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Hardkill
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Posts posted by Hardkill
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24 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:The bill was popular among his voters.
It's his corpo donors who wanted it killed.
The dude has investments in coal companies.
Yeah, but you said that voters don’t vote logically on policies regardless of what the polls say about how popular certain ones are. They vote base on how electable something or someone is based on how emotionally compelled they are about a certain politician or a certain policy. So, is it possible that while the West Virginian voters who voted for Manchin may have liked all of the provisions within the Build Back Better bill from a logical standpoint, they were more afraid of the bill granting more government takeover of some kind if it had passed through both Congress and Biden?
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47 minutes ago, Opo said:I doubt anyone's argument is that the money completely controls the laws.
It's just that you can tip the scale a bit in your favor.
Yeah, that's what I was kinda thinking. I hope that's true.
1 minute ago, Joel3102 said:It's not because of the lobby money lol. He's a Senator for West Virginia, one of the most conservative states in the country. If he voted like a normal Dem he'd just be voted out and replaced with a Republican. He doesn't want to lose his seat
Yeah, I was thinking that too.
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42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Democrats are also corrupted by lobbying money. The Dem admins have been pretty weak amd neoliberal for the last 30 years.
Clinton and Obama were both neolibs.
Joe Manchin is a fucking Dem who acts like a Repub thanks to the lobby money. Single-handedly stopped a $2 trillion deal. Stuff like this happens all the time.
Yeah, from what I understand, Dem became neoliberal and weaker when the New Democrats (Clintonian Democrats) first emerged during the late 1980s in order to effectively counter Reaganism. Though wasn't Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s pretty weak?
Also, I still don't get why corporate lobbyists weren't able to stop liberal legislation that did create more progress for our society such as the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the 1993 Clinton tax increase, Dodd-Frank Act which passed in 2010, or the ACA which also passed in 2010?
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1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:Obviously it's not that easy.
But lobbying money is retarding all progress.
Hmm, I see.
So, if corporate lobbying contributes to getting in the way of all progress, then how were Democrats ever able to pass any liberal legislation such as raising the taxes on the wealthy and other laws that would benefit the middle class during Clinton's first presidential term in the 90s or pass both the ACA and Dodd Frank act during Obama's first term?
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14 hours ago, mw711 said:Yes, correct. The Colors build upon another.
So, then why not skip Blue unless you're in the military, the police, some kind of religious organization, or in a 2nd or 3rd world country?
Why does Leo say that you can't forgo the stage Red or stage Blue work values? Why not just skip to the stage Orange work values?
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1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:If lobbying didn't significantly distort government, it wouldn't be a thing. Think about it.
People like to say that lobbying isn't significant, yet billions are spent on it every year. So obviously it must be significant or no fool would be paying billions.
So are you saying that without lobbying then the Democratic and liberal independents would be able to easily get enough Republicans in the country to to vote for passing something like a constitutional amendment that would abolish the electoral college or a law that would allow reform or expansion of the Supreme Court?
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2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:Gerrymandering, the whole electoral college system, the Senate, and the Supreme Court all need serious reforms. Lobbying makes these things impossible to reform.
Health care industry spent $300+ million in lobbying just this last year to stop medicare for all and cheaper drugs.
Joe Machin killed Biden's whole bill and he is corrupt with lobbying money.
But I thought that it was mostly the conservatives and Republicans throughout the entire country who are getting in the way of eliminating the electoral college, gerrymandering, and voter suppression even if they weren’t lobbied by any corporations. Don’t we definitely need at least half of all Republicans in the entire country to agree with every Democrat and left leaning Independent throughout the whole country to pass a major constitutional amendment that would permanently abolish the electoral college?
I kinda wish Biden and every single Democrat in the Senate all decided to vote for eliminating the filibuster in order to get voting rights passed, Supreme Court reform, and much much more. However if they eliminate the filibuster completely then wouldn’t that put the entire country at great risk of going through radical reversals of major legislation? Mitch McConnell has already warned Democrats that if they do it then one day when the Republicans regain control of the whole government trifecta again then they will repeal all kinds of liberal legislation that had been passed throughout all of US history including all civil and voting rights acts, all of the federal abortion rights acts, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, etc. What do you think about that?
