Sure the coasts are creating more economic output by far, but people need to eat food. Agriculture is always going to be important, but lot less people are involved in it than ever before. This is part of what's led to the urban/rural divide where the rural folks feel left out - there just aren't as many of them as populations have migrated to cities. This is why people in rural areas feel increasingly left out. It's mostly due to economic forces that are out of their control.

[1] http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2016/6/26/the-evolution-of-americ...

Whether they're new / old or well / poorly serviced is just a difference of a few decades.

If there isn't money to service old lines now, then there won't be money to service formerly-new lines in 30 years.

Kinda crazy to see the entire I-5 length between San Francisco and Los Angeles classified as "metro". Perhaps the metric they're using doesn't work so well when counties (which is what they classify) are so large, and they primarily care that some city of over 50k people exists in it "somewhere". Some of those counties appear to be as large as or larger than some of the smaller states in the Northeast.

As you suggest, a lot of what is classified as urban is not urban especially by the standards of someone who barely considers the South Bay as urban.

Certainly I can normally go into town for an evening of theater but most people would consider my house to be in an urban setting.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-structure-...

I guess you can argue that a large closely held company isn't a family farm, but it isn't what "corporate" is meant to conjure up either.

That’s why the overall number of farms and farmers has gone down - the little guy can’t make it work economically.

People complaining about corporate farming are talking about outside money coming in and taking the land.

The supermajority of people working American farms and meat shops are Latino immigrants.

Here is employment data on meat industry workers:

https://www.epi.org/blog/meat-and-poultry-worker-demographic...

Here is ag farming:

http://www.ncfh.org/facts-about-agricultural-workers.html

The people you are holding up as exemplars are not the people who hold the views you're discussing.

You seem correct on that at least.

Effort has little to do with value. Utility also has little to do with value. See the diamond/water paradox for that second part.

There are certainly abuses in our society, rent seeking and outright fraud exist. But this childish rejection of capitalism that’s become trendy lately is tiresome. Capitalism is a technology that lifted billions out of poverty. Brilliant, earnest people (as well as some very evil people) tried alternatives in the last century and they failed horribly. No one has proposed plausible alternatives.

By all means we ought to couple capitalism in the private sector with a robust public sector, but to be against capitalism at this point is to be against human flourishing.

It’s not a new phenomenon, or unique to America or the west.

You can dozens of passages of the bible critical of the merchants and money makers, and many of them are arguments still echoed today.

Insults don't get anyone far.

The wealth of the nation could flip if heavy import duties were imposed forcing a manufacturing back inhouse.

Things are the way they are because the powerful like it.

You mean the wealth of the nation would decrease?

Most all the income and productivity gains from globalization and go to the wealthy, so if they lost billions of dollars, it is true that the nation would be less “”wealthy””…

That's a popular trope, but not really supported by any evidence. Take, for example, sanctuary cities...which can be seen as a form of illicit globalization. The popular trope suggests that undereducated and low income native American citizens would lose by attracting large quantities of low cost labor. But the exact opposite is true: native blue collar employment and wealth increases, welfare dependence and poverty decreases.

Perhaps the purveyors of the popular narrative should read up on David Ricardo. It's been 200 years since he died, and people still haven't caught on that more trade is a universal good...something economists have nearly universally accepted for literal centuries now.

Income gains, perhaps. Productivity gains no. People buy foreign goods because they tend to be significantly cheaper. Capital in the US tends to be reinvested, so we would stagnate in innovation.

Okay, I'll bite: what government programs would you categorize as "money spent on enforcing Hollywood copyright"?

Per those numbers whites/blacks/Hispanics are more represented in the military than similar civilian occupations.

There is a higher percentage of Hispanic and black women in the military that might lower combat death numbers but there are a lot less high level black & Hispanic high level officers to make up for that.

It’s a long way of saying there isn’t good data on this but the US military is an extremely diverse group especially at the enlisted level.

But the fact remains the military is more diverse than the civilian work force. Which given no other data implies we can rule out arguments that military service is a particularly interesting form of sacrifice for the USA in racial dimensions.

As far as cost scaling, I kind of disagree. That calculation doesn't work well in the US, where a large portion of the people who work in the city commute. I come from a rural area and live in the bay area now, and I can say without a doubt I spend much more time on the road here. Same with emergency services, they were waaaayyyy better in my (very small and poor) hometown in terms of response times (or responding at all), and I can't see how that would cost more than running the same services here.

It matters on a per capita basis. What's the ratio of emergency service workers and their salaries to residents in your small and poort hometown compared to the bay area?

Also infrastructure (roads, running water, electricity) are much more expensive on a per capita basis than less dense areas

I'm no expert in this, but as a layman, the question of who's subsidizing who is really only meaningful if you look at it from a human/moral standpoint rather than a purely legal/technical one. Otherwise you're using it to solve math problems, not human problems. And the latter seems like a really tough nut to crack to me. I don't know how to do it personally, so I don't know who's right. But I don't get how people talk about it as if it's some patently obvious thing you can figure out by looking at tax dollars or cash flow in the economy. It seems to me you'd need to assign some intrinsic moral value to all jobs so you can compare them against what they "should" cost or what they're "worth", and that is pretty darn difficult by itself, let alone the subsequent political controversy that would surely follow if such a thing was done.

Her house was the only one visible for as far as you could see from that exit. All i could think about was how much better her life was for that exit and how all her total tax income forever could never ever come close to covering the costs society bore to build that exit.

I have always lived in very liberal, expensive, coastal cities and have always heard talking points about waste on welfare to cover poor inner-city americans (typically by rural/suburban conservatives), and all i could think was how backwards this was, and how many families could be fed by the cost of this one exit ramp.

Does this mean that society shouldn't build that ramp? I don't know because rural farmland obviously needs to access the rest of society (to ship food), and everyone sorta deserves to access the road system

They're the ones who pay PR companies, think tanks, and other influencers to create the illusion of consensus narratives by generating these talking points and making sure they're repeated by various apparently independent sources.

It makes it almost impossible to argue the merits of public subsidy funding on its own terms because the truth about costs and benefits is aggressively obscured.

This is the key assumption on which your statements are based on. How do you know the state built it for her, rather than, she built her house next to the highway exit? I find it hard to believe that the state would build a highway exit specifically for a few normal individuals.

My point was not to somehow cast this woman in a bad light, or claim that this exit shouldn't exist.

My point was...

(in my bubble) I hear the argument from conservatives that social welfare (for inner-city people getting checks) is bad because it takes away from everyone else, and wastes money.

I just wanted to point out that there is a lot more money subsidizing the livelihood a lot more people than just the poor city people getting some sort of social welfare check.

“I have always lived in very liberal, expensive, coastal cities” — please, please venture out of your safe bubble more, for the sake of all of us. Go tour a real farm, not the local micro-organic commune one nearby. See how they work.

I don't live in those cities by choice (well, i chose jobs there... lots of tech in BOS/SF/etc).

You've made up this narrative of what 'the other side' thinks.

I'll recast it for you.

* start narrative *

A lot of people in america seem to believe that their wages have stagnated while witnessing the wages of those living on the coast, who often disagree politically with them, rise stratospherically. To them it seems like the coastal elites do nothing, while they are quite literally breaking their backs to earn a paltry wage, that they then owe to the very coastal elites they feel are doing nothing.

It seems like they take the money, pay it in taxes, subsidize us and tell us we should grovel to them for it, while simultaneously opposing policies we feel would reduce the dependence. For example, they tell us we can't water our farms because of 'global warming', and instead should rely on their benevolence. But we don't want that benevolence.

* end narrative *

When you put it that way, you realize the 'hardworking real Americans' actually have a lot in common with far-left labor activists. And you'd be right. It would behoove everyone to have more compassion and charity towards their countrymen.

Anyway, there is a drastic shift in the Republican party that has gone completely unnoticed. Trump, everything from his personality to his tactics are more reminiscent of the pre-neo-liberal democrat party establishment than anything else. There is a real warming up of the republican base to social programs, government spending, and unions, so long as those institutions prioritize what they believe to be important issues. This is a far cry from the anti-spending, anti-union GOP of old.

$15/hr min wage makes sense in Cali and other high cost states. It should be up to the states, and really ought to be set at the local level.

Hot top: it isn't the coastal liberals who are causing stagnating wages. It's the anti-union, labor-exploiting wealthy who are the stars of the GOP.

