Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 292

Bolsonaro just killed half a million people intentionally. I think it's hard to find 'leftist' politicians that are worse than him right now. Although I don't follow latin american politics very much, its obvious that baal is very ideological on this issue. You can't really say leftist politicians are the worst when people like pepe mujica were in power. I would say every head of state in the world right now is a violent extremist regardless if you wanna call that left or right. No one agrees with me on this but that doesn't matter.

No one?

I agree with you.

I thought maybe Bhutan had a shot but I didn't actually finish the book on Gross Domestic Happiness and it turns out it was all propaganda to cover up ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses.

Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, et al..... Not a shot. There is no ethical production under capitalism ! ! ! ! !

I am pretty sure even my ProtonMail account in Switzerland would be under attack if Germany, France, and Netherlands told the Swiss govt. to unlock all of the data according to Geneva Convention Code #34568449.......

The scandi countries rank high on doing something about climate change on every metric but everyone has very low standards. Finland actually nearly eliminated homelessness recently so I consider then to be one of the more peaceful governments, however their government is still completely insane just from environmental policy. People might consider me to be ridiculous here but they are wrong, it makes sense to have these standards when you look at what 1.5 or 2 degrees means for the world, and also human society right has been drifting far off towards the extreme on environmental views for the last 500 years, which is a very short time period in human history. My own country contributes 0.2 percent emissions to the world when it could easily cut that in half, which would probably save hundreds of thousands of lives. (If everyone else did that too). Our current views on ecology are the best argument in favour of myth of progress arguments, you can see that most hunter fathered societies are far more rational on subjects like overfishing, or basically anything to do with the environment. And probably even chimp and bonobos have some understanding of tragedy of the commons, which is sometimes taught in econ 101

Also I realize I cherry picked Jose mujica so my argument wasn't a particularly good one there, i would need to look at the leaders overall. I honestly don't know what a leftist or right winger is anymore because the terms have changed in meaning so much

Tragedy of the commons is taught in econ 101 because it is, like the rest of neoclassical economics, based on make-believe. It presupposes the false theory of "rational economic man" and is a myth just like it. The person who is responsible for popularizing the concept was a white nationalist and it's no coincidence.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false-and-dangerous-myth

On June 04 2021 09:01 ggplz wrote: Imagine mutilating your genitals and taking hormones you were never intended to naturally produce. Imagine becoming infertile, undesirable & useless towards the now "opposite" sex. That's the reality of transgender people and why 90% of them think about committing suicide with 25% of them attempting it. We are absolute fools to encourage in any way or allow this morally wrong disgrace to occur due to political correctness and apathy with literal proven statistics of misery.

What does hormone therapy or plastic surgery have to do with political correctness? These things are also done by non-trans people all the time.

What exactly would you like trans and non-binary people to do? They're going to exist no matter what. You say society should not allow them to make their own decisions with respect to their own bodies - what is the alternative?

It sounds like you are in favor of some form of conversion therapy. Do you support conversion therapy for gay people?

You make a big deal out of their mental health problems and fail to mention the most important point related to that. There is strong evidence that depression and suicidality goes down for individuals who are able to do cross-sex hormone therapy. Here's a systematic review (the gold standard of scientific research) concluding as much:

"This review suggests that gender dysphoria-related mental distress may benefit from hormonal treatment intervention. Even recognizing the suffering of nonhormone-treated gender dysphoria individuals, which represents a possible risk factor for more severe or full-syndromal psychiatric disorders,12 mental distress in gender dysphoria may be considered as a transient reaction to the nonsatisfaction connected to the incongruent body image and not necessarily a stable psychiatric comorbidity. In this perspective, timely hormonal treatment intervention represents a crucial issue in gender dysphoria individuals’ mental health-related outcome." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4977075/

They quite clearly say that this is not a permanent condition, but a situational one. One where it's clear that social stigma + the inability of many to transition (or to have been able/ready to transition earlier) causes the distress, not the being trans itself. You would prefer that we "encourage" trans people to suffer more because it's "morally correct"? Based on what moral system?

