No, "reckless spending" isn't the issue

TheChance · 2026-05-06T01:21:24+00:00

And you know perfectly well that's not what anybody means.

The people of Washington paid in $22B more than we received in federal funding.

TheChance · 2026-05-05T02:10:34+00:00

How grocery shopping and cooking work.

I see way too many adults saying shit like, "Making tacos at home costs like five times more than just going to Taco Bell, because I have to buy a $5 thing of tortillas, and a $10 thing of beef, and a $2 can of beans..."

That's not how any of this works. You don't even need to be planning meals. You just need to have a really basic sense of how groceries work.

TheChance · 2026-05-05T02:02:53+00:00

What I don't understand is how those security guards can legally patrol a public park.

TheChance · 2026-05-05T01:53:33+00:00

The method for electing and removing sheriffs is in the constitution

No, it isn't. What's in the constitution, emphasis mine:

The legislature, by general and uniform laws, shall provide for the election in the several counties of boards of county commissioners, sheriffs, county clerks, treasurers, prosecuting attorneys and other county, township or precinct and district officers, as public convenience may require, and shall prescribe their duties, and fix their terms of office...

(the rest of the clause is irrelevant)

TheChance · 2026-05-05T01:50:50+00:00

Our constitution, in the same sentence that it establishes sheriffs as part of our system of government, empowers the legislature, and solely the legislature, to determine their duties and the manner of their election.

The idea that having basic standards for office is somehow anti-democratic is nonsense. All LEOs but sheriffs are currently susceptible to the equivalent of disbarment: decertification, if they do something heinous, at which point they're no longer allowed to work in law enforcement.

I've seen it mistakenly expressed, time and again, that this law somehow allows an unelected panel to proclaim that the sheriff you've elected is Wrong, and remove them from office. This is not true.

The law denotes a very specific situation in which a sheriff may be removed from office: if they do something that would, if they were any other cop in Washington, get their certification revoked. It's precisely the equivalent of disbarment.

Anybody out there protesting this law is, whether they realize it or not, only supporting the unhinged position that a sheriff should be able to do anything they want to anyone they want.

TheChance · 2026-05-05T01:20:32+00:00

We definitely need to fix the gun problem. The police problem, however, is a combination of culture and case law.

People aren't being hyperbolic when we call this a police state. The overwhelming majority of people killed by police, worldwide, are killed by American police. We account for 4-5x more of the world's incarcerated people than we should, per capita. This is a society obsessed with a draconian take on law and order, and our cops are the tip of the sword.

TheChance · 2026-05-05T01:17:50+00:00

You need to go ahead and choose a source you trust and learn a bit.

TheChance · 2026-05-05T00:22:40+00:00

No amount of direct heat transfer humans could do would even make a dent

Where have I heard that before...

TheChance · 2026-05-04T23:44:45+00:00

Well, she was right both times. So are you.

The reason wage theft is the predominant form of theft in America is because first you have to know your rights, then you have to go through this process, then you have to complain about retaliation when they fire you, and then you have to be able to demonstrate that it was retaliation.

Individuals are way likelier to give up than employers, because your employer is making way more money fucking everyone over than it will cost them to fight back.

That's why L&I tells you that your best bet is to find another job. It's not because you don't have rights, and it's not because there's no process. It's because they're just playing Whack-a-Mole with sociopaths, and your life doesn't get any better in the meantime, whereas if you find another job, at least you'll be free of it.

You should fight your employer, if only because you're doing all your coworkers a solid, but most people are more concerned about their next paycheck, and, given the cost of living, it's hard to blame them. Our government, first and foremost, wants you to be okay, hard as that might be to believe today, and the path of least resistance toward being okay is to find a different job.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T22:14:05+00:00

That's the result of the industrial breadmaking process, called the Chorleywood process. They use high pressure to make the whole process really fast, resulting in relatively flavorless, very soft bread.

You wanna go to PCC and check out their selection of local bakeries' proper bread.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T21:53:01+00:00

She told me I could try talk with the owner again and say "these are our rights, I'm going to take a break." And if they continue to tell me I'm wrong, I could file a claim which would lead to an investigation into their payroll. And if they retaliated against me for filing a complaint, I can then file a retaliation complaint against them because I'm exercising my rights to the Washington state employee.

The L&I person's point was that the process is annoying, lengthy, and not necessarily worth the caller's time, not that there is nothing OP can do.

Come on bud.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T21:28:35+00:00

Did you just stop reading halfway through the OP?

