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Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

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181–190 of 308 posts

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make it a holiday and move the election to the day after tax day: "Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders." - Thomas Sowell

> "Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders." This is the reason why we have to file tax papers. State & federal can calculate taxes for majority of the people but don't because a group "" want people to suffer and revolt against income tax. All politicians wants to cut spending but just not f…

The biggest reason we don't have automatic tax filing in the U.S. is the Intuit & H&R Block lobbyists fighting against it.

According to this ProPublica report, that is.

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People care about Juneteenth like they care about MLK day, there's no cultural significance to Kwanzaa.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=j... Looks like Kwanzaa was bigger until 2018 when Juneteenth first started getting promoted.

Juneteenth has been promoted a whole lot longer than since 2018. At least in the cities I used to go to.

That said, I'm from the upper midwest. Views on Juneteenth are probably different, particularly in certain other parts of the country.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#183
post #153
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ECOA still allows discrimination if the person can't afford the home, incentivizing the system to make housing as expensive as possible I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying that you will sell your house to someone who can't afford it, possibly for a much reduced price?

Obviously not. That's why it's such an insidious and esoteric way of pulling up the ladder behind the chosen groups.

What is your point then? What you are trying to say? Your words give the impression that you believe when a person cannot afford a house, that is discrimination.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#184
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's largely because increased voting overwhelmingly (and almost exclusively) benefits one side in the US. While it's obviously good to have increased participation in democracy, the side that's going to more or less cease to exist if we ever get even 80% citizen participation obviously has an incentive to make voting harder.

"More people voting always hurts , and helps their opponents" has always seemed to me like an admission that is innately anti-democratic, and I don't know how people ever spin it otherwise.

"Requiring ID to vote always hurts " has always seemed to me like an admission that is innately anti-democratic, and I don't know how people ever spin it otherwise.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I maintain that the Fourth of July should be made a floating holiday, on the first Thursday in July, to facilitate 4-day weekends. So this year, for instance, the calendar would go July 4 (Independence Day, Thursday) - July 1 (Friday) - July 2 (Saturday) - July 3 (Sunday) - July 5 (Monday).

This is basically what happens in Canada, where our national holiday is official July 1st, but ends up moved to the closest Friday or Monday.

No. It is on a Thursday this year. Like all holidays if it is on a Saturday or Sunday it is observed on the Monday. But it doesn’t move if it is on Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're hoping you click on the link in that paragraph, which is full-on Marxist propaganda. Also, it's not 6 states banning CRT, it's 20 states now. (CRT is calling white children oppressors, and black children victims. Neither is accurate or helpful. CRT is derived from Marxist Critical Theory. Since the US doesn't have a class struggle, racism has been inserted to make it a racism struggle.)

Marxism has nothing to do with Critical Race Theory, which is an explicitly non-marxist idea. Marx theory is that all of history is a history of class warfare, so any racism is a result of class warfare. Marx was unconcerned with race.

There is a nugget of truth to the propaganda, which is one reason it persists. Critical Race Theory (which seeks to understand the relationship between racism and law) is a branch of Critical Legal Studies (which seeks to understand the relationship between more generalized oppression and law), which is a branch of Critical Theory (which seeks to understand how societies reinforce power structures). Critical Theory arose from the Frankfurt School, and drew significantly from the thinking of Marx and Freud. So, yes, CRT is fractionally inspired by Marx, a notorious racist and anti-Semite. But the Red Scare is alive and kicking in American discourse, so this tenuous link makes for effective gish gallop.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#187
This has become a cultural date so it makes sense to ratify June 19th as the holiday.

But since the article talks about historical accuracy, it should be noted that slavery had not ended on June 19th - slaves in some border states had to wait till December for their freedom.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#188
post #16

This is a good symbolic gesture, but making election day a federal holiday equivalent in standing with Christmas would have real and positive impact. But the latter never draws the votes in congress, so that should tell us how meaningless this vote truly was.

Make it a holiday and move the election to the day after tax day: "Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders." - Thomas Sowell

I’ve always liked the idea of just reusing the Fourth of July. I think there would be a lot less animosity from the losing parties if everyone was celebrating America on the same day.

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Make early voting widely available and mail ballots available to anyone who requests one. Stop thinking of elections as a single day. That’ll be much healthier for democracy.

In Australia we always have elections on Saturday. Works well for most people. Of course, there is a minority of people it doesn't work well for, such as people who have to work on Saturdays, and observant Jews. And for those people we have early voting and postal voting too. I never quite understand why voting is such a controversial topic in the US. In many countries (I'm sure Australia is not alone in this) it is…

Also Australian here. Unironically the whole family looks forward to voting day for the snags. I've seen kids ask why voting day so far away. Is that sort of environment all the US is missing that makes this controversial?

Re: Senate Unanimously Approves a Bill to Make Juneteenth a Public Holiday

#190
post #183
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously not. That's why it's such an insidious and esoteric way of pulling up the ladder behind the chosen groups.

What is your point then? What you are trying to say? Your words give the impression that you believe when a person cannot afford a house, that is discrimination.

I don't get what's so difficult to understand here. It used to be straight-up illegal for certain people to live certain places. The system shifted to covert discrimination once that overt discrimination was outlawed. Housing became an investment so the people with equity would never want to dismantle the system, and all the accessible jobs went away. Now the people who used to be overtly discriminated against have no ladder to climb.
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