The valid argument always wins the day

With about half the conservative voices choosing to ignore rather than debate and the other half silent most of the time, it seems as if defending the incompetent orange idiot has become too much of a burden. I get it. It is a lot to defend with little real defense that can be offered. What I don't get is why anyone would continue to support someone that they have exhausted themselves trying to defend. Any thoughts?

 

I'd take issue with the assertion in the title, unless the definition of valid includes "superior military ability and resources." That's not even going into the technical distinction between a valid argument and a sound argument.

 

Don't put too much stock in the title. The points in the OP are the thing. If you have a better title, I can change it to something you like better, at least I can change it for a little while.

 

You are correct, Joe. No I will not defend his mannerisms or his tirades. I am not a fan of our president hamming it up for a camera or his constant proclamations of being the victim. A president should rise above these things..... However I will defend and support the economy he gave us prior to the pandemic. I certainly do not believe a green deal heaped with new regulations is what we need to rebuild. That sounds more like an economic death blow to me.

 

Is this just another one of the horse whip and buggy arguments? Yes the the automobile killed the horse whip and buggy industry. Video killed the radio star. No doubt. The Green New Deal will kill fossil fuel industry jobs, Absolutely. However, there is no shortage of studies that project that the Green Energy industry will create another 30 million jobs by 2050 while the fossil fuel industry as a whole, including oil. coal, natural gas, and related industries, accounts for around 2 million jobs today. A number that decreases every year. So the fact that more jobs will be created with the new technology kind of eliminates your concerns about the economy. We are more likely to experience an economy boom than anything else and lead the world in clean technology. Clinging to the past will in all likelihood lead to the death knell of the economy and the planet.

 

I’ll be brutally honest. Yes, I readily admit that I am a person fearful of change. I was drug kicking and screaming into the digital age.. And yes, now I couldn’t run my business without it. So yes, I will admit that resistance to change is a personal flaw of mine...... And fact is, I truly am favorable toward being responsible with our resources. This isn’t my world, I just get to live here for a spell. I want my grandkids to enjoy life, fishing, mountain skiing or whatever outdoor activities they may choose to enjoy....... I have watched construction materials gravitate from solvent based products to water based products. It was a struggle at first but now the water based products work as well as the traditional solvent based. It is a good thing in my mind........ However, there is a negative side to this. Inherent to the green deal thinking comes also an anti-business mindset. The “greedy businessman” is a popular concept these days. Those of us that survive will foot the bill for these green measures. That is inevitable. So out with the old and in with the new? I suppose video did kill the radio star.... But Bob Dylan still makes some great music..... We have to make room for us old dinosaurs to live too.....

 

Great points Randy! I have never heard the anti-business relationship associated with the rise of green technology. In fact, I have heard exactly the opposite. I have heard that we stand to be the pioneers in green technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to this country through innovation and marketing of the products only we can sell as only we can do.

This being said, I am not surprised that the obsolete technology of the fossil fuel industry clinging to the past because it is how they survive would paint green energy as anti-business. In reality, it is exactly the opposite. Innovation and creative solutions has always been the lifeblood of the American economy. From the creation of the assembly line to the dot com boom, the new replaces the old and we are better off for each advance. What we don't need is one industry dragging us down to support itself and doing so by corrupting everything from our politics to our environment. The "anti" in this situation is anti-innovation not anti-business.

Fossil fuel corporations are easily the most powerful global business entities on the planet right now, or ever. They control governments. They control the seas. They start and end wars. They control countless societal levers that we will never hear about. They will do anything in their power to stay right where they are at the top even if that means stifling innovation.

Look, the internal combustion engine is obsolete technology and has been for the last 100 years. The only reason it still exists is to support a powerful organization that will not die easily but clearly deserves to have its day in the sun ended. 30 million jobs await our next steps.

 

So, I'm pretty in tune with this anti-capitalist "greedy businessman" mindset that's become popular with young people. There's an important caveat to it. We're not anti-capitalism/business per se, but rather anti-corprate greed. There's a sentiment that large corporations exploit loopholes in tax code, outsourced labor, and political lobbyists to amass profits at the top.

By contrast and in direct resistance to these corporate powers, local business owners are highly respected and preferable to corporate alternatives even when the corporate options are cheaper. Much like with green options, if able, it seems the moral choice to support small/local business.

 

Trump and his cronies also want to undo clean air and water protections in the name of "business" Why would the average person support this?

 

Because it puts us behind the aspirations of our enemies that couldn’t care less about environmental concerns.

 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Proposes A Death Blow To Pipelines Like Dakota Access
The New York congresswoman is pushing to block the troubled pipeline and similar oil and gas projects through an amendment to the budget bill.
By Alexander C. Kaufman

Donald Trump won the presidency in November 2016, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a 27-year-old activist and bartender, hopped in a 1998 Subaru and roadtripped from New York City to North Dakota to join the frigid protest camp attempting to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Not long after, Trump made completing the pipeline one of his first priorities in the White House. But the experience, Ocasio-Cortez has often said, inspired her decision to run in New York’s 14th congressional district on her vision for a Green New Deal.

Now she’s proposing a legal change that would upend thousands of future pipeline projects.

