ricecake comments on "We stood behind Obama" no you didn't

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I want what's best for the country, specifically the people in it, and the world as a whole.
I hope that trump fails because his stated objectives are abhorrent to common decency, fiscal prudence, and functional governance.

What he calls waste I don't believe for a second is actually waste. He has done nothing to earn my trust in that or any other regard, and so I don't. Certainly not enough to trust them with something as broad as "waste", if the fools who think that any scientific research they don't see the point of is "waste" like so many of the examples have been.

Listening and judging a politician based on their words and actions isn't being "partisan". The electorate can't even be "partisan hacks", they're the one's whose interests and opinions are supposed to be being represented.

It's not up to the American people to live up to the expectations of politicians. It's literally a politicians entire job to live up to ours, and do things that benefit us. If the politicians goal is contrary to that end, I hope they fail.
I'm not gonna wish someone who wants to harm me, my family and my friends luck just so that they might not want to in the future. They need to earn my trust, not the other way around.

If they do nothing for four years and things remain exactly the same as today, I'll count that as a win. If they yell "psych!" and actually do something good I'll eat a hat.

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What he calls waste I don’t believe for a second is actually waste

I don't know what he considers waste, but there's a ton of obvious waste, such as military suppliers (also goes for many government suppliers). I obviously haven't pored over government financials, but I wouldn't be surprised if we could find tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of waste by looking for things like this.

That said, what will probably end up happening is that they'll use it to gut services that are politically inconvenient (e.g. CDC) instead of cutting actual waste. But I'll hold out hope, because I literally can't control it anyway and I prefer hope to despair.

The electorate can’t even be “partisan hacks”, they’re the one’s whose interests and opinions are supposed to be being represented.

I take it you haven't spent much time on social media then... So many people have knee-jerk reactions to things due to their party affiliation instead of the actual facts. Positive things about Biden/Harris get posted on Lemmy and Reddit, and negative things tend to get ignored (inverse is true for Trump).

People like slanting their view of events when it fits their own internal narrative, instead of objectively looking at the facts. That is what I mean by the electorate being "partisan hacks."

It’s not up to the American people to live up to the expectations of politicians

Sure, but it's also up to the American people to inform politicians when they are or are not living up to expectations. If they only get negative feedback from those outside their party and positive feedback from those within it, they'll continue doing things that benefit their party over society as a whole. If members of the opposition party actually applauded when they did something good, maybe they'd do more of that thing. But if all we get is negativity and obstructionism (and yes, that happens on both sides of the aisle), we'll just get more partisan hackery.

I'm calling for a shift in the public discourse on social media toward constructive feedback instead of partisan nonsense. We can't change what the big media orgs do, but we can choose what we do and who we support.

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[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

My eyes rolled so hard they literally flew out of my head and knocked a wall off the back of my house when I saw your example to justify "hundreds of billions of dollars of waste" was an opinion piece on the $500 toilet seat from 1986.
Spoiler alert: if you read the next few years of news it's revealed that those stories are almost uniformly exaggerations and misrepresentations driven by Reagan era people who wanted to starve the beast.

Political lies drummed up to justify cutting vital services under the pretenses of "fighting waste".

You can do whatever you want. I won't be caught dead cheering for a fascist who wants to rollback civil rights just to give him a fair shot in case he makes a prudent budget cut. Which he won't, because his platform has openly covered that they want to cut education, healthcare, and science.
But hey, at least you gave the fascists a fair shot despite their open plans for evil, right?

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

It's well known that government agencies spend way more than they need to in order to keep their funding the next year. Spending needs aren't consistent every year, so they try to smooth over the differences by purpurchasing things before EOY or retaining staff they don't technically need in case their spending needs are higher next year.

That's stupid and wasteful. I don't know how wasteful, but I do know there's an incentive for an agency to expand its budget. It may not come in the form of $500 toilets, but you don't have to look any further than the TSA to find excesses.

fascists

Trump is no more a fascist than Harris is a communist. I don't like rhetoric like this, and I urge you to stop with the name calling. I absolutely don't like Trump and I like his base even less, but I do not believe he's a fascist, but he is a populist nationalist, which is its own brand of dangerous.

Regardless, I already voted against him twice and can't do much to stop him, so the best thing is to discuss ways he can use his position for good.

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[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Do you actually know what a fascist is or do you think it's just a synonym for Nazi?

