Should I stay in America if it has become too corrupt and too undemocratic?

[jimwell]

17 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

f you understood how truly corrupt the world is, you would be severely depressed.

And angry and disappointed. And the knowing you're incapable of changing it leads to despair from time to time. 

Edited July 20 by jimwell
enhanced grammar

[Hardkill]

2 hours ago, Raze said:

No, his approval was 70% prior to the 1948 election.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/harry-s-truman-public-approval

Polls actually overestimated how well Biden would do in 2020.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020

The polling average slightly underestimated Republicans in 2022 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html

I don’t understand what polls were off in 2023 and 2024 as the election hasn’t happened yet 

No, his approval rating was about the same as Biden's was before he won the 1948 presidential. You read that gallup poll wrong. It was after Truman began his second term as president that his approval rating averages went back up to around 70%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/

Polls have no been greatly underestimating Biden and every one else in his party since 2022. The pollsters have been trying to overcorrect from how they really overestimated Trump and his party in 2020.

In the 1988 presidential election, Dukakis, the Democratic nominee was ahead of HW Bush by about 17 points on average until late August when the polls began to gradually switch in favor of HW Bush. Ultimately, Bush won that election in a 400+ electoral vote landslide. According to the article on Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign on wikipedia:

"A poll conducted on July 21 and 22 of 1988 found that Dukakis had expanded the size of his lead over Bush to 17 points, with 55% of voters surveyed saying they would prefer Dukakis to win, compared to 38% for Bush.[30] His lead soon began to shrink, however. For example, on July 30, Dukakis criticized the Reagan administration's handling of ethical issues,[31] to which Ronald Reagan himself responded by describing Dukakis as an "invalid", after which his poll numbers dropped by 5 points overnight.[7] By August 11, Dukakis' lead over Bush had shrunk to 7 points,[32] and by August 24, Bush had gained a 4-point lead over Dukakis. Of the dramatic shift in Dukakis' poll numbers, Mervin Field said, "I have never seen anything like this, this kind of swing in favorability ratings, ever since I have seen polls, going back to 1936."[33] Later that year, after the second Bush-Dukakis debate occurred on October 13, Dukakis' numbers dropped by 7 points that night, largely due to his response to a question about whether he would support the death penalty for someone if they raped and murdered his wife, Kitty Dukakis, being perceived as emotionless by voters (although others considered the question inherently unfair).[34][35]"

Again, polls have always been off in many different ways for a very long time. Even top political scientists and historians have talked in length about this:

 

Edited July 20 by Hardkill

[Raze]

19 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

No, his approval rating was about the same as Biden's was before he won the 1948 presidential. You read that gallup poll wrong. It was after Truman began his second term as president that his approval rating averages went back up to around 70%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/

 

 The closest poll listed for Truman to this date says 40 approval 44 disproval, your link shows Biden at 38 approval 56 disapproval. More importantly Truman’s approval increased significantly before the election, no indication that’ll happen for Biden.

19 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Polls have no been greatly underestimating Biden and every one else in his party since 2022. The pollsters have been trying to overcorrect from how they really overestimated Trump and his party in 2020.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020

The link I sent you which I am sending here again showed the average of polls pre 2020 election had Biden winning +7, the actual result was he won +4, so they overestimated Biden in 2020, not Trump.

19 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

In the 1988 presidential election, Dukakis, the Democratic nominee was ahead of HW Bush by about 17 points on average until late August when the polls began to gradually switch in favor of HW Bush. Ultimately, Bush won that election in a 400+ electoral vote landslide. According to the article on Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign on wikipedia:

"A poll conducted on July 21 and 22 of 1988 found that Dukakis had expanded the size of his lead over Bush to 17 points, with 55% of voters surveyed saying they would prefer Dukakis to win, compared to 38% for Bush.[30] His lead soon began to shrink, however. For example, on July 30, Dukakis criticized the Reagan administration's handling of ethical issues,[31] to which Ronald Reagan himself responded by describing Dukakis as an "invalid", after which his poll numbers dropped by 5 points overnight.[7] By August 11, Dukakis' lead over Bush had shrunk to 7 points,[32] and by August 24, Bush had gained a 4-point lead over Dukakis. Of the dramatic shift in Dukakis' poll numbers, Mervin Field said, "I have never seen anything like this, this kind of swing in favorability ratings, ever since I have seen polls, going back to 1936."[33] Later that year, after the second Bush-Dukakis debate occurred on October 13, Dukakis' numbers dropped by 7 points that night, largely due to his response to a question about whether he would support the death penalty for someone if they raped and murdered his wife, Kitty Dukakis, being perceived as emotionless by voters (although others considered the question inherently unfair).[34][35]"

Again, polls have always been off in many different ways for a very long time. Even top political scientists and historians have talked in length about this

Elections that happened 40 years ago and in completely different scenarios are not relevant. What matters is recent polling and long term trends, both do not favor Biden.

