Exactly what rights have been taken away....?

ACA enabled access to medical care if you needed it. I may oversimplify a number of things but that's how I see it.

ACA did succeed in making medical care MUCH more expensive for everyone....so, hey, success there!!

Let us not make light of the fact that the fucking Vice President just today has said "no unity" and basically siccing people against their perceived enemies to get people fired. The VP has sanctioned cancel culture.

Hello Pot....Kettle....Kettle....Pot.

And with this....it isn't the govt supports sing speech , it is repercussions in the private sector ....which the liberals cheered in the past recent years.

And this time around, the govt isn't forcing social media to cancel people or deplatform them either...the Dems were caught red handed doing that.

They're happy you won't come back anyway....even though the reality is that you probably will. Or small scale boycotts in general.

Tell that to Bud Light....

I mean if they're calling by phone, they won't get me...I do not answer any phone calls I do not recognize (ie on my contacts list).

I figure if it is important enough, they'll leave me a voicemail.

And even if they get through, with phone or email, I don't answer questions to unsolicited contacts from people, as that I have NO idea who they really are or what they want.

I assume most every call or email is a scam unless they prove otherwise.

I kinda figured anyone today with much common sense or even slight sense of privacy and personal security pretty much did the same.

I've instructed my aging parents to do the same thing....too many old people getting swindled.

It's okay if you live in an area where tips are decent, or if you are an attractive young woman/twink, but generally speaking having to rely on tips to earn a decent amount is discriminatory and works greatly in the employer's favour.

I worked in smallish cities in the southeast of the US...so, no major tipping capitals....and I"m an average looking guy I guess....

I found that a sense of humors and being outgoing and friendly did more than anything for tips...

Hell, there were a couple of times I dropped a whole large tray of food....everything..gone....and well, I just made a joke and everyone laughed...etc.

I ended up making a HUGE tip on that one....

I did well as well as my co-workers...and there was nothing discriminatory about it.

Given the cost of everything, Iâ(TM)m wondering why youâ(TM)re limiting that complaint to tax. Why again do we seem to be socially suck on 20%? When a house was $100K, a 20% down payment was still a lot. Now that the same house is $400K, is 20% even reasonable? FUCK no.

Weâ(TM)re paying 200-300% more today for fine dining because The Dining Experience glorified by influenciteers cheering and posing with food, while the person Iâ(TM)m tipping is doing the exact same job. Why again am I tipping a percentage-based penalty based on their ability to sling bullshit with the best of them in marketing? Not like the waiter did much anything different than a waiter would 100 years ago. Not being demeaning here, just being realistic. With todayâ(TM)s prices, the semi-arrogant tipping âoecultureâ needs to be dropped down to 5-10%. If Iâ(TM)m tipping more than that, then I almost had an orgasm while eating and you deserve that Michelin star.

Perhaps you didn't know it...BUT till recently with this new tax bill.....waiters, bartenders, etc...anyone being paid tipped minimum wage, had to declare a percentage of their sales as tipped income, whether you received it or not.

I'm trying to say it was at least 10-15% back in my day, it's been a long time so don't remember exactly....but basically if a table stiffed you, you lost money to the govt.

That being said , I made VERY good money in my food service days back when going through school.

I learned how to treat people...which helped later in life.

And why would you tip. "More" even though they do the same thing...because everything has risen.costs have risen and so have salaries...you make more than you did 20 years ago...so, you can afford that 20% of tab today is more than it was 20 years ago....that's why you keep the same percentage.

It's just an excuse for employers to pay below the cost of living, and then rely on tips to "motivate" the staff to work harder for them.

In the US, there is a tipped minimum wage.

I worked food service jobs from HS through grad schools....when working as a waiter and especially a bartender...I made bank through tips.

I made MUCH MUCH more than regular minimum wage.

I learned people skills too...which proved to be invaluable when I began work in professional "real" jobs....

That's because you "don't begrudge tipping people in service roles", if indeed you don't. Tipping culture is absurd top to bottom, people should be paid a decent wage.

Speak for yourself.....

I worked in food service starting in High School (dishwater moved up to Busboy)....and off/on through grad school.

I waited tables and bartended, and I relished being a tipped employee.

I regularly made MUCH MORE than minimum wage wage with tips. If you have any people skills, you can make good bank for a job requiring no education and minimal OTJ training....

It was a great set of jobs to work my way through school.

It was also nice to have spending money in High School and save to buy my first car.

Those jobs left me knowing how to work with people, how to treat people and how to schmooze people...all skills that readily paid off a hundred fold when I got into the professional lines of business.

And no...not every job is meant to earn a living from....I'm proof positive that beginner jobs are there for a reason.

Regarding the latter, have you checked your carboon footprint? I,e, how much strain your (chosen or not) consumption patterns but on climate systems?

I don't really give a fuck about my 'carbon footprint"....and neither do most sane people, we're too busy trying to live life, enjoy, earn a living,, raise a family...etc.

This worrying about footprints is such a recent thing....I never grew up with anyone even having that as a concept....and I don't really see it as one now.

I don't buy "externalization" costs for anything...sorry just not a viable topic.

EVERYTHING in life affects other things....and thinking of externalization costs...would just basically fuck up breathing or having kids or just doing anything in life....

Let's just stick to actual costs to build and run something and not make up stuff to target things you don't like.

That's the problem with electric motorcycles....range.

Labor Day weekend, a friend of mine and I took a day road trip around...I think we both clocked in just shy of 300 miles.

No EV bike will do that....not without having to plan many more stops trying to find recharging stations AND spending waaaay too long recharging before getting back on the road.

They just cannot pack enough battery on them at this point to do more than just scoot about town on short errands.

And where I live, there's precious charging sites for the public (New Orleans(...and the route we went to stay off the highway....hell, there weren't even that many gas stations, much less recharging stations.....

Sorry just not ready for motorcycle prime time.

I just don't think it is the impending DOOM you and others seem to think is just around the bend.

If it gets that bad...it will be SO far into the future that I''ll have been dead and buried for so many years no one will know my name to curse it....even direct dependents...100's of years at least IF it ever happens.

I've seen a least half a century so far of people decrying the end of the world for various climate reasons and yet....we still are doing just fine.

I don't see that changing any time soon.

And all of those events get more intense and/or frequent when we increase the heat in the atmosphere. It's not that complicated meteorologically, and well supported by both models and actual evidence.

Variability of weather intensity and occurances is not a new thing....

I've seen quite a bit of that in my decades of lifetime to date....

If you value the transportation mode "stuck in car traffic" so high, then sure.

I've never experienced this stuck in traffic for long periods you seem to assume everyone deals with.

Unless you are in a HUGE city like Los Angeles or maybe Houston....you generally do not deal with this....at least not across the whole US.

Reducing car dependency however helps with many urban qualities, including preserving green spaces, ability of kids or the elderly to get around on their own

Well, this ONLY applies to if you want to live in a densely packed urban setting.

Many folks, self included decidedly do NOTwant to leave in an urban setting.

I hope I never again have to share walls with neighbors like I did as a college student and young adult living in apartments.

I like stand alone houses....PLENTY of green space, indlucing a nice bit I have fenced in for my own private use for BBQ's, parties with friends and neighbors....etc.

I rarely if even encounter congestions....oh the roads get a bit packed during Mardi Gras with so many parade routes blocking some traffic, etc...but aside from times with major festivals going on around the New Orleans area....or any other cities I've lived in...the endless traffic and congestion is simply not something most of us encounter in the US.