Americans Are the Unhappiest They've Been In 50 Years (go.com) 222
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: It's been a rough year for the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they've been in nearly 50 years. This bold -- yet unsurprising -- conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they're very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they'd often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that. The survey, conducted in late May, draws on nearly a half-century of research from the General Social Survey, which has collected data on American attitudes and behaviors at least every other year since 1972. No less than 29% of Americans have ever called themselves very happy in that survey. The poll has revealed some other interesting findings. It says that the public is less optimistic today about the standard of living improving for the next generation than it has been in the past 25 years.
Americans are also less likely to report some types of emotional and psychological stress reactions following the COVID-19 outbreak, and about twice as many Americans report being lonely today as in 2018.
You can read the full study here (PDF).
Americans are also less likely to report some types of emotional and psychological stress reactions following the COVID-19 outbreak, and about twice as many Americans report being lonely today as in 2018.
You can read the full study here (PDF).
It worked! Make America Grate (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It worked! Make America Grate (Score:4, Insightful)
You are joking but you are also right. Once people realized that polarization and rage are good for their various causes they started encouraging it. Politicians, news media, social networks, Russians, everyone is at it now.
Happiness (Score:5, Insightful)
I was unhappy until covid hit. But then I got to work from home, and got to avoid anyone who wasn't my wife or kids. Suddenly, my happiness meter got pegged at maximum. It was a paradise (we have bidets, so the toilet paper hoarding hardly affected us), and stayed that way until we all stupidly got recalled back to the office.
Then my happiness not only fell back down to pre-covid levels, but went even lower. This is because I know what a working life can be, and know that my boss doesn't give a rats ass about any of us (despite many years of them falsely claiming that people are the greatest resource. Before being recalled, I could at least pretend that they cared about their employees. But that illusion has been shattered.
There is no such thing as family-friendly workplace. The two things are diametrically opposed.
So yeah, I can completely understand why people are the unhappiest they've been in fifty years.
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Re:Happiness (Score:5, Insightful)
This x 10000000. People need to take control of all aspects of their lives. If there is something you don't like, change it. It is not for others to change so you are happy, it is for you to change yourself or your circumstances to be happy. If there is a good reason(and by good, I mean truly extraordinary) you can't change the situation, just accept and move on and for the love of Pete, don't wallow in your misery.
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Easier said than done with the COVID recession now hitting us, record unemployment and so many others looking for new jobs too.
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But in alvinrod's case, he was unhappy long before COVID hit. Now for others sure, but again, how many were unhappy before COVID. See where I am going with this....most people will just use the COVID situation as an excuse as to why they are unhappy and just can't change because well, change is hard.
You can do things that aren't easy (Score:2)
Yep, it's not always easy. Not everything worth doing is easy.
So not to put too fine a point on it (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but I'm so sick and tired of hearing "Get a better Job!" every time anyone complains about working conditions. It's like that joke about Mitt Romney and "Why can't the poor just buy more money?".
Sheez, and people wonder why everybody is so unhappy? It's because instead of addressing problems we pretend they don't exist or are easily solvable if only we'd just pull ourselves up by bootstraps or something. Am I the only only who realizes that you can't actually do that?
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"It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Re:So not to put too fine a point on it (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry, but I'm so sick and tired of hearing "Get a better Job!" every time anyone complains about working conditions.
Me, too. I'm not going to quit what is otherwise a good job just because there is one aspect of it that sucks. My job is pretty binary in nature: it either sucks or is awesome. Flip just one bit, the right bit, and I have a dream job. It just has this one shitty aspect that I have to leave my family every day to do a job I could just as easily do from home.
In fact, my productivity went way up while working from home, and my immediate boss noticed it. It's our mutual boss that, for some reason, disregards that. Despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary, he still believes that a distracted office seat warmer with reduced productivity is somehow better than a focused performer working from home.
At one point, I did quit to take a "better" job. The job paid a lot more, but it sucked in just about every other way imaginable. I quit and went back to my old job. And that was years ago when the economy was working in my favor.
It seems that most people on Slashdot that advocate quitting for a better job are living in a kind of la-la land. I suspect they're young with no family obligations, and rent rather than own. There's nothing wrong with that, but they need to stop offering bad advice in situations they don't understand.
