Political Digression Thread -- Save UP! Move the politically focused stuff here

[kayman]

Gov. Cooper wants canceled Atlanta music festival to come to North Carolina

https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/gov-cooper-wants-atlanta-music-festival-come-north-carolina-after-cancellation/EIR5EVK6EBAZRJMCUUIDVYGOSM

Because of Georgia's political landscape allowing jacked up gun laws on public lands regardless of the intent, Live Nation canceled Music Midtown festival in Atlanta. Governor Roy Cooper wants to bring the festival here. 

The best spot to place such music festival would be here in Charlotte, of course.  Furthermore, it would be NC getting something back from GA after GA went after the state's film industry in the 2010s especially after the stupid GOP's passage of HB2 aka the NC Bathroom Law. 

[JHart]

4 hours ago, kayman said:

Gov. Cooper wants canceled Atlanta music festival to come to North Carolina

https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/gov-cooper-wants-atlanta-music-festival-come-north-carolina-after-cancellation/EIR5EVK6EBAZRJMCUUIDVYGOSM

Because of Georgia's political landscape allowing jacked up gun laws on public lands regardless of the intent, Live Nation canceled Music Midtown festival in Atlanta. Governor Roy Cooper wants to bring the festival here. 

The best spot to place such music festival would be here in Charlotte, of course.  Furthermore, it would be NC getting something back from GA after GA went after the state's film industry in the 2010s especially after the stupid GOP's passage of HB2 aka the NC Bathroom Law. 

I would love for it to come to Charlotte, but we don't have any public land large enough until you get way outside of the city.. 

[kermit]

^ Its not my intent to thread police but…

Is the Music Midtown discussion a political one? The Georgia cancellation happened because of settled law and preexisting contracts — so there was no political dimension to the decision (only legal ones). Similarly, recruiting MM to NC is solely a matter of economic development, not politics.

Just because the law was passed by a bunch of right wingers should not mean we need to be careful about criticizing it -- its the law, it no longer 'belongs to' a single party, it affects all of us. We spend a ton of time criticizing zoning, which is mostly passed by dems, without worrying about any hurt feelings. Why should we treat MM any differently?

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by kermit

[JHart]

15 minutes ago, kermit said:

^ I don’t mean to be the thread police but…

Is the Music Midtown discussion a political one? The Georgia cancellation happened because of settled law and preexisting contracts — so there are no political elements to that decision (only legal ones). Recruiting MM to NC is solely a matter of economic development.

IMO this is a case of us discussing the implications of a settled law. Just because the law was passed by a bunch of right wingers should not mean we need to be careful about criticizing it. We spend a ton of time criticizing zoning, mostly passed by dems, without worrying about a political label. Why is MM different?

 

Unfortunately open criticism of conservative points of view is frowned upon on this site. You know conservatives and their safe spaces.. 

[kermit]

2 hours ago, JHart said:

Unfortunately open criticism of conservative points of view is frowned upon on this site. You know conservatives and their safe spaces.. 

yea, but that is kinda my point. There should not be any safe spaces when laws get passed that apply to everyone regardless of affiliation.

Edited August 3, 2022 by kermit

[tarhoosier]

"On Saturday morning, one of Indiana’s biggest employers, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, issued a strong objection to the new restrictions. “Given this new law,” it said in a statement, “we will be forced to plan for more employment growth outside our home state.”

From New York Times this morning, 7 August, 2022.

[kermit]

7 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

"On Saturday morning, one of Indiana’s biggest employers, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, issued a strong objection to the new restrictions. “Given this new law,” it said in a statement, “we will be forced to plan for more employment growth outside our home state.”

From New York Times this morning, 7 August, 2022.

If only Lilly had the good sense to stop making political contributions to republicans who operate against their economic interest, they might not have found themselves in a position where they are unable to recruit skilled labor to their HQ site https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/eli-lilly-co/summary?id=d000000166 

NC corporations need to take heed. The only thing preventing us from becoming a republican theocracy at the moment is Roy Cooper’s veto. Our republican controlled state legislature only exists because of corporate political donations which tacitly supports the gerrymandering which enables republican minority rule.

