hollis (they/them) currently studying classics and archaeology.

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f1rstperson:

sirfrogsworth:

sirfrogsworth:

qtot:

sirfrogsworth:

Believe it or not, Fox News presented these all as horrors to behold. 

Most likely because some of this stuff is not affordable to do, while some of it would be nice to have. 

While others just guarantee more problems.

So many problems with this. One, there’s no way you can afford any of it. Even if you took all the money from people, you wouldn’t be able to pay for it and have it at the quality standard you would like or need.

And then if you take all the money from people, no one is going to want to work for nothing or no extra benefit. Job creators will bail or go under (bankruptcy<- This happened in the Great Depression or leading up to it) , and more jobs will be lost and vastly more people will suffer. 

I don’t know what the federal jobs thing is, but if it’s the government telling you what job to have then that’s a nightmare in itself. 

Gun control- there is already gun control. Guns are merely a means. If you take away guns, violence will still occur but with other tools- Cars, knives, blunt weapons, drugs, etc). Plus Guns can give people the protection they need when there is no one else to do it. Children and women have been able to protect themselves from violent people thanks to guns. 

Immigration- there are OTMs ( other than mexicans) coming across the borders. They are using the weakness of the borders to get in and cause chaos and trouble. Even alqueda mentioned using the borders to get in and attack the usa. 

Then there are some Mexicans that are real criminals that are able to get in. There have been reports of murders, violent break in and entries where things were stolen and people were seriously injured or killed and the person just ran back to mexico to avoid punishment, then there’s the signs they put in us towns near the border warning people it is not safe to be there or live there. 

Climate Change is a whole debacle in itself. The Climate has always been changing from the start of time. Without man’s help or influence. And even if it was a real dire situation, and usa went crazy on it with restrictions, the fact that China isn’t on board and keeps doing their thing completely undermines and undoes any of the effort that has been done by usa or other countries. Making it futile.

Higher education for all sounds nice. But you need to be able to finance that. Teachers need to be paid, books and equipment need to be bought, make more parking available, more classes would be needed since class size would fill up super fast because finding room for all the new students might be a serious issue. And then there’s the problem with the quality of schools in general. Some are quite poor quality as it is. Increasing a new demanding quota will only make it worse and go down.  If you don’t pay the teachers and just demand that they teach anyway. Their quality of lessons will go down or they may just quit. No one wants to work without pay. And plus making people to work without pay is slavery. (Not saying that this is what the lady intends to do, but merely looking at methods of carrying out the promise.) 

I don’t really know what the wall street thing means or entails so no comment.

Your entire premise is basically “It’s too hard and too expensive.”

It will be hard.

It will be expensive. 

Let’s try anyway.

The world does actually have enough resources to provide for the population. Unfortunately right now a very small minority of people control most of the world’s wealth and resources. In the US, the top 1 percent of households own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. We also have insane defense spending that includes building tanks and planes that the military doesn’t want. And there is corporate welfare that props up things like oil and corn and banks with billions in tax incentives, tax loopholes, bailouts, and subsidies. Our country keeps paying for things we don’t need. So I’m a little tired of people saying we can’t afford to give people a dignified life with food, shelter, education, and healthcare. 

You also have this mentality that if it isn’t perfect, it isn’t worth doing. Which is a foolish way to think about things. You talked about wanting “certain standards,” but you don’t seem to acknowledge the low standards we are currently dealing with. 

For instance, healthcare in Canada is not perfect. They still have many issues they are sorting out. But no one goes bankrupt just because they get sick. No one dies from trying to ration insulin. And their healthcare costs are much lower than ours. Some people might have to wait a while to get elective procedures, but anyone with a serious issue gets the treatment they need. 

And the much maligned waiting times in Canada happen to poor folks in the US as well. It can be much worse actually. In the US, patients on Medicaid, the low-income government program, can wait three months or more to see specialists. And for the millions of people who have no health coverage whatsoever, many just try to tough it out and do not see a doctor at all.  

The US is not looking for perfect. We are looking for better than what we have. A system we can build upon and improve over time. Right now our system only gets progressively worse. 

“And then if you take all the money from people, no one is going to want to work for nothing or no extra benefit.”

