I have always been a big supporter of #unions but lately I have been second-guessing that and debating with myself if I might actually change my views to be against unions....
My thinking is simple.. I am a huge supporter of anti-trust laws. Essentially I dont think companies should be allowed to create coalitions with the intention of price-fixing the market. This makes sense to me, companies must compete or else they can become too powerful.
If i believe in that logic then I should, by similar logic, be against unions. Unions are effectively large groups of people getting together to carry out price-fixing of their labour.
I more or less agree with freemo (with some big caveats), but I want to add some context and potential solutions:
Assume that each job has a set of requirements that we’ll call {R}, and for each unique {R} there exists a real value produced when a person that meets those requirements is employed there, called V. Thus, for the set of all jobs {J} there exists the set of all requirements for all jobs {{R},{R},{R},…} and values produced {V}, and people are compensated for a portion of V they provide to the company by doing the work.
If we assume that requirements are correlated to someone’s intelligence (again, assume is the key word), even if we also assume that jobs are distributed IDENTICALLY to the intelligence distribution, freemo has a point.
Namely, there may exist jobs with values of V that fall below the minimum wage, M. If this is the case, those jobs must be collected and extended such that their values V > M; however, this necessarily expands the set of requirements for these now hybridized jobs (or {R1}+{R2} => {R1+R2} for all jobs where V<M).
Thus, if the minimum wage is raised too high (or alternatively, there are too many applicants with insufficient requirements for the lower end of the requirements distribution), we risk creating a class of unemployable people as a vertical line moves left to right along the bell curve chopping the lower end off completely. A great example of this in the intelligence space was what the US discovered when they relaxed their IQ requirements when training soldiers for the Vietnam war, and why those IQ requirements were reinstated. Unfortunately, that means that 10%(not sure of the actual stat here, but I think it’s close) of the populace in the US is “not fit for military duty”, and in that case, there are vanishingly few jobs for which they will provide value and thus be employable.
Now, there are a lot of assumptions baked in here, and I don’t think this outcome is the right one. There are a lot of screwy things going on right now with the asinine “‘growth’ at all costs” mentality (and the private equity firms that accompany it) currently plaguing our economy and as a result vulnerable people are marginalized. I am of the mind that “Welfare Capitalism” that was pioneered by early GE and other US companies can and should become the more popular method of economic growth and stability, as it was what provided the conditions of the 50s and 60s, and that everyone should be able to find work. With that being said, in our current economic environment, and without substantial changes to it, I have to reluctantly agree with freemo.
No we dont.. the state picks the representatives, the members of the state pick who those people will be. This is clear because each state gets to pick the rules for how their own representitives are voted for, this isnt determined federally...
Well we got a bit off track.. lets back up a second since yo uwont accept this particular example... We are talking about state sovreignty... well I linked a paper before and you should read it (re linked below)... it answers your question in detail, why are the states considered sovreign.
At the end it goes into some detail as to what properties give it sovreignty and what the properties are of soverignty more generally (at least according to some political scholars):
Those properties are:
the rule of preservation - In other words the federal government can not dissolve a state or split it, only a state can do this on its own.
The rule of separateness - In other words the federal government can not dictate to the states how they form their own internal governance
The rule of participation - The federal government can not exclude a state or restrict it from participation in the federal governement. Though it can decide who will become a state, once a state is a state those powers can be revoked.
The rule of interpretive independence - Thsi sets forth the jurisdiction issues we already discussed but you refused to accept.. but generally that the state has jurisdiction to interpret the laws within its own state and its court has jurisdiction over this.
Can anyone suggest a candidate other than Biden or Trump that look fairly moderate and a good choice? I have ruled out all third-party, all alternative democrats, and of course Trump... This leaves me thinking maybe one of the republican candidates are worth voting for but so far every one of those I checked out are pretty horrific too...
Is there even one candidate that is remotely a reasonable and moderate choice?
Obviously I dont buy the two party nonsense... but even if i assumed it were true for a second...
If my choices are:
Vote Biden - Help Biden a lot, hurt Trump a lot
Vote Trump - Hurt Biden a lot, Help Trump a lot
Vote Third party - Hurt Biden a little, Help Trump a little, Help third parties show better numbers and support for future elections.
I will go with 3 every single time... It reduces how much I help either candidate (more so than a direct vote for Trump as I'm sure you will agree)... and has some positive effect on the adoption of third parties by people int he future....
#3 is the clear win for me, even in a two party system.
