Justice
for Starhawk!
Pffffft. Now how on earth would the education system EVER collapse in America.
Tracking toy tariffs
- Thread starter Justice
- Start date
I'm not sure how plugged into politics you are. I think this is one of the two biggest reasons we got Trump. (The other is because we elected a Black guy for eight years and the racists lost their fucking minds.)
People are rightfully frustrated that nothing gets better. Our health care system is a scam. Kids are gunned down in school every week. Our mobile phones are halfway useless because every call we get is either a scammer or a spammer. This country has big, obvious problems that I think most people would agree on.
Every President finishes with their approval rating in the 30s or 40s because nothing gets done. Thing is, it's not really their fault. The U.S. Constitution was built to make legislation a chore. Minority rules built into the system centuries later (I'm talking specifically about the Senate's filibuster) derailed any chance of passing anything ever.
You need to have a majority of House votes + 60 Senate votes + the President's signature to pass anything of note. The last time either party had those majorities? The Democrats when they passed Obamacare.
Since then, Republicans passed a massive tax break for the rich and Democrats passed a massive climate bill, but both of these snuck through the backdoor and only required 50 Senate votes. That basically summarizes this country's major legislation dating back to 2008. It's not a sustainable system of government.
As ludicrous as it sounds, most of our legislating is done by the Judiciary branch. That's obviously not how it was supposed to work. Especially when the country's highest court is full of religious extremists.
I would strongly recommend this piece on our current government to anyone. It's a must-read to understand why we're in the spot we're in. Tl;dr: the U.S. Constitution isn't a very good foundational document.
We have this discussion a lot. It's the paradox of tolerance. For a long time now, the difference between the left and the right has gone beyond tax policy. It's gay rights, trans rights, immigrant rights, etc.
I'll own it. I demonize them. If I can't demonize an ideology that kidnaps lifelong U.S. residents and traffics them to foreign prisons without due process, well, who can I demonize?
I'll also admit that I'm furious. Ten years ago, I couldn't have boiled my political ideology down to an essay. Now I'm the inverse of the right's liberal tears meme. These people have wrought so much suffering that I don't care anymore. It's Sherman's March from here on out.
docsilence
Dungeon Daddy
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TSI makes incredibly great points above.
I keep going back to my fight with my brother about this and how he was like: don't they make you mad? Don't you want something better? And I tried to explain to him Democrats make me mad EVERY DAY. Dragging feet on healthcare, on gun violence, on everything. But different isn't always good, and that's what we're learning right now.
I have a neighbor who DEFINITELY voted for Trump and he won't make eye contact with me anymore. I know his 401k is in the shitter right now. But he never owns it. Mind you, this mfer has six properties, retired at 50, has two beautiful kids, all the shit the American dream is made of. I think I'm most furious at guys like him. My brother's a landscaper who got screwed over by the education system. I get his anger. My neighbor? MFer, you had EVERYTHING and you flushed it down the toilet.
(Funny aside: people used to really push me to run for office and I said I can't, I'll f***ing punch someone in the teeth on camera. Looking back... I wish I had. I'd prefer to be afraid to go to Quebec to visit a friend next month because I did something, not because I've been running my mouth off online for fifteen years about human rights.)
I keep going back to my fight with my brother about this and how he was like: don't they make you mad? Don't you want something better? And I tried to explain to him Democrats make me mad EVERY DAY. Dragging feet on healthcare, on gun violence, on everything. But different isn't always good, and that's what we're learning right now.
I have a neighbor who DEFINITELY voted for Trump and he won't make eye contact with me anymore. I know his 401k is in the shitter right now. But he never owns it. Mind you, this mfer has six properties, retired at 50, has two beautiful kids, all the shit the American dream is made of. I think I'm most furious at guys like him. My brother's a landscaper who got screwed over by the education system. I get his anger. My neighbor? MFer, you had EVERYTHING and you flushed it down the toilet.