Anti-immigration is a new GOP sentiment. Traditional small-government libertarianism/conservatism is pro-immigration. Look at Bush and Reagan. Anti-immigration is more in line with the labor movements, like the one run by Cesar Chavez.

> both reject social programs aimed at helping those in poverty (including healthcare, such as the Affordable Care Act

Not true at all. Many GOP members I know would be pro-gov't healthcare if we had our borders under control. The main difference I see between the dems and GOP in this regard is nationalism.

> both oppose unions

Not really. Trump's policies are incredibly popular among union members even if not popular with union leadership. Those two groups have different interests.

> It's the anti-union, labor-exploiting wealthy who are the stars of the GOP.

Who no one in the GOP likes anymore. Honestly, go read patriots.win or something, they'll tell you exactly what they think of the wealthy GOP.

The net inflows/outflows from any given state aren't that big on a per capita basis. They're small enough that anyone who either wants to not have to be told what to do by big city liberals or doesn't want to be held back by rural conservatives that would consider it a small price to pay for freedom.

If all of the people at facebook, google, and twitter quit their jobs, however, all that would really happen would be that the country would get a bit more peaceful.

You're talking about how much is taken in taxes. These people are talking about how much is given in life.

Farms are already subsidized by the government. Imports are already subject to tariffs precisely to protect farmers. Who do you think pays for those subsidies, and who pays for the tariffs? Yeah, the "coastal elites" that you've been trained to hate.

In farmers stopped benefiting from the largess of the coast, _they_ would starve to death, and everyone else would have cheaper food.

Also, if your argument is that the subsidies are unnecessary that would indicate that farming is profitable and they would in fact not starve to death. The point you're trying to make kinda collapsed on itself bud.

Or are we talking about those who Own things?

I suspect running the numbers would indicate a clear international need for the US breadbasket, and not a decrease in overall cost due to a large drop in supply.

Sugar from the desert levels of subsidies.

Farmers and Food are a voting group and commodity that will always be catered to and protected, no matter what the economic cost.

So meat and maybe gas would become slightly more expensive but the world would most certainly not starve.

The rest of your argument is laden with all sorts of cognitive dissonance. Subsidies are given for things like food because if a society doesn't of have food it's a really bad thing so the government props up the industry in bad times (in this case during the Great Depression) and we don't starve. It's not an altruistic handout, it's way of keeping you from starving to death genius.

The fact that you think it's a generous handout from the "elites" and government indicates that you think it's unnecessary which means the farmers are profitable on their own and your entire asinine "hypothetical" comment about them starving to death without it gets thrown out the window. The subsidies cannot be both necessary and considered a generous handout from the coastal elites. Pick one.

We import about 15% of our food supply right now. Good luck making up the other 85% with cheaper imports. Relying on external food supplies is a massive security risk and disadvantage as well.

Food got so stupidly cheap it makes no sense to grow it in the US anymore. So farmers demanded that people in cities pay for their lifestyles out of our taxes. And then they go around being entitled about it.

I've had enough of farm welfare queens. Get farmers off of welfare and let us import food from places that can grow it competitively. If we can't make up the other 85% from somewhere else, that's great, then US farmers will show that they can grow food at a reasonable place without welfare.

These hateful people that survive on the welfare handouts from cityfolk and then turn around and vote for Republican idiots like Trump have gone too far. Time to cut them off.

It would be better if the subsidies were limited to smallholders on ~100 acres or less, which would resolve the rural depression issue.

if the US stopped growing food, hundreds of millions of people would die just from the famine. many governments would be toppled, probably even a few first world countries.

The unfairness of farm subsidies is that there’s also essentially no _controls_ on the output. The government can’t turn around and mandate particular growing practices, in part because farming companies and larger farmers have gotten used to the subsidies and how they work.

In Canada, at least, subsidies are also tied to production controls and standards.

Don’t get me wrong: I am in _favour_ of most farm subsidies; there is a lot of benefit to it. But the taxpayer should get a bit more control on what’s being spent on. IMO, small farm subsidies should probably increase so that more people have opportunities to work the land if they wish to do so and pay their seasonal workers a living wage so that they don’t have to use undocumented workers. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to see a couple of F35 fighters scrapped in favour of fair farm wage payments.

#2) The US isn't just a net exporter of food, its one of the dominant food producers (in exports) in the world. A country like Canada only became a net exporter of food in ~2019. These US exports are primary stables like corn, beef, pork, etc.

#3) f-35 funding is tangential to the conversation. bringing it up only makes you sound un-informed and polarizes your argument for the issue at hand.

2. They are _American_ staples. They are not necessarily staples in receiving countries, and as noted above, may actually be distorting local markets and foodways. I would also argue that subsidies for American farmers should _not_ be applied to export crops, as noted above.

3. Not tangential at all. America could divert a small fraction of its military budget into meaningful wage subsidies for farm workers that could make farm labour more attractive to more people. America spends more money on its military than the next ten biggest military spenders in the world.

Yes, I exaggerated that a single F-35 could provide this sort of subsidy. My point, however, stands.

Food production is a modern solved problem. The politics of it is not.

No country is giving up food security and voter messaging to the invisible hand of a global market. No one likes corn as much as Americans do, yet its one of your greater exports, simply because of American economic and diplomatic ascendancy.

>I never said subsidies aren't necessary: I don't know how you can infer that point from what I wrote.

Didn't you just tell us that you weren't arguing against subsidies and then you reply with that? Make your mind up you're all over the place. Sounds like I inferred correctly.

I think you got these backwards. Subsidies are provided because other countries imposes tariffs on US farm products.

Many of us did that for many years of our lives. At the time, I never anticipated with the internet and eventually the web is that people who had never experienced life without it could so easily be caused to lose sight of what is possible, in favor of the mess we have today. The biggest impediment I see to positive change is that younger generations are being indoctrinated into a world where "tech" companies, intermediaries supported by advertising, are perceived as an essential part of using the internet. This is of course patently false. But these companies are ultimately surveilling and controlling the dialogue. After all, internet subscribers use these "tech" company intermediaries to communicate.

Before advertising took over the internet, the inter-network's user base was relatively small. Folks who used the internet recreationally during that time were likely to be technically minded people who enjoyed computers, the type of people many of which who are working with advertising supported "tech" companies today. Few of them are going to portray an advertising-free internet as a viable option. Their livelihoods today depend on advertising. Supporting Big Tech is their "work".

Anyway, it is good to see at least one commenter can contemplate a better course for the future.

It is possible to communicate and share over the internet without the use of Big Tech. However, as long as advertising-supprted "tech" companies sit between users, operating as intermediaries, that truth will keep getting buried deeper with every new generation.

And the families who own farms capture the lion's share of the fruits of labor!

They think that they want to be left alone. They don't want what they perceive as coastal values forced upon their kids in school.

And the idea that us smart people should just outsource all that physical labor stuff to 3rd-world mouth breathers may work for the moment, but just wait until there is a crisis or war.

By far the most heavily subsidized, most expensive, poorest and least educated people in the United States are the poor living in urban zones. It's not even remotely a close comparison in terms of numbers.

You can see it in the crime statistics, you can see it in the drop-out rates, you can see it in the homelessness rates. And so on.

You can also see it in the cost of incarcerating violent criminals (not drug offenders, which are a shrinking, smaller share of the incarcerated population), which urban zones produce radically more of to go with the extreme poverty found in US cities. The urban zones - which are hyper dangerous in the US - produce the overwhelming share of all murder in the country. Who pays for the very expensive policing necessary to keep terrorist groups from burning Portland to the ground? That isn't going on in rural Oregon. Who pays for the very expensive policing to try to control the extreme murder rates in Baltimore or Chicago? That isn't going on in rural Maryland or Illinois; the per capita murder rates in Baltimore are 50x to 100x higher than in rural Maryland. These things are all subsidized by the urban high income brackets, and it's a huge cost.

And it's also true that the urban zones have far higher incomes, so they pay higher taxes and push more money into the welfare system accordingly. They subsidize both their local urban poor and the rural poor outside the cities.

The bottom 10% in Los Angeles represent a de facto third world standard of living and it's a very large population. Those shocking, unbelievable homeless camps in Los Angeles look like something out of a sci-fi dystopian movie. And that's just a very small fraction, a small visual representation, of the extreme poverty in cities like Los Angeles or Chicago.

Just fewer people. Trailer parks instead of projects. Same crime, same misery.

The stuff that shocks the soul is a small fraction of the struggle and misery.

That's just not true. A quick google pulls up this visualization from 2017: https://www.santarosa-lawyer.com/united-states-crime-map-201...

