u/thatnameagain

Well firstly I think a lot of people who have career ambitions and want to make more money, have more responsibility etc like (or “like”) working more because it’s gotten them ahead, and they see themselves as a model others should follow.

On a more practical level, if we didn’t this then it will make our economy less competitive, other countries that stay at 40 hours will pull ahead of us and we will make less money, have a worse economy, have lower quality of living potentially in the long run.

But the biggest argument is probably that this just means everyone gets paid 4/5ths of what they make now and most people can’t afford that kind of pay cut.

Do you think the average person has the same amount of amenities and luxuries as the average person in 1926?

Well, that’s what a progressive like me would say!

If he wishes he could go back to the past USSR and has little to no actual political opinions or social values about that feeling (I guess he just liked the flags and vibe...?) then "conservative" applies in an apolitical way. So there's no point in bringing up this example in a discussion about sociopolitical values. Honestly the more accurate term is just Nostalgia.

This psychological desire to go back to a better time is pretty much the definition of being conservative.

In the most broad sense, sure, but when you put it into a paradoxical context (conservatively go back to the past.... THE COMMUNIST PAST!! Waaaaahhhh???) then it kind of intentionally creates this contradiction.

No an old Russian guy dreaming of reviving the USSR isn’t “conservative” in any real political sense. That sounds like an element of cultural conservatism but you really can’t call it that unless you get into why he pines for those days.

No anarchy-capitalists are not “progressive” right wing, they are libertarian right wing. Progressive doesn’t just mean “wants to challenge status quo”, yes it does absolutely refer to left-of-center policies.

Progressivism is as principled as any other coherent ideology and is very consistent in application of those principles. Whether it’s rational or not depends on whether you share those principles.

Yes something changed in the last few years, this has generally been reflected in polls and voting patterns.

People want to live and have experiences, I don't really see what the problem with that is.

Well the problem is that it costs money.

This can ultimately make the difference between focusing on a steady career and social life in your community and having a family, versus becoming less grounded and stable in life. Different choices for different people, but where you choose to invest your time and money matters, and not every life choice a person makes is automatically the right one just because they made it.

Taxing billionare's personal wealth and corporation's financial decisions are two completely separate things.

That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard - saying that it’s not genocide as long as the population maintains at minimum steady state. That means about 500 people in Israel could be murdered daily but anyone who called that akin to genocide would be a hysterical wanker? lol ok. You’ve made it clear that you’re all good with all kinds of mass murder, you’re sort of your own argument against your own credibility on this subject, so go on. Never interrupt your opponent while they’re making themselves look like a complete idiot.

What Jewish “decolonisation?”

Jewish Decolonization? What? I said that there was a wave of nationalism accompanying decolonization after world war 2. Are you not familiar with this era? After WWII all the colonial powers gave up most of their territory, the British had the Palestine mandate and as part of their decolonization worked with numerous nationalist groups in the region to create new countries there, and Israel was one of them.

you aren’t blaming Israelis for anything at all. 

Because we already agree about all the bad things Israel has done, as far as I can tell. What do I need to go through that laundry list for? Do you just want your feelings validated or something? Is this a loyalty test? Do you maybe just not like the discomfort of having a disagreement with someone on this subject who isn't giving Israel a pass for everything and, oh I don't know, finding yourself inventing things that they never said and responding to opinions they never expressed because you're so programmed to think of this issue in such a one-sided way you need all your disagreements to resemble the kind that you are most comfortable feeling righteously justified in? Damn dude.

The Palestinians agreed to a Palestinian state in Oslo. It was supposed to happen within 5 years. The Israelis first murdered the prime minster who negotiated it and then elected war criminals and mass murderers who rejected a Palestinian state

The details (i.e. borders) of the state were not defined in Oslo, that was just the initial breakthrough to get both sides focused on the terms to be negotiated. After Rabin was assassinated, the negotiations continued in earnest for another 5 years, and it was only in 2000 at the Camp David summit that a fully-fleshed-out plan for a palestinian state and peace deal was on the table for both sides to agree to. Neither side wanted to budge on control of East Jerusalem or the right of return, which were trivial issues for both sides in the long run, but Israel held all the cards for running out the clock and Arafat should have said yes to the deal and walked away the founder of free palestine. There were other issues with the deal that were unfair to the Palestinians but I cannot imagine how one can look at the following 26 years and conclude that they were right to reject the offer.

