Riders without helmets cost the public indirectly, via insurance premium increases.
#159 | Posted by Danforth

But that's not a public-as-in-government cost to bear.

Helmet laws illustrate that there's a trade off between the State's desire to reduce public harm, and the individual desire to enjoy life as they see fit.

Similar trade off existed with Roe. Past a point, a mother's liberty and freedom gives way to the soon-to-be-a-person inside her.

But with gender, I haven't even seen the data downside that justifies the State to intervene.

Okay but now we're back to reminding Boaz that individual charitable contributions are no substitute for a functioning economy.

"Now, it's bigger than I told you."

He's still talking to the beautiful and cute eight year old girl.

"Male Gen Z voters are breaking with President Donald Trump and the Republican"

They'll be back, as soon as their first date with a woman turns out to be a woman with a penis.

Unless...

Mmmm, that's good Lawfare!
--JeffJ

This is a data driven discussion being hijacked by people for their own reasons.

Data driven?
Here's some data:

A child changing gender neither picks America's pocket not breaks America's bones. What rationale can the state put forth preventing someone from performing an action which causes no injury to anyone?

Seat belts. Helmets. Illicit substances. Firearms. Increasingly, food and/or ingredients. Property uses. Construction codes...

Seat belts and helmets demonstrably save lives, so there's a public good to be realized there. However even that is not universal, many states let you ride without a helmet and I kinda don't see the problem there, do you?

Illicit substances are a holdover from Prohibition, but do also harm others; that's why we're at war with Venezuela. Applied to food that's why we have the FDA. Spoiled food harms others.

Firearms are only a right because of a legal peculiarity. Any data driven discussion of firearms would quickly determine a legitimate basis for regulation, as seen in every other modern country.

All of your examples, except seat belts, are examples where government is protecting unsuspecting individuals and innocent bystanders from harm. As for scope, about 100% of us will ride in a car at some point, most of us will be in a car crash at some point. Unlike changing genders which applies to a very small few.

That's not the case with changing your gender. There's no third party the State can advocate they are protecting here.

And guns is a great example. Far more suicides by gun than other method, but we don't effectively regulate that. So why regulate the far fewer number of people who want to transition?

What is the state's justification for seizing that liberty and denying that freedom?

It's okay if your answer is "I don't know" because that's my answer too.

I'd like a good data driven narrative to curtail freedom, before curtailing it. Like I did with seat belts and stuff.

"Blame games are for children."

Biden's Fault, or Obama's fault?

"You're leaving out the folks who have no kids, and will be giving the money to other households."

Sure, that's certainly a thing that happens.

Could still be a zero sum game, though, as that household goes away when the parents go.

What portion of total household income is gifts? How much of it is gifts to the bottom 80% of households? Point I'm making is, I get a check from Santa in my stocking, but I'm not in the bottom 80% of households.

As we all say to Boaz, when he says it's not governments job to do charity, individual wealthy families don't have the power to right a structurally, systemically unsound economy.

"I bet you don't know who shot and killed President Garfield."

Charles Guiteau, which is a name I know from "The Ballad of Charles Guiteau." Which is an old Americana tune. I have it on a compilation from some Ohio folklore society.

Not "The Ballad of Guiteau" from the recent musical.

It's very on-message for Americans to not know the names of the people who killed our Presidents:

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and I believe that so fervently I can't make half the people who used guns to kill the President!"

how close were we to a 0% uninsured rate?
#166 | Posted by eberly

Red states refused Medicaid Expansion, at least at first.

So those are the states that are farthest away from 0% uninsured.

As you're aware, Republicans just recently refused to continue Obamacare subsidies.

So you'll get a "real numbers" answer to your question on Jan 5.

We're all looking forward to rubbing Republican faces in Republican feces when that happens.

Not that Republicans learn from having their failures pointed out to them.

But maybe this time they will. Never give up hope!

I'm not sure when it was I pulled that ladder up against you.
#13 | Posted by Zed

But you can see the hole where the ladder used to be, right?

"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households."

And you can look at the graph of productivity vs wages, and see the same effect. Productivity keeps going up, wages have been relatively static for fifty years.

Boomers used to say "a rising tide lifts all boats."

Boomers seem acutely unaware that it hasn't been that way for two or three generations now.

I'm guessing, the poor ones didn't notice much change. And the rich ones are papering over the structural failures in society by simply giving money to their kids, which addresses the problem at an individual level, but still limits wealth gains to 20% of households.

Boomers end in '64-ish. Thiel and Musk are definitely Gen X. Like Kavanaugh. They're early Gen X.

The way to divide Gen X is, what video game console did they have at home as kids. I was born in 71 so my neighbors had Atari. Whereas JPW might be on the Nintendo portion of the spectrum.

"cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion"

Sounds about right.

The cost of the Iraq War was projected to be around 4 trillion, before it started. As I recall, half of that was future health care costs for Veterans.

Not projected to be $4T by Republicans, though. As I'm sure many of us recall, Republicans said stealing Iraq's oil would pay for the war, which is something the oil companies wouldn't let Republicans do, funny how Capitalism works like that

Can we ALL agree that this level of fraud is objectively bad?
#154 | Posted by BellRinger

I dunno.
Can we all agree the fraudsters are in prison?

"Yes, of course we start with the fraudsters. We also have to look very closely at how they were enabled to commit this degree of fraud/theft."

I dunno.
Are you saying that hasn't happened?
If so, I'm saying you're a liar.

We're still not addressing the real issue that is in play here, not from the perspective of science, or medicine, but freedom and liberty.

If a child doesn't want to transition, who gets to assign their gender? The State, the Parents, the Doctors, or the Child?

If a child wants to transition, the child's parents are supportive, and the medical community is amenable. Who gets to decide if that child can do that: The State? The Parents? The Doctors? The Child?

A child changing gender neither picks America's pocket not breaks America's bones. What rationale can the state put forth preventing someone from performing an action which causes no injury to anyone?