Reveal Your Uncool Conservative Beliefs Here

From a customer service standpoint, every single interaction I have ever had with someone who works in government has landed on a spectrum from grossly disappointing to enraging. Social security, inspections & permits, police, department of transportation, traffic engineering, dept of natural resources. All utterly useless stupid clods when not actively deceptive and evil. I am definitely beginning to understand why someone would want to do away with the whole thing. Like, maybe my faith in the power of strong government is magical thinking. Something I want to be true to salve my horror at being ineffective at changing anything by myself.

― 📺👁️ (peace, man), Friday, October 2, 2020 10:24 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Forgot that I had a really nice interaction with a county park ranger this summer when a bridge went out on a trail my family hikes on. I want to give credit to him for getting back to me quickly, asking the right questions, and solving the problem. Also, at the MVA earlier this month, I brought some of the wrong documentation along when I was trying to get my son's learner's permit and the lady at the counter quietly let us slide. Just want to acknowledge these guys. Really do feel like they are a rare breed though.

fwiw, i worked in the govt for 7 years (joe biden thread connection - "because i'm as evil as joe biden is and obama was, obviously") and found the staff to be similar to everywhere else i've ever worked: some were amazing, some were terrible and some were among the best people i've ever met, with many gradations between. there's not some sort of test when you get into the government which guarantees you're an asshole.

also, i'll say this, though i'll stress up front that this is what public servants sign up for and expect: when a lot of people contact the government (over the phone, in person, whatever) they are doing so because they're in a tough spot, they're angry, they've been trying to figure out who to talk to and keep getting passed around, etc. they are pissed, and understandably so. however, due to the way large bureaucracies work, the person who ends up picking may very well have no idea how to help the person, other than to offer another generic phone line where someone helpful may or may not be helpful. it fucking sucks for everyone involved (especially the people who have been let down by the State).

it's not about the evil or goodness of the people who are asking, or the people who are responding. it's the circumstances they both find themselves in. switch the government worker around with the person struggling, and you'll likely find the same frustrating interactions taking place

KMotmfm

i work for the govt in a customer service capacity and have people tell me to die on a weekly basis. its tedious. my uncool conservative belief is that even in routine bureaucratic interactions, a huge majority of people go into customer service interactions with govt employees with aggressive & dehumanizing attitudes that they dont normally carry into similar private-sector interactions with, say, their gym or whatever, because of deeply baked-in ideas about govt employees being lazy assholes "because they cant get fired", etc. Similar to people who rag on teachers for "having summers off".

truthbomb: most people at most jobs are the same

Otm on both counts

it's not about the evil or goodness of the people who are asking, or the people who are responding. it's the circumstances they both find themselves in. switch the government worker around with the person struggling, and you'll likely find the same frustrating interactions taking place

my experience is that in many cases, the workers who interact with the public don't have very much power and latitude to do things. It is built into the bureaucratic system.

it is this system and its variants that created Karens.

A series of excellent posts

Labor compensation/rights only rise when there is a scarcity of labor compared to capital. Expanded legal immigration (incl H1B visas for skilled workers) and free trade (forcing Americans to compete with billions in the developing world) have both harmed Americans in the 99% and the labor movement, while benefiting primarily those that direct capital flows in 1%.

Zoom out far enough, and Trumpism was an irrational cult of personality attached to a recognition that tremendous harm to US citizens has come from trade agreements and excess immigration. The villains in the 90s were the GOP and DLC aligned Dems: in the congressional votes progressive Dems opposed NAFTA, opposed most favored nation trade status for China. Progressives shouldn't have to pretend these were good for US citizens.

also, i'll say this, though i'll stress up front that this is what public servants sign up for and expect: when a lot of people contact the government (over the phone, in person, whatever) they are doing so because they're in a tough spot, they're angry, they've been trying to figure out who to talk to and keep getting passed around, etc. they are pissed, and understandably so. however, due to the way large bureaucracies work, the person who ends up picking may very well have no idea how to help the person, other than to offer another generic phone line where someone helpful may or may not be helpful. it fucking sucks for everyone involved (especially the people who have been let down by the State).

I compare these hapless employees to those who work for baggage claim departments. They spend 10 hours a day getting yelled at by travelers with lost luggage, never getting complimented.

I honestly feel we should stop looking to Buddhist monks for the key to inner peace and centeredness when the world around you is shitty and loud and start instead asking baggage claim clerks and airport gate agents

Labor compensation/rights only rise when there is a scarcity of labor compared to capital. Expanded legal immigration (incl H1B visas for skilled workers) and free trade (forcing Americans to compete with billions in the developing world) have both harmed Americans in the 99% and the labor movement, while benefiting primarily those that direct capital flows in 1%.

