Comment by jmyeet

Comment by jmyeet 13 hours ago

I knew it was going to be China.

China's infrastructure building is beyond impressive. I always come back to this map of China's high speed rail built in 16 years (2008-2024) [1].

China is actually run by a meritocratic bureaucracy rather than the dumbest of people who do nothing more than sell pardons, run crypto scams, transfer government funds to the wealthiest of people, pander to religious hallucinations and sell out their constituents for board seats and jobs after their political career from the very billionaires that were buying them in office. And no, it's not just one party that does this although the current administration is particularly egregious.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/highspeedrail/comments/1drmc2v/grow...

The_President 42 minutes ago

Your comment would have held true in 2022 or 2015, bolstering your argument that the incumbents cause these issues. Adding the “and no” precondescended statement to the end seems to show your own rumination toward bias.

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Mindless2112 13 hours ago

I, too, am jealous of China's high speed railroads. However, on the whole, China has overbuilt their infrastructure, and that may not look so smart in 40-50 years when the maintenance bills start coming due.

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tokioyoyo 12 hours ago

Is it factually true? Because some routes that I’m personally aware of are constantly over booked when it comes to rails. Some, I guess, might be overbuilt, but time will show. I’ll agree on some malls though, but it’s more like private stuff, than government-led initiatives.

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Liftyee 12 hours ago

Perhaps. One would hope that ability to build would correlate with ability to maintain, so that nothing falls into disrepair - but we'll have to see.

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delta_p_delta_x 3 hours ago

Americans try not to make a thread about themselves challenge: impossible

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mandeepj 12 hours ago

> the dumbest of people who do nothing more than sell pardons, run crypto scams, transfer government funds to the wealthiest of people

The irony is they are doing all that on the name of “meritocracy” and their side (the wrong Right) is falling for it and cheering it with both hands :-)

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leptons 12 hours ago

> And no, it's not just one party that does this

There's some very heavy lifting you have to do to make the parties look at all close. If the Democrats had a supermajority for long enough, you would see some real change for the better, because we can actually protest Democrats to get them to do things, while the Republicans will just silence any dissent using US military against its citizens. Unfortunately a Democratic supermajority is unlikely to ever happen again the way things are going now. And this is 100% because how people voted, or didn't vote at all.

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jmyeet 12 hours ago

Yeah, that's just not true.
The Democratic Party is absolutely complicit in everything going on. The term used is "controlled opposition". With the current government shutdown, I think it's taken the Republicans by surprise that the Democrats have (thus far) actually stood up for something and they really don't know what to do because it so rarely happens.
Like why wasn't this happening with the last debt ceiling increase earlier this year? Particularly because there was a fairly awful amendment in the last CR that ended Congress's ability to end the state of emergency the president could declare to use extraordinary powers. That seems like worth standing up to.
Go back to 2012 or so when Bush's tax cuts were expiring. Harry Reid had the Senate Republicans over a barrel until... Joe Biden got involved and just capitulated for absolutely no reason. And got nothing in return.
The last Senate supermarjority was in Obama's first term. It was fairly brief actually (less than a month) due to people taking sick and Republicans using a frivolous court case to stop Al Franken taking his seat. But there still was one.
Obama's signature legislative accomplishment was the ACA and what did it do? It was a massive giveaway to insurance companies. There was even a proposal to allow people to enrol in Medicare at 55 (instead of 65) which was derailed by Joe Lieberman. Why? United Health Care was an employer in his state (Connecticut).
But here's the dirty little secret. Democrats love nothing more than using the filibuster as an excuse to do nothing. If that fails, use "institutionalism". The filibuster is not a constitutional construct. It is part of the rules of the Senate. Originally you had to stand up and speak for so many hours to filibuster. Now you just raise your hand and say "filibuster".
If you have a majority in the House and Senate and a president in the White House, you can pass whatever you want.
And let's not forget we just had an election cycle where the Democratic Party openly and intentionally chose to materially support a genocide (that they could've stopped at any point with a phone call) rather than win an election at a time they were (rightly) calling their opponent a fascist.

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- leptons 8 hours ago
  
  >The Democratic Party is absolutely complicit in everything going on.
  The Democrats simply have no power to stop anything going on. If you think they do, then you don't understand how the government works at all.
  Every single thing you mention Democrats doing wrong, is because they have tried to compromise. If one side dictates what everyone else should do, you don't get a functioning country, you get a lot of dissent, and you know what - fucking forget it, you're just too lost to explain any of this to.
  Have a nice day.
  
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