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[McTraveller]

Devil's advocate: I thought the national guard was also part of the corrupt system? Or is this really just limited to specific local police departments?

(This is why I keep repeating - "stop speaking in absolutes")

[MaxTheFox]

There's also no doubt some degree of overlap involving secular-minded people who simply don't really put up with organized religion and its problems anymore, aren't the church-going type, etc while still maintaining their own beliefs.

It's fairly easy for someone who isn't awash in creationist nonsense and incessant peer pressure from people who make dogma their living to be able to reconcile their beliefs with the needs of a secular world, without actually discarding it. If anything I feel like that sort of self-aware agnosticism this can lead to (i.e. "I don't know, and I know that it's impossible to know, but I will retain my belief without stressing over whether it'll be proven wrong in the next life, and accept that those of different faith are doing the same in their own way") fits the the definition of faith than the sort of blind parroting of scripture most people who self-identify as having faith are inclined towards.

That such a live and let live attitude isn't more common among religious organizations, and that there seems to be a deep willful ignorance of fun lil things like historical context, the intricacies of interpretation and translation (despite theology as a field of study being basically all about that) is yet one more problem with the world among many. :/

Yeah, I am not 100% sure, and I don't go around forcing people to be Christians, but that doesn't mean I can't be one.

[Grim Portent]

Devil's advocate: I thought the national guard was also part of the corrupt system? Or is this really just limited to specific local police departments?

(This is why I keep repeating - "stop speaking in absolutes")

The national guard aren't subject to the corrupt training practices (as minimal as police training even is in the US) that the police are, so they tend to be less problematic on the whole. Arguably less suited for day to day police duties than a properly trained cop, but the wildly variable and often lax standards for police in the US means a lot of them aren't properly trained anyway.

The issue could probably be solved without needing to rebuild police departments from scratch by overhauling how Internal Affairs oversight works and by making police training take a lot longer, be standardised and subject to external review, and a push for police recruitment drives from historically oppressed demographics.

[Dunamisdeos]

I mean, that describes me as a Christian, in a broad sense.
 
I don't really associate with a church. I don't consider myself agnostic, as that is someone who is for one reason or another unsure of their own view or hold a deliberately neutral one on the existence of God. I'm not against organized religion as a concept, but it's been so deeply poisoned here in the US. I've been told by many people that this is not the present case in... well, most other first-world nations. At least not to the same degree.
 
If I were to find a church that has somehow separated itself from being a willing cog in the secular political machine, that would be dandy. I'm not holding my breath, though.

[da_nang]

AOC is calling for Congress to use its Article III §2(cl. 2) power to strip SCOTUS of appellate jurisdiction on abortion and other privacy issues ahead of federal privacy legislation. It's uncertain if it will have the effect that AOC hopes it will have as SCOTUS will still have original jurisdiction when the state is a party (e.g. all criminal prosecutions with federal court appeals, all lawsuits against states, and all lawsuits where the state is suing the federal government), and federal law must still be adjudicated in the various circuit courts for the laws to have any teeth. I doubt e.g. the Fifth Circuit will rule any different from SCOTUS.

The most it will do is prevent the civil bounty hunter lawsuits between private persons from reaching SCOTUS.

[EuchreJack]

AOC is calling for Congress to use its Article III §2(cl. 2) power to strip SCOTUS of appellate jurisdiction on abortion and other privacy issues ahead of federal privacy legislation. It's uncertain if it will have the effect that AOC hopes it will have as SCOTUS will still have original jurisdiction when the state is a party (e.g. all criminal prosecutions with federal court appeals, all lawsuits against states, and all lawsuits where the state is suing the federal government), and federal law must still be adjudicated in the various circuit courts for the laws to have any teeth. I doubt e.g. the Fifth Circuit will rule any different from SCOTUS.

The most it will do is prevent the civil bounty hunter lawsuits between private persons from reaching SCOTUS.

WTF?
I don't see how that section of the US Constitution can be used to do that, although the Supreme Court has historically defined it's own jurisdiction, so theoretically Congress could pass legislation modifying the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Maybe the Conservative Justices should have listened to Chief Justice Roberts...

It would be a good political tactic to impeach one of the Justices, probably Amy Barrett, as that would create a split in the Court as Chief Justice Roberts would be required to preside over the Impeachment, although I don't think the Democrats have the votes.

[Lord Shonus]

The American Left is obsessed with One Weird Trick To Fix Everything solutions. The vast majority of the "BIDEN MUST DO THIS" crap you see the DSA and others put out is stuff that the President literally doesn't have the power to do, for example.

[EuchreJack]

The American Left is obsessed with One Weird Trick To Fix Everything solutions. The vast majority of the "BIDEN MUST DO THIS" crap you see the DSA and others put out is stuff that the President literally doesn't have the power to do, for example.