And you'll note that... there's basically no correlation with urbanity at all. Highly urban states like CT are very peaceful, but so is Idaho (but not Montana, which is pretty bad). Two of the worst states are NM and Alaska, which have near zero urban population!

There may be some rules to glean from the data, but the one you picked is not it.

Homicides are much better to look at. There is very little difference between Alaska and New Orleans in their reporting of homicides. And when you judge rural vs urban by homicide rate, urban is much larger. Of the top 10 counties with the highest homicide rate, 4 are major metropolitan areas. This is particularly shocking because small sample sizes of small counties should make it so every single member of the top 10 is rural, but it’s not.

https://www.police1.com/ambush/articles/10-us-counties-with-...

Easiest way to tell someone is lying with statistics is when they try to make a point by counting outliers at the edge of the distribution.

I don't see how what you're saying follows at all. It seems just as likely that broad exurban counties are more economically inclusive while urban counties tend to cluster very-poor high crime areas more densely while leaving the safer adjoining suburbs (very much part of the "urban" population under discussion here) in different buckets.

Are "cities" killing more people per capita or not? Seems like that's a simple matter of adding up some numbers, so your attempt to spin here seems a little suspect. Again, my read is that there is almost no correlation at all.

If you want to investigate it more, then that actually would be healthy. But instead you look at some colors on a map delineated by state lines, and think that’s convincing evidence. It’s clear you’re only interested in validating your pre-existing beliefs when you jump with such energy into flimsy data that corroborates your prejudices while dismissing other analyses out of “suspicion” when they contradict you.

In reality, the facts don't back up anything you said. :/

Taxes are just one part of this. They list these other issues of concern:

> 1. American Values: Oregon will continue to violate more and more American values and American freedoms because normal rural Americans are outnumbered in Oregon. Not in Idaho. Addicts will be attracted to Oregon from all over the world by the 2020 drug decriminalization law.

> 2. Law and Order: Oregon refuses to protect citizens from criminals, rioters, wildfire arsonists, illegals, and the homeless, but then infringes your right to defend your family with firearms. Idaho enforces the law.

> 3. Low Tax: Idaho is the state with the 8th smallest tax burden, and Oregon ranks 33rd, according to https://taxfoundation.org/tax-freedom-day-2019 . Combining all taxes together, including sales tax, the average Idahoan pays $1722 less in taxes per year than the average Oregonian. That’s averaging together every adult or child, employed, retired or unemployed. And cost of living is 39% higher in Oregon than in Idaho. Oregon tax rates will continue to go up due to a lack of willingness to control spending.

> 4. Safety: Idaho allows forests to be managed to prevent destruction of housing from huge wildfires.

> 5. Thriving Economy: Idaho has less regulation than any other state, low unemployment, and would allow our rural industries to revive and employ us again.

> 6. Representation: The ruling party in the Oregon Legislature doesn’t have a single representative from a rural district or from eastern or southern Oregon, except one Ashland representative. But our reps would be in the ruling party in Idaho, where our concerns and needs would be heard.

What sort of logic supports that American values are those held by a minority of Americans. What possible values suggest they are the normal ones?

> 3. Low Tax

The counties involved have median household incomes of 30-35K, making their tax burden $600-1100 total, a far cry from the average quoted, which is skewed right strongly by outliers (1%), which tend to be outside of the counties in this idea.

> 5. Thriving Economy ... low unemployment

Economy is a second order effect. How does having a low unemployment affect the number of jobs in the actual areas? Cause and effect are reversed in this claim.

> 6. Representation: ... But our reps would be in the ruling party in Idaho

I think the word is "governing", this is a little confused about the difference.

America has been here for a long time. It's fair to say that values which are of long standing, still held by a significant fraction of the population, and them disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations, are more American values than ones which fail one or more of these criteria.

Note that the value that people who come to America and join the national experiment become American is one of those values! That's unusual, and needs to be pointed out: values aren't more American because they're held by old American stock, causality flows in the other direction.

Not everything is a pure popularity contest. 51% of people supporting strict gun control (for the sake of argument) doesn't make that position more American, it just means more Americans happen to hold to it. That the Constitution makes altering its own text a matter of supermajority, both in passing and ratification, supports the idea that what it is to be American is not intended to simply shift in the winds on the strength of a bare majority.

That all said, the bottom line is that these five counties feel that their values are better represented by the state government of Idaho than by that of Oregon. Federalism is one of those old American values I was droning on about earlier; I don't see why they shouldn't get the chance to secede from a state which isn't serving their needs, and join one which they think would.

So, in an Oregon context, this would mean the values of the Chinook peoples?

For starters, we're talking about Eastern Oregon, so if you wanted to throw a gotcha, you should have gone for the Paiute.

America is a nation, and it took its time getting to Oregon. The Chinook were never particularly numerous, nor influential on the values of that nation. That's just a fact.

The Iroquois League was more influential, the Founding Fathers were very impressed with their system of governance, though how much of that made it into the Constitution is a matter of debate. Painting with a broad brush, centuries of contact with the native peoples of this continent has certainly left its mark. The Western ethos of self-reliance and freedom owes a lot to them.

The Native American people are both their own nations and a part of the American nation. Speaking as one American, I'm inclined to value their contributions, but it seems a bit presumptuous for me to say that Apache or Navajo values are American values.

To continue down the road you've set us upon, the American descendants of slavery went unheard for many years, but starting no later than Frederick Douglass became a key part of shaping the ethos and values of the nation. They insisted that "all men are created equal" meant all men, and put an end to white supremacy, which was certainly an American value and just as surely is no longer such.

You started off saying that it makes sense for these people to say that the government of Idaho upholds American values more than the government of Oregon, because values' 'Americanness' isn't determined by the majority, but rather by appeal to ancestry and tradition.

But apparently the Chinook (or, if you wish, the Paiute), who I would say have superior claim on that front, don't get to wield the mystical power of American Values because they were never numerous, nor influential.

But surely the population of Idaho and eastern Oregon is also not particularly numerous, nor influential.

And the population of Western Oregon also, surely, has some claim to be a "significant fraction of the population", "disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations", so surely that means their values are more American values than ones which fail one or more of these criteria?

So I guess I just don't know what gives these people of Eastern Oregon more of a claim to determine whether Idaho or Oregon is 'more aligned' with American Values. Is it because their ancestors have been Americans since the early days of the old West, and they embody the pioneer spirit of the Oregon Territory? So their values are more American.

But it's maybe worth noting that in 1844, while Frederick Douglass was first publishing his slave story, Oregon passed a law that made it illegal for him, or any other freed slave, to set foot in the state. It remained part of the state's constitution through its admission to the US, and long after the 14th amendment made it unconstitutional.

In 1926, thirty years after Frederick Douglass died, a ballot measure to repeal it was finally passed. But 32% of voters voted against it.

Maybe if white supremacy is 'surely' no longer an American value, we shouldn't be looking to the traditional values of Oregonians as a guiding light. They have a bit of a history of being slow to catch on to changes in what are 'surely' American values.

So the notion of "self-reliance and freedom" that makes Western ideologies suggests you're referring not to Native Americans but "pioneers"--the people who settled the Western lands without government help. Except, I guess, for the help it provided by clearing the land of its prior inhabitants who somehow didn't know the land wasn't theirs anymore. And providing basic infrastructure like schooling (funded from sales from Township 16). And funding the construction of railroads so that homesteaders could acquire the goods they couldn't make themselves and sell their excess produce to US markets.

There are two conflicting meanings of the word 'American' that is causing your confusion. American can refer to an individual who is American. It can also refer to things associated with the government currently controlling the land known as the United States of America. The land of the USA has -- in its time -- been held by several government. Firstly there is the current one. Then there is the previous one, the confederated states of America. Some parts of the USA have at times been held by smaller governments, for example, the Southern confederacy (not to be confused with the USA under the articles of confederation).

Anyway, there are American values -- i.e., those held by individuals in America -- and then there are American values -- i.e., those in line with the constitution of the United States of America.

The Oregonians clearly are using the second meaning. They believe that the State of Oregon has failed to uphold values inherent to the Constitution of the United States of America. For example, if tomorrow, 98% of Oregonians decided Monarchy were the best form of government, in this usage, we can unequivocally say that that is not American, because monarchy is fundamentally at odds with the constitution. Thus, even if -- in my hypothetical -- monarchy were an American value in the individual sense, it would not be in the second usage.

