7 ms·
Started back in WW2 when the government restricted the ability for employers to offer higher salaries, so employers offered additional compensation to employees
by jumbopapa 7y ago
Started back in WW2 when the government restricted the ability for employers to offer higher salaries, so employers offered additional compensation to employees outside of salary. That coupled with today's tax incentives have made it stick.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI know that history. But it’s time to change something that made sense a long time ago but now is distorting the whole employment market, costs a lot of money and causes a lot of suffering.
- curiousgal 7y ago> But it’s time to change something that made sense a long time ago... Gun ownership, electoral college, for profit prisons (slavery), etc. Those are all things that made some sense back in the past but still exist.
- robohoe 7y agoGun ownership still makes sense.
- curiousgal 7y agoIt makes sense to form an armed militia in order to fight the government?
- artificial 7y agoHow’s it going in Hong Kong?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 7y agoHow do you think it would be going if Hong Kong has gun ownership at the level of the US?
- mc32 7y agoOr Venezuela. As part of consolidating power, often authoritarian governments implement an arms buyback or confiscation program to minimize armed uprising later on.
- artificial 7y agoI like the Orwellian term “buy back” as if you purchased arms from them in the first place, and secondly they’re using your money to deprive you. For the small arms nay sayers (against a well equipped military) case in point is Afghanistan, guerrillas wore down the Soviets.
- cheeseomlit 7y agoIt certainly did in 1765. Do you really think the government should have a monopoly on force? Might = power, you disarm the population and they are rendered powerless. I just don't understand putting that much trust in the government
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoHistorical and logistical context aside, 1765 vs modern weaponry and war waging abilities, are you joking? The ability for militias with small arms to fight our own military has been a joke for several decades.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoCan you explain to me then why Vietnam is a communist country? As I recall, they were able to cause quite a lot of trouble for the US military and its modern weaponry and war waging abilities with pretty much nothing but small arms.
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoAgain, a completely different historical and logistical context, keep up the straw men!
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoWay to do some explaining there. How is it different?
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoThis is not a conducive medium to either of us swaying each other on any small point nevermind the larger argument so I'm leaving it here.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>modern weaponry and war waging abilities, are you joking? The Taliban aren't joking. You are grossly under-estimating what it takes to fight an insurgency. A military fighting in the same country on which it depends is vulnerable to attacks and sabotage on all its support infrastructure. You can't just carpet bomb areas of resistance because that creates more resistance elsewhere or destroy the country you're trying to control. It's a hard problem and on some level you have to get people on "your side" to win in any sort of long term sense.
- Grakel 7y agoAbsolutely, it's a highly effective tactic that has resulted in success across continents and centuries. It's nice that peace is so taken for granted in developed countries, but it is an outlier in the human experience. And to the commenter who said modern militaries could never be stopped by small militias, you have only to look seriously at our adventures in Afghanistan and the fact that we're still there. The AK 47 is a less accurate, high-recoil stamped out piece of garbage compared to the AR 15, and it's all you need to stop a modern military in its tracks for decades.
- jsperson 7y agoWeapons, including small arms, are best viewed as a deterrence. Evidence 1: Many videos of rabidly anti-gun folks who refuse to put a "This home is proudly gun free" sign in their front yard. Evidence 2: The US has thought twice (definitely still not enough) before invading other countries after Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Small and improvised arms have been a real headache. Evidence 3: Hong Kong. Someone asked below if the situation in Hong Kong would be better if there were lots of guns available. That's not really a relevant question. The situation would be entirely different. The government would have been much more limited in its response. Evidence 4: Historically one of the first things a want-to-be totalitarian government does is confiscate weapons held by the populace.
- jamesb93 7y agoAll it does is raise the stakes. Thats why police forces in America are heavily militarised. I can guarantee that if Hong Kong citizens had guns the police would have a disproportionate answer that included more deadly weaponry than they already do.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago> Thats why police forces in America are heavily militarised. Police forces are heavily militarized because of the bonkers amount of money thrown at them in the name of the "War on Drugs" and more recent "War on Terror". Note the connection between "war" and an increasingly militarized police force.
- ssully 7y agoHow do you reconcile the amount of deaths by firearms and the rise of mass shootings? Talking historically and hypothetical's about where guns come in handy is really simple. It get's really difficult when you wake up to news of another mass shooting - sometimes it is the second or third one to occur that month (or week).
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoAdmittedly that is a problem. Interestingly, it's a relatively recent one. Believe it or not there was a time in US history when you could mail-order full auto weapons.
- sharpneli 7y agoArmed militia will not win the fight in raw power terms, but it changes the governments position completely. Unarmed riot can be dispersed using tear gas etc, no need to kill the civilians. Armed riot requires actually killing the opposition. While government will almost certainly succeed in killing the militia the international opinion is wholly different in that case. 10000 person protesters dispersed vs 10000 killed.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoNot the fight government part, but Switzerland actually has an armed militia unlike America. Their gun laws are a lot saner than the states to boot. Any pro gunner will tell you that the 2nd amendment is sacred, except it’s first clause, that’s meaningless.
- TheRealSteel 7y agoIt absolutely does not.