I don't have much doubt that a Kansas-like referendum on privacy / autonomy rights for women would have the same result in NC (not much history of Catholicism here). It would be a plus for economic development, but I am sure the yall'qaeda will never put it on the ballot. Government "by the people for the people" has perished from this earth.

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by kermit

[tarhoosier]

For those who have or will have college age sons and daughters, especially daughters, would you advise them to consider universities in Indiana?

addendum:  If North Carolina passed such a law would you advise your child to attend a college in this state?

Edited August 7, 2022 by tarhoosier

[LKN704]

During today's/last night's vote-a-rama in the Senate, the Republicans were able to successfully get the $35 insulin cap (on private insurance) removed from the Inflation Reduction Act after the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the insulin cap was not compliant over the reconciliation rules (a split 51-50 vote over the filibuster) Democrats were trying to use to pass the bill. The insulin cap on Medicare remains. 

Pretty disgusting IMO, and it somewhat points to @kermit's point above about Lilly. Pharmaceutical companies will complain all they want to about the GOP when it comes to social justice/inequality/inequity (and rightly so) but they have no problem continuing to make political contributions to GOP candidates to ultimately protect their bottom line and prevent regulation. I'm so sick and tired of pharmaceutical companies attempting to justify high prices and link them to innovation, especially considering most new drugs are developed at start-up pharmaceutical companies that have basically no revenue. I think something like 60% of all new drugs the FDA approved in 2020 came from start ups.

[davidclt]

1 minute ago, tarhoosier said:

For those who have or will have college age sons and daughters, especially daughters, would you advise them to consider universities in Indiana?

Hell no! But my daughter also wants to leave Charlotte, Raleigh (where she will start her second year at NCSU in two-weeks) and NC for someplace colder, more liberal and with better transit. My son, who finishes UNC in December after 3.5 years, wants to go someplace warmer (Charlotte is too cold dad), more rural and couldn't care less about the politics. Go figure?

[kermit]

19 hours ago, tarhoosier said:

For those who have or will have college age sons and daughters, especially daughters, would you advise them to consider universities in Indiana?

addendum:  If North Carolina passed such a law would you advise your child to attend a college in this state?

My daughter decided NC was far too conservative for her when HB2 happened when she was 15. Its repeal was not enough, she feels like if crap like that can get passed here once it can happen again.  She went up north to college and aint coming back. Having said that, she is much more attuned from politics than most 21 year olds (and no, I do not talk politics with her).

[my daughter would also like to live in a place with better transit and walkability than Charlotte -- I do preach the transit gospel to her]

Edited August 8, 2022 by kermit

[rancenc]

Interesting article concerning the Hispanic voters in the USA.  If the Republican Party goes back to its non populist message, they could conceivably rejuvenate the party.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-gops-grievance-politics-might-not-turn-off-conservative-latino-voters/

[kermit]

4 minutes ago, rancenc said:

Interesting article concerning the Hispanic voters in the USA.  If the Republican Party goes back to its non populist message, they could conceivably rejuvenate the party.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-gops-grievance-politics-might-not-turn-off-conservative-latino-voters/

I'll take the other side on any bet that assumes republicans will get sane again.

[rancenc]

1 hour ago, kermit said:

I'll take the other side on any bet that assumes republicans will get sane again.

Their current trajectory will not sustain them in the long run, however politics worldwide have presented a lot of surprises recently!

[kermit]

This is not directed at any anyone here but I'll say it anyway:

I'll be accepting apologies from anyone who previously accused me of having "Trump derangement syndrome" through the weekend...

Quote

Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/11/garland-trump-mar-a-lago/

[LKN704]

This isn't a post about healthcare, nor is it a post about democratic socialism,  but rather a rant about how thick headed and hypocritical some people in our society are.

