It's self correcting in that way at least. If AI generation runs rampant, it'll be kept in check by this phenomenon.

And just like China with cars, the IRA spurred other European countries to pass similar legislation to remain competitive.

Classic conservative move -- getting a vaccine during a deadly pandemic is an affront to bodily autonomy rights, but it's totally okay to force a woman to carry a pregnancy because of religious beliefs.

Nope. We had exactly 60 votes, and that included moderates who shot down further left provisions of Obamacare like single payer. If not for them, we'd have gotten it.

It's also very noteworthy that Democrats were a lot more conservative back then -- or rather, there were a lot more Manchin types in the party. I don't think there were even 50 pro abortion Senate votes, frankly. It's really understated how Democrats have shifted left since Obama, as a product of losing those Manchin seats and only keeping solid blue ones.

I wish it was far more common knowledge that SCOTUS doesn't just ignore the 9th amendment, they flagrantly violate it. The amendment says they a right does not need to be explicitly mentioned to be protected -- which makes a lot of sense when you think back on American history, because opponents of the Constitution felt that only our enumerated rights were protected and no other freedoms. Hence, why the 9th was made.

The actual text goes further and says that the explicit enumeration of rights in the Constitution should not be used to disparage or forbid our other rights. This is exactly what SCOTUS disobeys, because the "a right must be guaranteed by an amendment" philosophy they've adopted for abortion flies in the face of that.

There's two conflicting viewpoints here. You need as many pro choice Democrats elected as possible to codify abortion rights.

But that doesn't happen in just one election cycle. If you punish Democrats for not fixing it immediately, you'll never build up the necessary numbers. And that's exactly what happened. Democrats got a huge boost in 2008 that was enough to advance things somewhat. Voters stayed home in 2010 because they didn't like the limited improvements, and in doing so, handed Republicans the majority and prevented anything more than the limited improvements.

Even Roe wasn't repealed overnight. It was a multi decade campaign. The left needs to play just as much of a long game to get what we want. There'll be absolutely no progress if we keep getting to get one large push to the left in 2 years, versus several smaller pushes to the left over 10 years to get to the same point.

that the 14th amendment does not protect abortion

This is completely irrelevant. The 9th Amendment says a right does not need to be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution to be protected, nor are other rights lesser to those that are explicit.

SCOTUS has been spitting on the Constitution for a long time.

I'm not on any team here. Hamas is awful. The Israeli military is awful. Civilians caught in the middle are the ones who deserve our support and sympathy.

There can be no peace with an us vs them mentality. All it does is engender the same mentality in your foes, and then everyone thinks any action they take is justified. Perhaps it is, but therein lies the issue. In taking justified action, they go too far and create justification for the other to now act.

They don't have to like each other. They just need to leave each other alone. Enforce defense right up to where the border against Gaza is, and no further. And, vice versa. Continually push for a two state solution, no matter what happens. The power dynamic isn't going to shift away from Israel's favor, and as we're seeing, taking directionless vengeance makes everything worse and solves nothing.

Exactly. Their behavior is just wanton violence and venting, there's no actual purpose. The attack by Hamas was tragic, and Israel has every right to go after them, but they don't have the right to drop bombs and shoot randomly in the general vicinity of where maybe Hamas could potentially be.

This isn't what an operation to root out and destroy terrorists like like. This also isn't what revenge looks like. This is killing oppressed people for no reason other than they can, apparently. Perhaps the IDF should spend more time defending Israel, as their name suggests, and not fuck around. They found out with the Hamas attack, and they're just going right back to fucking around.

It blows my mind how undisciplined and irresponsible the Israeli military is.

Two quips come to mind:

1. Somehow Hamas has killed fewer journalists. Israel has yet to learn how to not point a gun and shoot wherever they'd like.

2. If Israel's defensive forces spent as much effort to protect Israel as they do to kill journalists, maybe they could've stopped the attack from Hamas in the first place.

I sometimes wish they were correct about their God's existence so that I knew there was a hell they'd burn in.