As another unrelated example illustrating the difference in the usages, the majority of American Catholics believe contraceptives are okay. If you ask 'what is the opinion of the church on contraception', there are two correct answers. One can say 'Catholics believe contraception is okay' because most Catholics (in this country at least) agree. One can equally say 'Catholics believe contraception is not okay' because the institution of the Catholic church in this country has -- through official channels -- said it's not.

There's a very present "last bastion" framing in most of the right-wing media I track. It'll depend on exactly what the foundational beliefs of the community are that drive this framing -- John Birch society derivative folks arrive here via a different path than white supremacist survivalists and them a different path than evangelical fundamentalist Christians -- but it's common enough. It goes hand in hand with the notion that the US has fallen from the ideal set forth by the Founders and that only your in-group really gets it and has a hope of restoring it.

Alex Jones is a good, mainstream-ish example. Dude's a Bircher and has spent decades coaching his audience to believe that Globalists are in league with Satan and intend to destroy humanity, if only they could get the US out of the way. Satan/The Globalists are _this_ close to succeeding. Once they do, Real American Values will disappear from the world, ushering in the post-human era. Jones preaches survivalism (sorta, feeding your neighbors to your daughters will give your daughters prion disease) to his audience and I hope you see how the two strains of thought would fester into a framing like you've called out.

I wonder whether there's any actual examples of the values being brought back from a point where they have disappeared.

Probably another interesting definition of American values would be the ones held in foreign people. Sort of in the same way there’s who you are and then there’s the person in the minds of everyone who knows you. Except the US is a super power that’s done a lot of steering the world over the last century and that’s instilled some common practices across the world. Like citing CDC guidelines or using the US currency for reserve.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Are you asking about examples of people that have been de-radicalized?

Uh, it's not that kind of belief system. The notion that we should order society by measurable things is not necessarily a universal belief, even if it's one I agree with personally. Last bastion apocalyptism like I've described doesn't really do "measurable".

So far, to date, every secular and atheistic culture tends towards inverting the demographic pyramid by having about half the required number of offspring to stabilize their culture/viewpoint through time.

This view assumes that there is any meaning to life, of course.

The US Bill of Rights.

It is, after all, in the Constitution, although its popularity has waned of late.

Haha, what? If Oregon is doing stuff, it's definitionally an American value and American Freedom, right? Who gets to decide what an "American *" is?

> > 4. Safety: Idaho allows forests to be managed to prevent destruction of housing from huge wildfires.

They do realize that Idaho and Oregon have different climates and different precipitation amounts, right? The Western Rockies and Eastern Cascades are different biomes.

> > 5. Thriving Economy: Idaho has less regulation than any other state, low unemployment, and would allow our rural industries to revive and employ us again.

Is there any data that backs this up? This feels like a pipe dream to me that's totally unfounded.

Have you watched Fox News recently? They're very clear: "American" refers to their (conservative, older, rural) viewers; "anti-American" refers to everyone else. People believe this.

I support using satellite imagery to get a day by day census count to include tourists and everyone inside of America as part of the decision making and voting process to improve infrastructure at least.

By this the folks in eastern Oregon are criticizing Democratic Gov. Brown for her approach to the pandemic: you know, normal things like closing restaurants and churches, requiring masks indoors, etc.

Because right now they are just saying their opponents are "un-American" which means whatever it needs to mean without actually saying anything of substance.

The 1st amendment granting freedom to assemble? Free exercise of religion? The supreme court agreed when it struck down New York's and California's bans on religious gatherings, which also affected Oregon. So broadly speaking, these are correct by the highest authority on 'American'.

Perhaps this doesn't come to mind when you hear 'American values', but why would these counties care? You are almost certainly not their intended audience.

2. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" means the government can't say which religions are OK and which aren't, or that there's an official religion of the US. It says nothing about people being able to go to church on Sunday or temples on Saturday

Their intended audience.

Keep in mind, this is written to appeal to someone who is already likely to agree that Oregon is handling these topics poorly.

https://propagandaprinciples.wordpress.com/logical-fallacies...

If they were really a proponent of freedom then they would support the freedom of adults to smoke/injest/snort/inject anything they want. "Addicts will be attracted to Oregon..." precisely because of that freedom.

If that's true then they'd be better off moving to Idaho, right? Given the vast area involved it's difficult to imagine that in a span of even a decade or more that the forests would be transformed so as to prevent wildfires. Staying where they are would only leave them in harms way for quite some years.

Points 1 and 2 should be combined and addressed as "how civil services protect and better the community".

The issues of homelessness, drug addiction, and dis-enfranchisement of displaced people all relate to failed social safety nets and social planning. My understanding is that decades ago, in the early 80s IIRC, a terrible abuse and system for housing the mentally ill was disbanded. Unfortunately nothing took it's place.

There are also very troubling issues related to lack of housing, lack of jobs, and lack of a proper program to connect displaced individuals with that type of societal re-integration. A New "New Deal", in any form, could enrich the value of society by re-educating and providing jobs which enrich the commons of society thus improving the lives and economic fitness of all. Better those handouts from our taxes trickle up to the rich, as all else currently does, than go directly to their coffers in tax cuts.

Point 3, and probably 5 as well: The report I suggested would be the best way of understanding this issue for everyone. The issue is Taxes VS Benefits; not absolute tax taken. Until the balance of benefits to taxes is understood this is a straw man which needs more data for all sides to understand.

Point 5: Regulation in specific. Ideally regulation prevents more problems than it causes. Regulation should allow assumptions about fitness for use, safety, and fairness to all parties involved to exist. If there is some regulation which does not contribute to this common good, to the preservation of the commons, or if there is a lack of regulation which is resulting in abuse, then said regulations should be revisited by the representatives of the people.

6: "the ruling party" I take this as slang for the currently dominant political party, but it is strikingly 'Us' vs 'Them' and very divisively secessionist. Extremely misguided. Reform of our electoral systems and categorization of representation should be undertaken to finally liberate all citizens from the First Past The Post voting system to ANY kind of instant runoff. We need to have a spectrum of political parties to promote compromise and plans that work for many rather than for few.

No, point 2 is specifically calling out antifa and BLM, and catering to racist fears, but in coded language.

EDIT: downvoted by those who believe voting and determining your area's form of governance is anti-American!

I just spent a month in central Oregon and there were proscribed burns going on all over the place. It was the most forest management I've seen in any state.

Both works to be honest.

how unfortunate.

This is what I find so bizarre about the 'left' in this country (in quotes because I'm making wild generalizations). They say they are all about community and social ownership and responsibility, but they don't actually do it. Their ideal is lived out everyday in churches across the country. It used to be the case that the 'left' in this country (by that I mean the democratic party) was made up of the churched, so their ideals for social programs matched their lifestyles of intense social participation and private contributions to welfare programs. But today, the right is the one most likely to contribute to charity, and in my opinion, the one most likely to live in the leftist utopia.

I'll give an example. I hear all the time from those around me (I live in Portland) about family members homeless due to schizophrenia. As a very conservative religious man (and child of immigrants, so maybe it's that), I find this incredibly odd. My uncle has schizophrenia and was deported from this country after going after someone with a knife.

However, at no point was he ever homeless. My mother and father -- both incredibly unwavering law and order types -- kept my uncle in their house and assumed absolute responsibility for him until he was sent back to India. Once he was there, at no point was he allowed to live in destitution on the streets (we are not a rich family either). Eventually, he married a woman he knew (and who knew about his condition and has been able to manage it) and he has kids. Don't get me wrong.... the man is still crazy in a sense. At one point, he made up a religion unbeknownst to us, proclaimed himself God, and got many hundreds of followers on facebook. But at no point could we have ever imagined him homeless. In my view, what's missing in America is any sort of actual concern for our fellow man, our family most importantly. Everyone seems to want to outsource 'caring' for others to the government instead of actually doing the hard work.

Here's another example. Leftists want community health care. Okay, that's fine. But again, right-wing Christians are the ones actually doing it. Health sharing ministries see Christians pool together money so that no congregant has to face undue financial hardship. If you join this ministry you essentially get a 'tax' each month representing your 'share' of all members total emergency expenses. Again, supposedly thrifty conservatives simply giving their money away to actually help people instead of waiting. I don't get it.

So it's not that you didn't pay for it - you did, and continue to. But your support is contingent on following the rules of the community and maintaining your welcome, while the irreligious people in Portland had a more straightforward transaction.

Not really. If we could'nt afford it, it wouldn't be demanded.

