> You list teachers, who in my opinion are the poster children of how problematic unions are.
Teachers unions are extremely important. They are “problematic” only in the sense that they are one of the few unions that have genuinely strong bargaining power these days.
> For many, this is more about punishing their bad guys than generating tax revenue to accomplish something.
That’s basically the point of wealth taxes, explicitly. Advocates of a stronger wealth task believe billionaires should not exist on principle, that centralization of wealth and power is wrong it itself. And they’re right.
The Web needs the equivalent of public access television or public radio -- platforms that are sustained for public good via public money and/or donations
> see polls for single payer healthcare, gov funded college, wealth tax, etc
Except the Democrats don’t run on that. None of this was part of Biden’s campaign, in the primaries, only Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ran on these issues, and Biden tried to distance himself as much as possible from them. I agree that if the Democrats ran on what you’re describing, they would do much better electorally, but most do not.
There are many, many factors other than nuclear weapons preventing large-scale conventional war between powerful countries, and if those factors changed, I can assure you conventional war would return, even in a world with nuclear weapons.
I didn't say unilateral, although I support that as well. The United States is the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, and is also one that I reside in. If I lived in Russia or China, I would advocate for unilateral disarmament in those countries as well. Nuclear weapons are an absolute horror and should be completely eliminated from this planet. The United States (unlike China) does not even have a "No first use" policy -- it reserves the ability to use nuclear weapons aggressively or pre-emptively.
Horrifying mindset that led to the disastrous war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11. Our foreign policy should not be based on an animalistic thirst for blood.
Unions are not perfect and unionized workers often have a complicated relationship with their union, but fundamentally a Union is just a democratic organization representing workers. The policies are set by the union on behalf of the interests of workers, however imperfectly. Without a union, the policies are set by management and there is no institutional power that workers have collectively against policies they don’t like.
> Probably many undocumented due to the secretive nature of their government.
Are you saying the Chinese government could occupy a foreign country, commit war crimes against them, and kill over a million people without anyone knowing?
In the last 40 years, while China lifted a billion people out of poverty, what evil did they commit that is even remotely comparable to what the US did in, say, Iraq?
Not necessarily. There aren't really that many frictionless ways to gamble hundreds of thousands of dollars on your phone. People, especially young people, may make stupid, reckless decisions, but those decisions are often harder to get into and limited in scope and damage.
Yes that would be fantastic.