NeuroTypical

I admit that I had to look up interspecies protextation before I caught on.

Am I the only one confused by the last 4 posts in this thread?

Because they believe drumming up fears will win votes for them, and lose votes for the other guy. It's politics 101. I mean, it's possible that discovery of how things work in Medicare might make them look bad, but occam's razor would seem to indicate plain old fear-drumming is the most likely reason. The last time I heard this level of disaster and doom pedaling was during the welfare reform parts of Gingrich's Contract with America. I remember Maxine Waters standing up and screaming, genuinely shrieking, about how the R's welfare reform would result in "bodies stacked like cordwood" as the poor people began dying off as the checks were stopping. In reality, what happened was the FedGov got out of the welfare business and just did block grants to the states so they could handle welfare themselves. It worked so well that within a decade the Dems were claiming the welfare reform was their idea.

Over the years, I've absolutely noticed a big uptick in homeless, tent cities, trash, and vandalism on the main street running through Aurora. Aurora consistently makes national news for having the most progressive town leadership this side of Seattle and Portland. It remains a proud sanctuary city when even our gay governor has distanced his state from the notion. I forget if they've legalized injection sites or not, but they're always talking about it. Aurora made international news and helped get Trump elected after exposing it's Tren de Aragua problem, with door cams showing gang members with rifles prowling around apartment buildings. The problem was absolutely blown out of proportion by the right wing press, but yeah, Aurora is no stranger to gangs and immigrant issues. All that said, off the main drag, the surrounding neighborhoods might be just fine. Grandma/pa's experience in Aurora is the determining factor. I only drive through it from time to time - we go to the hospital up there occasionally. One hospital visit we noticed an unfinished apartment complex across the road was on fire, and it made the news as started by homeless. I'm posting scary things, so absolutely check with grandparents first to see what their day to day life in Aurora looks like. It's entirely possible they're in a safe neighborhood miles and miles away from all the madness.

Colorado has all but fallen to the Cali inmigrants. This original bill would just outright ban semiautomatic firearms. We've forced amendments so now it adds hoops you must jump through (training and whatnot) before you buy one. It'll possibly pass. https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/semiautomatic-gun-bill-set-for-first-committee-vote-in-the-house Time for another Morse/Girion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Colorado_recall_election

Legalese is hard to follow. (b) Homicide is not justifiable when committed by a person in all of the following cases: (3) When the person was the assailant, engaged in mutual combat, or knowingly engaged in conduct reasonably likely to provoke a person to commit a felony or do some great bodily injury, except if either of the following circumstances apply: (B) In good faith, the person withdrew from the encounter with the other assailant or assailants and indicated clearly to the other assailant or assailants that the person desired to withdraw and terminated the use of any force, but the other assailant or assailants continued or resumed the use of force. AI Plain English summary: So, Carb gets into a road rage incident and both cars pull over and both of you get out. Both of you approach each other, both of you with bats, both of you claiming you're gonna bash in the other guy's head. After a few swings and some damage, dude drops the bat and raises his hands defensively and backs off, saying 'ok bro you win I don't wanna fight any more'. If you proceed to end him at that point, your homicide might be considered justifiable. You might claim he was still a threat, and you feared he was going to pull a gun on you next. That's what b3B says.

@mirkwood What's your take on transnational criminal orgs like Tren de Aragua, or the various cartels that moved their MJ operations into the US to take advantage of legalized MJ?

It's easier for the gadiantons to get stuff done if folks don't understand them or underestimate them.

As someone who used to have this antique inherited Masonic plate hanging on his kitchen wall, I agree. It ain't idolatry if the only reason it's there is to test the courage of your LDS guests.

So, today was ward conference. The Stake President told us about an experience he had with Elder Stevenson. The Apostle had called him in for a friendly meeting about how to best forward the work of the kingdom, and how important the youth are to our ability to do that. At one point, Elder Stevenson said something like this: "You North American leaders are TOO STUFFY! You need to have more joyfulness and energy like the leaders in Africa." (Yes, our SP used the word 'stuffy'.) I immediately thought about this thread and the awkwardness about "This Little Light of Mine", and the comments on the importance of reverent solemnity and all that. Makes me wonder.

Guitar, huh? Well, at least it's not a brass instrument. I hate to see a cultural change ruin a perfectly good joke.

I just wanted to say I've been arguing healthcare rights vs entitlements vs moral good with our neighbors across the pond for decades now. I've often found y'all to be the more civil in most such debates. Not always, but often. I've almost never seen anyone budge on their existing opinion about govt support of healthcare, but folks (usually the UK folks) will often bend on their definition on RvEvMG the more they think about the definitions. No matter what the outcome of this thread, I'm glad you're here @HaggisShuu. If you ever get bored of arguing politics and healthcare, we can argue gun rights!

