View Poll Results: 10 days left, what'll it be?

Voters
92. This poll is closed
  • Hard Brexit (crash out)

    45 48.91%
  • No Brexit (Remain by revoking A50)

    24 26.09%
  • Withdrawal Agreement (after a new session is called)

    0 0%
  • Extension + Withdrawal Agreement

    3 3.26%
  • Extension + Crashout

    9 9.78%
  • Extension + Remain

    11 11.96%
  1. #22881
    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    To the US government. "fighting communism" is just an excuse to gain power or to commit ethnic cleansing. Vietnam being the best example of it.
    And to European governments, ethnic cleansing was in effect national policy for five hundred years.

    Shall we discuss how tens of millions of Native Americans were wiped out in the Americas due to infectious disease and wars, before their was a United States or a Mexico, when it was all an extension of European Colonialism?

    Shall we discuss all the wonderful things Europeans did to their neighbors and it's colonial dominions... not just in pre-modern times, but through the 1990s in Yugoslavia. I mean, we never did anything like the Holocaust, or the African land grabs. Or the Opium Wars. Or the Algerian War.

    Look, we can sit around comparing our blood histories, and it all goes back ultimately to the first Homo Sapien Hunter Gatherers moving into Europe, smashing the skull of the last Neanderthals with their clubs. The history of the human race is in most ways, one group of people taking land, property and lives from another group of people. Go back far enough, and basically nobody is the first inhabitant of anywhere.

    But it's pointless, because the implication of that is that contemporary people are responsible for the sins of their ancestors. I find that notion to be barbaric. People are responsible for themselves, not what their Great Grandparents, or further removed relations did, or their generation, or their national policies.

  2. #22882
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Shall we discuss all the wonderful things Europeans did to their neighbors and it's colonial dominions... not just in pre-modern times, but through the 1990s in Yugoslavia. I mean, we never did anything like the Holocaust, or the African land grabs. Or the Opium Wars. Or the Algerian War
    Ummm... what, exactly, did "Europeans" do in the "1990s in Yugoslavia"?

    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    I mean, we never did anything like the Holocaust, or the African land grabs.
    How's about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba? Your support of Mobutu?

    That's just one example.

    Get off your high horse.

  3. #22883
    Quote Originally Posted by LeGin Tufnel View Post
    Ummm... what, exactly, did "Europeans" do in the "1990s in Yugoslavia"?



    How's about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba? Your support of Mobutu?

    That's just one example.

    Get off your high horse.
    Did you actually read my post, specifically the last two paragraphs? Or did you just quit at the part you quoted.

    I SPECIFICALLY said there is no horse for anyone to be on. Nobody. All our ancestors committed terrible crimes. But we're not responsible for the things they did. We're our own people, only responsible for the things we do. Cultural, familial and historic responsibility is barbaric.

    Seriously, why do you people partake in forum discussions and yet are unwilling to actually *read* posts. What precisely are you doing here in the first place? First someone accuses me of conflating Communism and Social Democracy, which I emphatically not do. And now someone accuses me of making some ridiculous US vs EU thing, which I even MORE emphatically did not do. All in the same page.

    Like holy hell... finish reading the post and maybe do others the courtesy of digesting the point, and if you can't be assed, don't reply.

    And for the record, I have a long history in this forum of being a big time Europhile. I adore Europe and Europeans and travel there semi-regularly. I will be going to Spain not long from now on business. I'm not some backwater hick who wears a MAGA flag and talks about saving yer asses in dubya-dubya-two.
    Last edited by Skroe; 2019-10-30 at 08:33 PM.

  4. #22884
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    *SNIP*
    Europe has it's own version of the "MAGA Euro trash talking type", they won't read your posts but just blame you for killing Indians and whatnot. They'd be left-wing though and act as if Communism is impossible to fathom except for them, my guess is that they're convinced that everyone who isnt fans of communism must have misunderstood it

  5. #22885
    Quote Originally Posted by Crispin View Post
    Europe has it's own version of the "MAGA Euro trash talking type", they won't read your posts but just blame you for killing Indians and whatnot. They'd be left-wing though and act as if Communism is impossible to fathom except for them, my guess is that they're convinced that everyone who isnt fans of communism must have misunderstood it
    Yes, that's right.