pretending you believe they deserve sovereignty

Your entire capacity to continue this discussion rests on the the idea that someone can't possibly care about the palestinians while also acknowledging their mistakes and that they haven't always been pure angels. I don't like that they've used terrorism, so I can't possibly think they deserve a peaceful country of their own! Dude, this is projection to the highest degree. Just because you see everything in black and white doesn't mean everyone else does.

the only possible way forward is a one state solution where no settlers have to be displaced and Palestinians get human rights.

You're not big on explaining your own thinking or responding to questions, so it's unsurprising you just repeat yourself here when I already explained why this seems extremely naive.

Here's another question to dodge: how do the palestinians go about creating that one-state solution when Israel doesn't want them to? What's the means? How does this occur without the Knesset saying "ok, we give up on being Israel now and forever" and how does that come to pass? A 2 state solution may be dead but at least there was a conceivable means of getting there.

So here's a psychological conspiracy back at you, since you seem to enjoy psychoanalyzing me.

I don't think you really care about the Palestinians finding peace or freedom, I think you prefer to support a 1 state solution specifically because it's impossible, and because you know that even if you yourself don't support a revenge genocide to make it happen, you're obviously aware that tons of people do. You'd prefer it not happen, and you probably know palestinians won't have the means to, but you're ok with pushing for the fantasy 1SS because it ensures that the only options available are escalation, given it's impossibility. Since Israel's response to 10/7, you've felt more self-rightiousness at being able to show clear-as-day examples of Israel committing acts of genocide than you have felt empathy for the victims of it. You're more glad today that as a result more people are anti-Israel and more people have shifted from the imperfect 2SS to the impossible, conflict-accelerant 1SS mindset, than you were before 10/7. You don't have an idea of how 1SS will be implemented because you don't really care about that endpoint as much as you care about the accelerationism in the region and the chances that if the dice get rolled enough Israel might suffer some mortal blow.

If you had the choice of erasing the 10/7 attack and the Israeli response from our reality and bring all those people back to life - but with a likewise reset of attitudes in the U.S. being more pro-Israel and activism less focused on anti-zionism as it is today... you'd think long and hard before pressing that button. And if you could decide the future between one where things calm down and conditions ripen for genuine negotiation towards a 2SS vs a future where more palestinians are dying but so are more Israelis and people in the world are increasingly ok with the region going into full scale war to destroy israel and build a 1SS at gunpoint and over the corpses of thousands more palestinians caught in between...

Well, I don't need to really finish asking the question, you know what you just felt in your own mind as you read that.

I love that you're responding 2 times in separate comments to each one post I write. That's super cool and makes you seem really normal and level headed. You're doing great with that.

you know you're right the Hilary campaign just paid millions out of the goodness of their hearts to take full control of the dnc before the primaries just for funsees! 

I don't know how uninformed one has to be to think that the only reason a politician might seek to gain power and control within their political party is to rig the primary that they're running in and polling with a significant lead. But I guess we'll find out if you keep responding with these genius ideas. Anyways, this sounds like you admitting that you actually have a grand total of ZERO examples of things the DNC did to rig the 2016 primary.

from newsweek: 

It wasn't illegal, Brazile said, "but it sure looked unethical."

"If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead," Brazile wrote. "This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party's integrity.

Yes, Clinton having that level of control over the party in the run-up to the race was unethical. Brazile makes a point that she was literally buying influence within the party corridors of power instead of earning it by being first elected to a high enough office to get it. But that's unrelated to how the primary itself was conducted and if anything unfair happened in the primary itself. And we know that you have absolutely zero pieces of evidence that the DNC did anything to rig it.

Hillary bought herself more power in the party, and what she intended to do with it may or may not have been documented or uncovered. There are a million things a person can do with more power like that. One of those things is to have the party rig your primary for you. But we know that the party didn't do that. If they had, you'd be able to tell me what they did.