Are Christian ministries actually providing comprehensive healthcare, or only those procedures that they morally approve of?

If conservatives are the "real" humanitarians, why is there more poverty, more untreated diabetes, and worse healthcare in conservative states?

Why should the availability of healthcare be contingent on your religious beliefs?

As to what percent, I can't give it to you. How do you quantify how much your friend likes you. A lot of this support is not organized, like the meal train I mentioned for my wife and I after our first kid.

WRT 'comprehensive' healthcare, many conservative people would find those procedures offensive and unnecessary.

> If conservatives are the "real" humanitarians, why is there more poverty,

Because it's relatively easy to be poor in a conservative area if you have community support. Lots of people to give you food and handouts. Like my aunt and uncle who retired way early and are technically impoverished, but live a good life, around family, friends, lots of food (from their church), etc.

> more untreated diabetes

because conservative people do not typically believe that life is the only end worth pursuing. This sounds strange given the 'pro-life' stuff, but you see it with COVID too. To a religious person, death is just the beginning, and what they perceive to be overly invasive measures to prolong life is not worth it. Whether it be diabetes dieting or covid lockdowns. Remember, the christian ethos is not utilitarian.

> and worse healthcare in conservative states?

All the good doctors realize they can make more money in blue states?

2. I'm aware that conservative people consider certain procedure unnecessary. My point is that religious-based moral outrage has no place in deciding the proper standard of care. Your approach means that when your morals contradict another person's health, you get to choose what kind of services they get. That's a great reason to divorce healthcare from religious influence.

3. Being poor sounds great! Makes me wonder why more people don't move to the south and live in the socialist utopia that you describe, where everyone has all their needs fulfilled with no effort.

4. If death is just the beginning, maybe we should abolish healthcare entirely, and just get to the good part sooner. Instead of wasting money on MRI machines, heart surgery, and diabetes medication, we should instead wisely invest in elaborate mausoleum, like the pharaohs of old. This also conveniently explains why religious conservatives, although ostensibly caring about their fellow man, consistently vote against any expansion of state-provided healthcare, which is selfishly rooted in the notion of keeping people out of heaven.

I support a path to citizenship and making all forms of immigration more fair, humane and much more widely available. I don't understand the push from some on the left to say that all enforcement of immigration laws should go away.

There was one guy talking about Jesus but for the most part we're pretty sure he wasn't an anti-masker. Actually all of our neighbors have told us they wear a mask by the way. So yeah, it's really just getting away from the legal requirements that the populated places need but forget to loosen the rules far away.

Now every county is different so take my input as a grain of salt.

Wait, these rules aren't something that are enacted and enforced at an individual city / town level? These are state-wide zoning(?) rules being applied universally to all jurisdictions in the state? If so, that does seem obnoxious..

(I don't own land so I am very unfamiliar in how zoning regulation plays itself out, so apologies ahead of time.)

Please tell me what part of the country this is so I can avoid it.

However, rules like these are "zoning/planning" and are usually set by the city or county, not the state.

The county shifting to Idaho is likely to have no effect on that regulation.

FAR's are why Palo Alto had to bring in regulations on basement sizes (the majority of the house was underground!), and why Zuckerberg is having problems with his renovation plans.

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

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/31/palo-alto-zuckerberg-...

https://padailypost.com/2019/08/26/is-city-going-to-far-with...

Both sides have appeals to emotion and appeals to logic in their platform. For instance, what basis is there for universal healthcare other than 'we should help each other'? You can't make the argument that it would 'save the government money' to the right, because, in their opinion, the government should be spending any money on it, other than maybe paying for employees' insurance. Every dollar the government spends on it now is just an example of how the government can't do anything right.

I think it's common for people on opposite ends of the spectrum see the other side as 'not grounded in data'. After all, if they saw the reason in the opinions of the other side, they'd be in the middle instead of the end they're on.

All that being said, I think more clarity in government spending would go a long way in creating more/less trust in government's handling of certain operations. Maybe the right sees less inefficiency than they imagined, maybe the left sees more, but we'd at least have some real data to compare.

You're right, you don't say it would save the government money. You make the argument that it would save everyone money. No one has any incentive to care about the price of healthcare, currently. Not the suppliers, not the providers, not the insurers. And the consumers simply have no choice.

Something else: It fosters a more competitive work environment, by allowing capable workers to choose the best firms.

It also separates health cost, whose administration is expensive for businesses, from working capabilities of employees. It’s a major problem for small companies.

Finally, anything more than essential coverage could and should still be privatized, and paid for by individuals. Much like today’s life insurance today. e.g., long cancer recovery and care.

Do you have data showing that the gains in competitiveness offset productivity losses from higher unemployment?

>Finally, anything more than essential coverage could and should still be privatized, and paid for by individuals. Much like today’s life insurance today. e.g., long cancer recovery and care.

What is the difference between essential and not essential? I don't think there's a good objective basis for what is and isn't, it just comes down to the costs healthy people are willing to bear, which comes down to feelings again.

The difference between essential and non-essential? Why should I have to make that distinction in a forum?

Both private healthcare AND even medicare do this today, to different degrees.

Largely, routine check-ups and preventive care are covered. Emergency visits and triage care used to be covered (and still should be).

Everything else is quite subjective, and cost is a factor.

More competitiveness necessarily implies more frictional unemployment. You can't have one without the other.

> The difference between essential and non-essential? Why should I have to make that distinction in a forum?

I'm not saying you should, I'm saying an argument that points to universal healthcare as an objective practice requires it.

> to different degrees

Exactly. There isn't an agreed upon objective basis for what qualifies as 'essential'.

Nonsense. You’re thinking about competition for jobs. But I’m talking about competition to hire.

>I'm not saying you should, I'm saying an argument that points to universal healthcare as an objective practice requires it.

You’re asserting that it does. I’m arguing that an argument for it doesn’t require it. That’s one for practitioners and a wider audience to flush out.

> Exactly. There isn't an agreed upon objective basis for what qualifies as 'essential'.

And as before, I’m pointing out that aside from some clear cut cases, it’s not required to be “objective”.

There’s no objective reason why we enjoy various freedoms in the US, other than emotional reasons and desires.

I dunno about that. Most people don't really care if their benefits are any good. And I've never seen a single job listing that went more in depth than "great benefits".

> Finally, anything more than essential coverage could and should still be privatized, and paid for by individuals. Much like today’s life insurance today. e.g., long cancer recovery and care.

Yeah, that's true in most if not all countries with universal healthcare. Of course, as someone else alluded to, it's a difficult distinction to make. I don't care about the mole on my face but a mole might legitimately effect someone else's mental health.

I’m surprised you interpreted what I wrote this way.

What I mean is that some individuals cannot afford to leave their job and take a chance, because of the risk that they will not have any coverage whatsoever.

If you or your family member have a chronic but treatable condition such as diabetes, this a life and death decision.

It makes zero sense to give employers such leverage.

Likewise, employers are less likely to cover individuals that will raise insurance costs.

And also, how does that differ from "some individuals cannot afford to leave their job and take a chance, because of the risk that they will not have any money whatsoever"? Personally I think we could solve both of those problems (and plenty more) with "make employment terms public" (i.e. disclose compensation ranges, benefits & premiums, vacation, and so on).

That's a problem that can be fixed without making the government the sole customer: Make people pay for their own healthcare.

>Not the suppliers, not the providers, not the insurers

That's simply not true. They all have profit motive.

>And the consumers simply have no choice.

That's only true in emergency medicine, which is the minority of care most people receive.

What would you do about emergency medicine in your ideal world though?

People do pay for their own healthcare. That's our current system. Hello?

> That's simply not true. They all have profit motive.

Everyone has profit motive, but when your prices are arbitrary, that doesn't make you care about costs.

> That's only true in emergency medicine, which is the minority of care most people receive.

That's not even CLOSE to factual. Try getting your doctor to tell you how much any complex procedure or care will cost, before the fact, without insurance.

Uninsured, underinsured, or people with high deductibles are much, much more likely to let a health issue linger for much longer than someone who gets free (to them) healthcare. If an issue lingers, getting worse and worse, it may eventually reach the point where it forces them out of the workforce; they stop paying taxes, they stop purchasing commercial goods which drive the economy, they stop buying new cars, etc. (on an individual basis, this is rare, but compounded by 40 million or so people it adds up to a lot of people not performing economic activity who would otherwise be making and spending money)

Free-for-me healthcare is better at providing preventative medicine than out-of-pocket healthcare. Preventative medicine is cheaper in absolute terms over the long term that remedial medicine, even if preventative medicine is much more common that remedial medicine. If remedial medicine removes a person from the work force, that costs the entire GDP a worker.