Harris has never advocated for the communal ownership of the means of production.
People who worked with her don't describe her as a communist.
There isn't serious debate about if she's actually a communist or if she just gets really close to the definition.

a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterised by a dictatorial leader, centralised autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy

Is that the definition of fascism, or trumps former chief of staff explaining why he thinks trump is a fascist?

I trust the former head of the joint chiefs of staff, Trump's former chief of staff, and any number of academics to know what fascism is than I trust you, a person who's worried about being uncivil to someone who wants to put people in camps.

Like, take a step back and think about what you're doing. You're saying it's insulting and wrong to call a far right populist leader who attempted a coup to stay in power, who has threatened to use the military to bring places that disagree with him into line, who calls his political opponents "the enemy from within" and who calls them evil and their criticism of him illegal a fascist. Even if you don't see how just that snippet of his behavior warrants the label, why on earth would you care if someone like that was insulted?

We were discussing how he could use his position for good. He could fucking fail at everything he tries to do and leave the country no better and no worse than it is today.
I'm not gonna sit here and jerk the guy off in the hope that he fails at fascism so hard that he somehow deports musk and enacts MAGA-care for all to spite Obama.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna175198

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/totally-illegal-trump-escalates-rhetoric-outlawing-political-dissent-c-rcna174280

https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2024/10/is-trump-a-fascist/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_fascism

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Do you actually know what a fascist is

Yes, fascism is all about sacrificing individual rights for the benefit of the state, using the military to crush opposition and any "undesirables" along the way.

That doesn't describe Trump, yet that's what the left throws around to try to discredit him.

How Democracies Die (2018) looks at actual fascist regimes and compares them to Trump. I agree that there are significant concerns here, but I think there's an alternative explanation: Trump is merely a narcissist and has no agenda. Everything makes sense through that lens:

rhetoric courting the radical right - they were the most rabid supporters
Jan 6 - he stood by because they were fighting for him
nationalism - if America is "great," so is the President
populism - again, he wants to be in the news

His actual policies have not been consistent with actual fascism though. He didn't attack abortion, gay/trans rights, or racial minorities despite a willing base, the most he did was some rhetoric about states rights and pushing for expansion of the southern wall/fence. He didn't increase aggression militarily toward any of our enemies, his tariffs were pretty mild, etc. He paid lip service to his base, but his main focus was tax cuts and deregulation, which are populist moves that don't benefit the state at all.

So no, I think the term "fascist" is being thrown around to try to discredit him, which failed because it's inaccurate. Trump is certainly dangerous, but not because he's fascist, but because he's narcissistic and his ideas suck.

I trust the former head of the joint chiefs of staff, Trump’s former chief of staff

Sure, but just know that they have an axe to grind as well, so they have a strong incentive to exaggerate. Again, what they say is troubling, but fits with Trump being a narcissist more than a fascist. He

Harris has never advocated for the communal ownership of the means of production.

Exactly, yet that's the term the right throws around to try to discredit her.

You’re saying it’s insulting and wrong to call a far right populist leader who attempted a coup to stay in power, who has threatened to use the military to bring places that disagree with him into line, who calls his political opponents “the enemy from within” and who calls them evil and their criticism of him illegal a fascist.

I'm not saying it's merely insulting, I'm saying it's inaccurate. If you step away from social media for a second and actually talk to some Trump supporters (not the crazies that paint their trucks or don Q anon nonsense) and read some quality journalism that's not just spinning the news against Trump, you might get a different perspective. I live in a very red state that's generally opposed to Trump (dead last in the 2016 primaries, MAGA candidates largely lost), and when I ask people, they say he's distasteful, but they want him to reduce illegal immigration, reduce drug trafficking (esp. Fentanyl), cut spending and taxes, and hurt China. They don't care about "culture war" nonsense, they support Ukraine and want the war to end, and they support Israel but think they've gone too far in Gaza and want the war to end.

attempted a coup

The evidence I've seen is that the Jan 6 rioters arrived at the rally with a plan already, and left the rally early to prepare. I have seen no evidence of direct collusion between Trump and those groups. The clear evidence I've seen is Trump trying to abuse loopholes in the law to overturn what he thought was a stolen election (i.e. narcissism), but not doing anything outright illegal. That's sill not great, but I don't think it's an indicator of fascism.

threatened to use the military to bring places that disagree with him into line

Yeah, that's just saber rattling rhetoric. He has given zero info on what that means, nor has he (AFAIK) mentioned it after winning the election. I think it was just an outlandish statement to rally his base.

calls his political opponents “the enemy from within”

And the same happens in the other direction.

