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Comment by neuroelectron

20 days ago

[flagged]

A fairly key aspect of American federalism is there are a lot of things the Feds can't force states to participate in, as provided in the Tenth Amendment. (Known as anti-commandeering doctrine.)

No state is required to criminalize the same things that the feds do, nor to help the feds enforce their laws.

It was. You are maybe forgetting the marijuana industry.

  • Genuinely, this. How many green card holders are suddenly at risk of having said card revoked and being tossed into a concentration camp after visiting a dispensary in a legal state? Democrats failure to amend the law as the public wants is going to come back to bite minorities in the ass once again.

That's a really loaded way to put it, but okay.

Yeah, I'd rather we not terrorize the nation and build a national goon squad with a larger budget than most national militaries. I'd rather that goon squad not be unidentifiable and masked. And if we're willing to spend $100+ billion on a law enforcement program, I'd rather it be increasing police wages and firing bad cops and hiring/properly training new cops.

I'd rather not spend $100B on LEO at all, frankly.

There are other ways to crack down on immigration than ramping up the surveillance and police state.

edit: I am disappointed that the responder ignored the six points I made, all of which could be discussed, and instead went for a hollow whatabout.

  • [flagged]

    • > California has their own goon squad

      The only way that could be a purer distillation of abstract whataboutism would be to remove the last lingering traces of specificity, yielding: "[They] do [it] too!"

      Even if we accept that that other-bad-thing exists, how does it justify the first-bad-thing we were talking about?

Uh no. Tech, agriculture, entertainment, manufacturing, transportation. People love to hate on California but it really is the most productive state in the US. Facts please.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California#/media/F...

  • Not sure why the down votes. You are correct. The intro from your link:

    "The economy of the State of California is the largest in the United States, with a $4.103 trillion gross state product (GSP) as of 2024.[1] It is the largest sub-national economy in the world. If California was an independent nation, it would rank as the fourth largest economy in the world in nominal terms, behind Germany and ahead of Japan."

  • The corruption in California is well known and frankly blatant.

    Money laundering through tech startups or crypto shell companies, luxury real estate purchases by Chinese or Russian oligarchs for capital flight or laundering, tech-enabled criminal infrastructure: e.g., encrypted phones (Phantom Secure), dark web hosting, or cartel-facilitated Bitcoin laundering. Not to mention major economy sector capture under the guise of "luxury technocommunism" but enables international crime and tax avoidance.

    I'm sure many books have been written about Newsom. I won't go there.

    • > Money laundering through tech startups or crypto shell companies, luxury real estate purchases by Chinese or Russian oligarchs for capital flight…

      You could be describing parts of Texas, Florida real estate.... I'm not sure why California gets all the blame. I suspect because it is the wealthiest.

      3 replies →