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@Greyparrot
Imagine if people on the left shrugged their shoulders and said Rudy Giuliani was justified in suspending elections after 9/11.... How would that be an example of "democracy?"
again, there was 1 attack where 2 buildings were destroyed. Russia launches dozens, sometimes hundreds of air attacks on Ukranian cities per month. These comparisons are ridiculous.
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@Best.Korea
Ridiculously flawed legal opinions such as supporting Trump instead of supporting US criminal war machine.
It's not a crime to support trump. But lawyers are required to follow certain professional standards. Eastman told his client(s) a bunch of things that were lies and that if they followed his advice (trump did, he also lied to pence but he refused to follow the flawed advice) then they would be committing crimes. Therefore, there is a good chance he will be disbarred for advising his clients to break the law.
Basically, the scheme he pushed to try to overturn the election (for which trump is likely to be criminally charged soon), was illegal.
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@Public-Choice
Mueller exonerated Trump,
no, he didn't. The Mueller report explicitly said they were not exonerating him and that they “accepted” the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted. He said he felt he didn't have the authority to charge trump with a crime, and since someone who can't be charged with a crime has no opportunity to defend themself in court he can't make accusations of wrongdoing.
then the IG said the investigation never should have even happened.
please provide a reference for that.
In reality they had nothing to investigate.
lol, muller brought 37 indictments, got 7 convictions and referred 14 criminal matters to other components of the Department of Justice. But no, i guess that's nothing to investigate.
This new alleged classified documents probe is the fist time they actually may have something.
may? how is it even deniable. They asked him over and over for the documents back. he refused, then lied and said that he didnt have them. They then got a warrant and found them in his house. They have recordings of him bragging to people that he had them, and that they were still classified. They have footage of trump's employees hiding the documents before people came to look for them. I don't see how anyone could deny he is guilty.
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@DavidAZ
The government is corrupt and its more and more turning into a socialistic program, with the elites on the top and all of us on the bottom.
ok, socialistic programs help poor people to do better. for example schools, libraries etc. So saying the government is turning into a socialistic program would be a good thing. It would mean the government is doing more to help normal people. But they you follow it up with "the elites on the top and all of us on the bottom" which literally describes all of american history. All presidents have been wealthy and connected.
It is spiraling out of control and if the Jan 6'ers could have done anything to stop it, I would be happy about it. I don't want anarchy, I want change.
what exactly is "spiraling out of control"? What has changed in the past 10 or 20 years that is "spiraling"? And how would destroying democracy and installing an idiot as dictator help with that?
The fact that you think that a mob could actually overthrow the government shows the stupidity of the voting mass.
on their own, of course they couldn't. But then there are people like you. Who didn't go there (presumably) and attack the capitol directly. But would have been perfectly happy to see democracy burn. If they had managed to capture pence or strong arm him into doing something illegal, then a sizable portion of country would have been onboard with it. And the fact that the GOP and their base still thinks it wasn't a big deal (or often a good thing) proves how dangerous it really was.
Politics is so depressing with people like you and Rooskie diving in with a mouthful of ignorance.
what exactly have I been "ignorant" of?
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@Greyparrot
We are also 98.8 percent monkeys by DNA. The other small % matters.
sure. But in terms of governance, the states are exactly the same. They elect leaders the same way. You have the exact same amount of say in government policy in either place.
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@Greyparrot
Was the south firing ballistic missiles at Washington or new york? Because if not, it's not a useful comparison. The civil war was fought in a predictable place. People outside that area were perfectly safe to go out and vote. Russia is regularly bombing Ukrainian cities. They have been actively targeting both civilians targets and civilian infrastructure. So the 2 events are not the same.
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@Greyparrot
I love how people insist you can't opt out of failing government services, but isn't that exactly what fleeing Californians are doing? Opting out of the broken California system?
lol that is exactly what I said. I said if you don't like the way the system is run you can vote to change it or leave. All I got back was crying. Then you say how great it is that you can leave and go to a state that runs 95% the same way. The double think is amazing.
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lol, russia is firing ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities regularly. Many Ukrainian citizens are still under occupation by the Russian invaders. How exactly are they supposed to hold an election under those circumstances? This isn't like Russia where the vote is just for show so it doesn't matter what is going on. In real elections, you need to be able to actually safely go to a polling site.
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@DavidAZ
This right here proves that it was not an insurrection nor an attempt to over throw democracy. Why would they just get bored and leave?
because, much like their leader, they're stupid. They went there without any plan other than "do violence until pence does what we want". They weren't able to get their hands on pence and didn't know what to do. Eventually they just got bored since they had no idea what to do.
You drink the kool aide and believe it was a terrible middle class mob bent on overthrowing the government, which in my opinion, doesn't sound like a bad idea right now.
lol you only prove my point. You try over and over again to excuse their treasonous actions and try to say there was never any risk of overthrowing the government, they weren't trying to do that. Then in your next sentence you admit that if they had been smarter and more successful, you would be happy about it. That right there is why they were a real threat to democracy. Because the republicans don't care about democracy. As long as they have their orange demagogue.
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@Greyparrot
And Norway.
norway has a sovereign wealth fund. They also have a base income tax of 22%. So no, they still rely heavily on taxes.
When...not IF...the government runs out of sources to borrow, the public will necessarily have to look to another system to provide for the general welfare as the antiquated tax and spend model fails.
lol so if a reliable method of raising revenue fails, we will go to a ridiculous one that can't possibly work? Sure.... and we will all eat rainbows and cake. Bottom line, there is economic system where the government does not collect taxes. Any such system would certainly fail and either collapse, or it would be so underfunded that neighboring states would take them over.