    I'm a "MAGA Euro trash talking type".

    Carry on.

  6. #22886
    Banned JohnBrown1917's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LeGin Tufnel View Post
    Ummm... what, exactly, did "Europeans" do in the "1990s in Yugoslavia"?



    How's about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba? Your support of Mobutu?

    That's just one example.

    Get off your high horse.
    Trail of tears.
    'Battle' of wounde knee
    etc.

    I'm not sure why they always bring up horrible shit europeans did. How is that a defence of the horrible shit the US is doing now anyway?

  7. #22887
    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    Did you actually read my post, specifically the last two paragraphs? Or did you just quit at the part you quoted.

    Like holy hell... finish reading the post and maybe do others the courtesy of digesting the point, and if you can't be assed, don't reply.
    Actually, this might be a rarity round here but, yes - sorry, I think I missed the point.

    My apologies.

    I'll head off back into retirement.

  8. #22888
    Quote Originally Posted by LeGin Tufnel View Post
    Actually, this might be a rarity round here but, yes - sorry, I think I missed the point.

    My apologies.

    I'll head off back into retirement.
    I appreciate the honesty. Don't worry about it!

  9. #22889
    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    Trail of tears.
    'Battle' of wounde knee
    etc.

    I'm not sure why they always bring up horrible shit europeans did. How is that a defence of the horrible shit the US is doing now anyway?
    Because your name and posts seem to ignore every horrible shit coomunist regimes have done, so they are honest and bring some perspective and contrast?

  10. #22890
    Banned JohnBrown1917's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Demolitia View Post
    Because your name and posts seem to ignore every horrible shit coomunist regimes have done, so they are honest and bring some perspective and contrast?
    You're really reaching here.

  11. #22891
    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    You're really reaching here.
    I'm not, you make an amalgamation between a geographical Europe, what the EU was back then, what mandate it had and what member States did.

  12. #22892
    Banned JohnBrown1917's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Demolitia View Post
    I'm not, you make an amalgamation between a geographical Europe, what the EU was back then, what mandate it had and what member States did.
    I really have no idea what you're talking about... like at all.

  13. #22893
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    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    oo
    Americans thinking they know what a proper left-wing leader looks like is rather funny, you guys still consider corperate-backed candidates or former GoP members to be "left-wing".
    Eheeeee....no.

    First off, I earned US citizen as an adult - I'm an expatriate of the British commonwealth, and even then I was a second generation child of a Greek family who left Greece precisely because they were actual, hardcore, ouzo-blooded southern european leftists...To say nothing of my other half consisting almost entirely of Australian Labor voters since before Federation.

    You'll pardon me for flexing my heritage since you seem to think I'm not acquainted with what actual, visceral left wing politics looks like.

    Moreover, I consider myself a socialist; to the point that I think capitalism as we understand it is rapidly approaching the point of unsustainability and we need to forge a new path forward that probably will resemble none of the industrial governments whether capitalist or "communist". But I thoroughly disavow the sort of militant hard leftism that sees overthrowing the entirety of the established order not as a last resort, but as a principle goal. That belief is held by sort of people who think they can mandate their ideology onto everyone else by fiat. And that is fundamentally no different from any right wing authoritarian alternative; four legs good, two legs better.

    And that's fundamentally the chief difference between myself and people cosplaying as red raggers - i.e Jeremy Corbyn. I view strong leftism as a necessary pole in a democratic balance, not an idol to be put on a pedestal for the masses to worship.
    Last edited by Elegiac; 2019-10-30 at 11:06 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi
    The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk and understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.

  14. #22894
    I am Murloc!
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    Quote Originally Posted by LeGin Tufnel View Post
    Ummm... what, exactly, did "Europeans" do in the "1990s in Yugoslavia"?
    Is that.. a serious question?

    The country was in Europe so.. most of what happened

  15. #22895
    Quote Originally Posted by CommunismWillWin View Post
    Trail of tears.
    'Battle' of wounde knee
    etc.

    I'm not sure why they always bring up horrible shit europeans did. How is that a defence of the horrible shit the US is doing now anyway?
    You act as if Europe does not participate in American wars. Which is kind of funny considering the MAGA morons also get that wrong, they're of course just pissed that Europe "doesnt do nuthin" while some Europeans put all the blame on the Americans cus they conveniently ignore European participation.

