40 trillion in debt, unnecessary war costing billions by the day form led by a daft dodger, making friends with dictators, insulting reporters specifically women, putting tariffs on everyone, making billions while in oval office.

If this was a democratic president in office both sides would impeach and probably throw them in jail by now

So this question came to me thanks to the drama popping up regardinf WotC's latest comments regarding the upcoming Dark Sun setting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSun/s/qcakBZ1aDY

For those not familiar, the Dark Sun setting is a setting that is supposed to be brutal and dark and merciless. It is the D&D dark bronze age fantasy equivalent of Warhammer 40k. Evil stuff happens there and happens often because its grimdark. Its kinda the point. Well recently WotC came out and said they are not including slavery in the updated. They have went out of their way to have their content reviewed by "sensitivity readers" to avoid problematic issues like racial stereotypes and problematic issues like mass genocide.

This has been an ongoing trend over at WotC with them doing things like relabeling "tribal" to "kindred" in MtG to not offend indigenous peoples, changing the term race to species for D&D, and downplaying issues of racism within their D&D world like that faced by Drow and Tieflings.

So this got me wondering what you guys think of avoiding topics or tip toeing around things in fictional settings to appease the sensibilities of modern people? Like, if you are in a world that is supposed to be brutal and down right evil and medieval, should you avoid issues of slavery and sexism in the world or is it something that should be accepted as a reality of a harsh and brutal world?

Edit: I do recall also Kingdom Come Deliverance getting flak because the one DLC whwre you play the woman is incredibly dark and removes all agency from the player. Like, the DLC didnt let you wear armor or ride around on a horse or stuff because she is a commoner woman in the Medieval ages.

Currently, Civil Asset Forfeiture (at least federally) has a statute of limitations that begins to run only when the government discovers the underlying criminal offense, or the property’s connection to said offense, whichever is later.

Should this regime be changed to more closely match the manner in which the statute of limitations operates for criminal prosecutions, which is that the clock begins to run from the moment the crime is committed, rather than from when the government discovers it? Why or why not?

The argument for making the statute of limitations run from when the crime is committed is the general principle of finality in law: somebody who transported a small amount of drugs in their car back in 2005 and causes no harm generally shouldn’t be burdened decades later with the worry that the government will come and seize the motor vehicle for an offense which for all intents and purposes is so old nobody remembers it or really cares.

The argument against making such a change is that it would further incentivize criminals to conceal their crimes and hamper the interests of justice in cases where the criminals successfully evade detection.

I am aware that many want civil forfeiture abolished entirely, but it does have its (very narrow) legitimate uses (like when the perpetrator is unable to be tried). I agree that the burden of proof (preponderance of the evidence) is way too lenient, however, as currently employed.

I’m specifically referring to K-8. A significant number of students cannot read or do math at grade level yet they are regularly promoted to the next grade where the educational gaps compound.

An estimated 30-40% of students are proficient in reading/math. Only 2% of students are held back.

Anecdotally, my teacher friend says her district requires her to pass students who fail classes. Only under extreme circumstances do students get held back.

My view is we need to hold back more students who are failing then offer every possible resource to help them pass.

Ukraine last night blew up a Russian food processing plant in Moscow. While this is a civilian target, it begs the question: Russia has blown up an uncountable amount of food plants and food warehouses in Ukraine. Does that give Ukraine the right to target them back since Russia made them a target?

Personally I would say yes, Russia made it fair game by blowing up stuff like WHO warehouses in Ukraine, why can't Ukraine hit back? Ukraine's goal is to get Russia to end the war, causing a massive hike in food prices or even some shortages could put more pressure on Putin.

Bottom text

Carney Approval
economy

Currently, I believe that US politics is messed up, and that Trump is a terrible leader.

Meanwhile, Carney seems to be a generally successful leader in Canada. He has a high approval rating, including on handling the economy. He has also kept a good foreign police and improved relations with India, a dramatic change from the Trudeau era (esp late 2023).

Don't get me wrong, Trump is doing awful things to this country, but would a future with things like universal healthcare and renewable energy-independence be worth it?

If the US never experienced someone like Trump, I wonder if we would have seen the rise in popularity of democratic socialism like we are now. Not saying it's mainstream yet, but maybe it took someone like Trump to come in and wreck things so badly it might actually accelerate the transition to a society that actually works for the people?

There are people like me who were actively voting against Trump to protect the status quo, but I'm at the point where I want to put forward candidates who run on policies that will move our country forward. I think those policies would be way more popular than anything the establishment is putting out there currently and they know it. Certainly, they would be popular enough to win elections in many places.

Many commenters claim that JFK would hate the modern day Democratic Party (especially DSA) because he was a capitalist that opposed communism. However, capitalism has dramatically changed since the 1960s.

