It's a mad, mad world we live in. I may have confirmation bias from the media coverage, but to me it's tragically ironic that people still don't understand "The American Dream" is very much over for the vast majority of people going to America, as even most of those born in America are very much struggling compared to those in the G7 countries. American may be richer dollar-for-dollar, but standard of living and quality of life? Not so much.

That said though, it's still a huge financial, political and security improvement for most coming from the South. But the reality they faced vs the idealistic "American Dream" is very different.

Maturity over Mar-a-Lago 😆

“We will never compromise our principles. House Democrats will always put
American values over autocracy.
Benevolence over bigotry.
Constitution over the cult.
Democracy over demagogues.
Economic opportunity over extremism.
Freedom over fascism,
Governing over gaslighting.
Hopefulness over hatred.
Inclusion over isolation,
Justice over judicial overreach.
Knowledge over kangaroo courts,
Liberty over limitation.
Maturity over Mar-a-Lago.
Normalcy over negativity.
Opportunity over obstruction,
People over politics.
Quality of life issues over QAnon.
Reason over racism.
Substance over slander.
Triumph over tyranny.
Understanding over ugliness.
Voting rights over voter suppression.
Working families over the well connected.
Xenia* over xenophobia.
Yes, we can over you can’t do it, and
zealous representation over zero sum confrontation.”

*doublepromote *quality real life satire

Such sceneic route, now but a vastness of devastation.

When we can just tone the down the incessant over consumption for the sake of driving up "economic growth" and not do a thing for the environment and concentrate of quality-of-life?

These are some totally valid points.

I reckon I'd totally be up for making some changes, especially as it relates to quality of life for those of us who still come around.

@newtboy What top users list did you have in mind?

@ant Did you have any specific updates for VS in mind? Large-scale changes probably wouldn't be doable any time soon, but we could get away with doing some smaller changes.

If anyone has any thoughts, do share!

A superpower hardly needs to be perfect, it just needs to be good at being a superpower - science level, industry production, human resources, military, ie the stuff that China is catching up fast with or is gone already.

Quality of life, human rights and democratic institutions are nice but not vital to superpower status. They are vital for sucess lasting more than two generations though so there is hope in that.

I must say, I think impersonating someone online to do them harm is a crime. I know he said "Hypothetically" about the things he was doing, but the man could prove harm via the mail he gets from his neighbors. He could show call logs and mailers from Scientology. It's not much different than how congress got involved with robocalls, people recognize these things as lowering quality of life because of the stress of having to deal with that type of nonsense.

Not to say the man who stole the package is blameless. He should be prosecuted for stealing a device that probably cost over $1,000. But what the glitter-bomb-maker did in retribution is - as he says, petty. I'd go on to say immature and irresponsible.

*quality of life restored.

proverbial *quality of life ... by gum!

No NHS in the states. Personally, I think that'd be the way to do it. And I think it kind of needs to be a long and difficult road, to make sure that drastic option is necessary and won't be regretted later.

It's a bit hard for me to accept it, because I tend to think of it like that episode of South Park. Kyle can't actually become a tall black kid, and his dad can't actually become a dolphin.

But even though I think that is true -- you can't really become something you aren't -- I recognize that gender reassignment surgeries can be life saving / massively beneficial to quality of life in many cases.


To take a stab at answering your other questions:

I believe that Trump is saying that the military is instituting a blanket ban on transgender people from serving in the military. If / how the military elects to enforce that remains to be seen. I don't know the full timeline on that sort of stuff, but back in the 60's one (considered extreme at the time) way for young men to get out of being drafted to go to Vietnam was to take photos of themselves naked with another man (implying they were gay) or wearing women's clothing (implying they were trans). The mere implication that you might be either was enough to disqualify you from military service.

More recently, during Don't Ask Don't Tell you could be gay or trans in the military, but couldn't reveal that you were. That ended only 5-6 years ago. The military definitely wouldn't have paid for trans-related medical treatments prior to that, and didn't for quite a while after until Obama OK'd it.

Again, I don't really think that the military should be required / expected to pay for those kinds of treatments for soldiers, BUT I'd be 100% OK with something like the NHS making it available to any citizen, as in the UK. For one thing, I wouldn't want trans people to see the military as the only way to get those treatments (short of paying out of pocket), and having that be a major part of their motivation to join.