Zoom out far enough, and Trumpism was an irrational cult of personality attached to a recognition that tremendous harm to US citizens has come from trade agreements and excess immigration. The villains in the 90s were the GOP and DLC aligned Dems: in the congressional votes progressive Dems opposed NAFTA, opposed most favored nation trade status for China. Progressives shouldn't have to pretend these were good for US citizens.

― Advanced Doomscroller (Sanpaku), Wednesday, November 25, 2020 6:10 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

a lot of Americans are legal immigrants, dickhead

"legal" that should be

yeah i didn’t even want to get into all that but i’m glad someone is

This is the uncool conservative beliefs thread ...

Fascism is even less cool

Even Hitler Imported Guest Workers

o_O

I'm reading "The Wages of Destruction" by Adam Tooze -- it is about Hitlerian economics

The development of fracking is overall a good thing

I mean I can't complain that it keeps me supplied with cheap natural gas for cooking with

the kind of wildcat strike of a take this thread needed

Calling a white person who lives in the US a "colonizer" is stupid

despite the risk of it being snatched by a bandit, the best way to cool off a freshly-baked pie is still to set it on a good old fashioned open windowsill, no matter what elon musk says

one of these is not like the other:

A hundred years apart but the same angst - on the left Edward Munch (1919) on the right Tracey Emin today. A cathartic exhibition @royalacademy pic.twitter.com/cgA9uMWFhz

— Philip Mould (@philipmould) December 13, 2020

is that actually how they were installed? Is that some weird angle they were photographed at? Horrible, I say -- the centers don't appear to be aligned ... my conservative belief

nah you can see the frame cut off in the Emin

Agree that fracking is a "net" good thing, especially if properly regulated. Much of the progress in replacing coal (more than halving greenhouse emissions), and building out renewable energy over the past 15 years in the U.S. was only economic because natural gas was < $4/mmBTU, rather than the $15+ it was headed towards in the 00s. Till longer term electricity storage comes down in price, every MW of renewables is backed up with a MW natural gas plant on standby. The harms (intrinsic to fracking) come from poor wastewater disposal, and like all natural gas production, there should be wellhead monitors for methane leaks.

xp Jim: I'm talking about legal immigration, too. Want better conditions for labor? Make it scarce compared to capital.

I know you're talking about "legal" immigration too, you dolt.

your "just asking questions" rhetoric is the "intellectual" equivalent of the brick through the window my parents got as a young couple because my dad was a refugee

Sanpaku, your earlier post posits that "legal" immigrants and Americans are distinct categories -- as both of those things: fuck you and your moral vacuity pretending to be rationality.

Sanpaku: making labor scarce since _____

1934?

Are you guys willfully misreading Sanpaku? People here on H1-B Visas are not Americans and would not refer to themselves as Americans, any moreso than a person here on a student visa.

Moreover, Sanpaku only referred to "Americans" in connection with the clause of his sentence about "free trade," i.e. forcing Americans to compete with people in other countries.

I guess to be fair he said "legal immigration including..." so maybe I misread lol

Want better conditions for labor? Make it scarce compared to capital

i'd like to gently suggest that this is a nonsense in the context of capitalist market economics

Anyway, I think his larger point stands irrespective of semantics. My take on it is that the problem comes not from "immigration" per se, but from the use of immigration to force an unlevel playing field and reduce wages. H-1B visas are nothing other than that.

every reference to immigration as being bad because it distorts the labour market relies on ignoring the point that capitalism depends on distorting the labour market, by whatever means available

however you word it, it's fascist propaganda

that's silly

Was Marx a fascist?

Groucho or Harpo?

is it? or is the notion of a national labour market in a massively globalized economy where the proletariat doesn't even belong to the nation that provides the majority of a nation's commodities silly?

i can comfortably agree with a lot of Marx's thought and recognise that he was analyzing societies that were radically different to today's societies.

i can also watch striking workers complain about immigrant labour on tv while dressed head to toe in clothes manufactured outside their own nation

Marx didn't give much of one fuck about the Nation State

Let me know when you crack the problem of organizing labor on a global scale. Until then we're stuck with the nation state.

that's a different question, but socialism is international or it's meaningless. immigration isn't a cause of low wages any more than population growth is.

or perhaps more relevantly, any more than industrialisation or mechanisation is.

Also, Sanpaku's whole point was to recognize the ways in which these forces have impacted the standard of living of Americans and that that in turn gave Trump an issue to seize. I don't think the answer to that is to deafly say "actually immigration is good," it's to concretely show Americans how their standards of living can be improved without making enemies out of immigrants. One of those ways would actually be MORE legal immigration, but on a level playing field and one that makes citizenship easier to attain rather than a dual-track guest worker type system.