FlowVoid @ FlowVoid @midwest.social

Posts

0

Comments

466

Joined

2 yr. ago

McCarthy knew that a government shutdown would have pissed off even more Republicans in Congress, including all of those in vulnerable districts.

For example, Boebert's district. Notice how for once she didn't vote alongside Gaetz? Behind closed doors, there were plenty of Congressional Republicans telling McCarthy that making make a deal with Democrats was preferable to a politically suicidal shutdown.

Democrats didn't vote to vacate because they like to watch chaos. They simply will not support McCarthy unless he offers something in return. Their vote is a bargaining chip and they aren't throwing it away.

I see what you did there...

Nothing is infinite. But fresh water is renewable, which means it can be used sustainably.

I think it's more childish to assume that word usage will not evolve over time.

Regardless, "blasted" has been used in this way for most of our lives. Perhaps you're just now noticing it?

From Jun 13, 1997:

City union leaders blasted an administration-backed proposed charter change Thursday that would strip the Civil Service Commission of most of its powers.

From Sep 23, 1992:

Vice President Dan Quayle, broadening his attack on Hollywood, Tuesday blasted the recording industry for producing rap music that he said had led to violence.

From 1981:

During the campaign, Roosevelt blasted Hoover for spending and taxing too much, boosting the national debt, choking off trade, and putting millions on the dole.

You didn't realize that regulators criticized others as part of their legal duties?

In English, words have multiple meanings and the intended meaning must be inferred by context. For example, you referred to regulators "dealing", and your audience is expected to understand that you aren't discussing card games.

"Blasted" is used correctly in the title. It is a synonym for "criticized", derived from a Middle English term that means "blowing air" (see also "blast furnace").

Examples:

Federal transit regulators blasted the MBTA Friday for violating an order prohibiting the use of lone workers on tracks put in place last week

Jennifer Belveal and John Birmingham with the firm of Foley & Lardner describe the justification for terminating the contract as "flimsy" and blast the university for launching an investigation into what they call "the personal relationship between Tucker and a one-time vendor" "despite no justification to do so."

It's not just American, retribution is a component of sentencing in most developed countries. No adult justice system is purely rehabilitative.

Most Germans have easy access to a kitchen knife, especially if they are at home. And those can readily be used to kill someone.

The goal of the justice system is partly rehabilitative and partly retributive. This is true throughout "the developed world".

People can be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole in the UK, Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands among other places. That sentence is incompatible with a purely rehabilitative justice system.

Depends on the country, of course. Some European countries are actually more permissive than the US.

For example, in the US you must have a reasonable fear of great bodily harm to use deadly force. Reasonable means an average person would feel the same way.

But in the UK, any actual fear of great bodily harm justifies deadly force, even if it is not reasonable, ie even if an average person would not have that fear.

Furthermore unlike most US states there is no duty to retreat before using deadly force in the UK, France, Spain or Sweden. This means you can immediately use deadly force when threatened, you don't need to reserve it as a "last option."

There are certainly countries that strongly focus on rehabilitating prisoners, which is admirable.

But even in countries like Norway, which is a good example of the above, prisoners are not automatically released once they are rehabilitated or no longer deemed a threat. They must always serve a certain fraction of their sentence regardless, which demonstrates that at least part of the original sentence was punitive in nature.

Laws vary by country and state, but some European countries are actually more permissive than the US in the matter of self defense.

For example, Germany allows you to use deadly force to protect mere property, this is not allowed in many US states.

The federal government won't sue for sexual harassment, the employee would have to file a lawsuit herself.

Most European countries allow the use of force in self defense.

Justice is not only about rehabilitation, a punitive component serves the common good.

That may sound barbaric, but consider an alternative where prisoners are released as soon as they are rehabilitated (i.e. when it is clear that they no longer pose a threat to society):

• A man is killed by a drunk driver. The driver is fully repentant and it is very quickly clear to all that they will never drink again, much less drink and drive. The driver is released as soon as this is clear.
• The man's son is horrified that the driver was punished so lightly. He kills the driver in revenge. But it is clear this will never happen again, you can only lose your father to drunk driving once. The killer is soon released.
• The driver's son is horrified that his father's killer was punished so lightly. Since nobody else will do anything, he kills his father's killer in revenge. Clearly he can never do this again ...

See the problem? Judicial punishment isn't about some vague societal bloodlust, it's an intercession that prevents unsatisfied victims from taking matters into their own hands and starting an endless vendetta.

Yes, they agreed they couldn't agree and then they agreed they could agree. And the verdict they could agree on was not guilty.

Or maybe it proves that society has deemed intentionally menacing bystanders, particularly for money, to be completely unacceptable.

You don't have a monopoly on reasonableness. Twelve jurors, not Redditors, agreed that the YouTuber was behaving aggressively, and violence is a common response to aggression.

And the YouTuber's entire shtick is to make people think they might be in danger, by not letting them back away. Because that's how fights commonly start. If he did the same routine ten feet away from his victims, the whole shtick would fail.