I was out with a British friend in Northern Virginia late last night and there was an elderly tourist couple from somewhere in the Midwest on the subway platform. They appeared nervous about taking the train so late at night, so they gravitated towards us and began to chit chat. I don't like conversing with strangers, but my friend does, and the wait for the next train was around 15 minutes, so I figured what the heck. They had apparently never met a British person before(!?), and the topic of healthcare somehow came up. They agreed that our "current system" isn't working, and the woman remarked that she needed surgery but insurance wasn't going to cover the entire cost and she didn't know if it was worth spending the money. 

My friend explained that no one who uses the NHS system will ever receive a bill, and the overall taxes taken out of his paycheck to fund NI are less than his annual insurance premium in the US plus he doesn't have to pay co-pays. He told her that no one in the UK who uses the NHS would ever have a medical bankruptcy, and he thought the quality was just as good as that he experiences in the US. 

The wife's reaction to everything was "That's nice, but I prefer the way we do it!" and the husband just said "That's socialism…it will never work here, we would end up like Venezuela!". The man then added that "he's been paying for health insurance his whole life privately, and it wouldn't be fair to me if you young guys started getting it for free. I would feel cheated, so there is no point even discussing this."

I had to walk away because there was no point talking to a brick wall. 

I'm so sick and tired of US society (on both sides) conflating universal healthcare with socialism, and then socialism with authoritarianism. Socialism is an economic system, while authoritarianism is a style of government rule. Both sides (although I hear the comparison much more from Republicans) love to give the example of Venezuela as what would happen if the US were to move away from our current free-market healthcare system.

Venezuela's ills aren't even remotely related to socialism. Venezuela is country that is suffering from the ills of authoritarianism and as a result of being a petrostate that is plagued with Dutch disease. I could explain it further, but I think this article explains it well: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis

I explained to my friend that a European-style social democratic system will never be popular here simply because working-class Americans do not see themselves as exploited, but rather temporarily embarrassed and inconvenienced rich folk. They have the American dream that allows them to believe they are always just on the cusp of being a millionaire, so there is no need for things like universal healthcare and paid family leave. 

I'm also exhausted of these same type people harkening back to "simpler times of the 1950s and 1960s when everything was better." No sh*t sherlock…that's when our country's socialist institutions were the strongest.   

But at the end of the day, most people in the US believe that socialism is where the citizens end up eating rats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiWLJL-gMjY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THUFzmmKMPs (my favorite video in the world)

The irony to me is that Trump is really no different in ideology than Maduro or the rest of Venezuelan's elite that down champagne in their gated country clubs in Caracas. I always laugh when I hear rural Americans brandish their love for Trump because "he is just like us".  Trump is nothing like you. Trump is in his multi-million dollar residence sipping on bottles of Dom Perignon that are probably worth more than your weekly paycheck earnings. You wouldn't be allowed to step foot into his club house.  

I'm all for policy debates about universal healthcare, but blasting it as socialism and then shutting down isn't a debate and is insulting to one's intelligence IMO.

Edited August 16, 2022 by LKN704

[tarhoosier]

Regarding political and social interactions, when I encounter someone who concludes his/her (his) comment(s) with "Period" or "Full Stop" or "Fact" or "End of story" I know it is time to thank him for his time and move away.

[JeanClt]

