Jump to content

u.s. politics: a cruel and unusual government


all swedes are racist

Recommended Posts

so according to sanders' white paper (yeah, i know) i would be subject to a 4% income tax hike... which would would cut my healthcare deduction by like 60%, not including what i would ostensibly pay in co-pays/cost chares (which my company recently raised by at least 100% or more in some cases. so without even going to the doctor (which i would a fuck ton more often) i am saving close to $2,500 a year, which equates to a roughly 6% pre-tax raise.

fuck, thats an easy sell, no?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

so according to sanders' white paper (yeah, i know) i would be subject to a 4% income tax hike... which would would cut my healthcare deduction by like 60%, not including what i would ostensibly pay in co-pays/cost chares (which my company recently raised by at least 100% or more in some cases. so without even going to the doctor (which i would a fuck ton more often) i am saving close to $2,500 a year, which equates to a roughly 6% pre-tax raise.

fuck, thats an easy sell, no?

Too many numbers. People are dumb 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Lew Theobald said:

Free speech exists precisely for the protection of those who are NOT socially or politically dominant.  

I am old enough to remember when progressives seemed to be very strong in favor of free speech, and naive as I was, I thought they meant it.  Oh how things have changed.  What's the difference?  They (or their politically dominant incarnation) are no longer marginal.  They now wield significant power, have substantial corporate and media and government backing.

I agree that we should all be considerate of the effects that our words have on others.  But no way should the government have the power to suppress speech merely because others find their words offensive.  When you give governments such power, that power is always abused.

I don't recall my post advocating for govt to pass anti-speech laws. Rather I'm arguing (or more accurately other people who have thought more deeply about it, and I am partial to that perspective) that free speech is a phantasm, it doesn't really exist, because at any given time someone's speech is being suppressed irrespective of what the written law says. So what exactly are you defending? The freedom to oppress?

The discussion really is more like which marginal groups' speech should we seek to minimise the chances of being suppressed? 

Getting somewhat hypothetical, the argument by many currently goes that the WS&N groups felt able to step out into the light and be more brazen because Trump was elected, and so they did just that. Assuming that's true the converse means if Hillary Clinton was elected these groups would have stayed hidden from public view. The election of Hillary Clinton therefore would have been an act of suppression of the freedom of speech of these groups, because they would have felt constrained in their desire to get out on the streets and spew their hatred. No law would have been passed to suppress their speech, but the expression of the majority social will via the election of Hillary Clinton as President would have kept their mouths shut, their doors closed and their tiki torches unlit.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

 

Conversely, you need to stop criticizing those who are willing to put their necks out and fight against fascists with their physical bodies and protect those who need protecting and aren't getting protection from the police. 

 

Why? I have no problem with people criticizing method, I strongly disagree with a violence on the street approach to opposing hatred. I'm pretty sure I haven't complained about people strongly opposing my advocacy for non-violent approaches. It's the accusation of being a hate group appeaser or apologist, or as bad as the Nazis themselves for wanting to be non-violent to which I object.

I also object to the suggestion that non-violent people aren't willing to put their lives on the line. I suggest you go see Hacksaw Ridge (or see it again with more open eyes), to better understand what sacrifices non-violence advocates are willing to make in service to the cause in which they believe. I'm prepared to die for the things in which I believe most strongly. I'm just not prepared to kill for it. And to suggest non-violent people aren't willing to pay a substantial price to fight, non-violently, for what they believe is doing a massive disservice to many people throughout history who have achieved social change thought non-violence but paid the price with their own lives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Why? I have no problem with people criticizing method, I strongly disagree with a violence on the street approach to opposing hatred. I'm pretty sure I haven't complained about people strongly opposing my advocacy for non-violent approaches. It's the accusation of being a hate group appeaser or apologist, or as bad as the Nazis themselves for wanting to be non-violent to which I object.

I also object to the suggestion that non-violent people aren't willing to put their lives on the line. I suggest you go see Hacksaw Ridge (or see it again with more open eyes), to better understand what sacrifices non-violence advocates are willing to make in service to the cause in which they believe. I'm prepared to die for the things in which I believe most strongly. I'm just not prepared to kill for it. And to suggest non-violent people aren't willing to pay a substantial price to fight, non-violently, for what they believe is doing a massive disservice to many people throughout history who have achieved social change thought non-violence but paid the price with their own lives.

re: bolded-- huh, sounds terrible, can't imagine where that rhetoric came from....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But you're criticizing people for putting their own bodies on the line. I'm not suggesting that nonviolent people won't. I'm suggesting that if you're not doing it, you don't have a leg to stand on when talking shit about others that do. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...