Stidmatt

My grandmother is a retired 1st grade teacher, and my grandfather is a veteran. She was able to save up money with those salaries to save enough money in my 541 plan that if it was not for the slashing of education funding in 2008 that the money she saved with the interest it had accumulated would have been enough to pay for an entire bachelor’s degree in-state. After getting 60 credits of my associates paid for by Running Start (a program in Washington State where the state will pay all of your tuition for you to go to community college in high school), and finishing up my associates degree there, there still was not enough money to pay for everything in the 541 plan after the social contract had been so entirely broken by the state and federal government in 2008. Fortunately my grandparents were able to pull some money out of their IRA plans without putting themselves in jeopardy, and I still ended up with a small amount of student loans. If my grandparents had maximum benefit pensions, I likely would have had tens of thousands of dollars more in student loan debt. Add onto this the rapidly increased cost of housing, and basically unless if your parents are millionaires or you are so poor that you qualify for every program, it is not possible to pay for college nowadays.

Also, quick note on John Oliver’s piece which I am responding to… that lazy river at Louisiana State University is not paid for by tuition, it is paid for by fees, which are added on. Tuition pays for teacher’s salaries and essential services which run the school, but mostly teacher’s salaries. That’s an important note, adding amenities to large campuses is not the driver of increased tuition. It is 100% because state governments have stopped paying the bulk of teacher’s salaries.

States have reduced funding because student loans are available, as every state has regressive tax codes. City budgets mostly pay for police, and that is our priority as a country.

Student loans should not exist. We should just pay for people to go to college, it is worth it.

The military-industrial complex relishes a potential war with China. It could be long and drawn out, at least from a cursory overview, and their profits would soar.

They don’t want to eliminate the Russian plutocracy because if Russia stops invading their neighbors, they will lose money in the near term. Russia is a long-term investment for these psychopaths by keeping the status quo.

Russia is doing all the things the military-industrial complex is telling us China is doing.

If Russia’s government democratizes, Syria will stabilize, hurting military-industrial complex profits. If Iran loses its primary support, Russia, and its government collapses, the fear-mongering in Israel will be significantly reduced, making peace talks more likely there. All of this reduces military-industrial complex profits.

If Israel and Palestine solved their problem with either a two-state solution or Israeli citizenship for Palestinians, and tensions in the Middle East plummeted, American arms shipments to Israel would collapse, and military-industrial profits would collapse.

Suppose Afghanistan is democratized fully, and the terrorists are removed. In that case, restrictions on our freedom from the PATRIOT ACT will be reduced, and the reduced threat of terrorism will hurt the profits of the military-industrial complex. If we had finished the job in Afghanistan with a slow, steady, drawn-out education of the country and building a robust democratic government, the probability of a resumed War in Afghanistan would have gone down to normal levels, hurting long-term military-industrial complex profits! We had to leave Afghanistan, so Boeing’s stock price will go up when we must take the terrorists out again! Damn the children! There’s money to be made!

Rapid democratization has occurred worldwide. Today, only eight countries have a Democracy Index under 4, a population of over 10 million, and a GDP per capita of over 5000 USD: Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. If these countries improve, the probability of war decreases, and the stock prices of military-industrial complex members will collapse.

Russia and China stand out as the only autocracies with over a hundred million people.

Countries in Africa are so poor they don’t matter on the world stage. They have no power nor the ability to threaten the United States.

The only likely invasion China would do is an invasion of Taiwan. I suppose this would be a boon for the military-industrial complex for obvious reasons.

In the aftermath of America’s unwillingness to supply Ukraine with enough arms for a quick and total victory, China sees its opportunity to potentially take Taiwan.

The best thing to prevent an invasion of Taiwan is to ensure Ukraine has a complete and total victory. Decimate the Russian army.

The People’s Republic of China’s list of military alliances is thin. The total victory of Ukraine would substantially weaken Russia, so Russia would be unable to provide China with any meaningful assistance. China will then need to be self-sufficient. It could get North Korea involved in the war, which would guarantee South Korean involvement, likely ending with the Republic of Korea retaking the entire peninsula. North Korea would be unable to assist in an invasion of Taiwan, facing that existential threat. Japan might even get involved to assist South Korea since North Korea enjoys threatening Japan.

With Russia substantially weakened, the next large player is Saudi Arabia, but given their economic dependence on the United States and Europe, their assisting China would be insignificant and a form of self-harm. Iraq, Cuba, and Azerbaijan are too poor to make much of an impact. Kazakhstan’s population is a literal rounding error, with fewer than 20,000,000 citizens. China would fight alone.

