Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Sure…. Right up until the “special agents” that show up start “proactively assisting” intentionally to push a political agenda/side. (Viz, the Missouri versus Biden case going on now… you familiar?, or perhaps the Twitter files?…). “I’m agent X from the Ministry of Truth, and just wanted to let you know…”

[edit] to make it personal and real, “We are from the Town Conservation Commission, and …. “ (but I already shared those deets)

Again, the problem isn’t generally the individuals in government service (I’d say that it is rarely thus), it’s their “masters”… and the agenda appurtenant thereto… To deny there is demonstrably such an agenda, is ito deny reality/facts.

Another, let’s make it real @purr1n … I worked with the FBI back in 1984 to help catch hackers breaking into mainframes associated with the 1984 elections. They were breaking into a Digital TOPS-20 timesharing system, and trying to use data to blackmail office-holders, etc… Spent a week onsite hand in hand… They got the offender, but never told me what the “resolution” was… But, hey, Got a personally autographed presidential picture as a thank you from it.

Most people want to be/do good. In or out of government.The problem is the corrupted system. And the degree to which the current system and its massive over-abundance of laws and regulations lends itself to disproportionate enforcement; setting the very table for influence peddling, corruption, and totalitarian actions. And, of course, the problem is those doing the corruption. But denying it’s happening isn’t going to solve anything.

Some see it, some don’t, some won’t. Same as it ever was

[edit: I love your “I ain’t no Senator’s son…” take, @purr1n

 

I mean, just because it's hard doesn't mean we should stop trying? Agree that immigration policy needs to be more sensible than the convoluted system that exists right now though.

As for jobs are hard - I think this would be a good catalyst or at least weight / factor towards proper labor reform. IIRC this is why Caesar Chavez was actually also very anti-illegal immigration. It also plays out where figurative "endless supply of cheap labor" leads to so many nations with access to said labor also having and getting away with way more abuse of workers and worker rights.

In b4 penguins hates immigration - my own amateur-ish study of history tells me that strict isolation / insulation from new ideas, which will almost always come via new people, has *gradually* led to *long term* stagnation and is bad for the long term health and prosperity of nations and empires, across time and cultures. I just think it needs to be done in an organized and intelligent fashion so we get the proper benefits of it.

 

Kind of like in the series "Polo" when Marco's dad his left him with the Khan in exchange for letting him go for trying to steal the silk worms from the orient?

 

The Canadian north is already warming much faster than the global average rate. The last thing we need up there is additional sources of hot air.

 

Hahaha Giuliani files for bankruptcy. Well deserved you colossal POS.

 

You maybe have read a lot of “classic liberal literature” but it’s clear you’ve read no anarchist literature because what you describe is chaos, not anarchy. Anarchy is an actual articulated political position and has not ever meant chaos.

Equating direct democracy with riots is just rank elitism disguised as benevolently infantilizing “common people”—I didn’t buy it with Plato and I don’t buy it now. Of course like any system, direct democracy is subject to manipulation, which is why there needs to be strong civic participation to keep people invested in the system and maintaining its integrity.

It’s funny how people who are so opposed to the current system ultimately have no meaningful solution other than the same system, but with less regulation. Talk about a complete lack of imagination, creativity, or desire to make the world a better place.

Additionally, Portland did not have any autonomous zones.

 

I.e., when libertarianism devolves into propertarianism espoused by the upper middle class and goaded on by the rentier class.

 

While I am in general not a death penalty supporter (for Canadians the names Morin, Milgaard, Marshall, Truscott, Sophonow, Unger, Ostrowski, Sanderson and Driskell, just off the top of my head, should sound familiar - all wrongly convicted), it is hard not to note we can humanely euthanize our pets with lethal injections.

Hypoxia also kills people painlessly in unpressurized airplanes or confined spaces like rail cars purged with nitrogen. If you are going to do it, it blows my mind that it is so hard to do it right.

 

I can't believe I am responding to this. I been to NH (where @Bowmoreman lives), and it is quite nice. Not even close to chaos, but effective small town government that does the basics right (at the cost of steep property taxes, but that's life in NH).

Then why our country is not set up as a direct democracy? We are our own self enemies. Note: I do think on the state level there should be a limited version of Direct Democracy just in case that the state government does something that is too crazy.

If the #s are to believed, the two states that are growing the fastest are Texas and Florida. Both states have their own version of less regulated government and less government spending. In this day of age people move with their feet, and when both of these states are gaining new population on a heavy scale then you should take one moment to realize why.

 

And here's more:








Summary: When any government doesn't care about the QOL (Quality of Life) of their citizens, then the area will suffer. This is something those in the middle who care about. Not all care about crazy political subjects of the day, they care about QOL. If you forget about QOL, people leave. Simple as that.

 

1. NH isn’t an anarchist state, so I don’t see what your point is.

2. Our country isn’t set up as a direct democracy because our founding fathers were propertied slave owning aristocrats who desperately wanted to ensure common people did not have a significant say in their own governance. Institutions like the Senate and the Electoral College were specifically instituted to thwart the will of the majority. And of course that’s not even considering that no women or slaves were allowed to vote at all. It’s not because direct democracy doesn’t work, it’s because our founding fathers knew they wouldn’t get to keep a system where they were on top if they let people actually have a say.

