Pundits keep on being astonished that the former president repeats actions that are illegal, objectively harmful, inciting violence--- but I think the "logic" (such as it is) is that if it was not wrong then, then why should it be wrong now?
"I'll f-in do it again!"
Basically.
Repeating these actions and *again* not facing any justice serves to "prove" that is it permitted.
That is why the glacial pace and inaction of our justice system may well end this little experiment in democracy.
@futurebird
Bingo!
Nixon didn't go to prison.
Ford wasn't immediately impeached for pardoning Nixon.
Reagan didn't go to prison.
Bush I didn't go to prison.
Bush II didn't go to prison.
Each and every step along the way, Democrats, Republicans, and the mainstream media told us that it would be “too disruptive” to have the rule of law.
So we made Trump inevitable by declaring that Republican presidents are above the law.
I would say losing the republic would be “disruptive.”
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Very nicely put. We have a long line of Republican presidents who attempted to undermine democracy, up to and including collaborating with hostile foreign nations. None of them ever faced meaningful consequences. Trump was not only inevitable, he's not even the end point — the next Republican attempt to subvert or nullify elections will be even more blatant.
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@sphinx @tofugolem @futurebird the so-called other side is not better. Clinton had a bunch of scandals including money from China. Al Gore contested an election and tried to do selective recounts, until the Supreme Court shot him down. And the D party was responsible for a really big insurrection in the 19th century. I could go on.
The parties do not represent competing moral principles. They represent competing collections of interests. They are just rival gangs.
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@mike805 @sphinx @futurebird
Wait.
So you're telling me that a string of Republican presidents didn’t break the law because you believe the conspiracy theories from the official Republican propaganda safe-space?
Buwahahahahahahaha!
You’re just adorable.
First, if your response to an accusation is to accuse someone else of something else, you just confessed to the original accusation. Look up “tu quoque” fallacy sometime.
1/2
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@tofugolem @sphinx @futurebird actually I think the whole system, and all Republican and Democratic presidents, break the law every day.
Anyone who thinks there are good guys in American politics (outside of the occasional local politician who has not been through the filter yet) doesn't get it.
America is just the strong arm of a financial cartel. The British used to perform this function once, but now it is the USA. It is a criminal enterprise, not a government.
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@mike805 @sphinx @futurebird
Yes, yes. You’re trying to use the “but both sides” argument to defend the criminality of Republican presidents. We’ve heard this song before, and I already explained why the logic is completely flaccid.
But keep trying, little guy. Maybe if you repeat yourself often enough, you can turn bad logic into good logic, because that’s how truth works if you were raised in a household that didn’t teach you to value education.
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It would be wrong to put all of this on Republicans. I will give you that, but please don't make the rather lazy conclusion that there is no substantive difference between the results we see when each party has power.
It's easy to see both are sub-optimal but equally obvious they they are radically different and in one case there are signs that there is the desire to end the entire democratic experiment.
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@futurebird @tofugolem @mike805 @sphinx
I just don't agree with that phrasing, because the DNC isn't at all maintaining "the entire democratic experiment". That's rhetoric - it's spin. The outcomes speak for themselves: the government's agenda isn't driven by voter representation - it's dictated by donor representation. The donors get what they want, the voters don't, and being connected to the party means you can act with impunity. It's not the DNC's mission to change that
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@pleaseclap @futurebird @mike805 @sphinx
True, but at least the Democratic party is less fascist than Republicans. So there's that.
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@tofugolem @pleaseclap @futurebird @sphinx yes they are less Fascist. That's the good news.
The bad news is they are a lot more Bolshevik. And not just Bernie. It seems like half their talking points come from the Communist Manifesto.
Sometimes I think we are watching the run-up to the Spanish Civil War, or perhaps the Kampfzeit, repeating as farce (the first time being tragedy!)
Does it really have to be a choice between Communism and Fascism?
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So having strong unions is communism? Kinda watering down the meaning of that word I fear.
Likewise social democracy is a stop gap measure to preserve capitalism by addressing the areas where markets fail.
Communism is a totally different system.
If you don't like the idea of a free market and schools and government health care, fine, but calling it communism is an old anti-union tactic and nothing more.
🇳🇱
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Self organizing unions are great. But when you have the democrats pushing for "right to work" laws where people are **forced** into unions against their will then yea, its stsrting to creep a bit too close to communism.
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Actually your right. I misunderstood the meaning of rigbt to work laws and after reading on it now i was mistaken.
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Well to rephrase the democrats **oppose** right tonwork acts, which would allow workers to have the freedom to decide if they want to join a union or not, as opposed to being forced to joining a union against their will.