If China wanted to err, they would invade the United States directly, which would guarantee NATO involvement. This would guarantee that they would be fighting a nearly equivalent number of people, and the combined naval and air force strength of all of NATO would prevent China from reaching the main island of Taiwan, and China would face significant naval losses in the process. Over half of all military spending in the world is from NATO. It is a war China would lose.

In the worst possible scenario for China, India would get involved. An invasion of Taiwan with a lone Chinese army distracted by Taiwan could convince India that now is the time to solidify their land claims against China and to free Tibet.

If China invades Taiwan, they will fight alone, and Taiwan will not. The guaranteed loss of trade with the EU, Japan, and the United States will immediately collapse China’s economy, similar to what we see in Russia. If Taiwan is defended by her allies, this is a war China might not just lose but lose badly by losing territory in the East and possibly seeing the Republic of China return to the mainland.

So here we are in the best-case scenario for the military-industrial complex. The Ukraine war has been artificially turned into a long war. There is a brewing terrorist threat in Afghanistan. The US and Israeli governments are acting against any peace agreement with Palestine. Increased tensions with China keep arms sales high, even though the possibility of victory against Taiwan is slim, and the possibility of the worst possible defeat for China is a real possibility. Removing the People’s Republic of China and Putin from the map would be the most significant test of Democratic Peace Theory and, in the long run, bad for military sales.

The military-industrial complex wants to keep the status quo to maximize potential conflict. New wars involving the United States, which could be drawn into long wars, are unlikely, so it is best to keep the status quo while keeping Afghanistan in reserves for a future conflict.

Additional reading:

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/03/09/america-and-china-are-preparing-for-a-war-over-taiwan

You can find current polling results and projections at https://europeelects.eu/ep2024/, which I am using for this post.

As we can see, no single party is projected to have enough seats to create a majority coalition.

First and foremost, there is no reality where RE or S&D will form a coalition with ECR; they are opposed on basically every issue, even the fundamentals of their views on the European Union.

The Non-Inscrits and Unaffiliated are not groups with fundamental ideologies either so that we can remove them from our table of potential coalitions.

So, we can simplify our table of potential coalitions:

We can see only one possible coalition in the European parliament: the existing traffic light coalition of EPP, S&D, and RE.

There will not be a fundamental shift in European politics, assuming current polling holds.

Ignore ridiculous articles like this from Foreign Policy. Their math doesn’t add up.

And they are completely stupid. Here’s why.

If we take the median income by state, the median tax rate by state, and the median rent by state, we can generate a graph of disposable income.

We can then graph this and find our nice R squared of 0.11 between Cook Partisan Voting Index and disposable income after rent and taxes. Positive PVI scores are Democratic in my dataset. Flip a coin, I chose D+ to be positive. It doesn’t change the math either way.

People who live in Democratic states have more disposable income after rent and taxes on average than people who live in Republican states.

This is further complicated by the reality that the economic situation in San Jose and Madera are completely different. But we are talking about moving across state lines.

Also this idea that large Democratic states are getting drained of residents by Republican states is contrary to reality again, because the state with the lowest population growth is the communist mecca worshiping soy latte drinking libtards of… West Virginia! With a population decline of -3.2% from 2010-2020.

States which have lost some population in the last three years do include California and Illinois, but also include states like West Virginia, Mississippi, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Oregon. There is no clear line between partisan alignment and population growth.

A lot of the population change is described by nothing more than population. Idaho has the fastest population growth, but it is also a small state. Texas and Florida are seeing the largest population growth, but they are two of the 5 largest states. Same goes for California and New York which are losing population.

Small states grow at faster rates. WoW. Much math. Very impress.

Basically, moving states simply to pay lower taxes is generally not going to make a significant difference to taxes owed, it just means you will move from a state with clear income tax to a state which will slowly nickle and dime you with a higher sales tax rate. You tend to find lower incomes and less disposable income in these states with “low taxes” whose tax rates are still 9-10% when you also account for property and sales tax, and the differential is smaller than the difference you will see simply by changing how you do your deductions.

Moving to a lower taxed state for tax reasons in retirement also doesn’t make a lot of sense because you should be using a Roth IRA, so tax rate in retirement is 0 anywhere you go. That makes a much bigger impact than any states specific tax rates ever will, because you still need to pay your federal income tax, which is higher.

Of the top 12 states with disposable income after rent and taxes, only two are Republican, one is Alaska which is unusual because of its natural resource boon, and the other is Utah, the forever outlier with a tax rate on par with that of Minnesota and Colorado.

But again, moving states to lower your taxes does not make financial sense. Moving states however for economic opportunity does, in which case the clear winners are New Hampshire, Maryland, Alaska, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Only one of the states is Republican.

