US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

 

[870EVO]

Seriously. People need to go back to calling these assholes "public servants", or just "servants" instead of continuing to use these descriptors that have been wormed into the public consciousness. They were never meant to be in this position of authority, we have lived in a society for decades where the tail is wagging the fucking dog.

Like another poster said, Democracy can be evil if you are so inclined.

All you have to do is control the perceptions of the public using the media and they'll typically vote the way you want.

Sure they had that hiccup with Trump being elected because they didn't have full control of the internet. But that's been mostly fixed now.

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

Although I guess Carter was a peanut farmer so I could be missing some tyrannical farmers/ranchers turned political leaders throughout history.

The problem with Carter is that he was a good President but the problems of his era just dominated his administration. The recovery in the 1980s is partly due to the changes Carter initiated, but would take a stupendous amount of time to actually yield results. Not to mention some things just had to hit rock bottom with drastic changes forced before they could resolve themselves. Cities like NYC were nearly bankrupt and had to be forced to make changes to how stuff was financed, not only did they have to be forced, huge swaths of the city were just decayed ruins and had to be effectively clear cut for new developments. Urban blight is probably one of the least understood phenomenon because studying it trips over massive amounts of emotional landmines, the best we can come up with is "burn it all down, and start fresh." Whether this entails a Gothic horde razing your city down or crime getting so bad that every building is a burnt out husk, the city will be burned down and restarted from scratch.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Carter is the Democrat equivalent of Herbert Hoover. He wasn't a bad guy, and in a different situation he could have done great things. However both ended up getting to the White House at absolutely horrendous times which made it impossible for them to play their good sides.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Heinlein was from a different military era also.

People like "White Rage" Milley are in charge now. Along with commie and socialist officers.

You wanna trust those faggots?

 

[The Ugly One]

The problem with Carter is that he was a good President but the problems of his era just dominated his administration. The recovery in the 1980s is partly due to the changes Carter initiated, but would take a stupendous amount of time to actually yield results. Not to mention some things just had to hit rock bottom with drastic changes forced before they could resolve themselves. Cities like NYC were nearly bankrupt and had to be forced to make changes to how stuff was financed, not only did they have to be forced, huge swaths of the city were just decayed ruins and had to be effectively clear cut for new developments. Urban blight is probably one of the least understood phenomenon because studying it trips over massive amounts of emotional landmines, the best we can come up with is "burn it all down, and start fresh." Whether this entails a Gothic horde razing your city down or crime getting so bad that every building is a burnt out husk, the city will be burned down and restarted from scratch.

Urban blight is an extremely well-understood phenomenon, it's just that the causes can no longer be discussed due DEI speech rules.

 

[Back me up!]

So since you've actually read the book, what's your opinion of this video?

Bro I'm not watching a hour of some dude's cosplay. Now I will read a series of written words (called a article, or essay) if it actually has something to say.

 

[The Ugly One]

Hydrogen fuel cells are a better option, with less environmental impact but all the 'green' companies are just arms of the globohomo that want big profits and unafforable cars.

The only option is shutting down oil wells and being poor.

Suffocation is an easily solved problem, doping the fuel with something miserable smelling is enough to provide alarm when it leaks.

The actual difficulty of long term storage is really the killer - It requires cryogenic storage just to last *a while*, and cryogenic storage requires a not insignificant energy input. If you wanted a hydrogen pipeline, the entire length needs to be cryogenically cooled to avoid immense loses to boil off. Trying to do it without active cooling just leads to mass losses. Basic, passive Cryogenic tanks can see about 1% boiloff a day. Specially insulated, actively cooled tanks can bring that down to 0.0#%'s depending on who's claims you buy, but its expensive, both to build and operate.

Hydrogen is kind of a bitch to work with, and really isn't worth it. For the energy input required, you'd probably be better off synthesizing stable hydrocarbon fuels - There's lots of options that exist, but little interest since its still emissive technology, even if it can be tailored cleaner.

What if instead of all this hydrogen shit and rare earth shit, we just use the oil we pull out of the ground for our own cats instead of selling it to China?

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

The Bee gives us the real news about how The Ayyy Invasion would happen.

 

[Random Internet Person]

Heinlein was from a different military era also.

People like "White Rage" Milley are in charge now. Along with commie and socialist officers.

You wanna trust those faggots?