(Funny aside: people used to really push me to run for office and I said I can't, I'll f***ing punch someone in the teeth on camera. Looking back... I wish I had. I'd prefer to be afraid to go to Quebec to visit a friend next month because I did something, not because I've been running my mouth off online for fifteen years about human rights.)
Can anyone tell me if De Minimis is still in effect for all incoming mail? I know it’s supposed to kick in at the end of May, but until then, if I were to buy something from China, would I have to pay any extra customs fees?
Good point about the 401k. As bad as millennials have it (this will be our third major recession in our working lives and most of us are around 40), I'm glad I'm not planning to retire anytime soon.
It's never too late. I think we're going to get a leftist Tea Party movement next year. Most of these dinosaurs are going to be primaried out.
Per the article I posted above, we really need people on the inside who are invested in Constitutional reform. Elected Democrats have been hellbent on protecting a Constitutional order that hasn't existed since at least 2000.
I'm sure you didn't want someone to quote this and say "dunno, sorry!" but that's what I'm going to do.
This is one of the reasons I'm certain Trump has no plan. Everything is done on a whim. Are the tariffs in or out? Is de minimis in or out? Let's see how the mad king feels today.
From the brief research that I just did, it seems like if your item arrives before May 2, you'll be okay. Don't quote me on that, though.
docsilence
Dungeon Daddy
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I was born in that era where I was told I was a baby Gen-X but share a lot of experience with Millennials and I've been saying since I was 22 I'm never going to be able to retire. I was just starting to work in the years pensions went away and were replaced by 401ks (man THAT bait and switch is a topic for another space). I planned on needing to work til I'm dead anyway. I'm more worried about people like my folks who had hopes and are getting too old to work anymore. I just figure I've always been screwed in that regard.
Outside of my book work I left tech to do work for one of the most progressive cities in the country and every day now I'm like... should I run? I always thought I was too angry with too low a tolerance for BS to be good at it but it feels like if we don't get angry now, we die with our mouths closed.
Ru1977
The Irishman
That's funny... I am also Gen X but found I had more in common with Millennial ideals etc. I liked to think of myself as like George Carlin train hopping onto the hippie movement.
Justice
for Starhawk!
Xennials are a little micro-generation born between 1977 and 1983. I'm right in the middle at 1980. Sounds like some of you are too.
Ru1977
The Irishman
My wife is 1980 as well and has always declared herself a cusper. I'm at 1977 so yeah...
Thank you also for explaining Xennials. No sarcasm, I've heard it before but didn't know what it was.
Thank you also for explaining Xennials. No sarcasm, I've heard it before but didn't know what it was.
Justice
for Starhawk!
I found the subreddit for it a year or so ago. I'd never heard of it until then but it is amazing how much we all get along and have a lot of the exact same interests because of how small the micro-generation is. Everyone gets all the jokes and references.
Ru1977
The Irishman
Huh. Yeah, that's really amazing. I get what you mean about a lot of us here likely being in that.
Justice
for Starhawk!
You know I was surprised to learn that might not necessarily be the case. Somewhere in a thread on the old Fwoosh I remember the topic of age coming up and everyone stating theirs and the majority of people at the time were a good bit older than me. If I remember correctly there were just a handful younger than me
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I identify as a xennial as well (1978 baby here). I definitely got raised with the expectations levied on GenX (do better than your parents, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, ludicrous ideas about dinner job interviews that you’d blow if you held your fork the wrong way), and arrived in the post-college “adult” world just 16 months or so before 9/11. I *definitely* identify more with millennial adult experiences (no way you’re gonna do better than your parents, “bootstraps” is a classist myth, job interviews?, good luck getting through the algorithmic sorting pile), and I woke up pretty fast from the foolish mythology I was pumped full of as a 90s, Silicon Valley-raised teen re: capitalism, equality (or lack thereof), etc.
