apawloski

Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours? If you are born here, what does it matter?

But more importantly, I said Americans. Are some Americans more American to you?

America is not a startup. It is not even a company. It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration. And it was wrong to single out the Irish and Italians, and it’s wrong to single out the ___ now.

Thanks for pointing out the irony that these folks refuse to engage with: that they (we) are all here as the result of immigration. It's about as plainly hypocritical that they get. Their immigrants were fine, of course..

I wish the folks who are trying to cut off all immigration (and open channels to de-naturalize American citizens) could appreciate this more. Because it exposes their thesis at its core: some Americans are better than others, and these people know which are which. Where do I as an American fall into these categories of theirs?

I remember you trying to defend the tariff policies as a defense against China. Do you still honestly perceive China as a threat to American power and livelihood? If so, how do you square this stance of conceding global power to China at the same time? At the very least, surely you can see the importance of global supply chains to American manufacturing that you want to protect?

I'm asking these questions specifically based on your arguments in the past. I don't understand how you can believe America can thrive in a world without allies and trade partners.

This is becoming a Tim Robinson gag. I wish you would dedicate as much time supporting American consumers and American manufacturers as you did trying to argue whatever it is you’re digging in about food spiciness or whatever. Your points were not about pasta but truly that it’s more American to not enjoy food lol.

If you must respond, please address my initial points about all the concessions you’re making about these policies. Also, how do you end up finding these random op eds? Like what do you search to find them?

Thanks for clarifying. I’m bummed that I didn’t prioritize going out last night to observe. I was thinking bigger glare would be better aurora tonight.

That's what I'm most curious about -- how do you see that it hasn't arrived yet when you're looking at SWPC?

Here is the SWPC forecast [0]

Time_UTC,Nov_12,Nov_13,Nov_14

00-03UT,8.67 (G4),6.67 (G3),4.67 (G1)

03-06UT,8.33 (G4),6.33 (G2),4.00

06-09UT,7.00 (G3),6.00 (G2),3.33

09-12UT,7.00 (G3),4.67 (G1),3.67

12-15UT,6.00 (G2),4.00,3.33

15-18UT,5.67 (G2),3.33,3.00

18-21UT,7.67 (G4),4.33,3.00

21-00UT,6.00 (G2),4.67 (G1),3.33

So I guess 18-21UTC today it'll get around 7.7kP, but that's lower than what hit this morning, when I'd expect X5.1 to be larger? Is that how I should interpret this?

[0] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/space-weather-enthusia...

Is there a way to connect the Alert/Warnings/Watches from SWPC to specific events? It seems like there are at least three different solar events and it's hard for me to understand if they've all passed or if we're expecting more.

Of all the things in my post to address, the fact that you are pulling some random NYT opinion piece from 1975 to say “actually it’s more American to NOT enjoy food” only reiterates my point.

Frame this on the wall as the most succinct way to sum up the utter capitulation people face in supporting these tariffs.

Yes they are raising taxes and making everything more expensive for Americans.

Yes they are disrupting the raw materials needed for domestic manufacturing supply chains.

Yes their policies change so frequently and capriciously that it's impossible for American businesses to make medium-to-long term plans.

Yes the president and his family are personally and directly benefiting from these policy decisions. Yes they are directly accepting gifts and payments, including jets, TikTok board seats, and brazenly corrupt contributions to their personal cryptocurrency.

All of that is acceptable, and technically food doesn't need to taste good anyway.

> Just five years after the 14th amendment was ratified, the Supreme Court said [...]

Cool, but the 14th amendment was ratified. At least we can agree on that. And this is what it says:

> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

You can try to weasel out all you want, but it's at the disrespect to the words of our constitution. Whatever interpretation you are justifying this month, it is radical and lonesome.

Even if it were just posturing -- which frankly I don't believe based on the fact that they are now going into effect -- do you at least see how disruptive it is to American companies for him to continuously change his position? There have been 10 executive orders related to tariffs since February 1st. How can American companies possibly make any short, medium, or long term plans when the administration is constantly changing critically important things to their business on Trump's whim?

If it is just posturing, do you worry Trump will improperly benefit from it? UAE invested $2BN in his memecoin today. Maybe the posturing will lead to other countries making similar "investments."

