Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Ragitsu]

8 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Never happen. Thats like saying since Red States have more murders they need more gun control. You might as well as ask for flying elephants and singing mice.

CES   

 

What will never happen? Both?

[DShomshak]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61708452

 

The Congo basin holds an enormous area of peatland that stores an enormous amount of carbon. Government ministers say that sure, they know developing the region would be disastrous for the planet but their people are so very poor and what else can they do? They don't quite say, "Give us lots of money, and stop complaining about corruption, or we destroy the world," but I suspect the implication.

 

I grant you, making poor people not be poor is a Good Thing, and in Africa is likely vital to preventing further environmental degradation.  But as Acemoglu and Robinson argue (convincingly, I think) in Why Nations Fail, the chief cause of extreme poverty is bad government. So I am not entirely convinced by African government ministers saying that rich countries should just fork over the money and trust them to spend it well.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Cygnia]

GOP’s Greitens pushes his luck with ad about hunting ‘RINOs’

[Cygnia]

Far-right extremists are not just within the ranks of police, but work for firms that train them

[Pattern Ghost]

Ran across this article on NPR: The creator of the FBI mass shooting protocol is 'shocked' by Uvalde police response

 

Fairly short read. The interviewee, Katherine Schweit, is frustrated, and with good reason: There are two very simple things that still aren't being done according to protocols that have been in place for quite some time.

 

The first, is that the police need to immediately head toward the sound of gunfire and attempt to neutralize the threat.  It doesn't matter if there's only one officer. (My opinion: If schools are going to use resource officers, they need to find those with the intestinal fortitude to do so.)

 

The second, is that the protocol in schools should be to run, not shelter in place. Yet students are always taught and told to shelter in place first.

 

These really are very, very basic tactical considerations that become obvious when your objective becomes "protect the victim" rather than "my family needs me, I have to go home tonight."

 

I have no issue with the ethics of prioritizing one's own survival so they can go on to take care of their family or continue helping a greater number of people in the long run. That's fair. It's not an unethical position. But I'll say that soldiers, police, and other emergency personnel should not be in those positions if that's their ethos. They'll have to get used to their life insurance policy being their family's solace should they fall in duty. Or seek other work.

 

I'm not sure when "run, hide, fight" became "hide, hide, hide" in schools, or why. Running has issues. But it beats being fish in a barrel.

[Ragitsu]

29 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

These really are very, very basic tactical considerations that become obvious when your objective becomes "protect the victim" rather than "my family needs me, I have to go home tonight."

 

"Schrodinger's bravery.".

[unclevlad]

56 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Ran across this article on NPR: The creator of the FBI mass shooting protocol is 'shocked' by Uvalde police response

 

 

 

That's been the, AFAIK, near-universal refrain.  It was never going to be good, but the response made it much, much worse than it should have been.  

 

Which is what makes the efforts to suppress everything about this event, by the cops themselves, through a procedural piece of BS...DISGUSTING.

 

But this is Texas.  Disgust is the norm.

[TrickstaPriest]

2 hours ago, Cygnia said:

GOP’s Greitens pushes his luck with ad about hunting ‘RINOs’

 

Does this mean the GOP is finally going to get to hear what I've heard the last 5-6 years of my life?  "Let's make our politicians featured in commercials joking about killing liberals.  No, come on, it's just a joke guys."

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Cygnia said:

GOP’s Greitens pushes his luck with ad about hunting ‘RINOs’

 

29 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Does this mean the GOP is finally going to get to hear what I've heard the last 5-6 years of my life?  "Let's make our politicians featured in commercials joking about killing liberals.  No, come on, it's just a joke guys."

 

If Greitens wins a Senate seat, no. The GOP is selectively deaf and blind to anything except winning.

[Pariah]

5 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

I'm not sure when "run, hide, fight" became "hide, hide, hide" in schools, or why. Running has issues. But it beats being fish in a barrel.

 

My school district actually went the other direction. When I started 13 years ago, lockdown was the first, last, and only consideration. It's only in recent years that our district has implemented the run, hide, fight model.

 

I will note tangentially that if it ever comes to the "fight" part, I've got a heck of a lot of equipment in my lab prep room that would make for excellent improvised weaponry. And that's just the physics room. Get me to the chemical stockroom....

[Ragitsu]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

Get me to the chemical stockroom....

 

MacRiah?

[Cygnia]

Hell, the break room.  I've seen what non-dairy creamer can do...

[Old Man]

Newly released surveillance video shows that 11 police were present in Uvalde school hallway three minutes after shooter shut himself in classroom, and had assault rifles and ballistic shields twenty minutes later, yet did nothing for another hour

 

[BarretWallace]

12 hours ago, Pariah said:

And that's just the physics room. Get me to the chemical stockroom....