@TruthSandwich I've gotten to the point where anytime you call out something I post as "dumb" or "A bad take"... I take that as a sign that the post deserves boosting :)
I would say the same about voting for a major party. In not a single election would your vote have changed the outcome, ever. So why do it?
Moreover, if we just look at the significance of your vote, you are a larger percentage of the vote when voting for a third party than when voting for a primary party. Something on the order of 50x more impactful when voting for a third party than a primary party in percentage of the vote you account for.
Moreover while not winning or winning for a primary has little effect from your vote, with a third party even loosing has a positive outcome. By swinging the % higher (which you do wtih 50x more effect) you are sending a message even when you loose by raising the % enabling third-party more likely access, exposure, and chance to win in the future.
Remember everyone, we have gotten to the point where sincerely wanted to understand a liberals opinion and politely and respectfully ask for their views in an attempt to consider them.... we call that sealioning now... yup.. and people wonder why so many people are all of a sudden supporting fring right wing shit... people like this have pushed all the rational people away from the left towards the middle and in some cases even all the way onto the right.
QT: https://mastodon.social/@JoBlakely/111115890759371917
Whether I agree or disagree, lets again take this as truth for the sake of argument.
This still proves my point, that by being toxic and attacking people who are on your side you will ultimately drive them to the other side and turn their otherwise unexpressed bigotry into far more expressed and harmful bigotry.
No matter how you slice it the sort of toxic behavior I called out serves to add support to the other side and take away your own supporters... At best you may drive them to a middle to a third party (which in your headis almost as bad)
"Remember everyone, we have gotten to the point where sincerely wanted to understand a liberals opinion and politely and respectfully ask for their views in an attempt to consider them.... we call that sealioning now... yup.. and people wonder why so many people are all of a sudden supporting fring right wing shit... people like this have pushed all the rational people away from the left towards the middle and in some cases even all the way onto the right."
Dear Dr. Freemo: Contained within is my own personal views and opinions.I consider myself to be a logical rational person who is a liberal, in my opinion extremism is the death knell of democracy because extremism destabilizes the ability of opposing political factions to jointly competently govern set forth within U.S. Constitution.
United States of America has always had a rather broad political spectrum ranging from liberal to moderate to conservative political ideologies. I think that we should not attempt to consider the liberal views, this makes liberals seem to be inferior and abnormal, liberalism is not a plague nor the minority political ideology anymore than conservativism is the prevailing political ideology.
What is missing within U.S. political landscape is the ability to form political coalitions in which to be able to constitutionally govern at the federal and state levels within our representative Republic. We the people now are divided to such an extent that we no longer possess a sense of unity as a country.
Political Polarization occurs when political ideologies fail to recognize that they are subservient to the U.S. Federal Constitution and States Constitutions. They hold themselves to be superior to the U.S. Federal Constitution and States Constitutions.
Political Moderates are in short supply, Political Moderates are the key to facilitating stable political governing. Although I am a liberal, I would be extremely worried if I had no political opposition. Simply because liberals would run amok, equally I would have the same concern if conservatives had no political opposition. The Founding Fathers of American Independence knew that we the people remain free and safe only when we have a broad political spectrum of elected political representation!
@freemo@volkris I actually disagree with this, depending on what you mean.
When people say “tolerance”, they usually refer to either allowing people to speak, or not barring people from taking office.
Any ideology that bars people from speaking or holding office based on their beliefs alone will bleed into fascism given enough time and power.
Now to be clear, there’s a big difference between tolerance and acceptance. Listening to an idea doesn’t mean you should embrace it. But it’s possible to have enough discernment that you hear someone crazy say something crazy and say “that’s crazy” rather than “why isn’t he in jail yet”.
So its done! I finally released a fairly easy to install (from scratch) Hugo based Static Site generator with full ActivityPub support.
It has step-by-step instructions on how to set it up for your own blog or static website.
One of the coolest features for me, other than having your static site blog posts show up as posts in the Fediverse is the support for interacting with those posts. Any replies you leave, likes, or boosts will show up in the "comments" section of the website on the page associated with the post. How cool is that!
@testing Not a bug.. i changed some things about how the site renders its pages so it broke old boosts knowingly.. but it continues to work properly.. thats just a "ghost"
Just a reminder, the Democrats, who have largely exclusively pushed for gun laws, have given us the following mess:
Guns must cause ear damage -- devices which lower the sound to just below the threshold of causing ear damage are illegal.
Guns with barrels less than 16" must be designed in a way that they are extra hard to aim, making it a much higher risk that you will shoot someone accidentally... Only guns longer than 16" can be easy to aim.
