Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

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  1. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    Yup, as said previously, to prevent tyrrany of the majority, as a pure democracy has.

    Because the Senate was created to represent the states, not the people! The House represents the people, thus the 2-year election cycle and control of the purse-strings. The Senate was originally selected by the state legislatures to represent the state's interest in the federal government. That's why each state has equal representation in the Senate. The 17th Amendment changed it to direct election of Senators by the populace, thus robbing the states of representation in the federal government.

    A better question is this…if Trump had the coattails to gain seats in the House, not lose the Senate, and flip 3 state legislatures to (R), how did he lose to Biden?

    Oh yeah, those state legislatures matter because…it's reapportionment time next year!

    ----

    We've got quite a ways left in the election process this cycle.

    There are some real problems with at least Pennsylvania. The pre-election actions of the Secretary of State to extend acceptance of ballots by 3 days, and the subsequent order by the PA Supreme Court to uphold that policy, contravene the explicit wording of the Constitution itself, which prescribes that the state legislature alone has authority to "prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections". (Article I Section 4).

    The legislature can act on its own to set election criteria in each state, without the consent of the executive or judicial review (no court has jurisdiction unless another part of the US Constitution would be violated). Incidentally, this is why the counting was stopped in Florida in 2000…the US Supreme Court held that the FL Supremes overstepped their authority to allow counting to continue (change the parameters of the election as set by the legislature).

    The media, sadly, has just exacerbated an already-difficult situation by taking sides. They should've just let things play out and report the news. Strangely enough, Trump could still be reelected.

    ----

    Normally these days, the electors are selected by popular vote, as provided by the legislatures of most (all?) of the states. However, it wasn't that way originally: originally, each state legislature would appoint electors to vote for the office of President, with no popular vote even held for that office!

    Any state legislature can, at any time, decide to appoint their own panel of electors to the electoral college. After electors cast their votes, those votes are reviewed and accepted (or not) by the state legislature; eventually the state legislature sends the electoral votes to the US Congress (after the new Congress is seated).

    Then the Congress gets to review the electoral votes provided by the states. If >=1 Rep & >=1 Senator object to the votes provided by any state, they end up debating whether or not to accept that state's vote. The Congress has final review, and can simply decide to accept or throw out those votes. Without a clear winner from the EC votes, the House votes to select the President. It used to be that the Senate votes to select the VP (since he's the President of the Senate also), but I'm not sure if that's still the case since we have a P/VP ticket system since the 12th amendment.

    There's nothing that says we have to have a President, if one hasn't been duly elected and accepted by the Congress as-of inauguration day!

    ----

    If Con- is the opposite of Pro-, is Congress the opposite of Progress?

    Cheers!

    ---


    Edited to clarify that courts do have jurisdiction over election laws that would violate another part of the Constitution, such as laws that would prevent a certain class of citizens from voting.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2020
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Dude, get over it. Trump is gone.

    I dislike Trump. As for Biden, it's personal.

    I also don't buy any of your anecdotes. You clearly demonize anyone who thinks differently from you and you haven't convinced me otherwise. You certainly got me pigeonholed.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2020
  3. Darkstar1

    Darkstar1 Facebook Friend

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    Yeah ok bud. Not much fight left I see.
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Neener neener neener.
     
  5. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

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    Because enough Reps can see that he’s dangerous.

    Or because the elderly (the group he lost out on the most compared to 4 years ago) took his Covid “it is what it is” attitude as a “f**k you”. So they fucked him at the voting booth.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Some small states were not convinced to join the USA. The Founders threw them a bone, I think Connecticut, RI, a few others (don't quote me). It was a compromise - an unbelievable one when we think about it in today's environment. Hamilton hated the idea and thought two Senators, regardless of population, was BS.

    I'm up for a logarithm formula as a compromise for today. Won't pass though because most of the states will phear California and NY's proportional increase in power. Why folks worry so much more about the EC instead of this beats me.
     