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@Greyparrot
Lol, no it isn't. He said he doesn't have a say about voting service providers out because other people vote against his interests.
you just keep repeating that he does have a say, but then weirdly say the opposite too. he has a vote. That is him having a say in how this works. Your objection seems to be that he doesn't have unilateral say in how it works, but that is democracy for you.
A checkbox would solve this problem.
no, it would make problems much, much worse. As I keep explaining to you and you keep evading.
Government doesn't have to confiscate production to get funds. There are many ways it can get revenue.
sure there are other ways governments can get funds. But on the whole, they are much less reliable and can raise much less funding. There is a reason every country on the planet uses taxes. The only ones that don't heavily rely on them are the ones that make inordinate amounts of money off natural resource sales, like Saudi Arabia.
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@Greyparrot
Imagine if Mueller was only given 2 months to investigate....
lol, the difference is mueller actually had tons of things to investigate. Trump did commit crimes but mueller determined he didn't have the power to charge him with a crime. There was literally no evidence of any kind of fraud around the election. 2 months was more than enough to determine it was all lies.
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@DavidAZ
They felt it wasn't done enough.
And that is why they tried to overthrow democracy? That is not a valid answer. That's like saying I feel i'm not being paid enough so I will rob a bank.
I agree, except that I don't think it was about trying to "overturn" the results. It was to delay the results.
and that is wildly illegal. There are strict rules about how long the transition of power must take after an election. You can't let the old loser president cling to power just because he's crying that losing is unfair. And since most of those people still insist it was rigged somehow, no delay would ever have been enough. They would continue to cry foul and insist trump should be president, which is a constitutional crisis.
How many people actually did that? As in percentage. Almost everyone there was not wanting it to get violent. Of course if a window gets smashed then the whole crowd is violent, right?
they went there to overturn an election. these weren't school teachers protesting. These people came from all over the country to stop the democratic process.
Trump ran the government just like Biden does. There are checks and balances. The speaker of the house could have easily squashed it if needed.
how? Does the speaker command the police? The national guard?
To say that Trump was able to stop all law enforcement when it's needed is ridiculous.
why? They did prevent a proper law force response. The insurrection was allowed to go on for hours before they eventually got bored and left. The police were very hesitant to do their job and product the capitol.
There was no need to send out shock troops.
a crowd was screaming that they wanted to murder the VP, then they stormed the building and tried to reach him. There absolutely was a need to send out "shock troops".
Besides, they did use force when needed with Ashley Babbitt.
one officer decided to use force to try to protect congress from a mob. That is not the government using necessary force. That is one guy desperately trying to do his job.
That is a more realistic term than topple. Threat can be interpreted in any way.
they used violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to the winner of an election in an attempt to keep the loser in power. If they had succeeded, that would have been toppling democracy.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I can vote. I can't vote people out because too many are programmed to be idiots when it comes to the nature and purpose of government and economy.
so you acknowledge that you do have a say in how all these services are run. Question settled.
Is this woman being raped or not?
just because 5 people say they are forming a new government does not make it so. you are now going into an argument of what makes a nation, which is a whole different rabbit hole I don't intend to go down.
That simple? But you missed something. You aren't leaving either. Therefore you agree to my social contract. Glad we solved that problem *whew*
By staying, we both agree to THE social contract. and yes, i'm glad that is solved.
What makes civilization superior to mere society and what defines it is equal liberty by law. You are a pawn for people who don't like equal liberty. Your handlers don't own civilization.
there are problems with all civilizations. I don't pretend ours is perfect. But you seem to pretend like yours would be. Which is silly. I want to fix our broken system to work better. You want to tear everything down and live in make believe.
If a road doesn't get enough traffic to pay for itself then we don't need it.
this is an example of how to force everyone into a smaller and smaller net. Making it more and more expensive to try to live outside of major urban areas. I guess we don't need farmers.
Yes. There doesn't need to be dozens of contracts. Just one for each level of government with options preserved and accessed by computer.
but you want people to be able to opt out of every single government service don't you? So one for the police, one for the firefighters, one for the libraries, one for the roads, one for the military etc. If you are suggesting that people should only be offered 1 contract with each level of government, then how would that work? If you opt out of a contract with your municipality, do you just have to leave that municipality? Or do you just get banned from all municipal services like roads?
You can drive down a road at full speed and a particular pattern of electromagnetic reflection from your vehicle associates the car with your person and your toll account. The toll is then charged to your account. There are hundreds of thousands of people that use the road and in less than a second a computer found you and executed a voluntary (and thus moral) payment for public service.
and how do you propose to apply that to police? Should they be required to face scan you to make sure you've paid your police contract before they stop you from being murdered?
Also (and more importantly) the difference that matters is that they aren't funded by stolen money.
I fail to see how it would be any different. If you have to pay them or be a free target for rape and murder, then you don't actually have a choice. The only people who would have a choice would be those who can afford private security.
When you can't steal the money, there is a basic level of "oh shit we actually have to do our job" because if nothing else the people will stop paying for your crappy department and start another.
Ahh so you are suggesting there would be no government police force at all? You just want there to be an unlimited number of armed gangs who can be hired to offer protection services. that sounds safe and completely not something that would be massively abused.
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@DavidAZ
It wasn't to overturn the election. It was for the VP to not certify the election until certain investigations were done.
1) people had investigated. it had been over 2 months since the election. Every investigation, every lawsuit had the same result. No evidence of fraud. The fact that they chose not to believe that is not a defense. You don't get to overturn the results of an election just because you feel like something is wrong when there is absolutely no evidence anything is wrong.
2) the vice president does not have that power. It would be wildly illegal for him to try to do that. His role is only to certify that the count of the electoral collage is done. That's it. He has no power or authority to pass judgement on the results of the election or the validity of the electoral college. If he did, then any sitting president could just refuse to accept he had lost by refusing to certify the results.
