Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about: any democracy where Elon Musk (an unelected, private citizen) isn't granted unfettered access to dismantle the federal government.
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Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
331–340 of 411 posts
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There’s many ethnic Germans in America, but there’s almost nothing German in broader American law and civic society. Irrelevant. The disputed fact was that America was not a country of immigrants. The idiotic assertion raised in the parent post is a refresh of the argument that the Mayflower landed settlers and not immigrants, which is nonsense due to the fact that the bulk of the population of the US are undoubted…
Does that make America “a nation of immigrants?” Is it a defining characteristic or an incidental one? America is also a majority white nation. I wouldn’t say that’s a defining characteristic that should define our future immigration policies.
> Does that make America “a nation of immigrants?”
The vast majority of Americans are immigrants.
> Is it a defining characteristic or an incidental one?
Is this even a question? Again, the vast majority of Americans are immigrants.
> I wouldn’t say that’s a defining characteristic that should define our future immigration policies.
You can try to move the goalpost as far as you'd like and blow as many ignorant and ill-informed xenophobic dog whistles as you'd care to blow. You cannot outrun the fact that the US is a nation of immigrants.
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light. Just to add clarity, "the past" in this case wasn't even that long ago, as these racist tweets that were uncovered were from June to December of 2024.
That, and the standard for rejecting racists shouldn't be set at "hyper racist." Especially since we are seeing supposedly well educated young men in an environment that has normalized anything less than "hyper."
It seems as good a time as any to point out that the environment in which people like this are making decisions is the one in which equal opportunity/affirmative action/DEI become tenable, if not necessary.
For those of you whinging about how unfair scope-broadening to force decision makers to at least consider marginalized people for opportunities is, the problem is not these initiatives, it's these people, who make it impossible to determine if someone is being rejected for merit or for some other reason.
In general, we have to get away from the idea that the highest score along a narrow measure is the be-all-end-all of merit, anyway. Set a reasonable floor of competence, and then either run a lottery or begin looking at other qualities.
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#334Honest question for Americans. What do you think the federal government is doing to make you "poorer" that deserves dismantling the government. US income tax is generally lower than other advanced economies. Housing and medical insurance is mainly a state issue.
Federalism has always been a fundamental, unresolved issue in American politics. At one end of the spectrum some people think that states should be reduced to mere administrative units and all real power should be centralized at the federal level. At the other end some people think that the federal government should only deal with external affairs, and everything else should be left to the states. The issue is largel…
It's incorrect to divorce this dynamic from its history, which is largely one of America's right wing/nativists using "states' rights" as a cover to infringe on the rights of marginalized people, which are supposed to be inalieanable from the federal government's point of view. You have to mention the applications of that ideology, which include secession, Jim Crow laws, and anti-abortion laws, among others.
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#335> On his personal Substack, he wrote an essay titled “Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America,” according to press reports, and described failed U.S. attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, as a “victim” of the deep state. The fact that nobody is stopping these people is the clearest evidence anyone needs that there's no such thing as "the dee…
I speak from personal history, but it's really easy to take a bunch of theoretically smart, high-achieving young people, give them a singular purpose, and have them work in overdrive with a level of arrogance that fits their lack of wisdom. It's essentially exactly how Mao was able to create the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
Semi-counterpoint: the actually smart, high-achieving young people adapt to the status quo. The ones one rung lower, who the prevailing system cast aside for some deficit or other, begin their own independent revolutions (often at the margin of society, and achieving little).
The rubes who blindly join someone else's revolution are neither the smartest nor the most high-achieving; they're just... useful.
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've learned the hard way that many people in this country do NOT actually care about democracy. Our democracy has been eroding for decades. Congress collects paychecks while gridlocking progress, even on bipartisan issues that could help ordinary citizens. Super PACs and "campaign contributions" (aka bribes) ensure the wealthy control both parties. Democrats and Republicans both spend recklessly and divide the nat…
How do you fix wealth inequality? That's what I want to know. I feel like we're so far past the point of no return. I'm sure they're all eagerly rubbing their hands together waiting to be a Duke in Peter Thiel's new global Monarchy.
Preserving wealth is actually an uphill battle. It likes to leak; the wealthy need the help of systems and institutions to keep their largesse intact. If you want it to diffuse throughout society, stop guarding it, stop bailing them out, and tax them like you mean it.
So many policy decisions are about who to throw under the bus; flip the incidence from "mostly people without wealth" to "mostly people with wealth".
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
High levels of government debt aren't exactly unique to America, however, America has the unique ability to issue it's own reserve currency that other countries will absolutely buy. Also isn't by far the number one government spending item the military? Why aren't they starting there?
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Defense is the largest discretionary budget item. They can cut it by simply not including as much money in the budget for it.
Social Security is mandatory. They would have change the law cut it.
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#338Elez, the guy who pushed the changes the devs were not allowed to review to the production payment system, is the guy that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light. If in doubt, I recommend checking them out because they're incredibly awful, to the extent that it makes you wonder if the payment system he pushed to had ethnic information attached to it.
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Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#339> On his personal Substack, he wrote an essay titled “Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America,” according to press reports, and described failed U.S. attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, as a “victim” of the deep state. The fact that nobody is stopping these people is the clearest evidence anyone needs that there's no such thing as "the dee…
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Responding in good faith:
Winning the popular vote does not make you dictator. It makes you president within the existing laws.
You want to change the way things are done? That's fine. You have a mandate to do so based on the vote? Also fine. Do it within the existing laws.
There are laws in a number of areas (firing federal employees, impoundment, spoils system, probably others that don't come to my mind immediately) that Trump seems to be violating. He doesn't get to do that. He has to stay within the law, because it's the law that makes him president instead of "most popular guy this year".
And it doesn't seem to be that he just missed a few steps. He doesn't seem to care about the law at all. That's democracy failing - having a president who thinks he can do whatever he wants, and the law doesn't bind him. That's a president who's trying to be a king.
Now, that's kind of a "vibe" thing. It's not one action; it's more a perception of the cumulation of all his actions. Which means that other people can perceive it differently from how I do, because they assign different weights to his actions. But to me, the trend of the whole is troubling.
Re: Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ok, but that’s not happening in USA. It clearly is. > Trumps stuff is already being blocked. That's like claiming there isn't a rape problem because a rapist attempts at raping someone is already being blocked.
What a dumb analogy.
It was perfectly apt for the situation.