As far as I can tell, Hamas is making the same demands they were making in October. It's as if the war hasn't changed their thinking at all. Have the demands of Hamas changed since the attack in October?

Rural Ohioan here. I can't think of any way that illegal immigrants impact my life. I assume the closer you live to the southern border, the more affected you are.

How is your life impacted by illegal immigration?

A lot of people will claim to be in favour of world peace, accepting eachothers differences and working on something productive on a global scale. Different cultures can do things we find morally detestable because it’s their culture or because they’re forced to by their living conditions but that sentiment seems to fly out the window when we start demonising and fighting with our neighbours because they hold different believes. Seeing other countries as evil blights on the world is short sighted and Nazi rethoric while seeing the other political side as an evil tumor that can’t be reasoned with and must be stopped is socially exceptable.

This is an idea I have had for some time now but haven’t share it since I don’t know enough about the subject to say with certainty, so I thought on sharing it here first to know if this can actually work and how right or wrong I really am

I don’t know about how transit agencies outside the US work or even if all transit agencies in the US work the same, doesn’t seem so as some are more successful and/or functional than others. I just know that a lot of this agencies suffer because they are under supervision of the state and unless the state is heavily progressive like California or Washington (or DC but that one is not a state, not yet at least), the state governments either don’t give enough funding for this transit agencies or enough attention that they should. and that’s what I want to talk about

It’s all up to the state on deciding on what projects can and should be done transportation wise. the government in a state is representative of all the people from all over said state and most of this congresspeople and the people that elected them don’t live in live in a city or town with rapid transit access unless if its an commuter rail station that no many people use, so cars and car based infrastructure is basically all they know. And this people will more likely decline any proposal for rapid rail transit infrastructure being built on a city of town they don’t live in, and if they approve it, changes are that they will decide on building mediocre infrastructure projects that don’t fully comply to their true potential

Like take for instance the transit system of my home city, the MBTA (yes THAT MBTA), it’s been infamous for it’s delays, closures, breakdowns from last year and arguably the worst BRT system ever built when they could’ve built new extensions for its green and orange lines but didn’t because it might have cost to much or something. I don’t know if this is a result of a long time on building and tons of money spent on the big dig that made the Massachusetts state assembly and a lot of people hesitant to support and make another large and expensive infrastructure project ever again, i personally can say for sure

Everything is better explained on this video, in fact, that video is what inspired me to make this post

So here’s what I’m proposing:

How about leaving transit agencies under supervision of cities, counties or groups of cities and neighboring towns that benefit from rapid rail transit under one group? That way, they’ll only partially need the state government help and fund and study future projects, expansions and plans on their own, all they’d ever need would be contribution with funding from the state and federal governments. New cities/towns can join to the group if they want to get rapid transit service. I don’t know if LA’s Metro, Seattle’s SoundTransit and Portland’s Trirail Max work, but it’s been working well for them from what little I’ve seen from them

Again, I’m not sure how any of it works and I can only speak from what I know and my experience. But I think this is the best compromise we should get for improving metro areas across the US

The sex industry in general is interesting because it’s somewhat loosely regulated. By that, I mean that there are regulations but not as much as other industries and not as strictly enforced as other industries. Like other “seedy underbelly” industry types, there is a lot of “looking the other way” when it comes to the sex industry and relatively and generally speaking, people on all sides of the political spectrum seem to be somewhat ok with that. At least it’s not a vocal or priority issue, not for liberals nor for conservatives. And there doesn’t seem to be many clear cut “liberal” or “conservative” stances when it comes to the sex industry. Some, but not really. In this sense, I would consider government regulations approach to sex industry to be a centrist matter.

As centrists, what problems or issues do you personally perceive in the porn general industry and what would your personal policy proposals be, if any, to fix these perceived issues? And by that, I include everything from strip clubs to only fans to porn websites like pornhub, and even prostitution if you care to muse that far. And I include both consumer issues as well as labor issues to sex workers.

For a quick summary he basically said that he regrets endorsing Biden in 2020 and won’t this election, he criticized “woke” and cancel culture, and stated his concerns about the current state of America.

I’ve seen people on a lot of other subreddits tearing him up and saying bad things about his character. The way they are reacting you would think he went on with a maga hat and went full on trump. But I think he just stated an opinion ion and view point that many Americans hold right now.