  7. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    This is a more insightful way to put the question. IMO the answer is that many decided to split their tickets and vote against the man Trump, but remain faithful to the GOP which better represents their to-the-right-of-NYT worldview. This is one reason why I think conservatives (or at least, moderate progressives of the usual GOP type) can overall be positive about this election, and the likely house flip in 2022.

    It has become a symbol for the left as it is an obvious check on their populist goals.
     
  8. Tachikoma

    Tachikoma Almost "Made"

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    Pray tell, what are these goals?

    What are our goals, really? I for one would like to see that this alternate reality game (with respect to climate change, masks etc) comes to an end sooner than later so that we can stop sleepwalking into disaster. Maybe Marv is right about needing to Thanos our population to save the world, but that's not happening, so what can we do?
     
  9. YMO

    YMO John Bomber

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    House is going to flip bro after TX/GA/FL are going to cook their maps to give their guys an edge. That'll seal the deal. :p

    I wouldn't worry about it so much, this is a semi-repeat of 2010.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2020
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    House usually flips after first midterms. Hard to say though. Would be curious if there will be Trump fatigue that would push more Democrats. On the other hand, it would appear that voters decided they liked Trump's economic policies - explaining why the GOP picked up seats - but could do without Trump.

    These populist goals are the same for everyone - people just don't know it. The entire left vs. right thing is legit - but the real problem is the people in power pulling the strings so poor and middle class progressives and conservatives can shout each other down instead of uniting against the them, the Mr. Potters. Trust me, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mitt Romney, George Soros, Koch brothers, Amazon guy, Larry Ellison aren't at each others' throats. Perhaps they talk about social issues at a super long rectangular table with video screens like Bond villains, but they most certainly are not demonizing each other or calling each other libtards or evil.

    The share of wealth is totally skewed with the boomer generation owning most of it. Both Gen X and Millennials at any specific point of their lives own less of the share that boomers had at the same point. Millennials are screwed more than Gen X. Ever wonder why individuals who make money in the stock market (who already have money), get taxed less than a receptionist? Warren Buffet can point out how wrong this is all day, but we can bet that he won't lift a finger to change it.

    There is little opportunity for younger people today, and let's not even talk about safety nets for younger people. Any boomer will admit that it was pretty much impossible to f**k up in their time, even if one fried their brains with drugs. College and homes were affordable, jobs were a plenty, promotions and pay raises were guaranteed. You could get away with so much shit like going to work drunk, squeezing boobs, flashing cocks, skull f'ing underlings, etc. Believe me, I'm Gen X and I saw plenty of this in the corporate environment when I was younger.

    This is why Obama's ideas for wealth redistribution failed. The boomer generation, who received all the advantages of great opportunity, don't want to give it up. Heck, the Unaffordable Health Care Act raised insurance on young people x2. (That's just wrong and totally against my values. The reason I don't have a nicer house is because I'm saving up to help my kids through school.)

    Racism, Qanon, Proud Boys, Defunding Police, Social Justice, whatever. Most of that goes away when people have real opportunity. Culture wars are dumb. They are a distraction. They do need to be debated, but only after every one who wants to work has a decent shot at the American Dream.

    P.S.
    • And let's stop spending trillions in wars and bribing corrupt banana republic officials "nation building" for people who are unable.
    • Moar education doesn't work either when there are no good jobs after graduation. In fact, it's a scam. Where do you think the interest payments for student loans go?
     
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    Last edited: Nov 12, 2020
  11. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    They do not even dislike Trump, they would be happy to work with him if he was into business as usual.
    It does not stop them from working very hard, and as a team, on inflaming hate so the rest of us is busy with culture wars and calling each other names. So there is no time for asking questions about real issues. And there are real issues on both sides: health care, wars, disappearing jobs., permanent hold on power and corruption of the establishment, failing education, insane power of internet platforms to control our lives under the phony free market umbrella, etc, etc, etc. And the most threatening question: what did you do, Rep and Dem to fix any of this over the last 20 years?. NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING.
     
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  12. Boops

    Boops Friend

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    It took a while but we can finally agree that the guillotines have to come out!