Yet somehow people are baffled when I say the democrats have largely done more harm to the topic of gun control than good... every time they propose or pass a law it is complete nonsensical, largely because they dont even bother to under the very thing they want to legislate.
@freemo Suppressors are like the one firearms related thing that’s less regulated in most of Europe compared to the USA. I love shooting my .22LR pistol suppressed, you almost only hear the action working and a little “puff”. For my long range bolt gun I prefer a muzzle brake (and double hearing protection) to minimize recoil.
I, myself would never block a person based on politics.
As for Free Press "Without" Borders & Free "Peoples" Free Press, we have a strict policy to never block and mute other accounts. We would never want a person reported, blocked, suspended for political views.
We believe that people have freedom of speech & freedom of the press. We realize that social media platforms can suspend or permanently suspend accounts at their own discretion. We do not agree with social media platforms being allowed to have this power. We also realize that the U.S. Constitution First Amendment applies to government functions of free speech & freedom of the press.
Dear Dr. Freemo: I realize that there is specific types of degrees of civil and criminal legal harms that arise on social media platforms where administrators and moderators must take actions to suspend or permanently suspend account holder users.
As a reasonable person I understand that social media platforms have the right to select the type of account holders demographically for their specific platforms. Which could be considered selective discrimination if they had been considered governmental entities.
I guess what bothers me the most, is the perceived prima facie mixed messages of do not discriminate, while allowing social media platforms to selectively discriminate.
I guess if I started a Caturday social media platform I would be allowed to exclude dog owners.
Dr. Freemo you do in fact possess sound reasonable rational reasoning that is highly analytical in nature.
The Fediverse is kind of like a cooperative, rather than a straight forward social media platform. So it is unclear in my mind exactly whether or not section 230 of the communications decency act applies to the Fediverse. Undoubtedly it probably completely applies to the Fediverse.
We as reporters must take a reasonable stand on freedom of speech & freedom of the press issues that often conflict with that of the private business sectors.
Shout out to that time a long-time friend of a friend who always had a crush on me was devastated when I called her out (and ultimately cut her off) for hitting her child.
No one is going to beat their child in public and expect to not get an ear full out of me. I dont care who you are.
@freemo@niclas@realcaseyrollins@AmpBenzScientist ah, it's how psychological torture is called in german because you don't get your hands dirty. guess that one doesn't translate :)
why i say this is that many ideas still pushed in one form or another are rooted in people like johanna haarer (i'm sure there are equivalents around the globe):
> In 1934 one of the most powerful publishing houses of that period released a guidebook by Johanna Haarer – one of the well-known women in Nazi Germany – on the topic of infant care. This book, The German Mother and her First Child, was in its tenth edition at the end of the war. It is still on the market, with changes that obscure its origin and ideology, not revealing the year of its first appearance.[32] In her critical analysis of this and another book on child-rearing by Haarer, Sigrid Chamberlain concludes that child-raising and education in Nazi Germany and the early post-war years are characterized by coldness, harshness, and indifference. She views these theories as a "seamless transition into the ideology and the institutions of the Nazi state", stating that it is "time" to deal with the fact that "the majority of those born during the Third Reich and the post-war years were released into life with early Nazi ideology, without ever realizing this fact and its possible consequences."[33] In 1977 the concept of "Black Pedagogy", introduced by sociologist Katharina Rutschky, was established, summarizing – among other concepts – the child-raising and educational methods of this period.
what if beating kids prevents them from doing things that will cause them even greater harm in future?
What if unicorns shat rainbows? It doesnt, so the what if regarding something that isnt true doesnt mean much.
As far as I know, most parents don’t beat their kids out of anger but rather to discipline them.
Thats just a lie they tell themselves so they can justify their beatings. And even if it were true it wouldnt make the beatings any less abhorrent.
When parents beat their kids “out of disciplin” what they are really saying is they beating them out of frustration and anger that their kids arent listening, nothing more. They just need to pretend they are doing it for altrusitic reasons. Even most murderers need to find an excuse for what they do and usually find a way to excuse it as a greater good… it isnt.
If that discipline prevents even greater self destructive behaviour in future
It doesnt, quite the opposite, it creates adults with deep rooted psychological issues who are likely to have all sorts of functioning problems. Worse yet since they are never taught to cope with their issues they likely lack the skills to even address their now underlying issues, or even the self awareness to recognizet he problem. They likely just go on to beat their own children and continue the cycle.
is it not justified?
Since that doesnt happen this is a moot question.
