Your view furthest outside the Overton window?

[Yellowhammer]

- All property taxes should be abolished.
- All estate taxes should be abolished.
- The 16th amendment should be repealed, and thus the Federal Income Tax should be nullified.
- There should be a federal ban on the damming up of major waterways to create new reservoirs.
- I believe in Jus sanguinis: citizenship at birth is determined by the citizenship status of one's parents.
- Age limits for purchasing alcohol and tobacco products should be voided
- All state beverage "commissions" (cartels) should be abolished.
- The military draft should be permanently abolished, and defense spending should be cut by 70-80%.
- The voting age should be raised to 25
- Landlords should have total discretion in who they choose to rent out to, and should be able to select their tenants or ask them to leave for any reason.
- The federal minimum wage should be abolished
- The United States should withdraw from the UN

and,

I think we should be able to own and buy machine guns without federal notice, registration, or licensing.

To expound upon this, I think that any member of Congress who introduces legislation that is designed to directly infringe upon the 1st or 2nd amendments should face compulsory expulsion from Congress.

This is just a small sample. I could spend hours typing these.

If I were to compile a list of your most extreme/deplorable views, basically none of these would be in the top 10.

Please do!

[John Dule]

Democracy and capitalism are headed for a divorce, and capitalism will be the winner. It deserves the win, too. Democratic ideals are founded on a false idea of equality that has no basis in reality. Any boob can see that differences between individuals are vast and contribute massively to a person's success (or lack thereof). The lie of equality is perpetuated only so that weak-willed people can feel that their own failures were not within their control. I'm not talking about the poor black kid in Compton who never had a lick of economic opportunity in his life here-- I'm talking about people like the ones I went to high school with. You know, entitled, spoiled bratty white kids with helicopter parents who bought them a Lexus for their fifteenth birthday, and who (despite having every possible advantage in life) burned their brains out with weed and ended up moving back in with mommy and daddy after college. They love the idea of everybody getting an equal share because they know they're not bringing anything to the potluck. Tell me that these people deserve a "Freedom Dividend" or even a vote, I dare you.

Voting is ridiculous. American democracy asserts that the subjective, ill-informed, bullsh**t opinion of some uneducated (sorry, "low-information") voter in Frog Balls, Arkansas is worth as much as the input of well-educated, civic-minded people like the ones on this forum. It's just absurd. Majority rule is a wretched, utilitarian way of governing a nation and it deserves to be cast into the dustbin of history. If 51 or 66 or 72 or 99 percent of the public shares the same opinion, that should not affect me one iota if I think they're wrong. They have no right to affect my life through the voting process just because we've all arbitrarily decided that "everybody's vote counts."

I have my own problems with capitalism, but at least it's meritocratic.

[Former President tack50]

-Social Security and pensions as they are designed now are a pyramid scheme and 100% unsustainable in the long run (we still need to pay old people's pensions somehow though).

-Both life imprisonment and the death penalty should be abolished, with a maximum sentence of 30-35 years regardless of crime. Everyone, even the most hideous criminals deserves a second chance to turn things around.

Well duh they were designed to rely on the population pyramid remaining a pyramid.  But countries like Spain no longer have a pyramid, but a mushroom cloud.

I think, without a massive change, entire subregions of Europe will be abandoned and a massive European migration will occur in the 21st century.  Southern Europe is in for massive change.  The Great Consolidation will occur and Europe will have to unite to rescue the mainly elderly, hreatly reduced populations of eastern, central, and southern Europe.

I mean, a proper population pyramid is unsustainable as well for different reasons (ever increasing population). Ideally the population pyramid should look like a rectangular building, with a small triangular "roof" at the top.

Also, if that "massive European migration" happens, it won't be because of old populations (in fact, Southern Europe is a top destination for retired people!), but rather because of climate change making the place uninhabitable. Europe's population pyramid is indeed worrying though, close to Japan levels of bad.

[parochial boy]

worldwide federation is an achievable and necessary goal if we are to truly end the stranglehold the global elite have over the economy. This would eventually entail the abolition of all standing armies, intelligence agencies, hard borders, tariffs, restrictions on freedom of movement and wealth disparities between the developing and developed worlds.