That’s basically it. Ask people for their data, and be skeptical of people who don’t show you their work.

Here are my references:

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_income

Who Pays? 7th Edition

https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Partisan_Voting_Index

There is a situation brewing in the world where there is a high probability there will be genocide. Do you intervene or not? If you intervene before the genocide starts, you will be accused of a preemptive strike. You will have the burden of proof that the genocide was going to occur. You will be accused of being a warmonger.

If the genocide or war does indeed start, you are already damned for not intervening. If you intervene to protect the defending party, you will be accused of standing against peace by some people. If you are on the left wing, it could be a political problem for you. If you don’t intervene and the war spirals further out of hand, you will be accused of not ending the war.

If you let the war or genocide take its course and do not intervene, you will be damned for not stopping it sooner when you had the power to reduce casualties.

Let’s label these cases:

• Alpha-neutral: No intervention when the event is imminent.
• Alpha-action: Intervene when the event is imminent.
• Beta-action: Intervene once the war begins
• Beta-neutral: Do not intervene after the war begins.
• Gamma-neutral: Do not intervene at any point

We can now label actual historical events

• Holocaust – beta action
• Kosovo War – beta action
• Probable Kosovo genocide 1999 – Alpha action
• Rwanda genocide 1994 – Gamma neutral
• Russian invasions of Ukraine and Georgia: Gamma neutral
• Soviet/Chinese invasion of South Vietnam: beta action
• Great Leap Forward: gamma neutral
• Japanese invasion of Manchuria: beta-action

When human rights abuses occur, the President of the United States is damned no matter what they do.

We might as well just make the best choice for peace in the long term, understanding there will be criticism.

The only way to avoid criticism is to live in a world without invasion, but that is out of our control.

I’m researching why New York City’s population has declined over the last few years, and ultimately, I think a lot of it has to do with remote work. Many people moved back to live near their families when they could, yet New York still has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, at least if we think people spend 100% of their income on housing.

But the biggest reason the right wing media says people are fleeing from oppressive high tax states is because Republican states have much lower taxes. Let’s analyze that data by using ITEP.

I just graphed the rate for the lowest taxed quintile as found by ITEP against the Cook Partisan voting index. A negative PVI is Republican, a positive PVI is Democrat.

With an R squared of 0.01, there is no correlation between tax rates and partisan affiliation. Pennsylvania is the highest-taxed state, with a Cook Partisan voting index of R+2. Wait? R+2? I thought Republicans were low tax states?

Despite what some media outlets would want you to believe, Republicans controlled the state legislature of Pennsylvania from 2010-2022. They even had a trifecta from 2011-2014. Despite this trifecta, Pennsylvania is the HIGHEST TAXED STATE IN THE COUNTRY.

Delaware is our lowest-taxed state, with a PVI of 7. It is strongly Democratic and has the lowest tax bracket of 0.08. Delaware has not had a Republican governor since the 1980s, and there has been a Democratic trifecta since 2009. So, if you want to live in a low-tax state, move to Delaware!

Illinois, Hawaii, New York, and Washington are the next high-tax states. These are all Democratic states, but only New York has a progressive tax code. Washington has no income tax.

The next low-tax states are Alaska, New Hampshire, Montana, and Idaho. If you don’t want to tax your citizens directly, focus on resource extraction. All of these states are highly regressive.

But if we focus instead by looking at tax rates on tax brackets, we start to see a pattern.

States with more progressive tax codes tend to be Democratic, while states with more Regressive tax codes tend to be controlled by Republicans.

Now, we see the real differences in tax codes between states. Almost every state taxes someone above 10%, regardless of political affiliation.

A final note, if your state is not blessed to have abundant black lung and cancer, I mean oil and coal, New Hampshire is a model for you. Let’s investigate… According to The Urban Institute:

New Hampshire’s largest spending areas per capita were elementary and secondary education ($2,380) and public welfare ($2,201). The Census Bureau includes most Medicaid spending in public welfare but also allocates some of it to public hospitals. Per capita spending is useful for state comparisons but is an incomplete metric because it doesn’t provide any information about a state’s demographics, policy decisions, administrative procedures, or residents’ choices.

New Hampshire’s per capita income (per the Bureau of Economic Analysis) was $74,663 in 2022, ranking seventh among the states. It was above the national average of $65,423, but below the New England regional average of $76,651. The state’s median household income (five-year estimate) was $90,845 in 2022, ranking sixth among the states and above the national average of $75,149. New Hampshire’s poverty rate was 7.3 percent in 2022 (five-year estimate), below the national rate of 12.5 percent.

