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Cake day: March 20th, 2025

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  • The issue is that the US doesn’t have any national ID system aside from passports. Each individual state runs their own ID system, and they set their own requirements for those IDs independently. So IDs in one state may be much easier to get than in a neighboring state.

    The US also has a long history of using voting laws to disenfranchise minority voters. Back when black people were given the right to vote, many states enacted laws that required literacy tests or ballot taxes for anyone who didn’t own land. These were designed specifically to prevent black people (mostly former slaves who were never taught to read, who didn’t own land, and who couldn’t afford the tax) from voting. Those were eventually ruled illegal, so states simply pivoted towards requiring tests for IDs instead. Requiring documentation that slaves didn’t have (like birth certificates) and requiring a fee be paid for the ID. This effectively put a gate on the ability to vote, without explicitly requiring a test or tax to vote. Basically, if an ID requires a tax and test, and voting requires an ID, then voting implicitly requires a tax and test. But since it was a step removed from actually testing or taxing the voters, the courts didn’t find it illegal.

    So with that history in mind, Americans (at least those who know the history and aren’t racist) tend to get squirmy whenever voter ID laws are brought up. Because voter ID laws are almost always backed by some sort of implied racism. For instance, many minorities need to jump through extra environmental hoops to get an ID. Cities (where many liberal voters live) tend to have inadequate facilities to actually process all of the people trying to get IDs. But rural areas (where conservatives tend to live) often have nearly no wait times because they are properly staffed and funded. If a liberal person in the city wants to get an ID, it often requires taking an entire day off of work for it, because wait times are measured in hours instead of minutes. So by making IDs harder to get for liberals, they effectively gate liberal votes.










  • if we don’t figure out how to de-escalate

    That’s the crux of the issue. The only way to deescalate against a “might makes right” approach is to match violence with violence. Rolling over and “taking the high road” will just end up with the violent people continuing to be violent because they didn’t have any consequences the last time. “De-escalating” can’t be done by giving the bully your lunch money, because they’ll just be back again tomorrow.

    You at least need to make yourself an unattractive target, so they’re likely to go bother someone else instead. Even if you don’t totally stop the behavior, you at least need to send a strong “if you fuck with me specifically you will have problems” signal. Even if you don’t stop the bully, you at least ensure that you’re not the target.

    That’s a large part of why the Black Panthers got started. People realized that peaceful unarmed protests would get violently busted by the cops. In contrast, peaceful heavily armed protests would have cops politely watching from across the street.


  • Exactly. It shouldn’t have even been an issue, because the crew is supposed to make sure the passengers sitting in the exit rows are able and willing to actually pop the hatches open in the event of an evacuation.

    During an evacuation, plane rows are too crowded for attendants to be able to get to the doors and open them. Know how you’re stuck in the plane waiting for everyone to de-board after the flight? Attendants have to deal with that when evacuating. So the passengers need to be the ones to actually pop the hatches and start clearing the plane.


  • They 100% will notice, because the rural areas (which tend to be the most deeply conservative) will be the most heavily impacted. The USPS is the only reason many rural houses can reliably and inexpensively get mail. Shipping rural mail via UPS or FedEx often costs $20-50, if they’ll deliver it at all; Many rural areas are redlined by the shipping companies, because the companies don’t want to send trucks an hour and a half out of the city just for a single package. From a cost standpoint, that’s a three hour round trip for very little benefit. They’ll literally refuse to deliver the package, and tell the customer that the address is outside of their service area.

    Shipping to those same addresses via USPS costs like a dollar.

    But yeah, they’ll just blame Biden and continue voting red.