Another way to put it: "I'm considering becoming a pediatric doctor. I hear that means I am promising to labor in my trade for anyone who wants, regardless of who can pay or not, whether they're dangerous or not, whether I will be able to pay my bills or not. Because apparently healthcare is free, and which means me and the other pediatric doctors don't get a say in the matter. I wonder what the penalty is for refusing service. Does the government get involved? Will they try to pressure, coerce, or force me to ply my trade even if I have good reasons against it? Will they imprison me, or seize my medical license, or fine me, or tax me until I comply? Nah. I think I'll become a tax accountant instead. At least until the government decides that tax accounting is a right that must be provided for free because we live in a just and equitable society."

I believe you. Politicians grab votes where they can get 'em, by pandering as much as they can without alienating their other voters. Sending affirming messages to horrible people while maintaining plausible deniability about how they're not themselves horrible, is maybe not politics 101, but it's absolutely politics 212. Like after George Floyd, when the Dems saw all the angry people pouring into the street, and did their best to get out in front to be seen as leaders. While also enacting policy and law changes that directly aided the lawless violent destructive elements in the movement. Here's the left wing's version of elected republicans on Gab: Aww, so you do care! You posting here is explicit admission that thirdhour is not a muddy cesspool! Nicest thing anyone has said to me all week. You're ok in my book, BP.

Again, difference between a nazi with a day job, and a corporate landscape full of antimerit anticapitalists, who actually are paid by their employers to attend symposia and read books and hire guest speakers to forward such notions. Alt-right violent extremists of any stripe will tend to be fired if found out. For 4 years I hung out with those people weekly. I wanted to learn everything about them I could. They paid for me to attend symposia. I ran the monthly bookclub where we read Kendi's How to be an Antiracist, with an entire chapter against merit, and an entire chapter against capitalism. I helped with the budget so they could pay thousands for a guest lecturer to help us understand stuff like white privilege and systemic racism, with accompanying furrowed brows and disgust directed against merit and capitalism. I'm telling you that they lived and breathed anti-merit anti-capitalism. Such sentiments were expressed sometimes weekly, usually at least monthly. Since the election with all the merit vs. DEI talk, the rhetoric in the group has increased by a lot. The more I learned in that group, the more I learned about how such funded groups exist throughout corporate culture. My management team tells me the reason for this is employee retention. Until the election, every study done on college grads told us they care greatly about an employers social messaging, and will not work for/stay with an employer that isn't woke enough. Your statement is "The idea that merit has no place alongside DEI is a conservative lie." Your statement is incorrect. It's ok to take a loss on this particular point bud. You have a plethora of arguable and defendable points that remain valid, and I'm still glad you drop by every now and then to duke it out with us. I have the same thoughts about elected reps being on Gab, as I have about you being on Gab. I'm pretty sure that you're not a vile nazi. After reading the wiki article, I see the best criticisms are "Elected (R) is on Gab, and even posts there". If there was something worse, a specific post, a claim, a screen grab, a link to something damning, it would have been in the article, or in your comments on this thread. So it's a safe assumption none of them are vile nazis either. I mean, am I wrong? Is just having an active account on Gab enough to arouse suspicion? Consider your involvement and engagement on Gab before you answer...

I had to look it up, and read the Wiki article. Sounds like a cesspool. I wondered where Milo Yiannopolous went. But again - 1. Gab: fringey extreme and increasingly inactive platform with a paltry 100k active users worldwide. You find no end of horrible racist violent folks who call themselves conservative. 2. Corporate sponsored Employee Resource Groups found in (for example) 90+% of Fortune 500 companies: Where leftie progressives trained in the progressive landscape of the modern American University find a welcoming and supportive home for their progressive activism. Budgets for training and organizing. Time spent on the clock. I find no end of antimerit, antiracist, anticapitalist, pro radical gender theory people. It's not a valid compare. From where I'm standing,

Ok, that's fair. My particular "field of progressive thought" would be the ones professionally employed by global corporations that fund Employee Resource Groups. You find those no-women types in what, X threads where qanon nazis hang out?

