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Karia posted:Because he wants to get us angry. He wants to invoke the emotional response associated with these recent events so he can claim that we're not actually reading or engaging with his (again: hypothetical) situation. It's a cheap con trick. It's been his go-to for about as long as I've followed this thread. The thing is it works, but only during a formal debate and there's enough enlightened centrists in the audience who are waiting to boo the first person to break decorum. Here on Debate and Motherfucking Discussion it has the same effect as throwing rocks at a beehive
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 19:18 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 22:42 |
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VitalSigns posted:Ok jrodefeld I have a couple of serious questions for you. gently caress no, we don't want him. He wouldn't fit in here anyway; the slogan during our famously successful COVID response was "team of 5 million", not "loosely affiliated federation of small distributed teams, each of which is independent and free to pirate DVDs, gently caress watermelons, practise slavery, and/or hold dodgy opinions on the age of consent". I think Somalia would be right up his alley though. No state, a thriving market -- the kind of place a plucky young
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 19:19 |
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Incidentally, it's very irresponsible to try preaching anti-statism while being conspicuously uncritical about other organizations like corporations, because at least a democratic state is going to be much more obligated to be accountable to its citizenry.DarklyDreaming posted:It's been his go-to for about as long as I've followed this thread. The thing is it works, but only during a formal debate and there's enough enlightened centrists in the audience who are waiting to boo the first person to break decorum. Here on Debate and Motherfucking Discussion it has the same effect as throwing rocks at a beehive This is the Disease & Disaster subforum, and Libertarianism is the main disease of this thread. Bitcoin is an ecological disaster from its ludicrous power consumption.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 19:29 |
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Weatherman posted:Hey, lurkers! Anyone think the lolbertarian gospel according to JRod is cool and/or good?
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 19:58 |
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Weatherman posted:Hey, lurkers! Anyone think the lolbertarian gospel according to JRod is cool and/or good? If anything, this thread has launched me further away from libertarianism over time, also because I live in Canada and my life would be demonstrably worse without UHC. I just hang out in here because watching JRod get smacked down twice a year is a comfortable rhythm of the forums.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 20:15 |
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Jrod you still haven't explained how Cambodia counts as a large centralized state and New Zealand doesn't.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 20:22 |
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If there's one thing we've learned from the partitions of multiethnic empires like the Ottomans, Austria-Hungary, Ireland/Northern Ireland, India/Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Turkey/Cyprus, ISIL, the American War of Independence, etc it's that violence and ethnic cleansing rarely occur in either the smaller breakaway provinces trying to homogenize their population or in the rump empire trying to reassert control over its rebellious minority
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 20:32 |
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I wish NZ was more centralised. The way public healthcare is organised is based on the region you live in. It just so happens that my home town I had to move back to after the glorious hand of the free market decided I should no longer have a job during the plague has the people responsible for trans healthcare being actively hostile to most clients, and they aren't particularly accountable to complaints. We don't want jrod here.
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# ? Jan 19, 2021 22:55 |
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“Centralization vs decentralization” conflates a lot of stuff. Libertarianism loves to do this. Centralizing things like manufacturing standards and infrastructure are obviously necessary for civilization, while centralized power and accountability mechanisms is almost always rife for corruption. They do not inherently go up and down in sync with each other. Administration is necessary to civilization, it’s just important to keep that administration directly accountable to the people. Libertarians also somehow don’t consider authority stemming from “ownership” of private property and resources to be authority while the slightest amount of civic authority is literally Hitler.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 00:00 |
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Immortan Joe built/maintains, and therefore owns, those water pumps and thus he is allowed to supply or deny life-giving water as he pleases. The heavy boot of the state forcing him to squander it on lazy moochers would only make things worse!
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 01:25 |
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In retrospect, it *was* uncharacteristically optimistic of me to hope that he was dead.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 01:58 |
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polymathy posted:I don't know what you mean by "wrong". I have strong disagreements with every one of the people I read and listen to on different issues. I don't mind saying this when it's the truth. And this is why I'm not toxxing, because you consistently hedge and try to go "well, they have redeeming value somewhere". No. They do not. It's like watching a hoarder insist that they'll use everything they have and that all of what they have is valuable. No, grandma, that pile of newspapers is just rotted trash. And the furniture is too beat-up and used to be worth more than what it costs to have it hauled off.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 02:13 |
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I don't know who this JRod person is but he sure has a very shaky grasp of history and economics
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 06:26 |
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Alctel posted:I don't know who this JRod person is but he sure has a very shaky grasp of history and economics There is a reason the third most common rebuttal to Jrod is "On the other hand, recorded history." The other two are asking if he's hosed a watermelon and demanding he fight you.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 06:49 |
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Alctel posted:I don't know who this JRod person is but he sure has a very shaky grasp of history and economics I will also submit it to the record that he (at least used to) run a business selling pirated Blu-rays.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 06:58 |
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Alctel posted:I don't know who this JRod person is but he sure has a very shaky grasp of history and economics "And what do you call your act?" "The Libertarians!"
