> I'm probably just a bit sentimental about wood.

Burning wood is the worst method to heat if you care about global warming.

Wood is literally made from co2 captured out of the atmosphere. You can make things out of it. You can let it rot in the ground. But don't burn it.

> as most people rent now

68% own 32% rent

That's not most.

You probably have paranoid schizophrenia or something related. Do you do drugs?

> So you definitely are a cop. Color me shocked.

I'm not a cop. Or a mental health professional. But you are clearly a nut case. Not in a Reddit insult way. Like you should have it check out way if it wasn't diagnosed already.

> You're a cop, aren't you?

You have mental illness yourself, don't you?

> Because policing culture in the US is rotten from top to bottom and keeps anyone who isn't like them out.

So the non gang members are kept out at the hiring stage? Do they flash secret gang signs in the interview? Am I getting this right?

> Literally anyone

So why are they not applying to be police?

You didn't answer a direct question. Where are these 1 million people that you think are qualified and that are willing to replace the existing police? What are they doing it right now?

Are they nurses? Are they psychologists? Who are they now? Do they exist?

> Unironic yes to all of that

Fine. So who wants to replace them? Where are those people?

> The police are a violent gang who react to everything with violence.

Is this an organized gang? Who is in this gang? Federal police? State police? Local police? School police? Is this a voluntary membership? Do they have gang rules that they have to follow? Killing mental people is one of them apparently?

> but they’re still cops with guns (we don’t need armed police officers responding to these situations)

Are you saying that someone who is mentally ill and is going through a violent episode senses threat from men with guns and it makes it worse? Fine.

So by that logic we need to send someone who does not look like a threat? Who defines what that looks like? Does everyone in a mental crisis respond the same to what we define as non threatening? Is there any quantitative evidence behind any of these ideas?

> because the ability to know how to prevent further escalation involves an understanding of the cause to know how to interact with that person first

I don't want to call this a nuanced analysis of reality, because it's much closer to common sense than nuance coming from a professional, but this is very accurate.

Sounds like your ex noped out of a hypothetical situation where they go out to 911 calls. Even EMS doesn't come on scene until it is secured by people with guns.

This idea that mental health professionals should arrive first at 911 calls is asinine. Not only would nobody want to do that, but any that did would quickly replace Alaskan crab fisherman from the #1 spot as the most dangerous job.

> You need six degrees in finance to understand our tax code.

Not really. You need maybe 3 hours of uninterrupted time to learn 99% of what an individual tax filer will ever need to know to properly file taxes and understand how they work.

But you have know nothing kids spending all their free time on Reddit reading what other know nothing kids write. That why nobody knows shit about anything.

> I don’t know

I asked about your opinion, "using all your intelligence and common sense".

> There is light rust on the underbody… will that make it fail?

What do you think?

On a scale of 0% to 100%, using all your intelligence and common sense, what do you think is the probability that light rust on the underbody makes a vehicle fail inspection in PA?

> nope, never said that. nice try, redditor.

And what was obvious to everyone is again on full display.

You are not looking for a reasonable solution but a radical solution that only a tiny minority wants.

So if the USA adopts the same rules as France, that would be acceptable?

> If I pay $100 a month for house insurance for a year and at the end of that year my house burns down and I’m given $250,000 to rebuild, that doesn’t mean I was never an “insurance payer”.

Your analogy does not make sense. Government means tested benefits are not one time payments.

If your house burns down every year, and you get $250,000 every year while you only pay $1200 every year into the insurance pool... that's an accurate analogy.

If you give $1 to the government in taxes, and the government gives you $10 right back, that doesn't mean you can be counted on as a source of taxes for the next redistribution program that the government comes up with. This isn't rocket science to understand. This is basic math.

But I highly suspect that it's not that you don't understand, you just want to ignore inconvenient facts. That's what Reddit does, come up with a false narrative and ignore basic facts.

Does France have abortion rights?

It's not a position. It's a simple mathematical fact.

> The estimate this year of nonpayers for federal income tax is closer to 40%

The figure is over 50% any year if you factor in redistribution that happens after taxes. If you pay $3000 in federal taxes but receive $30,000 in Medicaid coverage, SNAP and housing assistance, then that doesn't mean you are a "taxpayer" in the context of paying for new government programs.

That's not true. Social Security is a re-distributive system.

Lower income people get more benefit out of it than they paid into it. In other words, the system skews payments towards the lower end at the expense of the upper end.

They do. And state and local taxes, which are less progressive. But the major difference between federal income taxes and Medicare/FICA taxes is that they are generally paid back when someone retires.

It's more of a mandatory government savings plan than a tax that goes who knows where.

Because contrary to popular opinion on Reddit, the federal tax system in this country is highly progressive, and highly re-distributive.

The top 20% of income earners pay 75% of federal taxes. And roughly the bottom 50% of income earners pay no federal taxes at all.

Almost 60% of households paid no federal taxes in the last 2 tax filing cycles when the economy was going through the pandemic.

And all other non-profits. Tax them on revenue.

95% tax on revenue like it was in the 1950's.