nednobbins

joined 1 year ago
[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 points 2 days ago

I think a lot of this is that Republicans used to follow what used to be the recommendations of the most prominent main-stream economists. We can judge that as foolish in hindsight, but, "let the economics experts handle the economy" is a fairly reasonable policy.

2 big things changed. Republicans push more and more policies that economists consider dumb and economists have updated their models and recommendations based on new research. Even those old free market economists were not fans of tariffs and trade wars. It's pretty hard to find an actual economist (like with a PhD from a respected econ school) who thinks wanton deregulation is a good idea.

At the same time, Democrats still hold on to a few ideas that economists all agree are dumb. There's tons of evidence that things like rent control and home purchase credits make housing problems worse.

Democrats tend to support better economic policies than Republicans do but they support enough bad ones that it's easy for Republicans to argue that the old status quo is correct.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That was also part of Trump's platform. You can generally take whatever bad thing is happening at the moment and blame it on whoever is in charge in the moment. The only time that doesn't work is when most people agree that things are going well.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago

I sincerely hope that Democrats do care.

Like it or not, MAGA can currently take that attitude. They control the SC, both chambers of Congress, and the White House. If they decide to say, "Fsck it. We'll ignore the Demorcrats," they'll still have all the process in place to enact their agenda.

MAGA doesn't need to analyze what went wrong during the election. They got everything they wanted.

For at least the next 2 years, Democrats will be able to do nothing that Republicans don't approve of. The law says that they get to set the standards.

If Democrats want any chance of checking that power or reversing it at the next election, we are the ones who need to adapt.

There's an "ancient Chinese saying", "卧 薪 尝 胆". You don't do it because it's fun or because you obliged to, you do it so you can win next time.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That would be true if every one of those answers didn't also strongly support AOC, Democrats, or Bernie.

That's the whole point of this exercise. A bunch of deep red voters citing Fox is expected and doesn't tell us anything new. When a bunch of deep vlue voters do that, something is going on.

We normally expect AOC and Bernie supporters to be very Blue. If Fox is resonating with those voters we should really be asking ourselves, "Why?"
Why is it that some Democrats hear Fox News and immediately judge them as naked propaganda while other Democrats give them consideration?

edit: grammar

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The sexual revolution was the product of many changes. Cheap and effective ontraception was one of them, legal abortion was not. Roe v Wade wasn't until after the sexual revolution had already happened. Ante hoc ergo non propter hoc.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

When we swap out sex ed for abstinence only we don’t get less sex. We get a surge in teen pregnancies.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 11 points 5 days ago (9 children)

I'm sure that a few, very dedicated, women are doing this.

It's unlikely to be widespread. Sex is one of the most powerful drives humans have. We generally have a terrible track record of trying to convince people to avoid or even delay sex. Even when people believe that their eternal soul is on the line they keep having sex. That's exactly why all the "abstinence only" policies fails so spectacularly.

There are cases where voluntarily giving up something important has led to change. Hunger strikes are the prime example of this. They can have the affect of drawing attention to a matter and raising sympathy.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

I just read that law and it's far from clear that it requires any aid to Israel at all.

Section 1 just defines the title.
Section 2 provides a statement of findings.
Section 3 covers US policy towards Israel. This is the closest I could find to something requiring assistance. Policy statements don't bind the president. At best they serve as guidelines for future legislation.
Section 4 talks about actively defending Israel but brackets the whole thing in "should". That has a specific legal definition that includes, "but it's not required."
Section 5 simply extends some deadlines that were going to expire.
Section 6 mandates some reports.
Section 7 defines terms.

The language in the Leahy Act is considerably stronger and more explicit. "No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter..."

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Fun fact, there’s a 2008

What law is that? I keep hearing about it but I can't find that law.

I did find several that prohibit the US from providing aid to countries that commit human rights violations but nothing that requires the US to give anyone any military hardware.

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 1 points 2 weeks ago

In other news, exponents make things big.

Any time you have an X>1 and a big n, X^n gets huge.

X=26 (if we ignore punctuation, spaces, and capitalization).
N=130,000

[–] nednobbins@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

Not rude at all. The original question is why certain people behave in a certain way.

The first point addresses the direct reason why some voters would refuse to vote for Harris due to her stance on Israel. When people believe they are being harmed they tend to focus all their attention on the immediate harm. It's not a logical choice but people don't act logically in these circumstances.

As an example of this, I'd offer our response to 9/11. The entire nation came together to pass the PATRIOT act and start a war in Afghanistan. There's no logic in passing a bill that was so long that no one in congress could have read it before voting on it. It's hard to argue for the logic of invading Afghanistan. There wasn't really an objective (besides "get OBL", who we later ended up assassinating in an other country) and in retrospect it's certainly clear that it caused far more harm than good. But we were in an emotional state. The people watching their relatives getting bombed in Gaza are in a similarly emotional state.

The second point addresses why Democrats attempts to convince them are failing so spectacularly. Getting someone to vote for your preferred candidate is an exercise in persuasion. Much has been written about the art of persuasion and "insult your audience," isn't generally a recommended technique. One counterexample is "pickup artists". They theorize that by insulting or "negging" women they can motivate the woman to counter the insult by seeking the mans approval. While this does work on some small percentage of women, the vast majority are more motivated to find their mace.

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