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be_excellent_to_each_other ,
@be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social avatar

The scenario you describe, and a limitless spectrum of other possibilities that could exist during any encounter, are the source of so much frustration for me when these events come up.

The person being interacted with could be exceptionally fearful, panicked, on drugs, drunk, having a medical event, deaf, experiencing mental health issues, severely autistic, or just stupid.

YET that person, who could be ANY of those things or more, becomes a justified target for violence the moment they fail to comply with an order that they may not be capable of understanding, or may be too deep into their own circumstances to understand or even process.

Meanwhile, the police they interact with who are (presumably, ostensibly) sober, well trained, mentally well, have backup available, and have a number of different options available to them, will always get a free pass for taking the opportunity to deploy that violence until and unless there's enough public outcry to force some action, and sometimes not even then.

How does that not strike anyone who reads it as an unacceptable framework for policing?

LineNoise ,

There’s no latitude for other choices whilst first past the post voting systems remain.

If you want minor parties in the US then your first priority must be establishing ranked choice voting. Any other approach just hands power to your opponents.

DucktorZee ,

While these groups are the culprit during this round, the entirely of the US government and the post secondary educational system is truly to blame. Universities have been peddling an overpriced ware to under informed children and their parents for decades. Terrifying then with the fear of losing ground in middle America while offering a product with ever decreasing value for ever increasing cost, partly because of student loans. The government has then enabled greater and greater burden upon these children and their parents by allowing special loans to groups who should never have had them, by protecting those loans from bankruptcy and by making $$ from baking interest as these groups struggled to pay. It’s a travesty. It should never have happened. Education should be free for all.

soratoyuki ,

The legislation also bans the sale, transfer or import of gun magazines with more than 10 rounds unless they are owned by law enforcement or a military member or were owned before the measure’s passage.

Exempting the police from gun control laws and giving them control over the permit process isn't gun control. It's just funneling arms away from the vulnerable communities that need means of self defense (and are the ones usually on the receiving end of disproportionate state violence) and giving them to the communities that oppress them.

soratoyuki ,

Hey @accountunacountable just curious, why are you reducing seemingly every post?

effingjoe ,

I think it's the opposite of apathy. Republicans, as a rule, are perfectly fine with corruption and abuse of power that benefits them. From representatives, down to the random voter in Alabama that lives on welfare and complains about socialism. It's less apathy and more some kind of political nihilism.

Your conclusion is still accurate, though. I don't see the whole country banding together to set things right when half of them don't see anything wrong.

jon ,
@jon@kbin.social avatar

I heard an explanation awhile ago about why you always find these homophobic Republican congressmen in the closet with the pool boy.

If you're on the political left, homosexuality is more-or-less accepted. If you determine you're gay, you can accept that about yourself and have those around you accept you as well (or find a group of people that will). Coming out as gay may surprise people around you, but (assuming you have the proper support system in place) you'll be accepted for who you are.

But if you grew up as a deeply conservative fundamentalist christian? Homosexuality is an abomination. These are people who have given into a their hedonistic fantasies and live lives of sin. Sexual perverts and deviants.

So what if you're a deeply conservative man...who's also gay?

Well, obviously you're not gay. Because there aren't any intricacies or complexities to human sexuality and attraction that can make different people attracted to different things. Men are attracted to women, damn it, and that's all there is to it. Besides, homosexuality is a sin, and you're a deeply committed christian, so you can't be gay. But still, you keep having those thoughts....

But that's just the liberal gays tempting you with sin. We'll keep passing legislation against them before their lifestyles take over America. I mean, ignore the fact that like 93% of people aren't gay, so it can't be that tempting of a lifestyle. Also ignore the fact that as a cisgendered heterosexual male, I personally have never once fantasized about sucking dick, but that's beside the point. Obviously they're tempting people because for you, that's actually true. You constantly find yourself checking out attractive men when you go out, and you might even watch questionable videos online while your sexually frustrated wife sleeps in the next room over. The gays are obviously tempting people into their lifestyle, because you are constantly being tempted.

So you get more aggressive, give impassioned speeches on the evils of homosexuality, propose more and more discriminatory laws against them. Because it's not just the gays you're arguing against, you're denying the truth about yourself.