    Curious as to how you and others square these two thoughts. I'm 43, had kids late. They are 5 years old and won't be college age until 2032 ish. If the price trajectory of college doesn't change significantly, I do not expect us to be able to afford to send them to college at all. These days I assume they won't be going and will have to work out some kind of alternate path to employment.

    I'm not sure what I would do if they were going to be graduating from high school in the near term. What's your thinking?
     
  13. robot zombie

    robot zombie Friend

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    Obamacare was set to kick me in the balls at the time. I made too much to benefit, but not enough to afford my own. My employer also didnt provide options. So I was about to be in the position of paying for someone elses care while I just... walk shit off, I guess. It was "Health insurance? Or car?" Penalized for not being poor enough.
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    These are the questions which do need asking because the USA has no industrial policy. As such, we don't have trade schools like in EU countries where kids have to make a choice at some point, whether to pursue book-smarts education at a higher institution, or to learn a trade. In the USA, progressive theory has it that no child be left behind and every child is potentially an Einstein. Conservative theory has it as "duh, whatever, outsource it". Thus there is no alternate path to a trade school, of which there is no shame. We need people who can weld, fix air conditions, stamp metal, program CNC machines, assemble and test Yggdrasil DACs, program routers and firewalls.

    Then again, maybe we don't need any of this since the USA has outsourced almost all of its manufacturing (and even skilled IT positions). The rational is that if these companies didn't send everything to China, then they would be uncompetitive and go out of business. That explanation simply does not fly, especially when Apple has billions and billions in the bank, and the Ford and GM can sort of make a profit with much of its operations still in the USA. And by the way, the people benefiting from all this? It's the folks who have their money in the stock market, which pretty much means mostly well-off boomers, with a few Silent Gen and a few fortunate Gen X who may have gotten lucky from Dot Com 1.0

    A higher education is good to broaden one's horizons - but this really has become a luxury for the rich. A degree in a STEM discipline is an investment and where I see it being worth taking out student loans for. It depends upon the individual. Aimless kids with little self-drive should not be taking out student loans for non STEM degrees. For example, many El Lay kids I know who graduated with a law degree didn't realize that you have to be self-starter to make money at it. For them, a law degree just seemed like the next "logical" thing to do since that Cultural Geography degree was useless.

    My daughter, given her exposure in hospitals and seeing what I went through, was inspired to be a nurse. She's held steady in that desire, despite me describing all sorts of scenarios to scare here away: patients with their brains fried going nuts because of infection, patients having a poop blow out, people arriving at the ER with their brains out of their skull, etc. She has a goal, so we can plan. Asked why she didn't want to be a physician, and she simply replied that she didn't want to have that level of responsibility and didn't want to deal with the paperwork. Smart kid if you ask me.

    My son has expressed that he does not wish to get a college education at times. He's expressed ideas such as being a dragon fruit farmer, after seeing the prices in stores. Then again, he's expressed interest in high schools with good computer programs. And he thought it would be a cool idea if we could invent some kind of gizmo that could measure the growth of different seed varieties under drought conditions. Maybe agriculture or viticulture? He mostly plays Minecraft right now, so it's too early to say. I feel he should get some college education - if at least to get some polish. Maybe it's a matter of doing things first, and then getting a degree later to support that doing of things.

    Then there is the option of starting of a small business. There's no shame in that. Almost all of the community bank presidents, credit officers, loan officers I knew had small business roots. Very few of them had high-brow degrees. Many of them obtained banking degrees after some point, but it was mostly hustle and bustle. Small business opportunity is the most underrated effective way of lifting disadvantaged people out of the shithole.

    The last problem is lack of manufacturing. At one time, it was possible with a factory job in Michigan, to raise a family, own a decent house, two cars, and a boat. Maybe the boat is excessive. But I don't see why people working in manufacturing shouldn't at least be able to raise a family in a decent house with a new car every seven years or so. IMO, the government should be giving the companies like Schiit who manufacture in the USA a HUGE FRICKING TAX break. If you've met the employees there, how diligent they are at their jobs, how loyal and how long they've stayed there, you'd totally understand. There needs to be more companies like this. We can't only offer jobs at Starbucks to people.

