Danny Dravot

In 1864, Confederate general Leonidas Polk (after whom Fort Polk, probably the army's shittiest base, is named) was killed by our artillery. A military historian later described that lethal shot as one of the worst the Union took during the entire war. Polk's incompetent buffoonery was way more valuable to us than it was to them. That's how I feel about Trump.

I don’t care how people feel. Joe follows the squad? Kamala was a very successful prosecutor, and Michele Flournoy would have been seen as a hawkish figure even in the GWB administration. Look at the facts, man.

You missed the point of my comment.

Yes, Greg, I know communism is bad. I mainly focus on foreign policy and my two favorite presidents are Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. I find The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf to be equally heinous. Even in hindsight, I approve of the Vietnam War. My anti communist bonafides are in order. The problem with your argument is that neither Joe Biden nor the Democratic Party are communist. The antifa black bloc doofuses you worry about so much will have less of an impact on Joe Biden’s thinking (read- none) than QAnon types had on Trump’s (read- a lot). If you’d step back and analyze his actual policies and choices (like his front runner for SecDef saying we need to be able to credibly threaten to sink all of China’s warships, subs, and merchant marine vessels in the South China Sea), you’d realize that he’s gonna piss off the serious leftists here much more than he will you.

That's fine. Yes, some people live fluffy lives because their parents have connections and/or money. Eric Trump is a thing, unfortunately. Don't get too caught up on that. I work two jobs and am fairly certain that the vast majority of my hundreds of coworkers are where they are because they were the best candidate. In both of my jobs, that was the case for me. I'm guessing your friends who struggle to move up have some issues, whether they've shared them with you or not.

Goodness man, what happened in your life to make you that pessimistic? You really think the only way to get a good job is by knowing someone?

Do you think something like the American Petroleum Institute matters to the average American? Who are these mysterious hordes who are shut out from the labor force? Being middle class, ESPECIALLY if you come from a privileged background (i.e. mom and dad are reasonably present and pay close enough attention that you don't totally beclown yourself in school and your living situation is relatively stable), isn't hard. If you graduate from college and perform decently well in a useful major and don't have some expectation that you get to immediately live in the hippest neighborhood in the coolest city (again, my COL is low but I still live in a very nice area- such places do exist), you'll be middle class and pretty secure. It won't be glamorous but you won't need a welfare system to even get by.

I'll make this post my last, because we can agree to disagree, but this particular thing is not AT ALL the government's responsibility. "You're alive? Your kid's asthma attacks are under control because you can afford an inhaler? You can afford ramen noodles and vegetables from Aldi's? You've stopped buying meth and are going to start working as an office assistant next week? All because we stepped in and helped you? Our work is done here- big success!"

No. We need a system that alleviates suffering, starvation, and unnecessary death. Upward mobility and luxury is YOUR responsibility.

COL comes down to supply and demand. Why is everything, including housing, so damn expensive in San Francisco? Limited space, lots of people, attractive topography and cityscape bringing even more people, etc. How do you propose to control that? If you want to live in SF but can't afford it, that doesn't mean it's our responsibility to help you. You're not actually needy. I couldn't afford a one bedroom apartment in that city, so I live a very nice life somewhere else.

No, I don't think this is the case at all. Parkman seems to think this is a substantial segment of the needy in this country and I think that's absurd. My parents ended up well off, we lived in a big house in a nice neighborhood, I went to a good school, they were home in the evenings to make sure I studied, they pretty much mandated I attend college, and then they helped me foot the bill. If I had ended up working a minimum wage job because I picked a silly major and didn't have the best GPA, you'd be under no obligation to help me. I've advocated a limited welfare state for those who actually need it everywhere in this thread. But there are obvious limits to that.

The emphasis there is on "idealistic". I understand that we're never going to get to a point where that system can vanish. However, welfare systems and social services should combine to help people who are down on their luck and work them through whatever issues they have while also pushing them off of it eventually. The idea that we should sustain people until we have decent jobs for everyone is nutty.

I sympathize with the kids with crappy parents who grew up in crappy environments and never had the chance that I had, and I want to help them (again, to a reasonable extent). But if someone grew up in a privileged environment and still ended up chronically unemployed and working poor, then I'm really not that sympathetic. Life takes a little bit of toughness. Sorry.

Reading your posts and seeing your still-existent belief about economic terrorism, if you think we're on the same page, I didn't stress the word "limited" enough. The welfare state should be LIMITED. It should also work towards eliminating itself. I'll admit that my wife and I had to spend time in marriage counseling at one point. We worked through our issues and are in a fantastic place now, but the marriage counselor always used to joke that success for him always equated to unemployment. The welfare state should be the same way. The idealistic goal should be that it disappears because nobody needs it any longer.