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"There is no such thing as family-friendly workplace. The two things are diametrically opposed."
They are rare, but they exist. Not just talking in office childcare, although that's not a bad thing. But some people have jobs where they can take their child to work and care for them.
I still think that working from home should be much more prevalent, though.
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Similar story here. Though, in all honesty, I don't despise being at work as I enjoy the job. But working from home was so much easier, and cut out an hour and some change of unnecessary travel time every day.
The most bothersome part to me is at home I could just get food whenever through the day and didn't have to plan my entire day's meals before I left for work. We used to have a permanently open cafeteria with several options available at all times of the day at work. But, they called us back and di
Of Course (Score:4, Insightful)
They (and most other people in the developed world) are surrounded by shit like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter which constantly pump out a stream of dissatisfaction whether with the world in general or just with how far short of some impossible ideal the user is.
We're working hard to cope with financial problems while the people who created them are pensioned off to live in luxury.
Hard working people get sidelined and discarded while a moral vacuum becomes president after losing the vote.
We're told our Democratic values are important while companies from Amazon and Apple, down to corner stores are filled with goods from Fascist China.
We're told that we should be ashamed of things we didn't do to people we never met.
We're told inflation is good as it drains away our pensions and savings.
We're told that rising house prices generate wealth while a generation contemplate a life of renting.
We're told that people need to be armed to be free while living in fear that the next mass shooting will be at our workplace or our kids' school.
We're told that GDP must increase every year while the seas are rising in front of us.
And you say people are unhappy? If you're not unhappy then you don't have a fucking clue what's going on.
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+5
People will have been exposed to an increased dose of all of that while they were locked up at home.
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This is why you need to talk about the good things instead of the relentless drumbeat of the bad. Skipping the past few months for things beyond our control:
1. Life continues to improve, both for longevity and average wealth. Products are cheaper and better than ever, and more inventions to buy.
2. Our greatest health problem at the moment (including covid) is obesity and heart disease from too much cheap food and sedentary lifestyle where many don't have to physically labor all day.
Do you realize what a w
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2. Our greatest health problem at the moment (including covid) is obesity and heart disease from too much cheap food and sedentary lifestyle where many don't have to physically labor all day.
Do you realize what a wonderful, novel problem that is historically?
If you define it more generally as obesity caused by poor nutrition than it's a lot less novel historically. I doubt we're the only historical era with a population segment trying to sustain itself on cheap carbohydrates. The reasons vary, in the past the ruling classes hoarded fats and animal protein source and/or they were limited by In the present, the reasons are more complicated (bad science leading to poor preferences, marketing/advertising generating poor preferences, actual cost of higher quality
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You know what's really great about YAML? No, I don't either.
You would probably be happier if you damped your tendency to focus on meaningless questions that nobody is asking.
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We're working hard to cope with financial problems while the people who created them are pensioned off to live in luxury.
Envy leads to unhappiness. Others' "luxury" objectively has nothing to do with you. You caused your own unhappiness caring about it.
... a moral vacuum becomes president...
Judging people leads to unhappiness. Someone you never met allegedly has a moral failing. That has nothing to do with you. You caused your own unhappiness.
We're told our Democratic values are important while companies from Amazon and Apple, down to corner stores are filled with goods from Fascist China.
You choose to have anxiety about news about distant lands. You caused your own unhappiness.
We're told that we should be ashamed of things we didn't do to people we never met.
Don't listen and tell those people their bullshit is unwelcome. This one you didn't cause.
We're told that people need to be armed to be free while living in fear that the next mass shooting will be at our workplace or our kids' school.
Stop believing in the bogeyman. Or if
I blame (Score:4)
Social media and twitter specifically.
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Does twitter make people sad and angry, or does twitter merely give voice to the sad and angry?
Both!
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That doesn't make sense to me to blame those.
Those services are 100% voluntary to use.
If they are making someone unhappy then they should not be using them.
I put the blame on the individual for continuing to engage in platforms and activities that make them unhappy.
I've never used twitter, facebook, etc and am perfectly happy. Seems like I am doing something right.
