miak

Does this bit not seem questionable?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-silk-road-task-force-agent-pleads-guilty-money-laundering-and-obstruction

I think the argument is more, “Sir, I’m the manager at this Walmart and I have no idea what these people were exchanging amongst themselves in the back aisle.”

Either way, double life + 40 years is a bullshit sentence for what this is.

Woah, woah woah. You need to check you facts on this one. He was not sentenced for trying to have people killed. He was publicly accused of murder for hire, but not charged. He was sentenced for running a website and the judge wanted to “make an example”

By all means link me a source that shows he was convicted of murder for hire if you think you can find one, but I can already tell you that you can’t.

I agree that Trump doesn’t care about the fentanyl issue. If he did, he’d be ending the war on drugs.

I would like to point out, Ross Ulbricht was sentenced for running a website, to double life plus 40 years in prison without possibility of parole. It was a bullshit sentence that came at the end of a trial of questionable integrity. The fact that neither Obama or Biden pardoned him is one more embarrassment for the Democrats.

Or they could have addressed both fentanyl in the US and the cartels in Mexico by just agreeing to end the war on drugs…

I’d argue that the will of the people has no correlation with what is moral. The will of the people can be just as immoral as the will of an autocrat. Tyranny of the majority is no better than tyranny of the few when it’s your neck the boot presses down on.

I love a bit of Bull Yogurt to garnish my Rocky Mountain Oysters.

Edit: would be fun if a restaurant serving Rocky Mountain Oysters would provide the names of the bulls that provided for my meal.

It sounds like we’re largely in agreement. Absolutely, you want to tackle the issue at the source. I don’t see how one hopes to accomplish that without empathy. Understanding those racist ‘losers’ is how you begin to understand how to tackle this at the source.

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Fear is often a motivating factor in a person’s choice. This was equally true of the left and right in this past US presidential election.
I haven’t seen any evidence that fear is a value that most people hold though. The source of their fear is concern over the things they do value.

There’s those broad strokes I was talking about. I appreciate you providing an example.

Refusing to empathize and understand how people arrive at their views in favor of this kind of prejudice will never contribute to positive changes.
Yes, the best cure to bigotry is love and compassion. Love and compassion start with empathy. It’s easy to empathize with those that think and act like you do - it can be difficult, but all the more important, to empathize with those that don’t. Refusing to do so only ensures polarization of society and a perpetuation of the cycles of violence that permeate society. This is something that has become all the more clear with the rise of social media and the info bubbles they trap people in.

Often when I see someone accusing people of voting against their own interests, it’s pretty clear that the person making the accusation has not taken the time to understand the values others are basing their choice on.
If I could rob a person and be confident that I would never be caught and punished for doing so, am I acting against my own self interest if I chose not to rob them because it goes against my moral code? No, of course not. But based on the way some people talk about voting against ones self interest, you might think I just cheated myself out of free money. Is it possible that a person might “vote against their own interests” because of a misinformed view? of course, but you’ll never understand a person’s motivations by chosing to paint them with broad strokes based on your prejudices instead of getting to know them individually and trying to understand what it is they truly value.

Sorry to be that guy, but the hockey mask was Jason Vorhees. Michael Meyers wore the Captain Kirk mask.

I’ll add, it’s incredibly dumb that the house is capped at 435 seats. There just is no way 435 people can represent the entirety of the nations population. Given advances in communication technology, there’s also no reason to keep it there. They really should be increasing the size of the house dramatically and no longer have a cap. The size of the house should grow, or shrink, with the size of the population.

Appreciate the extra details and the link!

I may be misremembering, but I believe the way things were originally designed was that the Senate was supposed to represent the states, not the people. The house represented the people. That’s why the Senate has equal representation (because the states were meant to have equal say), and the house proportionate to population.

Lol, yeah, you’re right. My bad for assuming we would have to make the decision with information that a person would likely have in that scenario, like one has to do in real life… I think you’re still wrong, both in the example you attempted and the point you’re trying to make.
Democrats will need to work on offering people something more than murky water that might kill you if they want to get people to come out and vote for them. And why would I risk a deadly bacterial infection when I have piss available that I am reasonably certain is sterile? I’m honestly not sure why you think that’s not a good course of action, though I’ll admit I’m not a scientist and would be interested to hear a scientist/doctor’s take on this survival scenario.

A murky pond of still water might not be a good choice no matter how thirsty you are. The bacteria in it could kill you. If you’re thirsty and lost at sea, I hope you won’t drink the salt water. That’s the issue with the insistance that people should vote for Harris “to stop trump”. It’s short sighted and does nothing to address the long-term problem of, election after election, being presented two shitty options and told it’s critical that you eat shit instead of voting for the person that will actually fight for your values. Sorry the Democrats keep refusing to learn this lesson, but they are just as much to blame for Trump’s victory as the people who voted for him.

Out of your options above, the camel might actually be the safest option. You’ll at least get some hydration out of it if you don’t cook it to shit.

The October surprise I was hoping for!

Yankee here, and fully agree with what you said. Unfortunately, empathy seems to be an increasingly lost art in this country and it only seems to get worse as each side continues to dehumanized the other.