[Forge]

Tea Monster, on 15 November 2022 - 07:21 AM, said:

To be fair, the Democrats have tried to put through some legislation to help people. They've attempted to control prescription prices and tried to put through the infrastructure bill to rebuild America's roads and bridges. They also tried to extend medical care to veterans who had been exposed to toxic substances during their service. The Republicans opposed all these - right after voting through a massive tax break for billionaires. While historically the "both sides" argument has some merit, recently, this is not the case.

you should probably actually look up who voted and how they voted before making posts like this.

infrastructure bill passed with 19 republicans voting for it
pact act (veteran toxic exposure) only 11 republicans voted against

they are both considered bipartisan

I don't care about defending one side or the other, but misrepresentation isn't needed when there are other numerous examples of corruption and hurting the u.s. people instead of helping them.

edit: like I posted before - 'not all'. They have to be taken on a case by case basis. Both sides.

[ReaperAA]

Phredreeke, on 14 November 2022 - 06:13 PM, said:

Look we are grieving the loss of our long time friend, give us some space here

Jimmy is banned? Oh no!!!


Anyways...

[Phredreeke]

It’s funny how people who defend Democrats as the lesser evil are also so quick to decry centrists.

[Forge]

i just find it disheartening that we have housing/homeless issues, drug addiction and mental health issues, and an economy that's barely afloat and can barely afford to pay people enough wages to feed and house themselves - but we have billions of dollars to send overseas with no returns other than lining our elected official's pockets.

[Mark]

Reaper_Man, on 15 November 2022 - 06:36 AM, said:

Arguments that anyone on "the left side of the political spectrum" in the US are socialists, communists, leftists, etc. is so patently absurd that it doesn't even warrant serious response.

I agree. But simply change the word "anyone" to "way too many" and I believe its a valid statement.

[Mark]

TeaMonster said: ...Democrats tried to put through the infrastructure bill to rebuild America's roads and bridges...

The devil is in the details. Like almost every large piece of legislation its loaded with Millions and Billions in unrelated wasteful and fraudulent spending and handouts. It sounds great at face value but look into the details and its a good thing the other side tries to put on the brakes. Its simplistic to say Republicans are against it and nothing more.

[Forge]

Mark, on 15 November 2022 - 09:31 AM, said:

TeaMonster said: ...Democrats tried to put through the infrastructure bill to rebuild America's roads and bridges...

The devil is in the details. Like almost every large piece of legislation its loaded with Millions and Billions in unrelated wasteful and fraudulent spending and handouts. It sounds great at face value but look into the details and its a good thing the other side tries to put on the brakes. Its simplistic to say Republicans are against it and nothing more.

nebulous 'green energy' investments without specifics given.

i.e. whoever has a bunch of stock in cobalt, lithium, electric cars, and other 'clean' energy technology will be getting millions back on their investment of the tax payer's money

[Reaper_Man]

Mark, on 15 November 2022 - 09:31 AM, said:

The devil is in the details. Like almost every large piece of legislation its loaded with Millions and Billions in unrelated wasteful and fraudulent spending and handouts. It sounds great at face value but look into the details and its a good thing the other side tries to put on the brakes.

What parts of the bill, specifically, do you feel was unrelated, wasteful, or fraudulent? The devil is in the details so I assume you have detailed grievances to account for the "millions and billions".

[Hendricks266]

Quote

millions and billions

[DNSkill]

[Mark]

Hendricks266, on 15 November 2022 - 12:35 PM, said:

It was that or Billions and Billions from Carl Sagan.

[Forge]

Let us now memory-hole that the democrats shot down a similar infrastructure bill when trump was in office.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 15 November 2022 - 01:19 PM, said:

Let us now memory-hole that the democrats shot down a similar infrastructure bill when trump was in office.

I presume that observation will garner one of two reactions (or maybe both), with possible additional reactions not listed:

1. Being anti-conservative doesn't imply being pro-Democratic party, therefore your post is making an unwarranted assumption about the audience.
2. The bill in question when Trump was POTUS had some kind of poison pill in it (perhaps different from the poison pills in the Dem sponsored bill) that would justify opposing it.