I’m not some hardcore rock fan Moana and a couple of the fast and furious movies is all I’ve seen from him, however I do find it concerning to see how leftists online have straight up villanized him and how extreme they are taking this.

*also I should add the reason he was on Fox News is prob that the wwe and his football league are w fox

Edit: it seems as though I did a pretty bad job with my summary I recommend actually reading the interview sorry bout that.

There are many who will do some amazing mental gymnastics to defend Biden and the Afghanistan withdrawal, buy every new piece of information shows how it was completely botched by the State Department and the Biden administration. Military leaders testified Biden ignored their advice. Now we have testimony that the state department threw together the evacuation together as it happened. If Trump mishandled the withdrawal like this, he'd be impeached by the democrats in a week. The Afghanistan withdrawal will be a factor in the 2024 election, but we'll have to see how much of a factor.

"Hours of closed-door testimony from three top State Department officials shed new light on the “unprecedented” situation in the final days of the US presence in Afghanistan as the officials were rushed to the country with virtually no time to prepare and no established emergency evacuation plan in place when they arrived."

"The new details paint a picture of the chaos outside the Kabul airport and the ad-hoc nature of the evacuation, something that top US military generals suggested could have been mitigated if the State Department had called sooner for a “noncombatant evacuation operation” – known as a NEO – for remaining US citizens in Afghanistan.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/politics/afghanistan-withdrawal-state-department-testimony/index.html

In most nations that Social Democracy is implemented it does very well, what is your critique of it? Asking as a Social Democrat.

Edit, by social democracy I mean the democracy’s similar to Finland or Denmark.

Why are "oppressed people" normally told in the context and narrative where they are always perceived to be morally good or preferable? Who's to say that anyone who is oppressed could not also be perceived to be "evil"?

The "trope" I see within the current political landscape is that if you are perceived to be "oppressed", hurray! You're one of the good guys, automatically, without question.

Why? Are oppressed people perfect paragons of virtue?

I really hate megathreads, but…

Not sure why these posts are repeatedly popping up here because it’s unclear what it has to do with centrism.

I think it’s getting to a problematic amount of anti-Musk rhetoric. Usually the same person seeking sympathy or looking to argue.

I don’t think anyone really disagrees it’s a terrible situation, but these posts literally feel like borderline propaganda getting posted repeatedly. Nearly as bad as the Israel spam, but nothing will ever come close to people’s obsession with that.

This is one current event that has really nothing to do with the political spectrum specifically and is mostly a news or geopolitical-related subject like most war topics.

The sub had a God damn CRT megathread for what seems like years about a manufactured problem that has magically disappeared of late, and now there are calls for an Israel mega thread!! Can we at least tidy things up a bit with the spamming of this conflict?

It literally breaks rule #3

I really hate megathreads, but…

Not sure why these posts are repeatedly popping up here because it’s unclear what it has to do with centrism.

I think it’s getting to a problematic amount of pro-Palestine/Hamas and anti-Israel rhetoric. Usually the same 5 people seeking sympathy or looking to argue.

I don’t think anyone really disagrees it’s a terrible situation, but these posts literally feel like borderline propaganda getting posted repeatedly. Nearly as bad as the Trump spam, but nothing will ever come close to people’s obsession with him.

This is one current event that has really nothing to do with the political spectrum specifically and is mostly a news or geopolitical-related subject like most war topics.

The sub had a God damn CRT megathread for what seems like years about a manufactured problem that has magically disappeared of late, can we at least tidy things up a bit with the spamming of this conflict?

It literally breaks rule #3

A lot of posters here have claimed that Israel is winning this latest war against the Palestinians. I am curious as to what their measure of 'winning' is. If the stated goal is to "exterminate Hamas" then they will not succeed. Or is their goal is to "mow the grass"?

Yes, the Israelis have taken Gaza as we knew they would. Yes, the Israelis have killed thousands of people as we knew they would. But is this the measure of victory? Only if your goal is Ethnic Cleansing. But what have the Israelis won strategically?

Hamas has not changed it's demands since October. So the IDF hasn't succeeded in forcing Hamas to comply. According to the Israelis, Hamas doesn't care about the civilians so Israel will continue to kill civilians until Hamas complies. This doesn't make any sense, but it's Israel's position.

So if you think Israel is winning this war, please explain what Israel is winning.

WAR IS A MERE CONTINUATION OF POLICY BY OTHER MEANS*. We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.*

Carl Von Clausewitz