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[MrRoboto75]

every celeb is an asshole, its just really obvious now with pervasive social media

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I mean, Buzz Aldrin isn't really a celebrity. He's just someone who got to have this allegedly peak experience and apparently is still enough of a small minded bigot to endorse the Republicans.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I have several complaints of the man (I'm a minarchist that wants the federal government gutted down to military, foreign relations, and interstate disputes with a forced balanced budget and all other things dropped to state-level if not county or even town/city to bring power as close to the people as possible.  You don't think I have some gripes?).

Out of curiosity, how do you define these three topics? (Military, foreign relations, and interstate disputes, that is.) Would you include cross-state pollution, climate change, civil rights, medicare, etc. within this?

Regarding a forced balanced budget, are you in favor of a gold standard specifically or just the balanced budget bit?

(Trying to get a better sense of your position.)

Military would cover the typical Army, Navy, Air Force, Border Security (inc. Coast Guard if water nation), and now Space Force, as well as the emerging field of Information Security (ie. Cyberwarfare) and in the case of nuclear powers, some to maintain those sites.  Military may not be the right word, as Homeland Defense, primarily counterespionage with any real offensive limited to terrorist organizations, would sorta land here.  Primarily defensive role rather than all this active stuff like the US has gotten involved with in the War on Terror.

Foreign relations dealing with passports, international recognition, treaties, tariffs, immigration, and the such.  Said treaties would form the federal level 'laws' as it were with all states needing to fall in line, so Civil Rights are covered at this level via the Universal Declaration on Human Rights Article II.  Treaties would absolutely be more stringent than they are now.  None of the whole 'Southwestern US + California causing us to violate a flow of the Colorado treaty with Mexico from how much they are taking from it' I've heard about.

Interstate disputes, which maybe also called interprovince disputes in other nations, would be coverage of stuff like a erson in one state entering a contract with another, cases where states sue other states due to cross-state pollution, no doing between state restrictions on movement and goods, and Interstate Compacts, like the whole Popular Vote initiative and that Healthcare one that was being setup between a few states, being less restrictive to make.  Issues like Climate Change and Medicare would be covered under this, though I will note in regards to stuff like Social Security I would like to get the pre-Social practice up in Unions that had them effectively give that service in addition to any compacts.  Naturally 50 state ones would be the other effective federal law, but this wouldn't need all 50 to operate.  Makes it so rather than a comparative handful who get lucky go to a far off place and may get elected to their deathbed making a decision and thereby emphasizing two party to get those very limited seats, you get the hundred some-odd in the state legislatures, all closer to home and more easily spoken to thanks to a lesser deluge of petitions from representing less.

I'll admit I would prefer an Asset Standard, doesn't necessarily need to be gold, just something to back the money to help it maintain value, but a Balanced Budget is the main focus with a clause for being able to get around it during times of Crisis like war.  Declaration of one would be fairly stringent to prevent abuse with an endpoint being declared, only war really being able to have a 'when the war ends' sorta general clause.  Balanced budget would apply for what's passed as the expected budget and with some stringency to prevent 'oh we put $1 into this thing but it can balloon massively.'  In actual operation parameters, there'd be a 10% over income wiggle room.

[Max™]

Hmmm, I wonder if there might be somebody more qualified to help us identify fascism than some dude who read some shit about or by mussolini or whatnot?

Let's ask Umberto Eco!

http://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf <~ 1995 btw

A cult of tradition, syncretism encouraging followers to tolerate contradictions of absurd construction. The powerful but besieged leader, the formerly great but best nation needing another term by the weak mighty leader to finish making it great by making it worse so he can make it great again again!

Rejecting the modern world which we live in and the enlightenment we refer to as being responsible for it.

Scientists and experts know nothing, flimsy powerful leader knows more than they do!

Don't question him though, his word is law, even if he says it isn't law it is because he's always right even when he's wrong!

Frustrated and feeling forgotten by the elites? Think you've gotten a raw deal from life?

Know who screwed you over? Brown people! They come from overseas, they come across the border, they're everything bad and coming to screw you over and screw the girl you had your eyes on too, just like that last president guy!