No one is taking all the money from people. With the proposed tax increases, there would still be rich folks. But it might be very difficult to make over a billion dollars. I’m sorry, but the world does not need billionaires. 

It is a myth that if people are given everything needed to live they will lose their ambition to work. In studies where people received a basic income, most people still chose to work. More details here. 

The goal is to stop wealth hoarding and decrease wage disparity. A CEO should not have 150 billion dollars when their lowest paid worker needs food stamps to get by. 

Something like a 70% marginal tax rate would mean only income after $10 million would be taxed at that rate. YOU’D STILL HAVE 10 FREAKING MILLION DOLLARS. 

“I don’t know what the federal jobs thing is, but if it’s the government telling you what job to have then that’s a nightmare in itself.“

No one is going to be forced to do a job they don’t want to do. This is for people who want to work but can’t find employment. 

What a nightmare. 

“If you take away guns, violence will still occur but with other tools- Cars, knives, blunt weapons, drugs, etc“

Yes, violence will still occur. But guns make it extremely easy to murder people. It’s statistically proven that more guns = more dead people. Countries without easy access to guns have lower murder rates and almost no mass shootings.

“Children and women have been able to protect themselves from violent people thanks to guns.” 

First… [citation needed]. 

Second, are you advocating giving children firearms? 

Third, you need to weigh the risks. 

Having a firearm in the home means you are statistically more likely to be shot with your own gun. Also, the statistics do not show that guns are a terribly effective means of self-defense. That is… if you ignore the NRA’s bogus studies. 

Here are some quotes about guns being used for self-defense…

“The evidence shows that there may be fewer than even 3,000 defensive gun uses annually. In comparison, there are 30,000 gun deaths annually,”

“For every gun used in self-defense, six more are used to commit a crime.“

“The likelihood of injury when there was a self-defense gun use (10.9%) was basically identical to the likelihood of injury when the victim took no action at all (11.0%).”

–Washington Post

To clarify, the benefits of gun ownership do not seem to compensate for the issues guns cause. In fact, it seems having lots of guns makes our lives much more dangerous. And if you are in a self-defense situation, doing NOTHING has the same probable statistical outcome as trying to brandish your gun. 

There are rare situations in which guns have been used successfully for defense. But in some situations, guns can provoke a violent response.

For example… 

A robber might just point a gun and take your wallet–leaving you unharmed. But if you try to pull a gun on them, you might end up dead. 

Most shootings take place within 15 feet. At that distance, there is a chance an attacker might be able to take your gun away from you. If you just had mace and they take it, you might end up with sore eyes. But if they take your gun, you’ll be dead. This is especially dangerous if an attacker sneaks up from behind and catches you off-guard. If they are bigger and stronger, you may not be able to keep them from taking your firearm away to use against you.  

If you are not an experienced gunfighter there is also a decent chance you will freeze up, miss your target, and again… end up dead. This has happened to trained police officers on several occasions. There is no training that can simulate the adrenaline and fear response of an actual shooting. People think they will be action heroes when the occasion arises, but even a slightly shaky hand from cortisol coursing through your body can make it hard to aim. Especially if the assailant is at close range and you don’t have time to acquire them in your sights before they get to you. This is why elite soldiers like the Navy SEALs practice with live fire drills constantly. They do as much as possible to negate the fear response and stay calm under fire. I don’t expect many civilians to go through BUD/S.   

To summarize, a gun is no guarantee and in some situations, it may make things more dangerous. 

Combine that with the fact that so many of those children you’re concerned about will find unsecured guns in their household and accidentally shoot themselves or others (8 per day), then your whole premise of “guns protect” seems murky. 

The risk analysis is not as cut and dry as gun advocates would have you believe. Maybe you will be one of those 3,000 people that get out of a situation because they had a gun. But you could more easily be one of the 30,000 that ends up dead at the end of a smoking barrel. 

In the end, you can’t change the fact that less guns = less dead people. So we need to decide if keeping 300,000,000+ guns around is worth the consequences.

“Immigration- there are OTMs ( other than mexicans)”

It’s so cute you have a shorthand for this. So are Canadians OTMs? What about Scandanavians? Or do you just mean other brown people that aren’t Mexican? OBPTAMs? 