New Hampshire also has above-average corporate income taxes.

So invest heavily in education, become rich, tax corporations, be small, embrace the Medicaid expansion, have a low poverty rate, and you can have low taxes? That’s the New Hampshire model.

Any definition of Anti-Semitism, one of the most ancient forms of racism in this world, must include people like bin Laden and Adolf Hitler as being anti-semitic because they were. Still, it also must necessarily exclude people like Hannah Arendt, who, as a Jewish German woman in the 1940s who wrote some of the harshest and most eloquent descriptions of the Holocaust, must be excluded from the definition as well.

As this Rabbi eloquently describes in this blog post, this article could be considered anti-semitic by the definition proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, as do many positions held by a large majority of Jews in the United States and Israel. If we are to adopt rules for what sort of speech is considered dangerous, such rules must be made as clear as possible. Declaring the criticism of a government fits in the same bucket as the wholesale slaughter of families in death camps is reprehensible. It is incompatible with living in a free and democratic society; such societies work because we can criticize our governments, which is why we have a better quality of life.

In Hannah Arendt’s book, she quotes Dr. Magnes of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

“What a boon to mankind it would be if the Jews and Arabs of Palestine were to strive together in friendship and partnership to make this Holy Land into a thriving peaceful Switzerland in the heart of this ancient highway between East and West. This would have incalculable political and spiritual influence in all the Middle East and far beyond. A binational Palestine could become a beacon of peace in the world.”

I agree with this statement. That is what Israel/Palestine must be if there is to be any future for Jews or Arabs or Jewish Arabs in the region. Imagine what a world we could live in if that had become a reality where no one in the region would be left effectively stateless, which means every individual in the region would have citizenship in a UN member state.

Arendt continues:

In the same way Jewish spokesmen for Arab-Jewish understanding were discredited when their very fair and moderate demands were distorted and taken advantage of, as happened with the efforts of the Magnes group in 1936.

This quote of Dr. Magnes in Hannah Arendt’s book Peace or Armistice in the Near East proves three things:

• The dream of a binational state in Israel and Palestine has been there since before the founding of Israel. It was and is a view held by prominent Jews in the region. It cannot be considered antisemitic.
• Prominent Jews are not uniform in their views. Is every Jew who does not agree with Mr. Netanyahu an anti-semite? That is what IHRA is proposing in its definition.
• There was serious discussion by prominent Jews in Israel about the formation of a confederation where Jews and Arab Palestinians were equal in the 1940s. Israeli policy starting in 1948 and continuing to the present day has no realistic path for the Palestinians who live on land occupied by the Israeli government.

Another bombshell:

One of the chief advantages of federal (or confederate) solutions of the Palestinian problem has been that the more moderate Arab statesmen (particularly from Lebanon) agreed to them.

Just… God damn it. The Lebanese delegate to the United Nations pointed to the Constitution of the United States as a model of how to build a successful state in what is now Israel/Palestine.

When the President of the second-oldest Israeli university was actively campaigning against Aliyah and for a federation where Palestinians and European Jews would be equal… this cannot be seen as a fringe position. It should be the mainstream position.

The problem with IHRA’s definition is that the views of the Zionist President of The Hebrew University and Hannah Arendt, a German Jew who lost family in the Holocaust, could easily be construed to be anti-Semites by such a definition. Their views are so contrary to the reality of what exists in Israel that it is a criticism of the foundational structure of the Israeli constitution itself and a standing position of most Israeli Prime Ministers. This view should not have been seen as a fringe position.

One could claim that since it would be unrealistic to expect the Netherlands to be a federalist state modeled after the United Nations, that such a viewpoint falls under the

One of Judaism’s best and most admirable qualities is their willingness to debate one another and how diverse they are in their viewpoints. It is one of the most wonderful cultures in the world. A definition of anti-Semitism, which includes the statement “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” is itself anti-semitic and shows that whoever wrote this either doesn’t understand Jewish culture or despises it. It is far too vague, and that makes it a poor definition.

A better definition of anti-Semitism is very simple: anyone who believes the rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should not apply to Jewish People. That is real anti-semitism.

Note… the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was written in response to the Holocaust, includes the words: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Criticism of governments is a universal right across all free nations. It is a prerequisite for all other rights which we have.

If you need a more concise definition, I recommend using The Jerusalem Declaration written by over 350 scholars on antisemitism. Unlike the IHRA definition they are precise, and are much harder to distort.

So we now have three ways to define anti-semitism, two of which are not dismissive of Jewish culture. You can either take an already existing universal framework for human rights and rightfully claim anyone who advocates that any one of those 30 articles should not apply to Jews is anti-semitic. That is simple, effective, and clearly defined. Another good definition is The Jerusalem Declaration, which clearly separates political speech from hate speech.

