Second ('Third') Trump Presidency Thread

the slippery slope argument wasn't my argument...it was your argument and the argument of your ideological bros on these boards...it was a prediction that didn't pan out...as your ability to go to church last weekend eloquently testifies to
 
sturg33 said:
Indeed. Let's not also forget the deaths of despair. The spousal and child abuse. The massive increase in obesity and alcoholism. Deaths of despair rose. Family relationships were severed (including my own).

Let's not also forget that damage to pur institutional legitimacy. Now more people than ever are hesitant about vaccines. And why should they believe the FDA today?

Oh, and let's not forget about the destruction of the dollar, our purchasing power, and our country's finances that we still have not and apparently will not revert to prior to the emergency.


All of that would have been less insulting if they got it right. But all of their recommendations lockdowns, 6 ft, masks, vaccines preventing spread) all turned out to be bullshit
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I see your point, but let’s be completely for real here, people didn’t just make that leap from COVID to other vaccines innocently on their own. Just as we need to be careful about underselling the errors of some COVID policy, we need to also look critically at some of the over-corrections from those who felt wronged by the policy.

I very, very frequently see COVID used to justify *other* violations of civil liberties. We’re still talking about executing Fauci for advising on a pandemic response in an overly cautious or restrictive manner, but like that’s his fucking job, man. The virus guy isn’t the economy guy or the civil rights guy or the education guy, or any number of other guys who actually caused the conditions you bemoan. We don’t need to hang him on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial for being the guy in the room whose job it is to try to stop the virus. Hell, the egg-head scientist being overruled by the government in a crisis is an actual movie trope. It’s not Fauci’s fault the people who run the place chose to listen to the virus guy.
 
nsacpi said:
the slippery slope argument wasn't my argument...it was your argument and the argument of your ideological bros on these boards...it was a prediction that didn't pan out...as your ability to go to church last weekend eloquently testifies to
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Nonsense. The government has a case study on what they can get away with under the guise of a national emergency. They have a reset fiscal budget, and we are seeing today how the current tyrant is using a national emergency to make himself a king, just like the last one did that you celebrated
 
Using fiscal policy to shield the economy during an emergency is not an encroachment on our rights. That's using the cloak of muh rights to object to something you happen to be ideologically opposed to. It's a pattern.
 
sturg33 said:
Nonsense. The government has a case study on what they can get away with under the guise of a national emergency. They have a reset fiscal budget, and we are seeing today how the current tyrant is using a national emergency to make himself a king, just like the last one did that you celebrated
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The one place I really believe the two are directly related is the length of time in which the Biden Administration extended the COVID emergency for legislative convenience. While it’s patently absurd to compare using emergency powers for an ongoing pandemic vs. say, the fucking trade deficit, Biden absolutely abused the hell out of the definition in the later stages of his term. I think the past several years of federal policy has made it clear we need a constitutional amendment or something closing the loopholes being used to allow such generous use of executive orders and emergency declarations.
 
mqt said:
The one place I really believe the two are directly related is the length of time in which the Biden Administration extended the COVID emergency for legislative convenience. While it’s patently absurd to compare using emergency powers for an ongoing pandemic vs. say, the fucking trade deficit, Biden absolutely abused the hell out of the definition in the later stages of his term. I think the past several years of federal policy has made it clear we need a constitutional amendment or something closing the loopholes being used to allow such generous use of executive orders and emergency declarations.
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As always, it's refreshing to have one liberal on here who is able to acknowledge reality when it stares us in the face.

It'd be cool to live in a world where our academics could assess a topic based on its merit... but those days are long gone in this country
 
Also im sure you're not interested in the massive externalities and negative consequences that persist today due to that temporary cancellation of the bill of rights

Wouldn't expect an academic to think
 
sturg33 said:
As always, it's refreshing to have one liberal on here who is able to acknowledge reality when it stares us in the face.