This isn't a post about healthcare, nor is it a post about democratic socialism,  but rather a rant about how thick headed and hypocritical some people in our society are.
I was out with a British friend in Northern Virginia late last night and there was an elderly tourist couple from somewhere in the Midwest on the subway platform. They appeared nervous about taking the train so late at night, so they gravitated towards us and began to chit chat. I don't like conversing with strangers, but my friend does, and the wait for the next train was around 15 minutes, so I figured what the heck. They had apparently never met a British person before(!?), and the topic of healthcare somehow came up. They agreed that our "current system" isn't working, and the woman remarked that she needed surgery but insurance wasn't going to cover the entire cost and she didn't know if it was worth spending the money. 
My friend explained that no one who uses the NHS system will ever receive a bill, and the overall taxes taken out of his paycheck to fund NI are less than his annual insurance premium in the US plus he doesn't have to pay co-pays. He told her that no one in the UK who uses the NHS would ever have a medical bankruptcy, and he thought the quality was just as good as that he experiences in the US. 
The wife's reaction to everything was "That's nice, but I prefer the way we do it!" and the husband just said "That's socialism…it will never work here, we would end up like Venezuela!". The man then added that "he's been paying for health insurance his whole life privately, and it wouldn't be fair to me if you young guys started getting it for free. I would feel cheated, so there is no point even discussing this."
I had to walk away because there was no point talking to a brick wall. 
I'm so sick and tired of US society (on both sides) conflating universal healthcare with socialism, and then socialism with authoritarianism. Socialism is an economic system, while authoritarianism is a style of government rule. Both sides (although I hear the comparison much more from Republicans) love to give the example of Venezuela as what would happen if the US were to move away from our current free-market healthcare system.
Venezuela's ills aren't even remotely related to socialism. Venezuela is country that is suffering from the ills of authoritarianism and as a result of being a petrostate that is plagued with Dutch disease. I could explain it further, but I think this article explains it well: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis
I explained to my friend that a European-style social democratic system will never be popular here simply because working-class Americans do not see themselves as exploited, but rather temporarily embarrassed and inconvenienced rich folk. They have the American dream that allows them to believe they are always just on the cusp of being a millionaire, so there is no need for things like universal healthcare and paid family leave. 
I'm also exhausted of these same type people harkening back to "simpler times of the 1950s and 1960s when everything was better." No sh*t sherlock…that's when our country's socialist institutions were the strongest.   
But at the end of the day, most people in the US believe that socialism is where the citizens end up eating rats:
[/url]
 (my favorite video in the world)
The irony to me is that Trump is really no different in ideology than Maduro or the rest of Venezuelan's elite that down champagne in their gated country clubs in Caracas. I always laugh when I hear rural Americans brandish their love for Trump because "he is just like us".  Trump is nothing like you. Trump is in his multi-million dollar residence sipping on bottles of Dom Perignon that are probably worth more than your weekly paycheck earnings. You wouldn't be allowed to step foot into his club house.  
I'm all for policy debates about universal healthcare, but blasting it as socialism and then shutting down isn't a debate and is insulting to one's intelligence IMO.
[/url]

Small addition to this on my part: medical insurance is practically at its basic concept the same thing as universal healthcare. Lmao. Literally people pay into a pool of money that is then drawn from to pay for the bills of those he need it. It’s unlikely that everyone who pays into the pool will need the same medical services at the same cost at the same time. So it is fund that is only pulled from when those need it. The biggest difference is public versus private. Insurance companies need profit and therefore need to charge you more and ask you to copay. They need to pay employees and also make huge profit. Public entities such as the government does not. That is why the taxes paid for this Services is much lower than the cost of insurance and the cost of a procedure when it comes time to pay.

[elrodvt]

Talk about a dumb reason "it wouldn't be fair cause I didn't have it when young".   I assume he felt the same way about social security and declines those checks? 

Are these people not educated through high school? Have they never taken a philosophy class? Are they simply too lazy to research anything? Dunno.

I had to take both philosophy and current events/politics even in my crappy rural redneck VA school. Instead of applying basic logic and some books, they simply parrot talking heads, much of which is either misleading or flat out lies, and I despair we have no hope of changing them back into thinking humans. Especially as most people do become more rigid in their beliefs as they age.

Just babbling in frustration as I can't see a way out of this mess. Educate me!

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by elrodvt

[davidclt]

35 minutes ago, elrodvt said:

Talk about a dumb reason "it wouldn't be fair cause I didn't have it when young".   I assume he felt the same way about social security and declines those checks? 

Are these people not educated through high school? Have they never taken a philosophy class? Are they simply too lazy to research anything? Dunno.

I had to take both philosophy and current events/politics even in my crappy rural redneck VA school. Instead of applying basic logic and some books, they simply parrot talking heads, much of which is either misleading or flat out lies, and I despair we have no hope of changing them back into thinking humans. Especially as most people do become more rigid in their beliefs as they age.

Just babbling in frustration as I can't see a way out of this mess. Educate me!