These smart yet shifty immigrants are living high on the hog despite also being dumber than you, like everyone is, because you're so obviously brilliant, but you can't get too comfortable because those brown people are clever and always plotting to take your shit!

Join up with our helpless godlike leader and he'll fight for you and empower you to fight for you but also for him and we can fight all the time!

This is a limited time offer and also limited by skin tone so if you're lily white and feeling down, you should be feeling like the best because you are the best!

Naturally all of you can't take part in actual battles because getting shot sucks but you can take comfort in your manhood because you're gonna be allowed to mock and abuse anybody who isn't straight and white and male just like you! You can even keep your guns and walk around with them and threaten people if you want or just stay home and polish them!

"There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
...
Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism." ~direct Eco quote

Newspeak? Pfft, fuck that shit, it has the word news in it and news is fake!

Then... fucking help us all, there is the batshittery of the Qultists that would normally be easily dismissed as whackjobs online but, oh look at that, the fat orange fucker seems down with the Qlown as do several morons in his circle serving official roles in government.

So yeah, you can take issue with people calling fascists doing fascist shit fascism if you want, but that's what the fuck it is, and it's what someone who knows a fuckload better than either of us would have called it so I'm leaning towards not hiding from the word just because it makes people uncomfortable.

It's an uncomfortable word, it's an uncomfortable thing to have to seriously consider the idea that there are fascists running around trying to seize as much power as they can and that they're all cheering and following the big orange demagogue who has only one redeeming quality: he's too fucking stupid and disgusting to achieve the sort of broad appeal which enables fascists to properly take over without any hope of stopping them.

Biden is a decent man, he gives a fuck about people suffering, he knows how to actually be presidential and work to make shit better.

Sure, he's done shitty things in the past as a politician, he's nowhere near progressive and left-wing enough for my tastes, BUT HE IS NOT A FUCKING FASCIST which means unless you're totally cool with fascist takeovers Biden is the right fucking choice.

If people supporting Trump don't like being called fascists, the onus is not on us to stop calling them fascists, they can just stop supporting his nationalist populist fascist bullshit and stop being fascists, we'll gladly stop calling them that afterwards.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

By the way, it looks like they're actually going with "you are not allowed to count any votes after election day ends". Not receive new votes postmarked but late, they've already thrown that out. They literally are going to try to stop the count at midnight, and it looks like the Court agrees with it. At a minimum, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Alito will endorse it. Gorsuch probably will, since muh text says the election happens on a day. Thomas I can't see voting down anything conservative in nature.

And that makes five. So, I'd like to prematurely congratulate President Trump on his narrow victory in every state except Vermont, in spite of the difficulties counting the other 70% of the votes.

[SOLDIER First]

b-but trump isn't a fascist, he hasn't had dissenters silenced (publicly) and isn't stripping minority rights (quickly enough to cause concern) and isn't genociding those he considers lesser than (openly) and isn't contorting democracy to fit his ends (any more than the republicans have been doing for decades)

[JoshuaFH]

By the way, it looks like they're actually going with "you are not allowed to count any votes after election day ends". Not receive new votes postmarked but late, they've already thrown that out. They literally are going to try to stop the count at midnight, and it looks like the Court agrees with it. At a minimum, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Alito will endorse it. Gorsuch probably will, since muh text says the election happens on a day. Thomas I can't see voting down anything conservative in nature.

And that makes five. So, I'd like to prematurely congratulate President Trump on his narrow victory in every state except Vermont, in spite of the difficulties counting the other 70% of the votes.

I could see something like that actually igniting a civil war...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Americans are still sheep. The military could take over today and people would have stopped paying attention by election day. Power will be exercised only by a few, no matter what happens. There will be no civil war, only an orderly procession of atrocity.

[Dostoevsky]

[answering my question on proposed government roles]

Thanks for taking the time to explain it. I'd argue it's a little overly idealistic (e.g. likelihood of good international treaties and strong unions) and as such would disagree on whether it'd be the best thing to implement domestically, but it's much more reasonable than I had first assumed. ("Balanced budget" proposals/requirements tend to be more restrictive than what you've described, for example.)

