The people want to be undisturbed and untaxed by rampant mental illness too, but the average person won't acknowledge that recreational marijuana use (with today's potency levels) contributes to declining mental health.
That logic doesn't really hold. I'll speak generally and not about this specific administration:
If the <current government> was doing good things that the people wanted during the entire term, then they would not need to resort to moves like this alleged one when the vote is coming up. It's only if they're not doing good things that the people want that they would dangle something shiny to the electorate.
This is a directional error. Roe protected liberty. Federal criminalization of weed impedes liberty. While ending both of these things returns policy to the states, one necessarily reduces liberty while one necessarily increases liberty.
The political group largely responsible for this has been consistently underperforming in nearly every election since it happened, so I’m not sure what point you’re driving at.
OK, but at the time of Roe v. Wade, I don't think the majority of people wanted abortion legalized, either. I'm not sure the majority of people wanted gay marriage legalized (at the time).
But even more: You don't want the judges to be focused on what the majority want. That's not the rule of law.
Yes, I'm objecting to the premise that "democratically accountable governments do(ing) good things that the people want" describes the process by which Roe v. Wade was repealed. It was not democratically accountable, and it was what only a subset of the people wanted.
The Supreme Court is not an example of democracy working, it's a purposely anti-democratic institution.
A panel of judges appointed and confirmed by elected officials. An electoral plurality did want it repealed. And based on current polls, there is not a majority who think it's important enough to change it back. Even if there's an opinion poll saying most people want abortion rights, that's effectively moot if they don't vote that way.
Abortion bans have been extremely unpopular in every state where they have gone on the ballot. Even deep red ones. I'd be curious to see what happens if every state holds a referendum on it.
Current polls indicate that "[t]wo-thirds of the public, including majorities of Democrats (86%) and independents (67%), support a law guaranteeing a federal right to abortion."
By current polls, I mean the ones showing Trump even or slightly ahead of Biden despite him being directly responsible for Dobbs. If 2/3 of the public wanted abortion rights, Biden would have 2/3 of the popular vote, but he won't get anywhere near that. Hence, most people don't want Roe reinstated. QED.
>If 2/3 of the public wanted abortion rights, Biden would have 2/3 of the popular vote, but he won't get anywhere near that. Hence, most people don't want Roe reinstated. QED.
That isn't the way people work. Or voting. Or polls.
It is the only practical measure of true public opinion. You can also, by extension, infer that roughly 47% of Americans think sexual assault is acceptable and that democracy is undesirable. It may not be what they say or even what they think but it is reflected in what they do.
It isn't practical by any means, it's unnecessarily reductionist, even when one doesn't consider the numerous innate biases involved in polling.
People are multidimensional but American Presidential politics forces them into a binary decision. Yet there are numerous reasons why people who support abortion might not vote for Biden. They may support abortion but not believe Biden is a credible choice to defend abortion rights. They may support abortion but vote against Biden to punish the Democratic Party for their response to Dobbs. They may support abortion but reject the Democratic Party altogether. They may support abortion but find activism at the state level more effective, and find other things like Biden's support for Israel more objectionable. They may support abortion but also support Trump, because pro-choice Republicans do exist, and their only options will be to vote Trump or not vote and all. And most people won't even vote at all.
>It may not be what they say or even what they think but it is reflected in what they do.
No. It may be comfortable to see people in such black and white terms, but the premise that unless one votes for Biden, one doesn't support abortion regardless of what else one says and does, is ... not even wrong levels of wrong.
Yes, this is exactly the problem with our "representative" democracy. For example, one polarizing issue this year may be whether a voter is willing to accept a candidate who acts like a mob boss or not, regardless of any other issue that the candidates are trying to stand on. Worse yet, elected candidates then have difficulty knowing which of the multidimensional issues mattered to their voters because all the information has been lost by the polarizing election system.
I understand that people are complex and can have subtlety and nuance to their personalities but I can only judge them on what they do. If someone kicks me in the shin, there could be 1000 reasons leading to them thinking it was a valid decision but ultimately they still just kicked me in the shin.
I'm sure 0% of Trump voters would tell a pollster they approve of sexual assault but their actions indicate they do.
You are making the mistake that people understand how our government works or are paying much attention at all. I've video of some voters blaming Biden for the overturn of Roe v Wade because it happened during Biden's term. If voters were properly informed across the board Biden, and most democrats, would win in a landslide. There are many active forces, foreign and domestic, which put serious effort and money into deliberately misinforming the populace, because they are incredibly selfish, and care only for their personal gain, regardless of how many are harmed, and to what degree.
Yes, it's good for the government to not be tyrannical, but I'd argue that when the majority of people increasingly and collectively want things that are net negatives for society like recreational drug use, it's a red flag that society is in decline.
I think recreational drug use is demonstrably good for society and part of all succesful civilizations. Take caffeine, sugar, alcohol and tobacco as the primary examples. All potent drugs and all taken habitually and en masse by all the most successful societies in the world.
More like all the most successful societies value personal freedoms. Personal freedoms are clearly good for society and a big one of those is recreational drug use of which tobacco use is quite common.