And THEE biggest lesson, as TSI pointed out, is the issue of the paradox of tolerance. I used to abide by the “Darth Vader approach”, you know “there’s good in you, I can feel it, let go of your hate!” And like, OK, on a one-to-one level this CAN work, but you also have a huge chance of being influenced by the other person’s viewpoint, which is usually not such a bad thing but in the case of MAGA beliefs it would be like someone trying to help a guy get off heroin and then thinking “hmmm maybe I should give that stuff a try, just once, just to see”. And guess what? One shot of heroin can make you an addict *instantly”.
“Aww, but MAGA isn’t as dangerous and poisonous as heroin, and certainly not as addictive.”
Unfortunately the answers are “yes”, “definitely yes” and “hell yes it is”.
And, like heroin, there is no equal and opposing thing to do instead and/or to blame when the heroin makes you do and feel and say awful things.
Like I work professionally with folks stuck in cult-think, and MAGA folks still make me nervous in clinical environments. It’s not just that it’s hard to “convert” them, THEY are actively trying to “convert” ME. And yet, individual to individual, in a PROFESSIONAL setting, when the subject WANTS help, it can be worth it.
MAGA as an aggregate group?
That is a WHOLE other discussion.
Tolerance is best thought of as a social contract. MAGA, as an aggregate group, have absolutely shredded the contract by any reasonable metric. You wouldn’t “tolerate” a guy who pushes his way into your house, insults your spouse and children, steals your beer and takes a shit on your coffee table. You’d kick him the fuck out of your house, and you wouldn’t have a “nuanced discussion” about why.
Now imagine that, on a countrywide scale.
Except you don’t have to imagine, because this is where and how we are living.
After Gavin Newsom hosted Charlie Kirk on his podcast and used it as an opportunity to come out as a transphobe, a “reasonable Democrat” on my feed immediately demanded that we, as “liberals”, must be willing to have a “nuanced discussion” about trans rights and whether trans folks belong in spaces where everyone else belongs. That, my friends, is the result of “tolerance” of MAGA beliefs: demands BY A DEMOCRAT to reduce a group of humans’ rights to a “nuanced discussion”. Replace “trans” with literally any other descriptor for a group of people and it should be pretty damn clear how wrong that is, and how it plays directly into the hands of a neo-Nazi movement (we really should call things by their actual names) that has been working FOR YEARS to create “others” to designate as “enemies”. Again, this is just the plot of the Wizard and Madame Morrible from Wicked: it’s that blatantly villainous.
You start tolerating intolerance, even a little bit, even with “nuance”, and you have been co-opted by the values of the *actual* enemy. And unless you actually, enthusiastically embrace an oligarchic, christofascist ethnostate and possible technocracy (and actually understand what those things are and STILL enthusiastically want them) then MAGA is your mortal enemy.
How does all this relate to tariffs? Well, when the guy setting the tariffs is embroiled in a “me first and only me” ideology seasoned by the utter dehumanization of other folks, it’s pretty easy to understand that all of this is being done with complete disregard for the rights, dignity, and very lives of people who’s names aren’t Donald John Trump.
And THEE biggest lesson, as TSI pointed out, is the issue of the paradox of tolerance. I used to abide by the “Darth Vader approach”, you know “there’s good in you, I can feel it, let go of your hate!” And like, OK, on a one-to-one level this CAN work, but you also have a huge chance of being influenced by the other person’s viewpoint, which is usually not such a bad thing but in the case of MAGA beliefs it would be like someone trying to help a guy get off heroin and then thinking “hmmm maybe I should give that stuff a try, just once, just to see”. And guess what? One shot of heroin can make you an addict *instantly”.
“Aww, but MAGA isn’t as dangerous and poisonous as heroin, and certainly not as addictive.”
Unfortunately the answers are “yes”, “definitely yes” and “hell yes it is”.
And, like heroin, there is no equal and opposing thing to do instead and/or to blame when the heroin makes you do and feel and say awful things.
Like I work professionally with folks stuck in cult-think, and MAGA folks still make me nervous in clinical environments. It’s not just that it’s hard to “convert” them, THEY are actively trying to “convert” ME. And yet, individual to individual, in a PROFESSIONAL setting, when the subject WANTS help, it can be worth it.
MAGA as an aggregate group?