    In the end there arent any "good countries", reality is not a movie with hero's and villains. And as Skroe pointed out, stop blaming people for something something their country once did, does etc. You could argue that "hey you voted for Bush", if they did, and even then they'd have to know torture and invading Iraq was on the table. Imho it's as stupid as stereotyping people because of their race.
    Last edited by Crispin; 2019-10-31 at 08:34 AM.

  16. #22896
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nymrohd View Post
    Everyone has done horrible shit. I'd wager the few places that haven't done REALLY horrible things probably didn't because they were never in power to do so. It's also completely off topic.
    All the focus on the horrible shit whichever regime did is a distraction from an example, like say Cuba, where everyone has a house, food, water, utilities, and healthcare. Meanwhile capitalism's great answer to everything being more capitalism so rich people can collect rent from the workers for exactly those things, and more, while pretending they're discretionary expenditures because luxury options exist. Yeah, 'luxury' electricity, water and gas...

  17. #22897
    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    All the focus on the horrible shit whichever regime did is a distraction from an example, like say Cuba, where everyone has a house, food, water, utilities, and healthcare. Meanwhile capitalism's great answer to everything being more capitalism so rich people can collect rent from the workers for exactly those things, and more, while pretending they're discretionary expenditures because luxury options exist. Yeah, 'luxury' electricity, water and gas...
    The entire internet argument (and it's just that) between Capitalism and Socialism is entirely pointless because:

    (1) It's a false dichotomy to begin with. Every Western country is Capitalist with varying degrees of Social Democracy. No one serious is proposing replacing public schools with private schools as a whole, or privatizing the fire department. The central argument is over how far should government-paid-and-managed services stretch versus private solutions to those services. That's a healthy debate to have and there is no one right answer. It's up to the people, democratically, to decide what they want.

    (2) Capitalism isn't seriously threatened by any alternative in the world today and simply saying nasty words about it doesn't make it a threat. The surge of Bernie Sanders supporters, in the US for example, is really a revival of what used to be called "New Deal Democrats" who went into decline in the 1960s over Vietnam, and basically vanished off the the face of the earth after Jimmy Carter, George McGovern and Dukakis's back-to-back-to-back defeats in 1980,1984 and 1988. They were replaced with "New Democrats" from 1992 until 2016. New Deal Democrats a historically normal part of the political constellation in the US and not socialists (ignore the BernieBros who declared themselves "Socialists" once Lord Sanders introduced the word into their lexicon, they aren't serious people). But they're also a minority in their party... currently polling at about 15%. As a whole progressives Democrats are about a third of the Democratic Party, give or take. And the Democratic Party is between a quarter and a third of the entire American electorate. So let's call Progressives a third of a third of the country, and New Deal Democrats a sixth of a third of the country.

    The masses rising up, this is not. Because that's not what it is suppose to be. I oppose them politically, but I recognize what they are: the natural arising of a political front that seeks to repair the frayed social contract of the last 40 years, ahead of other priorities. The wider electorate hasn't quite got there yet. They may in time. They may not. But it's far from some silly attack on "Capitalism". They are by in large very much "capitalists" in a de facto sense, but in the real world most actual human beings don't define themselves as a "capitalist". Like it's kind of ridiculious. I'm a Software engineer. I work at a successful business. I get paid well. I don't want government taking all of my money. I want to have control over my earnings. And sure I own stocks and could be called part of the Investor class. But I don't exactly dwell on "capitalist principles" and things of that nature. That's pretty silly. Who is actually that rigidly ideological? Nutcases? Cartoon characters?

    So sure.... technically speaking call me a capitalist. I also live in a state with high taxes and a generous social safety net. I also made use of Federal Student Loans while in College. I guess that just makes me... a person? Not some ideologue grown in a vat.

    And that's not unusual. That's Americans as a whole. And I like to think people around the world.

    Point is, is that the revival of Social Democracy in certain places (and let's be clear, it's been in decline across vast swathes of Europe too) presages nothing particularly out of the ordinary, least of all some kind of displacement of Capitalism as the two are not in competition. Even more directly... if Communism couldn't win the Cold War with the backing of the Soviet Union, the second most powerful country of the 20th century, then it stands to reason that without the backing of a major power, no alternative will displace capitalism.

