recession?

[Bonasababy]

I heard someone say that the stupidity of MAGA is not a flaw, it's a feature. I thought that summed it up pretty well.

It's no coincidence they want to abolish the Dep. of Education. Knowledge and accurate information is a threat to their agenda.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

I heard someone say that the stupidity of MAGA is not a flaw, it's a feature. I thought that summed it up pretty well.

I heard someone say if you voted for Kamala your just stupid.

Now I don't believe that, but do you see how your post could cause dumbassery to follow rapidly. Your post and the one directly above this one are exactly what Randy was talking about. They hold no value.

It's an opinion that should be kept to yourself or atleast off of HT.

 

[SAJ-99]

I heard someone say if you voted for Kamala your just stupid.

Now I don't believe that, but do you see how your post could cause dumbassery to follow rapidly. Your post and the one directly above this one are exactly what Randy was talking about. They hold no value.

It's an opinion that should be kept to yourself or atleast off of HT.

You were quick to oblige with a post also of no value, but that definition.

 

[Hilljackoutlaw]

You were quick to oblige with a post also of no value, but that definition.

Can't stop won't stop.
The lesson went right over your head because your so engulfed in the nonsense.

 

[Beignet]

I heard someone say that the stupidity of MAGA is not a flaw, it's a feature. I thought that summed it up pretty well.

To be fair, as a sort a rational, radical centrist, small d democrat: I do have a particular distaste for the acceptance of cultish lunacy by the MAGA folks, but also have a lot of animosity toward the poor critical thinking skills of some very progressive people I’ve met in places like NYC & DC, (or even here in Missoula), who also see the world without much nuance or pragmatism. Though the latter has never truly wielded the kind of power in this country that the prior currently does (despite whatever people thought about Biden or Obama, they weren’t very far left). In that sense, they’ve been far less dangerous to the republic, and are probably politically neutered at this juncture in time anyhow.

Ascribing the horseshoe theory, the far left and far right are probably closer to one another than they’d like to admit. Both, in my opinion, are cabals of philistines. If I’m being more sympathetic, then I guess they’re just folks perplexed by the chaos of human existence and the complexity of the systems we’ve created. All desperately seeking simple heuristic short cuts to provide meaning and what they perceive to be just solutions to things that don’t readily lend themselves to simple explanations and just solutions.

 

[noharleyyet]

Are you sure you live in Montanya? @Beignet

Heu·ris·tic
/hyo͝oˈristik/

adjective

• 1.enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves:"a “hands-on” or interactive heuristic approach to learning"

 

[Beignet]

Are you sure you live in Montanya? @Beignet

Heu·ris·tic
/hyo͝oˈristik/
View attachment 363966
adjective

• 1.enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves:"a “hands-on” or interactive heuristic approach to learning"

Or: “Of or relating to a usually speculative formulation serving as a guide in the investigation or solution of a problem.”

Avoiding heuristic biases was a big deal part of an international security analysis course I had to take aeons ago.

 

[Beignet]

Are you sure you live in Montanya? @Beignet

And yeah, man. Missoula might be full of hippies and homeless or whatever they say, but it’s still the intellectual cultural hub of the state. Local indie theater even occasionally shows movies with subtitles.

 

[BigHornRam]

China's economic out look troubled.

China orders banks to boost lending, credit card use to get consumers to spend more

China has ordered banks and other financial institutions to encourage more consumer financing and use of credit cards as part of a campaign to get people to spend more.

apnews.com

 

[BigHornRam]

Unexpected decline in Great Britain's economy.

UK economy shrank unexpectedly by 0.1% in January - BBC News

A slowdown in manufacturing was one of the main reasons for the dip, the Office for National Statistics says.

www.bbc.co.uk

"With tax rises coming into force in April, concerns remain that economic growth will remain sluggish for some time."

 

[SaskHunter]

To be fair, as a sort a rational, radical centrist, small d democrat: I do have a particular distaste for the acceptance of cultish lunacy by the MAGA folks, but also have a lot of animosity toward the poor critical thinking skills of some very progressive people I’ve met in places like NYC & DC, (or even here in Missoula), who also see the world without much nuance or pragmatism. Though the latter has never truly wielded the kind of power in this country that the prior currently does (despite whatever people thought about Biden or Obama, they weren’t very far left). In that sense, they’ve been far less dangerous to the republic, and are probably politically neutered at this juncture in time anyhow.