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"allow workers to have the freedom to decide if they want to join a union or not"
IDK this isn't what they seem to really do. Have you ever seen some of the things that happen when you try to "choose" to start a union in a company that isn't fully unionized?
Can you see some of the natural conflicts that might arise? (Such as getting fired for joining the union.)
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Absolutely, and i am all for laws that might address those concerns. I think there should be strong anti union busting laws for sure. But in the end employees shoukd have a right to decide how and if to join a union.
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Keep in mind these union agreements thst force employees into unions also stop employees from starting competing unions that might serve the employees better as well.
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I know id never join a union but i support the right of others to... i am responsible for all hiring and firing at my company. I once had to lay everyone off for 3 months. I specifically encouraged them to unionize to negotiate better share compensation for that. I am pro union, i think its in employees best interest. But id also never want to be in one myself.
@freemo @mike805
"I think there should be strong anti union busting laws for sure."
That's going to take ... SO MANY laws to be effective. And there are already provisions to not deal with unions.
It's hard to start a new one, but it's pretty easy to take an existing union over, replace the leadership. I've seen that done. You get to vote on every damn thing.
But most importantly the *purpose* of right to work laws is to destroy unions. They didn't add anything with them to do what you say.
Doing things the right way isnt always easy, i agree it would probably take a lot of reform. But its better than taking away peoples rights. But as hou probably know our government really doesnt function well enough to do things the right way, so what can we even do i guess.
Thats probably more due to the circles you keep than an honest sampling of the public... there are tons of industries not known for having unions and that is directly due to the tendency for members of that community specifically not wanting them.
I've worked in union-free industries and it's better with a union.
It's even better if you work in an industry and your competitor has unions.
Just having things like no secret wages is massive. Though the kids these days just make a google spreadsheet for that. I've seen that step alone do wonders.
Depends on the industry... for tech ive seen no secret wages completely destroy a company. You loose all the people who are your top players and left with a very mediocre and under performing group... i tech you always need those few people who are miles ahead of the crowd (and paid for it) fixing the problems no one else can while everyone else does the bulk of tbe busy work... this dynamic isnt as critical in many other i dustries so you can get by with open wages without it being a company killer
People are paid by their skill not the amou t of work they do, but that aside i cant speak to your situatio or skills. I also dont know how hard you negotiated for your pay. Perhaps you just werent a touvh negotiator and you got low balled.
My first job at 15 as a programmer paid me 100k, ive never been paid less than that a day in my life. But companies tried and i always negotiated a good pay in the end if i demanded what i was worth, i also always made sure to interview at 30 places at a time so i coukd have tons of competing offers.
Yea if your not a strong negotiator you will likely get pretty badly taken advantage of. No doubt youd have a huge advantage with open salaries, but on the flipside disadvantage to the strong negotiators or those with exceptional skills well above the mean.
Well its sorta doubke ended.. with an ope wage system everyone is driven closer to the mean, so the poor negotiators bring everyone elses wage down too.
Ideally people would learn to be better negotiators, perhaps teach and train it in school, but ideals arent reality either.
Thats true as well. Though there are tools that tell you what a normal wage is for a specific job and skill level. So everyone involved knows when someone is low balled even without open wages.
I myself beleive that s good employee is worth paying a fair wage because thats how you get good loyal work out of ghem.
@freemo @futurebird @mike805 studies have shown that women who negotiate assertively for pay (whether hiring pay, raises, bonuses, discretionary project pay, etc) are more likely to receive a negative outcome (rejection, offer rescinded, termination, etc.)
Please add this to your fact pattern before computing further.
@futurebird @freemo this reminds me of the economics professor who let his class opt to be capitalists or socialists.
The capitalists got their own individual grades. The socialists' grades got averaged, and everyone got the average.
The capitalists always outscored the socialists. Often the socialists flunked, and had to retake the class as capitalists the next time.
Bad education as that's nothing like socialism
@mike805 @futurebird @freemo The sides are misnamed in order to create the metaphor and outcome you so admire. If it was accurate. The capitalists would have the right to prevent socialists from having access to text books and classes. And would exercise that right.
@freemo @futurebird @mike805 that’s not how communism works and that’s not how capitalism works either
@mike805 @futurebird @freemo And capable of what?
Conforming to or gaming the credit system.
However, there is ample research showing that the credit system in education is useless metric of actual expertise in the field studied.
More, it detracts and demotivates from the actual study.
Sure, you can force people to memorize and forget stuff through a credit system but real learning and expertise lies elsewhere.
