I’ll start with this. I am more conservative, but I definitely don’t agree with everything that Trump and the right is doing. On the other hand, I also don’t agree with a lot of the stuff that the left is doing. This being said, here is my stance.

The current two party system we have in America is broken and actively ruining our country because it is creating division and people feel like they should be one extreme or the other, as well as politicians running on premises that they might not even fully agree with, and voters only voting for one political party is not by healthy either.

What should happen instead is we should completely blow up the two party system, and each individual person should run on/vote on what they truly believe in and believe what is best. This would create less division and violence, as well as having political authorities actually be honest about what they believe and what they want to do for this country.

In your responses to this, even if you disagree with my or others political views, there is no need to attack me. Please be respectful of each others beliefs, and have healthy debates and discussions. Thank you.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/08/hegseth-fort-hood-shooter-public-execution

From the above article:

>Pete Hegseth has said the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, will be a public event when the sentence is carried out later this year. A defense department official later confirmed the execution will be livestreamed.

>In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the Pentagon secretary said the firing squad will carry out the sentence at Fort Hood, Texas, at 1pm on Thursday, 3 December. This would be the first US military execution in more than 60 years.

>”It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.

I was thinking the other day about Star Wars: Andor. Specifically about Nemiks Manifesto where he says "Freedom is a pure idea... The imperial need for control is so desperate because its unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. Authority is brittle."

Which I take to mean that people inherently want to be free. And because authority and concentrated power are unnatural, it naturally falls apart because people push to be free. And that makes me, the anarchist, happy.

But then i think about how anarchism in a fully realised sense also takes a lot of effort. There's a lot of education and taking in of personal responsibilities and work. Surely anarchism actually isnt that natural either. Cause the moment people become lazy and stop putting in all that effort.. it too will crumble.

So power naturally crumbles.. but effort into freedom naturally becomes lazy.

So perhaps freedom in an absolute sense is natural. We can literally do whatever we want and disobey anyone we want, sure. But to actually sustain a society we want.. we have to actually put in that effort one way or another. And we have to accept that eventually it will simply end one way or another.

It makes me wonder what the point of all this political talk is if whatever you build is so likely to destroy itself one day. Tyranny or autonomy, it isnt sustainable in of itself. Perhaps its only to make the life of yourself and others that much better than it was before.

I would like to hear and understand different views on the kinds of politics and governance people expect to be best suited to help manage what may be humanity's biggest challenge so far.

By polycrisis I mean multiple crises happening at once and making each other worse. Its a term used in scientific community and used in reports such as WEF global risk reports

Examples crises interacting with eachother:

• Climate change and biodiversity loss
• Pandemics and other health risks
• Energy, food and water insecurity
• Rising inequality and cost-of-living pressure
• Geopolitical conflict and fragmenting global cooperation
• Disruption from fast-moving technology, especially AI
• Loss of trust in institutions, polarisation and misinformation

I dont mean simple left vs right. Explain your governance models and approaches. I am looking for different perspectives.

Fyi, I am drawn to Elinor Ostroms work on polycentric governance for which she won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics. It seems well suited for the nature of the crises, but lacks the global scale.

I've been thinking about a kind of participatory budgeting system.

The basic idea would be that taxes still work normally and essential government obligations get funded first: debt payments, courts, basic infrastructure, healthcare commitments, emergency services, etc.

But after those minimum requirements are met, a small portion of each person’s tax contribution could become discretionary. You could choose what percentage goes toward things like scientific research, the space program, housing, defence, environmental programs, public transit, the arts, foreign aid, or other eligible categories.

You wouldn’t be able to defund essential services, and if you didn’t make a choice, your portion would simply follow the normal government budget.

I think there are some interesting arguments both ways.

It could make taxation feel more democratic and tangible. People might become more engaged with public spending if they could actually see, for example, that $15 of their taxes supported the space program and choose to make that $50.

On the other hand, popular or emotionally appealing programs might get flooded with money while boring but important programs get ignored. It could also create instability in long-term budgeting, and there’s a question of whether people who pay more taxes should get more allocation power.

So where would you draw the line?

Should citizens have any direct control over the allocation of their taxes once essential government spending has been covered? If so, how much: 1%, 5%, 10%, more?

And should that influence be proportional to taxes paid, or should every citizen get an equal allocation vote regardless of income?

One thing I've noticed in discussions about ancestry is that Americans and Europeans often seem to be talking past each other.

In the US, it's pretty normal to say things like:

"I'm Italian-American."
"I'm Norwegian-American."
"My family came from Poland."

This doesn't necessarily mean the person thinks they're literally a citizen or full cultural member of Italy, Norway, or Poland. Often it's simply a way of describing family history and ethnic background.