Main tricky part is actually getting to that balanced budget -- domestic discretionary spending (i.e. just about all agencies not counting Dept. of Defense) is only about 15% of federal spending; completely eliminating it (which would mean e.g. no State Department) alone wouldn't balance the budget.

Assuming you spin a lot of this down to the states, they both have more difficulty spending - thanks to a mix of state debt being hard to finance and balanced budget requirements - and more difficult revenue raising (e.g. 'race to the bottom' issues, state law/constitution requirements against raising taxes). Never know to you try, of course, but not sure how feasible it is. Despite all the talk, there isn't that much waste fraud and abuse in the federal government, at least compared to your average state/local government.


Edit:

By the way, it looks like they're actually going with "you are not allowed to count any votes after election day ends". Not receive new votes postmarked but late, they've already thrown that out.

What's this about? The Wisconsin decision? That's a state specific thing that may well be quite terrible in certain states with deep red legislatures (e.g. Wisconsin), but not a national thing yet.

[sluissa]

Ditto on the vote counting. While I'm sure someone's thought about proposing that, I've yet to see anything moved forward yet that would stop COUNTING at midnight election day. All I'm seeing is various attempts to limit how late ballots can arrive to be counted.

I wouldn't be surprised if something popped up though, also no clue how that would end up sorting out.

It's definitely a worry now with the layout of the court, but there's a part of me that can't imagine them being THAT blatant about it. But also a part of me that reads the words they write and say "Yeah, they would."

[Zangi]

Despite this, 8 months, 8.6m cases, 224,000+ deaths, and his own covid diagnosis later, he, his administration, and his party STILL do not treat it seriously by showing the public that wearing a mask and social distancing are sensible things to do, because (presumably) they fear losing office more than they care about dealing with the crisis.

I must clarify that McTurtle and the republican congress in fact did the sensible thing...  in order to still be available for the Supreme Court nomination.

[dragdeler]

-

[feelotraveller]

Despite this, 8 months, 8.6m cases, 224,000+ deaths, and his own covid diagnosis later, he, his administration, and his party STILL do not treat it seriously by showing the public that wearing a mask and social distancing are sensible things to do, because (presumably) they fear losing office more than they care about dealing with the crisis.

I must clarify that McTurtle and the republican congress in fact did the sensible thing...  in order to still be available for the Supreme Court nomination.

No sensible here.  Guess rationality has little to do with being/becoming a supreme court justice.   

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[sluissa]

Notice how everyone in that picture looks just slightly... not human?

The odd flesh tones, the way the skin kind of doesn't fit right, the strange postures covered up by concealing clothes.

It all has the feeling of that sort of early to mid point of a sci-fi plot line where you really start noticing that some of the characters just have something off about them, only to come find out they're aliens in rubber suits, or replacement clones, or robots, or something of that sort.

[RedKing]

By the way, it looks like they're actually going with "you are not allowed to count any votes after election day ends". Not receive new votes postmarked but late, they've already thrown that out. They literally are going to try to stop the count at midnight, and it looks like the Court agrees with it. At a minimum, Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Alito will endorse it. Gorsuch probably will, since muh text says the election happens on a day. Thomas I can't see voting down anything conservative in nature.

And that makes five. So, I'd like to prematurely congratulate President Trump on his narrow victory in every state except Vermont, in spite of the difficulties counting the other 70% of the votes.

Some others have already pointed this out, but this applies only to Wisconsin. It's still very much a patchwork of state regulations with regard to this. NC, for example, will accept ballots up to 9 days after Election Day, as long as they're postmarked by 11/3. The state GOP tried to sue to block this, and lost. It's particularly swing states in the upper portion of the country where the GOP is having success at curtailing the counting period (and curtailing the pre-count period, for which they go eat a family-size bag of dicks), like Wisconsin and Michigan.

Here's a breakdown of each state's rules on this (NOTE: subject to change, as there are a ton of lawsuits floating around and while many judges are taking a "too late to change the rules now" stance, some are very much happy to change the rules at the last minute.)

