UltraMagnus

You're not wrong (in my city, the "mayor" is basically another city council member with no extra powers, just the same voting power as the other council members), but I don't quite get what you're disagreeing with me on.

I'd go with incompetent. This isn't too many steps removed from how insecure the no fly list was (iirc, Maia Arson Crimew didn't have to run any actual exploits to grab that and it was just an insecure jenkins)

I'd quibble that the average medieval peasant faced a lot less surveillance than the average citizen of any country today (Though perhaps that's just a change in methods).

But you are right - and, in fact, I think it's the case that countries/people in worse circumstances tend to have more kids (probably some weird evolutionary thing but I don't want to speculate). As tough as times may seem in "developed" countries, most people don't need to worry about where their next meal is coming from.

(This isn't to say that circumstances are "fine" or that we shouldn't improve things - simply pointing out some biological factors). It's also worth noting that folks in worse economic circumstances tend to having a higher number of people in their "support network" (friends and family - ie, 3 generations living under one roof). Though perhaps this is not the case in the US since it's culturally looked down upon to rely on family like that.

It's an interesting phenomenon that can't be boiled down to 1 or 2 simple factors like government type. Maybe this was too much text and I should've just said "I agree with you DeathByBigSad"

Do you think that all a mayor does is send press releases and give the key to the city to the Powerpuff girls? In NYC especially, local government controls a lot

At this point, the difference is mostly in stability. It's highly unlikely that Harris would have slapped a bunch of tarrifs around willy nilly, and she probably wouldn't be blowing up a bunch of ships near Venezuela (I wouldn't rule it out, but I would assume that the false flag operation would be more subtle).

US voting is 100% picking the lesser evil, at least for now. The current hope would be that democratic socialists gain enough standing to take over the democratic party, so that voters have meaningful choice. In an ideal world, we'd repeal things like citizens united as well

This post in particular probably won't cause a wide swing in support, but it will cause a few people to reconsider past beliefs. This might get those people thinking if it was really OK to make fun of the attack on Pelosis husband, and then that might get them to reconsider how they look at Jan 6.

Rising grocery bills will flip more people than this, of course

I'm not saying that the people who change their minds now are good people (I don't think anyone thinks this) but we need everyone we can get (WITHOUT compromising our core values) when it comes to opposing trump. Every time he fucks up, we need to put the pressure on. Cult deprogramming is difficult, and can't be done for everyone, but it is possible.

There is only one person you are helping when you preach defeatism and give up early.

Look, unless you lay down what you consider to be the goalposts of "socialism", I doubt you're going to have any sort of productive/constructure discussion on this point.

I mean, you can't define socialism by saying that this socialism

Taking into consideration the large amount of credit card debt, student loans, mortgages, etc.? It's plausible. Someone who rents, is living paycheck-to-paycheck, and has maybe a few hundred dollars in credit card debt could be in the "negative"

One of the major things I like about lemmy is that it allows text alongside links/images - I think it's good when OPs use this as a jumping point to start conversation as well.

Ken Klippenstein strikes again. Man is hard carrying journalism

You are absolutely right. And even if they only end up charging some random lieutenant at the bottom of the chain, it will send a message to the rest of the troops that they will not be protected from the consequences of their actions.