[Forge]

Danukem, on 15 November 2022 - 01:29 PM, said:

I presume that observation will garner one of two reactions (or maybe both), with possible additional reactions not listed:

1. Being anti-conservative doesn't imply being pro-Democratic party, therefore your post is making an unwarranted assumption about the audience.
2. The bill in question when Trump was POTUS had some kind of poison pill in it (perhaps different from the poison pills in the Dem sponsored bill) that would justify opposing it.

The original mention of an infrastructure bill was posted as democrats trying to help people - so point one is irrelevant. The republicans presented one that was initially welcomed by the democrats - before being shot down. So the myth that only democrats try to pass "helpful' bills is inaccurate.
The poison pill was the bill suggested privatizing certain sectors (i.e. airports would hire privatized air traffic control) - so it reduced government bloat and spending. Nobody in government wants to actually reduce the size of the government , or the amount of taxes it collects.

I'm not trying to defend republicans, because they are greedy and destructive. They fucking vote against aiding the homeless and people with mental health issues, while sending billions to foreign countries to fight proxy-wars all the damn time, so they can go pound sand.

[Danukem]

Forge, on 15 November 2022 - 01:42 PM, said:

The original mention of an infrastructure bill was mentioned as democrats trying to help people - so point one is irrelevant. The republicans presented one that was initially welcomed by the democrats - before being shot down.
The poison pill was the bill suggested privatizing certain sectors (i.e. airports would hire privatized air traffic control) - so it reduced government bloat and spending. Nobody in government wants to actually reduce the size of the government , or the amount of taxes it collects.

Opposition to privatization may have been the official sticking point, but generally the party not in the White House will want to avoid giving the other party a win, so will want to find a reason to oppose bills the President wants.

[Forge]

Danukem, on 15 November 2022 - 01:46 PM, said:

Opposition to privatization may have been the official sticking point, but generally the party not in the White House will want to avoid giving the other party a win, so will want to find a reason to oppose bills the President wants.

we care about the u.s. citizens, just not enough to work together and get anything useful done.

[Danukem]

That image is annoyingly large.
EDIT thanks for replacing with smaller image

[Forge]

[Tea Monster]

Forge, on 15 November 2022 - 01:42 PM, said:

The original mention of an infrastructure bill was posted as democrats trying to help people - so point one is irrelevant. The republicans presented one that was initially welcomed by the democrats - before being shot down. So the myth that only democrats try to pass "helpful' bills is inaccurate.
The poison pill was the bill suggested privatizing certain sectors (i.e. airports would hire privatized air traffic control) - so it reduced government bloat and spending. Nobody in government wants to actually reduce the size of the government , or the amount of taxes it collects.

I'm not trying to defend republicans, because they are greedy and destructive. They fucking vote against aiding the homeless and people with mental health issues, while sending billions to foreign countries to fight proxy-wars all the damn time, so they can go pound sand.

Can you give me the name of that bill and when it was tabled?

[Forge]

Tea Monster, on 15 November 2022 - 05:53 PM, said:

Can you give me the name of that bill and when it was tabled?

think it was this one:
Phase 4 Coronavirus Infrastructure Spending

[Radar]

Tea Monster, on 15 November 2022 - 06:24 AM, said:

I'm often accused of being a leftist. I've tried to explain to a person on this forum that in the Country in which I reside, being a leftist means being a card-carrying Marxist. A real red-under-the-bed, nationalise everything communist. In America especially, "Left" is just slightly less right than right according to the rest of the planet.

As a centrist, could you list a few political beliefs of yours that you would consider more closely associated with the right?

Tea Monster, on 15 November 2022 - 07:21 AM, said:

To be fair, the Democrats have tried to put through some legislation to help people. They've attempted to control prescription prices

Both Democrats and Republicans are paid off by the same big pharma donors, so it's not like Republicans are shooting that down just because they want to be mean. It's because leftists don't grasp basic economics and price controls don't work.

Tea Monster, on 15 November 2022 - 07:21 AM, said:

and tried to put through the infrastructure bill to rebuild America's roads and bridges. They also tried to extend medical care to veterans who had been exposed to toxic substances during their service. The Republicans opposed all these - right after voting through a massive tax break for billionaires. While historically the "both sides" argument has some merit, recently, this is not the case.