    In fact, the key ideological struggle of the 21st cventury is going to be between Liberal Democratic Free Market Capitalism (which includes social democracy within its umbrella) of the United States and the West, versus authoritarian state-capitalism of the Chinese alternative.

  18. #22898
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    The entire internet argument (and it's just that) between Capitalism and Socialism is entirely pointless because:

    (1) It's a false dichotomy to begin with. Every Western country is Capitalist with varying degrees of Social Democracy. No one serious is proposing replacing public schools with private schools as a whole, or privatizing the fire department. The central argument is over how far should government-paid-and-managed services stretch versus private solutions to those services. That's a healthy debate to have and there is no one right answer. It's up to the people, democratically, to decide what they want.

    (2) Capitalism isn't seriously threatened by any alternative in the world today and simply saying nasty words about it doesn't make it a threat. The surge of Bernie Sanders supporters, in the US for example, is really a revival of what used to be called "New Deal Democrats" who went into decline in the 1960s over Vietnam, and basically vanished off the the face of the earth after Jimmy Carter, George McGovern and Dukakis's back-to-back-to-back defeats in 1980,1984 and 1988. They were replaced with "New Democrats" from 1992 until 2016. New Deal Democrats a historically normal part of the political constellation in the US and not socialists (ignore the BernieBros who declared themselves "Socialists" once Lord Sanders introduced the word into their lexicon, they aren't serious people). But they're also a minority in their party... currently polling at about 15%. As a whole progressives Democrats are about a third of the Democratic Party, give or take. And the Democratic Party is between a quarter and a third of the entire American electorate. So let's call Progressives a third of a third of the country, and New Deal Democrats a sixth of a third of the country.

    The masses rising up, this is not. Because that's not what it is suppose to be. I oppose them politically, but I recognize what they are: the natural arising of a political front that seeks to repair the frayed social contract of the last 40 years, ahead of other priorities. The wider electorate hasn't quite got there yet. They may in time. They may not. But it's far from some silly attack on "Capitalism". They are by in large very much "capitalists" in a de facto sense, but in the real world most actual human beings don't define themselves as a "capitalist". Like it's kind of ridiculious. I'm a Software engineer. I work at a successful business. I get paid well. I don't want government taking all of my money. I want to have control over my earnings. And sure I own stocks and could be called part of the Investor class. But I don't exactly dwell on "capitalist principles" and things of that nature. That's pretty silly. Who is actually that rigidly ideological? Nutcases? Cartoon characters?

    So sure.... technically speaking call me a capitalist. I also live in a state with high taxes and a generous social safety net. I also made use of Federal Student Loans while in College. I guess that just makes me... a person? Not some ideologue grown in a vat.

    And that's not unusual. That's Americans as a whole. And I like to think people around the world.

    Point is, is that the revival of Social Democracy in certain places (and let's be clear, it's been in decline across vast swathes of Europe too) presages nothing particularly out of the ordinary, least of all some kind of displacement of Capitalism as the two are not in competition. Even more directly... if Communism couldn't win the Cold War with the backing of the Soviet Union, the second most powerful country of the 20th century, then it stands to reason that without the backing of a major power, no alternative will displace capitalism.

    In fact, the key ideological struggle of the 21st cventury is going to be between Liberal Democratic Free Market Capitalism (which includes social democracy within its umbrella) of the United States and the West, versus authoritarian state-capitalism of the Chinese alternative.
    You don’t want gummint takin’ all ya money. Sure.

    But you’re happy to leech off the infrastructure they provide, and provide to your clients so you can have an actual business in the first place.

    Hilariously as a software engineer, your entire profession wouldn’t even exist without government investment.

    Private companies do very little genuine research and development into entirely new areas. That’s the realm of government and non-profits which are good enough to open source the answers from which private enterprise benefits.

    Fossil fuel industries, car industry, wouldn’t exist without government finance to kick start it and provide and maintain infrastructure for it to be viable.

    A very sizeable chunk of your private expenditure, you’d spend anyway, it’s just where you spent it, in an inefficient system that fails on economies of scale. Your transit, I presume you have a car, is based on taxes for the roads, and the car itself; another tax or rent collected by private individuals for an essential part of your life. And it out competes public transport, not but accident but by design and lobbying to build a car centric society.

