I seriously doubt the Iranian government is working for at minimum, half the population. Ask the women.

I realize the history. Iran's sucked for long time. Did USA and the British stir the pot? Absolutely. It's almost like powerful countries shit on others when they are the big dog. The Persians did when they were the big dog. Of course, that was thousands of years ago. Then again, these religious nutjobs are still bickers over sky daddies made up thousands of years ago. So there you go.

Guess no one's all that good or maybe just for periods of time but no country seems to be able to hang onto it without eventually becoming shitty.

So maybe like the UK and all their cameras? We're just not caught up to China. Seems like the West, and not just USA, is in for some hard times.

I'm still confident we'll oscillate back the other direction because that's how our system works. I will say it does feel increasingly unstable over the past 12 years but we're been through worse as a country and come out the other side. Stuff gets messy, same as pretty much any other country in the world that was ever big enough to influence others.

No moral superiority over here. We'll equal. Your the one talking about how shitty USA. At least we're not sitting there saying Global warming will kill us all while continuing to drill drill drill. That's Norway. We on the other hand, pulled out of the Paris Accord. You can say it makes us worse but it's not making us hypocrites, now is it.

What, are you naive? You think mixing every culture is some how easy? America is a low trust society and that directly relates racial, cultural and religious diversity. The economic system doesn't exist in a bubble. It exist within the framework and laws of individual countries and the global community.

It's a lot easier to trust someone that looks like you, talks like you, worships as you do and has the cultural history. You know, the stuff that binds communities together.

Trying to take an example of what 10 million homogenized person's are able to do in a relatively small yet resource rich country that covers a mere 148,726 square miles to a country with 330 million people spread out across 3,794,083 square miles is apples to oranges.

It's a lot easier to pass social policies when you see your neighbor's as people like you that you want to help. We don't have that in the United States.

With that attitude, may as well buy from Iran or North Korea right? They are directly funding a country that's attacking their neighbors and trying to annex land. You'd think after Crimea being annexed that Germany, of all fucking countries, would understand an aggressive authoritarian government that's taking baby bites of all it's neighbors, daring the International community to do something. What does Europe do? Fucking nothing. Guess they didn't learn from WW2 and we had to have a whole thing to fix it.

I'd say that's a pretty important social policy but Germany and Europe were happy to let Ukraine take the bullet because it wasn't their country.

Policies in one state has an insidious way of making their way into the national politics. If we wanted every state to be identical, we wouldn't have state laws, now would we. We would just have a federal system instead.

At the end of the day I'll keep voting for fewer taxes as nothing seems to ever trickle down to me. It's almost like if you want to get ahead, you need to work hard and earn it. Toss in a dash of luck as well.

According to https://usafacts.org/articles/... Idaho's per capita murder rate is 1.8 per 100k. California's murder rate 4.5 per 100k.

So clearly those California gun laws are working. They've managed to rack up more then double the murder rate then that redneck state y'all think is just so bad. California, land of the enlightened, home to the 4th largest economy in the world and yet it's twice as dangerous as the backwards Republican state.

Maybe the guns make for a more polite society. California seems to think disarming citizens is some how the answer, yet criminals don't care about the law.

If California or Idaho for that matter, was serious about gun crime, there would be mandatory sentencing for having or using a gun in while committing a crime. No one accidentally has a gun and commits a crime.

It's not hard to kill someone with the bottle the alcohol came in. No need to go banning kitchen knives.

Some cities have already suspended their contract's with Flock. Other's have deactivated the cameras. More will follow. This is actually a topic that could unify the people against this bullshit as it universally affects everyone. From Idaho to California, people have been destroying these things.

This is actually one area where we might actually push back. It won't change the Amazon Ring debacle but at least we can pushback on Flock-like bullshit.

I can't control what is happening on the other side of the world. Actually, I can't control what's happening down the street from me. So sorry, not sorry. I'm not forgoing AC for people I'll never meet. I don't mean them ill will but I'm not hurting myself for their interests.

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.

Europe isn't socialist. They have some social policies. Much of which are under strain as they are increasing their military budgets, now that they can't trust America to keep up the World Police act.

Ask Germany how that Russia gas is. Seems odd to directly support Russia while they attack Ukraine, but I get it. Germany has no choice but to fund the machine.

Ask the British how that NHS is doing. I keep reading that it's running into funding issues, they are cutting corners and have more and more problems in their maternity wards.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art...
https://www.bbc.com/news/artic...

Americans will need to VPN around the paywall of BBC but non-American should see those links for free still.

Europe has lots of capitalism. Last I checked, government still doesn't own the means of production over there. I've heard your more unionized and also have work councils, but none of that is incompatible with capitalism. I'm part of a union in America myself. Works just fine.

My taxes might go up. I'll still get NOTHING from the government, since you know, I'm fucking rich at 70k a year in San Diego.

That's also why I vote against that, because it's never results in anything that directly benefits me. Work and luck is the only way I've ever pulled myself out of the gutter, in which I did have to live for a couple years as a youth. I wouldn't get rid of the social systems, but I'm not expanding them either.

Must be nice to live in a country of 10 million that all look the same, talk the same, have the same cultural values and the same religion.

You can't remotely compare that to 330 million diverse country that America is. We have every culture, religion and creed here. With all our diversity, we are constantly striving to understand each other.

Besides, if you are talking about Norway, they are exporting global warming to make their 10 million citizens lives much more peachy. Sounds like kind of a cunt move if you ask me. Fuck the rest of us, they got theirs, right?

Sounds very human.

So just like China, Russia or North Korea?

Both governments are fun by religious nutjobs.

Getting high is a self made choice. You aren't a victim. You are the agent of your own destruction when you abuse drugs. So no, I don't have any compassion for people that continue to double down on terrible choices. Even worse when they start victimizing other people to get their fix because they can't control themselves.

And this is coming from someone that drinks and smokes weed. I also go to work every day, pay all my bills and have exceptional credit. Take some personal responsibility for yourself folks.