These bills with seemingly good intentions are shot down by the opposing side of the aisle when enough pork is stacked against the other side's favor. These bills aren't clean sheets of paper with just a few paragraphs. They're packages worth dozens, sometimes even hundreds of pages. Leftists especially have trouble framing these scenarios properly and dissociating from the emotional sob story.

[Ninety-Six]

Another huge issue are backdoor terms. Bills being drafted up that focus on one thing and are presented as such, but sneakily throw in there other conditions that have very little to do with the advertised goal (there's a term for that but I can't remember what it is).

It's like those are made to force the opposition into a catch-22 where approving it means allowing that to pass, or to reject it and then be slammed for opposing the main feature that's considered "common sense."

[Reaper_Man]

There's this undercurrent that if I personally can't understand something then that means it's bad or wrong, and that doesn't really make sense. The idea that legislation of a single sheet of paper with a single sentence on it would be effective merely on the merit that it's simple doesn't really make sense. Something being complex doesn't inherently make it faulty, and dictating everything via schoolyard logic doesn't inherently make it better. Let's take an example that basically everyone agrees with, like marijuana legalization. (If you don't agree with legalization then, I don't know, stare at your shoes or something, the point here isn't to argue the merits of legalization.)

If legislation was drafted that said "Marijuana is now legal. :-) " then everyone in favor of legalization would agree with it, but it would understandably be challenged or rewritten or even rejected by legalization proponents. Effective legislation would need to detail what existing laws on the books would be changed or repealed, it would need to outline how various federal agencies would have to change, it would probably even need to define what "marijuana" is in legal terms. Just as a few examples.

Legislation should probably outline how state and local police agencies respond and react, and should probably include funding for retraining. AKA "pork!" AKA "wasteful spending!".

The legislation should probably also have some sort of response to people currently in prisons or with criminal records, whether that's expungement or clemency. AKA "releasing criminals!".

I could go on and on. There's a whole list of secondary and tertiary actions involved in effectively carrying out something as simple as "marijuana is now legal", and that's just simply at the federal level. This goes for just about any kind of legislation, and the more sweeping and more impactful, the more complex it should be and needs to be in order to be effectively carried out.

I would argue that if someone claims to "support legalization", but would reject a bill that contains ancillary elements such as this that are not directly related, but undoubtedly still related, then that person doesn't really support legalization beyond it being a talking point. If your idea of "a poison pill" is "everything I don't agree with", or even simply "it's too complex", then I'm not sure the pill is where the poison is.

[Radar]

Reaper_Man, on 16 November 2022 - 06:23 AM, said:

There's this undercurrent that if I personally can't understand something then that means it's bad or wrong, and that doesn't really make sense. The idea that legislation of a single sheet of paper with a single sentence on it would be effective merely on the merit that it's simple doesn't really make sense. Something being complex doesn't inherently make it faulty, and dictating everything via schoolyard logic doesn't inherently make it better. Let's take an example that basically everyone agrees with, like marijuana legalization. (If you don't agree with legalization then, I don't know, stare at your shoes or something, the point here isn't to argue the merits of legalization.)

If legislation was drafted that said "Marijuana is now legal. :-) " then everyone in favor of legalization would agree with it, but it would understandably be challenged or rewritten or even rejected by legalization proponents. Effective legislation would need to detail what existing laws on the books would be changed or repealed, it would need to outline how various federal agencies would have to change, it would probably even need to define what "marijuana" is in legal terms.

100% agreement thus far.

Reaper_Man, on 16 November 2022 - 06:23 AM, said:

Just as a few examples.

Legislation should probably outline how state and local police agencies respond and react, and should probably include funding for retraining. AKA "pork!" AKA "wasteful spending!".

The legislation should probably also have some sort of response to people currently in prisons or with criminal records, whether that's expungement or clemency. AKA "releasing criminals!".

This argument is either disingenuous or ignorant. This is not what is meant by "pork", nor does it line up definitionally.

[Phredreeke]

Reaper_Man, on 16 November 2022 - 06:23 AM, said:

Legislation should probably outline how state and local police agencies respond and react, and should probably include funding for retraining. AKA "pork!" AKA "wasteful spending!".

Those are states issues. Getting stoned is not a civil rights issue the way gay marriage is.

Reaper_Man, on 16 November 2022 - 06:23 AM, said:

The legislation should probably also have some sort of response to people currently in prisons or with criminal records, whether that's expungement or clemency. AKA "releasing criminals!".