It is better for all of us -- in purely economic terms -- to have a worker wearing a government issued back brace, taking government issued anti-inflammatory drugs, and participating in government sponsored physical therapy than having a non-worker have back surgery on an insurance plan that spreads the cost among all of that insurer's other customers instead of producing widgets in the factory.

I might not speak for that many people on the left, but I personally support anti-poverty programs as a general rule not because I care about the plight of humanity or whatever, (fuck 'em) but because taxing people and spending those tax dollars on anti-poverty programs improve my overall quality of life more than just letting us keep the money. Every poor person, every homeless person, needs to have tax dollars devoted to them in terms of police and emergency services. Two years ago someone smashed my car's window, stole a $20 backpack with $40 worth of gym clothes, costing me a $500 deductible to replace the window and fix the e-brake. Pretty sure if that asshole had a better education, was given free tradeschool or college they wouldn't have smashed my window.

We, as a society, have decided that we'd rather have a pound of cure than an ounce of prevention. In a dozen ways. And that's fucking stupid.

Ask Bismarck. The first quasi-universal healthcare system wasn’t introduced because Bismarck was so nice; it was to increase productivity and discourage people from voting for the socialists.

Edit: I know that paper straws are a pain to drink through, my question was more: why is banning plastic straws an example of "faith-based science denialism"?

The push to ban plastic straws was nearly entirely based on misinformation or lack of information. Most of the debate was propelled to the highest levels by a 4th grader that literally made the data up[1], but that data was used to prescribe a "science and data driven ban".

Turns out, plastic straws really were never a big problem. Sure, single-use-plastic is a problem in general, but the ban of plastic straws has had nearly zero impact on the environment - or it could be argued it's had a negative impact since companies like Starbucks started using "multi-use" recyclable lids which in reality end up being single-use and are often thrown into the trash instead of recycling bin, and use more plastic material than dozens of straws combined.

The plastic bag ban is the same way too... turns out those reusable cotton tote bags consume way more energy to produce than thin plastic bags, causing dramatic increases in GHG releases, energy consumption, etc[2][3]. We now know plastic bags and straws are not a major contributor (or at all, really) to that massive plastic dump in the Pacific Ocean, which is mostly from fishing vessel waste tossed overboard. Good intentions with poor consequences unfortunately.

It's this sort of "theater" that puts people off...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/business/plastic-straws-b...

[2] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/sustainable-shoppin...

[3] https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotto...

[4] https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacifi...

Paper straws break down relatively quickly and can lose suction effectiveness as a result. Reusable metal straws can cause chipped teeth or gum damage if bitten down on by someone with poor fine motor control. No straws at all can leave an individual unable to ingest liquids entirely. Reusable soft plastic straws would be ideal, but the tradeoff is that now we've placed yet an extra burden on an impaired person (or their caretakers) in our society because now they'll need to maintain a supply of clean, reusable straws that they need to transport with them. Disposable plastic straws are "soft" enough to not damage someone's teeth or gums too severely when bitten down on, but are more durable than paper straws to ensure reliable suction over time, and they do not require any upkeep or maintenance for proper hygiene due to their disposable nature.

This quote really stood out to me:

> and they [disposable plastic straws] do not require any upkeep or maintenance for proper hygiene due to their disposable nature.

It's a rather bright example of the problem our global society has put itself into: there's still a need to deal with these items, but that need is no longer on the person using the item; it has been outsourced to the rubbish bin and, thus, to society and the environment at large.

We've done this to ourselves in myriad ways. Expanding public transport is "unfair" to people who have different needs because perhaps some people cannot quickly or easily board transit vehicles, or those trips do not go to the front door of where some people need to go. We cannot eliminate or shrink parking requirements or availability for the same reason.

Politically, we stop at "well, can't do that" without considering "OK, how could we do almost all of that with modifications for people who have other needs?"

We've fallen into the perfect must be the only outcome otherwise why bother. Some of that is genuinely not knowing, but large parts of opposition to the changes we know we need to make--both individually and on the companies and businesses supplying us in environmentally-poor ways--are disingenuously hiding behind those arguments simply to obstruct.

That's frustrating.

> Noninstructional factors explain most of the variance among test scores when schools or districts are compared. A study of math results on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that the combination of four such variables (number of parents living at home, parents' educational background, type of community, and poverty rate) accounted for a whopping 89 percent of the differences in state scores

from https://alfiekohn.org/teaching/pdf/Standardized%20Testing%20... if you really want I can dig up the old study.

We need to change education itself so it is not a tool of systemic racism. Which currently, based on that study, it is. In a sense you are right: yes, it does its job if the job is to be the canary in the coal mine. But we did away with canaries in the coal mines and made the mines more secure.

Only if you are deliberately framing these points that way. I'll try to explain how these points can actually be explained as science-driven

> Banning plastic straws

In the US alone, 500M straws were used per day (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/news-...). Given that many of these end up in the environment as consumers simply discard the container wherever they are walking, this is a serious reduction in litter.

> asserting that men should compete against women in sports if they identify as women

This one is a really hard debate, however... hormone distribution varies enormously between the two major biological genders so we're already (effectively) selecting athletes with the "best" ratios. Add to that people with intergender bodies (e.g. XY chromosome set but fully presenting as "female", XX chromosomes but have "male" body parts), and it becomes a real mess to define what is a male, what is a female and where a specific individual should be allowed to compete in - even if you're only going by purely biological metrics (hormone levels, appearance of gender-specific body parts). Add to that the "faith-based" stuff aka social gender norms and gender equality/anti-discrimination, and it gets very messy very soon.

tl;dr: for this point, there cannot ever be a "scientific consent" on what's correct and what's wrong. Personally I'd argue for a body-weight differentiation in sports (as it's done in boxing) instead of gender-based, since that way you have at least some common factor that is closely linked with physical strength.

> and eliminating SAT scores

Scoring of almost all kinds has provable issues - and especially in education:

- social background has massive effects on scores: rich parents can afford a lot of things closely linked to higher educational outcome such as private tutors, each child having their own room from a young age, send their children to well-funded public or private schools, or offering a stress-free environment for the child in general whereas poor parents are stuck with whatever the public school system offers, children often not having their own rooms which means they can't effectively learn if their baby sibling is crying in "their" room, and parents passing on their stress (poverty, overcrowding, homelessness, messy divorces, domestic violence) onto their children

- ethnic background: children of minorities have been proven to be discriminated against by teachers even at a young age, not to mention stuff like systemic under-funding of schools in geographic areas where school funding is based on the taxable income of the people living in this area, which is (again) closely linked to ethnic background as a result of segregation and gentrification

- government background: additionally to that, public schools may differ wildly in quality of teaching based on the funding priorities of county and state

- scoring leads to teachers "teaching for the test" aka "bulimia learning" instead of actual long-lasting knowledge transfer. This is something tests aren't primarily at fault for, but nevertheless play an important role

- scoring disproportionally affects students with mental health problems (e.g. test phobia), with dyslexia / dyscalculia and other learning impediments, and also those whose talents are outside of language and math

tl;dr: scoring is deeply flawed as a concept, where especially children from poor backgrounds (no matter if the family or the government is poor) suffer from massive discrimination.

I would have more respect for the right if they just admitted they are ok with people dying in the streets since they just ignore the economic effects of EMTALA.

Are you saying you believe that there are no programs in existence, which are government-run, that are not "shit shows" ?

Of course, there are times when efficiency is not the thing we’re optimizing for. The Space Program is an example of a pretty great government program; there was no profit or benefit to private space travel in the 1950s and 60s so the government had to subsidize it, but now that we are starting to see private business catch up, the best thing to do is get government out of the way. This is not all that different during the Age of Discovery where kings and queens subsidized trans-oceanic travel.

IMHO government should only exist to fix free market deficiencies (Monopolies, unfair competition, fledgling industries, lack of players). Not to take over a market and try to dictate it from the top down. Ultimately the goal should be that all people make enough of a wage to afford healthcare and let the market handle it. And still have a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, but the safety net should never be the goal.

The track record of... Medicare? It's one of the most popular programs in government!

What you've done is just aborb spin. It's true that these people don't trust "The Government" to provide health care, because their thought leaders (and peers like you) keep telling them that. But then they go and enroll in Medicare anyway, and it pays for their care, and because nothing breaks and it's never in the news they don't even think about it.

