2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[frunk]

I would argue there is a significant public good for my fellow citizens to be well educated.

[Admiral Yi]

I would argue there is a significant public good for my fellow citizens to be well educated.

Two different meanings of good.  We have a wide variety of goods on sale.  You are a good person.

[HVC]

I would argue there is a significant public good for my fellow citizens to be well educated.

We had a similar discussion a few months back. I wasn't able to win Yi over

[frunk]

Two different meanings of good.  We have a wide variety of goods on sale.  You are a good person.

Are you saying the police are for sale, rather than being a net positive for society to have?

[Admiral Yi]

Scooby dooby doo.

[Admiral Yi]

Too grouchy, let me try to answer.

"The police" are not for sale.  They are a service funded by taxes and provided to the public free of charge at the point of service.  Police officers have offered their labor for sale.  Glocks, body armor, cop cars, all for sale.

Being a public good and being a net positive for society are not mutually exclusive, so rather does not play a part.

[Syt]

Big day today, I guess. I hope to wake up tomorrow morning to a world that's not on fire (not more than it currently is, anyways).

[HVC]

Members in republican states should stockpile bottled water and canned food, just in case

[Tamas]

Too grouchy, let me try to answer.

"The police" are not for sale.  They are a service funded by taxes and provided to the public free of charge at the point of service.  Police officers have offered their labor for sale.  Glocks, body armor, cop cars, all for sale.

Being a public good and being a net positive for society are not mutually exclusive, so rather does not play a part.

You are oversimplifying. The police isn't just a service for the public. They are a key element in maintaining the state's monopoly on violence which is the foundation of any functional state.

[garbon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/czxrnw5qrprt?post=asset%3A727e7cac-092e-403f-a7c1-ff314d34459b#post

As Americans prepare to vote, businesses board up

In Washington DC, the home of US politics, many businesses have boarded up their windows in preparation for possible unrest on or after election day.

Hundreds of National Guardsmen are also on standby in the American capital, as well as in other states - including Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina and New Mexico.

Metal fences began to be erected outside the White House from as early as the beginning of October - the same has since happened near other DC buildings, including the Capitol.

[frunk]

Too grouchy, let me try to answer.

"The police" are not for sale.  They are a service funded by taxes and provided to the public free of charge at the point of service.  Police officers have offered their labor for sale.  Glocks, body armor, cop cars, all for sale.

Being a public good and being a net positive for society are not mutually exclusive, so rather does not play a part.

I went to wikipedia because the distinction you are making seems fuzzy and confusing.  The wikipedia definition also seems contradictory, but I'll try to tease out what is being said. 

Use by one person neither prevents access by other people, nor does it reduce availability to others.

To me law enforcement can very much be used up and availability reduced, at least when bounded by time.  Police officers are not able to teleport instantly from place to place, and can only perform so many actions within a given timeframe.  That's the definition of being limited and potentially preventing access for others.  It certainly seems less able to scale than education, which can leverage technology to educate an unlimited number of people at minimal extra cost.

If the argument is that law enforcement can't be used up because more police can always be hired, more teachers can also be hired.  I'm not seeing the distinction.

Public goods include knowledge,[4] official statistics, national security, common languages,[5] law enforcement, broadcast radio,[6] flood control systems, aids to navigation, and street lighting.

So I guess you are distinguishing between knowledge and education, where I would argue knowledge without its propagation isn't really a good.

[crazy canuck]

Alberta has a constitution?

Same one Quebec has.

https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk-1982-c-11/97548/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk-1982-c-11.html

We don't have Catholic school boards, we also don't get to choose.

From wiki:

Formerly, school boards were divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant (called "confessional schools"). Attempts were made to set up a Jewish school board before the Second World War, but it failed partly due to divisions within the Jewish community. This confessional system was established through the British North America Act, 1867 (today the Constitution Act, 1867), which granted power over education to the provinces. Article 93 of the act made it unconstitutional for Quebec to change this system. Consequently, a constitutional amendment was required to operate what some see as the separation of the State and the church in Quebec.

