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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Well, their interpretation is at odds with reality, and they should reconcile that. Regardless of what they told or what they believed, they paid into a system where they were forced to subsidize current recipients, while the system itself could be revoked at any point, leaving them high and dry, and not running into 14th Amendment issues or anything like that. See Flemming v. Nestor, 1960 - quoting Wiki:

    Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603 (1960), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of Section 1104 of the 1935 Social Security Act. In this Section, Congress reserved to itself the power to amend and revise the schedule of benefits. The Court rejected that Social Security is a system of ‘accrued property rights’ and held that those who pay into the system have no contractual right to receive what they have paid into it.[1]

    Note that I’m not saying anything “should” be one way or another, besides that people should be fully aware how the current system works in law.


  • Social Security’s “trust fund” is an empty pit of debt obligations. Benefits to current recipients are paid with incoming payroll taxes. Any difference is made up with additional taxes or monetary inflation, by way of Treasury bonds. They “reinvest it in the economy” if there’s ever a surplus, e.g., through military contractors. It finances the national debt.

    Putting aside the quirks of that setup, the basic function is that the taxes you pay in now are not an investment in your own future, you’re basically just paying for the retirement of older people now. The expectation is that someone down the road will then pay taxes to finance your retirement. Hence, how SS was able to start paying benefits almost immediately (3 years) after payroll taxes started being collected.


  • What is your prediction for what will become of it, though. GDP growth stops and people start bursting into flames? You know we’ve actually observed this before, right?

    Now, if you do mean “capitalism” not in the plain definition of “an economy based around private ownership”, but the more specific version where control of capital is highly centralized - there’s some truth to the idea that economic decline can cause people to start looking to reform that system. True of any system, really, because people generally don’t want to see their quality of life decrease. But that’s very different than an economic system “requiring” it to function.







  • Your statement is a logical contradiction. The Iron Dome does not activate when the projected path of the rocket does not appear to target civilians

    It does, actually, it performs a triage when it can’t handle a large number of simultaneous projectiles, and of COURSE it’s designed to intercept missiles sent to military targets. What a bizarre claim. You are flat out making things up to support your argument, for god knows what reason.

    Y’all were doing so well being sympathetic

    I’m not Palestinian. I’m an impartial observer of what’s happening, just one who cares more than most of you, enough to sort through disinformation…

    subject of your vote for Trump

    Just flat out lying now. I’m done here.



  • It is in fact not invalid. Hamas’s rockets have been untargeted with next to zero actual civilian casualties, the purpose is to financially exhaust the “Iron Dome” system. And it’s completely dishonest to frame it as “starting” a war, when the Occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza, are under “Israeli” occupation per the definitions under international law (don’t give me that “they took out their settlements in 2005” crap either).


  • The point of the original comparison was to draw attention to how you’re equating the militant groups involved with Oct. 7 (Hamas, PIJ) with the ENTIRE Palestinian people, which includes not only people under Hamas rule, in the West Bank, and in the international Palestinian diaspora. Was that not clear? The genocidal demonization of an ETHNIC GROUP based on cherry-picked incidents was the problematic thinking I was drawing attention to. The analogy does also apply in general to militant uprisings by an oppressed people against their oppressors, with the caveats that I already mentioned.

    You tried to rationalize Gaza as a ghetto being invaded by the SS and that’s why they had to attack civilians and take civilian hostages on Oct 7th.

    I very literally not did say that, and made a point to say attacking civilians is illegal under international law. I REALLY dislike people inferring things from my comments that are not there.


  • For obvious reasons, I don’t have transcripts of secret diplomatic meetings.

    OK, so in other words, no proof except the say-so of the involved parties. Which demonstrably was not enough to stop Rafah from being flattened.

    Yes, because the civilians had more time to leave because of US pressure.

    Also known as “ethnic cleansing”. You’re aware the civilians did not want to leave?

    The ICJ ordered Israel to take measures that ensure there won’t be a genocide.

    And they didn’t. They didn’t even hand in the mandated report after… 1 month? That was a year ago now.

    It’s a brutal war in in a dense urban environment against a deeply entrenched enemy hiding behind civilians.

    We really arguing the Zionist talking points now? This how far this site has sunk?

    “Human shields” argument also completely unsubstantiated, and visibly used as an excuse to demolish all civilian infrastructure. ~40k Hamas fighters, Hamas not even removed from power, after 1.5 years where hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed and the entire Gaza Strip has been completely flattened. And hundreds of openly genocidal statements from “Israeli” politicians, no less! My god, to actually fucking ignore those.

    I’m not responding to this guy again. Assuming he’s gonna keep going. What he’s posting is literal genocidal incitement.




  • US diplomatic pressure delayed the Rafah offensive by several weeks. And there were many other things as well.

    First - provide any real proof of this.

    Second - Rafah is completely destroyed. Biden administration described it as a “red line” along with the weasel words “major operation”, and then walked it back after it was completely destroyed, saying the “red line” had not been crossed, despite Rafah having been completely destroyed. With the bombs they provided.

    The U.S. is a military superpower. “Israel” is not. Actual diplomatic pressure applied would have ended the genocide - period. Your comment just screams to me how little research you’ve done on the genocide.


  • It’s the international consensus that Palestine is under military occupation from “Israel”. Military action against occupation is an enshrined right under international law. The exception of course is attacks against civilians - which are not considered legal, hence the ICC arrest warrants being for both Netanyahu/Gallant, and Hamas leaders - but also which didn’t solely characterize the actions on Oct. 7. That is the actual, nuance, objective description of Oct. 7. No analogy is perfect. The Jewish militants in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were likely signficantly more targeted against Nazi soldiers and paramilitaries, but at the same time, they also hadn’t been stuck in the Warsaw Ghetto for a staggering 56 years, under a choking blockade since 2006.