    The government isn’t stealing anything. It’s utility companies, car manufacturers, landlords, health insurance, and so on and on that are taking money for profit that you’d have to spend it anyway. And you don’t call that theft?

    Edit: I’ll continue.

    You fail to understand the difference between discretionary and non-discretionary expenditure. You don’t understand the difference between an open and close market.

    Free market capitalism works fine in discretionary open markets. Once it seeps into closed markets, which take non-discretionary expenditures, it becomes exploitative.

    The US ideal of more capitalism everywhere is basically just a feudal system of robber barons, engineering closed markets to collect more rent.
    Last edited by Jessicka; 2019-10-31 at 11:08 AM.

  19. #22899
    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    You don’t want gummint takin’ all ya money. Sure.
    What's wrong with that? I have a social obligation to contribute my fair share as we democratically decide what that should be (we elect representatives, those representatives set tax rates on our behalf). But beyond that I'm entitled to every cent.

    What's the problem there?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    But you’re happy to leech off the infrastructure they provide, and provide to your clients so you can have an actual business in the first place.
    I pay 37% of my income in Federal Income Taxes, and about 6% of it in State taxes and some other percent in Social Security and Local taxes. So nearly 50% of my income in taxes.

    How precisely is that leeching?


    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    Hilariously as a software engineer, your entire profession wouldn’t even exist without government investment.
    I mean, this is correct and I'm a big advocate of government spending on science and technology. More specifically my company (I work for... not "mine" per se) is a research company - we don't really make anything for sale, but we develop technologies and IP. It's a US firm owned by a Japanese industrial company. Our largest three "investors" (in the sense of contract awards and grants) are the Japanese government, the US government and the Canadian government, in that order.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    Private companies do very little genuine research and development into entirely new areas. That’s the realm of government and non-profits which are good enough to open source the answers from which private enterprise benefits.
    I don't know what pile of bullshit you pull that from, but holy hell, that's wrong. I am a scientist. I've been in this industry over a decade (Robots/Distributed computing). Government directly does almost no research in computer science anymore. That was a mid-Cold War thing. Universities do largely basic science. Today it's done largely by private companies like mine, or research groups like GoogleX or Microsoft Research. This is true of most science and engineering. Governments do award grants - and government funded science is particularly important in the fields of biological science and physics. But don't extrapolate that to mean "all science", because it is not remotely uniform. The professional experience in who they work for, writing proposals, procuring funding, and publishing a paper molecular biologist and a computer scientist in the US are going to be very different.

    Even a favorite internet topic of science-engineering - Space - is largely private. Government pays for it. But the technology is proprietary and it's largely private companies executing it.





    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    Fossil fuel industries, car industry, wouldn’t exist without government finance to kick start it and provide and maintain infrastructure for it to be viable.
    Yes, it's a real sad story we don't still rise horses and are limited to traveling no more than 25 miles in a single day due to the endurance of said horse.

    Real sad.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    A very sizeable chunk of your private expenditure, you’d spend anyway, it’s just where you spent it, in an inefficient system that fails on economies of scale. Your transit, I presume you have a car, is based on taxes for the roads, and the car itself; another tax or rent collected by private individuals for an essential part of your life. And it out competes public transport, not but accident but by design and lobbying to build a car centric society.
    Geographically America is not ideally built for public transport.

    I like land. A lot of land. I own 2 acres and a 4000 sq foot house. I live in a rural area in Massachusetts, next to a farm, 50 minutes from Boston. It is 25 minutes for me to drive to work in a suburb of Boston in my BMW 550i with a V8 engine, or a 90 minute commute on a bike, then take two buses, then walk.

    I'm going to put this simple: I am not remotely interested in living some kind of urban, communal mode of living. I like land, and I want land. It is mine. It belongs to me. This is not unique.

    America is very spread out, and Americans want land to call their own. Car culture in America isn't driven by government. Car culture is driven by Americans deciding what they want for themselves, and the fact is, we have more land than we know what to do with.




    Quote Originally Posted by Jessicka View Post
    The government isn’t stealing anything. It’s utility companies, car manufacturers, landlords, health insurance, and so on and on that are taking money for profit that you’d have to spend it anyway. And you don’t call that theft?
    Who said anything about the Government stealing anything? Certainly not me. I have a social obligation to fulfill in taxes. That is my patriotic duty. And not one penny more.