This generation (Score:2, Insightful)
The big problem is that you have a whole generation of people that live to be upset and offended by everything because it scores "woke points" on the internet.
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The "big problem" is that an entire generation is trying to score "woke points" on the Internet?
Man, you are some really woke guru!
Re:This generation (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem is that you have a whole generation of people that live to be upset and offended by everything because it scores "woke points" on the internet.
While the verbiage of "being woke" may be new and the topics you should be "woke" about have shifted and the Internet is a new method by which to signal your "wokeness", the idea of virtue signaling is neither new nor unique to any particular generation. Or have you forgotten about past countercultural movements or subcultures? The Beat generation signaled their antimaterialistic ethos by wearing black, hippies adopted their characteristic clothing and hair styles to signal that they were hip, and the same sort of signaling was done or is being done by hipsters, flappers, and countless other subcultures.
Also worth noting is that you're labeling a vocal minority as "a whole generation", without regard for the fact that the vocal minority you're speaking of is neither specific to a single generation nor do they count anywhere close to enough members to even comprise a single generation. I get that it feels like the kids are walking all over your lawn, but it isn't just kids and it isn't every kid in the neighborhood doing it.
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... the idea of virtue signaling is neither new nor unique to any particular generation. Or have you forgotten about past countercultural movements or subcultures? The Beat generation signaled their antimaterialistic ethos by wearing black, hippies adopted their characteristic clothing and hair styles to signal that they were hip, and the same sort of signaling was done or is being done by hipsters, flappers, and countless other subcultures.
Vanity causes unhappiness.
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[The people adhering] to a political/counterculture/whatever ideology and signalling that through what [they] wear [...] actually believe in it so all the power to them
Again with generalizations. Not everyone who dresses a certain way believes what that garb would suggest.
While there are certainly true believers in any of these subcultures, go ask people who are a few decades removed from a subculture why they joined it and you'll find that a huge number of them will be willing to admit that they were only a part of these subcultures because they wanted to feel like they belonged (or variants thereof, such as it being the thing they were "supposed" to do, it being what al
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Yeah must be "wokeness". Not massive job losses, economic uncertainty, social isolation, the shutdown of hobbies and activities people enjoy, the inability to holiday and travel freely, the endless protests in the cities, the affect a pandemic has had on loved ones.
Must be "wokeness" and some "shitty generation" that is too weak which has upset everyone.
(*You're an idiot*)
Yeah, Yeah (Score:2)
Dumbest too (Score:2)
Re:Dumbest too (Score:5, Funny)
That's only because we test people on their knowledge. If we didn't test we would have very few dumb people.
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Clearly we're also the dumbest we've been in 50 years.
You can thank Carter's establishment of the Dept. of Education in 1979 for that. Make everyone uniformly mediocre.
And Common Core.
And not teaching critical thinking.
This is news or something that mattters? (Score:2)
I think it's stress in general (Score:5, Insightful)
For all the massive technology improvements over the last 50 years, there's a massive amount of stress we just didn't have pre-technology:
- One of the issues that's getting more exposure with the WFH thing is that more employers are expecting to be able to contact employees at any time and get a response. "We give you a phone/Teams/Slack, we expect to be able to contact you." Outside of doctors, very few people had this kind of tethering to work that they have now -- when work was over that was it. It's the only good thing (IMO) of going to an office to work...if you're done when you leave.
- At the same time, employment relationships aren't as stable as they were. It'd be one thing if the tethering meant you get to keep your job for your entire career...but now people are being pushed into "gig economy" work and encouraged to become contractors wherever possible. I'm not sure if I'd like the weird paternal relationship people had with IBM, GE, AT&T, etc. back in the day but I sure feel like my job isn't as safe as it would have been back then. "Millenials love the freedom of gig work" say employers -- wait until they have families and kids and responsibilities other than their rent.
- Financial security is another big one. I'm doing all right but I know there are tons more people who aren't. Never having to worry about money again would be a major stress relief for just about anyone. We had some of that 50 years ago before offshoring and rightsizing...there was enough slack in the system and workers were paid more. Now employers know everyone's desperate and no employer is willing to take a chance by offering a better work environment because their competitors won't.