At some point you'd think the truth would break through, but it just doesn't seem to be happening.

Literally every health care system sucks for someone, it's a complicated problem. But everywhere, both within and outside the US, the systems that work BEST are government-run.

It is also not universally accepted- this is only anecdotal, of course, but I had a doctor tell me he didnt accept it because the rates for some procedures worked out to be below the state's hourly minimum wage.

Perhaps a better example would be the VA- government run hospitals and coverage that is perenially in the news for some new corruption or incompetence scandal, and a very very hit or miss reputation.

Virtually all of the putative working class republicans "opposed to government health care" would be better served by Medicare. Period.

The elderly would get better care if more hospitals and doctors accepted it; there are several ways to achieve this with, I suspect, mixed results.

The social security fund has been “borrowed from” to fund other programs.

The government is clearly in the pocket of big Parma.

The government uses taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street.

The government allocates subsidies based on lobbying groups.

The IRS specifically targeted right wing groups applying for non profit status.

The list goes on and on.

So people on the right are not keen to give that structure more money and power.

It doesn’t matter how successful you may think Medicare is. The power structure and track record of the entity which would manage universal healthcare is abysmal.

I think there is a way to do it which could make the whole program solid and resilient against abuse but the proposals all come from the left who don’t seem particularly interested in resiliency.

What exactly are you talking about? Don’t republicans have a 40+ year strategy of “starve the beast” to purposely make government services worse specifically to build this distrust?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea or a good idea, I'm just saying there is no basis for universal healthcare that doesn't start with 'we need to help people'. Same with social security. Same with many other left wing policies. A lot of the problems around market inefficiency in healthcare are perfectly solvable without helping the poor.

EMTALA already does this and I don’t see a push on the right to repeal EMTALA. Universal healthcare is a more efficient model of what is already happening.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-the-2005-social-secur...

It wasn't sold as a push to repeal Social Security, because that polls extremely badly, but that's what it was.

What individuals believe seems _so_obviously_correct_ and what other people believe is _so_completely_ridiculous_ that we make up reasons for them being so... so... different than ourselves.

One thing that has stuck with me recently was a quote where it basically said that ‘everyone is skeptical, but just about different things’

I wish more people recognized that it is a tempting and lazy logical fallacy. It is fundamentally disrespectful to assume that people who don’t agree with you are too emotional. If you make this argument, you are killing your own argument, unless you support it with facts. OP demonstrates this uncharitability by asserting a lack of data, and then assuming emotions explain it. Go hang out with a more diverse crowd, OP. You are robbing yourself of life’s tapestry.

Agreed that accusing your opponent of not using facts or reason makes it hard to have an honest discussion.

At the very least, if reason and facts are so important to you, what about the fact that this style of argument is empirically ineffective, and almost never persuades anybody to switch views? It's even dangerous to your cause, in the sense that it makes people defensive and more extreme in their views. If you care about outcomes, don't poison the conversation.

I'm also skeptical whenever I see an argument that depends on the assumption that if you just had access to all the facts, you'd agree with me. In my experience, the more facts I learn about anything related to human behavior, the more complex the picture gets, and the less certain I am that anybody has it right.

For example, If OP had made this argument about women I don't think we'd see so many upvotes on the comment and we'd see a lot more uproar. Despite the fact that women are routinely dismissed as being "emotional".

Here, OP presents that there is insufficient data to hop to conclusions. That said, OP still dismisses "conservatives" on the premise of acting purely on emotion. The irony seems lost on OP but also other HN viewers.

Edit: please don't downvote based on disagreement - write something instead. This is a reasonable question asking to further understand the conservative viewpoint. Case in point, I'm upvoting buzzert's comments because they present a contrary, but interesting perspective.

[0]: https://drugpolicy.org/press-release/2021/02/drug-decriminal...

[1]: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/ERD/Pages/Oregon-trends-with-U.S....

We tried that strategy for many decades. It has failed as a strategy for decades. I don’t think that’s necessarily evidence that decriminalization will work, but it seems like...maybe we should at least try something else?

If this is the direction Oregon is intending to go, it is certainly worth trying. But if it will just be an unstructured free-for-all I doubt it will result in any improvements.

For a functioning addict, drugs not being illegal is itself an improvement, even if overdose rates stay completely unchanged.

When you have an addiction problem, getting the legal system involved typically results in you getting two problems around your neck, instead of just one.

Decriminalization is usually just a necessary prerequisite to make the medical approach practically workable. I’d expect most legislatures would avoid touching the decriminalization issue if they could.

Yes, let’s try a different strategy. Yes, that different strategy might be the opposite of the thing we were trying before. That’s because the thing we were trying before has failed in almost every metric for decades (including drug overdose deaths, as you’ve noted).

Honestly, I genuinely don’t know how one could rationalize preserving the existing strategy. Can you explain the desire to continue applying the same failed strategy? What’s the logical argument for continuing to do the same thing?

Decriminalization has its own issues, to be sure. I'd prefer legalization (the actual polar opposite). I want addicts to be able to buy a clean supply from a legitimate business. The US won't see a reduction in organized crime until we offer a path to legitimacy. Decriminalization is the easiest, but least effective middle ground.

It seems like any rational person could see the connection between drugs and the dystopian aspects of the Tenderloin. What I would do instead is precisely what I would do if my children were addicted to drugs; tough love. I would make it impossible for them to acquire drugs and deal with the consequences of withdrawl.

Japan and Singapore are examples of countries that are extremely tough on drugs. I believe it is no coincidence that these places also turned out to be essentially the opposite of the Tenderloin with regards to public safety and heigene.

There seems to be a correlation vs causation issue there though. An equally plausible rational explanation is that the criminal act of selling drugs tends to make more sense in a place where that act is overlooked. If drug sales were decriminalized then those areas would tend to be less focused. Case in point is the proliferation of legal marijuana dispensaries. At least in the places that I've seen these (in Seattle), they don't seem to induce a higher criminal / unsanitary / dystopian atmosphere. Perhaps my perspective is unique.

>Japan and Singapore are examples of countries that are extremely tough on drugs. I believe it is no coincidence that these places also turned out to be essentially the opposite of the Tenderloin with regards to public safety and heigene.

Yes, and Singapore's approach still regards possession / use as a medical with an initial focus on rehabilitation, not just punishment. Singapore has some pretty big advantages over the US in its administration of the law (single jurisdiction / set of laws, single highly populous city). The laws vary widely in the US (consider Marijuana legalization an obvious example).

Depending on the drug and the severity of their addiction, that could kill them. Would you take it that far?

Methadone maintenance therapy leaves several problems, starting with the fact that other opioids still feel good and are still being profitably sold on the street. There's supply and demand, right there.

The illegality makes it expensive. Most opioid users start with pills, and continue to injection because heroin and analogues are expensive, and injection works better. Unfortunately it's also a much better way to kill yourself, as is taking what you think is one drug (such as heroin) and lacing it with a stronger one (such as fentanyl). It's possible to kill yourself with a bunch of pills of a known opioid of a guaranteed strength, but it's pretty tough to do by accident.

So let's remove the profit motive, by letting the state take over the sale of opioids. No advertising, of course, and this is done in settings where help can be made available to anyone who wants to quit being addicted to drugs. Make it expensive enough that it isn't the cheapest way to have a good time (opioids cost basis is very low), but not so high that constant petty crime is the only way to stay high. Limit purchase quantities; maybe give known addicts a license, so they can have a slightly higher limit to account for their tolerance. A little bit will leak onto the street, sure, that's tolerable compared to a hundred kilos at once arriving from overseas or the southern border.

This puts the dealers out of business, clears out the Tenderloin, reduces opioid overdoses, puts addicts where they can get help, and reduces the burden on our overcrowded prisons. Evidence from Switzerland and Portugal suggest that over time it will also reduce the number of opioid addicts.

All in all, pretty big win.

If the goal is to punish somebody for the rest of their life for having fun on an illegal substance, then mission accomplished. If the goal is to remediate the user so that they can be a productive member of society, then it's an utter failure. Sometimes people don't get hooked on the methadone itself, but it's a very delicate balancing act and not at all guaranteed

But how? Drugs are already illegal. There is currently a vast government apparatus designed to make drugs impossible to acquire. The US has the largest prison population on the planet due in no small part to the war on drugs. It's not like we go easy on drugs.

And yet, in your city there is an "open-air drug market". Making drugs illegal doesn't make drugs harder to get, because drugs are profitable. To paraphrase Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park "drugs will find a way."