Ascribing the horseshoe theory, the far left and far right are probably closer to one another than they’d like to admit. Both, in my opinion, are cabals of philistines. If I’m being more sympathetic, then I guess they’re just folks perplexed by the chaos of human existence and the complexity of the systems we’ve created. All desperately seeking simple heuristic short cuts to provide meaning and what they perceive to be just solutions to things that don’t readily lend themselves to simple explanations and just solutions.

Political tribalism is the absolute worst. The "Party lines" shouldn't be more important than your constituents. Chances are, a Republican in rural America is pretty different than an urban one.

A good example of this in Canada is our current political state of affairs, our Conservatives are somewhat like your Republicans, and Liberals like the Democrats. The Liberal party as a whole, likes gun laws which is somewhat in line with their Eastern urban constituents. That being said, we have Liberal Members of Parliament who represent people in the Northern Territories where firearms are 100% part of life. Problem is, when the rural Liberal Member of Parliament goes completely against their constituents who depend on those firearms to live, and touts the party line of "guns bad" instead, completely f'n over the people they were elected to serve.

I wish people could just chill and agree to disagree. The more either side gets offended by the other, the easier it becomes to normalize crazy stances and policies.

 

[Treeshark]

I wish people could just chill and agree to disagree. The more either side gets offended by the other, the easier it becomes to normalize crazy stances and policies.

So true.

 

[SAJ-99]

To be fair, as a sort a rational, radical centrist, small d democrat: I do have a particular distaste for the acceptance of cultish lunacy by the MAGA folks, but also have a lot of animosity toward the poor critical thinking skills of some very progressive people I’ve met in places like NYC & DC, (or even here in Missoula), who also see the world without much nuance or pragmatism. Though the latter has never truly wielded the kind of power in this country that the prior currently does (despite whatever people thought about Biden or Obama, they weren’t very far left). In that sense, they’ve been far less dangerous to the republic, and are probably politically neutered at this juncture in time anyhow.

Ascribing the horseshoe theory, the far left and far right are probably closer to one another than they’d like to admit. Both, in my opinion, are cabals of philistines. If I’m being more sympathetic, then I guess they’re just folks perplexed by the chaos of human existence and the complexity of the systems we’ve created. All desperately seeking simple heuristic short cuts to provide meaning and what they perceive to be just solutions to things that don’t readily lend themselves to simple explanations and just solutions.

We are on the same page. I can tell who on HT is reasonable regardless of political choices. I like to debate ideas. Even if I might not agree, a good debate is always interesting. There is no debate now. Facts are meaningless and we see the direct effort to eliminate facts that don't fit the story being sold. We are at a point where if the Admin can't square the circle they just call it a square, and half the population is like "calm down, let's see if it really is a square" or "the guy on Joe Rogan said it was a square". Ironically, all this happens at a time when anyone with an internet connection and a little time can learn anything they want about how stuff actually works, or how much stuff comes from a certain place, or just about anything. I have a feeling that won't last much longer.

 

[Bonasababy]

Political tribalism is the absolute worst. The "Party lines" shouldn't be more important than your constituents. Chances are, a Republican in rural America is pretty different than an urban one.

A good example of this in Canada is our current political state of affairs, our Conservatives are somewhat like your Republicans, and Liberals like the Democrats. The Liberal party as a whole, likes gun laws which is somewhat in line with their Eastern urban constituents. That being said, we have Liberal Members of Parliament who represent people in the Northern Territories where firearms are 100% part of life. Problem is, when the rural Liberal Member of Parliament goes completely against their constituents who depend on those firearms to live, and touts the party line of "guns bad" instead, completely f'n over the people they were elected to serve.

I wish people could just chill and agree to disagree. The more either side gets offended by the other, the easier it becomes to normalize crazy stances and policies.

Yep. We see an awful lot of the reverse on guns here--most all rural dems support them and have no intention of getting rid of them, but the popular and effective stance the right takes is that all of them will work to ban guns for all uses.

Used to be term called "blue dog" for some democrats. They were in many ways aligned with rural more conservative interests. Many were STRONG supporters of hunting and conservation. They bucked their own party routinely on issues that mattered to their constituents. They were key to getting agreement on many policy bills and changes and thus their presence brought a lot of power to rural interests, hunters interests, and conservation interests.

Now in many places those blue dogs have been replaced by far right aligned republicans who do a lot more bowing to the party platform and special interests than representing their constituents. But hey as long as they aren't taking away our guns....