He can say things are illegal, but that doesn't make them illegal. He doesn't create the law, he merely enforces the law. We'll see how far the other branches of government let him take things, but I highly doubt he's actually interested in subverting democracy, he just wants to stay in the news cycle.

I'm not gonna sit here and jerk the guy off

Neither will I. I think he's dangerous and do not support him whatsoever, but I'm also not going to make up lies to smear him. I'll applaud any good moves he makes to hopefully encourage more like it (he's a narcissist after all), and deride any bad moves he makes.

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[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

Where have Democrats called Republicans "evil", or "the enemy within", or made allusions to having them arrested for political disagreement?

Also, I like how you dismiss a five star general and people who have actually worked with the man as biased, while also ignoring the whole "historians and political scientists who agree with them".

I stopped reading when you started assuming that anyone who doesn't agree with you about trump must just be unfamiliar with his supporters and only reading biased news. Don't be an ass and assume you know the background of the person you're talking to.

As far as I can tell, you're a vocal centrist who won't believe someone has bad intentions just because they tell you what they are. Surrounding themselves with Christian nationalists and detailing their plan to do those things could just be for show, right?

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago

you’re a vocal centrist

Left-leaning libertarian, and no, Trump is in no way a libertarian (totally deserved the boos at the LP convention).

Neither major party really aligns with my priorities. Democrats consistently push top-down spending plans for businesses they like (union jobs, green energy, etc), and Republicans consistently push top-down spending plans for businesses they like (military contractors, large corporations w/ tax cuts). I align technically with Democrats on social issues (LGBT rights, drug legalization/decriminalization, etc) and Republicans technically on fiscal issues (balanced budget, lower taxes, etc), but neither deliver so I'm affiliated w/ neither. My priorities are:

NIT/UBI as a replacement for most welfare programs - poor people can do a lot more with cash than food stamps/housing assistance; I'd replace SS w/ NIT if I had the option
transparent medical care pricing - insurance isn't the solution here (screw the ACA), it's part of the problem; we need to expose the grift that's happening behind the scenes to drop costs, and perhaps expand Medicare a bit
legalize anything that doesn't infringe the rights of others - drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc; legalize and tax it all
expand legal immigration so businesses here can expand - anyone should be able to come here to look for a job, and they should be required to leave if they can't support themselves here

If either party fielded a candidate with those as priorities, they'd get my vote. In fact, if they even did one or two, they'd probably get my vote. But no, Democrats love their social programs (probably for control) and Republicans love clutching their pearls.

I did vote for Biden last election due to Trump being so bad that I thought maybe he'd have a chance in my state (Utah), but besides that, I haven't voted for a major party candidate since my first election, when I was deluded into actually buying into their BS. That said, I don't think Trump is fascist, he's just a terrible narcissist, and I'll be surprised if he does anything productive outside of his tax cut proposal, messing w/ tariffs, and deporting some undocumented immigrants. He wants to make a show of being the big man in charge, but I don't think he actually wants to be in complete control.

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[–] PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.works 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

I don’t know what he considers waste, but there’s a ton of obvious waste, such as military suppliers

That's likely an accounting quirk you linked: if they list 9 screws and a tank for $1M but don't specify individual prices, in some situations they just approximate it by assuming they cost the average - so they assume the tank costs $100k and each screw costs $100k each.

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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 point 2 years ago

Perhaps.

I worked at a company that sold equipment to the military, and almost all of our military sales happened near the end of the year. They wanted their own SKU with guaranteed compatibility for their software, so we charged them extra for it (to be fair, maintaining compatibility did take extra dev work). They never seemed to push back on pricing, unlike our commercial customers who kept clamoring for lower SKUs with a lower cost.

Due to that experience, I highly doubt government agencies are getting anywhere near the best price. And why should they care? It's not like they get a bonus for spending less, but they do risk cuts if they spend less. With no reason beyond obligation to keep costs down, I could absolutely believe each agency could cut about 10% by just being more careful about expenses, some more, some less. With yearly spending of ~$7T, $500B is actually rounding down from that estimate.

It's not necessarily because of expensive toilets, but I do know companies overcharge the government because they can. We did it to an extent, and I think we were one of the better actors because my boss's (the CEO) dream has always been to supply our military, and that's basically the entire reason he created the company (we only sold commercially when military sales dried up due to spending cuts in that dept). We later hired a vet just to get our foot back in the door despite booming commercial sales.

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