Have you ever wondered why it is you can't tell me a single thing about how they rigged the primary? Shouldn't that be concerning to you?

Maybe this is similar to how you can't understand the difference difference between having the option to do something and actually doing something. Is it that you can't see the correlation between a person not being able to provide a single argument to support their position, and that person having no fucking clue what they're talking about at all?

No, there's no buy-in to the "share" under socialism so no risk. Being able to buy shares in a company at all is like, the definition of capitalism. When you're hired, you earn the share by working there. But also it's not really a share in stock that would go on the market, it's more like just getting the voting power of a hypothetical shareholder, with everyone in the company having equal stakes.

Ok do you not know the difference between having the potential to do something and doing something? Like if I'm sitting in my car with the keys in the ignition, I have the potential to turn the keys and drive to a casino. But if I don't turn the key, then I don't drive anywhere. And if you come by my car and start claiming I drove to a casino when I didn't, you can't just say things like "But you have a car! You have the keys! It's a fast car! You're literally in the driver's seat!" None of that changes whether I actually used the car to drive to the casino or not.

I am well aware of the deal that Hillary had with the DNC. It's a nice car, and she was in the driver's seat. You're not telling me anything new. The question is, did Clinton / the DNC decide to turn the key and run over Sanders? The answer is no, because there's no evidence they did anything. You can't tell me what they did. All you can do is tell me what tools they had at their disposal to do something if they had chosen to.

Did Hillary steal DNC money for her own campaign? No. Did she direct the DNC communications office to go out saying bad things about Bernie? No. Did she have the DNC fund opposition research against Bernie? No. There's never been any accusations or evidence that anything like that happened. What did they DO? Nothing. But somehow you think Brazile's book shows evidence that something like that happened?

Well, you're incorrect. But don't as me, ask Donna Brazile and see what she says when she was directly asked about this as it pertains to her book: https://abcnews.com/Politics/dnc-chair-donna-brazile-democratic-primaries-rigged/story?id=50942644

What dumbass fucking emoji do you think I should sign off with?

Nah, my biggest concerns are probably the same as yours.

Well if you prefer Republican framings and solutions I doubt that. If you tend to agree with more left-of-center focuses and policies then yeah, we agree on stuff so ok cool.

I have conservative friends, their main concerns are non-white immigration into the U.S., drug laws not being enforced harshly enough, and government social programs giving too much money to people. They're not personally my enemies obviously, but that's how they see voters like me in general, and they're right. My vote will be a detriment to the future of the country they want, as theirs will be to mine.

There is no decisive action they can take that would change anything. They can’t impeach and remove, and they can’t pass any major legislation with only 51 or 52 senate seats and a Trump veto.

Voters don’t care about seeing congressional action though, they tend to punish an active Congress more than reward it. Voters care about vibes, slogans, and a little about the economy.

Don’t worry they won’t be

The polls weren’t wrong. They showed what was essentially a statistical tie with Harris on a downward trend leading into Election Day.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

What did she say in the book about how they stole the primary from Bernie?

Answer: nothing at all. It’s not a thing in the book, because it’s not a thing that happened.

Yes, Hillary had major control within the DNC as a result of making a financial deal with them to essentially bail them out. She had an agreement with them to be in coordination on strategy during the general election. Sounds ominous, right?

So how did she use this power to change the outcome of the primary? What did she demand? What was done on her behalf that disadvantaged Bernie?

Nothing. You didn’t say what they did, because you don’t know what they did, because Donna Brazille’s book didn’t mention what they did, because what they actually did, was nothing.

Oh right, Donna gave Hillary the most predictable debate question ever ahead of time. Forgot about that one. Maybe that’s why Sanders lost.

That’s because the issues they care about matter and affect people they know and care about. It’s easy to be low key when your biggest policy concerns are mostly about distant threats and cultural bugaboos like republicans.

This is amusing. Zionists can terrorise Palestinians, drive them out and take over based on a 2,000 year old claim, but Palestinians lose everything after 80 years. Why is that? Because liberal Zionists say so?