Keep in mind that it takes time for children to understand concepts of right and wrong or “this could kill/hurt me or others”.
No it doesnt… by the time a kid is able to learn from a beating they are able to reason. Regardless even if this isnt true there are plenty of punishments that dont require you to beat your child.
The root error comes from the assumption people will cooperate with the principle willingly. Once you assume most people will exploit any system for personal gain when they can it becomes evident communism is not a workable system without a totalitarian government. Even then people will generally do the bare minimum so you get poverty.
Capitalism exploits the inherent selfishness of individuals for the greater good of society.
Another interesting fact about #Israel ... There is no historical evidence that a kingdom of Israel in anctient times ever actually existed. In fact most non-religious scholars feel that it either didnt exist or at the very least the writings about it were first written long long after it may have existed. This is evident because of countless anachronisms that we know couldnt be historically accurate (as they didnt exist yet for the time period)... so scholars have been able to reasonably conclude the account in the bible was in all likelihood made up at a later time.
In short, #Israel 's entire claim of it being an "ancient ancestral land" is based entirely on the bible and not accepted as historical fact by historians...
@freemo I'm a BDS activist, so don't take this as an attempt to back up zionist narratives, but Jews have recorded history in Palestine wrt to the Jewish-Roman Wars, which saw their expulsion, and Samaritan Jews have had a continued presence in Nablus since ~100BC, and still do today (they are few, maybe 300, but I've been to their village -- they are Palestinians. and yes they are Jews, just not Rabbinical jews; the Pentateuch is Torah, with some key differences).
whether we Ashkenazis have roots in Palestine, I believe just vague traces at the genetic level due to marriages with Sephardic and maybe some Samaritans as well, but from what I understand we're the product of assyrian jews migrating to central asia and marrying with caucasian and turkic tribes, some of which converted to Judaism, and continued migrating westward, eventually settling among germanic tribes in the area that spans from today's Belarus to Estonia.
Republican: fascist, authoritarian, Mostly rich old white dudes being racist towards blacks and telling them how they know whats best for them. Their politicians wear red ties
Democrats: fascist, authoritarian, Mostly rich old white dudes being racist towards blacks and telling them how they know whats best for them. Their politicians wear blue ties
Literally almost everytthing they do... They are "big government" (controlling people with lots of rules that carry with it violent threats).. as opposed to small government (minimizing how often they make rules or exert control).
The only difference is the left is fascist-left, they make laws that force you to sacrafice your own individual freedoms for the greater good, or get a gun pointed at you and jail time. The right is fascist-right, they too make laws that force by threat of violence as the norm.. but in their case their laws simply focus on personal freedom even if it is at the expense of the collective good..
Authoritarianism doesn't seem too much different between the two... which is at the heart of fascism.
No, In my earlier post I explained exactly what sort of rule is fascist and what isnt… I made this clear and I know your a smart guy, but that means you just applied reductivism in bad faith in an attempt to argue in an intellectually dishonest way… Dont do that, you are better than that.
Rules that are
Having lots of them is more authoritative than trying to have the bare minimum needed… Having rules isnt authoritative, but when you feel you need to make rules for everything then it is more authoritative than a party which tries to find social solutions
When those rules carry with them harsh penalties they become more authoritative also.. Both the democrats and republicans right now support the death penalty for example. So both are very much authoritative in the severity they are willing to attach to their rules as well.
Is it facism if the state won’t let me sell alcoholic drinks made with orange juice and rubber alcohol?
That would be more authoritative (and thus more fascist) than a government that had no rule around that.
That said I never claimed all authoritative rules, are wrong.. There is a reasonable level of authoritarianism which is acceptable, and there is a qty that isnt. Where botht he democrats and republicans are the level of authoratarianism they exhibit is unacceptable.
Im watching cop interaction videos and one thing i heard a few cops say now to people who refused to answer questions or give them a hard time.. they ask "Why do you hate cops so much?".... no no no buddy, these people dont hate you, they are scared of you, big difference. People just dont tend to like people they are scared of, but that is secondary!
Im not going to go out of my way to get around paywalls, if you provide the link, sure ill look.. But generally any news agency that is for-profit is already discredited in my view going in since they clearly have a motivation to be biased if/when it gets them more views, which equates to more money, so they tend towards sensationalism and one-sideded ness as a result... regardless i will read your gift link.
So after a quick read while the data is formulated in quite a few ways, none of it seems to show how many of the nonvoters prefer neither candidate, vs prefering trump, vs prefering some other candidate.. in fact I dont even see "neither/no candidate" as a result in the data at all.