• 0 Posts
  • 23 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 14th, 2023

help-circle


  • Yep, but the states with sales tax get tired of getting cheated out of their tax revenue. The specific example where I saw this was a major hardware store chain in Oregon (no sales tax) right near the border of Washington (6.5% sales tax). They asked everyone “Washington or Oregon” at the register and checked ID for anyone who said Oregon.

    Quick search says that Washington considers it a “sales and use” tax, so anything purchased out of state, but intended for use in Washington is supposed to be taxed. Kinda messed up, really.








  • Well said.

    I get Jon Stewart’s position and agree with nearly all of his criticisms, but I think the biggest thing he’s not acknowledging in his “why can France and the UK do this but we can’t?” argument is that this would absolutely not be confined to just the Democratic Party. Literally every step of the process would be decried as election fraud, cheating, “the steal of the century” etc. by republicans. If they got pissed enough to attempt an insurrection in 2020 when there was absolutely no credible evidence of fraud, just think where things will go if there’s this whole slew of unprecedented last-minute decisions that are nearly impossible to reconcile with every individual states’ laws. I’m not saying we have to bow to repubs demands, but the more excuses they have to claim anything isn’t above board, the greater the risk that the “stolen election” narrative gains traction beyond the far right.

    We’ve spent the last 4 years witnessing how slowly our legal system works on huge matters like this. By the time the dust settles on all of the legal challenges, the resulting chaos will have already rendered the decisions nearly irrelevant.







  • Unfortunate that this graph starts in 1972, when the oldest baby boomers were already 27. If you compare that first section of the boomers’ line to the corresponding section of the millennials’ line, boomers were to the left of millennials around the same age.

    Now, I find it hard to imagine that millennials will have the “Reagan moment” that boomers had in 1980, but this data shouldn’t convince anyone that millennials are some shining ray of hope for the future. Today’s non-voting, politically apathetic millennials could easily be swayed to the right by the time they’re the age of today’s boomers. I see this sentiment repeated a lot lately, but it’s pure foolishness to think that conservatives will die with boomers.



  • Yeah, this is exactly what’s wrong with constantly demonizing boomers and attributing every shitty thing they’ve ever done to leaded gas and paint chips. Populations tend more conservative as they get older and they have for centuries. Even if a minority of individuals actually change their minds, people who were politically apathetic when they were younger tend to be more conservative when they do start voting when they’re older, skewing the whole generation more conservative. There’s already plenty of conservative millennials out there, and even more of them among the ranks of the non-voters.

    Remember, boomers are the generation of hippies. Actual, literal hippies who, despite whatever imperfect motives you may ascribe to their movement, achieved greater social revolution in their time than any attitude shifts that have occurred during millennials’ peak social years. And that was only with ~30% of boomers participating in the movement. The rest of them went on to vote for Reagan and kick off helicopter parenting and satanic panic and music censorship and the whole bit.

    Anyone who thinks millennials will be somehow immune to this pattern is in for a rough next few decades.


  • Sorry, but you’re not going to get ranked choice voting just by pretending you already have it. FPTP and the electoral college are realities of US politics and the “lesser of two evils” approach is the only realistic way to play the game.

    The executive branch is the wrong place to try to achieve ranked choice voting anyway. Vote for legislative candidates who support ranked choice. If nobody is talking about it, call your representatives. Start petitions. Join grassroots organizations. Anything, but don’t fool yourself into thinking the path to fixing our issues involves voting for Jill Stein over Biden next year.