- jimktrains2 7y agoHow does gun ownership not make sense to farmers, hunters, and most people living in truly rural areas, e.g. Appalachia? Look, I'm all for stricter gun laws, but at the same time not everyone lives in a (sub)(ex)urban area and a blanket ban simply will not work.
- Grakel 7y agoAnyone who believes that the US Government is committing terrible acts, but also wants them to take away firearms is in a really indefensible rational position.
- minikites 7y agoDo you think successful armed rebellion with small arms is realistic these days? How well did that work out for the people at Waco or the Cliven Bundy standoff?
- Grakel 7y agoIt worked great for Bundy, I doubt the government would have backed down without the threat of violence. It works great in Afghanistan, and it worked great in Vietnam. It didn't work out great in Waco.
- microcolonel 7y agoCue the barrage of comments from people who live in condos and apartment buildings surrounded by competent police forces a couple minutes away.
- krisroadruck 7y agoThe rebuttal for this argument is so often used that it's been turned into a nice bite-sized repeatable phrase: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away"
- homonculus1 7y agoI think you and the person you responded to (and me too) are in agreement.
- berbec 7y agoCue the barrage of comments from people protecting their children from 30-50 feral hogs.
- swebs 7y agoWhich part of the electoral college do you have a problem with? I'm a fan of the fact that it gives smaller states a voice, but don't like the fact that it's winner-take-all in every state except Maine. Also faithless electors is complete bullshit that needs to go.
- Dobbs 7y agoThat is called the senate. There is no reason that a person in Wyoming's vote is worth four times as much as a person in California. You can sorta maybe make the argument that the elctoral college should be to make sure someone unfit shouldn't be put in, by using their sense of judgement. Well that obviously failed, and you are advocating getting rid of that potential benefit. Why not get rid of the entire anti-democratic idea and just vote for the president.
- Grakel 7y agoIn a direct democracy the President could be chosen by a handful of highly populated states. There would be no reason for Wyoming to continue participating in the Union without a meaningful stake in representation. The direct vote concept sees this country as homogeneous, and it's too large and diverse for that.
- jrockway 7y agoThe meaningful stake in representation is their two Senate seats, the exact same number that states large enough to be world powers if they were their own countries get. Remember, this body of representatives was the one that managed to stall Obama's Supreme Court nominee until a new President was elected. That is a lot of power. There will never be a President that everyone wants. The way to make the most people happy is to put into power the one that the most people voted for.
- minikites 7y agoHow many campaign stops are in Wyoming? How often do Republican presidential candidates campaign in California? How often do Democratic presidential candidates campaign in Alabama? The Electoral College doesn't actually address any of the issues raised in its defense.
- IanDrake 7y agoI see your list contains the electoral college but not the Senate. Can you explain why?
- mac01021 7y agoThey're different things. The senate gives equal representation to each state. The electoral college gives each state a degree of representation approximately proportional to its population, but the approximation is somewhat poor.
- IanDrake 7y agoYes, they are different things. Yes, the Senate gives states equal representation. However, the Senate isn't "like" the Electoral College. The Senate is what makes Congress like the EC...or vice versa. So if you believe the US isn't a collection of united states, which is why the senate exists and why the EC exists, then it is only rational to argue against both intuitions.
- mac01021 7y agoYou could believe that the Senate is a fine implementation of it's goals (to protect inhabitants of smaller states from the tyranny of the majority, or whatever) while also believing that the electoral college is a failure that just adds noise to the popular vote. Not saying that's precisely my position...
- lghh 7y agoWhy are for profit prisons any different than state owned prisons? The guard unions and other employees that are contracted out to work in the state owned ones are making just as much money and rely on that slavery in the same way as they do in for profit ones. I see no difference, demolish them all.
- criley2 7y agoBecause state owned prisons do not sign contracts with the state requiring % full or penalties. Only private prisons sign contracts with governments requiring 90%+ capacity or penalties. Thus only private prisons truly incentivize local governments to incarcerate more people to avoid extra costs, while if that facility is run by the taxpayer, they enjoy the savings of hiring less guards and incarcerating less people.
- rndgermandude 7y agoSame reason s private corporate run police force or fire department are a bad idea. With all the flaws current system have, governments are at least accountable (on paper) to the citizens. Corporations are not. Private prisons are a clusterfuck where they take their "involuntary customers" for all the money they and their extended family got while still underpaying their staff and overcharging the tax payers. They often signed contracts with governments that included guaranteed minimal occupancy clauses. Now imagine applying the same nice principles to other areas where currently the People (represented by their governments) are in charge. "Thank you for calling 911, a service of Police Corp, a Comcast company. I see you got home intruders. We'll dispatch one of our associate Crime Fight Technicians to your location shortly. Please make sure you're home next Monday between 9m and 5pm to let them in. Would you like to sign up for our premium Home Intruder Plus coverage? Oh wait, I just saw you're located in an area we currently do not serve." And the Industry Association of Fire Fighting Corporations would be lobbying government right now to change building codes to require more flammable materials in houses.
- fredthomsen 7y agoThis is covered very well in the book "America's Bitter Pill"