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[nenjin]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the states with restrictive gun laws have filled the ranks of their prosecutors with Conservative Republicans, for some reason. It's not Republicans. It's liberal Democrats who don't want to charge people with crimes because the laws are Racist™ and disproportionately affect minorities (who happen to be four times as likely to be in a gang, etc.)

Can we see some data where gun control laws disproportionately affect minorities? And I find it curious that states which pushed for restrictive gun laws presumably have the same people that voted for it refusing to enforce it.

And for the record, I don't care what party you're in. If you refuse to enforce the laws of your state, you're subverting the will of the electorate and deserve, at a minimum, to lose your position and be in jail at a maximum. It doesn't matter if you're a legislator or a sheriff. Whether the law is just and should be kept is a question for the legislature. Whether a law on the books should be enforced is not up for debate or discretion.

[TamerVirus]

Whether a law on the books should be enforced is not up for debate or discretion.

It was illegal to get a haircut and a shave on Sundays in New York up until literally this Tuesday.
Should that have been enforced?

[nenjin]

Yep. That's how you get legislative action. Not enforcing a law on the books means it either is a "fake law" or it's subject to arbitrary enforcement. Both are bad. By enforcing stupid laws you get it in front of the legislature to get it changed, because people are actually aware it exists. Having laws on the books no one enforces undercuts the very idea of having laws in the first place.

[Micro102]

If you refuse to enforce the laws of your state, you're subverting the will of the electorate and deserve, at a minimum, to lose your position and be in jail at a maximum.

I would just change this to "If you subvert the will of the electorate you deserve, at a minimum, to lose your position and be in jail at a maximum."

You can pass a law against the wishes of the electorate too.

[nenjin]

Sure. And that tends to lose you re-election under normal circumstances.

[MrRoboto75]

Sure. And that tends to lose you re-election under normal circumstances.

does it though

[Micro102]

Sure. And that tends to lose you re-election under normal circumstances.

I direct you to Mitch McConnel. Worlds biggest turtle asshole who obstructs just for the sake of obstructing. Pushes money into the pockets of the rich. Repeatedly voted in by republican cultists who think democrats are going to take away their guns and enforce communism.

[JoshuaFH]

I think Nenjin meant in a functioning and healthy democracy, not a twisted, corrupted, bloated, impotent, farcical facsimile of a democracy.

[nenjin]

I'd also add that he has a constituency that believes he is serving them. If he started legislating non-subtly against their interests, they'd give him the boot.

[MrRoboto75]

I think Nenjin meant in a functioning and healthy democracy, not a twisted, corrupted, bloated, impotent, farcical facsimile of a democracy.

Plenty of people vote for the guy with the (R) next to his name on the ballot just because he doesn't have the (D) next to his name on the ballot.

[Frumple]

Hell, I'm pretty close to that at this point. You might could pay me to vote for a republican politician, but it'd take a six figure or better bank transfer, and it'd only work the one time. Otherwise fuck voting for the GOP. Won't necessarily vote dem, but you'd have to bankroll my ass pretty damn hard get me to vote R even once.

Nevermind everything else, just on the local level the scum have spent my entire life trying to and often succeeding in sabotaging the livelihoods and infrastructure of my state and local region, while simultaneously being so fucking corrupt I've seen the shits bury pedophilia investigations. I'd trust a rabid badger with governance sooner than I would someone willingly associating themselves with the GOP.

Whole towering edifice of shit that is the republican party political infrastructure can go die in a fire. Entire bloody world would be better off without it.

[Rolan7]

I keep looking for Republicans to vote for.  Or maybe some libertarian who's more anarchic than capitalist.  Sometimes, for local offices, I find a couple and that makes me feel very smart and nonpartisan.

I don't make a secret that I'm extremely disappointed with the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party makes anti-me rhetoric a core value so eh.  Between the two I'd rather vote for the shitty capitalists who *don't* want me to die, and also have some good elements working in the party.

I often wonder whether I'm wrong to support electoralism, but it's the sort of thinking that gets pretty dark.  Maybe it's okay to normalize and explain socialist ideas like I try to do.

[Micro102]

I don't think it's supporting electoralism to vote. Not voting isn't going to make it go away. You simply tip the scales towards people who are willing to establish things like ranked choice voting (I'm looking at you Maine). Anything that will get rid of electoralism outside of electoralism, can be done alongside voting, and the voting will just make it easier.

[Rolan7]

Gosh, I hope you're right.  And as I've pointed out ad nauseam:  A vote for a hopeless third party like the Greens is a vote for a multi-party system.  It *is* throwing your vote away, but it's more like spitting it on their feet than being indistinguishable from the shrugging checked-out demographic.

[Max™]

They're gonna have to wrap lab-meat up in some fancy and market tested name for it to succeed
call it Beyond Beyond Meat or something like that

Cruelty-Free Meat

Sure. And that tends to lose you re-election under normal circumstances.

I direct you to Mitch McConnel. Worlds biggest turtle asshole who obstructs just for the sake of obstructing. Pushes money into the pockets of the rich. Repeatedly voted in by republican cultists who think democrats are going to take away their guns and enforce communism.

Amusingly enough, the voting machine company which DIDN'T get republicans jumping up and down crying about fraud despite none having been found is called ES&S, and several states which had really unexpected wins in the last election use them.

ES&S machines don't provide the sort of auditable paper trail that Dominion does, incidentally, so when people thought it strange that several counties in Kentucky had vast increases in total registered voters all voting for McConnell, in some cases he got more votes than one would expect just from eligible voters as a portion of the known population, or Graham getting nearly twice as many votes this year than he did last time he ran, or they and several others getting as many or more votes than Trump... well, there is no way to check for irregularities on THOSE machines, funny how that works.

Spoiler: Vaguely derail-ish climate shit. (click to show/hide)

Arx, I'd be careful leaning too heavily into the "models say it will be drier, so it will be drier" particularly for things like the Sahara when they struggle to replicate past periods we know were wetter and a few need somewhat absurd precipitation adjustments to reproduce observed vegetation as inferred from sediments and so forth: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL073740

Plus focusing on the Sahara when I'm talking about the whole planet is kinda talking past each other. We know that it was much drier and more arid and deserts expanded enormously during the coldest parts of the last ice age. While there are orbital/insolation effects that trigger the transitions into/out of ice ages the local changes due to ice sheets and cooler air are also known factors.

I'll be much happier at the projections of a model which can reliably backcast known conditions, and I'll be more concerned if such a model does somehow predict both warmer temperatures everywhere AND more arid conditions in more places than we have today.

I remain dubious at such a thing happening because the physical effects required are... improbable to say the least, and generally the idea that you randomly ended up perched on top of a peak rather than slipping down into a surrounding well is one that should raise questions. So if we're currently at a precipitation maxima under current conditions and temperature variances either way will reduce precipitation regardless how much said conditions diverge then THAT needs explanation, an extraordinary one at that, given how remarkably unlikely such a state should be.

Like we're talking "oh shit, we're in a simulation and they didn't plot sensible variations beyond a certain duration because they're just gonna reset back to a particular date anyways" type of explanations here.