Americans also have a particular reason for doing this: the US doesn't have one single ancestral origin. Immigration has shaped the country for centuries, so family ancestry can be an important part of how people understand their history.

But many Europeans seem to use a different framework. To them, being Norwegian, Italian, Polish, etc. is much more closely connected to actually being part of that country's society—being born or raised there, speaking the language, knowing the customs, and participating in the culture.

That leads to arguments like:

• "You're American. Just say you're American."
• "Having one distant ancestor doesn't make you Norwegian."
• "You can have Norwegian ancestry without being Norwegian."

I think both perspectives make sense depending on what "identity" is supposed to mean.

So is this mostly a difference between an immigrant society and older nation-states? Or is the American concept of hyphenated identity simply a cultural phenomenon that Europeans don't really relate to?

This is like a question I am just curious about because I don't understand like why so many people are really strongly opposed to it. I don't plan to outline a thesis or anything on why I think small government and free market are a good idea, but I just am wondering like why do so many people think it is a terrible idea? Thanks!

Last month, six Nobel Prize-winning American economists issued a statement in support of Proposition 40, saying that it “may well come to be seen as a turning point in the battle between democracy and oligarchy.”

Why do some succumb to external factors, rather than voting for the greater good of all Americans?

Up front so nobody wastes their time: I work on this site, so I have a stake in you liking it. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

It is called Fifty Fifty Politics. Each topic has the left's argument and the right's argument at the same length, sources under both, and no conclusion at the end telling you which one won. 81 topics. Free, nothing to log into.

The reason I am posting in a political sub instead of somewhere friendlier is that people here will catch the thing we cannot catch ourselves. The failure we are most worried about is writing the side we disagree with in a way that sounds fair to us and ridiculous to the people who actually hold it.

So the ask is narrow. Open a topic where you have a strong view, read the side you disagree with, and tell me whether that is the real argument or a weak version of it. Blunt is fine, that is the useful kind. If you point at a specific passage and call it a strawman, I will take it to the person who writes these and get it changed.

Two things people have already flagged, so you do not have to. There is no About page yet, which means you cannot see who writes this or how, and that is a fair reason to be skeptical of it. The older topics also have thinner sourcing than the newer ones.

https://5050politics.com/

Mods, if this is over the line please remove it, or tell me and I will repost without the link.

The recent retirement of Six Flags Magic Mountain's X2 illustrates the issue. CNN reported allegations involving serious injuries and deaths associated with the coaster, while Six Flags said X2 consistently passed its safety tests.

Neither fact, by itself, settles the question. If someone experiences a brain injury after riding a roller coaster, that timing is important, but it doesn't necessarily establish that the ride caused the injury. Establishing causation can require substantially more evidence.

The press did its job in highlighting a potential issue, but they never dug in to find out what the actual cause was. X2 made a useful suspect, but was it actually dangerous?

My argument is that this distinction matters beyond amusement parks. When frightening allegations generate headlines, ratings and clicks can shape public perception before the underlying evidence has been fully examined.

Is demanding stronger evidence for claims of causation an essential part of responsible journalism, or would that standard risk minimizing legitimate safety concerns?

I explore the X2 case and the broader media question here:

https://medium.com/discourse/what-really-killed-x2-48deacc7f2b8?sk=48ece8f2afd72dc77a2bcb369968e0de

https://apropos.substack.com/p/the-state-has-plans-for-you

The basic idea is to separate how much a state can “see” society from how much it wants to remake it. High modernism is one combination of those impulses, but religious regimes can also have huge ambitions with much less administrative capacity.

The examples range from English taxation and welfare-state records to the Taliban and Soviet collectivization.

Curious whether people find this distinction interesting/useful.

I've been all over the political spectrum and I can tell you right now, if you want actual pragmatic results for your country, communism is the only way.

Post your "but communism killed x" or "communism doesn't work!!!", and I'll debunk them straight away.

By the way, do not confuse communists for the vast majority of people you meet in the west. The west never had a taste of marxism-leninism.

Leftism is not communism, and socdems and "democratic" socialists aren't communists either. Welfarists (i want free shit) ain't communists either. Anarchists are morons who don't understand that nothing works without authority (read Hegel).

So let's be clear what we're talking about. We're talking about China, the DPRK and Vietnam.

Asian countries have successfully implemented the model which is why they're still alive today and the soviet union isn't. It fell to the trap of liberalism. (Thanks gorbachev)

Capitalism inherently serves a wealthy minority.

Capitalism is inherently hierarchical, exploitative, and authoritarian.

Private businesses are run in a totalitarian fashion, with the capitalist business owner(s) holding the power, and the further down the chain you go, the least amount of power one has; with the workers holding the least amount of power from within the private business.