Aren’t we now at a point where people want America to go to war just so Russia and China and Iran can kick their ass?

 

[Anasûrimbor Kellhus]

.

Aren’t we now at a point where people want America to go to war just so Russia and China and Iran can kick their ass?

speaking for myself yes, I wanna see the troons and mutts of the US military in trench warfare.

 

[Fatboi Gus]

"Service guarantees citizenship" sounding awfully good right now fellas...

Honestly, I can't think of counter-arguments to this statement: "A franchise meritocratically awarded through arduous and self-sacrificing civil service is superior to universal suffrage"

 

[General Emílio Médici]

There are not counter arguments to the idea, only to the spirit of it. "What counts as service?" is the only real argument to be had to try and debate it, and honestly it is a good question. There are people who might not wanna serve in the military but still be citizens and willing to do something else, or people like the honestly disabled who wouldn't have a way to actually "serve" even if they want and that would open a question on what they should do.

The concept does away with the entitlement of many people and it ensures people care. That which is freely given rarely has value. Something earned through hard work, however, is always valued.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

The problem with Carter is that he was a good President but the problems of his era just dominated his administration. The recovery in the 1980s is partly due to the changes Carter initiated, but would take a stupendous amount of time to actually yield results. Not to mention some things just had to hit rock bottom with drastic changes forced before they could resolve themselves. Cities like NYC were nearly bankrupt and had to be forced to make changes to how stuff was financed, not only did they have to be forced, huge swaths of the city were just decayed ruins and had to be effectively clear cut for new developments. Urban blight is probably one of the least understood phenomenon because studying it trips over massive amounts of emotional landmines, the best we can come up with is "burn it all down, and start fresh." Whether this entails a Gothic horde razing your city down or crime getting so bad that every building is a burnt out husk, the city will be burned down and restarted from scratch.

This is a good post. A lot of tough decisions were made in 1979 that society didn’t start to see benefits until 1982-1983. Carter was essentially sent to the firing range because those tough decisions were extremely unpopular but were absolutely necessary. That was the last time anyone was willing to do what was necessary, now we just paper over failures and take on even more debt. This was back in those crazy days when we ran trade surpluses and made attempts to balance the budget. Had we known we could just outsource industry, take on record levels of debt, and rack up massive trade deficits like The Gipper did, Carter’s presidency would have turned out much different.

 

[Glowing In The Streets]

View attachment 4543674

The Bee gives us the real news about how The Ayyy Invasion would happen.

ok, who do you want to meet?
the human everyone talks about, take us with the Trump guy

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

So since you've actually read the book, what's your opinion of this video?

You can't really compare criticism of the book and the movie - The movie wasn't even trying to capture the attitude of the books. Dude's also kind of shit at what he does and likes to just assert a lot of things that are really up for debate, don't recommend this guy.

The movie presented the thought experiment as "serve in the military for citizenship" since it was trying to be some weird anti-war message movie, but fucked up and accidentally made a military dictatorship look kind of awesome. The books explore it a bit more holistically, military service is just one of many services, and the mobile infantry were supposed to be a tiny, incredibly high tech force, not a human wave style meat grinder. If you wanted the vote, you'd be given service doing something useful to the state, and once you'd put the work in to help build, lead, and run it, you'd then get your word in from it. That being said, not going military didn't mean it was 'safe'. Service was supposed to be hard, difficult, dangerous even. I think even medical experimentation was game if you were completely useless but still insisted on gaining the franchise. Which sounds horrific until we remember that today we do it anyway with volunteers (Read - People so poor as to sell their bodily integrity), and maybe give them a few hundred bucks for the pleasure.

Fuck, now I gotta reread the book too, I can't remember as much as I thought. Its definitely a flawed system, but its an interesting thought experiment into the idea of "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". I think its also the first recorded reference to the idea of power armor as well, and their mobile infantry power suits are supposed to be pretty badass.

 

[870EVO]

Wait we're still in Syria?

https://twitter.com/thesiriusreport/status/1625985352837070850

 

[The Man With No Name]

RE: Service Gaurantees Citizenship

It's not as though countries that conscript their youth are rare or unknown. There's ones that most people consider successful like Switzerland, Taiwan, and South Korea.

There's also shitholes with conscription like China, North Korea, Russia, and Israel.