The Quebec Education Act of 1988 provided for a change to linguistic school boards. In 1997, a unanimous vote by the National Assembly of Quebec allowed for Quebec to request that the Government of Canada exempt the province from Article 93 of the Constitution Act. This request was passed by the federal parliament, resulting in Royal Assent being granted to the Constitutional Amendment, 1997, (Quebec).

In the 1996–1997 school year, Quebec had 156 school districts including 135 Catholic districts, 18 Protestant school districts, and three First Nations districts. The school districts operated 2,670 public schools, including 1,895 primary schools, 576 general or professional secondary schools, and 199 combined primary and secondary schools.[1]

When public schools were deconfessionalized in 2000, Catholic and Protestant religious education classes along with nonreligious moral education classes continued to be part of the curriculum. Article 5 of the Quebec Public Education Act had been modified in 1997 so as to allow minority religious groups to be allowed religious education classes of their faith where their number were large enough, but this was removed in 2000. Then, in order to prevent court challenges by these same minority religious groups wanting specialist religious education in schools, the government invoked the notwithstanding clause, which expires after a maximum of 5 years. In 2005 the government of Premier Jean Charest decided not to renew the clause, abrogate Article 5 of the Public Education Act, modify Article 41 of the Quebec Charter of Rights and then eliminate the choice in moral and religious instruction that existed previously and, finally, impose a controversial new Ethics and religious culture curriculum to all schools, even the private ones. [citation needed] The ERC course has been taught starting in September 2008. Several court challenges have been launched against its compulsory nature.

From Constitution Act 1867

93 In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education, subject and according to the following Provisions:

1.
Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any Class of Persons have by Law in the Province at the Union;
2.
All the Powers, Privileges, and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen's Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen's Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec;
3.
Where in any Province a System of Separate or Dissentient Schools exists by Law at the Union or is thereafter established by the Legislature of the Province, an Appeal shall lie to the Governor General in Council from any Act or Decision of any Provincial Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority of the Queen's Subjects in relation to Education;
4.
In case any such Provincial Law as from Time to Time seems to the Governor General in Council requisite for the due Execution of the Provisions of this Section is not made, or in case any Decision of the Governor General in Council on any Appeal under this Section is not duly executed by the proper Provincial Authority in that Behalf, then and in every such Case, and as far only as the Circumstances of each Case require, the Parliament of Canada may make remedial Laws for the due Execution of the Provisions of this Section and of any Decision of the Governor General in Council under this Section.(50)
Quebec

93A Paragraphs (1) to (4) of section 93 do not apply to Quebec.(51)

BB, you may not have read down as far as section 93A, which expressly excludes Quebec. 

If you think about who ran the schools in Quebec at the time of Confederation, combined with the need to protect Catholics outside Quebec, both the exclusion and the protections in section 93 will begin to make more sense.

GF is correct.  Quebec no longer has Catholic School Boards.  That Province removed them.

[Caliga]

Members in republican states should stockpile bottled water and canned food, just in case

I live in a Republican State, but in a Democrat stronghold within that state.  I'll be fine.

[HisMajestyBOB]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/czxrnw5qrprt?post=asset%3A727e7cac-092e-403f-a7c1-ff314d34459b#post

As Americans prepare to vote, businesses board up

In Washington DC, the home of US politics, many businesses have boarded up their windows in preparation for possible unrest on or after election day.

Hundreds of National Guardsmen are also on standby in the American capital, as well as in other states - including Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina and New Mexico.

Metal fences began to be erected outside the White House from as early as the beginning of October - the same has since happened near other DC buildings, including the Capitol.

Yeah, I'm working from home today. My office is just a few blocks from the White House and the National Mall, and I wasn't particularly inclined to deal with rioting or whatever on my way home. Gonna play the rest of the week by ear.

[HVC]

Members in republican states should stockpile bottled water and canned food, just in case

I live in a Republican State, but in a Democrat stronghold within that state.  I'll be fine.

So, basically, you're under perfect siege conditions