On June 06 2021 23:34 Loco wrote: Tragedy of the commons is taught in econ 101 because it is, like the rest of neoclassical economics, based on make-believe. It presupposes the false theory of "rational economic man" and is a myth just like it. The person who is responsible for popularizing the concept was a white nationalist and it's no coincidence. https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false-and-dangerous-myth

I first read it in Greg Mankiw's textbook, and he does give an example of it under feudalism. What was meant there was institutional and it is not presented the same way the original argument was. In reality, its privatization is leading towards the tragedy of the commons. By tragedy of the commons I meant an institutional race to the bottom causing ecological crises, that article is agreeing with me. I meant it is probably not natural for us to even exploit nature in such a way because it makes no sense from an evolutionary POV. Hence they understand that doing so will lead to a tragedy of the commons and that's why hunter-gatherers societies don't behave like that. I think there is an experiment on chimps that shows they punish group members if they over-exploit nature.

edit: googled it, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28416-8 here is the study on chimps. It seems like any complex animal species that engages in resource exploitation like chimpanzee's/bonobo's would develop some understanding of steady-state economics since that is pretty essential to species survival.

Loco/Libs only start posting when it's 1v5 in their favor lol

On June 06 2021 16:39 RiKD wrote: No one? I agree with you. I thought maybe Bhutan had a shot but I didn't actually finish the book on Gross Domestic Happiness and it turns out it was all propaganda to cover up ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses. Iceland, Finland, Denmark, Norway, et al..... Not a shot. There is no ethical production under capitalism ! ! ! ! ! I am pretty sure even my ProtonMail account in Switzerland would be under attack if Germany, France, and Netherlands told the Swiss govt. to unlock all of the data according to Geneva Convention Code #34568449.......

This report, https://ccpi.org/download/the-climate-change-performance-index-2021/

is the best one I've found so far in terms of ranking countries according to climate policy. They rank countries according to "well below 2degree targets."

They published another report on the methodology they use, which is mandatory reading if you want to actually see if this report actually means anything or not. https://ccpi.org/download/background-and-methodology-ccpi-2021/

Quite interestingly, it ranks countries starting at number 4, instead of 1. Because :

"By simplifying complex data, the index does not only address experts, but everyone. We would like to emphasize that so far no country has received the overall rating “very
high”. That is why, up until now, the first three ranks of the CCPI have been left open. We want to use the picture of an empty podium to stress that not one country in the
listed in the CCPI has done enough to prevent dangerous climate change."

This quote is essentially why I take the position that every government in the world right now are taking violent, extremist positions. Clearly, bad environmental policy is one of the worst forms of violence right now, since it is predictable that it will lead to mass human suffering, (outside of any black swan events). Once a government is able to rank in the top 3 I'll recant on that position. The scandi nations are pretty close, but honestly, it's debatable whether a country like Sweden is less violent than say Uganda, which is currently run by a murderous dictator, yet contributes very little to the ecological crisis.

Re on Bhutan: I've personally never been a fan of the happiness metric. There are serious philosophical/methodological problems and it doesn't seem that different from utilitarianism to me, humans are more complex than that.

On June 05 2021 19:21 Loco wrote: What's funny is people who buy into this nonsense. There is nothing binding to such a GoFundMe in the first place, no guarantee the money goes to her. Imo there is a high likelihood that all the contributors will be refunded because of the political nature of it. Even if it it went through, it wouldn't be representative of the caring nature of the people involved, it's a political stunt attempting to manipulate public opinion. If you were to survey these right wingers/libertarians and see how often they directly donate to people in need, you'd find very few of them do. Less than the left-wingers they are trying to portray as greedy. And of course it ignores the main point. If you're in need and not attached to someone famous, or you're not giving them publicity, they don't give a shit about you. Edit: Just saw the campaign update and all donators are going to be refunded - no surprise there.