- There's also less community. People are distrustful of others and don't socialize as much as they did. Religion used to provide some of this community and still does, but that's way down and frankly most people don't want to go to church. I think if people had more free time and less pressure to be busy 24/7, they might form groups around shared interests. Sign me up for a bowling league or a gardening club or -something- that doesn't involve being tied to work.
- This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but social media sucks for personal happiness. You see your "friends" all trying to outdo each other showing off their #bestlife and I can see some people assuming that if your life doesn't match what you're seeing, something's wrong.
- At least in the IT world lately (see, news for nerds!!) there's a corollary of this that has to do with competing to see who's the most hardcore. Ever since DevOps and Agile and the Second Tech Bubble kicked in, the pace of change kicked into warp speed and the FAANGs and startups hired a bunch of new grads who don't know that it's not normal to work 90 hour weeks even if you're being given free food and Nerf guns. The folks working here are blogging/tweeting/Mediuming/conference speaking and promoting (IMO) an unhealthy pace of work. I love the idea of DevOps and Agile, except for the slapping together of stuff at a crazy pace. Hopefully the recession will at least calm the frantic "we have to launch first/we have to be bought by Microsoft/we have to IPO" that seems to be taking over modern tech culture.
We got many many benefits from our increased use of technology, but I feel they've come with a high social price. People are nomadic chasing employment all over, they don't have time to socialize because work keeps them too busy, and they aren't financially secure.
I'm all good!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, if you listen to "the news" or watch "social media" you tend to think the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
I stay in my own community and talk and socialize with them. I stay in a normal positive state of mind.
If I watch the news, I get caught up in the mess of people I don't even know, and will never meet. What I've learned is to look at our own communities where we live and make improvements there. Social media is very bad for having good dialog. Intent over text/pictures can lose their real intent, or people tend to be much more brazen when not talking to an actual person.
Not trying to ignore what has happened, I'm trying to focus on how to go forward in the sphere I can influence and learn from.
happyness around the world (Score:5, Interesting)
In other studies germans happen to be the happiest people atm.
After most of COVID-19 has passed with low loss of lifes and after kickstarting the economy with 200 billions safed in better times the economy is recovering fast, the unemployment numbers have barelly risen.
Thats what you get for electing a scientist for quantum chemistry into power.
Born as the daughter of a pastor behind the iron curtain.
The widely accepted leader of the free world.
Creator of the largest free trade and travel agreements in history with three billion citizens.
Beware!
On the other hand the US loses allies faster than Hilter after Stalingrad. Just recently the US-ITAR law basically made american technology unsalable everywhere. EU goverments are dropping US products, architecture and software at an alarming rate due to highly eratic US decision making.. In 2024 Microsoft will be a goner in every EU country, state, city. Seriously, when Mexiko and Canada are relying more on the EU than the USA then someone has seriously fucked up. When canadians can do business easier with japan through CETA and JEFTA than with the US then something is rotten in the state of the US.
The american age has come to an end. The run was spectaluar. The end wasn't.
Well, who would have guessed it? (Score:2)
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no, "corporate fascism" means corporations with government in their pockets doing their bidding and making the laws and wealth of the USA to be for their benefit rather than the common man. Both Trump and Biden are on board with that.
Yes, because people answer polls honestly (Score:2)
When it comes to satisfaction surveys the default rule has become "if you don't have anything bad to say don't say anything at all" purely as a means of self-preservation of what bits of happiness you do have.
Wealth Inequality!!! (Score:2)
But the stock market! (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow people have been sold a pack of lies that the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 is the preferred measure of the economy. Nearly every TV newscast broadcasts these figures daily. After 2008 with quantitative easing and Wall Street bail outs, the stock market no longer fluctuated with the Gross Domestic Product and thus the "Jobless Recovery" was born. Another smoke and mirror figure is unemployment where bizarre rules make negative unemployment possible.
People need to wake up to the fact that cost of living, standard of living, average healthy lifespan and other quality of life measurements are what we should be using to govern our economic policy.
Until we get big money out of politics and demand that the media report the measurements that matter, our government will help people who don't need it and shit on the people at the bottom.