    The rich boomers (the plenty of poor ones excluded), sold us out so they could get richer.
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2020
  15. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    Trades are a great path to a good career.

    I am the shop engineer in a smallish industrial repair facility near San Francisco. I ran the shop for about 5 years just prior.

    We literally cannot find manual (no CNC) machinists, qualified mechanics or welders.

    very few people under 40 have pursued the trades. It’s a shame we adopted the “college grad or failure” mentality some 50 years ago.
     
  16. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    I was tralla surprised when I was in the States nearly 20 years ago and most of the stuff for sale at Walmart was already made in China. I was working for a US based company at the time which when they set up shop in China and Korea. They decided that bringing Gasbarre presses, which they used in the US, to those places was too expensive. So they showed the drawings they had to local suppliers in order for them to make cheaper copies. I found that to be a strange approach. On the other hand when Germany decided not to build a magnetic levitation train track and the Chinese bought the technology for transportation Shanghai to Shanghai airport the Chinese got the whole technology paying close to nothing.
     
  17. Friday

    Friday Friend

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    In my biased opinion, that's a very good mix of interests and potential skillset to have. An increasing proportion of biology-related research require better computational techniques to make good sense of data, but most biologists/botanists/insert-appropriate-profession don't have the computing skills necessary to do so. If he's able to get a good enough grasp of plant biology to understand and incorporate botanical theory into realistic models, and have the computing skills to code them into efficient algorithms, I think that he would have a relatively rare combination of skills that would be in high demand by plant research companies that know what they are doing.
     
  18. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    Trade school is the way to go right now. A good chunk of my family are electricians and they all make great money. I have cousins in their early 20's making $70k per year already as fresh journeymen. One of my older cousins is a top guy at the Detroit local IBEW and he tells me they are struggling to find apprentices.
     
  19. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Speaking as someone who enjoys school a lot more than he lets on, I can see why higher (i.e. postgrad) education or even UG stuff can be viewed as a luxury— in a way it's a means to get knee-deep into something you just happen to find interesting, with improved job prospects just happening to come incidentally. I'm still set on getting that stupid degree but it's almost more because I've invested a lot of time into it that not finishing it would be like pissing on myself almost— the bulk of work I've taken on has been in the form of freelance writing for magazines or had to do with marketing crud, and while it might be argued that what I studied might technically apply that's a stretch.

    Loads of people I know don't even seem to pursue careers in what they studied, with few notable exceptions. I talked with an older coworker back when I was an intern at a hospital and the way I understand it sometimes job qualifications ask for 4-year degrees just so they know the people they hire can commit to something. What the flick even. I know education here isn't up to the standards of other countries necessarily (we only adopted the K to 12 system in 2013) but requiring a college degree minimum to work as a cashier or store clerk is ludicrous.

    No shortage of tradespeople on my end, even if a lot of the people seem to be half-there at best (I'm still mad that a carpenter we had over scratched my old Bifrost), so maybe other countries can learn not to go down chasing the same dragon that seems to be bucking some western-hemisphere folks off— the notion that just because you invest heart-sinkingly large volumes of cash into a degree means you're guaranteed to do well after you get that diploma.

    Re: dragon fruit farming, make sure he reads up on tulip bulbs too :))
     
  20. Phantaminum

    Phantaminum Friend

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    Trade jobs are fantastic and an alternative to college. I think the notion that everyone needs to have a college education was pushed too much. In the construction/service industry, trade workers are being paid top dollar because of demand. Hell, a friend of mine services elevators and he makes more than me programming. It can be hard job. In my industry (new construction/service) -- imagine servicing a rooftop industrial a/c unit, in the Texas, in the middle of summer.

    I steered some of my family members into trade jobs (my second cousin is making $17/hr as an apprentice electrician) and that will only go up once he becomes a Journeyman. As Marv said, it's just we don't have a system put in place like in Germany. Now I see companies like mine going out to high schools, with tv sets to play dvds on what trade jobs are and how to start down the path of one. It sets up the next generation of trade workers to be available for us as they're our lifeblood.
     
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