Probably. But they still wouldn’t be any more accessible to the average person

1 million is ridiculously little. That would completely prohibit homeownership. And pension savings.

The Great Depression that happened almost 100 years ago? That definitely must have been caused by a court decision that happened half a century later

Usually we teach them from the time they are 3 years old. So basically when they are teens

Breaking in is just what we call the process of fostering trust and getting the horse slowly used to a rider.

Doesn’t the US even allow nurses to inject potent neurotoxins, as long as there is a doctor on the books that could theoretically be called?

Are fats part of eating real foods?

Yes. Healthy fats are a natural part of real foods such as meat, seafood, dairy, nuts, olives, and avocados. These fats support brain health, hormone function, and nutrient absorption when consumed in their natural forms.

They are really pretending meat has healthy fat, lol?

If they had simply left out that single word, their advice on fats would have been pretty good.

I don’t think the election was between trump and Trump. That would be worrisome

Even that isn’t the problem.

He was already promoting anti-vacs conspiracy theories in 2004. The tapeworm was removed in 2010. I doubt he had it for that long

The new food pyramid is just as influenced by lobbyist as the previous one. Only this time it’s the life stock industry.

Plus anti-woke MAGA wants to distance itself from vegans as much as possible.

But also, lean, fresh meat isn’t that bad. It does have a lot of protein, with really balanced amino-acids. You don’t have to carefully combine grains and legumes, in order to not miss out on essential nutrients.

Meat also has a lot of bioavailable iron and vitamin B12. Both are important and usually insufficient in a vegan diet.

If you count fish as meat, it also has bioavailable Omega-3. Especially fatty ocean-fishes like salmon. If you don’t eat fish, you either have to eat microalgae-oil or severely reduce your omega-6 consumption (no chips for you. They are fried in sunflower oil).

In contrast to fresh meat, most processed meats are really bad:

• Cured meat has sodium nitrate. That’s a known carcinogen.
• Smoked meat has smoke particles. That’s another known carcinogen.
• Charred meat has charring. Another carcinogen.

And you also shouldn’t eat a lot of fat from land animals. It has a lot of saturated fats which, you guessed it, cause cancer.

Yes. But how is that relevant?

Either the Democrats win the general election, then it’s irrelevant who the Republican candidate is, or they lose. Then the moderate Republican would be much better than the maga extremist.

I guess there could be some concerns about a moderate Republican swaying more independent voters?

No. To my knowledge, putting the means of production into the hands of the people was never a majority opinion. And democracy is important.

However, there are many social democratic policies that I believe have very broad support, and that still aren’t being implemented:

• Universal healthcare (e.g. through mandatory insurance with central price negotiations)
• Ban on pharmaceutical rebates
• Universal free preschool
• Free school lunch
• Incentivising local governments to zone more medium density housing.

Then there are other policies that I think would be really good for the US, but I am not sure the support is bipartisan:

• Tighter control on monopolies
• Unlimited sick days with a doctor’s note
• Minimum vacation days
• Raising minimum wage and implementing an automatic inflation adjustment
• Maximum weekly work hours
• Banning false self-employment
• Union protections
• Parental leave
• Free college admission

The latter category is also where I would place steps towards market socialism. For example federal laws that allow worker cooperatives (currently only some states allow them). And potentially even lowering the tax on worker co-ops compared to conventional companies.

What’s your opinion on those questions?

It’s pretty much the same in a parliamentary election system with an electoral threshold.

If the party you vote for can’t clear that threshold, you might as well not vote at all.

I guess your vote still has a slight impact, as it makes it harder for other parties that hover around the electoral threshold to get in. But I doubt that’s the impact you are going for.

Yes. I’m talking about an extremely directly democratic legislative system.

Democracy is supposed to put decisions in the hands of the people. But in our current system, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Germany is the 13th most democratic country. And still lobbyists have such a heavy influence that they might as well be considered our legislative.

Some people might be annoyed to be called for citizens’s assembly duty. But democratic participation is vital if we want a fair system.

The executive system would be slightly more technocratic than our current system. Expertise would definitely give candidates an edge.

For many posts the votes would mostly be cast according to morals. Like how I chose the green candidate, regardless of qualifications, for the ministry of transportation. I want trams and bike lanes. Not a transportation engineer that knows how to build even bigger parking lots.

But during a pandemic, I don’t want Spahn or Kennedy as health minister. I want someone like Lauterbach or Fauci. So maybe some technocracy is a good thing.

The government would be voted through instant runoff voting.

The legislative would combine several forms of direct democracy. Namely:

• Agenda setting initiative
• citizens’ assembly
• referendum

This wouldn’t be about saving the GOP. They aren’t going to collapse any time soon, and I don’t think they are morally saveable either.

It’s just about getting two chances at avoiding the greatest possible evil.

Conservatives are bad. But MAGA-progressives are downright evil.

So what is your plan to actually achieve goals? Protest? A coup d’etat? Civil war?

Do you think archiving those goals in a MAGA-autocracy will be easier than in a less evil system?

How many lives is that sort of change worth?

You could register Republican, then vote in the Republican primary for the less evil candidate.

Then in the general election vote for the Democratic nominee.

Although I don’t think many people are doing that, so maybe there’s a flaw in that strategy

They are flawed as well. You will never agree with any party on all issues, so you have to already compromise during voting. Even more so if there is an electoral threshold.

If that legislative would then try to find different majorities for every different issue, the population would still be represented relatively well. But that’s not what actually happens.

Instead, two or three parties that represent just barely more than half the population get together and form a government. An executive government. That alone goes against the separation of powers.

And after that, most legislative decisions are made unilaterally by that government coalition.

That whole coalition circus doesn’t work without an electoral threshold, which again forces voters to compromise more.

Instead, I’d like to vote for the government directly, through ranked voting. With a separate ranking for each minister. That way I could eg. give my highest vote to the green candidate for the ministry of transportation, and Dr. med XYZ of the conservative party for the ministry of health.

Then, separate from the executive branch, I could imagine a parliament without an electoral threshold for the legislative. That would keep compromise during voting to a minimum. 0.5% of votes would already grant a seat. That way, voters can choose representatives they agree with on multiple issues.

Although my preferred solution would be a more direct system of petitions and citizen’s assembly. If an open petition gets enough votes, or the government petitions something, then a randomly selected citizen’s assembly would be called to meet, research, debate and decide on that issue. Similar to jury duty in the US.

Random selection sounds counter to what we generally consider democratic today. But it would be much less susceptible to corruption. And random selection means we get a representative sample of opinions.

Direct voting on issues is also relatively safe from corruption. However, especially with less mainstream topics, it has a tendency to let extremists win. Because they are better at mobilizing their voters.

For really important issues direct voting is still a pretty decent idea. For example for changes to the constitution. Especially if it takes 50% of eligible voters to change the constitution. Not just 50% of cast votes.