Your own pasted paragraph here points out how this was a rare event caused by a bad debate performance by Dukakis. The only similarity here is Biden also had a bad debate performance, so again not helping your argument.

Edited July 20 by Raze

[Hardkill]

15 minutes ago, Raze said:

 The closest poll listed for Truman to this date says 40 approval 44 disproval, your link shows Biden at 38 approval 56 disapproval. More importantly Truman’s approval increased significantly before the election, no indication that’ll happen for Biden.

The link I sent you showed the average of polls pre 2020 election had Biden winning +7, the actual result was he won +4, so they overestimated Biden in 2020, not Trump.

Elections that happened 40 years ago and in completely different scenarios are not relevant. What matters is recent polling and long term trends, both do not favor Biden.

Sorry, I meant the Polls have now been greatly underestimating Biden and every one else in his party since 2022. The pollsters have been trying to overcorrect from how they really underestimated Trump and his party in 2020. 

Truman still had about the same level of approval rating before he won another term. ask any political scientist or historian about this. THey tell you what I've been telling you.

Each election has different scenarios and yet the polls has always been prone to errors even still to this day. The polls and the mainstream thought in 2016 that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency and they were wrong. The polls for the 2022 midterms, the mainstream media, right-wing media, TYT, and Secular Talk for the 2022 all predicted a red wave. Yet, the Dems 2022 won overall even though the party that controls the White House generally loses the midterms. 

Btw, Biden has been much more successful political in building his party's coalition during his presidency than either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were during each of their presidencies. Obama was partly responsible for the historic 2010, 2014 midterms, and for not playing hardball enough to really try to warn the American people about a possible Trump presidency.

Hillary Clinton also didn't do enough to help build and unite the Democratic coalition. Although, it didn't really matter if someone else besides Hillary was the Democratic nominee instead back then. The main overarching reason the Dems lost to Trump back then was because too many people in the country felt like Obama and his whole party let the country down along with the fact that Hillary Clinton was not an exceptionally inspirational candidate. The 13 keys, which predicted a Trump win, explains all of this in a sensible and easy to understand manner.

Edited July 20 by Hardkill

[trenton]

19 hours ago, Yimpa said:

@trenton Who you consider family is not set in stone.

@Yimpa I'm aware of this. I was talking about my immediate family in the traditional sense. I don't consider them the extent of my family. I consider all of humanity my family.

I can see some potential for animals being considered part of the family from both an evolutionary standpoint and from the standpoint of adopting pets as we would adopt children and consider them family despite the lack of genetic relation.

I also see some potential for inanimate objects to be considered family. If living beings were created out of a series of atomic reactions, then why can't those atoms which created us be considered family. They didn't reproduce like living beings, but they still reproduced until we were created from them.

What do you think of this?

[Yimpa]

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(And now… a message from our sponsor)

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As sad and depressing as this all is, at least we are all in this belly-of-the-beast together 

Now let’s get back to talking about solutions. No more drama and no more fantasies. We can do this: together, forever, for ETERNITY! 

So let’s not “fight, fight, fight”, let’s be the “light, light, light!”)

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Edited July 21 by Yimpa

[Hardkill]

Besides Leo, has anyone lived in Hungary or in any other corrupt eastern European country? If you have, then how scary was it living in any of those countries?

Edited July 21 by Hardkill

[josemar]

3 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Besides Leo, has anyone lived in Hungary or in any other corrupt eastern European country? If you have, then how scary was it living in any of those countries?

I have. Scary? Please, get the sand out of your vagina. At least they didn't impose their made up pronouns and sexual orientation on you. Yes it was corrupt, but the rules were known by everyone, so in that sense for the ordinary person it was a level playing field.

You still had to work hard to make dreams come true, same as most other places. And if you had some money after working hard, you could pay the doctors that operate your dad's cancer, or have someone pit a good word to get your son employed... Was it the ideal system? Of course not, it was a stage we had to go through to fully appreciate a non corrupt democracy. But scary? That fear is made up by your self referencing thoughts.

"Fear is the mind killer"

[Leo Gura]

42 minutes ago, josemar said:

At least they didn't impose their made up pronouns and sexual orientation on you.

Please get the sand out of your vagina.

Oh no! A gay! How scary!

[Hardkill]

51 minutes ago, josemar said:

I have. Scary? Please, get the sand out of your vagina. At least they didn't impose their made up pronouns and sexual orientation on you. Yes it was corrupt, but the rules were known by everyone, so in that sense for the ordinary person it was a level playing field.

You still had to work hard to make dreams come true, same as most other places. And if you had some money after working hard, you could pay the doctors that operate your dad's cancer, or have someone pit a good word to get your son employed... Was it the ideal system? Of course not, it was a stage we had to go through to fully appreciate a non corrupt democracy. But scary? That fear is made up by your self referencing thoughts.

"Fear is the mind killer"

So, the leaders of the country you lived in didn't use the military or law enforcement to terrorize its citizens to make sure that the people "got in line" with what the ruler or the ruling class wanted?