Having a government which restricts personal freedoms too much for the sake of "societal good" may work in the short term or for specific issues but is clearly a negative in the long and broad terms. See the "west" of today for evidence of personal freedom combined with not-overly-restrictive-legislation being the most successful method of handling these things.
You seem to be conflating a distaste for demonstratively failed policy, like as prohibition, with an appetite for what you are calling "recreational drug use".
50% of the country believes tax is theft, and they also imagine if there were no taxes and the IRS abolished we'd somehow still continue to support an army, have a federal court system, a patent office, etc, etc, and that their state will continue to get federal subsidies.
That was the entire point of Obama's speech that republican news sources and libertarians eviscerated him for: "You didn't build that". He wasn't saying that you didn't build your business; he was stating you didn't build all the infrastructure that allowed you to build and run your business, and that is why taxes are not theft.
There is a legitimate argument over how much taxes and what is should be spent on, but those nuanced discussions are entirely replaced by BS.
Every dollar I've ever paid in federal taxes has been thrown into a black hole of debt never to be seen again, their actual spending is fueled by debasement of the currency (IE. money printing). The only purpose of taxation in such a system is to reduce inflationary pressure caused by their own malfeasance, I can't imagine they actually need the revenue since there seems to be no relationship between revenue and spending anyways. This all makes our current system of taxation feel less like a civic duty and more like a scam.
>50% of the country believes tax is theft, and they also imagine if there were no taxes and the IRS abolished we'd somehow still continue to support an army, have a federal court system, a patent office, etc, etc, and that their state will continue to get federal subsidies.
That is not at all what 50% of the country believes, its a hyperbolic strawman. Obviously taxation is necessary to fund public services, just because someone criticizes the litany of flaws in our specific system doesn't mean they don't believe in the concept of taxation. Funny that you go on to complain about lack of nuance.
One party has been defunding the IRS, even though spending $1 in IRS budget returns $6 in uncollected taxes. One party even has congressmen saying the IRS should be removed entirely.
> Every dollar I've ever paid in federal taxes has been thrown into a black hole of debt never to be seen again
This contradicts what you say later: taxes are returned in the form of public services.
Back in the 50s the max tax rate (for a very few, but very rich people) was 90%. Corporations collectively contributed about half of what individual taxes did; now it is about 10%. The 2017 (?) tax bill forgave more than $1T in corporate taxes that were owed and gave some people a couple thousand dollars tax break; but while those corporate tax cuts were permanent, that same law that dropped the rate for some individuals was written to increase individual tax rates every two years and in no time those people are paying more in taxes than before.
If the Bush and Trump tax cuts for corporations and rich people had not ever happened, the debt would be going down (ignoring the extraordinary circumstances of covid).
Rich people and rich corporations can afford to get the laws written in their favor.
>One party has been defunding the IRS, even though spending $1 in IRS budget returns $6 in uncollected taxes. One party even has congressmen saying the IRS should be removed entirely.
Sure, funding the IRS increases revenue. But we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. The amount of revenue they collect is utterly massive and should be more than enough to pay for all the public services we need, but it's not because they are wildly irresponsible with it. I find it hard to swallow that the solution is to squeeze us for even more.
> Every dollar I've ever paid in federal taxes has been thrown into a black hole of debt never to be seen again
> This contradicts what you say later: taxes are returned in the form of public services.
Taxes are returned in the form of public services in a healthy functional system, one which I would like to live in. My argument is that our system is not healthy and functional. Public services are provided but taxes have little relevance in how those services are paid for, at least on a federal level. If the government has the authority to simply print all the money it needs, and does so frequently with seemingly no limits, then what is the point of taxes? As I said, I think it's just to relieve inflationary pressure caused by fundamentally irresponsible monetary policy, whereas in an ideal functioning system there would be a direct relation between revenue -> spending on public services, as you say.
As for the rest of your post I basically agree, our tax code is quite obviously the product of corporate interest. But I don't think it's fair to conflate the opinions of "50% of the country" with that of the GOP party brass corpos. I think the predominant feeling on this topic among the GOP base is that of mistrust for the IRS (which is justified considering their previous political scandals) and more general sentiments of smaller government, which is not the same thing as 'taxation is theft'
Not so quick: One inch may be 1/12 of a foot, but a foot is not necessarily a foot. The international foot is 12×2.54 mm, but a US survey foot is 1200/3937 m. The ratio of the definitions is 500000/499999.
But nobody would ever use a survey foot outside of surveying, and if you are using survey foot outside of talking to other surveyors you would call it a survey foot, or be using it in a context where that tiny inconsistency doesn't matter. Something being 5 feet away in feet is still for all practical purposes 5 survey feet away, nobody is going to pull out a 5 foot set of calipers to measure that 1/100,000th of a foot difference. And nobody would use survey feet for anything that requires that sort of precision.
You might as well complain about meter measurements from 100 years ago not being exactly the same as a modern meter.
Not complaining really. I mentioned this mostly for entertainment value, besides pointing out that things are not always as straightforward as it might seem. (Also triggered by the absurd precision of the number in the title.)
"Priests CAN have sex, you know. You won't just burst into flames. I've Googled it!"