I think you're noticing a correlation and labeling it a causation. If people had a place to safely do drugs, would they be overdosing in the street? If SF had more public restrooms would people defecate in the streets? If the city had more affordable housing would people be living in the streets? If people had access to jobs so they could earn a living, would they be committing crimes? You blame the drugs for the problems, but I see them as a symptom of larger societal causes.

Now do automatic weapons, straw purchases, felons getting guns, etc.

Both sides have their political bugaboos about problems that haven't been completely solved by existing approaches. Both sides want to try something different by cracking down on their own citizens; both sides want to try something different by lessening the burdens on good people who don't hurt others. Unfortunately, the two major political parties take opposite positions on which approach to take with which issue.

Maybe our political discourse wouldn't get quite to the level of talking about secession if we tried to understand one another's values a little better.

I see the outside reference fitting here.

You're missing the point entirely. Drugs aren't an isolated example. There are a number of highly divisive issues in the US for which the majority of Americans appear to hold largely emotionally based views. (Note that the degree to which a view is emotional is entirely orthogonal to whether or not it can be arrived at rationally.)

> There was no mention of "parties" or "sides".

And yet in practice, the vast majority of opposition to drug decriminalization (let alone outright legalization) comes from more conservative people. Such divides exist in a statistical sense whether you like it or not.

Your points about the relative inefficiencies and overall failures of the current approach to drugs based on available data is well taken. However, when it comes to highly divisive issues such as this one, it seems that simply appealing to rationality in this manner is not a viable tactic on its own for the majority of people. The analogy to gun laws helps to illustrate this fact - imagine how the majority of liberals would react to a "rational" explanation of why a particular gun law was unlikely to improve things.

Burying your head in the sand won't change the fact that there are significant emotional components which are relevant here.

I wanted to talk about the merits and reasons for/against drug decriminalization, as well as alternative solutions.. You keep telling me that I'm missing the point, but maybe you're missing my point. I'm not interested in the discussion about the broader point of the process itself. Talking about parties and sides and gun control is not the discussion I engaged in. The fact that it's a controversial issue that elicits strong emotional responses from people is not germane to the discussion at hand.

The original poster said: "Maybe our political discourse wouldn't get quite to the level of talking about secession if we tried to understand one another's values a little better."

That's exactly what was happening! I wanted to take part in that. The last thing I would want to do in that discussion is bring in heated tangential topics that would serve to derail the conversation. That's not burying your head, that's staying on topic. There are significant emotional components about this and also as well about guns. Agreed. The original point stands.

I have a hard time following your line of thought.

It rightly so should be abolished.

To be replaced with trained medical help, detox programs, and a conversation about morality not tethered to superstition, or black and white judgments.

But the fundies, acting out of emotion, prefer boxes.

It’s all emotion since humans are motivated by such. It’s the outcome that should be judged.

Why can’t these programs exist while also having drugs be illegal?

Also it doesn’t help your position by using childish words like “fundies”, FYI. Keep that on Reddit please.

How would you make that work? Consider if drugs are illegal, then getting medical help / detox requires admission of guilt. This seems like a fifth amendment problem.

You can't just show up to a hospital with crack or heroin withdrawl and be like "I don't feel well, please help me". They are going to ask why you don't feel well.

Is it everyone else’s responsibility to protect you and your sensibilities?

It hasn’t prevented folks from consuming them, or becoming addicted.

If I’m childish for the use of a euphemism, what would you call living in an idealized reality that’s never existed?

You're assuming overdose rates are negatively correlated with criminalization of drugs. Have you considered the possibility that it's exactly the opposite, then when drugs are decriminalized, people can have access to better information and health care?

If you're a professional and you have alcoholism, you can get care and treatment, and it may even be paid for by your employer's health care plant. If you're addicted to cocaine, OxyContin, hydrocodone, or amphetamines, then maybe one day you OD because you never talk about it and you don't see a doctor about it, for fear of being convicted of a crime, losing your job, your health care, and ending up in prison or homeless.

And also because the substances you're consuming aren't subject to the vast array of safety mechanisms that exist for all other pharmaceuticals. You don't have anywhere near the same level of quality guarantees.

Compared to the synthesis and purification of complex organics, the distillation of ethanol is difficult to mess up. People still died of poisoning during prohibition though.

Where the right and left differed was in all the programs treating drug addiction that were brought in at the same time. Pamper the poor darlings vs Let them rot in the gutter.

I have yet to encounter lefties in my SE hood terrorizing anyone.

Plenty of Trump caravans last year, waking us up, shooting guns.

All from outside the city.

Sure violence is up but it’s up all over. A side effect of a nation coddling old wealth, leaving the masses to rot.

Given the metastasizing of the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sections of the economy, and their typical concentration in urban areas, I'd say that rural areas are basically in the same position as a colony to a colonial power.

Shipping cheap raw materials to the cities, who in turn own the shares, banks, and mortgages, has always been pretty common.

Of course, if you are in favor of colonialism....

"In 1900, just under 40 percent of the total US population lived on farms, and 60 percent lived in rural areas. Today, the respective figures are only about 1 percent and 20 percent." [1]

That's a large erosion of political and economic power in those rural areas as more people moved out of agriculture into other industries that tend to be located in population centers. Not sure how that changes unless we move away from large corporate farms back to smaller family farms (See various Wendall Berry essays and novels where he lays out what's happened to rural areas over the last century as family farms have dwindled), however, that seems very unlikely.

[1] http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2016/6/26/the-evolution-of-americ...

Remove the imperial capitals (DC or London) or financial capitals (London or New York) and the next tier down ain't so much.

So it should not be framed as a pushback to current politics. They feel they’ve had reasons for a while.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_...

I see this as one place where the far right comes from, but by no means does this encompass everything.

You called them out as ignorant, and provided zero facts to back it up. Now let’s hear your credentials and experience with regional government in the rural Pacific Northwest.

And wouldn’t it be great if there were GAO reports on where every collected tax dollar is spent. Maybe if you had that, you would be able to address this with facts instead of your assumption that you must be right because you are smarter than them, and that means you don’t need facts to know you are right.

But given that you have presented zero facts, and zero experience, and may actually benefit from disinformation, I’m going to go with the opinions of the people that have all the facts, and all the experience, and actually have to pay the cost of their decision.

But instead of psychoanalyzing them, let’s hear your opinion on a simple yes/no question:

Should they be allowed to exit?

The cultural assumptions present in rural Oregon, Suburban Oregon, and Portland are vast. Go out to Christmas Valley. Go there. Then walk around the Pearl district in Portland.

You're trying to use pure reason. Go get some experience.

Let alone the difficulty of tracing it: assume it’s possible to show where every tax dollar went.

Would you still favor this trnsparency if it’s shown to sometimes benefit individual politicians at the expense of their would be constituents? Just hypothetically?

Just Devil's Advocate, but wouldn't that be the best outcome? If it showed to which company every tax dollar went. Who the principals are in those companies. And the connections those principals have to politicians allocating the dollars?

Especially if it showed this for every dollar, I'm finding it hard to see a downside. Am I missing something?

Wouldn't we call that a success? You can't fix something that isn't measured. If nobody knows anything concrete then all people have to go on is vague feelings.

It's not a big mystery. A lot of politicians are making their careers by dividing people.

Some policies are just downright mean, and seem to serve little purpose other than division.

Conservative/rural people are often on the receiving end, because they just don't have a large enough constituency to fight it. Sure, they are winning some battles, but each one is uphill and the slope is steepening rapidly.

Sadly, the country will suffer greatly. The left is wrong on a lot of things (or at least too extreme), but they are in control and there will be little pushback going forward. Even moderate democrats are being trampled.

Having a map which highlight regions which has a negative balance sheet in terms of taxes vs government costs would mostly just be a map of segregation of class, which in turn would be a map showing segregation of different demographics. Illustrating which demographics are costing the government more than they pay in taxes is not something the left in my country are very happy to do, and I doubt it is that much different in the USA.

Self induced tribalism.

No reason to make it so complicated.

How are facts baseless?

(And this goes the other way, for conservatives.) It's just something to keep in mind whenever you feel like making dumb generalizations about large groups.

We can bend over backwards to explain how helpful the valley is to them but it's going to fall on ears which don't want to listen.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be provided for, they 100% should, just them actually leaving will do more to show them the inefficiencies of a conservative super state.

Short of that the most effective way to change the information disconnect is actually address the source of the issue: media.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#Polit...