The "2000 year old claim" has no relevance to Jew's right to found a country there, that was just the historical connection that made it the place that made most sense. The justification for Israel was the wave of nationalism post-WWII that accompanied decolonization.

The Palestinians are therefore racist and genocidal to fight back and Israelis aren’t. But you’re not a racist? Wow!

"Israelis are totally not racist and not genocidal" - Something I never said. It's absolutely hilarious, every single comment of yours - every one - is premised on completely made up shit that I haven't said. It's not even strawmanning, this is more like schizophrenia. You are hearing voices in your head that aren't there. I never said Israel had acted better than Palestinians, I never even said they acted "equally bad" or whatever.

The Palestinians have offered a two state solution since 1993 - over 33 years now.

No, they haven't been willing to accept that since the Clinton administration. Not sure where you're getting that.

Israel has expanded settlements and control and somehow this is all the fault of the Palestinians?

Oh look, more completely made up bullshit I didn't say. Take your pills.

you say that Israel thinks the West Bank and Gaza belongs to Palestine? No.

Israel officially considers them occupied territories, not part of Israel. That's all I was saying.

Now a 1SS is the only way forward, with no one being murdered or displaced, all terrorists being arrested, charged and jailed (yes, even Jewish terrorists! That makes me an antisemite in the eyes of most Zionists) and compensation and restitution for decades of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.

Firstly, I'm surprised you think that after all they've been through Palestinian's don't deserve their own sovereign land. You're suggesting that they voluntarily integrate with a population that largely hates them, and who they largely hate in return, and that they're supposed to just work all that out through democratic voting? Even if that was remotely practical, that seems humiliating to the Palestinian nation. And it's because that such a humiliation would only come to pass should Palestinians not seek to dominate that one state with various forms of political revenge that puts the shoe on the other foot, which makes many people skeptical of the idea that their intent is simply to integrate alongside Jews and forever relinquish national identity. It seems either punitive to them or suspicious.

But it's largely irrelevant because as hard as a 2 state solution now seems, a 1 state solution forged peacefully is still immensely less likely. There's just no mechanism for it. Neither side is going to support their leaders negotiating to commit national suicide so they can spend the rest of their lives haggling over housing policy and religious accomodations living next door to their least-favorite-other-people on the planet. This whole idea of a 1 state solution is predicated on a hippie Kumbaya fantasy that nobody in the actual region believes in or wants. It's a way for western activists to satisfy themselves by advocating for the most utopian sounding solution, because they don't want to admit that compromise is necessary to create peace.

So the answer to basically all your questions is, "That gets worked out in negotiations leading to a peace agreement."

Who are they giving statehood to? The terrorists of the PLO or Hamas? If not Hamas it’s going to end up with Hamas regardless.

There would have to be a unification process between the Palestinian governments first, which Israel would need to help facilitate instead of sabotage. That would either precede or be part of the peace negotiation process.

Why are they the final arbiters of that? 

Why are they Palestinians the final arbiters of who gets to live on their land? Because it's their land.

Why doesn’t Egypt take over and manage Gaza?

Probably because nobody, including Egypt, wants to do that. But a peace agreement can include that if that's what the Palestinians and Egypt and Israel all decide they want. Same with Jordan. The main obstacle would probably be that the Palestinians want to run their own lands themselves.

And if it is solely up to israel, why should they?

To end the national security threat that has existed for them since their founding. And they could finally start working on not being an international pariah anymore.

The people they are negotiating with and would be empowering operate with their foundational principle to eradicate Jews.

Those people are currently empowered in Hamas. A peace negotiation and permanent statehood removes their political justification for doing so (taking back land, defending themselves from Israeli attacks). Removing their political justifications for violence is the fastest way to begin removing their bigoted justifications for it. Jews are not going to be able to murder their way to people not liking Jews, so my advice would be to do something effective.

Why would we have any responsibility to provide aid to Mexico?

Under your scenario? None, because Mexico is already an independent sovereign nation, unlike Palestine.

The US government would have a moral responsibility to its people to eradicate every aspect of the threat permanently. Even if “noncombatants” died. As an American voter I am a single-issue voter in favor of never allowing Mexico to threaten us again.