    As for the rest of your targets, I mean, that's a matter of opinion. I have fairly cheap utilities that are all-renewable. I drive a German car. I have a mortgage not a land lord. I have employer provided health insurance that I'm very happy with. That last point is the biggest problem of a public healthcare option in the US - The overwhelming majority of Americans are quite happy with their insurance, and are pretty much ready for the 7% without insurance to rot.

  20. #22900
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skroe View Post
    What's wrong with that? I have a social obligation to contribute my fair share as we democratically decide what that should be (we elect representatives, those representatives set tax rates on our behalf). But beyond that I'm entitled to every cent.

    What's the problem there?


    I pay 37% of my income in Federal Income Taxes, and about 6% of it in State taxes and some other percent in Social Security and Local taxes. So nearly 50% of my income in taxes.

    How precisely is that leeching?



    I mean, this is correct and I'm a big advocate of government spending on science and technology. More specifically my company (I work for... not "mine" per se) is a research company - we don't really make anything for sale, but we develop technologies and IP. It's a US firm owned by a Japanese industrial company. Our largest three "investors" (in the sense of contract awards and grants) are the Japanese government, the US government and the Canadian government, in that order.



    I don't know what pile of bullshit you pull that from, but holy hell, that's wrong. I am a scientist. I've been in this industry over a decade (Robots/Distributed computing). Government directly does almost no research in computer science anymore. That was a mid-Cold War thing. Universities do largely basic science. Today it's done largely by private companies like mine, or research groups like GoogleX or Microsoft Research. This is true of most science and engineering. Governments do award grants - and government funded science is particularly important in the fields of biological science and physics. But don't extrapolate that to mean "all science", because it is not remotely uniform. The professional experience in who they work for, writing proposals, procuring funding, and publishing a paper molecular biologist and a computer scientist in the US are going to be very different.

    Even a favorite internet topic of science-engineering - Space - is largely private. Government pays for it. But the technology is proprietary and it's largely private companies executing it.






    Yes, it's a real sad story we don't still rise horses and are limited to traveling no more than 25 miles in a single day due to the endurance of said horse.

    Real sad.



    Geographically America is not ideally built for public transport.

    I like land. A lot of land. I own 2 acres and a 4000 sq foot house. I live in a rural area in Massachusetts, next to a farm, 50 minutes from Boston. It is 25 minutes for me to drive to work in a suburb of Boston in my BMW 550i with a V8 engine, or a 90 minute commute on a bike, then take two buses, then walk.

    I'm going to put this simple: I am not remotely interested in living some kind of urban, communal mode of living. I like land, and I want land. It is mine. It belongs to me. This is not unique.

    America is very spread out, and Americans want land to call their own. Car culture in America isn't driven by government. Car culture is driven by Americans deciding what they want for themselves, and the fact is, we have more land than we know what to do with.





    Who said anything about the Government stealing anything? Certainly not me. I have a social obligation to fulfill in taxes. That is my patriotic duty. And not one penny more.

    As for the rest of your targets, I mean, that's a matter of opinion. I have fairly cheap utilities that are all-renewable. I drive a German car. I have a mortgage not a land lord. I have employer provided health insurance that I'm very happy with. That last point is the biggest problem of a public healthcare option in the US - The overwhelming majority of Americans are quite happy with their insurance, and are pretty much ready for the 7% without insurance to rot.
    “Government spends nothing on research. The top 3 investors in my research organisation are governments.” The same is true of Google, Space-X and so forth, their research has huge government backing. The model has changed from government labs in certain instances, but they still throw the money in. That’s shadier because it doesn’t necessarily put the product of that research into the public domain.

    That’s all I need to take from this.

    Seriously. If you don’t want to pay government for something you have to pay for anyway, someone with far less oversight and accountability will.

    In your mortgage, your bank is your landlord until its paid or foreclosed.

    Utility and healthcare you think is cheap, or you think your company pays for, it’s an illusion, you have no comparitive basis to make those judgements. The healthcare is money that went to a healthcare company instead of the taxman or into your pocket as a part of your salary; It’s money you never had.

    You, like many Americans I’ve spoken to, just have that mental block of what’s actually discretionary expenditure.

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