The whole point of Jan 6, for most people, was to make a point that the middle class will not stand down. Others brought it farther and other wanted some violence, but all in all, it was not meant to be violent.
lol the crowd smashed windows, attacked police and chanted hang mike pence. But yes, tell me all about how it was a peaceful protest.
I still wouldn't use the term "topple democracy". If it had gotten out of hand, then the government would have used appropriate force.
the "government" was run by trump. Trump wanted them to attack. And the government didn't use appropriate force. They refused to force the protesters to leave or even use appropriate force to stop them attacking in the 1st place. So saying the government would do so, when we already know that they wouldn't (because they didn't) is kind of silly.
There is no way a group of average group of grumpy people will topple democracy. This term is so extreme and one that is carried by the MSM and it's kool-aide drinkers.
it was literally their goal. They wanted to stop the results of the election from being certified to stop the peaceful handover of power. There was no legal basis for doing what they demanded and they threatened violence ("hang mike pence) if their demands were not met. The relevant authorities refused to use force to stop them. So if they had succeeded in convincing Mike Pence to refuse to certify the result, that would be a constitutional crisis. That is definitely a threat to democracy.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
You did not answer the question.
because the question made no sense. My answer explained why the question made no sense. You aren't forced to pay a specific price. You can vote out the people in charge and bring in other people to run things if you don't like how it is being run.
I've signed no social contract and neither have you.
nope, but by choosing to remain here, you are agreeing to it. If you don't want to agree to it, you can leave. It's really simple.
Assuming there isn't an exit tax? rofl
and there isn't. I'm assuming you don't make 10 million per year.
I've got a better idea, I'll keep proving taxation is theft and advocating for liberty from the safety of my anonymity and the moment I get the chance to blow the brains out of these tyrants I'll take it.
translation: I'll keep screaming like a lunatic and be ignored by everyone.
Man's natural state is being homeless, starved, becoming ill. None of these things are an attack.
that's just stupid. Man's natural state is working together as a group or a tribe and everyone contributing to that group's success. Your argument is that you don't want to do that. You are the one that doesn't like man's natural state.
2.) Of course there are groups that agree with me. Hec the US revolution was basically only a slight corruption from the truth.
lol the american revolution was about no taxation without representation. IE they had no problem with taxes, they just wanted to have a say in the government in exchange for those taxes. The british insisted on charging them taxes but giving them no representation in government. So no, they absolutely had nothing to do with your nonsense.
Theft = taking without consent
this is false. Theft is illegally taking without consent. If you steal something, and then police come and take it back, are the police stealing? They are taking something from you without your consent. By your definition they would be.
.... Tolls, of all the public services none is more susceptible to moral funding than roads. There is ZERO freeloader problem with roads.
this only works in high traffic areas. It is profitable to build roads near major cities and charge a toll. It is not profitable to build roads in rural areas because they don't get enough traffic. If we relied only on companies to build roads, much of the country would not be useable.
Companies that send out mail, pay for that mail to be delivered.
uh huh. And without government intervention, large chunks of the world would lose mail access because it isn't profitable to deliver there. If an area is far enough away from a large population center, then it isn't profitable to deliver there. So they won't. The profit motive and the public good do not overlap.
yes, yes it would. It would be an insanely difficult and bureaucratic task for both average people as well as the government.C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R-S
come on, you're really 12 aren't you. you think "C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R-S" will make it easy for an average person to decide which of dozens and dozens of contracts they need to sign and which they don't? And that it would make it easy for government services to do their jobs when they have to constantly try to figure out who they're dealing with and if they are up to date on their payments before doing their job? Only a small child could believe that.
They can promise to try, and be paid a bonus for succeeding; moving on...
gotcha. So you acknowledge that it would work exactly the way it does now. All they have to do is say they tried, and they aren't held liable.
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@ponikshiy
Stolen is a very general term from my understanding. It could mean a hundred different things.
it could, trump likes to stay vague. But he and his allies threw out dozens of accusations. From very vague "the election was stolen" to very specific claims that poll workers in specific areas sabotaged the voting machines. They even threw out claims that a voting machine company was working with a dead south american leader. Trump and various surrogates filed dozens of lawsuits alleging lots of stupid and crazy lies. They all got thrown out for having no evidence.
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@DavidAZ
Really? Is your faith in the system so weak that a bunch of "deplorables" would topple our democracy?
their goal was to force the VP to illegally overturn the results of an election and install the loser as the president. and many of the republicans would have been happy if they had succeeded. How is that not toppling democracy?
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@Greyparrot
First, Trump is not a mob boss. Moreover, Trump has of yet not been convicted in any court of any crime.
I didn't say he was a mob boss. I said he behaves like one. I even provided a specific example of him engaging in this behavior. So your misunderstanding is baffling.
Trump doesn't have to be a criminal or a mob boss to be defeated politically.
Of course not. He lost because he is a useless, loser of a president. He followed standard republican policies that every republic would do. He just added being a complete asshole to the repertoire. The fact that he also committed crimes while in office didn't help though.
Making shit up is what is actually whipping his followers into a frenzy. Just stop it.
I agree. Trump making shit up up is what whipped up his followers and convinced them to commit treason. They tried to overthrow democracy to install Trump even though he lost. If they'd gotten their way, they would have toppled democracy.
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@ponikshiy
this was a lie. There was no evidence of voter fraud. All attempts to find evidence failed and all court cases were thrown out for lack of evidenceHow would you know if that is a lie or not?
because it has been years. There were dozens of lawsuits, countless investigations. No one has ever managed to present a single shred of evidence that actually held up. Every single case got tossed out because no evidence of actual voter fraud could be found. Were there isolated cases of fraud? Sure. I have seen a handful cases where people committed fraud to vote (mostly for trump). But absolutely no evidence of widespread or coordinated fraud has ever been presented. Thus, accusations that this happened are a lie.
