Truck driver leads NJ Senate president after spending $153 on campaign

https://poliengine.com/blog/how-many-politicians-are-there-i...

Fortunately, I'm not all that concerned about what some rando on HN thinks. As for the citation, what's the proper form for citing common knowledge, basic math, and high school civics classes?

Perhaps it was only an implementation problem, and the answer lies in saner but still restrictive drug laws. There's no excuse for example for the scheduling of marijuana and mushrooms which precludes research.

I'm not saying that at all, that's you putting words in my mouth.

>Do you think that any of these people don't use drugs because it's a crime? It's just making their life worse.

Ultimately became an irrelevant point of view for my friend, who, fearing for her safety, moved away from Seattle.

Throwing them in jail seems like the worst of both worlds... it burns my tax dollars and does nothing to rehabilitate anyone.

Such a theory (this really refers to the Texas-specific 5 state theory upthread; your “any number” theory, which presumably is the same theory that applies to any State, is valid, but not unilateral like the 5-state theory) exists, but it requires starting with a dubious interpretation of the act annexing Texas, and then flatly ignoring the act admitting Texas.

I get the arguments for and against them, but I generally favor leaving those decisions up to the people involved.

> But even so, your opinion is clearly colored by propaganda.

> "They're coming to take our guns" is a cry of right wing media because they know it will scare people into voting irrationally.

Generally speaking, this is a poor way to convince someone. Comments like this are likely to embolden the parent's views. I say this as someone who holds neutral views on the matter.

Consider for a moment you have actually proved his point.

or vans here in Canada.

According to the FBI homicide stats for US, 297 people were murdered by a rifle in 2018 in the US.

1,515 on the other hand murdered with knives, 443 from blunt hammers, 672 with hands, feet:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

EDIT: I specifically stated "rifle" not all guns. Because saying we need to take away all guns is pie in the sky thinking. Dems run on "taking away AR-15" but the stats show that isn't going to achieve anything.

In 2008, there were 800k-3 million defensive uses of guns.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29101364

Couldn't agree more, which is why eliminating poverty was the first solution I said. We're doing that. Unfortunately it takes decades to work because of the shit family dynamics that exist. Should we just let gun violence run rampant until then?

I'm glad we agree that poverty is the root cause of gun violence, but realizing that does nothing to stop gun violence. Poverty isn't something that can be solved with the snap of a finger, although I certainly think we are on the right track. What do you think we should do to stop gun violence in the mean time? Nothing is a valid answer, but I don't think it's acceptable to a majority of people in this country.

And the chilling effect of socially shaming people as "plague rats" for resisting lockdowns and mandates.

Having lived in countries both with and without generally well meaning and competent government, in my experience the former is vastly better despite its manifold faults.

I trust you are referring to problems with the 2020 election? I would appreciate learning what analogies you see between mob-like coercion and the election

But now in WA, my wife and I typically make our morning coffee, sit out on the patio, read through the voter guide to understand what the arguments for and against a particular ballot initiative are and the statements given by individuals. We vote together, sign our ballot, seal it up, then we drive three blocks to a local drop site (only because I prefer doing that versus putting it in my mailbox).

It's super easy to participate in the system here, and in my jaded perspective, that's exactly why certain people and organizations hate it so much.

https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/faq_vote_by_mail.aspx

Hypocrisy can effectively dampen voter turnout of your supporters if they are idealistic enough. But it's an absolute non-factor if you can sufficiently demonize your opponent(s) and their positions, just look at Trump and how he has wrapped Evangelical America around his little finger.

They have studied this though. Actual scientists, not people on Youtube or Facebook, and they have found that masks diminish the transmission of COVID-19. This is kind of what you'd expect with something airborne.

The covid risk for children is a rounding error. This is not prudent risk management; mind-boggling for someone from the tech industry who should be able to do a cursory look at statistics and dismiss this practice out of hand.

It looked like things were improving, and the more contagious Delta variant (or, as the airline likes to write, B.1.617.2) turned up.

Where I live in Oregon, our hospital was overflowing with people towards the end of summer, to the point where people have died because they couldn't get 'elective' surgery. In that kind of situation, you use a 'defense in depth' strategy, which includes both vaccines and masks.

It's really not that big of a problem to wear one.

Because we have progressive taxation and a lot of rich people live in New Jersey, so they pay more in taxes. A state doesn't need to be in financial trouble because it is poor, it is in financial trouble if it makes more promises than it can afford to pay given its tax base. The constant raiding of employee pension funds and various financial ponzi schemes is why NJ is in trouble.

    Median household income in 2019
    NJ[1] = 85K
    US[2] = 69K

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

NJ income tax is ~4%, and average property taxes are not that high:

https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/03/njs-average-property-tax...

It would be nice to find statistics by percentile, but I would find it hard to believe that many single households are living in houses paying $8k+ property tax, and married households are paying $16k in property tax.

I use $8k and $16k because that would mean the remaining $4k and $8k would be for income tax for a person earning $100k/year (78th percentile) or a couple earning $200k per year (83rd percentile).

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-state-calculator/

Edit: the best way to figure out if the SALT caps hurt or not is to see if the amount of people itemizing on federal returns increased or not. I cannot find any NJ specific statistics, but IRS says only 11% of tax filers itemized in 2019.

Read: your ancestors are racist, and made a racist system for you

>You don't need to feel guilty, unless you are out here actively supporting racist systems?

Read: here comes the guilt trip

>If you're trying to use the social privileges that come with being a white man in America to dismantle racist structures, then you're doing great! If you're tried and don't want to do that work, ok, understandable: just don't throw in your two cents I'd you see other people doing this intense labor.

Read: there it is.

At some point I figured people would realize this Kafkaesque formulation really turns people off. Any disagreement with the premise - any at all - and you are now required to retreat to claiming you're not a "racist" in front of someone who has set the rhetorical boundaries where such a claim is rejected outright, always. I actually think that's really the point, and it's nothing more than a new and pathological way to bully someone.

It's quite possible to teach about racism and discrimination and slavery without burdening white children with what amounts to a rehashed original sin, obligating them to accept reverse racism as though it is the only way to correct historic wrongs which they had no part in.

>You don't need to feel guilty, unless you are out here actively supporting racist system

This is dishonest, because it is a refrain used to guilt people into supporting progressive policies by implication that they are racist if they don't, completely sidestepping the argument over whether such policies are sound.

>If you're trying to use the social privileges that come with being a white man in America to dismantle racist structures, then you're doing great!

This is also dishonest, because it sidesteps the question of whether or not white men are actually privileged to such an extent that artificially correcting for said privilege (i.e. creating institutional racism) is justified. It also ignores the question of whether our institutions are actually racist - to a modern progressive this is a given, but the science is ultimately based on correlation and conjecture. The strongest proof that pundits have of institutional racism is inequality of outcome; however in a perfect meritocracy it is irrational to conflate equality of opportunity with equality of outcome. See Nordic countries for an example.

To summarize, my primary points are twofold: the way that antiracism is being taught to white children is potentially harmful, and the degree to which our systems are actually unequal because of racism on behalf of whites is not nearly as certain as militant activists seem to believe. Before you downvote, recognize that I am communicating the perspective held by voters that are dramatically underrepresented online. And to an increasing degree they are not white, minorities do not appreciate the implication that they will forever be saddled with the burden of past oppression unless the white man steps in and helps them.

Incidentally, I have do have a personal stake the this matter, because the same points used to justify reverse discrimination against whites can trivially be aimed at Jews, given their drastic overrepresentation among positions of power and wealth. I personally don't think people realize how dangerous it is to teach such racial awareness to children, especially in such a discriminatory manner.