That’s… Not a good argument. Child pornography and prostitution is illegal because it’s morally reprehensible, and incredibly, profoundly harmful to children. Same with murder, robbery, theft, etc. By definition, anything that is illegal is going to be done–or controlled–only by people that are criminals.
Does prohibition stop those things entirely? No, of course it doesn’t. But it gives society tools to fight against them in a way that decriminalizing does not.
In Illinois you didn’t have to ‘register’ for section 8 (I believe it was called ‘housing choice’), but it’s been a long time ago. (I owned a house that had two apartments; I lived in one, rented the other out.) Most tenants are functionally judgement-proof, unless you only rent to upper-middle class people. Sure, you might get a judgement against them, but that doesn’t mean you’ll ever see a penny of it. As far as not being a slumlord, I have absolutely no tolerance for landlords that don’t want to keep properties in good repair, full stop. Yeah, it’s expensive to replace a roof, but fuck you, that’s why you’re taking in rent.
Gambling should never be considered a legit business. IMO casinos et al. should be shut down, for the same reason that payday lenders should be beaten to death in the streets: they’re fundamentally predatory businesses.
The problem with prostitution and organized crime is that it’s not victimless once the mob gets involved. “Bitch better have my money” is a threat; you pay the pimp, or you get beaten, and possibly killed. You want to hire an independent escort? I’m fine with that. But significant amounts of prostitution involve sex trafficking, esp. “agencies” that constantly advertise “new girls”.
All of the businesses that the mob–or any organized criminal gang–is in end up increasing costs due to corruption, and involve the threat of violence if anyone disrupts their money. People that try to compete in sectors controlled by criminal groups tend to end up dead very, very quickly, regardless of what the nature of the business is.
They’re threatening to evict you, yes. But actually evicting you, in at least some states, can be challenging. I know someone that rented out his entire home (long story), and got paid about three months of rent before they quit paying. It took him nearly two years to get them out. (Last I knew he was suing the agent that vetted them; apparently there was collusion, and the tenant has done this multiple times before.)
The flip side is that if you quit paying your mortgage, it’s also going to take months or years to get you out of the house, but then the bank has a piece of real estate. Banks don’t want to own real estate; that’s not their business. They’re not set up to buy and sell real estate. Foreclosing on a house costs a bank a lot of money.
A roof that fails on a 500-unit apartment complex will be cheaper to replace per unit than the roof an a single family home. Same with a water heater that serves multiple families rather than a single family. Honestly, it’s a good argument for communes, but communes have their own set of social problems, since it can be hard to get people to take responsibility for shit unless you go into it with the same kind of contract that you’d have when renting.
I honestly can’t see a way that doesn’t result in some visible something (although maybe not visible in a photo). You could throw money at it and get custom tiles made, but you’d have to have your measurements and tiling technique perfected to make that work.
A domino joiner on a job site would be good for things like putting together pieces or a banister (railing) where you needed both the strength or something like a doweled joint as well as the alignment capability of a biscuit joiner. It’s going to add strength to any kind of mitered joint that would be glued/where you don’t want to see nails. Most of the uses are going to be in cabinetry or furniture rather than in general carpentry and contracting, but it definitely has a few very specialized uses on a job site.
I am not a contractor, but I did it for a very brief period of time (until the business owner stiffed me of about a thousand in pay, and I realized it wasn’t a good side gig).
Apolopgies for this wall; I’m literally autistic, and guns have been one of my particular areas of interest for, um, 40-odd years.
That style of hand guard, AFAIK, doesn’t accept M-LOK or keymod accessories. I can’t be sure though; what you’d be looking for is something like this -> aeroprecisionusa.com/ar15-atlas-s-one-m-lok-handg… The slots are what the M-LOK mounts go into. (Aero Precision is kinda pricey, IMO.) The added benefit is that it floats your barrel; it’s only connected to the upper receiver, and not the barrel, so you can get slightly better accuracy out of it.