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@Greyparrot
What happens if you have a contract for internet at a certain speed and you don't get it? Can you sue them? I am giving you specifics and you want to take the conversation into the vague nothingness.
lol I am asking you specifically how a contract for police would work and you keep talking about completely unrelated industries that are not comparable. And then you accuse me of being vague. Since you can't or wont do that, I will just reiterate that the idea is pointless and couldn't possibly work. And since you refuse to refute anything I say, I am just going to assume you are incapable of doing so.
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@Greyparrot
How does any service provider get you to sign a subscription for services? It's by promising you things that they then have to deliver via existing contract law.
more deflections, more dodging. Instead of answering any of my questions, you just deflect some more. Explain to me how a contract could work for policing. Can you sue them if they aren't there fast enough? you need to tell me how this would work in a way that wouldn't just completely shut down policing. Instead you just keep making vague references to unrelated industries that aren't in any way comparable.
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@Greyparrot
The lady was asking you for a quote, and you fabricated a story.
please point out to me which detail(s) of my "story" were incorrect. Did trump not tell his followers the election was rigged? Has every attempt to provide evidence of that failed? Were every lawsuit thrown out for lack of evidence? Did trump not claim pence had the power to overturn the election?
Come on man, if you are going to claim i am making stuff up, please be specific. So I can point out how wrong you are. I know, I know, you won't do that. You will just stay vague so I can't prove you wrong.
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@Greyparrot
Not a call to violence. Making up false shit is why Trump has any supporters at all left.
ok. I wrote a rather large paragraph explaining all the things trump did to whip up a frenzy amongst his followers, then enjoyed the carnage they caused. You replied to a single sentence and said "not a call to violence". If you had actually read what I wrote, you wouldn't have replied with something so silly.
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@Greyparrot
I'll make it easy for you then. If a security agency was trying to get you to sign a yearly contract in your neighborhood to serve you, what would that contract look like?
alright, i give up asking you. I have explained why your concept is unworkable and asked you how it could possibly work. you refuse to do so and keep deflecting. I am just going to take it as given that you have no idea how this could work in the real world.
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@Greyparrot
Absolutely not. Most police contracts today are drawn up by a government committee. If contracts were instead drawn up to ensure the public would opt in, they would look nowhere near the same.
explain how. If the police show up and can't help you they just get sued? Maybe their too late, maybe they make a mistake. Policing is a tough job that requires snap decisions. Errors are made pretty much constantly. If they could get sued every time they made one, no one would do it. What you are describing is completely unworkable. And you have yet to offer a single explanation of how it could actually work in practice. You just keep repeating high handed statements of it would be better when I keep giving you specific reasons why it is completely unworkable.
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@Greyparrot
A contract would enforce that obligation. There's no false dichotomy. Contract failure doesn't mean bankruptcy, but it would mean accountability, which would mean a restructuring of the police (administration getting fired, policies re-written, competent personnel hired) to avoid penalties. True police reform via existing contract laws.
you aren't addressing my point. Either the new contracts would be pretty much identical to the way it works now, or they would go bankrupt. No one can guarantee that your house can be saved. No one can guarantee that they can reach you in time to save you from being mugged, or assaulted etc. So either the contracts would be so loose and vague as to allow them to not be sued if they try and fail, or they would get sued constantly for doing their job and go bankrupt.
Afghanistan proved without a doubt that an armed populace is impossible to conquer, no matter how big your army is.
no they didn't. They proved that a populace being funded and armed heavily by outside powers with vast areas full of mountains and caves are impossible to conquer. No foreign empire has successfully conquered Afghanistan since Alexander the great.
Russia could never hope to control Ukraine if the population revolts, which is the real reason why they only want the Donbas because only the Donbas wants Russia.
except they have repeatedly said that Ukraine isn't a real country and Ukrainians aren't a real ethnicity. they were planning on annexing Ukraine. They failed miserably. And Russia has proven that you absolutely can occupy foreign countries. They successfully suppressed the Chechens, and invaded Georgia.
The Swiss established the norm that an armed populace can't be conquered. That's the rule, not the exception.
what? where are you getting this idea from. The swiss got invaded repeatedly historically. And no one has tried recently because they are surounded by mountains and aren't worth the trouble. No one decided "I think i will avoid the swiss populace". They decided to avoid fighting their way through mountains.
A national army is an outdated feature of government today due to industrialization and modern technology that allows everyone to own lethal force.
no one can possibly believe this. I can't even wrap my head around how ridiculous that statement is. A rifle will not help you if the invading army is willing to bomb your city to the ground. Or they can pick you off with drones. The reason why the west has a hard time occupying foreign countries is because they have to pretend to be there to help. So they can't ethnically cleanse the locals. The russians and chinese do not have that problem. And the russians in Ukraine were not stopped by civilians with guns, they were stopped by a military that was better trained and led.
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@ponikshiy
Lol, it's a bit like a bank robber saying people are out to get him. It can be both true and not interesting at the same time. Trump is a criminal. So yes, law enforcement agents are out to get him. I'm sure lots of politicians are happy about that, but the fact that he is a criminal is pretty much undeniable at this point.
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@Greyparrot
Either they would be immune,No.
lol no what? a firefighter can't promise they will save your house. So either you can't sue them for it (IE they are immune), or they go bankrupt from being sued repeatedly every time someone isn't happy with the degree of fire protection they get, which would be frequently. So either the system collapses, or they are immune.
This actually made me chuckle hard. Most of what the military does today is exactly for this.