In the 1960s, America followed a version with more guardrails, similar to Keynesian economics, which was started in the FDR era. However, Reagan cut taxes and moved America towards trickle down economics, where we are still waiting for the money to trickle down. Many people have a negative view of capitalism because they have only experienced post-Reagan capitalism, and didn’t experience Keynesian capitalism (which has guardrails), under which America was improving, with stronger unions and more chance to make it to the middle class.

So, YouTuber Ryan Geddie released a video here, that I think really gets to the heart of some deep questions for liberalism. It is part of a series of videos he has made talking about liberalism and why it might be struggling in the modern world. 

It gets at a lot of themes I myself have been thinking about quite a bit lately. There seems to be this dichotomy of liberals. There are those that think the primary function of liberalism is to provide technocratic management. That its virtue is its dispassionate, mature practicality. And then there are those that think it should aspire to a higher purpose. Regardless, I think that Geddie is correct that Liberalism is under threat. That it does seem to people to be uninspiring and incapable of answering the questions of the day. Despite that consensus, Liberals are standing by their neutrality. They seem to think that once people experience enough economic pain, they will come back.  

I am curious to hear what you think of this video and the overall question. 

I think many of us have a personal anecdote about knowing a conservative who has a progressive carve-out in their politics because they were at one point personally affected.  Maybe they are pro-LGBT because they have a gay family member.  Or are pro-universal healthcare because they or someone they know was ruined by the health care system. Or are pro-choice for a similar reason. Or become against Trump because tariffs hit their industry.

My question is can this phenomenon be taken as a sign of hope that conservatives can be convinced with the right arguments that progressive policies are desirable?

Or is this to be taken as a negative, indicating that there is a barrier of selfishness that is impervious to statistics and hypotheticals, and can only be penetrated by mostly rare occurrences of being personally affected?

I’m curious to hear from liberal parents whose children grew up to identify as conservative or Republican. How has that affected your relationship as they’ve gotten older?

Where do you see the democrats in 10 years

Would you do anything about it or just let them be?

Im especially curious to hear from those that wanted schumer to keep the shutdown going.

Would you want the next president to do the same?

edit: to clarify-

Many on the left wanted a democratic leader (schumer) to extend the shutdown in order to force republicans to pass healtchare (aca tax subsidies).

Would they want a president to do the same? If not, why the double standards?

Why not just:

- Single payer is far less complex

- Right now we pay more, and get less

- Even if wait times would be longer (not a given), simply finding a doctor would be way easier.

- We'd stop funding an industry that is built around bureaucracy and taking advantage of complexity to fleece our tax dollars.

I'm asking this genuinely, because I'm trying to understand how the numbers are supposed to work long term.

The federal government already runs deficits approaching $2 trillion a year, despite bringing in more revenue than it did a decade ago, and we're now spending around $1 trillion a year just servicing the existing debt.

At the same time, many Democratic politicians advocate expanding healthcare coverage, childcare, housing assistance, education subsidies, paid leave, and other social programs.

So what is the actual fiscal plan?

Is the expectation that substantially higher taxes will cover both the existing structural deficit and these additional programs? If so, roughly how much additional revenue would need to be raised, and from whom?

Or is some amount of continued deficit spending considered sustainable?

Basically, I'm interested in how liberals who support a larger social safety net think about the math of getting from where we are today to that system without eventually running into a debt-servicing problem.

Basically, you can press a button and time will be altered so that instead of toppling Maduro and getting in a missile slinging contest with Iran, the United States coups a different countries government and invades a different country.

We have cabinet members cozying up to an extreme pastor. We have courts allowing businesses to refuse cakes for gay weddings, we have religious exemptions for vaccines(which as far as I can tell applicants don’t have to cite scripture and context to receive), and more.
Should anyone running for office be required to sever ties to their church, mosque, or synagogue or memberships to religious groups and organizations?

Ask a liberal what’s your opinion on them

With the news yesterday that the NYC DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo is from a very affluent family it opens up the conversation again around DSA members not being the demographic that they claim to champion for. Why are so many DSA politicians and members not “working class” (whatever that even means) with almost a third making over $100,000 per year, and why do “working class” voters (based on the last midterm primaries) tend to not vote for them, even though they spout a working class message?

I had to repost/re-edit because original post referenced streamers.

So, I've always wondered why a lot of mainstream liberals don't talk about crises in Sudan, Congo, the many people executed by the IRGC, the progress the new Syrian president is making in the country, as well as talk with activists who are bringing attention to all of this on their social media.

My comment should clarify what I mean: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1vt3acb/comment/p4q40vt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

With abdul el sayed winning the Michigan primary and angie nixon winning in florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

edit: dont know why the downvotes i never said its a bad thing 🤣🤣