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 09:26 |
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Caros posted:There is a reason the third most common rebuttal to Jrod is "On the other hand, recorded history." In the parking lot of an abandoned Sears, don't forget that part.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 10:45 |
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A key tenet of libertarianism seems to be a complete lack of understanding of power dynamics.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 10:54 |
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Secession, in addition to not being quite as simple a project as one might think due to the complexity of human habitation patterns(though people are more sorted today than they used to be, at least in the US), is not really an answer to a polarized politics, as it's just punting important questions down the road. The breakup of Yugoslavia, for example, did not end politics in the newly-divided states, it simply changed the axes of disagreement in those countries. Politics is a complex question, and secession isn't the One Weird Trick that answers all of them.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 11:58 |
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You just have to keep seceding until every Great Man has his own plantation-state.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 16:21 |
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Will the mods ban JRod this time if he comes back in a couple of days with another "let me ask you this" wall of text, completely ignoring all the counterarguments that were put to him in the meantime? He does it every single appearance and it's obnoxious. Wall of text, get dogpiled, disappear, return as if the previous cycle never happened.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 18:21 |
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I hope he doesn't get banned only because I deeply enjoy the amount of thoughtfulness and research that people put into dunking the gently caress out of him.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 19:28 |
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theshim posted:I hope he doesn't get banned only because I deeply enjoy the amount of thoughtfulness and research that people put into dunking the gently caress out of him. Same. We couldn't ask for a better example of why Libertarianism is intellectually bankrupt.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 19:35 |
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I used to have 2 libertarian friends. One from a family that fled the USSR during Stalin and made them wary of even school lunches because it was the slippery road to 'socialism', and one who was just a naive rich bloke whose thinking amounted to "Freedom is good, so more freedom means more good!" Both have left the ranks during Trump's tenure. The first because she saw all of her libertarian peers dive head-first into Trump and Q poo poo, and because working as a nurse during the pandemic she finally could no longer hide from how utterly lovely its healthcare system is. She was big on Ron Paul in the past, so seeing the original go back to being a racist crank and the son gobble Trump's balls live was also a shock. The second because his facebook/whatsapp groups started screeching at him whenever he went "Hey guys, immigrants are seeking freedom! We should be welcoming them! Helping them become entrepreneurs!", calling him a chinese plant, and banned him. I actually met another during the pandemic, in the proccess of breaking away. She's a "I just want my gay friends to defend their marijuana farms with machine guns, tee hee!" variety, but also suffers from bad auto-immune disroders, and actually went without hydroxychloroquinine, which she needs not to clot herself to death, for a terrifying week in the american South when Trump sold it as an easy cure for COVID. None of those have really turned left, though the first one seems to be heading that way. More towards the "Ehh, don't really care about politics, gotta live my own life" brand.
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 19:44 |
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Hello Sailor posted:You just have to keep seceding until every Great Man has his own plantation-state. Keep going! The heart does all the work pumping the blood, why should those other lazy welfare queen organs get to mooch of its labor. Every organ for itself!
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 19:46 |
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Hello Sailor posted:You just have to keep seceding until every Great Man has his own plantation-state. Something something the smallest minority is the individual
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 20:31 |
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Sephyr posted:One from a family that fled the USSR during Stalin and made them wary of even school lunches because it was the slippery road to 'socialism'
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 21:34 |
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Guavanaut posted:That line of thinking implies that the USSR happened because the Tsar gave people too many lunches and too much healthcare until Stalin appeared, rather than being a poo poo rear end until people were so done with it that they'd rather risk Lenin's ideas. I actually had the American Chopper conversation meme with her pretty much verbatim, back when she still drank the Flavor-aid. -"Socialist-leaning politics have resulted in some of the best standards of living and happiness in the world, like in Scadinavia!" -"Shut up! Those countries are not socialist, they are market economies with strong safety networks!" -"Well all the better, let's do those policies then!" -"But that's the cue for socialism to take over!!"