It's true, we are in a rare period in world history where major powers simply don't go to war. But this is not the norm. Assuming that the way things have been for the past few decades is how things will be forever is very short sighted. If funding the military was optional, most americans wouldn't do it. Then the military would be like 5% the size it is today. Then china and Russia and any other dictator with delusions of grandeur start conquering their neighbors. And that would have very real negative impacts on America.
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@ponikshiy
I do not have as much access to American media as you. Can you link me to speech where he tells crowd to riot.
trump is an experienced criminal. Like a mob boss, he rarely directly orders people to commit crimes. That would leave him liable. Instead he just makes inflammatory comments and strongly implies he wants them to commit crimes. As an example I remember of the top of my head, when the documents case was closing in on him, trump reportedly told his lawyers over and over how great hilary clinton's lawyers were because they took the wrap for her (which isn't true). then he would say it over and over trying to prod them into agreeing to tell the FBI that it was their (the lawyers) fault that documents had not been returned. If he had ordered them to do it, that would be a crime, but suggesting it would be a good thing for them to do it, is totally fine (legally speaking).
In regards to january 6th, Trump made repeated claims that the election was rigged (these were all proven to be lies in court).
“We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
“The ‘Justice’ Department and the FBI have done nothing about the 2020 Presidential Election Voter Fraud, the biggest SCAM in our nation’s history, despite overwhelming evidence. They should be ashamed. History will remember. Never give up. See everyone in D.C. on January 6th.”
- this was a lie. There was no evidence of voter fraud. All attempts to find evidence failed and all court cases were thrown out for lack of evidence.
“If the liberal Democrats take the Senate and the White House — and they’re not taking this White House — we’re going to fight like hell, I’ll tell you right now,”
Trump's attorney said “Let’s have trial by combat,”
Basically, he lied to his followers telling them the election was stolen and that there was tons of evidence. There wasn't. He told them that mike pence had the power to overturn the results of the election (this too was a lie, he doesn't have that power). He told them to show up and march on the capitol where mike pence was in the process of confirming the election results. He told them they needed to fight, he told them they couldn't be weak or the country would be stolen. And when the violence started he said nothing, for hours. He only tweeted to be peaceful well after his supporters had stormed the capitol and attacked police. Reports are that he was watching it on TV and he was happy about it.
So like a mob boss, he made it clear to the crowd that he wanted them to force mike pence to try to overturn the results of the election without directly ordering them to do so. Then he reportedly laughed about it while watching it on TV and refusing to tell them to stop.
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@Greyparrot
So why did you try to excuse Trump with your pandemic theory?
you mean the well documented and obvious facts? He is heavily invested in industries that were hard hit by the pandemic. That has had a large affect on him.
It's a documented fact that Trump lost a billion dollars before the pandemic. What are you trying to cover up?
i'm not covering up anything. That is only further evidence that he is an idiot. He knows that his name is his primary thing of value. but he his need to be seen as big, strong and powerful drove him to make most people hate him, thus damaging one of his primary methods of making money. And for what? His policies as president were almost identical to what any other republican would have done. He just did it while being an asshole and a criminal.
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@Greyparrot
The average current annual tax form has hundreds of check boxes. It wouldn't be hard.
yes, yes it would. It would be an insanely difficult and bureaucratic task for both average people as well as the government.
Law enforcement is already discretionary with "no go zones" Contracts would make these discretions more equitable and fair. Pay to Play.
no, it would make a current problem much, much worse. If you are someone who does pay for police service in an area where most don't, do you think they will show up? it would turn large parts of the country into lawless wasteland.
While crime itself may not be localized, a DA oversees an entire district. Contracts would make DA discretions more equitable and fair. Didn't check the box for police? We won't be pressing charges against your mugger. This already happens. (Just look at all the refused prosecutions in large cities) It would just be more fair with explicit contracts.
lol what? you would just be allowing crime to run unchecked. Criminals would know for sure who they can victimize. This would be pure insanity.
Oddly enough, that's exactly what happens in a lot of fires. Firefighters will focus on dousing nearby houses and let the center house burn itself out. A contract system would ensure that firefighters would make a best effort to saving the burning house.
you are pointing out specific cases where the original house can't be saved so they focus on protecting surounding houses as evidence that we should selectively let houses burn? that is super weak. how would this work in a city? my apartment/condo is allowed to burn but the one above it isn't?
One great knock-on benefit of having explicit social contracts is that it would force compliance of the government service providers through contract law.
how? they would use the same excuses as now. Sorry, couldn't get there in time. It would either open them up to being sued for doing their job, which would destroy the system, or it wouldn't do anything which would be no different than now. So no, it wouldn't open them up to contract law, or if it did, not for long.
With the current system, you can't sue the government due to sovereign immunity.
and you still wouldn't be able to. Either they would be immune, they would find excuses to get out of it anyway (i tried but couldn't get there in time), or they would go bankrupt. There are no other options.
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@Greyparrot
His assets plummeted in 2016, not 2020, so his stupidity started in 2016.
oh for sure his behavior attributed to the problem. His whole shtick is his name. He has 2 sources of his wealth. The money he inherited from daddy and the money he gets selling his name after getting famous from the apprentice. And by being such a raging asshole who is hated (or at least disliked) by the majority of americans and most of the world, he damaged the value of his name. And since building up his name's brand value is the only good business he's ever actually accomplished, yes that hurt him financially. Unfortunately for all of us, the only thing that matters to trump more than his money, is his own ego. So to satisfy his ego, he is willing to damage his own finances. Of course, the then abuses his power to try to regain some of that.
but to pretend like the pandemic isn't also a major reason is just childish. The industries he is heavily invested in were some of the hardest hit.