Alabama: Must be postmarked by 11/2, received by noon on 11/3.
Alaska: Must be postmarked by 11/3 received by 11/13.
Arizona: Must be received by 7pm on 11/3.
Arkansas: Must be received by 7:30pm on 11/3.
California: Postmarked by 11/3, received by 11/20.
Colorado: Received by 7pm on 11/3
Connecticut: Received by/on 11/3
Delaware: Received by/on 11/3
District of Columbia: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 11/13.
Florida: Received by 7pm on 11/3.
Georgia: Received by close of polls on 11/3.
Hawaii: Received by 7pm on 11/3.
Idaho: Received by 8pm on 11/3.
Illinois: Postmarked by 11/3, received by 11/17.
Indiana: Received by noon on 11/3.
Iowa: Postmarked by 11/2, received by noon 11/9.
Kansas: Postmarked by 11/3, received by 11/6.
Kentucky: Received by 6pm on 11/3.
Louisiana: Received by 4:30pm on 11/2, except for hospitalized voters, which can be on 11/3. No idea how they denote if a voter is hospitalized on the ballot.
Maine: Received by/on 11/3.
Maryland: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 10am 11/13.
Massachusetts: Received by/on 11/3.
Michigan: Received by close of polls on 11/3.
Minnesota: Postmarked by 11/3, received by 11/10.
Mississippi: Postmarked by 11/3, received by 11/10.
Missouri: Received by 7pm on 11/3.
Montana: Received by 8pm on 11/3.
Nebraska: Received by/on 11/3.
Nevada: Postmarked by/on 11/3. No information available as to receipt deadline.
New Hampshire: Received by 5pm 11/3.
New Jersey: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 8pm 11/10.
New Mexico: Received by 7pm 11/3.
New York: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 11/10.
North Carolina: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 5pm 11/12.
North Dakota: Postmarked by 11/2. No information available as to receipt deadline.
Ohio: Postmarked by 11/2, received by 11/13.
Oklahoma: Received by 7pm on 11/3.
Oregon: Received by 8pm on 11/3.
Pennsylvania: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 11/6.
Rhode Island: Received by 8pm on 11/3.
South Carolina: Received by 7pm on 11/3.
South Dakota: Received by/on 11/3.
Tennessee: Received by/on 11/3.
Texas: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 11/4.
Utah: Postmarked by 11/2, received by noon "on the day of the county canvass" -- WTF, Utah?
Vermont: Received by/on 11/3.
Virginia: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by noon 11/6.
Washington: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 11/8.
West Virginia: Postmarked by/on 11/3, received by 11/9. Ballots with no postmark will be counted if received by 11/4, which seems suspicious as hell, but there's no chance in Hell West Virginia elects any Democrats anyways, so *shrug*
Wisconsin: Received by 8pm on 11/3.
Wyoming: Received by 7pm on 11/3.

Couple of takeaways here:
1. Most of the states will stop accepting ballots after Election Day, full stop.
2. Most of the states with extended receipt periods aren't in question so the impact is likely minimal. You can call California for Biden the moment the polls close.
3. This is *not* "just a Democrat trick", as Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia are all "red" states with extended ballot deadlines, as well as Texas's one-day extension.
4. The four states most likely to cause this to become an agonizing wait and send MAGAts into a frenzy of "THEY'S STEALIN THA ELECTION!" are North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. PA and MN, based on polls, may not be that close. NC and OH are going to be razor-wire close. Hopefully both PA and MN go for Biden, and as my analysis yesterday showed, that should be enough to clinch it and then North Carolina just becomes an amusing sidenote of history instead of the new Florida 2000.


Now obviously, this only addresses when they stop receiving ballots. When they stop counting is a different story, and the answer is essentially "when all the ballots are counted". In about 30 states, by law all valid ballots must be counted, regardless of the duration it takes to count them. The Wisconsin ruling only changes the receipt period, not the counting period. Wisconsin is one of the states which cannot halt a count if there are still ballots remaining.