To be fair, I don't think it's limited to the Left.
It's mostly young people who don't know better.

[Frumple]

I'unno, in my experience it's a lot more likely with old people, especially when it's a trick that used to, but no longer, works. Younger folks are more likely to just try to throw absolutely anything they can at a wall until something sticks, which is less "one weird trick" and more "fucking do something holy shit".

The one weird trick people know their demographic and if the junk mail we get is anything to go by they very much think it's predominantly elderly

[EuchreJack]

Well...Old People Vote.

[Loud Whispers]

I'unno, in my experience it's a lot more likely with old people, especially when it's a trick that used to, but no longer, works. Younger folks are more likely to just try to throw absolutely anything they can at a wall until something sticks, which is less "one weird trick" and more "fucking do something holy shit".

The one weird trick people know their demographic and if the junk mail we get is anything to go by they very much think it's predominantly elderly

Honestly yeah I think people are misattributing the utter desperation of young voters to naivety whereas young voters watch the clock ticking on housing prices, environmental collapse and public spending vs tax revenue vs national incomes with despair. Will shit like UBI or cut oil subsidies fix everything? Who knows, but by the gods someone has to try doing something because doing the same thing every year is making everything worse

[McTraveller]

So... why don't the young people... do something? Instead of just complaining about what the old people are doing?

I mean yeah I know life is hard, but there is a surprisingly large number of people in the "young person" demographic, surely they can pool their resources together?

I guess I don't know what people want "the government" to do, actually.  Or more specifically, I don't know where people want the government to get the resources to do what they want the government to do.  I know they just say "oh tax the rich" or whatever - but "the rich" don't have resources, the rich have money and that's a big difference.  You want to build new housing? Ok, where are you going to get the lumber and metal and concrete and insulation and glass and paint?  How are you going to get it from where it's made to where you want to build? Where (physically, as in on what land) are you going to build the new power and water treatment plants to supply the new buildings with utilities?

The government, I'd say, should be encouraging people to expand production capacity, improve logistics, and remove barriers to entry.  And you want to do that while keeping people safe, and protecting the environment... those are often conflicting goals. For example, an easy (and immediate) way to reduce health care costs is to make it easier to get a medical license, increasing supply.  But what's the risk to the general population?

There are no quick fixes here, no free lunches - all the ills of modern society were decades in the making, and are likely decades in the fixing.

[wierd]

There are common factors that conspire against younger voters.

1) Younger voters tend to have to work harder to make ends meet, due to less job experience, and statistically lower salaries than their older counterparts.
2) This means younger voters tend to lack time as a resource, which is necessary to properly approach the democratic machinery, since the voter must have time to be able to self-inform, AND, have time resources available to plan and interact with that machinery, in terms of actually arranging going to the polling center to vote. Remember, this includes such things as finding childcare, so that the statistically likely to be present children are cared for while the parent goes to the polling center.

This is in stark contrast to the often inimical boomer demographic, which is often retired-- and thus has CONSIDERABLE time resources, and often significant savings/investments upon which they support themselves, and typically have long-grown-up children that they do not need to care for.  In fact, they may even be directly chauffeured directly to the polling place. (This is especially true for retirees in assisted living centers or nursing homes.)

In short, while there are many young voters, you are overlooking the very real costs to opportunity that those young voters are facing, compared to their older counterparts that frequently work against their interests.

If it weren't for the fact that doing so is illegal, it is quite likely that these opportunity costs would be purposefully leveraged to prevent young voters from voting at all, by denying them time off from work to accomplish said voting.  AS-IS, the system simply carpet-bombs older voters, who have a much higher turnout (Due to greater opportunity), gets them all riled up and infuriated about %POLICY%, and generally plays the older voters for suckers against the younger ones, to satiate various business and political interests. (See also, PACs, and Thinktanks.)

This COULD be addressed by increasing the polling hours or polling windows for voting, but that would increase the administrative costs of government considerably, and so it will never happen. (THAT, and also, it would make the PAC and Thinktank groups very upset.)

[McTraveller]

I think what I'm saying is, most of what people complain about you don't even need voting to do in the first place. You don't need to be able to vote to get four people together to pool their resources to buy a house or terrible used car to carpool to work.

You don't need to vote to stop going out to eat but make your own meals.

You don't need to vote to make a budget to save even 5% of a terrible wage to start building the capacity to deal with unexpected events.

You don't need to vote to be kind to your neighbors.

[Frumple]

Lots of younger folks are fucking doing that kind of stuff, though. Part of that is why we're being accused of killing entire industries, even, because it turns out not going to out eat or adjusting budgets to not die has consequences.