“They are using the weakness of the borders to get in and cause chaos and trouble. Even alqueda mentioned using the borders to get in and attack the usa.”

If by “weakness” you mean “commercial air travel”… then sure. 

Of the 19 culprits of 9/11, one came to the US on a student visa and the rest arrived here on tourist or business visas. 

Let’s build a wall into the sky to stop those pesky planes from getting into the country. 

Also, you might be fearful of the wrong thing. Between 2001 and 2015, more Americans were killed by homegrown right-wing extremists than by Islamic terrorists. And even when you consider radical Islamic terrorism, the majority of those incidents are perpetrated by US citizens. 

“The country home to the biggest number of terrorists who have carried out successful attacks inside the US is the US itself.” 
–Vox 

Still worried about Al Queada sneaking in from Mexico?

“Counterterrorism officials and experts said there had never been a case of a known terrorist sneaking into the country through open areas of the southwest border.”
–New York Times

So who did Al Queada mention this weakness to? It doesn’t seem like they are taking advantage of it to enter the country. I wonder if it’s possible you are just accepting the xenophobic fear rhetoric of a president who is on record lying 8,000+ times since being elected into office. 

“Then there are some Mexicans that are real criminals that are able to get in.”

Undocumented folks who come across the southern border are actually less likely to commit crimes. Admittedly, a big concern is drug trafficking and cartels, but the majority of that occurs at legal ports of entry. So the “real criminals getting in” probably wouldn’t see a giant wall as a major obstacle. Perhaps a better approach would be to assess our drug policies.

“There have been reports of murders, violent break in and entries where things were stolen and people were seriously injured or killed and the person just ran back to mexico to avoid punishment, then there’s the signs they put in us towns near the border warning people it is not safe to be there or live there.”

Are you just quoting things you read from your racist uncle’s forwarded emails? 

Or do you have proof that these vague anecdotes actually represent a rampant problem? 

From what I’ve read, illegal immigration is at its lowest point since 2004. You can recite all the scary stories you want, but the idea that there is some new crisis at our border causing a giant crime wave is exaggerated. 

Also, why do you think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t want to stop criminals from harming US citizens? 

Just because she doesn’t want a giant pointless wall doesn’t mean she wants to hang an open sign on the border and let everyone in. 

The “open borders” talking point is nonsense. 

Democrats want immigration reform that is effective and compassionate. We want reasonable security that doesn’t end up putting kids in cages and separating families. No one is saying “LET ALL THE CRIMINALS COME IN AND WREAK HAVOC PLEASE!” We just think a wall is a terrible solution that will not be very effective. We could put that money to much better use solving other issues. 

Trump says that the wall in Isreal works… so a wall in the US would work too. Right?

The wall in Isreal is only 350 miles long. It has an 8000 person border patrol to guard it, high tech camera surveillance, 3 layers of fencing in most spots, motion sensors, snipers, and drones patrolling above. 

That does not scale up. 

You’d have to do that for over 2000 miles of uneven terrain at the cost of billions of dollars annually–beyond the cost to actually construct the damn thing. Which could easily end up being $25 to $50 billion. Trump also never mentions wall maintenance which will cost billions perpetually. 

Some believe the Berlin wall was one of the most secure borders in recent history. It had tens of thousands of guards including snipers with shoot-to-kill orders. Over 5000 people still got past it. The Great Wall of China did not stop the Mongols from invading. 

Walls that cover a short distance and have massive surveillance and manpower can stop some threats. We actually already have several stretches in strategic spots that have barriers. But doing that over 2000 miles is not very feasible or effective. Especially when there is sea access on either side. People would still climb over, tunnel underneath, or go around. 

And that still wouldn’t stop the 40% of people who just fly here and stay.

Compassionate immigration reform includes border security. But it also allows good people to come here and work jobs Americans usually don’t want to do. It gives people in desperate circumstances a chance to change them. And by knowing exactly who is coming into the country, we can manage the risks better. 

