I am not an American, so I do not have a dog in this fight.

But the bridge between alcohol and insecurity on one side and murder on the other that you seem to erect seems rather uncertain to me. Scandinavians drink like fish, suffer from a lot of seasonal depression, but their rates of murder aren't that high. Nor are rates of murder in rural USA regions originally settled by Scandinavians.

Murder seems to be strongly correlated with gang activity in the U.S.

I think it has to do with gangs and and high rate of drug addiction in this area. I live in the Pacific NW where heroin/meth is running rampant and homelessness is everywhere. The city just looks trashed now.

Having one party in control of most major cities, where most crime is, for 50+ years now is working wonders.

One thing that puzzles me a bit about the U.S. is nonexistence of viable local parties. Something similar to the Scottish National Party in the UK or Freie Wähler in Bavaria.

How come that the entire political scene on all levels collapses into just two poles, with the predictable result that many places are de facto one party places?

Why doesn't America have local Ross Perots in various corners of the country, starting their own political parties specific for one place only?

We do. The Socialist Alternative are a viable party in places like Seattle, local politicians often run as independents aligned with organizations like DSA, etc.

And yet that party is still preferable to the alternative, according to the voters. Funny how that goes.

One of the really bad things about two party systems is that people start to consider their voting record a part of their personal identity. That leads to massive ossification of voting patterns in individuals.

In a multiparty system, it is much more normal to be a swing voter.

It surely doesn't help that politicians sow division to weaken and conquer their constituencies and vilify each other creating animosity and discord. Instead of trying to unite our people they want to foment differences.

People take cues.

Moreover, we prefer to fix other people's problems (Iraq, Afghanistan) to fixing our internal problems.

We see this with charities too. Charities eagerly want to help out people who get whacked by natural disasters overseas. That's great and I'm sure those people appreciate it. Where are they they in the US taking care of our homeless, our veterans, our unemployed?

They give more shits about people losing their jobs in Timbuktu than they do about our own citizens losing jobs due to outsourcing and poor government policies.

Wow, this is all over the place. A few thoughts:

1. We didn’t fix any problems in Iraq or Afghanistan. We made things worse. The reason was not really a preference, it was revenge, bad info, and protecting strategic reserves.

2. Charities do work locally. They also work internationally. If I am passionate about a specific issue, or about helping as many humans as possible, it’s not clear that it’s preferable to only help others after you’ve fixed all your internal problems.

I definitely agree that people take cues from their leaders. That’s why the investigation into January 6 is such a big deal.

Anecdote. I have observed the works of a West Coast church for a few years. The walls are plastered with photos of charity work in Africa, Asia or Caribbeans. Every other week stories from far away lands makes into the sermon. Was an interesting recent moment when the pastor had the public realization that perhaps spending some of that effort in the local community is long past due.

It's an interesting moral question, something I would hope the church leaders very strongly consider. What difference does it make where a person lives, if they are suffering? Put another (utilitarian) way - if you can spend $100 to help 10 people across the globe not die of starvation, versus $100 to help a non-starving but down on their luck local, which gives more heaven credit?

The nature of our evolved brain prioritizes those proximate; I'm unclear of an argument why helping these people is superior, especially when you can make a bigger difference, more cheaply, by helping people in poorer countries.

CS Lewis touched on this point in his Screwtape Letters. Perhaps modern economic theory that studies spherical cows in a vacuum, err, self-interested rational agents, is not the ultimate morally relevant lens.

> Do what you will there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient‘s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.

It’s surprising to me how this is when the whole point of a church is to serve the local community and those that want to help overseas have “missions” which some people malign as semi imperialistic.

My personal view is help your local people first (no matter where you are) and others next. If you want to do good somewhere else the best way to do it is not via feelgood “remittances” but by going there and putting in the hard work, hiring locals, teaching locals, etc., so they may become self sufficient and not need ‘charity’.

Having lived in both poor and rich countries, I never saw a fervor for helping far away lands in a poor country. The are simply not enough resources to mount effective overseas charity campaigns.

And they should not. They should help themselves before anyone else. Now, there are wealthy congregation is some places and surely they have enough funds to help locals in need as well as others -that’s fine, but do it in a helpful way, don’t just send money and call it a day, and also help your people in another state of province if the locals they’re in has all their needs met. Don’t just go for “exoticism”.

Sometimes I wonder if this is selective pressure. The impact of charity work overseas, if at all affordable, is much higher than the often thankless charity work at home. People gradually steer into the more impactful work, which happens to be overseas by simple economic reasons.

Do you remember when everyone claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop with compromising information was Russian disinformation and now the WaPo relented and says that yeah, it’s legit?

Where is the pushback against those lies and collusion between the media and a candidate. It’s okay if 10 or 30% just ignore something because it’s not their bag, but 90% of the media refusing to cover it and denying it and all the fact checkers in cahoots?

I think that’s a big deal.

From my perspective, I think it's a big deal to get the details right, without needing to obviously exaggerate ("everyone claimed ... disinformation", WaPo says "it's legit" [some is, some remains unproven], 90% of the media [by what measure? Certainly not reach, as Fox has a significant minority of the market], "all the fact checkers in cahoots" [there does not appear to be any evidence of cahooting]).

You may have some good points, but it's unlikely anyone will dig through your screed to be influenced by your ideas. (But thank you for at least making it short!)

It may matter to you. But I don't think I'd be wrong to believe that if Hunter had been Ted Cruz's son, or Trump's son, no such politeness would have been granted and it would have run till it ran out of steam due to over-exposure.

And granted, I took some license but I wasn't intent on saying there was a literal agreement by the media and fact checkers, but that's like saying there is no pricing collusion between airlines -yeah, I'm sure they are not calling each other, but they are following each other's lead so to speak and that's what media and fact checkers do.

By 90% I mean exposure -Impressions and eyeballs. How many articles, tweets, reddits, etc.

If it fits people's ideology they don't hold it accountable.

The desire for truth is over.

Its a war of ideology now, which has never ended well historically.