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# ? Jan 20, 2021 21:40 |
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VitalSigns posted:Keep going! This sounds like an Awful Hospital plotline.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 06:35 |
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VitalSigns posted:Ok jrodefeld I have a couple of serious questions for you. Any level of government is capable of oppressing the people they govern. Hell, any group of people in the private sector are capable of committing atrocities against their fellow man. It's part of the human condition that some people are predators and criminally-inclined. I'm first asking if you'll accept the principle of secession as a concept that could and should be legitimately considered in solving some of our social problems. Then you can judge individual secession proposals based on whether you think they'll increase liberty overall, avoid catastrophic outcomes or whatever. I'd never argue that secession or decentralization will always increase liberty on every issue. I firmly support the Federal legalization of Marijuana, for example. However on balance, I think more political jurisdictions at a more local level are superior to centralized political power centers. The ultimate goal is absolute anarchy and total liberty, but political decentralization is a step in that direction. Despite your protestations, I would still advocate further secession as a better means to deal with tyrannical policies at the State level as oppose to entrusting authority in a Federal government simply because we know the dangers of centralized political authority. Once you rely on them to rectify local injustices, it boosts their perceived legitimacy and they'll be able to gain public support for horrible policies like waging war, spying on the American people, etc. Lastly, I'll point out that there is a tension between your two questions whether you realize it or not. In the first hand, you're presuming it's practical and feasible for me to leave the United States for a more libertarian country, despite the differences in culture, potential language barriers and all the other problems that entails. But your second question seems to imply that you wouldn't have a much easier ability to simply move from a State that doesn't match your values to another State within the United States should your State vote to secede. If such a secession proposal were to come up and you felt that the outcome would be bad for your civil rights and safety, then you should oppose that particular proposal. But is it worse for the cultural conservatives to secede and implement bad policies (from your perspective) on a smaller population, or constantly worry about them imposing those same policies nationally?
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 12:03 |
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Who What Now posted:It's pretty funny that we can't use the capitol hill riots to judge 74 mil Trump voters are fascist sympathizers but we can use that to assume 74 mil Trump voters are secessionists. I'm not assuming anything. I'm proposing we propose the idea as a legitimate possibility and potential solution to the culture war and escalating violence and see how many people are sympathetic to it, whether left or right. I'm in support of any group that wants to secede from the Federal Government, whether they be leftists, communists, anarchists, whatever.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 12:09 |
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Does the idea really never cross your head that the whole idea of them wanting to be free of federal authority is so they can freely enslave and murder the people said authority prevents them from doing so to the degree that they would like?
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 12:21 |
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Ah you are still here, polymathy. I had never heard of a current secessionist section of the US far right until you started your current series. Can you explain which regions they are talking about and what cultural differences they are using to decide on that border?
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 12:37 |
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Caros posted:See, it is this kind of argument that is loving infuriating. What I've noticed with you, Caros, is that you go off on a tangent about some ancillary statements I make that are hardly central to my arguments. You've posted several replies about my use of the qualifying term "partially" when describing the centrality of slavery to the build-up and waging of the Civil War. I didn't use this term as any sort of apologia for the Confederacy and any inference you make in that direction is a figment of your imagination. The Civil War, like all wars, is an extremely complicated subject that we could discuss for days on end and not even scratch the surface. To ever boil any single war down to one single cause and motivation nearly always facile. Ever read Gore Vidal? He's one who would strongly disagree with your contention that slavery was the one singular and only cause of the Civil War, and Vidal was certainly no sympathizer of the Confederacy. I'll say one last thing about Civil War literature and especially Lincoln scholarship. Every State depends on a widely accepted sense of legitimacy in the public. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison may have been among the original founders, but Abraham Lincoln became seen as the founder of a more powerful central government that superseded the original understanding of the Constitution and the Republic. It is critically important for the Regime to have the ideas of secession and State's rights be unthinkable and unacceptable because these ideas weaken their power and undermine their authority. The last thing they want is a public who feels that the Union is merely a political tool of convenience that can be freely dissolved or disassociated from. This is one of the reasons there is so much idolatry around Abraham Lincoln. Any suspicion of him or nuance around the Civil War undermines the central mythology on which their current power depends. I also want to push back hard against your continual insinuation that any discussion of the Civil War along the lines that I'm doing right now amounts to a defense of the Confederacy or tacit condoning of the institution of slavery. This is patently absurd but this insinuation lurks behind each of your histrionic outbursts on this subject. I'll again point you to the great abolitionist and anarchist Lysander Spooner, who explicitly defended the South's right to secede while at the same time advocating the immediate abolition of slavery through alternative means than a Civil War.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 12:44 |