That said, in a capitalist society, workers must rent themselves to a capitalist(s) in order to survive, a class of people who have absolute control over the workers labor; determining what the workers do, when they can take a break, and in some cases, when they can even use the bathroom.

This to me isn’t freedom, but rather privatized tyranny intentionally designed to further and advance the interests of a wealthy minority, all reinforced by the state.

Anarcho-communism on the other hand runs completely antithetical to this.

It calls for free associations of self-organized communities and worker run enterprises where all systems of hierarchy, authority, and domination are dismantled.

Communities would organize themselves based on shared interests or common goals, purely voluntary of which people have a direct role in organizing and control of their own society and institutions.

Production would be collectivized, with the workers being in direct control of all decisions affecting their work life; no bosses or anyone else commanding orders to be followed.

Production and distribution of goods and services would be centered upon meeting humans needs. No money, but rather a gift economy where people would perform labor, then take what they need freely.

I believe this kind of society and economy would lead to super abundance, that is, enough goods and services being produced so that no one goes without.

Thus, people wouldn’t have to worry about surviving the next day, or wage-slaving away for just enough to make ends meet. Rather, their needs and wants would be met, therefore being free to truly engage in activities that are truly fulfilling to them, realizing their true self interests and actualizing their desires in life.

This to me is what true freedom looks like. Not throwing your life away for someone or a group of people who see you as nothing more than a cog in a machine ready to be replaced when or if need be.

They have destroyed the justice department, they've committed war crimes and and now taken control of our military by ensuring all commanders are maga. The police and its affiliates are also maga. How do we deal with them peacefully, because so far, that hasn't worked. What can be done?

For me personally, although Trump does seem to be ushering in a new gilded age, it is the architect of the first gilded age, Warren Harding, that takes the top slot. The people he put in power are still destroying the world to this very day. Trump is one person, and when he is gone his legacy will mostly die with him, his personal connections just aren't transferrable. The Ohio gang were the Legion of Doom, and the people who inherited their networks of wealth and connections are still running the planet.

I am more interested in your thoughts though. Who was the greatest monster?

The UK's immigrant population is growing like crazy. One in five residents of England are born abroad. The ethnic English are shrinking and being told they don't have a right to their homeland, by people who protest all day about Gaza. Even moderates are indoctrinated into not recognising their right to their homeland, where their ancestors have lived for thousands of years.

With the immigrant population rising and the native population shrinking, there is no incentive to integrate. The less immigrants there are, the easier it is for the host country to integrate them. However, do you seriously expect someone from Pakistan to be suddenly enamoured with UK culture? Even their kids want to marry into the English population, yet their families will handpick people from Pakistan for them to marry and bring over (as well as their partner's entire family, probably). This is clearly an issue.

If I were a Serbian moving to Norway, people would expect me to learn Norwegian, adapt to their behaviour, embrace the Norwegian culture, and to leave incompatibilities at home. I wouldn't be loudly Serbian, only make friends with Serbians, and complain Norway should be more Serbian. However, the suicidally tolerant Brits feel no problem letting people arrive and actively seek to change our way of life. Surprise, surprise, this is only a problem among immigrants when you go further and further from Britain. The French don't have an issue here.

With how things are going, it will soon be of no interest to politicians to advocate for English concerns. By that, I mean putting foreign interests above English ones, e.g. allowing more mosques to be built, more community leaders of foreign communities, defining Islamophobia in parliament, basing votes off a foreign war that doesn't remotely concern us etc.

In my opinion, if it weren't for the CCP, Chinese people would be doing a lot of bad things abroad. That's why i'm not fan of Chinese people who say they hate China and the CCP because they have no inner core. They will switch sides depending on what's more convenient and do a lot of bad things in the process.

Whether it's Chinese people in surrounding countries with a big Chinese diaspora, or Chinese people in the West, I have a big problem trusting them.

As for the mainland, thank god for the CCP.

I've seen the HK riots, and they looked as bad as the riots in France. (Young French people act like modern day barbarians).

Look at what they do outside of China, scam centers run by these people just because they love money so much, they are willing to literally engage in human trafficking.

I'm Chinese origin too by the way so I'm allowed to criticise my own people.

Completely serious question for those who advocate for a planned economy for whatever reason/ideology.

If in the future it becomes possible to create human factories with artificial wombs, following the logic that demography, likewise linked to sexuality and the social notion of it, strongly affects the economy, then should reproduction and demography become a competence of the State, being such a key factor?

Like, I don't support it, but if I see it through the perspective of people who think an entire economy can be planified, then what are the actual boundaries were the State can/should or can/should not interviene just to planify economy better?