Is it not relevant that Trump said he would use it to censor his critics? For being “anti-government types” it sure seems like they voted for dramatic and unprecedented authoritarian uses of the government.

In an administration that changes critical economic policies on a week-to-week basis, listing this as surcharge makes sense. Easier to change than baking into the price.

If the new person in your friend group suddenly wants everyone to commit an act of terror, chances are they are an FBI agent.

This feels like a return to initial point. "yes, it is a recession, but it won't be THAT bad"

>A financial recession would be borne mostly by the laptop class.

This is where I think you're not living in reality. Recessions are bad for the middle and working classes. They eliminate jobs, deflate wages, and make important things unaffordable. And it really feels like it could have been avoided.

To be clear, my point is that everything will be more expensive and that a recession is objectively bad for all but maybe the richest Americans.

You're currently in the "Yes everything is going to be more expensive but it won't be THAT bad" stage. How will you justify a recession when it comes? Or is that acceptable too because it also hurts the "laptop class" in addition to working class Americans?

Just yesterday people were trying to convince me that price hikes were good and would benefit Trump’s base. Now JP Morgan is predicting a global recession. I cannot fathom how this is good for America.

It just feels like a colossal own-goal that will weaken America on the global scale. Americans will suffer in a recession. And it was by choice that this administration put us here.

Is there any recourse?

Lots of time to make up for causing the largest market drop since COVID as well. Hopefully you're right and everything will be fine.

I mean, a large point of their campaign was that price increases were a major national concern, right? Can we agree that they repeatedly made that point? I recall many lawn signs to that effect.

So given that, I would have assumed that this administration would focus on making things more affordable. Instead, I'm seeing people try to explain to me that, actually, raising the prices across the board is a good thing!

To put it plainly, it seems like the administration raising prices is, in fact, not a good thing for Americans. And I don't see how American labor can produce things that are more affordable than what we can buy now. So it seems like a net negative, because ultimately they are choosing to make everything more expensive for consumers.

Not to mention these are blanket tariffs, not protecting specific American industries. So anything that's not feasibly produced here will be more expensive anyway.

Yes everybody, we are taxing all of your groceries - but all of those American coffee and banana farms (!) will be protected.

What is the time scale we are talking about when we talk about this change?

How much do production workers get paid in China? How will our production goods be affordable at American labor rates? This strategy just makes everything more expensive - nothing cheaper.

How will adding a tax to every single consumer good benefit his base?

All we are doing is making America weaker on the global scale while you cling to this fantasy.

But to be clear, in this fantasy, do you acknowledge and accept that costs for Americans are going to up? Things are going to get more expensive across the board for Americans?

Do you trust that this administration is competent enough to protect American companies?

The launch vehicle is SpaceX, but the science and mission operations are NASA/JPL.

What do you expect the total savings to be?

I brought this on myself for making a political comment on a forum, but I'm curious how much spending you think goes to this. Like of every $1 in taxes you pay - how much do you think goes to USAID (or the entire federal workforce)?

When you see the answer you might question the honesty of the cost-savings argument here.

This is the part that I'm so surprised about. It turns out that people don't actually care about the law when it's inconvenient. And it turns out that people are willing to accept and support crazy things: conflicted/unqualified leaders, the sacrifice of American influence and stability, the alienation of our allies, the purposeful cost-raising for American consumers. What matters most apparently is the culture war.

It's clear that we'll have to agree to disagree and leave it here -- so you're welcome to the final word if you want it -- but I think the feeling that resonates with me in these conversations is "I don't care about the law or other consequences as long as I get my way." That feels bad to me.

And when people making those points disagree with me on it -- this week it's justification to kill USAID and give treasury control to Musk, next week it will be the destruction of the department of education, soon it will be ignoring the 14th amendment of the constitution -- it's hard to tell if they aren't being honest with me or if they aren't being honest with themselves.

What I'm reading then is that it's not about actually about workforce spending or federal debt at all. That's sort of what I expected.

Curious if you have thoughts on Elon Musk's conflicts of interest? Both as a large federal contractor, and as someone with business dependence on China. Also the breaking of federal records laws (e.g. using signal and not retaining any other records).