I'm just gonna drop in and say that I thought things were bad when Ronald Reagan was Prez.
It's nice to hear you say that.... practically everyone my parents' age and older seems to love Reagan and think he was a great president, but that guy was a disaster. He aid the groundwork for so much of what has gone wrong since, and the erosion of the middle class. People loved him because he was funny and charismatic and a Hollywood actor, and because he presided over the period of time in their lives where they had the highest quality of life, but he inherited that, and his policies eroded the ground beneath that foundation.
Yeah it's obviously corrupt that we don't need ID to vote in a lot of places, I mean c'mon
I agree, actually. Having to show that you're a US citizen to vote in a US election is pretty common sense. The Repubs have done some pretty sketchy stuff re: election access - disallowing registration on the same day as voting (sure, ideally people are engaged enough to register beforehand, but the reality is many young people especially are not, and if you can prove you're a citizen you should be able to vote even if you didn't register beforehand), making it illegal to hand out food and water to people waiting in line (like... why? I can only interpret this as an attempt to make people who show up and are unprepared for the wait more likely to want to just say fuck it and leave; you should be encouraging every citizen to vote, if anything, bring people to hand out food and water, but at minimum, don't prevent other people from trying to help make the wait more bearable), and let's not forget gerrymandering, which both sides do actually, which is just outright manipulation - but requiring to prove you're actually a citizen is entirely reasonable and actually quite desirable, I would think, given the level of mistrust of the system there is these days.
I think there is a valid point that some small minority of people might find things difficult, I don't know, maybe because of a language barrier or something, but the correct approach is to have organizations to offer help to people in this group, not to say "well, let's just make it so you don't need to prove you're who you say you are". This is one area in which I think the left ha made a huge mistake, because it really inflames the sense of mistrust among the people who already feel mistrust. I mean, hell, thinking about it now, I can't help but stop and think about how much of an opening a lack of ID requirement gives, should one desire an opening. If I'm being honest.
I believe every US citizen should be able to vote, and that they should feel empowered to vote and that nobody should be making it more difficult for them to vote. But showing an ID is really not an inappropriate requirement at all, and it would go a long way towards helping to repair trust in the system if they'd just say "yeah, the one requirement is that you need to be able to prove that you're actually the person you say you are".
We have no pro environmental party, but we have one that’s all in on the green grift. The amount of pollution and human suffering it has and will cause is jaw dropping. All for more power and to make more money off of the backs of the middle and lower classes. Anyone that thinks electric vehicles are a good alternative is either not well read or plain indoctrinated.
I agree that the lithium/etc mining is alarmingly bad. But I'm holding out hope that battery technology will continue to evolve and we'll have a breakthrough where batteries will be able to be sustainably produced. I think it's pretty likely to be possible, but we need to keep pushing into learning in that area. Imagine a world where batteries for cars could be produced without destroying ecosystems to mine finite minerals, and the electric grid was supplied by nuclear (fission or hopefully, fusion when we get there). And, of course, by that point the infrastructure would be in place to be able to charge your car within 10-15 minutes everywhere. That's the future I want. I admit there are some assumptions being made that that is even possible, but it's a fact that oil is finite - it WILL run out at some point. Disregarding every aspect of the debate around whether or not carbon emissions matter and whether or not pollution matters, when you get down to brass tacks, oil is not infinite. Even if it lasts 100 years, or 200 years, or 500 years, it will run out eventually, and we will need some other source of power for transportation. It is only sensible to keep working on making electric vehicle technology better... what other choice will we have when the oil runs out?
The lithium/etc mining is a destructive side effect that many people gloss over, for sure. I just don't think that it will always be necessary. Or at least, I hope it won't.
The Democratic Party is a golden standard for if you say something enough times it’s becomes true, sickening
I mean... that's both sides, man. Trump perfected the art of repeating a thing over and over until people believe it, he was the first to land a quad in that area. But they're all lying, for sure. I think it's disingenuous to try to make it out like the Democrats are somehow worse with this, though.