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@Greyparrot
You actually already do this through the licensure process.
ok so you are saying the goal is to make people sign dozens of contracts with the government? that is what you want?
Also, some of them can't really be optional. Like police services. Crime doesn't stay localized to one location and one person most of the time. The person being mugged didn't pay their police contract, better luck next time. Allowing crime to happen is bad for everyone. And fire fighters. Letting a house burn down because they didn't pay for fire fighters isn't really an option. Fires spread from one house to the next, or from one apartment/condo to the next. You can't let one burn without affecting others.
I mean, think about if they didn't pay for mail and companies couldn't mail out bills or other information. It would wreak havoc on businesses.
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@Greyparrot
It does help point out some of the graft he engages in:
"Business at the Trump International Hotel in Washington is doing well thanks to an influx of foreign government officials and GOP bookings." IE foreign governments and members of the GOP are bribing him by buying up rooms in his hotels, even if they don't stay there or there are other options.
"Similarly, the value of the "winter White House," Mar-a-Lago, rose by $10 million, to $160 million — and also reportedly doubled its initiation fee to $200,000." IE he doubled his country club membership fee, but all the GOP, lobbyists, and foreign agents pay it to gain access to trump.
Basically, his hotels, golf courses and rental properties are doing worse. Which is exactly what I said.
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@Greyparrot
How does Netflix pay for anything? Monthly contracts. Government can make subscription contracts for everyone, and it would be less costly than the current tax preparation. There's nothing wrong with "pay to play"
and how would these "contracts" work? You sign a contract to use the roads? you sign a contract to be protected by the military? You sign a contract to be eligible for mail service? You sign a contract to have a member of congress represent you? You sign a contract to be protect by fire fighters? People would need to sign dozens of contracts with the government. And presumably some of them wouldn't be optional, like the military. Everyone is protected, so it's not like you could let people opt out. The military is for alot more than foreign investment.
This sounds like an excellent way to destroy society.
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@Greyparrot
If you mean the endless planned corporate attacks on his image in 2016 when the value of many of his properties relied on the brand of his name, then yes, that "pandemic" cost him a billion dollars.
no, i mean the pandemic where people weren't allowed to travel, where being in close proximity to others was banned, where international travel was restricted. That pandemic. And if you are in the hotel and gold club industry, that pandemic did a huge hit to your bottom line.
A smart person would have sold all those assets and removed his name the day before coming down the escalator.
no, a smart person would have put his assets in a blind trust, like other presidents do. He refused so he could fraudulently profit.
Even Demented Biden knows how to shuffle shaky assets. Obama and Biden did well through the pandemic, very well.
I have no idea how they "did" through the pandemic. But is their money invested in tourist industries like trump's is?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If someone provides a service or good, regardless of whether it is truly critical; do they get to set the price and use force to extract it from you?
these are public assets. We own them. If we don't like the price, we can easily remove the people in charge of them. It is true you are forced to pay, but you have control.
Why does anyone owe the government anything?
because you are part of society. Anyone who is part of that society is required both by law and social contract to contribute to the prosperity and betterment of that society. If you don't want to do that, you are free to leave at any time assuming you can find another nation willing to take you, or some deserted island somewhere. You are not forced to pay taxes. You are not forced to be part of society. Only if you want to live here.
It is illegal to threaten someone with physical violence for failing to agree to your terms (unless you're a government). This is thus irrelevant to "the rich" (unless they are part of a corruption scheme with the government).
what are you talking about? Our society is full of these threats. If you fail to work, you will be ruthlessly punished. Evicted, starved, left to be sick and die. Since virtually all businesses have been progressively paying less and less, while costs go up, businesses have been driving millions into poverty knowing that their workers have no choice but to work.
Logic agrees with my view. (logic created it)
so let me get this straight, there is literally no organized group in the world that agrees with you. Everyone knows your argument is stupid and would lead to the collapse of life as we know it, but "logic agrees with it". That's the debate version of "my mom thinks i'm cool".
Government does not require theft. Clear your mind of prejudices you learned as a child and you will see this is obvious.
explain that then. How does a government govern if it cannot collect money with which to do anything? How does it pay anyone to do anything?
That implies that people have a right to vote that rape is acceptable. True or false?\
Rape was legal, not that long ago. I just described that to you. And yes, assuming they could convince enough people to support such a measure they could do so again. For example, some states are currently in the process of trying to go backwards and steal women's right to control their own body. that is obviously wrong, but being done right now.
Society still does lots of terrible things that in 50-100 years we will look back on and wonder how people could be so barbaric.
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@ponikshiy
She k ows Trump requested peace on Jan 6
lol, trump is very good at this. He fires people up, convinces them to do bad things, then at the last minute throws in a "peacefully" or something. So people like you will defend him saying "he requested peace" after telling people for months to start a war.
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@Greyparrot
He did lose 1.1 billion dollars in net worth after he came down the escalator. What kind of idiot throws away a billion dollars to be president for 4 years?
hmm, it's almost like a billionaire whose wealth is heavily tied up in high end, downtown buildings and golf courses/hotels might not have done well in a pandemic....
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@ponikshiy
He inherited 2 million at most and is reported to be worth 4 billion.
lol impressive, both those numbers are reportedly wildly wrong.
Trump has openly said he was given a gift of 2 million dollars. That might be true, but that gift was one of many. A new york times report from 2018 which looked at all available tax documents from fred trump's business empire and interviewed employees of said business empire, reported that Donald received no less than $413 million dollars from his father. Accounting for inflation, these gifts and inheritance would likely amount to well over a billion dollars today.
His current estimated net worth is 2.5 billion. This means the money his daddy gave him would represent a massive percentage of his current net worth.