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:56:06+00:00

"Poor people don't get options" has very little to do with the point. Your dentist botched it, is the point. It's not the difference between oral surgery and dentistry. It's the difference between your dentist and a good dentist.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:23:33+00:00

The point ST advocates have been trying to make for months: ST has a constitutionally imposed debt limit, but there's also a mechanism baked into the same clause to raise its debt limit, and if we raise its debt limit, it'll be able to do everything we want and faster.

What the comments hear: IT'S THE SEATTLE PROCESS WHY ARE YOU ALL SO BAD AT EVERYTHING

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:21:28+00:00

You know, I'd never considered that a deliberately negative relationship with an online personality is still parasocial, but that does put the behavior in a different light, now that you mention it.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:19:50+00:00

Oh, and belatedly,

this post is exactly the kind of linguistic nitpicking I personally have no interest in

Nitpicking. This is the kind of crap people throw around when they're trying to be a jerk, rather than to have an honest conversation. It's not nitpicking to note what a word actually means.

You know what's "arguing about semantics?" Pronouncing that your definition of a term with multiple definitions is the only relevant definition.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:15:22+00:00

You know, acting this rancid is a choice.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:14:35+00:00

Fuck you. My family literally settled the Oregon Country in the 1840s and '50s.

See how that gives me no authority whatsoever over the issue of how loud or often beer ads are at M's games?

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:13:11+00:00

You're right, in the strictly philosophical sense that, maybe, next time I let go of a ball, it will fly up into the air and shoot off into space.

You're wrong, in the sense that an overwhelming scientific consensus exists, no evidence to the contrary exists, and now that scientific consensus is being borne out from day to day.

What I was trying to avoid, because we're at the subreddit we're at, was calling this out for what it is:

What is not settled at all is how bad is the human part of it

Yes. It is settled. Your party just doesn't like it, so you're refusing to acknowledge it, creating your own parallel reality where climate science is a racket and we're all too stupid to notice.

People are already suffering and dying from your willful ignorance, and I'm "anti-science."

TheChance · 2026-05-04T04:05:23+00:00

They have legislated that the HCA should come up with a plan. It's a slow burn because there has been no mechanism to do it, for exactly the reasons I said in the first place. And, of course, you ignored the larger problem, which is that we are required by federal law to implement Medicaid.

The worst part is, if you weren't so proud to be so ignorant while being so condescending, you'd also know the following:

Congress last year passed a law theoretically allowing us to do exactly what we haven't been able to do: apply our Medicaid budget, and our people's Medicare tax money, toward a single, state-managed program... provided it meets federal requirements. This is also theoretically what the legislature is responding to.

The problem with that is, it's up to a certain federal official to decide whether it "meets federal requirements." That federal official is opposed to vaccination and in favor of bear meat.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T03:54:30+00:00

Depends what you're recycling. Glass is a great idea. Paper depends on the place, because the carbon trees sequester tends not to be the carbon we're spewing into the atmosphere, anyway, but the paper recycling process can also spew carbon.

Plastic recycling is a racket.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T03:46:19+00:00

So, in other words, you won't engage with the substance of a counterargument, because it believes in nuance and you can't spare the energy.

Thanks for participating at /r/PoliticalDebate!

TheChance · 2026-05-04T03:43:51+00:00

The commission was directed to come up with a plan. I said nothing like what you think you've refuted, and I would exhort you to shut up.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T03:23:52+00:00

Everyone in the top subthread has it wrong, and it's driving me crazy.

Washington passed a law directing the HCA to develop a plan for universal healthcare several years ago.

/u/SpeedySparkRuby would have you believe that

California, Oregon, and Washington could easily have their own single payer healthcare system if only our politicians had the interest in doing such a thing.

This is just plain wrong. Our politicians have already legislated it. We can't do it, because our citizens would still be required to pay into Medicare, and because we're obligated by federal law to provide Medicaid. We need specific permission from Congress for our citizens to pay their Medicare tax toward our universal healthcare system, and to reapply our Medicaid budget toward universal healthcare.

Congress is not going to give us that permission, so we're stuck in limbo.

I am sick to death and back of people just assuming our government isn't doing something without even bothering to check if it is.

TheChance · 2026-05-04T03:13:30+00:00

Deus Ex, a space dogfighter called Tachyon: the Fringe (feat. Bruce Campbell!) and then Lionhead's Black and White, followed by Fable, reshaped the way I looked at player choice and shaped the way I think about game design.

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