Yeah, of course the gofundme is a troll attempt. It's kind of funny that you call it a "political stunt attempting to manipulate public opinion" when this started from AOC using her grandmother's leaking roof to take shots at Trump instead of helping her repair it...

AOC made her point in a very poor and dumb way, her point is valid nonetheless.

On June 05 2021 19:21 Loco wrote: What's funny is people who buy into this nonsense. There is nothing binding to such a GoFundMe in the first place, no guarantee the money goes to her. Imo there is a high likelihood that all the contributors will be refunded because of the political nature of it. Even if it it went through, it wouldn't be representative of the caring nature of the people involved, it's a political stunt attempting to manipulate public opinion. If you were to survey these right wingers/libertarians and see how often they directly donate to people in need, you'd find very few of them do. Less than the left-wingers they are trying to portray as greedy. And of course it ignores the main point. If you're in need and not attached to someone famous, or you're not giving them publicity, they don't give a shit about you. Edit: Just saw the campaign update and all donators are going to be refunded - no surprise there.

Antifa rioters begging for bail are not "people in need"

Anyone know a good place to bet on the 2024 Presidential election? I think I would be willing to put a good chuck of money on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He's basically like Trump but less of an imbecile. Biden obviously will be too old if he even finishes his first term. I don't think Kamala Harris is well liked. The economy will still be sluggish from COVID so I think an R would be favored over a D anyway. If I could get like 15/1 odds I would throw a couple grand at it.

I do not know a good place to bet. Shop around bro. I was really into this at times and probably will get into it again as things get closer... I know nothing about Ron DeSantis. Do we want an imbecile fascist or a non-imbecile fascist ? (is non-imbecile fascist possible?) Trump isn't drawing dead. Someone like Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Ben Shabibo, et al is scary. I think a good percentage of the time it's the Identity Politics Showdown of a lifetime so far as Nikki Haley vs Kamala Harris wobbles back and forth depending on how bad the shit libs fuck shit up (not in a good way obvs). Fuck electoral politics !

There are a lot of people that are doing a lot of things to unfuck the USA and the Earth and it has nothing to do with neo-liberal politics/economics. Unlike Obama in 2008 when I was still a skeptical but naive young pup I will not be fooled. I voted for Obama because there was a higher chance that he would repeal the UIGEA..... Scary.... Bill Frist would kidnap kittens and murder them in private experiments so he would do better in medical school.....

I will bet 1 unit to win 999 units that ye (Kanye West) will win the 2024 election. BTC, ETH, SOL, Venmo, Cash app accepted.

On June 06 2021 12:04 RiKD wrote: I see that it is on me to make a case for Obrador not being a leftist. It may come down to Toe-may-toe vs Toe-mah-toe semantically. I am sure he is left of Biden but that is an easy task. When I think of leftists I think of Bread-tube but that doesn't mean I am even the biggest fan of that. Certainly better than shit-lib, neo-lib, neo-con, neo-fash.... If you are up for it I would be interested in details of Obrador corruption. I did not mean to insinuate that the CIA shot down the helicopter in this case just that they created the diabolical playbook in Latin America. It's up there with give brutal coups all the moniez and backing and then stick the everyday citizen with the bill as the dictators launder all of the fed fiat into off-shore accounts. I was shocked at the string of "accidents" in air travel for people the USA did not like in Latin America from say 1950s up until the USA realized there were better ways to do things in regards to expected value to Power disregarding any sort of fairness. Again, I am not saying the CIA blew up the helicopter just that Obrador is diabolical for using plays out of a diabolical (CIA) playbook. Blah blah blah, allegedly, blah blah blah. I would wager a lot that at some point there was implicit knowledge and agreement of the plan. I am picturing some run down empty restaurant off the beaten path with Obrador eating chilaquiles with A Guy. At some point the topic comes up and Obrador discreetly nods to affirm ending someone's life.... Although, I have been watching way too much Breaking Bad recently and am getting carried away.