That's a fair point. More jobs than people inherently gives the laborers the advantage. I'll need to look into the Lineman union too -- nothing's more heartwarming than a union successfully kicking execs to the curb.

First, and I am not assuming you meant it this way it just has to be repeated over and over again, “unskilled laborers” is mostly just a phrase the rationalizes treating people who do difficult jobs like shit.

Absolutely, that's why I put it in quotation. I couldn't think of a better way to describe them at the time. You're spot on too that food service isn't trivial work. Both it and working retail are brutal, and I don't wish that on anyone except those who truly deserve it. There's nothing wrong with those jobs, but they put up with way more than they should have to.

Judging people for their job is one of those shitty conservative boomer things, and it makes absolutely no sense. When I order out for dinner, I'm not necessarily looking for a chef whose culinary skills exceed my own. I'm looking for someone to make me food so I don't have to. I'm exchanging money for someone's time and effort so I don't have to spend time nor effort. Skill and talent don't matter. If I don't want to do something, that something is going to be nontrivial effort, and I owe gratitude and compensation to whoever does it for me. All labor is precious and valuable under this viewpoint.

Also -- I'm all for unionization. If it isn't enough collective power to affect change, then we can try something else. But we should try first.

It wasn't too long ago that Texas actually had a Democrat governor, and California a Republican governor.

I saw someone mention Rosa Parks, and it's the perfect example. Injustice must be fought where it is by individuals who are brave enough to put themselves in harm's way for it. I have no disdain for people who put themselves and their families ahead of a cause. I'm the same way. But the very least we can do is offer our unconditional support to these heroes.

How unusual, I thought Paxton liked avoiding law enforcement for breaking the law. He certainly avoids his own summons.

Technically no other country has M4A. All of them have supplemental private insurance, and the current M4A policy completely abolishes all of it.

I'm in favor of universal healthcare for essentials and allowing private insurance for supplementals, to start with. The ultimate goal would be to phase out insurance completely, but it's unwise to jump ahead to it immediately since there currently aren't any systems that do so and we have no experience nor data.

Got it, those innocent kids only matter if it isn't an inconvenience to your wallet or requires effort. Moving away for a clean conscience is too much, but voting for what's the best realistic scenario is an affront to your values.

So go ahead. Vote how you want. But know that if you don't vote against Trump, you're helping out Israel. It seems you're just fine with that though.

Messaging is still important, and showing voters that you'll actually vote for something when Republicans vote it down. If we dismissed all statements that had no political feasibility there'd be a number of progressive politicians who'd barely talk.

And like I said, that's okay! It isn't a dig at Progressives. It's actually exactly what they need to do to pull the party left.

This would be a perfect slogan. We're asking that government subsidized medical research be free to the public. We aren't asking companies to research complex medications without any compensation. Make it so the subsidy results in a net profit for the company (which it probably already does) and remove the private sales. Everyone wins, and we aren't stupidly paying twice.

Do you have sources where I could read more about the rank and file opinion? Or surveys/polls?

According to the unions and Biden administration worked behind the scenes to pressure the rail companies to capitulate and give rail workers the sick days they were going to strike for -- and it was successful. So there'll be no sacrifices here.

Do you care more about supporting the killing of children than you actually do about the killing of children itself? You're putting your morals ahead of human lives.

I'm not pleased to pick a lesser option, but there is no realistic option that will stop all the death instantly. You don't have to like it, but you have to acknowledge reality. This is going to continue no matter how you vote. All you can do is influence how many people it'll affect, and hope that puts us on a road to outright stopping these things in the future. Do you think Israel would feel so emboldened if Trump wasn't a possible leader?

And this doesn't even take into consideration other issues. Ukraine needs to be able to defend itself from Russia. If they don't get military support, Russia will kidnap and kill even more children. Republicans don't seem to care about that, but Democrats are pushing for that military support to happen. Here there is an option for your vote to stop the death of children. I wish it was Palestinian AND Ukrainian children, but the world is a shitty place, and all we can do is try to make it less shitty.

So I ask again. Do you care more about supporting the killing of children, at the expense of the actual killing of children?