++StockMarket != Happiness
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The one thing I said when Trump won the electoral vote was, I hope this dipshit doesn't start a war. Well, he's managed to avoid that...
Apart from the civil war that's currently raging...
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Luckily our local leadership is trying to moderate these protests, to the best of their ability. However when it started, there were a number of groups trying to start a race war. Only to find out there were a lot of White people on the other side.
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Most of the 2nd amendment fucks couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a shotgun if their cholesterol level depended on it. Hard to shoot a gun with fatty sausage fingers. I've disarmed more of them before 7am than all the waffles they could eat all day.
+1 Troll. Regardless of the accuracy of the accusations, I am entertained.
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Apart from the civil war that's currently raging...
The Woke Left started this shit.
We're just watching to see how much of your own shit you can burn before you yell for help.
Y'all made your beds, now lie in them!
I do not know what you guys are talking about. There are peaceful protests going on with rare riots and looting - that has died down immensely because the protesters got mad at assholes distracting people. It does not help the the news LOVES showing riots and looting - especially Fox News: they love showing black people breaking the law to their old white conservative racist audience.
Now, just the other day here in Atlanta, a cop shot a black man in the back twice because he felt his life was threatened (a
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Interesting)
When Trump was elected I tried to keep optimistic.
I had different level of expectations.
My Hope: I hope he could prove me wrong, and actually really help America, sure the democrats may put up a fuss about stuff. But perhaps he could actually make a deal across party lines. Work towards his more sane goals, such as infrastructure, and strengthening US manufacturing.
My Expectation: After being exposed to the experts and the real complexity of the problems, he would settle into a standard GOP President. Where his crazy campaign promises will be just continually pushed off because of higher priority important problem.
My Worst Fear: His divisive stance, and nature to attack any one who doesn't like him. Will create a Civil War, and any natural disasters or problems would be unfairly handled.
Unfortunately Trumps presidency has fallen Slightly above my worst fear but well below my Expectations.
Starting from lying about the size of the attendance of his inauguration speech, with Alternate Facts, started out putting a sour taste in my mouth.
Moving onto "The Very Fine people on both sides"
The rounding up immigrants and putting them into concentration camps.
Closing the government because the house didn't give him money for the wall.
Creating trade war with China, which had killed our manufacturing and farming economies.
Breaking treaties that had help us keep the peace with nations like Iran.
Ignoring early COVID-19 problems when it was mostly in China.
Creating a travel block to China, well after COVID-19 has spread to the rest of the world (And still allowing US citizens to travel back to the US infected)
Sending troops (well it seems one person) to tear gas US Citizens protesters so he could trespass in front of a church with a bible (not his) holding it upside down, for a photo.
This isn't normal, this isn't right. Did I expect a pandemic no, but I expected a large scale disaster (as we tend to get those every few years) to be handled so poorly that it would kill the economy.
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Insightful)
And fuck all his supporters who will now mock me and mod me down. You're traitors to your own country and deserve to have your citizenship stripped from you and dropped off in international waters on a raft for supporting the fucker.
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Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't disagree but I would bet social isolation is the bigger culprit.
It's probably not the "isolation" that's the problem, it's more likely to be increased exposure to TV "news" channels and social media, both of which are designed to make you feel angry/depressed/inadequate so you keep on coming back for another fix.
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It's probably not the "isolation" that's the problem, it's more likely to be increased exposure to TV "news" channels and social media, both of which are designed to make you feel angry/depressed/inadequate so you keep on coming back for another fix.
Are you an introvert? I ask this as introverts legitimately can't understand what isolation does to extroverts. Also there's no increased exposure to news on account of isolation. The news and media cycle was already tuned for maximum effect at times people were already at home. We're still hearing the same stuff at the same time whether we check the news or Facebook once or twice a day, we get the same stories.
Me, I'm an introvert so I was born for social isolation. However I have a keen interest in unders
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It is true, but if you spend time listening to your governors or other state governors, during this, you can see these people standing up in the times of need, providing comfort and trying to make us resilient to this problem at hand. Giving us straight facts and numbers, clear orders on what can and can not be done.
It doesn't make us happy, but it makes us less miserable, as there is somewhere to look where there seems less chaos, and a plan to follow.
Words are powerful, people want to have a direction.