Lol please go on explaining how he isn't a leftist.

Actually 2 days ago he said: The middle class is aspirationist, trying to triumph at all cost and egotistical and hypocrites because they go to church every sunday. He double down today, he said he will pull the lower class to the middle class but with different values than the current one, with fraternal values, he also rants about "Neoliberals" every single day (he talks for 3 hours on TV every fucking morning).

He is oldschool left, so that means no radfem queer intersectional bullshit, these positions arent popular to indigenous or low-class people in latinamerica as I've tried to explain to Loco before.


About his corruption:
- His brother has been caught on tape recieving bribes in his name twice, his brother also talksa about "the black book" where they record all these bribes to Obrador, no criminal prosecution or anything has happened about it.
- His right hand and a politician in his party close to him (Carlos Imas) were caugh on tape recieving literal bags of money, Imas was sentenced to 3 years, but the sentence was later changed to a fine of 5k dollars and banned from public service, the wife of this guy is Obrador's close ally in the same party and the current mayor of Mexico City.
- An aid of him was also caugh on tape recieving a bag of money for him, no case was opened and she is no a council-woman.
- Obrador current right hand, Manuel Bartlett is the mexican Dick Cheyney, corrupt as fuck and can't go to the US because of drug traffiquing charges, and he is the well known orchestrator of the biggest voting fraud in Mexico's city (If you have seen Narco's Mexico in Netflix, that fraud).
- He was caugh on tape walking to "El Chapo's" mother's car and shaking her hand telling her that he recieved her letter, when he was questioned about it, he said he can't deny shaking hands with an old lady.
- He attended Ovidio Guzman's birthday (Chapo's son and heir of the Cartel)
- The military captured Ovidio Guzman after a gruesome battle in Culiacán dozens of people dead, Obrador immediatly released him, no charges, no judge order, he just ordered his release, [b]this would be like the president of Colombia having dinner with Escobar's family and releasing him when captured and you want evidence of corruption lol'/b]



Here are some links for you to enjoy:

His brother's bribes:


Carlos Imas bribes:


War in Culiacan amidst Ovidio's capture:


Ovidio captured, calling his men to stop the attack on the city.


Obrador shaking el Chapo's mother hand telling her that he got her letter at Ovidio's birthday.

I've been living in California for a little over a year now and it's hard to imagine a place that's more poorly governed. The incompetence is insane. Something that is finally getting national media attention is how San Francisco has decriminalized shoplifting.

What is crazy is not the result but that even after watchign it lefties are ok with it, I've seen them many times on twitter say: "these big stores like Wallgreens already account for shoplifting and are insured, its a victimless crime and people who do this need the items so this is totally ok".

Some of the left, (the ones I respect) tend to focus on the complete lack of law on things like wage theft, tax evasion, which is a far greater crime in terms of raw numbers. I've always thought that we should actually direct funding away from narcotics policing and towards white-collar crime like this. There is also the criticism that the media very rarely talks about this, in particular i bet very few people know about transfer mispricing, one of the most rampant forms of tax evasion.

Of course shop lifting is not a good thing especially if it's from small businesses. I'm aware libertarians think tax is theft, but currently, we have a society where the richest pay 3% on income tax (re a recent nyt story on this, look it up), while middle/lower income pay a lot more than that, (in terms of %, not real values).

Can't a leftie be AGAINST stupidity even if pushed by the left but still pro higher taxation?

Politics have become so black and white nowadays or at least it seems like that in this forum. As if you have to agree with everything the left is doing when you have left-leaning beliefs ....

On June 17 2021 08:26 Spitfiree wrote: Can't a leftie be AGAINST stupidity even if pushed by the left but still pro higher taxation?

Yes? Most are, there's a segment of the left that spend all day on twitter and facebook and have an addiction to it, and appear to be pro-stupidity. I think they are a pretty small segment of the left but they get the most attention for obvious reasons.