That is a WHOLE other discussion.
Tolerance is best thought of as a social contract. MAGA, as an aggregate group, have absolutely shredded the contract by any reasonable metric. You wouldn’t “tolerate” a guy who pushes his way into your house, insults your spouse and children, steals your beer and takes a shit on your coffee table. You’d kick him the fuck out of your house, and you wouldn’t have a “nuanced discussion” about why.
Now imagine that, on a countrywide scale.
Except you don’t have to imagine, because this is where and how we are living.
After Gavin Newsom hosted Charlie Kirk on his podcast and used it as an opportunity to come out as a transphobe, a “reasonable Democrat” on my feed immediately demanded that we, as “liberals”, must be willing to have a “nuanced discussion” about trans rights and whether trans folks belong in spaces where everyone else belongs. That, my friends, is the result of “tolerance” of MAGA beliefs: demands BY A DEMOCRAT to reduce a group of humans’ rights to a “nuanced discussion”. Replace “trans” with literally any other descriptor for a group of people and it should be pretty damn clear how wrong that is, and how it plays directly into the hands of a neo-Nazi movement (we really should call things by their actual names) that has been working FOR YEARS to create “others” to designate as “enemies”. Again, this is just the plot of the Wizard and Madame Morrible from Wicked: it’s that blatantly villainous.
You start tolerating intolerance, even a little bit, even with “nuance”, and you have been co-opted by the values of the *actual* enemy. And unless you actually, enthusiastically embrace an oligarchic, christofascist ethnostate and possible technocracy (and actually understand what those things are and STILL enthusiastically want them) then MAGA is your mortal enemy.
How does all this relate to tariffs? Well, when the guy setting the tariffs is embroiled in a “me first and only me” ideology seasoned by the utter dehumanization of other folks, it’s pretty easy to understand that all of this is being done with complete disregard for the rights, dignity, and very lives of people who’s names aren’t Donald John Trump.
Ru1977
The Irishman
Well, and the parents of Gen X were mostly boomers, who had a free goddamned ride, doing all the drugs, making all the love, then turned around and demanded a completely different story from us. I lived it, with my dad being quite open with all the ridiculous mishaps, near death experiences, and honestly selfish way of living until I was walking, and now he was set on stripping me of any joy and hijinks. It's no wonder I latched onto my action figures when that was the only thing he let me have. Well, until he bonded with the kid down the street and he ended up with a lot of my Joe vehicles. His mom also got my mom's favorite rocking chair. And I'm barely bitter about it anymore, heh.
It's like a crazed crossroads for people who love conspiracy theories, reality TV, God but not the Bible, and just flat out hating on people in a way usually rooted in envy.
Right but that's a big step. I have one brother in law who is an addict and proclaims to prefer the homeless life rather than taking advantage of the VA programs. He even lived with us for stretches of time, several times, but always comes to a point where he'd rather just walk out and live on his own terms. And I know it's no that simple and there's a lot of guilt and self-image issues, questions of what he feels he even deserves etc. Either way, it's heartbreaking, and he's a horse we've led to water countless times, and likely will continue to do so.
Right. Nuanced discussions can be great and helpful, but when it comes to 'these people need to be persecuted, or not persecuted', I'm kinda set in my way of thinking.
And the idea of 'even if you hate these people, what could happen to them can, and likely will, eventually happen to you' seems to be completely lost on them. Even catering to self interest doesn't work. If we kick out everyone you hate, eventually it's gonna be YOU that's on the bottom and in the crosshairs.
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I stared down a client who, during the height of the pandemic and with their spouse literally in the throes of cancer treatment and INCREDIBLY at risk, looked me in the face and said “it’s not that I don’t believe in the vaccine, it’s not that I think it doesn’t work, I just WON’T BE TOLD WHAT TO DO”. That woke me up HARD to what we’re dealing with here: omnicidal obstinance in the face of factual evidence.
There is no reasoning with that.
Believe me: I fucking tried.
There is no reasoning with that.
Believe me: I fucking tried.