The IHRA definition is only 269 words long. It is not long enough to be used legally because you cannot clearly define any terms in a way that can be clearly stated in such few words. For comparison, the UDHR is 1455 words long. Definitions like this, which are accepted by states worldwide, need to be very precise in their definition not to be highjacked for political purposes. IHRA fails to do this. The Jerusalem Declaration succeeds on these key topics.

However, the Jerusalem Declaration still has one important problem. It is too focused on the challenges of today, and if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is solved, it will be significantly less relevant than it is today. Both definitions have this fundamental problem. The IHRA definition has 7 points that directly relate to Israel, and if the crisis is solved, only four will remain relevant. The Jerusalem Declaration has only 5 points that relate to anti-Semitism directly and not to the State of Israel.

I’m sorry. Anti-semitism cannot be summarized in 4 or 5 points. It is far bigger than that. These definitions despite their signatures utterly fail to define anti-semitism to a sufficient degree.

I prefer my much simpler yet also much more complex definition of anti-Semitism, which is anyone who advocates that any of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should not apply to Jews. I believe the UDHR is particularly relevant because it was written as a direct response to the Holocaust.

I will now go through them one by one. The beauty of this is it also works for people who are anti-Palestinian.

1. Free and equal. Well, most politicians in the Middle East are clearly defined as racist by this definition here. Any politician here who does not explicitly argue that every person in Palestine should have citizenship is clearly and definitely categorized as racist by the first article. Anyone who argues for the deportation of Jews who live in Israel also fits under the definition here as well. Simple, to the point, and precise.
2. All people have these rights always and everywhere. Very bad news for Netanyahu and every member of Hamas and the IDF who have shot at civilians.
3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of person. Israel and Hamas consistently violate these rights towards Palestinians and Jews.
4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Not relevant, thank God.
5. Prohibition against torture. Bad news for IDF and Hamas again.
6. Recognition everywhere as a person before the law. Same.
7. Equal before the law and entitled to equal protection and against discrimination. Palestinians need to be granted property rights.
8. Everyone has the right to a fair trial. Palestinians don’t have this right.
9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile. This is consistently violated against Palestinians. Over a million refugees with no path to citizenship is a clear violation of this rule, which was written IN DIRECT RESPONSE TO THE HORRORS OF THE THIRD REICH!!!!
10. Fair trial again.
11. Innocent until proven guilty. No police shootings.
12. No arbitrary arrest and equal protection of the law. This does not exist for Palestinians.
13. Freedom of movement within the borders of a state. Checkpoints violate this article.
14. Right to seek asylum. The denial of asylum for the Palestinians in Gaza is reminiscent of Jews being turned away in the 1930s when they were fleeing the Holocaust. It is the same crime.
15. Right to a nationality. In other words, recognize Palestine or grant Israeli citizenship to all Palestinians.
16. Equal rights to marriage. Israel passes this bar. The Palestinian Authority fails miserably.
17. Right to own property. No deprivation of property. The Aliyah was a direct violation of this right, continuing to the present.
18. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
19. Right to freedom of opinion and expression. Claims that all criticism of Israel is anti-semitic are invalid because of Article 19.
20. Peaceful assembly and association. Frequently violated for Palestinians.
21. Right to take part in the government of his country. Palestinians are denied a country.
22. Right to social security.
23. Right to work, equal pay, and to form a union.
24. Right to rest and leisure.
25. Right to an adequate standard of living. The blockade of Gaza violates this right.
26. Right to education. Israel has bombed schools in Gaza.
27. Right to participate in cultural events. Hard to do that when your mosque is bombed.
28. Entitled to a social and international order where the rights and freedoms are fully realized. The United States has violated this right the Palestinians have according to our own government by opposing Palestinian membership in the United Nations.
29. Everyone has duties to the community.
30. Do not misinterpret these rights.

Hamas believes these thirty rights should not apply to Jews. Likud believes these rights do not apply to Palestinians.

I believe these rights need to apply to everyone. That includes Jews. That includes Palestinians.

This is a much more concise and measurable definition of anti-semitism or any other form of racism.

Bonus points for being written in response to the Holocaust, I guess. These were deliberately written with Jews in mind. This is a far better definition than any specific definition.

Please read the chapter Peace or Armistice in the Near East. It is an important contemporary Jewish account of the foundation of the State of Israel. It is critical reading if you want to understand the situation in Israel fully.

https://pensarelespaciopublico.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hannah-arendt-the-jewish-writings-2007.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9092927/