These are all fairly authoritarian countries with little freedoms to "earn" with service but young men are expected to enlist, usually for 2 years.

Conscription isn't new and is something that's been practiced for a very long time. Our Founding Fathers didn't really think it was necessary when we were independently confederated states. We would build our own communities and have our own militias.

The idea of a militia makes more sense for a country like the US (originally) since it's purely defensive, and made up of the men who would have financial stakes in defending their property (IE it was local to them). It's more difficult to convince a man to compulsory serve an interest that doesn't directly benefit them. The US is too big and people are (rightfully) too independent to want to be pressed into service.

Convince a Texan to defend New York, or California. Convince an Alaskan or a Hawaiin for that matter. The only way we currently do that is by having a volunteer military that offers (relatively) substantial benefits. The benefits and pay aren't that good if you're in a major metro area or have good prospects but they are good if you're a cornfed Iowa boy who can serve or stay in town and make $11 an hour at Autozone for 50 years.

 

[Fatboi Gus]

There are not counter arguments to the idea, only to the spirit of it. "What counts as service?" is the only real argument to be had to try and debate it, and honestly it is a good question. There are people who might not wanna serve in the military but still be citizens and willing to do something else, or people like the honestly disabled who wouldn't have a way to actually "serve" even if they want and that would open a question on what they should do.

The concept does away with the entitlement of many people and it ensures people care. That which is freely given rarely has value. Something earned through hard work, however, is always valued.

My general conception of a good system would be the following:

1. Permanent license awarded after a standard military term or number of enlisted years (to not disadvantage lifers).
2. Permanent license awarded after the completion of a standard amount quality audited work units done for civil service, as defined as state bureaucracy work and/or public infrastructure work. Actual productivity based imstead of time based to not allow just coasting through a timed term.
3. Temporary license for individuals who have been net taxpayers in the last 2 fiscal years (mainly as a counter-balance to military adventurism/bureaucratic expension as they'd be "payomg the bills").
4. Civilians would be allowed to "vote" but only for special representatives advocatimg for them but with no actual state imfluence (think Roman tribumes without veto power).

EDIT- #2 would receive accomodations similar to #1. No taking it easier in any way!

 

[Thomas Talus]

There are not counter arguments to the idea, only to the spirit of it. "What counts as service?" is the only real argument to be had to try and debate it, and honestly it is a good question. There are people who might not wanna serve in the military but still be citizens and willing to do something else, or people like the honestly disabled who wouldn't have a way to actually "serve" even if they want and that would open a question on what they should do.

The concept does away with the entitlement of many people and it ensures people care. That which is freely given rarely has value. Something earned through hard work, however, is always valued.

I'd be a bit concerned about economic distortions resulting from a large chunk of the workforce going into military or civil service instead of production. If 25+% of the population is shooting for the franchise, that seems like your production capabilities would suffer, unless their service is working in a factory. And if gov't-run production-as-service makes up a significant part of the market, is that all going into guns over butter, or do civilian producers have to compete with gov't-run firms with a captive workforce and other advantages? It seems like you'd end up with expansive industrial policy at best, and a full command economy at worst.

 

[Slappy McGherkin]

"Service" to your country is not a vain idea. Some (Israel) still require it. It would work here, but fact is America is too pussified and instead went the route of you'll never be anything without your Gender Studies 4 year degree from a university.

It doesn't have to be military service. It could be Peace Corps, Health Services, fuck, Habitat for Humanity, anything that requires 2 years minimum to serve the country or help our population at large.

Would never happen here. We've become way too selfish to commit to a greater good beyond our own personal needs.

I'm a vet. I served. It made me a better person and helped me focus my life. No regrets. Crazy I know, but seeing all the gender dysphoria in today's youth, the desperation, the suicidal tendencies is because patriotism got shot twice in the back of the head and now anything patriotic is racist, non-inclusive and fascist.

The longer this continues, the worse America will become. Fuck me, the evidence is everywhere and often disgusts me as the men who were once heros are now having their statues and monuments ripped from the ground where they've stood for decades.

You CANNOT change history. You can only learn from it. But here we are, trying to re-write it, change definitions, and atone for sins of the past that not a single fuckhead alive today had any involvement in doing. Fuck that.

Not gonna lie, I'm glad I grew up in good times and a patriotic America. I feel sorry for the Gens that didn't and are creating the hellscape we're becoming.