You could. You could move out of the US and refuse to buy any US products. It would come at great personal cost to you, but it would mean you are completely not complicit.

Do your morals stop when you have to personally give or sacrifice? You refuse to vote because it would make you complicit, but you don't refuse to live in and contribute to a country that makes you complicit.

To be clear, I don't think this makes you a hypocrite. I'm just further pointing out that your absolutist morals aren't realistically sensible, and that your morals clearly aren't absolute if there's boundaries you won't cross to meet them.

You have the time to discuss news online at ~7:30am Eastern and the necessary computing tech (phone, laptop) to do so. It certainly sounds like you're better off than a lot of people -- are you also part of the rich? After all, you aren't doing manual labor nonstop from early in the morning for minimum wage.

Let's establish the situation. There's only two outcomes of the election. Any other possibilities are so remote we can dismiss then.

1. Biden wins. The status quo continues.

2. Trump wins. More Palestinians and innocent children die.

There is a clear outcome here that is going to be worse and kill more people. You have three options on how to act:

A. Vote for Biden

B. Vote for Trump

C. Don't vote for either of them

If you pick A, 1 becomes more likely. If you pick B, 2 becomes more likely. If you pick C, 2 also becomes more likely because of the electoral college. If you pick A or B, you'll feel guilty. If you pick C, you'll (incorrectly) feel like you're innocent and not complicit.

You say you care about the people dying. That means you want the outcome with the least deaths, 1. If you want to outcome 1, you should pick A. Why are you refusing to?

No one here is delightfully voting for the genocide to continue. We want to stop it, but that isn't an option. Shouldn't we then act to minimize the death toll as much as we possibly could?

A child who survives in outcome 1 could die in outcome 2. If you don't strive for outcome 1, you have blood on your hands. Do you care more about having a falsely clear conscience, or do you want to save lives? It's very easy to say you want none of them to die. It's not as easy to take an action that you know will still result in people dying, but it kills fewer people.

If you are genuine in your convictions, and I choose to believe that you are, I am confident that you'll make the decision to try and save lives, at whatever personal cost to yourself.

The Constitution was designed to make change difficult because the founders feared a strong government. It's unfortunately a design feature. It's why it's harder to actually address a problem instead of preserving the status quo.

No this would still be an issue. Actual technology is, well, technical. Not a lot of people here would be able to read a direct medical study and then discuss it.

until they would have to give in

They wouldn't.

That's how you end up with things like the rail unions where nobody knows that the administration worked behind the scenes after the legislation to get the workers what they wanted from the companies -- and they successfully did that.

So you're pleased about him working behind the scenes to pressure rail companies into giving the workers what they wanted?

He’s not. He got crucified.

He got better a couple of days later though!

Texas even has a law forbidding this. I lived in Houston for a few years, and it's actually astonishing the General Assembly passed a law to forbid discrimination of hair style.

Just to give you a general idea of how fucked up these school officials are. They're worse than the worst of Texas.

"Says only country where this happens" :(

I wish we had younger leadership, but it is what it is. Biden is completely correct here, and I honestly don't doubt that he wouldn't be running otherwise. Who the hell would want to spend their last years in an incredibly stressful and highly visible position where half the country wants to hate you -- when instead you could be retired and do book deals and the like? If not for Trump, I would oppose Biden just on the basis that the best thing for his health is to not be president.

Trump is an existential threat. Biden has beaten Trump before. Biden has an incumbency advantage. Biden is an accepted consensus/compromise by the party. He's the safest candidate for beating Trump. It may be possible that there's a better candidate who could also beat Trump, possibly by higher margins even, but we don't have the luxury to test that.

It isn't rocket science. I'm agnostic but it's incredibly clear that the teachings of Jesus are antithetical to Republicans. Jesus would be a through and through Democrat who wishes for a proper socialist party.

If there is a hell, I'm consoled to know I'll share it with Johnson and all other Republicans. Knowing there's divine punishment for being as awful as them is almost worth the whole thing being true.

It's only inevitable if we do nothing

Also the line in the Bible about respecting the government authority only applies if a Republican is president. Otherwise it's totes not a sin to disrespect them.