This is one of the few valid criticisms I can think of. Like, I can get why she’d consider the legislation, considering the myriad of deepfakes made about her (which has got to feel…particularly violating on top of the non-sexual harassment and attention people have put on her since she, basically, first got elected) but there are really valid concerns about the legislation, particularly in the context of this administration.

And I don’t remember her, at least, even addressing those concerns and potential abuses of the law.

I’ve been subscribed to this asshole for nearly a decade (keeping tabs on what that side is thinking and talking about) and this kind of hypocritical positioning is par for the course.

His recent take on Kilmar Abrego Garcia was repeatedly reiterating that he had credible ties to MS-13 and that the president totally has every right to just boot this man to another country but he was worried that Trump’s defiance of the courts might endanger qualified immunity for federal officials.

Maybe we should question how good of an aid that is on its own when the eugenicists would happily love to offer such a service to help them in thinning the herd.

Mostly out of curiosity but what’d HW do? I think we can squarely put more of the war on drugs on his shoulders than Reagan’s but, outside of that, I can think of so many more concrete things Reagan did to worsen and destabilize America (even if the effects were much later) than I can for the 1-term HW (but that may just be unfamiliarity, on my part).

No; you were clear. I dunno what that other person was doing.

What section does he mention it (if just one or two)? Don’t have the free time for listening to the full hour, unfortunately, but I am curious (if you don’t mind, of course).

The bulk of society doesn’t make a distinction between liberal and the Left; a liberal is someone who is Left-leaning. Ergo, most people will see Bernie as a liberal politician.

Don’t threaten me with a good time, Mr. Paul.

In the Chicago black community

I’m sorry, what‽ As a black Chicagoan, no the Hell we aren’t.

I feel like we’ve run this meme further than is useful; there’s absolutely criticisms to be had about how the separation of church in state operates within American government but it’s hardly the only “developed” (hate that word but you know what I mean) country to have a government that takes for granted Christianity as default; Britain, after all, has a state church – for (pun slightly intended) Christ’s sake – that definitely bleeds into the way its government thinks about what a religion is and how much “religion” gets support.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t prefer (and hope we move towards) a more strict and complete separation but let’s not pretend America is astonishingly unique…

I’m not too familiar with his record before running for the Senate, I’m afraid, but, presuming it was sufficiently different that people had wanted to vote for him and no one had been sounding the alarm, part of me wonders if something had happenned when he had his stroke.

It’s, obviously, not a given but brain damage can cause personality changes. I have very little evidence beyond speculation but I do wonder, from time to time.

The first time I read your comment, I thought you said it won’t be fixed through primaries and was genuinely flummoxed as to what you thought primaries were for.

Having read what you actually wrote – now –, the world is much more coherent.

We already assess people for mental health issues.

And, again, – if you had even passing familiarity with disability circles – you’d know that there are many people who have criticisms of his this currently works. This isn’t remotely a perfect system and its existence doesn’t suddenly make it so.

You have an idea of a system that has already gained a complete understanding of human psychology and, also, is able to assess it without fail or error.

We in fact should select for the traits that we want/don’t want

Think very hard and long about what that sounds like…

Even shitty customer service jobs use these tests

And disabled people have discussed, at length, of how jobs like these are heated towards abled people!

How can that possibly be a bad idea?

I have you that answer, in my first response. Can you guarantee that these tests won’t get highjacked or used by opportunists? Can you ensure they won’t unfairly exclude those who shouldn’t be there (gay people had to struggle with the psychiatric community to get them to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; https://daily.jstor.org/how-lgbtq-activists-got-homosexuality-out-of-the-dsm/)? And these tests are not perfect, even right now (again, it isn’t surprising you don’t know this as many people don’t; but continuing to ignore the erased disabled voices which have pointed this out isn’t going to make them a smart idea).

Respected people in the psychology field have already said that trump is mentally ill in such a way that he’s unfit to rule.

And many people pointed out that this was wildly unprofessional and irresponsible (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/health/analyzing-donald-trump-psychology.html). It’s common amongst psychiatric professionals to not do armchair diagnosis since there’s no way you can get accurate assessment from that position. But it’s a great example of the way even professionals can exercise bias and poor judgement! Again, how will you ensure this won’t happen with a system you’ve now put in charge of gatekeeping what change is even possible?

The problem is that now he’s manoeuvred himself into a position where he can’t be removed, and soon even us talking like this will be illegal.

That’s a problem of other systemic issues, not because we didn’t use an assessment of human psychology that’s far from as black-and-white or accurate as you are presuming it is.

Stealing from cancer kids charities would be a no, no matter what disability that person had.This could be summed up as ‘no tolerance for intolerance’ or ‘no kindness towards cruelty’.

There are other means of detecting this than using psychiatric tests. And, while you’ve adjusted your requirements to include sympathy, can you guarantee that others will? Autistic people struggle with cognitive empathy, too; can you guarantee that a fear campaign won’t start up, that influences those running these tests to just, well, play it safe and keep these people out of the decision-making, for now? I have no interest in spending another century arguing with people who don’t belong to a marginalization while the supposed findings of psychology is used to justify civil restrictions and criminal proceedings while those groups don’t get a say because, well, didn’t you know that psychiatry has found those people to be antisocial and unproductive?

The eugenicism is because of the tests; not the politicians.

https://www.tumblr.com/dovewithscales/714693265828478976/very-much-so-the-early-comics-were-written-during

You think this would work because you assume we could write such tests with such accuracy as to evade bias (or that such requirement for testing wouldn’t be exploited by opportunists to place metrics much more aligned with whom said opportunists would like to eradicate).

I’d point out that you say the tests should test for empathy but Empathy Deficit Disorder exists and, as EDD people often point out, the lack of being able to feel empathy doesn’t stop them from wanting to help people and making choices based off that desire. They just don’t feel empathy when they do it.

Of course, you’re not using that word to mean literally understanding and relating to others’ feelings; sympathy would certainly qualify.

But how do you ensure that? Who gets to implement these tests? And what stops it from being someone who just sees Empathy Deficit Disorder and goes, “Eew…keeping them away from this….”

I always feel to like I sound like I’m being condescending but (and I mean this as genuinely as possible) you should try selling out writing and theory by disabled authors. Because of the way disabled people are erased from both culture and society as practically a matter of function, it can be really hard to even realize the ways in which our assumptions don’t factor them in. Stuff covering ability and autonomy are incredibly interesting in the ways they think about concepts due different lived experiences.

Not to mention the eugenicism this would ignite.

This rewrote my brain, first time I heard it.

Yeah; exactly. You’re seeing what I’m seeing. Reaffirming (to me) that this idea of ours is a good one.

I doubt I’d have the skill to write it but I’ve long thought something like Etsy could be interesting.

I think the federated nature of the Fediverse could do well to stave off the worst of any spamming.

But the thing I notice the most with independent sellers is that the bulk of what they’re doing is networking, generally amongst friends. Which, really, is the ideal environment for goods and services to be sold.

But, since capitalism always demands the line goes up, places like Etsy inevitably abandon them and making their sites encouraging of that kind of interpersonal connecting in favor of entities which can mass churn products out.

Setting up shops in the fediverse would allow people to easily host their own shops (and not be reliant on the infrastructure of, say, Etsy) and boosting would organically encourage a web of trust since their friend is essentially saying, “I know this person; they’re good.” You could even have the code autotag listings with a hashtag so people can filter out those types of posts, if they don’t want to.

Not sure how you’d handle federation when you first spin up an instance but, still, more alternatives are better than less, I expect.

I dunno; I think it’d be interesting.