 

[SaskHunter]

I'm not well enough informed to 100% claim "more hunting opportunities". It is also a subjective way to look at it rather than objective or factual.

Subjectively, I could say that a place like Canada matches up to the US in hunting opportunities. A lot of the same species that can be hunted here are also hunted there. The process of a resident owning hunting equipment and getting a license is also very similar and easy based on what we have seen and experienced from @Sask hunter and @SaskHunter along with many others. However, that isn't a very objective claim.

If I wanted to be objective, I could easily point out that New Zealand crushes the US in "more hunting opportunities". I can make this statement (its not opinion) because of the fact that in New Zealand, any person (not just residents) can take wildlife without seasons or permits.

Canada is huge with low population density. I can OTC hunt two black bears, one either-sex elk, one either-sex moose, one either-sex whitetail, one antlerless whitetail, one archery either-sex mule deer, two wolves and apply for a multitude of draws and easy to obtain quota antlerless tags yearly, in Saskatchewan alone. I can also pretty much trap or shoot any other small game, waterfowl or upland game birds. We're a pretty outdoorsy family, there are more lakes to fish or mountains to hike, within a 7 hour radius, that I could ever even dream to visit once.

Some Provinces and Territories have caribou, cougars, muskox, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, dall sheep, grizzlies, polar bears, walruses, seals, etc, that can all be hunted by residents and non-residents with exceptions.

Life here is pretty easy going. No need for health insurance, education is cheap, good schools, good job market, good people, etc. Do we have our own problems? Of course we do! I've travelled to well over 30 countries and I honestly think Canada and the US are #1 and 2 for my way of life. I was born here and I have zero interest in leaving this country, but if I absolutely had to leave my home Province, I would likely move to the Yukon, Northwest Territories or Alberta. If I had to choose another country, it would likely be the US based on outdoor opportunities, but if I were a city guy, I would look elsewhere for sure.

I feel a lot of Americans have blinders on and strongly believe the US is the best country at everything and everywhere else are communist sh*tholes...

 

[SaskHunter]

We are on the same page. I can tell who on HT is reasonable regardless of political choices.

Dang, if you go off of my HT persona, I'm f&cked!!!

 

[Beignet]

Political tribalism is the absolute worst. The "Party lines" shouldn't be more important than your constituents. Chances are, a Republican in rural America is pretty different than an urban one.

A good example of this in Canada is our current political state of affairs, our Conservatives are somewhat like your Republicans, and Liberals like the Democrats. The Liberal party as a whole, likes gun laws which is somewhat in line with their Eastern urban constituents. That being said, we have Liberal Members of Parliament who represent people in the Northern Territories where firearms are 100% part of life. Problem is, when the rural Liberal Member of Parliament goes completely against their constituents who depend on those firearms to live, and touts the party line of "guns bad" instead, completely f'n over the people they were elected to serve.

I wish people could just chill and agree to disagree. The more either side gets offended by the other, the easier it becomes to normalize crazy stances and policies.

More and more I wish the US had more of a Euro style system with multiple parties that have to form coalitions to govern. Those governments typically have a ton of compromise and have to govern from the center. I believe that represents common constituent interests better than our two party system.

I can tell you a ton about things like the civil war in Congo or Egypt's relations with the IMF, but am ashamed to admit that I don’t know a ton about Canadian politics beyond that you've got a (predominately) two party system with similar problems to our own. I mean, I know a bit more than that in terms of current affairs, but that's beyond the scope of my comment. In your House of Commons who do the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois tend to align with? Those two, with the Greens, and Independents, account for 62 of the 338 seats, which ain't nothing. (I just looked those numbers up on Wikipedia and am not sharp enough to have pulled them out of my behind)

As to the guns & party line issue, see John Tester. I think he delivered a lot of good for the people of Montana and worked hard for us on issues related to the kind of recreation we discuss on this forum. But, he was a member of the party that holds positions that are anathema to a lot of Montanans, even if he didn't hold them himself. In an ideal world he would've been a member of a more pragmatic center-left party that wasn't associated with things like gun-control proposals.

 

[Beignet]

We are on the same page. I can tell who on HT is reasonable regardless of political choices. I like to debate ideas. Even if I might not agree, a good debate is always interesting. There is no debate now. Facts are meaningless and we see the direct effort to eliminate facts that don't fit the story being sold. We are at a point where if the Admin can't square the circle they just call it a square, and half the population is like "calm down, let's see if it really is a square" or "the guy on Joe Rogan said it was a square". Ironically, all this happens at a time when anyone with an internet connection and a little time can learn anything they want about how stuff actually works, or how much stuff comes from a certain place, or just about anything. I have a feeling that won't last much longer.