Though I disagree, this is much more reasonable. Now, how long should we help such people? Take a kid with poor, drug addled parents. Give the parents some food stamps so they can feed their child and hope they use the stamps wisely and honestly. Provide welfare so that the family can have a roof over its head, but combine that with enough social services (including substance abuse counseling) so that, hopefully, the parents get clean and can obtain steady work and no longer require these services. Boom, success! But the sad fact is those parents are never going to become my parents. My parents worked their asses off their entire lives (they came from poor Appalachian families) and ultimately got grad degrees. I was raised in an admittedly privileged environment because of their work. How far are we supposed to work for the kid in the previous paragraph? Where does it end?

No, that's not the government's responsibility. Insulin is a weird situation and the government should stop pharmaceuticals from jacking up the price and heavily profiting off a drug that's incredibly cheap to produce. They should subsidize healthcare for people who can't afford it. There should be welfare and unemployment payments for people who have fallen on hard times and need help while getting back on their feet. They shouldn't really help with education (although federal loans should come with extremely low interest if at all). The feds should help local governments establish homeless shelters so that people can generally be safe and not sleeping on the streets, but it shouldn't go beyond that. I'm fine with food stamps for the actually needy on a similarly limited time frame, but it's the individual's responsibility to use those wisely.

Genuinely curious, can you cite anybody on the right demanding Obama's resignation over Ebola? I was much more firmly on the right at the time, and I didn't like Obama (Trump has caused him to grow on me), but I don't remember that much outrage about it.

I'm an advocate of a limited welfare state that prevents suffering and unnecessary death while encouraging eventual independence from it. Yet your ideas here are so fanatical that I need to argue entirely against them. Serious question- are individual citizens responsible for ANYTHING in your view? Right in this post alone, it's apparently the government's responsibility to provide education, healthy food, housing, drugs, surgery, disease prevention. Anything else you want the government to take care of?

No. If someone says, "you can buy a house and health insurance and whatever else you want, but YOU have to figure out how to find the money for it", it's calloused and ignores that some people can't work or can't afford education/licensing processes to get a better job, but it's not the intentional murder of anyone. It's not a slow torture. Grow up. Stop the hyperbole.

Seriously, I know what terrorism looks like. Every American who's over 30 or so should, because we watched it on TV. Additionally, I fought in a war zone where, more than once, children in our area of operations were killed and maimed by terrorist explosives. Often, we noticed that these explosives were placed on paths and infields that American soldiers didn't even visit. There was no reason to expect that they would harm anyone other than Afghans, and probably children. So why do it? Because it's helpful in making the population live in fear every second of their lives. I don't take the word terrorism lightly. Thinking that the social safety net should be diminished and that people's financial outcomes are primarily their responsibility is an idea. It's not really my idea (I've expounded plenty on my ideas) but a person who supports this idea can absolutely do so for reasons that they find beneficial to society as a whole. Feel free to argue against them. But if all you can do is to conflate that idea with actions that base themselves on the intentional murder of innocent people, then have fun not ever being taken seriously.

Because I'm not massively hyperbolic. Next question.

In the House. Where rightwing internet trolls Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Greene also won. I like what another poster said- AOC will win "sapphire blue" districts ALL DAY, but lose in Abigail Spanberger's district.

Looking through there (my work computer won't open several of those articles), but particularly #4, it mentions appeasing a fiscally conservative base or fear of defying the president as reasons for not approving of a larger bill. You can disagree with fiscal conservatism, and the second concern is stupid since the president is a fucking imbecile, but at the same time for, say, Thom Tillis, doing so would probably constitute career suicide. I don't agree with what McConnell is doing. They need to move heaven and earth to get something passed so Americans can handle the COVID pandemic without starting some sort of financial suicide pandemic. But you are ascribing his motives as economic terrorism and racism, and that's where you jump the shark.

I haven’t paid too much attention to a relief bill, honestly. Nancy wanted more, McConnell wanted less, Trump wanted MOARRRR...they need to negotiate. It’s not solely McConnell’s fault. I don’t want you to apologize. I just want you to see some nuance and not think yourself capable of mind reading. I still remember you saying you lost your job because Republicans wouldn’t fund universities (all because I asked about your whiskey). Doesn’t that make you unhappy? You’re using politics as a crutch! For your own sanity and happiness, stop it.

Trump’s total unseriousness regarding this virus is much worse. Even with aid, there would be millions who wouldn’t take this seriously and would want to continue running their businesses as normal. There would also be Americans who would desperately want to use those services. Providing aid wouldn’t dissipate that. Also, please consider that there non-racial reasons for rejecting a DREAM act. I think we should provide a pathway to citizenship for childhood arrivals, but if we don’t secure our borders, we’re just having the conversation again in twenty years. I want consensus action from both parties to fix the problem rather than just ignoring it, but it’s ridiculous to say Mitch McConnell is doing this solely because he hates brown people and is a true white supremacist.