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[Doomblade187]

ASIDE: Holy crap, wow I didn't realize that rents were as ridiculous as they are in most urban areas.  At some point we're either going to literally be overrun by homeless or the landlords are going to have to start cutting their rents.  I somewhat envision this crazy situation where local law enforcement just refuses to enforce evictions, and landlords just get zero income.  I mean, would law enforcement really evict "50%" of the population?  That doesn't even sound logistically possible.

As for housing prices be very wary of people who call for any sort of de-zoning or urban sprawl as the solution to the problem: "just build a billion new houses, that'll solve the problem".

The problem is that it won't since that's not how things actually work. The proponents of this approach are housing constructions companies.

There's actually going to be some amount X of available rental properties which maximizes Y, which is total revenue from rental properties, for a given level of demand.

 Just making more houses doesn't change that value X. If there are too many houses on the market (compared to that optimal price-point) then the overall profitability will decrease and the least profitable houses will start to be forced out of the market. Which is kind of the opposite of what you want for "affordable housing". So this is why supply-side stuff of building a ton of new houses isn't going to help with affordable rents.

We already have more vacant houses than homeless people, by a large amount.

[Eschar]

According to a copy of the warrant, agents were looking for black clothing, paint, sticks, flags, computers and cell phones, and "anti-government or anarchist literature."

The warrants for the related raids used similar language. One warrant for an early morning raid at a Seattle home also listed black clothing, electronics, and "paperwork—anarchists in the Occupy movement." In effect, witnesses in Portland and Seattle say, federal and local police burst into people's homes while they were sleeping and held them at gunpoint while rummaging through their bookshelves, looking for evidence of political leanings instead of evidence of a crime.

And I should also point out that this is not the only case of such behavior at a federal law enforcement level during the Bush/Obama era.  There were plenty.  They're just really hard to dig up now, because they were barely reported on even when they were current events, so word of mouth and obscure indie media were generally the only sources.  It wasn't fashionable to draw attention to such things before Trump took office, and hardly anyone cared.  And I didn't have the foresight to save the info as I came across it back then.  I thank the twitter person for digging this one up, and somebody else for linking me to that twitter thread.

How did this not receive more attention as a (possible) 1A violation and definitely Gestapo-esque?

[JoshuaFH]

Hate to sound ignorant here, but can you direct me to somewhere that explains what anarchist beliefs are? The only definition I know for the word 'Anarchy' is just 'the absence of government', but that's clearly not what you're talking about.

[Dostoevsky]

Only Congress can change election day. Furthermore, if we don't have a clear winner from an election, Speaker of the House by default gets the job on January 20.

I haven't done the research as to accuracy of this, but a former US Senator had a piece out a few weeks ago describing a (probably unlikely, but still unsettling) scenario whereby Trump loses the both the popular & electoral vote but still becomes the next president.

Skip to the numbered bits if you want the TLDR version, but the even more TLDR version is that there's a way to get the election determined by each state delegation, and House Republicans currently have a narrow majority by that count.

Anarchism discussion

I suspect a good deal of this comes from many people thinking "anarchist = violent revolutionary and nothing else." Which then automatically lumps in anarchists with other open rebellion groups. Not trying to excuse it, of course, especially since few of those groups get this level of scrutiny - or are even working with police these days.

On another note, I had the opportunity/duty to read through the Republican liability bill and if I'm interpreting it right it's a frightfully horrible thing. The individual suits v. businesses for getting COVID is bad in a lot of ways, but the employment law schedule is kind of impressive - basically, if the company holds a meeting to talk about how maybe they should do something about all those COVID safety precautions people are talking about, then employment law is 100% waived.

[SalmonGod]

How did this not receive more attention as a (possible) 1A violation and definitely Gestapo-esque?

I honestly couldn't tell you, because I was following such things closely back then and telling everyone I ever talked politics with that such things were going on.  You'd probably find plenty of it in my posting history, especially in my early days here.  I used to cover police abuse of protesters and activists heavily on this forum, before the existence of the police brutality thread.  I've even linked reports in the past with solid information on counter-terrorists fusion centers assisting local law enforcement with their mass surveillance tools to target successful Occupy organizers.