It'd be cool to live in a world where our academics could assess a topic based on its merit... but those days are long gone in this country
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If the right wants to “save academia” then it also needs to stop engaging in anti-intellectualism and embracing nationalist impulses that decrease the talent pool in American universities, and actually engage with Universities in good faith. There’s an increasing trend toward appeals *Against* authority on the right that are every bit as fallacious as appeals to authority. People simply cannot become experts on every topic, and there *is* a need for people who actually study these things and can be that resource for humanity. They’re still human beings with biases and faulty views and every other quality that should lead a rational person to retain some healthy skepticism, but it’s not inherently better to instead treat their expertise as a specific reason *not* to listen to them.
 
mqt said:
If the right wants to “save academia” then it also needs to stop engaging in anti-intellectualism and embracing nationalist impulses that decrease the talent pool in American universities, and actually engage with Universities in good faith. There’s an increasing trend toward appeals *Against* authority on the right that are every bit as fallacious as appeals to authority. People simply cannot become experts on every topic, and there *is* a need for people who actually study these things and can be that resource for humanity. They’re still human beings with biases and faulty views and every other quality that should lead a rational person to retain some healthy skepticism, but it’s not inherently better to instead treat their expertise as a specific reason *not* to listen to them.
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I am very pro education. I work for a ed tech company who is currently in the process or making college degrees obsolete.

But this institution has been so corrupted it is not salvageable. In order for the right to regain trust, it needs to be burnt to the ground and re-built with a modern lens.

College educated kids support the most retarded political causes in the world. They are finding it harder and harder to find employment. Their degrees are so worthless they are begging for truck drivers and plumbers to pay off their debts.

It's not hard to see why. You can very clearly see how our academic on this board approaches thinking. He is not curious. He is an ideaolog. He has an agenda and he is constantly pushing it. If a student asks him ot reflect on a subject, he will deflect and steer the conversation to his ideology. This is not unique among this 99% democrat profession
 
mqt said:
I see your point, but let’s be completely for real here, people didn’t just make that leap from COVID to other vaccines innocently on their own. Just as we need to be careful about underselling the errors of some COVID policy, we need to also look critically at some of the over-corrections from those who felt wronged by the policy.

I very, very frequently see COVID used to justify *other* violations of civil liberties. We’re still talking about executing Fauci for advising on a pandemic response in an overly cautious or restrictive manner, but like that’s his fucking job, man. The virus guy isn’t the economy guy or the civil rights guy or the education guy, or any number of other guys who actually caused the conditions you bemoan. We don’t need to hang him on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial for being the guy in the room whose job it is to try to stop the virus. Hell, the egg-head scientist being overruled by the government in a crisis is an actual movie trope. It’s not Fauci’s fault the people who run the place chose to listen to the virus guy.
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I am convinced that Fauci is guilty is crimes against humanity including the direct funding and knowledge of the virus itself. If that is true, what should his punishment be?

Regardless... the "experts" were not only wrong, but they 100% lied. Fauci admitted twice to lying twice about something in order to shit public perception. He also eventually admitted that the 6 ft guidance was completely made up. Birx admitted to hiding data from the President so that he didn't pivot his recommendations. The school unions (education experts) fought tooth and nail to keep schools closed while red states were open and fine.

Beyond countless other examples... there were legitimate, highly acclaimed, ivy league educated physicians who spoke out loudly about the response being wrong. Was there a public debate? No. They were literally removed from youtube and social media... and shamed by their peers. It sucks that much worse that they ended up being right.

Discourse on things like ivermectin was reduced to horse dewormer medicine. Anyone who spoke up was labeled anti science at best, a grandma murderer at worse.

And the most disgusting thing of it all... was when george floyd died... hundreds of public experts signed a letter saying their protest was justifiable because racism was a bigger public health threat than covid. And politicians followed suit and marched with them after locking up their citizens.

every ounce of "science" pointed to one direction... a straight up tyrannical dystopia that had churches closed, people arrested for going to the park or the beach, pastors arrested for holding service, city-wide snitch lines on their neighbors. I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point. There was a very clear ideological persuasion in the "science"
 
sturg33 said:
I am very pro education. I work for a ed tech company who is currently in the process or making college degrees obsolete.

But this institution has been so corrupted it is not salvageable. In order for the right to regain trust, it needs to be burnt to the ground and re-built with a modern lens.

College educated kids support the most retarded political causes in the world. They are finding it harder and harder to find employment. Their degrees are so worthless they are begging for truck drivers and plumbers to pay off their debts.