While those are good things, any legalisation proponent who rejects a bill merely for the lack of such is a fool. It’s similar to the argument the right makes against student debt relief being unfair to those who already paid it off.

[Šneček]

I'm starting to get the feeling that some of the discussions on this site are deliberately created for one reason, and that is so that debaters here can insult each other and subsequently get banned. Maybe this place will end up getting blocked again, better not hang around here and not sully own nickname, I guess.

[Mark]

Radar is correct. Those other "parts" of the Marijuana bill mentioned by Reaperman I think are related to the main reason for the bill. The kind of stuff we are talking about would be sneaking in a handout to unions or some green energy spending thrown in the bill or other pet projects not related. Look at what Obama's stimulus package included. There was so much crap thrown in that overly large legislation that lists were compiled and reports released every year on the massive waste and fraud. This type of shennanigans happens in almost every large bill put forth. This latest one is no exception.

[TerminX]

Šneček, on 16 November 2022 - 07:55 AM, said:

I'm starting to get the feeling that some of the discussions on this site are deliberately created for one reason, and that is so that debaters here can insult each other and subsequently get banned. Maybe this place will end up getting blocked again, better not hang around here and not sully own nickname, I guess.

Ooh, I've got one, let me try!

How do you guys feel about the fact that government deregulation of industry and the associated environmental pollution has caused all life on Earth, from the plankton in the ocean to the largest animals alive, everything in between, and even our drinking water, to be filled with microplastics?

When these materials degrade and further break down, the components they were produced from are released into their environment (unless the reaction that constitutes the degradation changes those components into something else, of course). Unfortunately, and really rather inconveniently, it turns out the bisphenol A hardening additive, commonly known as simply "BPA" and found in all polycarbonates and epoxy resins, is shaped close enough to estradiol to bind to and interfere with the relevant receptors in the body. For those unaware, estradiol is a naturally occurring estrogen receptor hormone frequently used in the treatment of older women with menopause, and for gender transition related hormone therapies. In fact, the shape is close enough that BPA was long ago considered as a potential candidate for a synthetic estrogen receptor hormone. Though BPA has already since been linked to stuff like obesity, thyroid problems, testicular dysgenesis syndrome and other endocrinological issues, I was curious what other long term effects you guys think could arise from this unstoppable flow of low-dose female hormone analogs that begins long before birth?

Other relevant facts: even if they weren't already present in literally everything we eat, the microplastics in question are too small to filter out with current water filtration technology, and a study performed in South Korea revealed levels of BPA high enough to be detectable in urine for about 85% of a sample size of approximately 300 children.

Personal speculation (e.g. the only part I probably couldn't find a pile of published, peer-reviewed medical papers to refer to): weird shit potentially happens when the body is exposed to hormone analogs capable of activating those receptor networks before the body's own means of production of said hormones is up and running, like connecting a breaker panel while someone is in the middle of trying to run Romex and install junction boxes and receptacles or opening the valve to the main when someone is in the middle of trying to plumb a WC. Observing the ways in which the problems outlined in this post could affect a child all the way through adulthood, potentially manifesting as stark, intergenerational disparities beyond those which can be pinned on cultural, economical, or political differences, is left as an exercise for the reader.

[Danukem]

There was literally a discussion of that in this thread around October 31st (page 10 for me). No one got upset or insulted even though some controversial things were said.

EDIT: By "that" I mean of course the topic of microplastics released into the environment and their impact on humans. I'm not implying that anyone had TerminX's take on the matter (although some takes were in the same ballpark).

First post of that discussion here: https://forums.duke4...post__p__374686

[TerminX]

Danukem, on 17 November 2022 - 03:24 AM, said:

There was literally a discussion of that in this thread around October 31st (page 10 for me). No one got upset or insulted even though some controversial things were said.

First post of that discussion here: https://forums.duke4...post__p__374686

That's so strange, I came up with it independently the other day when I was hitting the bong and my wife asked me the rhetorical question "what the fuck is wrong with people these days?"

I think I'm actually gonna have to read that paper... frankly I'm surprised that anyone who knows what they're talking about is coming to the same conclusions and asking the same questions, because I thought there must have been something obvious I was missing. Is this another thing where the people bleeding us dry have known about it for half a century, like climate change?