Yeah...I am so depressed that Manchin ruined the whole Build Back Better bill. If Biden doesn’t get any more passed then couldn’t the Democrats end up in great jeopardy?
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14 minutes ago, Roy said:I wonder if Cenk is aware of the irony that TYT is also one of the most biased and delusion filled outlets you could consume in this day and age?
They are a pretty prime example of toxic Green.
- Cenk has openly denied the Armenian holocaust, as well as apologized for Islamist Terrorism.
- Hasan has become a fulltime grifter for annoying online activist lefties.
- Ana well, you can just see the righteousness and anger spewing out of her face. The only thing holding it back from exploding is the 4 pounds of makeup she wears every day.
But yea it isn't even worth talking about. I don't even know why I am to be honest.
Yes, they do have a tremendous amount of Green in them, but don't they also have a lot of Orange and even some Blue in them? After all, in terms of Orange, they all have had a solid, disciplined, work ethic and have been running a successful business of their own. Hell, they even have way more YT subscribers than Leo does. Also, Cenk graduated from a top law school and top undergrad business school and Ana got both her Bachelor's and Master's degree and started teaching at a university in her late 20s. Furthermore, unlike a lot of other toxic green people out there, the TYT people understand and accept the importance and need of having law and order, military, and police which are all Blue values.
Cenk never denied the Armenian genocide:
Also, Leo said that even though every progressive media outlet has a significant degree of bias, it still has better political analysis than any of the mainstream media news outlets.
Ana is hot, but I'll admit that she is really making feel depressed about the world.
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28 minutes ago, Preety_India said:And TYT is junk with anti - white propaganda.
I'm a leftist liberal SJW type but even I can't stand the bias of TYT - clear as day.
Someone needs to call them out for spewing lies.
What does TYT lie about?
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Manchin killed the current version of the build back better bill.
Now, they're saying that Biden's legacy may be in serious jeopardy.
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I know that stage Red, stage Blue, and Stage Orange each involve the idea of having a strong work ethic.
Stage Red has the values of action, hard work, willpower, ambition, pragmatism, and taking initiative & ownership.
Stage Blue has the values of hard work, discipline, duty, structure, rules, and order.
Stage Orange seems to have all of the values of both Red and Blue including action, hard work, discipline, duty, obsessive desire for achievement and success, determination, pragmatism, and independence & sovereignty, structure, rules, and order.
Is this correct?
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13 hours ago, Tim R said:The vaccines are still the most powerful weapons we have against COVID.
Prevention is better than treatment. This is the key difference that must be understood.
Pfizer is 95% effective in preventing infection, Moderna 94% and J&J 66%.
And all all of the above are extremely effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death.
Paxlovid (Nirmatrelvir) and Molnupiravir are what are called "antiviral drugs". They are of course extremely valuable as a further asset in our toolkit against COVID, but they are not a replacement for the vaccines (but of course, people will treat them as if they were).
If people don't get vaccinated, the pandemic will go on. And they will very, very likely be infected at some point, if not multiple times. Yes, we can treat them with antiviral medication after they got infected, but that's not the goal.
The goal is that they don't need any treatment in the first place, and that will only by achieved by getting vaccinated.
Yeah, that's what I am saying.
10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:I wonder what it costs.
They may run out of it too given the Omicron surge coming.
Yeah, I wonder about that too. Though this source says that the pill will be available at no cost: https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/covid-19/fda-pfizer-antiviral-pill
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Great news! The Covid pill created by Pfizer, called Paxlovid, which is an antiviral pill that you can take home and reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% for high risk patients who have been infected by COVID-19 finally got approved by the U.S. FDA today!