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It is my responsibility to make sure things run as well as possible. When something does go wrong, it may or may not be tied directly to past action or inaction on my part. Regardless, the bigger the problem, the more responsibility I have in making sure it gets addressed.
Excessive police violence towards black citizens is not a new problem. It existed well before Trump became president. One could argue that his "law and order" approach and very pro-police attitude has helped mainta
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:4, Insightful)
Trump had protestors gassed for a photo op and has threatened to (illegally) deploy American troops in American cities to quell protests. Even if everything you said was true (ha) then that's still fascist AF.
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A state's National Guard is not the same thing as the Army. A state governor is not the same thing as the President. Furthermore, there's several states who haven't asked for any such thing, and they're being threatened with it anyway.
Is it a matter of you not understanding the structure of the US government and military? Or is it being deliberately disingenuous? I already know what's up with the guys who modded it up - they'll be citing "State's rights" next time it becomes a convenient point for their arg
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Informative)
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Educate yourself back again. The GP's comment specifically was about a verifiable (there's LOTS of video evidence) peaceful event of people exercising their first amendment rights, and as such the Insurrection Act doesn't apply.
But I expected not less than unwavering support for Trump from you. I didn't expect a laundry list of other presidents presented as a red herring fallacy, as I thought that you were better than that. You're a disappointment today.
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What riots? How "widespread" can they be when that question needs to be asked?
What cities have democrats "burned down"?
"gullible, reactionary idiots" is something a Trump supporter would project.
Why is it "curious" that a political organization "accepts donations on its website"?
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What riots? How "widespread" can they be when that question needs to be asked?
What cities have democrats "burned down"?
You forgot "How 'widespread' can they be when Faux News tried to pass off doctored photos to 'support' those headlines?" Let's face it, if a "news" organization has to resort to lying to try to convince people about their claims, their claims must be pretty damn weak.
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:4, Insightful)
" The left accepted the 2016 election and worked with Trump instead of against."
They did, which I thought was stupid at the time. They'd meet with Trump, compromise and reach an agreement on something, and then immediately after Trump would go back on his word. They sent bills to the Senate where they died because McConnell is a corrupt tool of lobbyists. They have publicly offered to work on things like infrastructure, and Trump is too stupid and lazy to do anything about it.
"Democrat haven't been running these cities into the ground for years leading to the current state of things"
Democratic-led cities are booming and economic centers, and funnel tax welfare payments to whiny red state suburban and rural people who cry because they can't get actual professional, economically-productive people to move to their horrid little towns.
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Hey, cool story, bro!
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Carrying guns in public... Completely Constitutional.
Using those guns to protect, peace order and lawful state of society
Destroying public property during a riot.. probably a first degree misdemeanor if not felony terrorism.
Arson... that should be obvious.
Looting... again obvious.
Detruction of vehicles... are you for real?
Guess what states where people can carry guns are having these protests with LITTLE TO NO INCIDENT.
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:2)
Protestors go home or become rioters when the riots and crime starts... protesting while someone is running around chucking moktok cocktails in churches and bussiness mask you an accessory yo the crime because you are effectively acting as a distraction for the cops while people run wild.
Let me reiterate if a protest becomes unpeaceful, go home...
Crime is less likely to occur if there are a high number of peacekeepers be the officers, armed citizens, or just people i
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Communication is also a cornerstone of what police know as "the Madison Model," created by former Madison, Wisconsin, chief of police David Couper. His strategy for dealing with protesters was to send officers out to talk with demonstrators, engage, ask them why protests are made, listen to their concerns and, above all, empathize.
Not all police officers trust this model, however. Reached by text, Batts said that certain events, like fires and police retreats, “inspire” crowds. He said from his point of view, methods like the Madison model make crowds "go ballistic."
The police literally believe that our basic rights, to free speech and assembly, are violence. They are taught that normal, democratic behavior is violence, and they respond with violence to non-violent, lawful behavior.
This needs to stop. Fire any cop who thinks talking to people is violence.
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Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It doesn't help we have a moron in charge (Score:5, Informative)
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You are right, it could be worse and Bolsonaro is definitely it.