It's not hard to see why. You can very clearly see how our academic on this board approaches thinking. He is not curious. He is an ideaolog. He has an agenda and he is constantly pushing it. If a student asks him ot reflect on a subject, he will deflect and steer the conversation to his ideology. This is not unique among this 99% democrat profession
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But this isn’t really a problem with academia, I think it’s that the government is in the business of providing predatory loans to kids who were told they had to go to college. The Universities are honestly just doing what Universities have done for centuries, but now it’s a gazillion dollar industry selling career paths that don’t exist, and the federal government will give an 18-year-old child a mortgage-sized loan (that’s not even dischargeable in bankruptcy) with absolutely, positively no consideration of the risk of that loan.

I don’t actually intend to absolve any individual of their personal responsibility to pay back their debts, and I don’t think loan forgiveness is sound policy. But the problem is higher education is too big compared to the opportunity it provides, and it takes away from actual paths to employment.
 
mqt said:
But this isn’t really a problem with academia, I think it’s that the government is in the business of providing predatory loans to kids who were told they had to go to college. The Universities are honestly just doing what Universities have done for centuries, but now it’s a gazillion dollar industry selling career paths that don’t exist, and the federal government will give an 18-year-old child a mortgage-sized loan (that’s not even dischargeable in bankruptcy) with absolutely, positively no consideration of the risk of that loan.

I don’t actually intend to absolve any individual of their personal responsibility to pay back their debts, and I don’t think loan forgiveness is sound policy. But the problem is higher education is too big compared to the opportunity it provides, and it takes away from actual paths to employment.
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Yes it is a federal government problem. Yet another authoritarian overreach instituted by Obama that when, objected to by anyone, they get labeled as anti education
 
sturg33 said:
Yes it is a federal government problem. Yet another authoritarian overreach instituted by Obama that when, objected to by anyone, they get labeled as anti education
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This didn’t even remotely start with Obama. I know this because I was in college when Obama was elected and it was every bit the same as it is now. One defining feature of the most prominent anti-education critics is that they themselves are almost all graduates of elite institutions that helped to propel them into their current station, so it’s not like college *isn’t* allowing conservative sentiment to flourish.
 
mqt said:
This didn’t even remotely start with Obama. I know this because I was in college when Obama was elected and it was every bit the same as it is now. One defining feature of the most prominent anti-education critics is that they themselves are almost all graduates of elite institutions that helped to propel them into their current station, so it’s not like college *isn’t* allowing conservative sentiment to flourish.
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Obama is the one who guaranteed federal loan access to all citizens

That gave universities the green light to bankrup their customers
 
  • 1965 – The Guaranteed Student Loan Program is established. Loans are issued by private lenders (like banks), but are guaranteed by the federal government, meaning if the borrower defaulted, the government would repay the lender.
  • 1972 – The Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) is created to provide liquidity for these loans and help fund them more efficiently.
  • 1992 – The program was renamed the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program.
  • 2010 – Under the Obama administration, the FFEL program was eliminated in favor of the Direct Loan Program, where the federal government issues loans directly to students, removing the need for private lenders. This saved large amounts of money previously directed to private lenders as fees. The savings were redirected to expand Pell Grants, a program for lower income students.
 
There have been some cost-benefit analyses of the Pell Grants. Those show society receives a return of $3 for every $1 spent on the program. This understates the return because those studies don't account for intergenerational effects. The children of Pell Grant recipients benefit from being in more stable and socioeconomically successful households, increasing their chances of becoming productive high-earning citizens and decreasing the likelihood they will become a burden on society (which often happens with the children of parents without college educations).
 
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Btw the fiscal transfers from college-educated to non-college-educated folks are enormous. The average college-educated person pays 400K more in taxes over their lifetime than the average non-college educated person. The average non-college educated person receives about 200K more in benefits over their lifetime than they pay in taxes. No flowers or thank you notes expected.
 
There is a large cottage industry of studies that try to estimate the return on a college education (the best studies use instrumental variables to deal with the problem that people who go to college are already in various ways different from those who don't). The approximate return in terms of lifetime earnings is 10% per year of college.
 
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