I got that, after perusing TFS. But it's still a good reason to drop the dual usage. It's use in confusing situations should be sanctioned.

I like the spirit of what you are saying which sounds to me like "let's increase freedom" or "let's encourage good corporate governance." Freedom and competence are good things, for sure. However, I don't agree that giving the government more power/reasons to rob folks is a good idea. Remember what the government spends the money on. They minimize the good stuff (roads, kids, local defense). They maximize the bad stuff like foreign wars, secret bio-weapons labs, experiments on the population, group-based biased transfer payments, overregulation of things they can't keep up with like tech and pharma, punishing the little guys while letting the big corps run wild, etc... The government is not the good guys that need rewarding. People who create goods and services that aren't harming society are the good guys, not a bunch of evil soon-to-be-tax-donkeys we should stifle.

That is true. It's also punishing individuals, the middle class, and based on the worst possible (most unjust) modalities of taxation: income robbery and property robbery. So, you can't keep what you earn and you cannot own any property because the government can take it the minute you stop paying them rent. The taxes (robbery) is bad. The way they collect them is worse. The things they spend the ill-gotten-gains on are the drizzling Hershey shits. So, the best option in terms of effectiveness and fairness would be to cut spending and radically reduce the size of our incompetent and murderous government.

I don't know where to come down on these types of network-effect monopolies. Part of me says "Well, Apple/Sony/MS built the walled garden let them live or die in it." However, that ignores how big these companies get and how powerful and large the market places start to become. The effect becomes so large that it might actually be at least worth considering letting the incompetent murderers help solve the problem, lord help us. However, I doubt it. I'd assert that in a sufficiently free market, network effects will get nullified by better and more competitive networks. If they don't (like say with Standard Oil) it might because the monopoly is being really well run and competitors cannot break in. General rules against fraud, breach of contract, or actual coercion still apply to walled gardens.

My ideas are more ideologically pure and probably would generate better outcomes (more freedom & wealth) if fully implemented, based on histories precedents. However, my ideas are also less realistic and less easy to implement than yours. Your ideas are at the "Let's radically change tax policy" wonk-level. That's bad, but it's not nearly as bad as "We gotta burn this system to the ground and start over with Capitalism" which is basically my idea. So, the merit of the idea depends on your goals & perspective.

Nah, you're not being a smarmy trite shithead. There is no reason to be trite to you. I just usually match the energy of the parent post, ala Witroth and his "come out partisan guns blazing" crap. You want to have a discussion, just avoid the smarm and ad-hominem that's ubiquitous here and we'll have an actual conversation.

True. All you have to do is not get shot while stealing it. Easy peazy!

You think corporations don't just pass taxes through to their customers? Sweet Summer child, must be nice to be so naive.

That does sometimes happen. That's the great thing about living in a place with freedom of movement and at-will employment. When an employer gives you a raw deal, you change jobs. If that's too hard, move. If that doesn't work, start your own business. Notice how in the most authoritarian countries all those options are restricted. That's because restricting individual freedom is what Fascist and Communists always do. Cheerleading and playing useful idiot for the Commies won't help you any more than goose stepping with the Fascists. In your case, I'd simply work on typing and grammar skills so that people might be able to figure out what the fuck you're trying to say. Partisanship isn't your worst personal trait, unfortunately.

I think Google search has a boolean to exclude truths that run counter to your world view.

"Wisdom alone comes through suffering." -- Aeschylus

Occasionally and vanishingly small levels, but yeah, very very rarely you let something slip.

I think bad policies are bad, no matter who pushes them. Groups pushing them aren't all that relevant except to mark their partisan bias.

I've been extremely critical of them even in this thread. You're so partisan you can't even remember that part because you're too busy carrying water. Republicans have both bad policies and bad execution, just like their pals in the Uniparty Democrat branch.

That's where you're wrong. It's a rigged system with the illusion of two parties. In reality, both do the same things: same debt, same wars, same prisons, same massive regulation, same authoritarianism (remember CV19?), and they even re-use the same lies (save children/stop terrorists).

No, not with partisans being the majority. That's for sure.

You have yourself jedi mind dicked into thinking that, clearly. Let's say for the purpose of a thought experiment that you're completely correct. The Democrats are, let's say 5% better, more honest, more effective, and less corrupt. That's not a reason to overlook all the horrible policies they both use in lockstep. That's not a reason to allow them to use the two-party system as a way to nullify & ignore democracy. You're not compromising to get that 5%, you're fucking everyone else on the 95% that's exactly the same by backing the current system.

Not really. I'd summarize your expressed position as "it's the other guys fault and I won't hear otherwise." You're quick to point out that Republicans come out looking a little dirtier in some "who racked up the most debt" comparisons. Marginally it's true, some do: but you ignore the massive debt in general and the evil of letting the government accumulate it if "your guys" are doing it. The real problem you have is that you're also always jumping in to try to defend government intervention and government solutions (as long as your white knights in the Democrat party are the implementers). This is the same government that builds nukes, runs bio-weapons-labs, drops bombs on kids worldwide, etc... and yes, even when the Democrats are running things! They don't deserve support, even if their messaging is better or they have a marginally better track record in places you or I care about.

