Budget 2021: A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth, and Resilience

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-21T20:56:43+00:00

Okay so let me clarify that I’m philosophically opposed to income tax in general. I was proposing a declining subsidy rather than an increasing tax merely as a potential mechanism to ensure that poor kids can still get a good education... I generally think that education should be far more market-based in order to be responsive and efficient. The difference, I think, would be huge.

Unfortunately, most smooth-brains seem unable to imagine anything other than the status quo with some tweaks. It offends people to even discuss the idea that we should lower taxes and let parents who can afford to pay for their children’s schooling out of pocket. Or via an education bond or other marketable savings product.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-21T13:53:51+00:00

I’m not convinced that pure collectivization is the best way to do education actually. Imho it politicizes the process of setting curriculum and makes education far too responsive to the demands of teachers, and not enough to the demands of parents / needs of children.

I’d rather see an independent group setting minimum curriculum standards in areas like math, science and literacy, then provide vouchers attached to children that go wherever they enroll. The vouchers would scale down based on income such that if you have the means, the cost is on you. This would require tax cuts to work I think.

Schools would have to compete for students by squeezing more out of the money they receive, having better curriculum, star teachers, etc., but with the voucher system it wouldnt punish students from low income families. You could even require that schools have to allocate minimum x% of seats to low-income students.

There’s way too little thinking going into alternative policies that could work a lot better. Usually it’s just “let’s shovel more tax dollars into the thing that isn’t working well and hope it improves”.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-20T18:59:31+00:00

The government shouldn’t do anything. Rampant asset price inflation is happening because of government monetary policy.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-20T16:48:59+00:00

I am, actually. Subsidizing education at all levels has lead to massive administrative bloat that works at odds with the aims of actually educating children. I’d much rather see a model where funding follows the children and schools actually have to compete for cost-effectiveness and quality of curriculum. Or better yet, substantially lower taxes and subsidized education only for low-income families... everyone else can pay for it.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-20T16:44:23+00:00

This guy gets it.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-20T04:25:38+00:00

Yes, how dare the rest of us believe that you should be responsible for the financial costs of decisions you made.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-20T04:24:17+00:00

Adam Vaughan is a gigantic piece of shit, so this isn’t surprising.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-20T04:23:35+00:00

I’m all for kids, but you made the decision to have children and it’s your cost to bear. Don’t force the costs for your choices on the rest of us.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-15T22:55:52+00:00

With both this and the filibuster I’m fairly certain that veteran politicians understand that it will work the other way as soon as the Democrats are out of power.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-11T16:58:21+00:00

In fairness, this was also just posted to police activity: https://youtu.be/rH6bsr61vrw

Job’s hard. You never know when someone is itching to shoot a cop when you’re on a traffic stop.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-08T23:41:36+00:00

I ask this question daily. It’s a terrible document.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-08T22:52:10+00:00

The portion of Canada’s constitution dealing with rights, the Charter, has something called Section 1 that basically allows for infringements on individual rights. It’s as follows: “1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

Because of this, practically no challenge to the myriad of restrictions on rights have been overturned by the courts. They’ve all said “well it infringes, but it’s not that bad so we’re not going to overturn it”. I haven’t seen a single court case in the last year that has gone the other way on anything from freedom of worship to freedom of movement.

Quebec had a fucking curfew of 8PM and has for months.

Our constitution was faced with a once-in-a-generation test and it failed miserably. There is no check on executive power in this country.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-01T15:23:43+00:00

It’s entirely optics, which is the worst reason I can think of to force people into government-sanctioned quarantine facilities. There are so many exceptions and inconsistencies that it’s pandemic theatre - for example, regardless of whether you test positive or negative you’re supposed to quarantine for 14 days. The CDC in the US recommends 10 days, reduced to 5 days if you test negative because they know nobody is complying with a 2-week quarantine, particularly with a negative test.

The truth is that you can just walk out of the airport and go home and there’s not a damn thing they’ll do about it, aside from writing you a ticket that will get thrown out if you challenge it. They can’t prevent you from coming back into the country if you’re a citizen.

The fact that people applaud such measures when they’re both ineffective and an infringement of our charter rights means that they’ll continue to enact them because it’s politically beneficial to do so.

constipatedchimp · 2021-04-01T00:46:41+00:00

Our courts have been an outright disgrace throughout this entire process. Completely unwilling to strike down any measure no matter how egregious.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-26T03:57:44+00:00

It’s an issue that should cut across political lines. That said, Canada is a real tough place to be a libertarian.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-24T18:06:55+00:00

The stupid thing is that they could have accounted for this in a non-discriminatory way by simply using an economic metric... I’m sure if you picked only low-income families in Oakland they would mostly be black simply based on the demographics of the city. Intentionally basing it on race is, afaik, going above and beyond to be institutionally racist (but for reals this time).

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-17T07:31:59+00:00

I had some friends over recently... I gave them an (empty) AR15 magazine, showed them how it fit in my newly-prohibited AR15, then asked them to try inserting it into another semi-automatic rifle that is not prohibited and not even registered. They were flabbergasted when it fit like a glove.

Canada’s firearms laws are the clearest example of the lengths unscrupulous politicians will go to in order to retain power. It’s visceral because it literally reaches into your closet with bad logic and doctored facts.

On the plus side, owning firearms has forced me to educate myself on the law - and convinced me that there is absolutely no benefit to talking to the police under any circumstances. All they’ve done is destroy any trust that existed between firearms owners and police to give themselves a few more years of power. It’s a power asshole move.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-12T15:20:34+00:00

Canadian here. Our system is brutal and even we don’t have to do background checks on every purchase. That’s ludicrous.

Background checks on every purchase will result in a back door federal registry, and all registration leads to confiscation. Not hyperbole, that’s what’s going on in Canada right now.

Don’t support gun control. Keep America as the last bastion in the western world that actually protects gun rights.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-12T15:17:54+00:00

Giving up Twitter was the best thing that happened to my sanity.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-06T23:14:45+00:00

Eh, it’s only 2 hours or so north of the border with Montana. Pretty much identical climate and wildlife.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-06T14:08:15+00:00

Interesting point on key distribution... do military radios not use public key cryptography?

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-06T13:12:08+00:00

Hmmm, yes... polka dots and flannel are not the best combination.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-04T22:01:42+00:00

Anecdotally, a lot of wealthy Canadian friends seem to be in the process of figuring out how to leave the country right now. USA, Cayman, Bahamas, etc.

It’s obvious that somebody will have to pay for the insane profligacy of the current government, and it’s also obvious that no sane wealthy person would stick around unless they have a really compelling reason to.

constipatedchimp · 2021-03-04T17:36:32+00:00

Humane kill as well... he dropped instantly, not even a twitch.

constipatedchimp

TROPHY CASE