[josemar]

34 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Please get the sand out of your vagina.

Oh no! A gay! How scary!

??? Are you coming out of the closet?

 

25 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

So, the leaders of the country you lived in didn't use the military or law enforcement to terrorize its citizens to make sure that the people "got in line" with what the ruler or the ruling class wanted?

It is "terror" if you fear for your life. Otherwise, it's just the day to day life, and you didn't know otherwise. 

In the morning we were mumbling the praise the leader songs, making the gestures etc, then in the evening still had barbeque in our gardens with the neighbors, watching "illegal" western propaganda on VHS tapes and listening to the illegal tadio station "Free Europe", in the hope/ knowledge "this, too, shall pass".

When you have little, you appreciate more.

[josemar]

6 minutes ago, josemar said:

 

It is "terror" if you fear for your life. Otherwise, it's just the day to day life, and you didn't know otherwise. 

In the morning we were mumbling the praise the leader songs, making the gestures etc, then in the evening still had barbeque in our gardens with the neighbors, watching "illegal" western propaganda on VHS tapes and listening to the illegal tadio station "Free Europe", in the hope/ knowledge "this, too, shall pass".

When you have little, you appreciate more.

To explain a bit more, there were some people that couldn't/wouldn't go through the motions, and they were locked up as political prisoners. I'm not saying life was all too great for them. For the rest of us that didn't feel the need to stand up against almost impossible odds (until the country did it, as a majority), life was alright. It could have been better, it could have been much worse.

[Merkabah Star]

@josemar do you mind naming the country, pretty please. 
 

Get the sand out of your vagina comment made me lol. Omg. 😁

[josemar]

8 minutes ago, Merkabah Star said:

@josemar do you mind naming the country, pretty please. 
 

Get the sand out of your vagina comment made me lol. Omg. 😁

Romania 🇷🇴

[Hardkill]

59 minutes ago, josemar said:

To explain a bit more, there were some people that couldn't/wouldn't go through the motions, and they were locked up as political prisoners. I'm not saying life was all too great for them. For the rest of us that didn't feel the need to stand up against almost impossible odds (until the country did it, as a majority), life was alright. It could have been better, it could have been much worse.

So, are you able to protest against the government in times of need without getting arrested or punished by the government for it?

Edited July 21 by Hardkill

[josemar]

17 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

So, are you able to protest against the government in times of need without getting arrested or punished by the government for it?

Of course not 🤣

[Merkabah Star]

32 minutes ago, josemar said:

Romania 🇷🇴

I met a lovely couple from Bucharest a while back. So nice!

[Bobby_2021]

14 hours ago, Staples said:

Yes, exploitation is one factor limiting cultures. However this is a very short term and incomplete perspective.

The cards were dealt many thousands of years ago which shape the current societal developments across different nations.

Consider other factors like:

- Access to resources like metals, oil

- Ability to farm

- Landlocked vs sea based

- having war prone neighbouring societies

- Natural disaster prone areas

Societies develop is the same way you might learn a new skill, they must constantly tackle new challenges and problems that are just within their reach to overcome. If there are no threats, they do not develop. If the threat is too dangerous, they get squashed. It's called the local maxima, leo shared a good video on the blog about it.

Europe has had the best balance in the last 500-1000 years for societal development, prior to that the middle east had some good conditions.

What to live in the most developed and good trajectory country right now? Look to Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia. Literally go to the world corruption index and pick a country with low corruption and you will be fine.

If "striking a balance" includes bombing other countries to fuck, overthrowing their democracies and colonialism then yes the collective west is pretty good at that.

Appreciate how China is already the world's largest economy in the world without having invaded or looted any other country. They don't give a fuck about western style "free markets" or capitalism. Yet they enjoy all the benefits of it.

Appreciate how India is already the world's 3rd largest economy merely 75 years after Independence from the British rule. On top of never having bombed or invading any other country.

Notice that you you don't want to talk about all the horrible things west did so that you could have a good quality of life. You are ready to talk about literally anything but this lol.

[Bobby_2021]

Being an average citizen in the western world is like being Andrew Tate's children. You will be rich and grow up with a good standard of living, but never know about the dark shit your daddy govt had to do to get you to this level of quality of life.

Andrew literally moved to a third world country to exploit their women for cheap labour and made millions and laundered it all in Dubai and elsewhere.

Stealing and looting is the easiest way to get rich, believe it or not.

The trick is in sweeping it under the rug and coming up with clunky and weird justifications for it.

As if there are "other factors" lmao.  The biggest factor is the shackles on their feet ser.

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Stealing and looting is the easiest way to get rich, believe it or not.

Don't kid yourself, the 3rd world are experts are stealing, looting, and enslaving their own. Look at the Middle East, Africa, India, China, South America. They are all scammers, looters, rapists, theives, and human traffickers. None this devilry is unique to the West. The West just does it in more effective and refined ways, at an industrial scale.

Edited July 21 by Leo Gura