As a chemist, I appreciate the threat there, and it brought a smile to my face.  Ragitsu is right: MacRiah does have a nice ring to it.  The smile didn't last long though, because I'm sad that there's any reason at all for educators to have to think of their classrooms in terms of offensive and defensive potential.  As if the normal stresses of rooms full of children aren't enough.

 

[Pariah]

Well, if I don't have time to get to any of these rooms, I do have a deadly weapon right in the classroom itself. It's just hanging there on the wall, for anyone to use ... if they thought to do so.

 

I am talking, of course, of my fire extinguisher.

 

It's filled with pressurized CO2 and some other fun things. One shot with that is going to leave most people coughing, choking, and blinded. And if that doesn't serve to persuade them of the error of their ways, I can always bludgeon them with it too.

 

I don't care what kind of body armor or helmet you're wearing. You get blasted in the face with a fire extinguisher, and it is not going to be a good day for you.

[Pariah]

Is it okay to call this treason? It feels like treason to me.

 

Texas GOP's new platform says Biden didn't really win. It also calls for secession

 

From the article:

 

Quote

"We can't compromise with Democrats who have a different and incompatible vision for our future," Matt Rinaldi, the state GOP chairman, said, according to The Texas Newsroom. "We need to be a bold and unapologetic conservative party, ready to go on offense and win the fight for our country."

 

And this:

Quote

"We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution," the Texas Republicans said in their new platform. They accuse several secretaries of state of illegal actions, alleging that "substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas" distorted the results in Biden's favor.

 

"We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States," the GOP platform stated.

 

Are you [REDACTED] kidding me?!

[dmjalund]

you realize, that Texas seceding is the best thing for the Democrats

[Lord Liaden]

 

[TrickstaPriest]

14 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

you realize, that Texas seceding is the best thing for the Democrats

 

Except it wouldn't be alone, and attempting to split the country is what caused the first civil war. 😕 

[Old Man]

39 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Is it okay to call this treason? It feels like treason to me.

 

Texas GOP's new platform says Biden didn't really win. It also calls for secession

 

Technically, it's sedition.  And it ought to be an open and shut case for federal prosecutors.  We'll see if they take any action, though.

 

I'd be inclined to let the One Star State go if I didn't think they'd be immediately appropriated by the Chinese.

[unclevlad]

And has anyone calling for secession taken a look at the MESS that's Brexit?  And it'd be far, far, far messier.  The connections between the UK and the rest of the EU were, I believe, mostly fundamentally trade-related.  Between a state and the US as a whole, they're far more interconnected.  My New Mexico driver's license is valid in Texas...would that hold?  That's one example.  Geographically, Texas borders...4 states, I think.  MANY, MANY miles.  

 

Beau's assertion was, this was all about continuing the narration towards the Trumpist base.  I'll offer up another:  the Republican want to grab the tax money by saying the Federal taxes belong to them.  They know it'll never work that way, but so what?  It maintains the fiction that Texas and (the right kind of) Texans are special and privileged, and the Damn Libs are keeping them from their birthright.

 

The signal for me will be how many Texas Republicans switch affiliations.

 

 

[TrickstaPriest]

12 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

The signal for me will be how many Texas Republicans switch affiliations.

 

 

A staggering, staggering amount of people I know who are Republicans only use Fox or Fox-like sources for news, or none at all.  Which goes for the same thing - if there's news that would make us look bad, never even mention it exists.

[Lord Liaden]

29 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Beau's assertion was, this was all about continuing the narration towards the Trumpist base.  I'll offer up another:  the Republican want to grab the tax money by saying the Federal taxes belong to them.  They know it'll never work that way, but so what?  It maintains the fiction that Texas and (the right kind of) Texans are special and privileged, and the Damn Libs are keeping them from their birthright.

 

That could be another talking point, but it's never going to happen. Keeping Federal taxes would certainly mean that Federal services, transfer payments, military bases, subsidies for industry, etc. for Texas would be cut off. Only way Texas might do it would be through secession, and as Beau points out that's not going to happen either, so it's a moot point.

[unclevlad]

2 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

That could be another talking point, but it's never going to happen. Keeping Federal taxes would certainly mean that Federal services, transfer payments, military bases, subsidies for industry, etc. for Texas would be cut off. Only way they could do that would be secession, and as Beau points out that's not going to happen either, so it's a moot point.

 

Sorry, I may have reversed cart and horse.  It's part of the *appeal* of secession, to claim those funds.

 

A clarification, perhaps, on why they'll push this:  to create an issue about which their base can feel dissed, to continue/reinforce Texas First tribalization.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

It's just staggering to think that all of this insanity came about because one vain, selfish man refused to accept that he lost something he had no business winning in the first place.