I am not sure if we have to wait for the CDC to give the final sign off for it before it can be used by anyone in the US who has at high risk of having a severe level of COVID after being infected by the disease. However, according to sources such as NPR "The federal government has a contract with Pfizer to buy 10 million courses of the treatment for $5.3 billion. But initial supplies of Paxlovid will be limited. The company says it will have 180,000 course of treatment ready by the end of the year."
As for whether or not this pill will work against the Omicron variant, NPR says that "Although it's not certain, Paxlovid's efficacy is unlikely to be reduced in treating people infected with the omicron variant of the coronavirus virus. The drug, which belongs to a family called protease inhibitors, doesn't target the virus's spike protein, as the vaccines do."
One important caveat to taking this antiviral pill, is that it is not to be taken as a substitute at all for any of the current vaccines that protect you from this deadly virus. In order to have the very best chance of surviving COVID you still absolutely need to be fully vaccinated, boosted, wear a hospital mask indoors (ideally an N95 or higher version), and take Paxlovid (if you got infected by any COVID variant).
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So, then how come India has a democracy even though it's much poorer than both Russia and China, has much worse quality of infrastructure than both Russia and China, and have many more religious people in its country than both Russia and China have in each of their countries?
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Okay, I see what you guys are saying. I didn't know about the Treaty of Versailles and how and why fascism was not able to take over in countries such as the U.K. and US. After you guys mentioned those things I did some reading on Wikipedia on both the Treaty of Versailles and fascism that occurred in both Europe and the US during the 1920-1930s. Now I understand a lot more as to why a dictator never came to power in either the US or the U.K. during that era.
Thanks guys.
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53 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Because the purpose of it was nothing more than to exploit for the benefit of the British.
If there was some higher purpose, then it could work. But there was no such grand vision in that case. And also, the members of that empire were not at similar levels of development to make something like that work. It's important that all the member states are on a similar level. The EU works to the extent that the member states are at similar levels of development, otherwise there is too much tension.
The US is also facing this problem as Blue states outgrow the Red states. Keeping a union together is difficult because all the divided parts want to pull in different directions, refusing to subordinate for a higher good.
Nationalism is still a powerful force that most people are unwilling to surrender in order to create a truly benevolent empire. It will take another 100+ years for mankind to transcend nationalism.
Ahhh, I see. Okay that make sense to me.
So, it’s because of a number of things including some of he reasons that you just mentioned now up above that have caused empires throughout history to fail. You’re saying that one of the reasons that empires in previous history didn’t work in the past was because those empires such as the British empire had rulers or leaders that neither had a higher vision nor the interest to establish a widespread democratic system throughout their own entire empires. Another reason you’re saying as to why empires in previous times like the British empire couldn’t work for long was because each of those empires had too many different kind of societies that were too different from each other in terms of the development that each of the societies were at. The reason a country has always worked and still works to this day is because everyone within a particular is close enough to each other in the level of development they are all at. The third reason you gave was because for millennia most people throughout the world have been too attached to the belief of nationalism which also prevents benevolent evolved empires from happening.
You say though that perhaps the only exception or the possible time throughout all of history that an empire may not have failed was the formation of the EU.
Thank you, Leo. That really helped me a lot to understand better how societies work and develop.
So, do you think that given how divided the US has gotten, that the US will split apart inevitably?
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13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Because they tend to be too exploitative.
An empire would work if it treated all the states with genuine care rather.
You can think of the EU as a benevolent sort of "empire" which is working.
True. Empires are or were indeed exploitative.
However, let’s take the British empire as an example for the point I am trying to make. Instead of having that empire break apart, why couldn’t that entire empire turn into a democratic empire throughout the whole world just like how the entire country of Great Britain changed from being a country governed by monarchy to that being governed by democracy instead of breaking apart into various different tribes? Am I wrong? I am open to seeing my understanding as being possibly incorrect.
