Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[Condottiere 40K]

It's vested interests and maintaining the existing hierarchy/social power structure.

When the Progressives rant about corporate Democrats, they aren't wrong that most of them were captured by their campaign donors, basically corporations and the rich.

Mancin feels secure enough to be open about his vested interests, Sinema thinks she's being cute; the rest are hiding behind their skirts.

[Abdülmecid I]

An interesting article from New York Times about the Baghuz airstrike that killed dozens of civilians, how the military administration is hiding similar incidents under the rug or is minimising the casualties inflicted and how the Special Task Force is circumventing various restrictions, in order to bomb every potential target.

[Nebaki]

how the Special Task Force is circumventing various restrictions, in order to bomb every potential target.

Probably will end like that thing from Australia just paying the survived a little amount of Money while those Members of Special Task Force with their whatever Ideology they committed those crimes will not even be judged in a court.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Rush Hour irl

[irontaino]

Peak 2021

[Prodromos]

Jon Stewart at his peak

https://www.cc.com/video/la1hcf/the-...us-ambassaders

"Fernando!"

[Heathen Hammer]

You're missing that people are the main push force for all those things (whether they're brainwashed to do so or not). Food tainted by rats? regulation! My kids do drugs out of free will? arrest the sellers! Afghan kids grow drugs to make a living? send drones and burn their fields!

Not to mention most people have come to believe that being served by professionally trained doctors with the most advanced and expensive medical equipment should be a natural right, regardless whether their own productivity even matches those who serve them.

Yeah, I somehow doubt people want only transnational corporations to thrive nor I think they want 60% of their income stolen via taxes and more via inflation.
Its not the people that want it, just elites that don't really represent population, and in many cases aren't even part of it, while people themselves functionally have no choice since all viable options on the ballot want same thing with slight cosmetic differences.
Not sure what the professional doctors part is about.
The issue with healthcare is the fact that it is artificially overpriced. Big Pharma is what really stands between American and free and quality healthcare.

I agree it worked before. Back then:

- nobody guarantees you food, water or working condition
- people don't demand government interference for their own problems

But even if people can be re-educated to drop some of their hilarious demands, how would such small governments cope with increasingly complicated patents and copyrights (= property protection), digital market, or urbanization today? Higher level of urbanization always required more regulation, even in ancient times - plague and fire preventions for example.

Because the funds that government steals from population greatly exceeds cost of all the things you listed combined?
At the end of the day, these tasks can be performed by private entities, who'd probably do a better job anyways. Government simply doesn't need that much money.

[Sar1n]

Because the funds that government steals from population greatly exceeds cost of all the things you listed combined?
At the end of the day, these tasks can be performed by private entities, who'd probably do a better job anyways. Government simply doesn't need that much money.

Oh yeah, tell me how well it worked with private prisons over there...

[Condottiere 40K]

1. Conflict of interest: government run prisons usually want minimal occupancy and maximum rehabilitation rates, which should reflect in increased gross national product; private run prisons want maximum capacity and minimum rehabilitation rates, to ensure their cells are always (over) filled, in line with their earnings predictions.

2. It's not so much about socialism or capitalism, more about how it's implemented.

[Heathen Hammer]

Oh yeah, tell me how well it worked with private prisons over there...

Maybe instead of having private prisons they should ditch those dumb anti-drug laws and then they can get rid of DEA and like 80% of law-enforcement expenses that go after drug trafficking? There is no value for society in preventing an individual from consuming drugs.

[Sar1n]

Maybe instead of having private prisons they should ditch those dumb anti-drug laws and then they can get rid of DEA and like 80% of law-enforcement expenses that go after drug trafficking? There is no value for society in preventing an individual from consuming drugs.

Funny that you mention drugs, as it was greed and lack of regulation that led to the US opioid epidemic....

US needs to rethink its approach to drugs, that's for sure, but not that way.

[Lord Thesaurian]

As a Chinese doctoral student raising a young son in the U.S., I am mystified by how American elementary schools coddle students. In China, schools are run like boot camps. What do the therapeutic comforts America showers on its youth portend for a growing competition with China?

The absurdity peaked after the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Students from elite universities claimed existential despair, finding comfort in cocoa, coloring books and therapy dogs. Classes were canceled and exams postponed, all in the name of soothing 20-somethings who need to be learning how to adapt to reality as adults.

Chinese citizens enjoy mocking the Western “snowflakes.” Less amusing is what this trend means for the U.S. as China no longer hides its enmity for America.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cod...im-11637525811

Americans’ soft minds are probably as big a long term threat as our infamously soft bodies.