I think it's selfishness combined with FYIGM (screw you I've got mine). Plus they don't want anyone they deem "undeserving" to benefit from their taxes. There's also the Donna Summer philosophy, "[They] Works Hard for the Money. . . so you'd better treat [them] right!"

[JeanClt]

That man’s mentality is why we have problems today that persist from the old and why it is so difficult to change things and why they take so long to change. One reason why younger people should have positions of power because some older people are too selfish to think outside of their life to improve the lives of those that come next. (Exaggeration Alert: I bet we would have cured aging, hunger, housing, along with basic necessities being met for the entire population if it weren’t for greed and this mentality). Is it really an exaggeration though? We will never know.

[LKN704]

I get that US society is outrageously individualistic compared to its Western peers, which somewhat explains negative opinions towards universal healthcare and taxation in general, but I would be interested to see some type of peer-reviewed study that maybe shows a correlation between higher taxes and satisfaction with the government. 

What I am trying to say is, I live in a "state" that has high taxes...the 6th highest in the country in terms of state personal income tax. Yet I gladly hand over the extra percentage in my salary as opposed to living in say Texas, which levies no state income tax. I'm okay with it, because I can literally see where my taxes are going right in front of my eyes. 

For example, the DC Government will come a plant an unlimited number of trees FOR FREE at your house per your request, and they essentially cover most of the cost if you want to install a raingarden, bay scaping, permeable pavers, and rain barrels. I don't have a house, but I benefit from reduced CO2 emissions from the planting of trees, and from the reduced pollution in the Chesapeake watershed. 

Each ward in DC has a high-quality gym that is free to use, with decent equipment. The one by me is pretty solid. They also have nice, free indoor pools scattered throughout the District, complete with all the essentials from kickboards to pull buoys. While I regularly use the pools, I don't use the gyms, but I still benefit from them because at the end of the day, obesity affects all of us and has a direct correlation on a place's GDP. 

While DCPS High Schools are a mixed bag, the DCPS free universal Pre-K program for 3- and 4-year-olds is top quality and could very well be the most comprehensive Pre-K program in the country. Pre-K students attend the program at elementary schools (rather than a designated Pre-K facility), where the students, teachers, and parents have access to all of the programs the school provides. Pre-K teachers are paid the same as the rest as the elementary school teachers, and Pre-K students spend a full school day in the program. The DC government spends around $19K per child in the program, or around triple than other states do. Even people who are genuinely scared of DCPS usually send their kids to the Pre-K program, because it is seriously that good. I don't have kids, but I benefit from the program as it has had dramatic, positive effects through every demographic of DC society. Studies have shown that Pre-K programs have numerous educational benefits, from reducing the rate at which students may have to skip a grade later on, to reducing the number of kids that need special education programs, which allow the money earmarked for special ed to be used elsewhere. DCPS Universal Pre-K dramatically raised the employment rate of mothers. 

While the benefit isn't as good as it used to be thanks to rising tuition prices, the DC Government gives out grants to DC residents attending out of District universities to help cover the difference between in state and out-of-state tuition, up to $10K per academic year. Not a whole lot of money, but a pretty cool benefit IMO. 

We have the best park system in the nation for the second year in a row according to the Trust for Public Land, and the park distribution is the most equitable in the nation. We have a decent network of bike lanes (although a lot of progress needs to be made in terms of safety) and have more people who commute by bike than any other large city in the US outside of Portland. 

Those are just the tangible things I see on a daily basis...things that justify the high taxes.

My point is that while I get that we may never eliminate the individualistic aspect of our society in terms of social spending as it relates to taxes, I would somewhat understand the frustration of higher taxes if I lived in state with dilapidated infrastructure and poor social services, like say Mississippi, which has a 5% top marginal income tax rate (DC's top marginal income tax rate is 8.95% for comparison) yet ranks the lowest in terms of human development amongst all US states (it's also ranked lower than Guam, the USVI, and the Northern Mariana Islands) and is ranked 48/50 in terms of infrastructure quality amongst US states by the American Society of Engineers. I'd want to know where my money was going in that case, and would be reluctant to hand over more. 