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@ponikshiy
even the money aspect isn't a good argument. Trump inherited much of his wealth. Most of his businesses were failures. He only became "successful" in his own right with the apprentice tv show. Basically the only thing trump is good at is being a showman/con man. The apprentice put him in the lime light and convinced alot of people that he was an actual successful businessman. And the only reason they got trump to do that show is because actual successful businessmen turned the show down because they had real work to do. trump had lots of free time since his businesses kept failing.
Trump on his own is a pretty shit businessman. He needs other people to manage his businesses and wealth for him
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If X is a critical service, then we all have a duty to pay into the system make sure those services are provided.
no, that is not correct. There are lots of critical services that don't need direct government control because the profit motive and the public good largely overlap. For example, telecommunications. Companies have a profit motive to build bigger, better communications systems to provide better service and get more customers. You don't need the government to build it themselves. But there are services where the profit motive and public good do not overlap. Some examples are mail service, roads, health care etc. In these, companies are incentivized to only provide service to those people and in those areas where they make the most profit. So companies fail to provide service to many, many people. And in these areas, failure to provide service would cripple the economy. Imagine if roads only got built in urban areas because building and maintaining them in rural areas was too expensive. Large sections of the country would be basicly unusable.
So you claim they owe the worker despite the worker agreeing to work for the pay they did.
lol your argument is terrible. So if I tell a worker, work for 1 dollar a day or I'll kill you, as long as they agree to it that is fine. Or if I tell them, work for 1 dollar a day, or I'll force the bank to foreclose on your home and throw your family into the street. That's also great by your definition. The fact that workers have been getting poorer while business owners have been getting richer for decades is a very bad thing.
You first, mine is the civilized worldview. You stand in defense of the diseases of civilization while I defend its core.
are you high? literally nowhere in the world agrees with your view. Literally every country collects taxes and could not exist if they didn't.
never said voting was the problem. I was pointing out that voting doesn't make an immoral action moral, which is what you implied by saying "Individuals each have the same amount of say in this. A rich person should have no more say in this than a poor person. "
fair enough. but you don't have a right to not pay taxes. and taxes are not immoral. They are literally the core of a functional society.
...and if the government decided that a person was hoarding their body and it was time to pay their fair share would it be any less rape because people voted on it?
I mean, by definition yes. Men used to have a legal right to have sex with their wives, even against their will. It was perfectly legal. Now we recognize that women are legal people too with legal protections separate from their husbands, so now they have a right to control their body. So yes, absolutely. People have the right to vote on what is or isn't acceptable and as we change over time, what is acceptable changes too.
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@Greyparrot
But the real question you have to ask is whether an exit tax is justified to fund corporate welfare in California.
that's a loaded question. You are taking 2 semi related things and making them directly correlated. Is stopping rich people from tax dodging justified? yes. Is corporate welfare a good thing? no, but it's not the sort of thing that can be stopped in one state. If california refused to do it, they'd just move to texas or something. They'd still get all the same government handouts, but california would now just have a economic crisis.
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@Greyparrot
But most of it did happen without massive outlays of corporate welfare, when Government was less than 5% of the GDP instead of the current 40%
I'm not talking about corporate welfare. That's not government, that's corporations taking over the government and abusing. But the modern world could not exist without taxes and government. As an example, the romans built extensive road systems all over Europe using a centralized government funded by taxes. When the empire collapsed and more decentralized governments took over, most roads deteriorated or simply ceased to exist. Trade massively diminished.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Exactly, that's what honest people do when they can't steal.But do they have a right to not set a price, tell you that you're benefiting from what they do, and then take what they deem fit and use it for what they deem fit?
you aren't making any sense. You are comparing a business producing and selling a product to a government providing a service. Your rambling is just nonsense.
Our modern world would not have been possible without taxes and government services.Nor would the holocaust, I guess we'll have to do a more detailed analysis after all. (By 'we' I mean you, I've done that analysis a long time ago).
You have to be trolling right? The industrial revolution would never have happened without government services and taxes. Without governments and taxes, we would probably still be some tribal society clubbing each other with rocks.
Every time they pay another person or company they are paying their fair share. You may have known the fact, but you do not understand the implication. A man who interacts by honestly gained consent cannot be a thief.
No, they are one rich person paying another rich person. That is not "paying their fair share" if both those rich men made their fortunes using public funds, then amass huge amounts of wealth while their workers struggle to stay afloat and the resources they took advantage of to amass their wealth wither.
Thus no one owes taxes.
lol so go live on a deserted island somewhere. If you want to live in a country, you pay taxes. Im sure small children could explain it to you.
If I built the parking lot the analogy is sound.
lol no. Because just because you own a parking lot, does not mean you get to determine the laws that apply to that parking lot.
Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
ok. so let's remove the vote. the same thing would be for dinner. You pretending like voting is the problem in that scenario is just childish.
Apply your logic to consent for sexual contact, how do you feel about that?
lol seriously? we do. We have laws that determine what kind of sexual contact is ok. Those laws are decided by the government, which is voted on by the people. How is this news to you?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Communists are what communists do. Not interested in playing that semantic game at this time. Not when you're engaging on substantive matters.
I mean, you engage in normal right wing tactics. Claim that communists are doing terrible, terrible things. But when challenged on what communists you mean and what exactly they have done that makes them communists, you just refuse to answer.
What's the answer HistoryBuff?
that this example is stupid. Steel is not a public service. It is a good. They are not giving that steel to anyone. They are selling it. The government does not sell roads to people. It does not sell schools to people. It provides them to public for free so that everyone benefits. If the government wanted to produce steel and give it away for free, only then would it be a similar concept. But your average person has no use for bars of steel, so it would still be silly.