But even my own family, who I know heard this stuff from me all the time over the past 20 years, has it in their heads that this all began with Trump.  It drives me fucking insane, and fills me with a dread sinking feeling.

9/11 completely knocked the sense out of the USA and we've been rapidly accelerating towards totalitarian fascism ever since.  I and many others have been screaming from every hilltop that we were going to end up exactly where we are now for 20 years.  It's not about Trump.

[sluissa]

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/anarchist

Take your pick, but most of them are not really acceptable. And none of them are really friendly and cuddly.

EDIT: Sorry. Was trending toward personal there. Deleted and I apologize. Link will remain but I'll back away from this conversation.

[WealthyRadish]

When looking for left wing political theory, look no further than the American Heritage® Dictionary

[Naturegirl1999]

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/anarchist

Take your pick, but most of them are not really acceptable. And none of them are really friendly and cuddly.

EDIT: Sorry. Was trending toward personal there. Deleted and I apologize. Link will remain but I'll back away from this conversation.

1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a person who advocates the abolition of government and a social system based on voluntary cooperation

I find a system based on voluntary cooperation desirable

[dragdeler]

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[sluissa]

All I'm going to say is good luck depending on voluntary cooperation among a large enough group if there's no coercive control keeping people thinking that volunteering that cooperation is the better option than dealing with the coercion.

[dragdeler]

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[sluissa]

So let's never try

That's probably the better option for that particular political ideology, yes.

[Naturegirl1999]

All I'm going to say is good luck depending on voluntary cooperation among a large enough group if there's no coercive control keeping people thinking that volunteering that cooperation is the better option than dealing with the coercion.

Realize that not everyone thinks cooperation needs to be forced. Some people are fine with helping people, coercion not needed. If I know directions to Building A, and someone asked me for directions to Building A, they would not need to force me to give them directions, they could just ask, and I’d be fine giving them directions.

[sluissa]

All I'm going to say is good luck depending on voluntary cooperation among a large enough group if there's no coercive control keeping people thinking that volunteering that cooperation is the better option than dealing with the coercion.

Realize that not everyone thinks cooperation needs to be forced. Some people are fine with helping people, coercion not needed. If I know directions to Building A, and someone asked me for directions to Building A, they would not need to force me to give them directions, they could just ask, and I’d be fine giving them directions.

You're reading it as black and white "ALL COERCION ALL THE TIME" or "No coercion at all." That definition refuses to accept any coercion. Meaning there's no way to punish people even for egregious offenses. Of course twisting peoples arms to get even the slightest response out of them is going to be a bad system. But so is a system where there is no defense against bad actors.

[SalmonGod]

All I'm going to say is good luck depending on voluntary cooperation among a large enough group if there's no coercive control keeping people thinking that volunteering that cooperation is the better option than dealing with the coercion.

Realize that not everyone thinks cooperation needs to be forced. Some people are fine with helping people, coercion not needed. If I know directions to Building A, and someone asked me for directions to Building A, they would not need to force me to give them directions, they could just ask, and I’d be fine giving them directions.

You're reading it as black and white "ALL COERCION ALL THE TIME" or "No coercion at all." That definition refuses to accept any coercion. Meaning there's no way to punish people even for egregious offenses. Of course twisting peoples arms to get even the slightest response out of them is going to be a bad system. But so is a system where there is no defense against bad actors.

You don't understand anarchist thought.

Very few believe it's about "Land of everyone can do whatever the fuck they want without consequences"

Anarchy means No Rulers.  This doesn't mean that a community can't establish standards of responsibility of behavior and enforce them.  Anarchism is concerned with the social structures and processes by which those standards are determined and enforced.  If all measures possible are taken to ensure that all participants and stakeholders in that system have equal social power throughout the process, then it's anarchist, because there is no rulership.

And it's still beside the point.  Biden's statement still constitutes embracing persecution based on political beliefs.