT: and as mentioned above, I also know Texas, and the country folk are just as big welfare queens as the city folk, they just convince themselves that a corn subsidy isn't welfare, putting some pet goats on the property so you don't pay taxes isn't welfare, getting free water for their crops paid for by the government isn't welfare....it's just bullshit. If you take what you don't need, or don't pay your fair share, you're a taker, and that describes a HUGE portion of the right....largely your country folks.

@worm
you do realize that you literally just made @Januari 's point...right?

and i get it...government spending BAD.
government can't do anything blah blah blah...gotcha.

but instead of using the VA as an example of government malfeasance and incompetence,why not use medicare/medicaid?

the VA is run by the DoD and considering that during rumsfelds tenure they lost over a trillion american dollars..POOF..where is that money? nope..can't find it.the pentagon is a mess.

medicare/medicaid is run by the dept of health,which runs on a 3% overhead,has the ability to negotiate with pharmacuticals,and is a system that is already in place AND we all already pay in to.

see,
i am not a fan of obamacare.
i think single payer is the way to go,and the only way to go.
people like to make the comparison of obamacare insurance with car insurance.
forgetting that driving is a privilege...
breathing is not.

so if we take the "profit motive" out of health care.then the majority of people NOT covered would not wait until something dire or life threatening was going down with them to head to the doctor.preventive care has been shown to reduce medical costs dramatically.
see:norway
see:denmark
see:france
see:britain

while i understand many liberals defense of obamacare,i see it only a half measure that can easily be remanded and/or gotten rid of all together.however unlikely that may be.the threat will be enough.

people forget that obamacare was basically written by the heritage foundation in 1992.a right wing think tank and not much was changed (though the pre-existing clause was a positive).

they forget that then Governor mitt romney implemented a similar health care system in massechusetts.which saw steady increases in premiums yearly.

and here is the thing that really eats at me.
it is mandatory.

so here is my prediction:
obamacare is not going anywhere.
while it may be used as apolitical football and health insurance companies will use (and already HAVE used) the threat of leaving due to little or no money (this is a lie) in order to force the government to raise their subsidies.

this is corporate welfare on a scale that over-shadows the bank bailouts of 2007.which at final tally was over 17 trillion.

so obamacare is going nowhere because it is the goose that lays the golden egg,and the gift that keeps on giving.

oh there will threats,and over-politicizing,and wringing of hands,and committee meetings.

but that will be just for show.
we put the fox in charge of the henhouse,and the fox is gonna make damn sure it is going nowhere.

Not that I doubt your old-timey anecdotal evidence either (since you failed to actually POINT to evidence). A simple google pulled up this:

[url redacted]Ugh - Nevermind. I see we can't post links.
www usgovernmentspending com / compare_state_spending_2016b40a
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/compare_state_spending_2016b40a

Hmmmm.... California and New York, followed by Texas.

Now I haven't been able to find a welfare spending by County yet in Texas, but I would be willing to BET that the majority of that is in the major metropolitan areas, which happen to also be quite blue... I wouldn't be surprised if that were true in New York and California too, but I don't know those people like I know Texas.

Not that i doubt your very charming old-timey anecdotal evidence, but spending a few minutes on google and you'll find... you know... actual data.

Conservative sites will point to how much 'blue' states spend on welfare, ignoring entirely the differences in population, as well as the fact that far and away the poorest counties with the highest percentage of welfare recipients are indeed in red states. As well as states in general, who per capita have the most welfare recipients. It really isn't even close.

Don't take my word for it...