[Abdülmecid I]

Meanwhile, in Britain, the department responsible for dealing with tax evasion and avoidance has moved into an office complex owned by billionaire donors to the Conservative Party via a company located in the tax haven of the Virgin Islands. Looks innocuous.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Absolutely. PM Johnson stands about any suspicion of corruption and nepotism.

Johnson accused of corruption as he tears up system to fight Westminster sleaze | Lobbying | The Guardian

A man of honour and integrity.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Earlier this year, U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken stated that U.S. policy toward China includes a mix of “cooperation, competition, and confrontation.” Unfortunately, he is only about one-third right.

The term “great power competition” became a mantra in Washington after the publication of the 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy. The document correctly recognized that the previous U.S. strategy of trying to cultivate China as a “responsible stakeholder” in a rules-based international system had failed and that a new, tougher approach was needed. The Biden administration has since updated this term to “strategic competition,” promising to prioritize the most strategic, or important, areas of competition.

This is not to say that Washington desires confrontation with China. Clearly, it would prefer a much more cooperative relationship. But that does not appear possible so long as Xi (and perhaps the Chinese Communist Party) remains in power. The United States and its allies, therefore, should push back hard on China’s rule-breaking to defend themselves and to show China’s leaders that challenging the United States and its allies is too difficult and costly for Beijing, and ultimately not in China’s own self-interest.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature...avoided-196926

A breath of fresh air that came 30 years too late.

[antaeus]

A breath of fresh air that came 30 years too late.

Certainly is high time for addressing some of the long term issues... but the other part of that confrontation should be addressing trade. And for the time being, while China is the most important trade partner for many allies of the US, the US will be confronting China at a disadvantage.

The US had the opportunity to steer trade partnerships away from China with the TPPA - or with a re-negotiated version of it, but Trump severed that link, and made further trade liberalisation politically impossible for the time being. I'm keen to see how the US intends to proceed with this foreign policy disconnect.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The US had the opportunity to steer trade partnerships away from China with the TPPA - or with a re-negotiated version of it, but Trump severed that link, and made further trade liberalisation politically impossible for the time being. I'm keen to see how the US intends to proceed with this foreign policy disconnect.

I agree and would go further to suggest this was Trump’s biggest blunder, yet Biden seems to be in no hurry to remedy it.

[Abdülmecid I]

Meh, I found it mediocre. Too many opinions and too few arguments. Seems like one of those feel-good and agenda-driven articles the geopolitics journalism has been flooded with. The United States has actually a long history of accommodation and cooperation with China and her genocidal allies in times, when they were much more Maoist and brutal than today, so his insistence on the importance of ideology, ethics and international law doesn't make much sense. What has actually changed is the balance of military, diplomatic, financial and commercial power in the Far East, specifically, and the world, more generally, which is why any rapprochement between the two countries is unfeasible in the near future. Unless the Soviet Union reemerges from her ashes, which sounds fun, but is almost as unlikely as Gordon Chang's predictions about inevitable bankruptcies coming true.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I don’t think his assertion was that China’s human rights record makes cooperation impossible, but rather, the fundamental incompatibility between the US world order vs Xi’s ambitions. His comment on human rights and trade was an opinion regarding the applicability of the word “competition.” I would go further to suggest that if Xi succeeds in having the kind of impact on China his cult of personality implies, his “Chinese dream” agenda won’t die with him, but will in fact color CCP policy for decades, the way Deng’s reforms did. The reason I say 30 years too late is, regardless of how cynical or idealistic one believes US leaders to be, the US woke up too late to this fundamental incompatibility. What Xi vs Deng vs Mao represent, conceptually, is a difference in strategy. CCP leaders have shared the goal of eventually reasserting the geopolitical centrality of China in world affairs, as a function of redirecting the nationalist project of “rejuvenation” toward the cultivation of the Party and its power.

[AqD]

The issue with healthcare is the fact that it is artificially overpriced. Big Pharma is what really stands between American and free and quality healthcare.

Even without overpricing, without social security how are poor people going to afford healthcare? How a person doing the simplest job with zero training or qualification needed could easily afford for example 8 hours of another who spent a decade in academy and field training? Even the human cost wouldn't add up.

Because the funds that government steals from population greatly exceeds cost of all the things you listed combined?
At the end of the day, these tasks can be performed by private entities, who'd probably do a better job anyways. Government simply doesn't need that much money.

How would you privatize police or patent issuance? Or the inspection of buildings or environmental protection? How about tax collection? Ancient Romans did just that and we all know how it went. Would you accept the removal of public education and deregulation of all factories, shops and restaurants? How about consumer protection, IP theft?