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Going from "Make America Great Again" to "It Could Be Worse" sounds exactly in line with my expectations.
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Before you go blaming Bolsonaro for this or that.. he's the first Brazilian president in decades to actually get anything positive done rather than just make noise and collect money to funnel into his pocket (which he has actually rejected repeatedly instead allocating the money to charities or public w
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Wow. That is even more supportive of a president than a Trump supporter is of Trump. I mean Trump defenders stood by him for calling the virus "just the flu" but I honestly never thought I'd see someone defend a world leader who called the virus a "fantasy".
A good response? You know when Brazil logged it's highest number of new cases? Yesterday. It's highest number of deaths (well second highest aside from one bad weekend a few weeks back), yesterday.
While even the USA and the UK with their horrendously *FU
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called the virus a "fantasy"
I can't find the actual speech, but I found conflicting reports of what he said and it does not seem like he called COVID-19 a "fantasy". I think what he was saying was the media had overblown the covid-19 and was describing their coverage as a fantasy. A big difference in meaning. Why does the news not report exactly what is said in the context of what is said? We should ask more from our news.
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What does a city's political leaning have to do with virus infections. Maybe it has more to do with population density. *gasp* By the way, can you tell me which states are still seeing a rise in their infection rates?
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/16/81670718 [npr.org]
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Versus the protests, which were sanitized by righteous zeal or something.
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Versus the protests, which were sanitized by righteous zeal or something.
Successful and impact protests throughout history have often included significant risk of death, so this isn't too different. Personally I support their message but wouldn't protest myself during a pandemic, although I understand why others come to a different decision.
Fighting for racial equality being compared to hero worship of a political demagogue is really something only a pretty sick minded person would do though.
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Cool. Just don't expect anyone to ever take Covid precautions seriously ever again. Double-standards mean no standards.
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Cool. Just don't expect anyone to ever take Covid precautions seriously ever again. Double-standards mean no standards.
That is a pretty loose definition of a double standard. There were always different standards for different activities, such as restaurants vs grocery stores. Having different standards for civil rights protests and political rallies is not a double standard. They are very different things.
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They are very different things.
There's no reason for anyone who wants to do any activity to choose to agree with this, nor to care about someone else's alternate opinion on it. Double standards are — effectively — what people decide they are, not what you agree they are.
The protests set the standard for anyone who wants a mass gathering of any kind for any reason. Saying but this time it's different doesn’t work and will never work.
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They weren't spontaneous the second and third and 5th and 10th days.
Also, go ahead and disagree with the comparison. What difference does someone disagreeing make? Anyone who wants any sort of gathering can justify it by pointing at the protests. When someone says they disagree, the gathering organizer can say so what?
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Spontaneous?
"Yes, officer. I was just standing there in the street, then BOOM we all just protested."
These "protests" were carefully planned, and you know it.
Identified the Bugaloo Boy (Score:2)
Name checks out. +1 Troll
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Sure, blame Trump for a virus.
No one is doing this. They are only blaming Trump for his response to it. It's hard to take anything you say seriously when you start your post with this statement.
The US is doing much better than many other countries if you look at the number of deaths per million population.
The US is also doing worse than about 95% of all countries in the world though (by your metric). Both political sides can make excuses for why the numbers are better or worse than they seem, but you really shouldn't be using statistics like deaths per million to make your case for Trump's response to the virus (unless you are highlighting his inc
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Also you realize the testing resource were ramped drastically in the USA and this lead to tests being completely inaccurate and frequently contaminated..... people say oh this country or that did X tests per capita... well yeah but they far fewer *total* tests. Ramping from to hundreds of thousands of tests to tens of millions of tests is a massive difference in scale.
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Except the EU27 as a whole has far fewer deaths per capita than the USA, despite having higher population density and an older population. And the worst hit EU country has far fewer deaths per capita than the four worst hit US states, despite counting everyone who has coughed before dying, so think again carefully before running your mouth.
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Okay, but by that logic we should discount the worst hit areas of the EU as well and then the USA will suck again in comparison. And unlike the actual fascist USA the EU is a confederation so the EU government has far less to say in the matters of its member states than your federal government.
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What? This is the kind of posting that gets modded up on Slashdot now?
Yeesh