[kermit]

17 hours ago, LKN704 said:

 I would be interested to see some type of peer-reviewed study that maybe shows a correlation between higher taxes and satisfaction with the government.

Don't know of peer review work off the top of my head, but there are regular 'happiness surveys' at the country level. The top performers in the vast majority of these surveys (the happiest countries) are Scandanavian, certainly not places known for low tax rates. If you ask residents of Norway, Finland and Sweden (my datapoints) they universally indicate that it is easier to be happy when you are confident that there is a functioning and effective social safety net for all, my interpretation of that was that there was a general satisfaction with government. Low tax nations don't normally do very well in these surveys.

Quote

Here are the top 10 countries and their score: [for 2022]

1. Finland- 7.821
2. Denmark- 7.636
3. Iceland- 7.557
4. Switzerland- 7.512
5. Netherlands- 7.415
6. Luxembourg- 7.404
7. Sweden- 7.384
8. Norway- 7.365
9. Israel- 7.364
10. New Zealand- 7.200

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/03/21/finland-us-happiest-country/7114106001/

EDIT: Here is a peer review study that found Americans are generally happier when tax rates are more progressive (low income people were happier, high income people were found to be no less happy with more progressive taxes).

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Famp0000166

My quick scan of Google Scholar indicates that the literature on this is VERY ambiguous. Measurement decisions result in opposite conclusions when examining tax rates and satisfaction -- in general it appears that economists seem to reach very different conclusions than psychologists.

Edited August 17, 2022 by kermit

[davidclt]

11 hours ago, JeanClt said:

That man’s mentality is why we have problems today that persist from the old and why it is so difficult to change things and why they take so long to change. One reason why younger people should have positions of power because some older people are too selfish to think outside of their life to improve the lives of those that come next. (Exaggeration Alert: I bet we would have cured aging, hunger, housing, along with basic necessities being met for the entire population if it weren’t for greed and this mentality). Is it really an exaggeration though? We will never know.

I know anecdote isn't data and I don't want to be ageist here but I do believe the Baby Boomer generation is generally toxic. My parents are technically the very tail end of the Silent Generation ('42 and '43) but they identify as Boomers. Their parents were getting their start in the throes of the Great Depression and post-WWiI built the society (for all its good and ills) we find ourselves in today. Starting in the election of 1980 they all (Silent and Boomers) started to dismantle the society they built over the prior 35 years ('Government is not the solution to the problem: government is the problem').

My parents decry "socialism" (for everyone but them and their cohort we paid in and earned our Social Security and Medicare) and deeply fear that we'll all become lay-abouts on the government dole with no motivation to work as we suckle off of the government teat. They live in Florida and generally think Desantis is doing a good job even if they find his rhetoric toxic ("He may be awful but got the seniors their covid vaccine quickly and partnered with Publix" - my dad was in the grocery business and the hagiographies they paint of Publix and all involved with Publix borders on the cultish.)

As their generations (Silent and Boomer) fade, I hope Gen X, the Millennials and Gen Y and Z fill the void with less toxic politics and politicians intent on helping the people they serve not their corporate masters. I am amazed by the vocal (manufactured) outrage currently cowing school boards across the country from my generation and the one that follows.

Edited August 17, 2022 by davidclt
Added links

[davidclt]

11 hours ago, LKN704 said:

What I am trying to say is, I live in a "state" that has high taxes...the 6th highest in the country in terms of state personal income tax. Yet I gladly hand over the extra percentage in my salary as opposed to living in say Texas, which levies no state income tax. I'm okay with it, because I can literally see where my taxes are going right in front of my eyes. 

I remember in the early 2000s a cow-orker of mine (born, raised, schooled K-grade 16) in Charlotte (CMS, UNCC) beat a path out of Mecklenburg County for Union County for "lower taxes" and to escape the ills of "big city" Charlotte for his kids. He then proceeded to lament the lack of infrastructure in Union County including overcrowded and insufficiently staffed schools. The mind blows.