Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Gruebeard

Gruebeard

stienman said:
While I gave your post a bro-fist @MindDetective I would add that we should be careful to avoid allowing oppression simply because the oppressed say they prefer it. As long as there are structures and education available to allow them to make an informed choice then ok, but if they’re brainwashed* then they aren’t necessarily able to make a decision good or bad.

*shortcut, inflammatory word, but should get idea across.
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This is the heart of my opinion on the issue. I say, help them make their own choice, protect them when they do.

I mean, there's like a couple dozen Canadian women this applies to. We could assign everyone of them a social worker and a bodyguard without hardship to our country.

We're talking about the burka, right?
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
And just when you thought Kansas or Wisconsin had the trophy for dumbest politicians, Nebraska steps up!
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
And you thought a company town was bad...

andrew_ryan_by_pirate_cashoo.jpg

To build a sovereign corporate state in rural Nebraska! Insanity. But where else could we be free from the clutching hand of the Parasites? Where else could we build an economy that they would not try to control, a society that they would not try to destroy? It was not impossible to build Rapture in the Cornhusker state. It was impossible to build it anywhere else.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Eriol said:
Just set up one of those, and allow the production and purchase of alcohol on-site without taxes. You may be surprised how fast it gets repealed.
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That's literally what would happened; somebody would use this to make a tax-free alcohol/cigarettes/drugs outpost with an airport and legalized, regulated prostitution and then buy airtime on TV/Radio advertising it throughout it's containing state. It would be shutdown in weeks.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Ehh, it only applies to State and local regulations; the state can't say "this bit doesn't fall under federal laws anymore".
If anything, it would further increase pressure (on the left) to move more "important" legislation to the federal level, which is the last thing a Republican is supposed to want.
 
Eriol

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
Ehh, it only applies to State and local regulations; the state can't say "this bit doesn't fall under federal laws anymore".
If anything, it would further increase pressure (on the left) to move more "important" legislation to the federal level, which is the last thing a Republican is supposed to want.
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That's a WHOLE other discussion about separation of powers, and how that's "supposed" to work (depending on whom you ask of course). Basically, if you give local power, but a "larger" area can override it at any time, it's not local power, it's downloading responsibility while still making them subject to your "approval." When the "federal" (can be provincial vs local, or federal vs provincial/state, whatever) can override "local" at any time, you don't have local government.

Hence why IMO separation of powers is a good thing, though it's often overruled via money: "Oh I know we feds don't have jurisdiction here, but we'll give you a pile of money for it if you do X, Y, and Z! If you decide differently, you don't get the money. But it's still your decision, really!"
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Eriol said:
That's a WHOLE other discussion about separation of powers, and how that's "supposed" to work (depending on whom you ask of course). Basically, if you give local power, but a "larger" area can override it at any time, it's not local power, it's downloading responsibility while still making them subject to your "approval." When the "federal" (can be provincial vs local, or federal vs provincial/state, whatever) can override "local" at any time, you don't have local government.

Hence why IMO separation of powers is a good thing, though it's often overruled via money: "Oh I know we feds don't have jurisdiction here, but we'll give you a pile of money for it if you do X, Y, and Z! If you decide differently, you don't get the money. But it's still your decision, really!"
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A lot of times it's "if you don't do X, we'll cut off these funds you're already getting!" See: 55mph speed limit and 21 drinking age.
 
Eriol

Eriol

DarkAudit said:
A lot of times it's "if you don't do X, we'll cut off these funds you're already getting!" See: 55mph speed limit and 21 drinking age.
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Fair enough, both "new money with strings attached" and "do this or we'll cut off existing money" happen frequently.

The "fix" to such would be a constitutional amendment (I mean both Canada and the USA have this problem, since we both theoretically have separation of powers) that BANNED any transfer of money not linked to a specific program that was part of their responsibility. So assholery could still occur in areas of explicit shared responsibility, but nowhere else, and no "general money for whatever" either.

But for all kinds of reasons, that's unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
 
strawman

strawman

IronBrig4 said:
The militiamen in Nevada got off with a dismissal. http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2018/01/cliven_bundy_standoff_case_thr.html

Bear in mind this does not mean "not guilty." They're as guilty as OJ and still need to pay their grazing fees and court costs.
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From the article:

A federal judge Monday threw out criminal charges against Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a co-defendant in the 2014 Bunkerville standoff, citing "flagrant misconduct" by prosecutors and the FBI in not disclosing evidence to the defense before and during trial.

"The government's conduct in this case was indeed outrageous," U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro ruled. "There has been flagrant misconduct, substantial prejudice and no lesser remedy is sufficient."
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"No lesser remedy is sufficient."

In other words, it doesn't matter how bad the alleged crime was, what the prosecutors did was worse.

I have to admit, what with the police getting off when they should be held accountable for some killings, and cases like this:



I can't exactly pretend the federal and state governments have much left of them that isn't corrupt on some level of another.

We the people are being crushed not just by corporations, but by the government and everything in between.

While it's convenient to blame the government's inefficiency, corruptness, or incoherence on corporate lobbying, I don't think that's the whole story, and fixing one or the other isn't going to resolve very much.
 
Tress

Tress

Gruebeard said:
Can they be retried on the charges?

I mean, some of them are obviously guilty of some crimes.
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The linked article said that the charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be retried for the same crime. This was basically as good as being found innocent.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

Yeah, they're already running massive crap about Tammy here in WI. I go down there, and Sheriff Joe is probably going to go Full Trump on whoever the Dems scrape up to run against him...
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Congressional Review Act is a-go, putting overturning the FCC's anti-net neutrality decision to a Senate vote. Good. Probably unlikely, but if broadband became a utility, it would serve Verizon and Comcast right.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Dei said:
Posted about that in the Net Neutrality thread 11 hours ago. D:
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See, I wondered why nobody was talking about it on Halforums. I never go to the Tech subforum and figured any discussion would be in the Politics subforum, so it got to looking to me like nobody here cared anymore.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Zero Esc said:
See, I wondered why nobody was talking about it on Halforums. I never go to the Tech subforum and figured any discussion would be in the Politics subforum, so it got to looking to me like nobody here cared anymore.
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People go to individual subforums? I just go to New posts
 
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