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Joined 2 months ago
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Cake day: September 15th, 2024

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  • There isnt a debate.

    One of the major parties in the USA knows that they are able to get power only because the 1929 Apportionment act artificially buouys the power of less populous states in the House and by extension the electoral college. The other one is just fine with actual proportional representation.

    Not t metion that the EC doesn’t encourage presidential candidates to campaign nationwide: most states are ignored, and focus is on the minority of swing states.

    (and Lincoln had a clear plurality of the popular vote. He woukd have won a national vote too.)





  • In order to blame the bad actions of the United States for the “polycrisis”, you really need to excuse all of the bad actions of everyone else.

    To pick a timely issue : blaming the USA for the actions of Israel in their* Gaza territory we would need to excuse Israel for the actions of Israel.

    If a general strike would have any effect id support it, but the target should be the specific actions of our country rather than the actions of other sovereign nations.

    (*: If the govt of israel does not recognize a distinct Palestinian state, and the pseudo-governments of Palestine cannot exert sovereign control to keep Israel out, then Palestine is [unjustly] and [occupied] territory of Israel.)


  • Bail is not money you get back. It’s money that a bail bondsman doesn’t have to fork over if you dont show.

    Either you are so rich that the opportunity cost of tieing up the whole amount is more than the fee (so you just pay the bond fee) or you don’t have enough and need to ask someone to lend it to yoy (that is, you pay the bond.)

    New York tried to largely ban cash bail (becaue its essentially just a way to lock up the poor), but because of Republicans and police unions (i repeat myself) who whined about offenses while out on bail, the state poked a bunch of holes in it instead of making pre-trial detention easier.

    Cash bail is ALWAYS indefensible. If someone is so dangerous to civic order they need to be detained pre-trial, then no amount of money should get them out of it.








  • 1: FPTP is a terrible term as its literally not an accurate way to describe a “single-vote plurality wins” systrm like most of the USA has. When you use the phrase to someone who doesn’t already agree that there are better ways its just inaccurate enough to sabatoge any point you might make.

    2: the UK and other parliamentary systems have embedded rewards just for being “a party”. There are only two parties in the USA becaue parties on their own have institutional recognition, and in our politocal contests there is no prize for second place.