TakeYouToTasker

Power has been largely restored, and clean water is no longer a major issue, which in an of itself is very impressive given a near zero percent access rate with almost 100% of all infrastructure destroyed only 2 1/2 months ago. In addition to that achievement, the Federal response has included directing nearly 1b in personal aid to individual victims through FEMA, and restoring the decimated ports allowing the rebuild to begin. To give you some idea of the scope of the project, a close friend of mine was a project manager with Gilbane when the Jersey shore was devastated a few years ago. The logistics weren't anywhere near as challenging as attempting to deliver aid to a island with no ports and no other access, and the rebuild took years. What, exactly, is your expectation?

I don't think that's an extreme position at all. Downright sane actually.

Hence their calls to criminalize/pathologize things that run counter to their belief system. If they can manage that, they don't have to worry about "electoral consequences" of vesting the executive with unlimited power, because the people being trod upon will always be those they oppose ideologically. Hence the abject horror they feel when faced with the Trump Presidency: they spent eight years working to vest the Office with fiat powers with the expectation of a Clinton coronation granting them another eight years of the same, and changing demographics and an acceptance of normalcy making it a permanent state of affairs. When President Trump won they found themselves faced with the unthinkable: someone who didn't necessarily agree with them vested with all the powers they intended to hand to Hillary Clinton. The rub is that they don't believe the vesting of powers is a wrong. They are supporters of a benevolent leftist monarchy with no interest in limited government. They are pro-dictatorship as long as the dictatorship views them favorably, which is why they view President Trump as dangerous. We're well past the point for a simple "lack of optimism". We're at a point in our history where there is significant disagreement not simply about the proper role of government in our lives and the policies there of, but about self-determination and republican principals of governance themselves, and whether or not we should live under a functional monarchy.

Alternative thread title: "Hey everyone, I have another terrible opinion I'd like to share with you ."

You contend that a majority of the more than 80% of the country's tax-payers receiving a reduction in tax liability are going to be so angry about having less of their own earnings confiscated by the government that they'll demand a government that takes more from them?

I believe in the right to self-determination and governance, and subscribe to the philosophy that a just government exists solely to protect the rights, laws, property, and culture of a people, and any actions working contrary to those objectives is unjust. To those ends the best government is the government most local to the people, as that is the government most easily influence by the people it proposes to govern. With that in mind, I do not recognize the United Nations as a body that has just authority, as it presupposes that different cultures with different values should have a role in deciding how Americans should be governed and participate in the world. I find these presuppositions to be especially egregious when made by nations largely dependent on the United States and our interests for their economic and military security, who then voice their opposition to those same interests. Nations who do not support us in the exercise of the pursuit of our interests should not enjoy the rewards of those interests.

The United States should not be carrying the financial burden for countries who oppose US interests. They need the United States, the United States does not need them.

You are confusing "war" with "battle".

This is just about the dumbest analogy I've ever seen on multiple levels. It: - conflates nations or quasi-nations making war with individual domestic disputes - assumes that women should not be held responsible for physical assault - excuses the bad behavior of a quasi-state making war against it's neighbor because it is smaller - places the burden of the smaller actor's bad behavior on the nation state it is attacking Again, crush the Palestinians, and demand either total surrender or complete annihilation.

Occupation is immoral. It squanders the lives and treasure of your people. If you must make war, make total war, and end the violence as quickly as possible.

Not genocide, total war. You make total war against an aggressor, and you stop with their complete surrender to your terms. The extermination of a people is not the goal. The end of their aggression toward you is the goal. You just keep killing until it stops. If they refuse to end their aggression and run out people for you to kill as the result, that's their problem. Or it used to be. When they're gone they're no one's problem anymore.

Again, the Palestinian's relative lack of success in killing their Jewish neighbors doesn't somehow magic away their sustained attempts at exactly that despite your attempts at handwavium. Israel is better at defending it's citizens than it's enemies are at waging war. It still doesn't mean Israel should tolerate it. The Israeli government is failing it's people. Sweep the enemy into the sea, and this whole ordeal becomes a bad memory and a foundation for lasting peace.

Imagine the freedom we'll all have when we're completely alone, and without offspring, unencumbered by any possessions we can't fit into a bandana bundle tied to the end of a stick.

It doesn't matter what level of weaponry the enemy possesses. It doesn't change the immorality of the Israeli government towards their people. Israel has lived under attack or threat of imminent attack for decades, which is an absurd proposition to ask them to tolerate.

Listen everyone: the debate is settled. We're moving towards a society in which we'll eschew our hunter/gather roots and stop accumulating things, and will move back towards a nomadic lifestyle where everyone desires to live in their car, essentially homeless. It's settle science, people. Move on!

I don't think the West Bank or Gaza should be occupied. I think occupation is an immoral act by the occupying government against it's own people as it squanders lives and treasure, and perpetuates the existence of it's people's enemies. The only just action for a government at war to take is an execution of total war. Crush your opposition with brutal and overwhelming force, and kill every man woman and child indiscriminately unless and until your enemy prostrates itself before you capitulating to every demand, and failing that eliminate them from the Earth as a people.

It's unreasonable for Israel to tolerate constant attacks. It's well past time to give the Palestinians the war they want and put an end to it.

I understand that Matt Foley, a motivational speaker and life coach, was a popular character on SNL. I think there's a point of confusion however. He's not real. He was a character played by comedian Chris Farley; and it's important to note that the comedian wasn't actually suggesting that people go live "IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!!!". That's bad advice no matter how many solar panels you strap to the roof.

Every time you post something like this, it just reinforces my belief that the only solution in Israel is to sweep the Palestinian people into the sea, and put them out of their misery the next time a rocket gets launched.

Today I learned that "the problem with the world" is people who achieve their financial goals and rise above relative poverty.

I, for one, cannot wait to begin living in a homemade, one room shed with no shower in a trailer park, and minimizing my energy consumption to the point that I can power all of my needs with a single solar tile with no battery. This sounds like a far better lifestyle than consistently making good life choices which allow a person to elevate their earnings to a level which puts them above quasi-homelessness. i mean, why would a person want to make property investments, live comfortably, and raise a family when they can live in a glorified doghouse on wheels?

Lewis' running style reminds me very much of Thurman Thomas.

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We had one particularly stupid poster contend we'd see blood in the streets rising to the level of a civil war over the end of Net Neutrality.

This game is unbelievable. Best finish I've ever seen.