FlowVoid @ FlowVoid @midwest.social

Posts

0

Comments

466

Joined

2 yr. ago

A military truck doesn't cost anywhere near 10M. Humvees cost $70-100K, a bigger military truck costs about twice that. Considering off-road capability, crew protection, and ease of repair, it's a far better investment than a dump truck (which costs $100-200K).

Of course those prices don't include the weapon systems, but dump trucks don't come standard with rocket launchers either.

No.

Destroying rocket launchers is a military objective. Killing civilians while trying to achieve a military objective is not a war crime. There is even a term for those civilians: "collateral damage".

However, killing civilians for its own sake, without a military objective, may be a war crime.

The thumbnail is not the content.

Do you also judge books by their covers?

Name two pieces of GOP legislation passed by Congress in the past 20 years that did more than the ACA and the IRA.

Politics is the art of the possible. It is impossible for legislation to solve every problem. The ACA and Dodd-Frank didn't solve every problem, but they did solve some. We are better off with them than without them. Even if they don't stop the next catastrophe.

Democrats do compromise more than Republicans, which is exactly why they get more legislation passed than Republicans.

Politics always involves compromise. ACA and Dodd-Frank were improvements on the status quo, which is usually the best you can hope for. They do not need to be perfect to be good.

CHIPS was a typo. I meant to cite CHIP, which provides health care to children, not CHIPS.

But they aren't getting the legislation they want.

They failed to privatize Social Security, failed to repeal the ACA, failed to build a southern wall, etc.

In contrast, Democrats passed the ACA, passed Dodd-Frank, passed ARPA, passed the IRA, passed CHIP, etc.

Republicans only look successful because they had to drastically lower their bar for success. They don't want to pass laws any more, so it's easy to get what they want.

Are you kidding?

McCarthy is constantly trying to keep Gaetz, Boebert et al from forcing him out as Speaker. He wishes his caucus was as unified as the Democrats. As their leader, Pelosi watched Republicans turn against Hastert, then Boehner, then Ryan.

Reid kept his caucus of 60 together to pass the ACA, McConnell couldn't keep 50 together to repeal it.

Trump was constantly squabbling and calling out the Republican Congressional leadership. By comparison, Biden is best friends with the Democratic leadership.

The only thing the Congressional GOP is good at is obstruction, because that doesn't require any coordination. That's why they rely on the SCOTUS to actually advance their agenda.

I could've sworn you were arguing against the "heavy hammer of justice". But if you aren't actually calling for leniency then we agree: these particular parents deserve to be charged, and addicts of all types deserve more systemic support.

I already replied to them.

Both of you are trying to argue that opiate addicts deserve more leniency than other types of addicts, but I don't think you've made your point well at all.

In fact, some of the arguments seem exactly backwards. For example, opiates are more highly regulated than alcohol, which implies we should be less tolerant of accidental deaths causes by opiates.

They aren't completely different, they have in common a direct link to harming bystanders. And usually we punish people who cause harm to bystanders.

So if you have a specific difference in mind that justifies lenience towards opiate addicts who harm bystanders but does not also apply to alcoholics who do the same, then you should spell it out.

The choices of those parents also hurt someone else. Accidentally poisoning children is not inherent to opiate addiction - in fact, it is less common than accidentally killing a pedestrian while DUI. And there are resources for both alcoholics and opiate addicts, usually under the same roof.

We are choosing to address drunk driving, as we have for years, through stricter prison sentencing, which has never improved or otherwise addressed the root causes of drunk driving. Punishing drunk drivers makes everyone feel better, because...children dying is fucking devastating and we need someone held accountable, and drunk drivers do bear at least some responsibility. But just because it makes us feel better doesn't mean it is effective.

There are many other things that need doing--many, many things--to make a dent in drunk driving, and we keep pulling out the same useless tool.

Do you disagree with any of that?

If we follow your reasoning, then there is also no reason to punish someone who kills a pedestrian while driving drunk.

They are exercising their right to sail through international waters.

Manchin, Sinema, Boebert, McCain, Lieberman, and many others all serve to demonstrate that you shouldn't expect party members to vote together all of the time. Even if everyone in that list voted with their party >90% of the time.

It's not a "switcharoo", it's baked into a system in which representatives are ultimately chosen by constituents, not by party leaders. If anything, Congress was originally intended not to have longstanding parties or factions. It was originally intended for everyone to be like Manchin and Sinema. So like it or not, lack of party discipline is a feature not a bug.

No, Boomers are now more likely to live alone, supposedly increasing demand for housing.

But they reason they are more likely to live alone is that their partners are dying, which exactly counteracts the increase in demand.

In other words, when a two-person household becomes a one-person household due to death, that doesn't require finding an extra home.

Pigs are in no danger of extinction.

And wanting to preserve natural ecosystems does not imply wanting to improve the treatment of livestock. Incidentally, the end of meat consumption would most likely lead to the extinction of multiple species of livestock.

"Getting their own party members" to vote for something is not as easy as you think. Just ask the current majority leader how easy it is to push around his "Freedom Caucus".

And the public option was not killed in the House. It was killed by Joe Lieberman, who was not even a Democrat any more. But he was the 60th Senate vote, he was opposed to it, and nobody - not even you - could have changed his mind. Consider that his final "F*** you" to his former party. So you can blame the people of Connecticut for that, not Pelosi.

They had to get rid of the public option to get enough Democratic support to pass.

It was not a party line vote, 34 Democrats joined all the Republicans in voting No. It squeaked through the House, 219-212.