There used to be a guy on Twitter/Facebook/other social media who kept harping about how the system was rigged....
That being said, I disagree with the assessment of my comment. Those of us (and there were many) who warned about this escalating when Trump was censored and deplatformed were downvoted and flagged at the time, amidst lots of crowing and victory clapping from people who fully believed the censorship only applied to one individual and was acceptable.
We've seen in the past 2 weeks a huge escalation - the British Socialist pages on FB, other left-leaning sites, and now of course watering holes related to WallStreetBets. We're fortunate to see this history happen in real time, so hopefully we can course-correct, as our forebears did, but without the longer timeline and through much more horrible circumstances.
Facebook used its power unilaterally to shut down yet another group of people. Whether we agree with the opinions of that group or not is not the point - the fact that this can happen, is happening, and is being supported by large swathes of people who should be more aware of where this path leads us, is very worrying.
Reminding people that just a few weeks ago, when concern about the Trump censorship was resoundingly dismissed, that that was the same as the censorship of other groups today, is important.
I'll continue to do that, because we need to deviate from this path we as a collective seem to be walking down.
Respectfully,
It's fascinating to me how common it is that people's second comment (e.g. after a moderation reply) will give a detailed substantive expression of what they actually meant. I think we all assume that what's in our mind will come across in our comments, but actually it doesn't come across by itself—it needs to be formulated explicitly, as you did in your later reply.
If you don't share it explicitly, but only give a quick pointer to it, people will fill that in with what's in their mind, which is a huge range of possible interpretations, many of which are inflammatory or even attacks, whether you meant it that way or not. Commenters will respond to what they perceive you as saying (and feeling, and thinking, and doing), and it's your responsibility to minimize the gap between that and what you actually mean. (I don't mean just you, of course. We all need to do this.)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
*Edit, in any case, the US Presidency is not a "position of ultimate power".
Oh, there's no question that he was naive, but you're betraying your own naivete here. Who do you think rigged the system in the first place, if not Donald Trump and his ilk? Was he merely naive when he signed off an a trillion-dollar tax break for the wealthy and an ongoing tax increase for everyone but the wealthy? What else could anyone have expected from hiring the fox to guard the henhouse?
• The double-digit percentage decreases in average tax liability started with a 12.5% drop for people making $15,000 to $20,000 a year. Double-digit percentage reductions in liability continued for people making $25,000 to $30,000 (down 11.2%) through $100,000 to $200,000 (down 10.96%).
• Taxpayers making between $40,000 and $50,000 a year had the largest fall in average tax liability, a 14.5% drop, while high-end households making between $250,000 and $500,000 had the second largest decrease, with a 14.4% liability reduction.
• Taxpayers making at least $1 million had a 4.3% decrease in average tax liability.
Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-american-...
"The law they passed initially lowered taxes for most Americans, but it built in automatic, stepped tax increases every two years that begin in 2021 and that by 2027 would affect nearly everyone but people at the top of the economic hierarchy. All taxpayer income groups with incomes of $75,000 and under — that’s about 65 percent of taxpayers — will face a higher tax rate in 2027 than in 2019."
"The current poverty line for a family of four is $26,200: People with incomes between $10,000 and $30,000 — nearly one-quarter of Americans — are among those scheduled to pay a higher average tax rate in 2021 than in years before the tax “cut” was passed."
"By 2027, when the law’s provisions are set to be fully enacted, with the stealth tax increases complete, the country will be neatly divided into two groups: Those making over $100,000 will on average get a tax cut. Those earning under $100,000 — an income bracket encompassing three-quarters of taxpayers — will not."
"At the same time, Trump has given his peers, people with annual incomes in excess of $1 million dollars, or the top 0.3 percent in the country, a huge gift: The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the average tax rate in 2019 for this group to be 2.3 percentage points lower than before the tax cut, saving the average taxpayer in this group over $64,000 — more than the average American family makes in a year."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/opinion/republicans-biden...