3. Yeah, Florida and Texas are real utopias, as long as you’re not poor, or a pregnant woman, or queer.

4. I said Portland doesn’t have autonomous zones. You’re posting news stories about crime rates. At this point it seems like you’re substituting what I’m actually saying for what you want me to have said and responding to that instead.

 

And our people. For MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying), the usual process is lethal injection.

 

One of the things I like about the US is that there is a wide variety of governance amongst states, so if you are able to move there should be something for everyone (unlike Canada where our government tends to force whatever Toronto likes on the entire country).

Sure, I would not want to live in Texas or Florida, too right wing for me. Also would not want to live in California or New York - too left wing for me (and indeed the only difference between the left and right is which particular aspects of everyone's lives they want to control), but I'm pretty sure I could find a state that has a reasonable balance if I was able to move there, which I am not in any case.

 

You don't really have to worry about which color the state is, more so the county, or city/town. Night and day difference between my county and it's neighbor, also places in true Norcal (way further up than the Bay area) walk to there own beat, not necessarily what Newsom pukes out.

 

The point is that what you told @Bowmoreman is anarchy when it comes to how a government should run. When my personal life experiences shows a different situation. NH is nice, a lot nicer than what people give it credit to.

Do you think in 2024 people will be denied to vote? I dunno man, back then when the country was founded it was not perfect. Things do change as times goes on. I know I prefer to vote in FL than over in NY since you still can't vote non-excuse mail voting up in NY (but you can in FL for over 20 years).

Opinions. The regular person won't be focusing on these issues daily. I met plenty of those are Trans are ok with what the FL GOP is doing on LGBT issues since any decisions on gender identify should be when you are above 18. Fun fact: The world is not black and white and also the majority of peoples don't think or care about these issues daily. They only care about QOL.

No because you are too deep in your groupthink to understand the point of the message. Who gives a shit about "autonomous zones" when Portland have some serious deep problems that is making citizens living the city/state. I personally met a few folks over the years who moved to FL from Portland. They all talked about saying "Portland used to be great until it started to go shit." These folks left since it was not safe for their families, and they believe the state government and city government isn't doing shit about QOL. Before you say these are Republicans, they were Democrats who moved to FL not due to the FL GOP policies but more about QOL that FL offers.

The biggest problem with people who are too far deep in one side of the political wing is that they forget about the folks in the middle. QOL is what the majority of average people care about.

Going back to the folks I met who moved from Portland to FL, they said a few things they like when they moved to FL:

• Crime is not crazy.
• Police actually arrest people and do their jobs.
• Judges do a good job putting people in prison with harsher sentencing.
• People on average are more respectful to property rights and support businesses when they were a victim of robbery.
• They aren't stepping on shit or needles or attempted to get robbed often.
• State government while being wacky with social policies, actually do a good job on running on a budget and not having government bloat where they are hungry on taxes.
• In majority of cities in good parts of the area, they feel safe.
• No active legal drug bill on the books like in OR which they think it is causing more problems.
• For better of worse, people like that there are laws in state/city level that prevents homeless from causing crimes and other issues.

QOL issues is what the majority care about. If you stop caring about QOL issues and just start talking about the common political points of today, people will stop voting for you/your party. Going back to Texas and Florida, the data doesn't lie. There's tons of people who believe that Texas and Florida offer a higher QOL than the states they are escaping from.

If you are too obtuse to understand this fact, then you need to speak with people who aren't in the same political class as you. Talk with moderates and even conservatives. Don't rely on the internet to reenforce with your groupthink. There's more than enough examples from users here who moved recently due to QOL issues. You might say "oooooh it is only due to politics." But no, it is a lot more than political reasons.

Fun Fact: NYC folks aren't the rich ultra educated coffee drinking social justice folks. They are mostly the lower income/poor working class folks who aren't into the whole social justice talking points but instead want to focus on jobs, more police, and better government that works for them (and not against them, which is a common theme with NYC government and also state government).

 

Unless you are a gun owner. Or a pot smoker. Or are, or have a GF of childbearing age. Or are a racial or sexual minority. Or lots of other things.

 

The problem with direct democracy is that you better be the majority and I think that is the real reference to riots... the majority votes what they want and the minority has no recourse until they get fed up and bad shite goes down. The other problem with direct democracy in our current world is that the average american (me included) has the attention span of a kumquat. If we can't even get people to pay attention beyond the 10 second sound bite to elect our representatives, how can we expect them to be informed and vote on everything piece of legislation that comes down the pike?

Unless your reference to direct democracy is purely limited to the electoral college for president and electing representatives to the house (eg., getting rid of districts). If that's the case, then that's not direct democracy... that's just changing the way we elect representative in our republic.

exactly... except when they're pandering to them after the primaries with no intention of actually implementing what they say

 

If someone wants to advertise and be confrontational, all those things couldy be problems. Keep things lo-key, fly under the radar, and it's not an issue. Believe it or not there are many people that aren't Red, Blue, an anarchist, Libertarian, or any other nouveau name living just fine in these areas.

 

So you keep your guns illegally, buy your pot on the black market, leave the state if you need an abortion, and stay in the closet if you are LGBT? Somehow none of those things scream spreading freedom to me.

Don't get me wrong, I bought weed on the black market most of my life. I won't be handing my currently legal guns to Turdeau when he asks. But I'd still rather have more freedoms than less, even if I can just keep them a secret.