It's Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary. Here's his giant pink gay mansion he and his husband bought a few years back: (To be fully honest, I don't think anyone considers the John Ravanel/Charleston Pink Palace to be a symbol of the rainbow. But you sure the heck didn't buy it, now didja? )

Dude I was literally reading the chat of my progressive DEI group, where they spent an entire hour griping about the evils of the word 'merit', and expressing their anger and hatred of the term and everything it entails. Describing the ways they've been victims of the merit-based mentality. Talking about how they as a historically marginalized racial minority was only able to get a jump up because of some program that replaced merit in the name of fighting white privilege. Such notions are commonly expressed in that group across the 4 years I've been involved with 'em. So yeah, 'conservative lie' my flabby cuthroat capitalist hiney. Or, more charitably, you've got your work cut out for you to convince many of your fellow progressives of the virtues of merit-based principles. In your next community activist gettogether thing, maybe bring up how meritocracies are good things that help folks, and let us know how that goes.

Look at that lovely chart! Look at how absolutely everyone, even the poorest and most destitute among us, have consistently climbed upwards and to the right. It's interesting to think about how the number of millionaires America creates is always "more" as we move from year to year, decade to decade. From my perspective, that's what success looks like. I get that an ever-expanding gap beween ultra- and everyone else isn't sustainable. But I also get that hating on folks who build wealth for themselves and families is 85% of the personality of most lefties. Ok, but then in your next paragraph you move away from the definition and into the trap that has consumed the left for at least half a century: Again, letting a data center keep more of it's profit is NOT industry support. It is not the government writing a check to a corporation. It is not taxing me and giving my tax money to a corporation. It is not what the CATO article is talking about. So yeah. Common ground on that CATO article. Let's talk farm subsidies and cheese caves and government involvement in the insurance industry. But there is no common ground possible when we disagree on whether govt taking is the same or different than govt giving.

Of course it does. From my perspective, all human economic systems are set up for human betterment. Many of them is the benefit of certain humans only - warlords, dictators, royalty, etc. Socialism/communism is the notion that the best answer is equality of outcome. "from each according to their ability, to each according to need" and so forth. Doomed to fail because human nature, in fact nature in general, in fact universal laws force inequality of outcome. The "E" in DEI is all about that. A refutation of merit rewards, in favor of equal rewards regardless of merit. Capitalism is the notion that equality of opportunity is the best answer. Merit based, not equity based. "Nothing's stopping you, show us what you can do, and you'll be rewarded if you create value." Its the best thing we've come up with yet, because it aligns with human/natural/universal laws. It forces individuals/families to create and grow their own merit and value. It relies on human kindness and compassion for safety nets for the folks who can't. If your birth defect is severe enough, you have zero chance of creating wealth. Is it also doomed to fail as the wealth gap grows? I dunno. Maybe all systems are doomed to fail. But capitalism, for 150 years, has done more to advance the human condition, than any other system. Capitalism has the fewest massacres and genocides and mass deaths, no matter how it's measured.

From what I can tell, folks develop their taste in music somewhere in their teens. @LDSGator, for example, still will fight anyone who talks smack about Flava Flav. For me however, I didn't find my music until my mid-40's. But when I found it, I found myself reacting like a 14 yr old boy who needs his tunes to think. And yes, it mostly involves a lot of bass. - I used to fall asleep to a playlist of dubstep and death metal. - I started to wear earplugs when driving so I could turn up the music so loud I could feel the vibrations from the door speaker in my legs. Still do on occasion.

For me, Trump is a mix of things I've hoped for since the 1980's, and stuff that worries the crap out of me.

Hey, we've got common ground! The article defines 'corporate welfare' as "a broad definition of corporate welfare, which includes direct cash subsidies and indirect industry support" That's a more sane definition than I'm used to. The '80's and '90's and 2000's were full of Dems claiming that not-taxing-corporations-as-much-money-as-we-used-to was included in that definition. It was easy to refute. No, leaving an entity with more of it's own money, is NOT the same thing as the government giving money to that entity. I guess the devil's in the details. What's "indirect industry support"? Is that a reference to the military-industrial-complex?

Govt ain't payin' ta turn the mice trans nothin nomore. I mean, it sounds lowbrow when you say it that way, but it's basically the response the majority of the entire world has given to radical gender theory. Since the dawn of humans, every civilization at every point in history, pretty much without exception, has figured men are male and women are female. Here come progressives with a new way of thinking that will supposedly be a net benefit of empathy and caring for all humanity. "Convince me", said humanity. After half a dozen years of cancel culture, deplatforming, accusations of transphobia, men injuring women in women's sports so much the UN finally took a stand against it, and parents being told "you can either have a dead son or a live daughter" only to regret it later, y'all have failed to convince us. Radical gender theory is this century's version of the frontal lobotomy. Including the 'crimes against children' parts. If it's any consolation, y'all have pretty much succeeded totally with the LGB end of the acronym. The humans are just rejecting the TQIA+2SpiritZe/Zir/Meowself end of the flag. Did you know that the highest ranking openly gay US Cabinet member in history sits in Trump's cabinet? We saw him in that address.