You can get the metal parts of the rifle cerakoted white, if that’s of interest to you.
You can get a gas block that fits under your hand guard. That allows your hand guard can go all the way to the end of your barrel which gives you more options for mounting accessories and hand positioning. Gas blocks come in a variety of styles, but a fixed and pinned (e.g., held on with a roll pin) block will work for almost everyone. An adjustable gas block may be better for people that are running silencers, since that affects gas pressure in the system, but I have no direct experience with them since silencers are $$$. If you replace the hand guard with an M-LOK hand guard, you’ll need to replace the front sight with a low profile gas block.
I’m personally not a fan of iron sights because my eyes suck. I use an LPVO and a canted red dot, and that’s worked very well for me. I can reliably hit targets out to 340y (or, that’s the longest I’ve shot to, and that was at a match), and there’s no way in hell I’d be able to to that with irons.
FWIW, AR-15s are basically like Legos for adults; they’re almost infinitely modular, and most parts work just fine with other parts as long as they’re from reputable manufacturers.
I don’t know about Olight adapters specifically, but I’ve seen LEP heads for Surefire bodies. IIRC the Blazer LEP Z-Bolt is good to at least 300y, and it’s bright. There’s very little spill; it’s very, very focused. I’ve shot out to 150y with a Streamlight ProTAC; it’s not great at that distance, but it works. It’s got a lot of spill and decent throw, so you still have peripheral sight.
The pit bull groups of dogs, as breeds, are not the nanny-dogs that people claim they were. They are mastiffs; they were intended to guard, and were used for hunting and war. You can train the shit out of them, and they can still revert to breed characteristics.
A study in the US concluded that greater than 60% of all fatal dog attacks in the US were from pit bulls or Rottweilers, but those two groups don’t make up nearly 60% of all dogs in the US. These simply aren’t breeds that should be left alone with children.
Thank you for your more informed numbers! I had no idea that a basic city bus was half a million dollars; that seems outrageous, but it also seems outrageous that an F-150 can easily cost $80k.
It’s a pity that it’s so damn expensive to run light rail in established cities; it seems to make a lot more sense in the long run, but those numbers are really hard to swallow in the short run.
China is socially conservative–and deeply authoritarian–but economically is officially communist (although not so much in practice, given that they have billionaires).
For the most part, people change based on relationships, not raw information. In general, you can’t counter a belief simply by presenting overwhelming information. (This is one of the only areas where Trump is a savant; he’s actively fostered a parasocial relationship with his cultists. They believe that they have a strong social relationship with him, so they’re inoculated against information that’s critical or negative of Trump.) What this means is that ideas can be contagious, and can spread through relationships. If you are able to use you relationship with your parents to help them understand why e.g. Trump is terrible for the country, then they can, in turn, spread that to their friends.
While I appreciate your desire to abolish capitalism, in the case of fascism, it’s not money, but power that’s at play. Even if you eliminated all profit motive, people would still shill for Trump because they think that they can get some kind of benefit that isn’t necessarily monetary.
When I look at Dr. Steven Hassan’s BITE model for high-demand religions, the Mormon church ticks most of the boxes to some degree. Take behavior control: “4.Control types of clothing and hairstyles”. Okay, you don’t have to wear only white, and a specific model of white sneakers. But you are expected to wear opaque clothing that covers temple garments completely, and wear clothing that is free of an ‘offensive’ imagery or text. Beards and long hair are strongly socially discouraged, and will get you kicked out of BYU, as will visible tattoos and piercings. When you skip to “4. Regulate diet – food and drink, hunger and/or fasting”, well there’s the word of wisdom, and fast Sundays. And it just kinds goes on and on. They don’t do some of the things (murder, rape, etc.), but they do a lot of them to some degree.
At a minimum, it’s an unhealthy degree of authoritarian control.
Like having a good life insurance policy that pays out even if you die doing something stupid? And maybe having a fake tooth filled with cyanide so you can go out quickly instead of dying of exposure?