Do you apply this same standard to the January 6th morons, or do you conveniently use their actions to paint everyone on the right as fascists and lunatics?

Meaning what exactly?

What specific thing did I say that makes me a fascist?

It’s so frustrating to see something like this and realize that an increasing number of people align their views with the anti-fascists, thinking they are the “good guys”, without seeing the inherent hypocrisy of the beliefs they hold. On paper the anti-fascists portray themselves as accepting, but the reality is quite the opposite. Generally speaking they are authoritarian pricks who will label anyone who disagrees with them as racist or bigoted simply to undermine their point of view. No idea should be above criticism.

I think privileged white people are the largest problem in society these days. I think violence should only be used as a last resort to self defense. I prefer minorities because I find them to be hard working with strong family values. I think freedom of speech only works if it is universal (especially extending to those I disagree with). I’m not entirely sure what classifies as a “dissenter”. I have tremendous respect and appreciation for Jewish culture and the way in which they build community. And yet I have been called a fascist/racist/bigot many times online because I respectfully find the actions and beliefs of ANTIFA abhorrent.

If you scream down viewpoints you don’t like rather than seek to understand, if you use violence to intimidate, if you seek to wield power to destroy your political enemies, then YOU are the bad guys. ANTIFA does all of these things then hides behind the ruse of being “anti-fascists” because they are cowards and are no better than the fascists they claim to fight against.

What is your definition of “fascist”?

As well you should have been. If you can’t see how this is problematic then I truly think you should sell professional help. You are not the morally justified party in this scenario.

This right here confuses me. The people claiming that government numbers can’t be trusted are the same people who regularly rolled out government covid death numbers are the gospel truth during covid. My personal belief is that those numbers were wildly overblown, so I’m willing to believe that in this case you might be right and the migrant numbers are also overblown. That being said you can’t have it both ways. We’re the covid death numbers false?

What do you make of people coming from continents besides South America? Do we owe it to Russian or Chinese citizens to offer them asylum? From my perspective asylum is something you offer your direct neighbors who are fleeing threats on their lives. Offering asylum to literally any citizen of the world seems a bit extreme. If someone in China fears for their life, certainly there are closer and more accessible countries they can flee to.

So in your estimation what do we owe them before they’re put on busses?

Soooo exactly like the Inflation Reduction Act?

That’s entirely possible, no system is perfect, but rather than countering my statement with something that happens the least, perhaps you could offer up an idea on how to handle what happens the most. How do you think we should handle maliciously evil (for lack of a better word) people who commit heinous crimes?

I don’t know that we do it to make any such statement to the guilty party. I personally think we do it to 1. deter others from going down that path for fear of the consequences, and 2. remove an individual from society who has shown themselves incapable (in the most malicious and extreme way) of properly functioning in society. They are a danger to society, therefore they need to be removed. Obviously you could make the argument that we could simply banish them somewhere or lock them up for the remainder of their lives, but in my personal opinion that’s not definitive enough. They could escape, be let out early, and harm someone else.

What should you punish murder with? Genuinely asking. I see many who want to do away with prisons and switch to rehabilitation. In some cases I can certainly understand that, and I am against for profit prisons, but I also know that a certain portion of society is just fundementally born with dysfunctional brains and no amount of rehabilitation will ever correct that. What do you do with the person who is sadistic and sociopathic in their disdain for other human life?

It isn’t CIA propaganda. They quite literally welded people into their houses during COVID, there’s video of them doing it. They then absolutely decimated Hong Kong, making countless protestors disappear. There’s obviously the whole situation where they use mass slave labor of the Uyghur Muslims. There’s the constant lies the CCP spews that are demonstrably false (we’re talking North Korea levels of laughable propaganda). There’s their blatant theft of intellectual property with government support along with the global corporate espionage. There’s the horrible working conditions, with companies needing suicide nets around the buildings to prevent workers from jumping. There’s the laughable safety issues with various engineering projects that when they fail are swept under the rug. The list goes on and on. China has an interesting and impressive history, but China under the CCP is absolute dog shit.

I’ve got a wacky idea. What if we took the $4 billion annually that we’re spending to cover noncitizens, and we instead put that money into covering MORE citizens? Raise the cutoff for citizens so that more of them benefit.

I thought we were supposed to hate gig work because it exploited the workers. Wasn’t that the entire point of California’s AB 5? Why all of a sudden are we in favor of gig work?

But that IS the jobs going away. You converted a full time job into an occasional time job. Say you were make $15/hr 40hrs/week. That’s $600/week. Now they convert your full time job into a gig job and you’re making $20/hr, but you only work 10 hours per week. You’re now making $200/week. You now need to try and make up that $400/week shortfall in your income. Good thing you got that massive pay increase though, right?

Actually everyone I worked with in high school was a high school kid. The only person older than that was the store owner, and she obviously was making more due to her larger investment/risk.

Here’s the problem with your entire pitch, I’m going to be paying taxes regardless. They will never go down, they will only ever go up. If one problem is solved the government will simply use my taxes for something else. This is how government works. Additionally, increased wages get passed onto the customer. I know many people here like to pretend that they don’t, but prices either go up, or quality/quantity go down. That IS what happens, so I’ll be paying for it either way.

Your whole argument about an increase in minimums allowing other workers to request raises also doesn’t work. Instead what happens is the increase in pay causes an increase in prices, negating the gains across the board. We just saw this exact thing play out during covid. Stores had to very quickly increase the wages they were paying, prices went up, negating the increase in wages.

This is what’s so annoying. I had literal arguments with both people online and IRL about this massive jump in minimum wage and how it would have this exact effect. I was told over and over that it didn’t work like that, that people needed a livable wage, etc. My argument was that not all work has equal value and that minimum wage jobs aren’t intended as jobs you raise a family on. They’re a stepping stone as you enter the workforce and begin to develop/gain skills to be able to do work which has more value. With the insane increase in fast food minimum wage only one of two things will happen. Option one is that the price of the food shoots up and can no longer be competitive. Why would you pay $30 for fast food when you can go to an actual restaurant and get better quality for the same price? This leads many of these fast food joints to close and with it the jobs. Option two is that companies find ways to cut services and/or automate to offset the increased cost. The end result here is that once again the jobs go away.

I would love to have a proponent of this explain to me how no jobs is preferable to lower paying jobs. As a highschool kid, I was grateful to have my minimum wage job.

Or, you know, it might simply be people with a different opinion from you. That exists too.