You don't really believe that something intrinsic about public services that requires blank check theft. You have a problem with wealth inequality and you want a legal way to steal to 'fix' it.
the funny thing about your beliefs is that large chunks of them were the norm for thousands of years. Where people had to pay for their own education. Where roads had to be built by the wealthy and they could control them. These practices, while effective in a rudimentary way, held back society for millennia. It is only when a centralized state started taking over these services that we got ever increasing advances. Our modern world would not have been possible without taxes and government services.
I would have hoped a history buff would know that in the USSR bread was an essential government service.
you don't know what the word service means do you? Because bread, by definition, is not a service.
Taxes are untraceable economic interactions. I meant when they get something from a store they pay for it.
I don't believe anyone has ever claimed otherwise. So it's a wierd thing to say.
They owe nothing but what they agreed to pay, same as the rest of us.
no one "agrees to pay" taxes. That is not how anything works. That's like saying, "I didn't agree to parking laws, so I'm not going to pay my parking ticket". It's childish. We as a society determine what services we need and how much we need to chip in to make that happen. Individuals each have the same amount of say in this. A rich person should have no more say in this than a poor person.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Reentry, so say only if they had lived in California in the past five years.
that might work
Communists think they own everything.I'm not aware of any communists in America. Certainly not in any government role.Bla bla bla, playing dumb. Gotcha.
Name me a single communist in office and what communist policy they have suggested. You either can't name one, or you don't know what the word communist means.
Best part about this plan? Nobody has any stolen goods so you can tell what the hell is going on.
this whole rant was little bit nonsensical. All companies make money based on public funds. Their employees are educated using public funds. The roads they use to transport goods are built with public funds etc. Without public services, most companies couldn't function. So yes, it is critical that they pay back into to system to help support it since we all rely on those public services.
And it sounds like you are suggesting like life without any taxes would be some kind of paradise. that is literally not possible. society would collapse and some other society that does use taxes (literally all of them) would take over.
And I've bought a ferry ticket before, doesn't mean the boatman owns me. All prices must be clearly marked, and unless otherwise specified in formal contract final. Anything else is fraud.In other words, pay for the road with tolls.
this is dumb. I mean, should fire fighters charge the person whose house is burning and refuse to put it out if they can't pay? The kind of model you are suggesting died out in the middle ages.
If it's free, why do you claim to be using it as a justification for seizing property?
I'm not sure you understand. nothing is "free". It is just free at the point of service. IE a child or their parents don't pay to go to the school. The school is funded via taxes. History has proven this is a vastly superior way to do it even if you take morality and fairness out of it. It ensures you have an educated workforce which improves the economy and makes everyone richer. If people had to pay to access education, there would be millions who couldn't afford it and we would all be worse off.
Trace any economic interaction. The rich pay there way in every conceivable measure the same as the rest of us.
no, not really. They pay a lower tax rate than you do. In some cases billionaires can actually pay $0 in tax.
Without the state (or at least a state) your mother would have been raped and murdered before she had you, doesn't mean the state owns you.
I have never claimed the states owns me or anyone else. But the state provides services that are critically important. Therefore we all have a duty to pay into the system to make sure those services are provided.
They did already (excluding fraud and corruption as always). That's what the money means.
what? the fact that they have money does not mean they paid their fair share. The rich constantly use loop holes and tax havens to avoid paying their fair share. Billionaires can often pay as little as $0 in taxes. Most rich people pay a lower tax rate than you do. And that's just the officially available numbers. The money they made and just hid without paying taxes on it at, no one could even begin to guess.
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95% of users didnt leave the site after free speech was applied. 95% of users stayed on the site. If 95% of users stayed on the site, then 95% of users didnt leave the site after free speech was applied.
most twitter users have been using it for years. They don't want to leave twitter because it is a significant part of their life. So they aren't going to leave on a dime the second elon buys it. They will leave once it becomes clear the app sucks now. And that takes time. They have to get more and more fed up with elon's bullshit. And millions have already gotten to that point. and over the next few years, 10's of millions more will too. Social media sites rely on growth. Maintaining the same number of users doesn't cut it. Losing users year after year definitely doesn't cut it. If elon can't stop the bleeding, Twitter will die. And since the bleeding is caused by things Elon is doing, he is incapable of stopping it.
Twitter didnt shut down after applying free speech.
no, they just lost the large majority of their revenue and are losing money every single day. They are propped up only by the wealth of some rich assholes. When they either run out of money or (more likely) get sick of losing so much money, then they shut down (or sell to someone capable of actually running a successful social media company).
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@ADreamOfLiberty
How in the world is that a loophole? Does someone from Texas need to pay California when they make money?
of course not. But if someone from california moves to texas for a few weeks, sells assets, then moves back to california, then absolutely they need to pay california.
It sounds like you just don't believe them when they say they're moving out of California. Well you don't get to decide what they identify as ;)
I'm just describing what this law is intended to do. Whether or not I believe them is irrelevant. There is a loophole where rich people from california "move", sell their assets in a lower tax state, then "move" back.
Abstract moral principle is the only alternative to savagery. If I was a freeman I would still care about the injustice done to a slave.
blah, blah, blah. The rich shouldn't have to pay their share. gotcha.
If it's a temporary thing make it a rentry tax eh? No of course not, because it's not about any silly loophole.
while this would of course also close the loophole, it would also hit people just trying to move to california. Which they don't want. They only want to target the assholes abusing the system.
Communists think they own everything.
I'm not aware of any communists in America. Certainly not in any government role.
A rich person is already a thief in their eyes, at best they're borrowing wealth from society, so when they rich person leaves the communist sees that as making off with all the toys in the sandbox.
most rich people make alot of their money using public funds. They use public infrastructure. They benefit from the free public schooling the state provides etc. Without the state, these people would not have made their money. And yes, that means they should pay their fair share back into the system that helped them make their money.
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