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I remember Leo saying in his Stage Red video that one good thing about Red traits is that “it allows unification of squabbling tribes” for creating a cohesive nation. Obviously this has worked and states, provinces, countries, etc. will continue to hold together as they are for probably centuries longer. However, why did empires such as the British Empire, French empire, Spanish empire, Roman Empire or other empire throughout history never lasted for long?
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As we all know, the Great Depression of the 1930s was the longest, worst, and most widespread economic downturn throughout the entire world that ever happened since the very beginning of the 20th century. It was one of if not the main reason as to why countries such as Germany and Italy became extremely nationalistic and allowed two of the worst fascist dictators ever in the 20th century to not only take over their respective countries as fascist, but also expand the size of their empires as much as possible. This of course caused both Germany and Italy to have severe democratic backsliding to the point of having 100% authoritarian regimes in each of their countries. Yet, the sort of opposite happened in the US and the UK didn’t suffer from any degree of autocratization at all during or after the 1930s Great Depression. Why is this?
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On 12/15/2021 at 4:01 PM, Girzo said:Russia is super-poor for European standards. It is even poorer than Poland per capita. Considering most of their wealth comes from gas and other natural resources, and not i dustry and services, that makes them even poorer, more akin to Saudi Arabia, than Germany. They are poor per capita and even then that money is unevenly distributed. Building institutions and infrastructure takes time, Russia doesn't have roads in many place while Austria can afford to renew their asphalt every 4 years. It's crazy, I haven't seen a pothole in Austria once when I been there. Stupid amounts of wealth, Russia not even close. Russia also has low-density of population in most regions, it's basically Moscow, and the rest of the country is an abandoned 3rd world country. I am exagerrating, but Russia has a lot of work to do.
Ah Okay, I see why. Thank you for your response. Actually, I just rewatched Leo vid on "How Society Evolves - Introducing The World Values Survey" and basically explained what you just said up above. I also already added more info. about this on my thread "Why do Russia and China still have authoritarian political systems?" Thanks again.
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Actually, after having rewatched Leo's vid on "How Society Evolves - Introducing The World Values Survey," I am now starting to understand why both Russia and China still have authoritarian regimes. It's because even though both of them have the 2nd and 3rd militaries in the world, have the 11th and 2nd largest economies in the world respectively, and have the 6th largest GDP (PPP) and the 1st largest GDP (PPP) in the world respectively, the GDP (nominal) per capita and GDP (PPP) per capita in each of those countries are much lower than any of westernized countries, island nations, city states, mini states, etc.. Also, both Russia and China are still behind all of the westernized societies with the regard to the secularization process.
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8 minutes ago, Yarco said:The forum guidelines literally prevent me from telling you without risking a ban, it's one of the things we aren't allowed to be radically open-minded about here.
So I'll just say that I don't think a stage yellow leader would be capable of drone striking children for corporate interests instead.
Yeah, I understand that argument. Yes, he was corrupted by corporate lobbyists including the military industrial complex. However, Leo said here on the thread "Tulsi Gabbard Joins The Forever War Machine On Tucker's Fox News Show":
On 9/22/2021 at 4:39 PM, Leo Gura said:Tusli has always been quasi-conservative.
However, the idea that drone strikes should never be used is silly. Drone strikes are a tool and they will continue to be used because it's better than other military options. Progressives are too utopian about drone strikes. Drones are not going away, they just need to be reformed and improved.
Now, I am not just agreeing with Leo just because I always take his word as gospel. I agree with what he's saying about that because from a both holistic viewpoint and practical standpoint drone strikes are the best thing that the US can do, for the time being, to protect the US and its allies from their enemies within Middle East.
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16 minutes ago, Yarco said:Even people on the far-left side of the spectrum are still only stage green. Don't give them too much credit.
Stage yellow people don't do status quo, they would revolutionize how we do politics. They're too ahead of their time to get elected at this point.
Then how did Obama get elected President even though he has a lot of stage Yellow and became the first black US president ever in history?
in Society, Politics, Government, Environment, Current Events
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I haven't seen snow in almost 20 years ever since I moved from Illinois to Southern California. I actually miss it.