That's the double edged sword of the contemporary internet, huh. There is an unlimited amount of information out there, and things like AI present an exciting new frontier of how we can query and process this information. At the same time, anyone is free to make things up as they wish and have it become known as fact, but few use the rest of the internet to check veracity. I sometimes wonder if the whole experiment has been a failure and we (meaning humanity) was better off in an era of peer-reviewed information gatekeeping? That's a simplistic thesis, but there have been some serious societal negatives to the digital age.

 

[SaskHunter]

I can tell you a ton about things like the civil war in Congo or Egypt's relations with the IMF, but am ashamed to admit that I don’t know a ton about Canadian politics beyond that you've got a (predominately) two party system with similar problems to our own. I mean, I know a bit more than that in terms of current affairs, but that's beyond the scope of my comment. In your House of Commons who do the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois tend to align with? Those two, with the Greens, and Independents, account for 62 of the 338 seats, which ain't nothing. (I just looked those numbers up on Wikipedia and am not sharp enough to have pulled them out of my behind)

We're not really a two party system, we have four main parties that hold significant power. The New Democrats (NDP) became the official opposition from 2011 to 2015, with the Conservatives in power and Liberals far far behind. We have what we call majority and minority governments. A majority government happens when a political party holds the majority of seats/elected members of parliament and cannot be defeated with a vote of non-confidence. A minority government happens when a party is elected with the most seats in parliament, but when the majority of seats are held by other parties, therefore the minority government in power must remain somewhat neutral or form a coalition to rule. Right now the LPC holds 160, CPC 119, Bloc 32, NDP 24 and Greens 2 seats.

Currently, the Liberal Party (LPC) has a coalition government with the NDP, meaning that as long as the LPC passes policies that the NPD agrees on, they will continue to hold the majority of power together. What ends up happening is that if the LPC or Conservatives (CPC) have a minority government, they must work with one or more parties to maintain their rule, meaning that parties like the NDP or Bloc Quebecois (who would never get a majority government), end up having legislations passed thru coalition efforts.

Essentially, parties have to work together to make things work when we have a minority government. No one wants to have repeated elections unless there's a good reason and any "non-confidence" vote would trigger an election (meaning a majority of members of parliament vote "No" on any item brought to Parliament). The both the LPC and CPC have worked with the Bloc or NDP in the past.

Edit: We also don't have a cult-like following of Prime Minister candidates like we see South of the border. Our Prime Ministers are the leaders of their respective parties, when their parties are elected to power. Our head of state, or "President" if you will, is King Charles III, represented by the Governor General (unelected official) who essentially signs off on stuff that Parliament and the Senate have voted on. We do not have a single entity or person, who can make drastic decisions in Canada. The King and Governor General have absolutely no powers here in Canada, they act on request of the government. While the King technically owns everything, he can't do shyte.

 

[406dn]

We're not really a two party system, we have four main parties that hold significant power. The New Democrats (NDP) became the official opposition from 2011 to 2015, with the Conservatives in power and Liberals far far behind. We have what we call majority and minority governments. A majority government happens when a political party holds the majority of seats/elected members of parliament and cannot be defeated with a vote of non-confidence. A minority government happens when a party is elected with the most seats in parliament, but when the majority of seats are held by other parties, therefore the minority government in power must remain somewhat neutral or form a coalition to rule.

Currently, the Liberal Party (LPC) has a coalition government with the NDP, meaning that as long as the LPC passes policies that the NPD agrees on, they will continue to hold the majority of power together. What ends up happening is that if the LPC or Conservatives (CPC) have a minority government, they must work with one or more parties to maintain their rule, meaning that parties like the NDP or Bloc Quebecois (who would never get a majority government), end up having legislations passed thru coalition efforts.

Essentially, parties have to work together to make things work when we have a minority government. No one wants to have repeated elections unless there's a good reason and any "non-confidence" vote would trigger an election (meaning a majority of members of parliament vote "No" on any item brought to Parliament). The both the LPC and CPC have worked with the Bloc or NDP in the past.

imo, there is a lot to like about a parliamentary form of government.

Our constitution selects for stalemate fairly often. That and one house of Congress is wildly unrepresentative. It gives disproportionate power to rural states.