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Car Hater posted:This is your brain engaging in self-protection via ad hominem in order to avoid the expansion I am attempting to force upon it. Okay, maybe the confusion here is that you're conflating "decentralization" with "political decentralization". I oppose the latter but not necessarily the former. I oppose the State because I'm opposed to the initiation of violence and because I recognize the danger in permitting a monopoly of violence to exist. The centralization of other non-State entities as required by economic growth or consumer preferences is unobjectionable by a libertarian anarchist.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 12:57 |
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Karia posted:Thing is, he's explicitly not doing this, but I'm quite sure he's not doing this in the most ham-fisted way intentionally in order to get us pissed at him. He's not talking about the current right-wing fascists: he's talking about some hypothetical group of Trump supporters who only want to peacefully and democratically exit the union. Along with Arizona. For some reason. I'm honestly not intending to get anyone angry. I'm just trying to envision some "off-ramp" scenarios that could be used to avert very undesirable outcomes. Right now I think very few people in the country even consider secession as something within the realm of possibility. I just think we should put it forward as a proposal worth serious consideration. I think the fact that you consistently refer to Trump supporters as "fascists", not just the ones who stormed the Capital but presumably all 74 million or at least the vast majority of them is telling. If you really feel that there are that many fascists, white supremacists, and whatever other label you wish to attach to them walking about, then it really doesn't seem like we have much opportunity for reconciliation. What do we do with these people? Personally I think the terms "fascist" and "white supremacist" apply to a very small percentage of people who actually voted for Trump. Most were poorer working class people who felt deeply alienated from the common culture, the Establishments of both parties and had a bunch of very legitimate grievances. They wanted to give the biggest middle finger to the Elites that screwed them over that they could and they desperately turned to a demagogue who they erroneously thought would "drain the swamp" and fight for them.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 13:20 |
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polymathy posted:Okay, maybe the confusion here is that you're conflating "decentralization" with "political decentralization". I oppose the latter but not necessarily the former. I oppose the State because I'm opposed to the initiation of violence and because I recognize the danger in permitting a monopoly of violence to exist. No my man, you are confused in thinking that they can be separated. Read again. Humans are inherently political animals, there is no separating centralization from political power and domination.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 13:28 |
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Halloween Jack posted:He's a von Mises crank, remember? He believes in "praxeology," which claims to be a science while being proudly anti-empirical. Are you claiming that the only valid scientific method is empiricism? Do you not understand that the social sciences are profoundly different from hard sciences like physics and chemistry? A central tenet of the empiricist scientific method is that propositions be tested, that the test is repeatable and that all variables can be sufficiently controlled. This is fine when testing physics hypotheses in a lab, but this method is wholly insufficient when dealing with humans interacting in a dynamic economy. The knowledge and subjective value in a person's head determines their actions and those actions are not going to be the same when they know they are subject to observation in a controlled environment. And in a dynamic, real economy it is wholly impossible to control all variables sufficiently for empirical tests to be repeatable and reliable, even if there weren't any other methodological defects in this endeavor (which there certainly are). This empiricist obsession within some schools of economics is often called "scientism" which is "a mechanical and uncritical application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they have been formed" (Hayek)
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 13:29 |
polymathy posted:Most were poorer working class people who felt deeply alienated from the common culture, the Establishments of both parties and had a bunch of very legitimate grievances. They wanted to give the biggest middle finger to the Elites that screwed them over that they could and they desperately turned to a demagogue who they erroneously thought would "drain the swamp" and fight for them. Most poor people voted democrat.
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 13:30 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 22:42 |
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Panzeh posted:Secession, in addition to not being quite as simple a project as one might think due to the complexity of human habitation patterns(though people are more sorted today than they used to be, at least in the US), is not really an answer to a polarized politics, as it's just punting important questions down the road. The breakup of Yugoslavia, for example, did not end politics in the newly-divided states, it simply changed the axes of disagreement in those countries. I never said it was. It is simply a potential course of action that should be validly considered. At least in the United States, the concept has had a stigma (not without reason) since the Civil War and I think that's a mistake. It won't fix all problems but it's a perfectly valid concept to seriously consider. I also think we're framing it a bit incorrectly. The more important question is: If a group assembled together within the United States and decided that they wanted to secede from the Union would you support using violence to stop them?
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# ? Jan 21, 2021 13:40 |