It's a terrible opinion and free speech means people can call out harmful beliefs and behavior. Society is all about establishing social norms, so it's almost an obligation. You are free to be wrong and ostracized.
Most immediately, all the people and services directly impacted. Then second order effects like the continued collapse of rule of law and related operational aspects like the systematic stripping of cybersecurity layers. Magnified by all this happening in one of the largest countries in the world + with most other countries and their process/people. Ex: Halt of congressionally-approved funding of hospitals, schools, and cyber defense teams, and mass layoffs around the same.
It might be amusing when you are personally comfortable and do not consider the people and processes involved, but basic digging reveals this stuff. I happen to work with people like doctors, first-responders, cyber teams, military, scientists, etc whose communities are in a tailspin. It's quite vivid, and I am confused how this is even a question. The ability of people to get life-saving care is literally being removed as perishable supplies are running out and staff are working pro-bono.
A top misinformation tactic is asymmetric trolling: Ask a simple question to force the responder to spend all their time. It's hard to tell if your question is from naivete, privilege, apathy, a broken media diet, trolling, or what.
Thank you for taking time to write a response in good faith.
I was not trolling; I sincerely believe what I wrote.
I do not believe that anything the federal government does that is time sensitive (social security payments, etc) is being affected.
I believe that termination of programs will require Congressional action.
However I believe that there is a lot that the President is Constitutionally authorized to do, that will limit what agencies do and control how they do it, and that the courts will not be shy to step in if the administration even has the appearance of acting unconstitutionally.
I do not think that we are in any way at risk of dictatorship; I think we are quickly moving away from that since Biden left office.
I respect your opinion, but I disagree in good faith, and my disagreement is neither trolling nor uninformed parroting of social media; it’s informed by my understanding of the Constitution and the structure of government it created.
I hope I am right in my predictions and you are wrong, because I don’t want the outcome that you fear may happen.
You are already wrong - hospital care is impacted, schools are/were shutdown, etc. I think you should ask yourself why you are so wrong and unaware on such basic things, and why you do not value them as much as the people reliant on them.
Please name a school that was shut down as a direct result of any Trump administration executive order. I see lots of hyperbolic news articles speculating about such shutdowns, but I do not see any actual closure.
Also, you’re going to have to be more specific about what hospital care was affected and how it was affected.
If a hospital happens to have a research wing and processing a grant proposal for researchers associated with the hospital takes a little longer than usual, I hardly consider that a crisis.
If you've ever been involved in operating small businesses or NGOs, or even harder, making one, you understand how fragile things are for someone to abruptly rugpull on even a small number of pay periods:
The Head Start schools are pretty hard to miss as having been on blast in the media around notifying layoff notices, closures, etc being only paused last minute due to court orders
A lot of basic domestic + intl'l social programs & safety nets run on state + federal grants, and ironically, that is especially true of the Republican/MAGA preferences of non-gov religious, community chartered, etc independent charities & non-profits. A lot are on shoestring budgets - stressing these further is a terrible idea.
RE:Telework, core operational areas like cybersecurity, especially with the COVID flip 4 years ago, is now telework, and those contracts are canceled. Likewise, more qualified positions are often by special renewing appointments, so those are now failing to renew too. Most American families cannot handle multiple missing payperiods, and thus cannot afford to play chicken with the rich or apathetic on this: they're told they're fired, so even if they haven't resigned, they have to interview. With the purse strings coming into the control of those who the courts are disagreeing with, rent wins: that's part of the point. It's already hard to staff these positions given they're underpaid to beginwith, especially when regional, so this is another self-inflicted wound.
This stuff is not hard to search. Systems are more fragile then they may seem from a comfortable techie background in affluent and otherwise self-sufficient regions. I think it's a fair position to want the US to have little power in the international stage, not use its wealth to save lives, etc, and that's something to vote etc on. But rugpulling essential services in illegal ways and unilaterally breaking society is a different thing, and again, not seeing that is pretty terrible and worth calling out.
My 'deja vu' here is when COVID broke out, and while my extended network was working long hours in labs trying to sequence the virus... others were encouraging people to go to restaurants. I'm actually disinterested in the politics. I just want society to avoid breaking from stupid unforced errors. Pulling the cord on people and processes en masse sounds fun if you do not understand operations and sociopathic if you do.
Do you consider all taxes to be theft? Then yes, your money is being stolen from you. Maybe you should move to a country with no taxes.
On the other hand, most people accept that taxes are necessary in order for the government to provide services. The disagreement is fundamentally over which services are necessary. In considering this, know that keeping other Americans able to work, live, get health care, life in safety, etc, is beneficial for everyone, even you.
I should only move to another country in the same capacity as you for being upset about the size of the government being reduced right now. We all have our political opinions and “you should just move” is a lazy and stupid non-argument to make.
> . We all have our political opinions and “you should just move” is a lazy and stupid non-argument to make.
No, these are not the same, because your position is untenable. I disagree with decisions being made right now; my preferred policy solutions can be accomplished with moderate taxes and legislative solutions.
On the other hand, your preferred solution involves no taxes at all, because you believe that tax is theft, so you want to eliminate all taxes, and that's not how countries work. My response to your unrealistic preferences is an unrealistic proposal; that seems entirely fair to me.
It is, instead, your naive ideas about how to run the government that are lazy and stupid; it's like you haven't studied history or government at all and are clinging to some 13 year old Ayn Rand fan's ideas of libertarian utopia.
Oh, sorry. When I asked "do you think all taxes are theft" and theb you said "yes", I foolishly assumed that you consider taxes to be theft. How irrational of me!
But sure, enjoy your performative intellectual superiority. I'm sure lots of people are impressed.
Ok so now it is getting explicit. So some things you dislike are getting cut, and because that is without due process and at illegal levels, causing excess harm that is serious & irreparable, eg, even deadly in some cases. You approve.
Next: People don't know what they are destroying and what other damage that will cause. Operations are fragile even without mass rug pulling. So that is another level of sociopathy to accept.
These come back to either being unaware or apathetic, which get back to social norms and ostracism.
Just remember how they "ostracized" you for being "wrong" now, keep silent when in enemy territory, and smile when you vote against them next election.
But I will not ostracize you for having a different opinion than me, nor will I downvote you, nor will I attempt to dox you, nor will I demand your posts be censored as “misinformation”, no matter how much I disagree.
I might screenshot something you say and make a meme out of it though :-) And you are free to do the same.