That's true. Who knows if I'm subjectively "better". It just makes me more skeptical and likely a lot more likely to be cogent overall than you who seems to want to give half the partisans (the ones on your "side" / "team") a pass.

I'd prefer the electorate wake up and vote better, but they are too caught up in a divide and conquer strategy that's straight outta "The Prince" and will rarely vote outside of the partisan ranks. There are a few things we could try. Maybe Swiss style direct democracy would help a bit. These "representatives" don't do a lot of representing. Nothing seems to fail quite like voting for a middle man with other priorities. So, I'd start there. The closest thing to a revolution I could support would be a judicial one were judges who won't uphold their oath to protect the constitution are dismissed and we start cutting thousands of unconstitutional laws outta the books and enforcing the Bill of Rights.

Bingo. Billionaires are "stealing" by selling them products and services they badly want and will pay for. However, the oh-so-honest government that wants to add to our 3,000+ nukes, never declares it's wars or gets them rubber stamped by Congress, robs folks by force, and runs things like the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment && MKULTRA, yeah THOSE GUYS need some of that sweet-sweet stolen money to do "good things" with because they have such a great track record of "good". Greeeeaaaaaaat logic, folks.

Fuck the liars at Anthropic. They said they'd found THOUSANDS of operating systems bugs. They've published a few dozen, only a handful have PoC exploits, they published a couple dozen "checksums" they said they'd use as proof "later", and only one of their discoveries has a been an RCE (in a not-enabled-by-default NFSd package for FreeBSD). Everything else is a boring, easily prevented, and not-really-all-that-interesting local privs escalation. No remote OpenSSL bugs, no remote OpenSSH bugs. YAAAAAAWWWWWWN

Guys.... BIG FUCKING DEAL. There are single programmers like say, Aleph One or Solar Designer who have done more by themselves than "Mythos" has done. They are talking mad shit and can't really back any of it up. This is all marketing hype to drive up the stock price for their IPO.

You are making the mistake that if anyone criticizes a Democrat you have to come running to the rescue with apologist excuses that appear contrived, weakly reasoned, and easily disproved: ie... the same lame type of political talking points you accuse others of parroting you are parroting from the Left. You might as well be a spokesperson for the Democrats.

You're always losing these debates with me or others because you cannot adequately cover for all their stupid shit and you just turn to whataboutism to try and tap dance your way out. You can't. Neither can I and that's why I'm not a partisan nor a Republican (so bring up all the leftist conspiracy theories you like, some are even true). The partisans have made too many mistakes and they are too similar and you're efforts to hand-wave a Uniparty difference into existence is pretty laughable "the poor Democrats are just the clean up crew!". If we need a picture next to the entry for "useful idiot" or as you prefer "unwitting solider" we are going to ask you, not rsilvergun and damn sure not me.

The door of some church in Wittenburg doesn't curate your theses. Nor does it algorithmically select which ones to offer you.

These activities alone should disqualify a site from Section 230 protections.

Friend of mine had a son who started nagging for stuff. She asked for advice. I suggested leaving a couple of brochures for military acadamies lying around. Worked like a charm.

The dictionary definition of "socialize" has the top (most common) meaning of socialize as "To place under government or group ownership or control: socialized medical care."

So it appears the only person making shit up... is you.

Meta is just a front for NABMLA.

Here is the actual data on how much debt the past presidents have left office with. It's simple, the amount grows significantly no matter who is in office and in similar proportion to the last guy with a general trend upwards. Though, sure, Clinton did notably better than some. Bush is still probably the dumbest and worst president of my lifetime. I'm not sure even Trump or Biden could have topped him.

That seems partisan and is easily false if I go cherry picking facts. Care to defend Baltimore's government or LA and give them great marks for "governing"? Oh, and Reagan can blow me, he was horrible on the debt and on foreign policy, not to mention super corrupt. However, the "rosy" part was the level of debt and the functional level of our economy and of markets of the 1980's. In any case, that partisan squirrel matters a lot less than the current Uniparty just plowing ahead with the same debt bomb, same war machine, and with the divided and conquered plebs fighting on deck about partisan, mostly culture war, distractions.
You seem to go swinging on anyone you think is left of Robespierre. However, you mistake that I'm trying to defend the partisan Right or their idols. Fuck those guys. I thought Rush was a pill popping sweaty faggot looking asshole who would hit a golf ball at your car or yell at clouds. So, you'll need to search for some better goads. The fact that I'm to the right of Jello Biafra doesn't mean I'll start quoting Charlie Kirk and Jesus.

Of course I do, but it's non-partisan or perhaps hyper-partisan. They both do gerrymandering to the maximum degree they can get away with pretty much universally. It goes completely without saying.

We'd likely still have Thomas Massey if she'd been president. That could be true, as much as I despised her warmongering, word salading, tax robbery cheerleading, and horrible ideas, I'm not sure she could have been this horrible. She would have tried, but goddamn, this is some next-level bad. It's a pathetic state we're in, for certain. I'd like to vote we finally try Capitalism, but voting works a lot like praying, these days.

I'm hoping that some of these unwashed masses voting for this thing are employees of Google, Apple, etc. And I want to be a fly on the wall when the boss says, "Pack up your stuff. The company is moving to Wyoming."