(SF)
It's an extremely well known fact at this point that women are disproportionately penalized for negotiating, and probably people marginalized in other ways are as well. Negotiating salary mostly benefits people who are able to pretend to be more skilled than they actually are.
No doubt there is unfairness in hiring, but women are paid less in unions too, so those issues are less about unions.
@freemo well I was going to point out that the quickest google search will demonstrate how much unions reduce the gender pay gap but now I realize you're just a troll
@sanae why is it always the actual trolls who call people trolls... lol
@freemo @futurebird @mike805 I think that people a being paid based on their skill is — a misconception.
I think its far more complex than just that... for sure... but there is a big negotiating pressure from having skills.
@freemo
People aren't paid by their skills.
People aren't paid by their efforts.
People are paid what the company thinks it can get away with for the work they do. Skills and efforts are only part of that.
If your skills are easy to find elsewhere that value will be lower.
If you make yourself look indispensable it will be higher.
If you look like you'd never think of leaving it will be lower.
And that's before we get into the boss's emotions.
@futurebird @mike805
I learned some of this the hard way when I was working doing processing of licensing documents for a pharm company. I realized that the 6 hour a day job could be done in 2 if I wrote a little scanning and processing algorithm. I optimized everything. But made the mistake of telling my boss who cut my hours to 2 a day. Then I quit.
What you shoukd have done is told your boss "if you doubke my salary i can write a program that does it in half thr tine". Then when he cut your job down to 2 hours you coukd have found multiple part time jobs automating other system and now youd be paid twice as much.
I often automate tasks and effectively am doing that all thr time.
I can't stand using an inefficient system. But my boss was already so happy about the department needing less hours and frankly I hated working for a pharm company. They were kinda evil.
They still use the little app and script to this day! 15 years later. I find that hilarious. Probably could be fully automated by now. Provided that the docs could be digitized quickly and most already were.
Makes sense.. i guess is if they will exploit you you might as well exploit thrm. If you can automate it, charge them ;)
Reminds me of this one guy i knew who completely automated his job and didnt tell anyone. He just came in and napped all day and got paid ;)
@futurebird @notsoloud @freemo @mike805 Capitalists get to optimize and keep the surplus. Workers don’t.
@fivetonsflax @futurebird @notsoloud @freemo it has always puzzled me that more organizations don't hand out some incentive money to workers who find optimizations. There must be a valid reason why not, because it seems like that would improve efficiency quite a bit.
Being a capitalist requires tolerance for stress and uncertainty that most people don't have. Every one I've known, the business owned the entrepreneur rather than the other way around. They never stopped thinking and worriying.
@fivetonsflax @futurebird @notsoloud @freemo one that I knew at a startup, had bailed out of one of the network hardware companies with at least tens of millions. He spent all his time either at his desk, or out deal making. He could never just turn it off and go home and relax. The startup eventually failed and probably took a good bite out of his net worth.
The ince tive is usually in the form of promotions and raises. The issue is many in management just arent good management so they do nothing.
Not true, but like management you only get what you fight for... many make a living off of optimizing and keeping the surplus, like me.
@notsoloud @freemo@qoto.org @futurebird @mike805 At the beginning of 2022, I told my boss that I really loved working here but at some point the intangibles (which are very real! and not stupid things like ping-pong tables) aren't enough to put kids through college.
I ended the year with about a 10% increase in pay.
@davidr
I suspect 10% raises are very rare, even when merited. Many places have an aversion to letting salaries grow that fast, probably they're afraid others will want the same.
Realistically, pay raises come with job changes.
My current job just gave everyone a 4-15% raise for inflation and because they REALLY don't want to do anymore hiring after all of the pandemic turn over (they had a bunch of people retire early rather than deal with remote teaching. )
4% went to the highest paid the 15% to the lowest. They offered us a flat raise at first. But *we* negotiated for the progressive spread, including the most highly paid. I love working here everyone cares about each other.
@futurebird @notsoloud @davidr @mike805 That's a good workforce. I was really bummed when my office's annual raises were mostly around 2-3% after a big profit year for the company, but our manager specifically distributed the allowed money to the lowest paid to bring our salaries as close to even as possible across the team. Far cry from the "merit based" not-COLAs I've mostly had.
@futurebird @notsoloud @davidr @mike805 A 15% raise seems absolutely wild to me. When I was in a union the largest raise I ever got without changing jobs was 3%.
@futurebird @notsoloud @davidr @mike805 Where is this place and how can I find a place there? 😀
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@freemo @futurebird that was not an accident. The term is supposed to be confusing.