Well then your choices are a peace agreement or genocide. There aren't any other final solutions. You either do what's necessary to come to an accord with the enemy group and mutually normalize relations, or you commit to wiping them out completely. Because obviously a punitive campaign to damage them is just going to kick the can down the road while giving them even more incentive and justification to attack you. So are you a peace and security guy, or a genocide and security guy?

Except Israel has shown massive restraint.

No, they killed over 100k people and re-occupied Gaza. They basically did everything you could do to destroy civilian infrastructure and forcibly move people around. There's really nothing additional Israel even could do militarily other than just going door to door and killing civilians, which is why what they're doing is so easily agreed upon as "Genocide."

A simple way to determine if something is genocide is the following: ask yourself if it happened to Jews in Israel, would you call it genocide? Role reversal, Israel launches a raid into Gaza that kills hundreds of civilians, and then Hamas responds by killing tens of thousands of civilians while blockading the country. Do you think Israelis would be hysterically overreacting to call that genocide, if Tel Aviv got leveled like Gaza City? Obviously you wouldn't, and obviously you've got a hilarious excuse ready to deflect on that.

Anyways, it's either a two state solution, or Israel remains continually threatened and continually having to do things to the Palestinians that everyone agrees would be genocide if done to Israelis. You're either a peace deal guy, or a genocide guy. After 80 years of conflict you'd have to be a complete moron to think that one or two more little military campaigns is all it will take to keep Israel safe. (So I guess there's actually that third kind of guy you can be).

Nothing's bad faith, that's all completely factual. You claimed that its a rigged conspiracy for superdelegates to declare, I proved you wrong by informing you that they always do that and 2016 was not unique, it was just like all the other primaries where nobody complained about it. You claimed the DNC "actively pushed the idea that no one but Joe could win" and I proved you wrong by asking you what the hell you were talking about with knowledge that you had nothing to back that up with and you promptly went and didn't back it up with anything. You claimed that "They" the DNC, "didn't field candidates" in 2024 and I reminded you that the DNC doesn't fucking field candidates, that's not something they control.

So yeah, when you're completely wrong about everything and can't quite seem to figure that out, arguments to the contrary probably sound like bad faith!

It’s not ok that you hand-wave the faults.

I'm making very specific factual arguments. You're the one waving hands claiming that the DNC did... uh... something(?) To rig the primaries.

If you had evidence they did anything, you'd share it. But you don't, and you won't find any, because it doesn't exist, because it didn't happen. So like I said, you won't be able to provide an example of the DNC doing anything to subvert that outcome.

But you're welcome to try again.

Because I know that it's been about 15 years since Israel actually did offer any concessions.

What more can the Israelis actually provide?

Uh are you kidding me? They can provide the removal of military occupation and embargo from Palestinian lands in Gaza and the West Bank, recognition of statehood, removal of settlers from the West Bank (or at least incentives to relocate) and reparations for stealing UN-designated lands for Palestinians back in 1948. Thats the deal, always has been, always will be. Anyone on the Israeli or Palestinian side who says this is too much or not enough can take a hike, that's the deal that has always made sense and been ethical for Israel to keep on the table.

If they don’t control the waters then all those terrorists have unfettered access to weapons and ammunition.

Yeah that's why you make a peace deal in exchange for statehood. National entities have a right to self defense. Israel can embargo them when Palestinians break the peace deal, but there hasn't been a peace deal yet.

And you’re saying that you are basing your political opinions about who you want to vote for and the policies that they support on this snowflake personal reason? You’re actually admitting that?

Nothing was decided by closed door politics. The delegates that were elected in the primary went to the convention and decided on the candidate. There was literally no more of the Democratic option available. Rerunning the primary wasn’t practical in 50 states. so the elected delegates went to the convention and do exactly what they were elected to do, which is choose the candidate. I don’t think you can argue that there would’ve been any other candidates that more resembled Biden than Harris.

2016 couldn’t be more different. Literally none of that happened in 2016. All that happened then is that the candidate who got the most votes in the primary won, just like every other primary.