This goes on and on until on day the truth comes out. The intern comes out that you sexually propositioned him. They find gay porn on your laptop. The true nature of your relationship with your 'business associate' Chuck comes to light. Everyone realizes you're gay. Deep down, even you realize you're gay. But you can never admit that, because the fact that you're a conservative God-fearing christian has formed a structural cornerstone of your identity. To admit you're gay now would mean admitting you've been wrong, your religion has been wrong, and your entire worldview has been wrong. So you'll try to sweep it under the rug, say you were tempted by sin, that you've found God, blah blah. Your voters eat it up, because the alternative is voting for someone with a (D) next to their name.

And the sad part is just how much happier everyone would be if they could just accept this about themselves.

xuxebiko OP ,

The conservatives are being clever. They've passed laws banning abortion, forcing women to birth unwanted children who can be forced to provide their labour at lower rates to increase the profit margins of Republican donors.

And we thought they were banning abortions because "every child deserves to live". They aren't pro-life, they're pro-child labour and were simply ensuring their donors don't face a labour shortage.

dickbutler ,

If you want inflation to stop just put extra tax on companies that have increased consumer prices in last 12 months. In 12 months you see that inflation under control again.

Of course this is never going to happen but we all know the reason for inflation.

wagesj45 ,
@wagesj45@kbin.social avatar

And who wants to go to a convention somewhere that normal behavior could get you harassed by the police? Or that could limit your medical treatment if you were to have an emergency? If I were a woman (or gay, or trans, or even just not a "traditional" straight cis person), I would be scared to step foot in Florida even for a work conference.

Aesculapius ,
@Aesculapius@kbin.social avatar

Businesses want access to cheap labor. With boomers retiring, American workers can finally demand higher wages. Many businesses don't want to pay it ("No oNe waNtS tO wORk aNyMOrE"). Those businesses that can't outsource to where the cheaper labor is will find another source. Illegal immigrants (which aren't always available) and kids.

Remember what drove the slave trade: the need for labor to bring in the most valuable commodity of the day - cotton. There either wasn't enough labor or the willingness to pay for it.

What we are seeing today is just another version of the same corporate greed.

The Supreme Court May Preemptively Ban a Federal Wealth Tax ( newrepublic.com )

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in 2021, two of the Moores’ lawyers also declared unambiguously that the lawsuit “stands to slam shut the door on a federal wealth tax like the one Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to enact.” They made a direct pitch to “the courts” to hear the Moores’ case “now” to make it...

wrath-sedan ,
@wrath-sedan@kbin.social avatar

Yeah this one is almost scarier than any other for the precedent it sets. While most of the actual decisions this term were bad but par for the course of a conservative majority court (with a few pleasant surprises like rejecting racial gerrymandering, dismissing independent legislature theory, and reaffirming Native adoptions) this case was uniquely dangerous for being just conjured from thin air. The idea that you can take an issue to court over something that was proven to be entirely hypothetical prepares the way for more ready-made cases designed to create a particular legal outcome.

admiralteal , (edited )

The argument is that legacy admissions are a criterion being used in lieu of race to achieve racial discrimination. Similar systems were an aggressive part of the Jim Crowe South to prevent blacks from voting when they couldn't make skin color-specific rules anymore, where you would have to prove literacy or your grandfather's ability to vote to get a vote in since they knew that no black person could pass those tests.

It's not the strongest case, but it isn't unreasonable and it has a rational basis. I'm skeptical that even a disinterested court would accept the logic on its face and know that the current court will just wallow in its hypocrisy, but I at least understand the principle.

The defense to it is that these elite universities actively desire diversity, so clearly they are not using legacy admits as a proxy for racial discrimination. There's plenty of evidence that there is a different, corrupt-but-legal purpose for these legacy systems that is not racially motivated.

edit: On the flip-side, if indirectly discriminatory policies like these ARE allowed, it gives the universities a clear path forward to continuations of their AA policies. They just need to replace the race of their applicants with proxies for race that are allowed. Theoretically, this logic could force a standoff -- either policies that indirectly have discriminatory outcomes (defined by who?) are illegal or they aren't. Or else you'd have to somehow prove intention to discriminate before you could find a policy illegal, which is another very complex can of worms that the elite universities could probably get around.

And so, like with everything around this case, it likely won't change any real behavior from the elite universities but will seriously fuck with less affluent ones.

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