Let me give you a related example that should shed light on their stubbornness…

If someone gets in an accident and hits their head, they might have a concussion. How can you tell? Basic first responder training says to ask several questions. What we don’t ask is, “Are you OK?” because the patient will say “yes” even when they aren’t OK. It’s answers to the other questions that give us enough information to get a sense of whether our help is needed.

It’s quite possible that some social workers are acting in a similar fashion to first responders here. They want the details because their checklist is longer than yours. (There are other reasons that social workers might be annoying, as others have explained, too.)

That doesn’t negate your frustration, but maybe it helps you understand one cause.

Can you explain what you felt was harsh?

You still have spending wars. Politicians are bought and sold every day, and any large company probably donates to politicians of multiple parties.

I don’t see the problem originating from Congress necessarily being polarized. I think the problem is that corporate and big money interests are too strong, and they fund politicians that will try to divide the people on social issues so that they can distract the people from badness happening on the economic front. In other words, I think we’re seeing a problem with corruption that’s expressing itself as polarization.

Even the term “polarization” can also be used as a trap, because it tends to be used in a way that frames politics as a linear spectrum, and your views are somewhere between these two end points. In reality everything is far more complicated. People have highly nuanced views on many different subjects with good reason, and there’s no way you can easily capture it on one single sliding scale.

You’re blaming people for being strongly anti-genocide. That’s basically absurd at face value. If you wanna argue against being a single issue voter, that’s a conversation to have. However, “I oppose genocide.” is kinda the single best single issue to rely on, if someone is inclined to be one.

All the while, Harris knows the risks. Don’t blame voters for Harris’s conscious choice. If you alienate your base, you deserve to lose your base. Deal with it… I think she still has the votes, but that is the risk for every candidate, and it always will be.

Nothing. Discovered mine long before.

Diversity, my friend. What will you do if the 401k doesn’t come through like you want? Bear in mind that the ultra rich and the big banks employ people who are really good at investing money. They have more experience and information than you. They’ll bail themselves, but not you, out in case of disaster.

“Show me the money” is not a good motto for long term savings. Inflation or poor investment can make that money disappear easily enough. Of course you don’t want to get scammed, so oversight is a good idea.

Not quite tho. He has lost in court several times. Paid for it. Forced to be there when the judge ordered it. And we shall see what happens in a few months.

But anyway, it’s no secret that the ultra rich don’t need to obey the law. That’s old news, sad to say.

I know. And many of the comments are coming from the US, so I’m trying to help American readers see what US law would dictate in a similar situation, because they might have instincts that are inconsistent with US law.

Many companies love undocumented workers. Easy to abuse, underpay, overwork. So of course they hate it when those workers can easily get documented or citizenship. Following the law is such an annoyance. Cuts into the profit margin. That is why big business and the nationalists often work together.

The nationalists kinda know they’re getting played to generate corporate profits, but they also enjoy having a target to look down on.

In the US, the 4th Amendment says that’s unconstitutional. Fortunately. Too many dirty pigs out there.

In the US, the cops need RAS to handcuff you. The standard was never and is not “until they know what’s going on”. And RAS depends on the current cop knowledge. Even if they had legal grounds to break into your place, what they see in the next ten seconds is still relevant. For example, if someone said you attacked them with a knife, when the cops see no victim, knife, or blood, their legal authority ceases.

Of course it’s all highly dependent on specific details.

(On traffic stops, often they already have RAS. That’s why they pulled you over. So don’t be fooled by other comments about that topic.)

In the US, property records are public records. Easy to find someone’s address online if you know their full name and the county they own property in.

Go try it!

The legal standard in the U.S. is if there’s exigent circumstances. Detailed 911 calls are typically sufficient to meet that standard. Not always.

Right now, we cannot tell if the officers did anything unlawful. Need the call recording or call logs, plus the body cameras.

(I think the exigent circumstances standard is BS, easily abused, but that is the current law of the land.)

I agree that the 24-hour news cycle is pretty horrendous and leads to a lot of unneeded political badness. At the same time, going back to the old style of political news is also a mistake. Hell, it let Nixon get reelected.

Rather than either of those options, it’s important for people to realize that they are actively consuming the news, and one way to protect themselves from being manipulated is to consume the news in different ways and from different sources. It’s surprisingly easy to do that these days, if you have a couple of different social media accounts or use an RSS reader, for example. Of course there are many other ways. It is our own personal responsibility to be active and aware enough to avoid getting manipulated in predictable ways.

There is no answer for that kind of question, is there? It all depends what you want and what you like.

Let me give you an example. I have a very cheap small Nissan. It has zero features. Well, it has A/C and power windows, which were considered “features” half a century ago. It doesn’t look stylish, but you could say that it’s cute if you’re feeling sympathetic. It’s flimsy enough that you wouldn’t want to wreck in it. It has great gas mileage, and it fits my needs perfectly.

But is this car good for you? Probably not, because you have different needs. A small car with no safety features would be terrible for a large family. Do you need cruise control for your long commune? If so, you don’t want my car. Do you drive in snowy mountains? This isn’t the vehicle for that. What is “stylish” to you? Do you mean “cute” or “strong” or “smooth” or “futuristic”, or something else?

Nissan makes all kinds of cars. Even if the above car sound suitable or unsuitable for you, that wouldn’t give you much information about the Nissan lineup as a whole. They make all kinds of cars with all kinds of characteristics.

In other words, if you can provide more details of your situation (within reason, of course), that would be helpful. Have fun shopping!

My company will let me purchase software, but it won’t let me donate to FOSS. Budgeting says it’s “unnecessary”. So screwed up. (A tiny amount money on my end, but still, it would be nice to help out a little.)

Maybe you’re confused because the etymology is not clear to you. I see the term “wedding ring” and I think it denotes that person A and person B are being wed to each other. Joined to each other. The ring symbolizes that joining. In other words, I don’t think the ring is named after the event. I think both the ring and the event are named after the verb. In which case it’s a very normal name.

Another interesting point is that in some cultures it’s quite common for people to get married months or years before they have a wedding. They can go to City Hall and get married, and then later when they have time and money they can schedule their wedding celebration party. If that’s the case, then the ring that you use for the first time at your wedding might be reasonably called the “wedding ring”.

It’s curious that you claim privacy and anonymity are clearly differentiable but didn’t bother to define either of them. Is your claim accurate? We have no idea, because we don’t know what you’re talking about.

George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, and Corey Doctorow already covered the basics, and two of those authors did so decades ago. Why are you asking this question now? What is it that you want to hear that they didn’t already say? Or are you asking us whether we’ve read those authors?

You’re the one who brought in a personal political view, and basic history realize your claim, which is why you didn’t actually cite any.

I mean, what’s a good example of cancer culture? If some white guy says something horribly racist, and then he loses an election, he complains about cancel culture. But that’s a good thing, because we don’t want racist bastards in office. Of course he doesn’t see it that way. So he looks for some new term to describe the phenomenon, some way to make himself a victim.

The term itself was created by right wing people who decided to deploy it against those they didn’t favor, as an excuse to justify their own bigotry, but the idea of public shaming and goes back centuries if not millennia. Quite naturally, the establishment has a strong interest in public shaming if it will keep them around longer.