And I 100% agree that this is a basically a political distraction that sets back the rights and acceptance of an already marginalized group that in no way deserves it.

So

I don't know how it is in the states, but in this country if you want to go through gender reassignment you will get it for free on the NHS. Its a long road, it isn't easy, they make it hard etc, but like anything else that poses a risk to somebodies health it is paid for by the state. I feel like a lot of people consider reassignment a sort of frivolous sex thing but being unable to escape the body in which you are born is, you know, desperately depressing. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say that surgery and hormone treatment are potentially lifesaving, and certainly greatly improve the quality of life in most cases.

Couple of things I don't understand - Is this the military saying they will no longer pay for treatments associated with gender reassignment, or is this a blanket ban on transgender men and women from serving in the military? One wonders why the military can't spend even a fraction of the amount is spends on toys on its servicemen/women...

Anyhoo. It's a distraction. Not trying to suggest that it is a minor thing for those affected, but I really think this is to divert the left and win back support from the right. It sucks dreadfully that a minority group is again used as target for political maneuvering and it is worthy of resistance but I can't help but feel we are playing into their hand by doing so.

@bobknight33 I pity you.

Samantha Bee
stands tight at the knee,
squeezed close like she
needs an urgent wee.

It should concern people that sometime in the last 30 odd years of neocon rule, they gave themselves the ability to unilaterally cancel things they'd previously promised to do.

People need to put aside whether or not they think the policy being cancelled is good or bad and wonder whether it is good or bad that things may be cancelled so easily. They won't though - politics right now seems to be like going to a football match "HAHAHA YOU LOST, ENJOY NOT HAVING HEALTHCARE! ONE NIIIIIL, ONE NIIIIIIIIL!"

The fuck is going on? This IS an idiocracy right now - people care about how something sounds or what team they're on rather than what will improve the quality of life for people in future.. Surely that is the goal of society?!

If we are going to start pointing fingers at countries, almost every single country in the world has used immigrant labor to keep itself functional. You can't single out the USA for relying on it, and as I mentioned, the USA is far from being the only country starting to realize that illegal immigration has more negatives than positives.

I have never hired an illegal. It is possible that they US government should increase work visas, I would not care as long as people were here legally. This also isn't 'The Jungle', I am pretty sure that Upton Sinclair would laugh if you compared the living conditions and quality of life that our current immigrants have compared to then.

I disagree with your example, this is not a situation where the people did not have other options. They could have applied to come here legally, choosing not to do so because it is far easier to ignore the law does not make them addicts to a chemical substance.

You're happy that they get the bomb off, but are terrified for the kid. He's probably been taught nothing but hate for most of his short life, you hope he finds some quality of life and some sort of peace. But he's probably the same age of many of the fighter ISIS throws out on the battlefield with little or no regard for their lives. Hell I don't think the kids themselves have any value for their own lives. They've been fed so much crap from their "enlightened teachers".

The truth is one of the reasons I'm vegan is because I'm very worried about our own species. We only have one planet to live on, and and worrying about what we eat, and the methods to produce it have far reaching consequences, one of which is the death of a large amount of humans via global warming and the various environmental issues it sets off.

On a more personal scale I'm worried about peoples health. It's no secret that meat causes and encourages cancer, and all animal products cause a range of health issues which lead to death. There are around a million completely preventable deaths each year in the US alone. Not to mention quality of life issues. All of which could have been prevented, treated and even reversed on a proper plant based diet.

That's the beautiful thing that I have found with veganism, is that everybody wins. The people are thinner and healthier, the environment thrives, and no animals are harmed unnecessarily.

Here is a question for you. How will you explain to your son's children that there are no more fish in the ocean, why we have no jungles left? Because "you really like bacon" doesn't seem like a good answer all of a sudden

When you see what horrible things people did in the past, such as whaling, or seal beating, don't you think to yourself, why were they so blind, so greedy and selfish? They could have done things a lot differently. Perhaps they didn't know better, but we don't have that excuse anymore, because we are aware of what impact our choices have for everyone and everything on this planet.