The New York congresswoman is pushing to block the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from permitting oil and gas projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline, HuffPost has learned.

An amendment Ocasio-Cortez proposed for the next budget bill would prohibit the nation’s main infrastructure-building agency from using federal money to issue permits under the Section 404 of the Clean Water Act “for the discharge of dredged or fill material resulting from an activity to construct a pipeline for the transportation of oil or gas.”

That would prevent the Army Corps from constructing, repairing or working on roughly 8,000 projects per year involving oil and gas pipelines that cross waterways.

The House Committee on Rules will consider the proposal at a hearing Tuesday morning.

Ocasio-Cortez was not available for an interview Sunday, but her office confirmed details on the amendment.
It could also imperil the Dakota Access Pipeline itself.

In March, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Army Corps to carry out a new environmental review of the project, determining that the agency had failed to answer major questions about the possibility of oil spills. Then, earlier this month, Boasberg pulled the permits to operate the 1,172-mile oil route from North Dakota to Illinois, ordering the pipeline to shut down and drain by Aug. 5 while the review is carried out.

Energy Transfer, the Texas-based company that owns the pipeline, vowed to challenge the ruling. Two weeks ago, the Army Corps filed a notice that it would appeal the shutdown order.

If the ruling holds, Ocasio-Cortez’s amendment could, in theory, prevent the Army Corps from issuing a new permit to restart the 570,000-barrel-per-day pipeline once it’s drained. The Army Corps’s website lists the Section 404 permit among those for which the court required verification.

It’s still a long shot. The amendment could face significant opposition within the House, where the Democratic majority remains split on the urgency of stopping new fossil fuel projects that proponents see as economic boons and opponents say spell climate disaster. The Republican-controlled Senate would almost certainly reject the measure.

But the proposal highlights an increasingly sophisticated approach by Green New Deal supporters in Congress to hastening the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. Last week, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), key allies of Ocasio-Cortez, proposed a bill to strip virtually all federal funding and tax incentives for oil, gas and coal development.

Pipelines’ contributions to planet-heating emissions at a moment when an unusually high number of tropical storms are gathering in the Atlantic and the Arctic is sweltering in record heat are only one justification for blocking future permits. As many Indigenous and environmental activists had warned in 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline spilled at least five times in its first year of operation alone.

Mounting legal challenges, backed up by the increasingly visible peril fossil fuel pollution poses to the environment, are making pipelines look too costly and uncertain for investors seeking reliable profit. In May, New York state regulators blocked a long-contested gas pipeline proposed under Lower New York Bay. Just this month, two of the nation’s largest private utilities abandoned the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a gas route from West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina, despite a favorable Supreme Court ruling and the Trump administration’s unwavering support.

 

I'm curious as to if you put your money where your mouth is on something like this. How much do you shop at Walmart / Target / Cub Foods, etc. compared to your local stores such as the Fresh Thyme or Lunds & Byerlys? Be honest.

 

Mostly Target and Cub to be honest. I'd really like to, but it is more expensive and difficult to shop at the local places (in terms of grocery availability). There is a few co-ops we frequent for produce though, and I vastly prefer the small hardware shop down the street from me to Menards or Home Depot.

I don't think it's fair for me or anyone to try to enforce shopping locally only on others, but an effort to try to make that choice is better than nothing. My wife and I have succeeded most at eating from local restaurants vs chains, and what we have been working at most lately is reducing use of Amazon.

 

I appreciate your honesty. In the town that I live we have a small grocery that the wife and I try to go to as much as we can. The previous town I lived in also had a small grocery that went belly up. Those small stores cannot survive on people coming in for milk and eggs once a month.

 

Very true, I also realize it's far easier to shop locally in a large city like Minneapolis with tons of options. Do you think we should subsidize local shops similar to farmers? Just tossing an idea out there. Places like Wal-Mart seem to have too much power to crush local business, but that's nothing new.

 

Walmart is a power house to be sure, but they weren't always. Sam Walton started with one small store in Bentonville, AR. The company has obviously done things right in the years to get to where they're at. Do I think we should subsidize small local shops? Heck no. They made the decision to hang a shingle same as Sam Walton did.

 

Then why subsidize farmers, fossil fuel companies, airlines, or any other industry? We do it all the time.
Privatizing profits and socializing losses is the practice of treating company earnings as the rightful property of shareholders, while losses are treated as a responsibility that society must shoulder. ... But when the companies fail, the fallout—the losses and recovery—are the responsibility of the general public.

 

And how many here have their money in equities-based mutual funds in their 401K, 403B or IRA accounts?

Like it or not, if you do, you are almost certainly encouraging those companies to put profits ahead of social consciousness. I have less than 2% of my worth in equities, and that is not a recent change.

I'm curious as to how many of you have unjustifiably viewed me a staunch supporter of evil, insensitive big business, while hypocritically turning a blind eye and supporting their methods yourselves.

Appended . . . And, further to my point, how many of you have equities outside of your 401K, 403B or IRA accounts?

 

I'm not a fan of subsidizing anything, especially big business where the CEO's are spending their evenings wallpapering their mansions with hundred dollar bills.

 

most people don't have diddly in their 401's and they were just an excuse to not pay pensions and continue to steal. through fees etc