When people sneak in, we know nothing about them. More information is always better. Letting more people in, but on our terms, gives us that information. Our border patrol can focus more on stopping the bad guys you are afraid of instead of rounding up people who just want to do things like pick fruit to support their families.  

If you would like the perspective of an expert, may I direct you to this twitter thread written by Juliette Kayyem. She was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intergovernmental Affairs under Barack Obama. She is a national security analyst currently teaching at Harvard. 

“Climate Change is a whole debacle in itself. The Climate has always been changing from the start of time. Without man’s help or influence. And even if it was a real dire situation, and usa went crazy on it with restrictions, the fact that China isn’t on board and keeps doing their thing completely undermines and undoes any of the effort that has been done by usa or other countries. Making it futile.“

Climate change is certainly a debacle. And the climate has always been changing. But with human influence, we have turned gradual change into an expedited change. 

A gradual change gives our planet time to adapt. Ecosystems and lifeforms are able to evolve characteristics that help them thrive under changing conditions. 

Unfortunately, we have introduced so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere that we have sped up that change from thousands of years to just a hundred. 

The climate isn’t meant to change this fast and it is absolutely the fault of man. There is not nearly enough time for life to adapt and while the planet may still spin on, if we don’t make some major changes we will struggle to survive in the coming decades. 

And who said China isn’t “on board?” 

They aren’t the ones that dropped out of the Paris Agreement. Yes, China needs to make some drastic changes to lower its emissions, but they are taking some optimistic steps in that direction. They seem to have more enthusiasm than the US at the moment. 

“Despite its current emissions growth, the United Nations Environment Program says that China remains one of the few major economies “on track” to meet its Paris targets for reining in carbon dioxide emissions.“

It’s also completely asinine to halt our progress transitioning to renewable energy because some other country isn’t doing enough. This is a global effort and if the US can greatly reduce its emissions, it will be a huge help to mitigate the coming catastrophe. Your “why bother?” approach is alarming, to say the least. 

If nothing else, we could reduce our pollution. 

You believe in pollution, right? You’ve seen pictures of smog in Los Angeles?

“60 percent of Americans live in areas where air pollution has reached unhealthy levels that can make people sick.”
–Wikipedia

You realize many of the same methods to reduce pollution are identical to the methods to mitigate climate change? Cleaner air? Cleaner water? Those are of no interest to you? 

Moving on… I’m just going to paraphrase your education paragraph.

“Giving people an education would be hard and expensive and the only way to do it is SLAVERY! Also, where will they all park??”

I’m not sure if you realize this, but there are many countries that either subsidize or completely pay for their citizens to go to college or learn a trade. And the quality of the schooling is quite excellent in many cases. We are the wealthiest nation in the world. Why does it seem so impossible to do the same? 

Educated people can only benefit our society. One of the biggest causes of poverty is poor access to education. We need better teachers for our public schools. Teachers require college. If we gave free college to people wanting to teach, it would start an educational cycle. We’d have more teachers that are more qualified that would educate more kids stuck in poverty. 

Those kids would then use that improved education to help finally escape poverty. They would get better jobs with better wages without looming student loan debt holding them back. Better wages will contribute to creating a more robust economy. A more robust economy can pay for even better education for all. 

This educational cycle is a big part of why many countries that make higher education affordable and accessible have some of the highest standards of living in the world. For instance, Norway has many tuition-free options available. And they can probably afford it because they aren’t spending a trillion-and-a-half dollars on F-35 fighter jets that don’t work and have almost never been used in combat. 

Sadly I couldn’t find any information on the parking situation at Norwegian universities. So you might have me there. 

The single greatest thing we can do for this country’s future is invest everything possible into education. Teachers should be paid like professional athletes. 

In conclusion, anything worth doing is going to take effort. 

I am sick of this “it’s too hard and too expensive” attitude. The world has more wealth and more technology and more capability than it ever has. It is absolutely ridiculous that the 1% are hoarding everything and maintaining a level of wealth they could never utilize in their lifetime. The only reason people defend the insanely rich is because they have been told they are millionaires-in-waiting. 

All of the goals listed above are achievable. 

The only thing truly stopping us is collective apathy.

Reblogging for the morning crowd.

Frogman absolutely slam dunked this person and it was a joy to watch