Something I head the other day (some random french far-left podcast in fact) made the point that we shouldn't be focusing on some sort of global elite as the source of all evils - as that creates the myth that you could replace the "bad guys" with a set of "good guys" who would implement a better set of rules and make everything better. Whereas, the real ill is the existing structures of capitalism which both require and reward the sort of behaviour that leads to the existing political and economic dominance of a tiny minority, and therefore will inevitably lead to this being reproduced. In that respect, we should be attacking the real problem - the ideology of the market as the being the basis for all human interactions, rather than the individuals themselves, who are largely a symptom of the problem.

Not really related to what you said, but I thought it was an interesting point considering the mention of the Global Elite.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

-Almost all foreign military bases should be closed.
-IVF should be banned.

[S019]

Repeal the 2nd Amendment
Repeal the 21st Amendment
Bring back the 18th Amendment

[Farmlands]

• All drugs should be decriminalized, let treatment instead of jail help those addicts.
• Genetic modification should be seen as an acceptable way of fixing the flaws of human biology.
• Capitalism is the only system worth pursuing as a means to improve living conditions.

[Gass3268]

Repeal the 2nd Amendment
Unionization should be mandatory for all workers
Billionaires should not exist and should be taxed out of existence
There should be zero restrictions on abortion
All major transportation, energy, communication, technology, insurance, and health industries should be nationalized
Media and entertainment compaines should remain private, but broken up into smaller entities

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Outside the Bill of Rights and various other amendments, the U.S. Constitution is garbage and ought to be replaced in full.

• Capitalism is the only system worth pursuing as a means to improve living conditions.

Pretty sure this is the majority view in the US. Unless you mean full laissez-faire capitalism?

[Santander]

I would literally get banned if I posted that kind of sh**t here lol. According to Eharding's political test, I am the most right-wing poster on Atlas.

[afleitch]

The First Amendment is the antithesis to what exercising freedom actually entails and treating it as the 'default' in international social and online discourse is amongst the worst excesses of American imperialism and should be actively opposed.

[Kingpoleon]

I’m sure that plutonium should be available at every corner drugstore.

[All Along The Watchtower]

- Any good socialist or social democratic politics has to be family-oriented and localist in emphasis
- AI technology is actively making our lives worse
- Donald Trump is both terrible and yet more of a continuation of previous Presidencies on actual issues of presidential/executive branch unilateralism - which is the most dangerous part of his Presidency

[Beet]

- Eventually Earth will be united in a single federation, like in Star Trek, and this will probably be a good thing.

- Identity politics implies competitive natalism unless there are government restrictions on the number of children per group.

- Holier than thou morality in politics of developed nations is empty if one does not support a gigantic Marshall Plan for the Third World/Sub-Saharan Africa. Ideally, the developed world, which has a surplus of capital, would export it to the Third World in the form of factories, machine tools, roads, dams, buildings, schools, etc. and thus become a net creditor. This would solve the problem of workers "competing against impoverished labor", for instead of being a source of competition lowering wages, these areas would now be a source of aggregate demand raising wages. It would also solve the immigration problem because it would raise living standards in poor countries. World economic growth would be higher because investment in poor areas tends to have a higher rate of return than building another McMansion in a rich country. Interest rates would be higher, which would disincentivize indebtedness, and limit asset price appreciation. Thus housing and education would be more affordable in rich countries. Many, many problems would be solved or greatly ameliorated with this plan: poverty, immigration, globalization, wages, debt, and deficits. The only reason why this does not happen is a lack of bold vision and lack of charity on the part of the rich countries.

[darklordoftech]

Abolish student loans and the Department of Education

[junior chįmp]

Wow.  You and I are way too much alike.  And you yearn for religion to cope because you’ve probably found more truth than you know.

Yeah religion is obviously made up but when I used to live in NYC...I was kinda jealous of the hasidic Jews. Like I'd almost rather convert, shack up with a wife and kids, and just live within a community where your somewhat boxed in from knowing too much.

As for psychiatry...there are medicines that address measurable chemical imbalances and therapeutic practices that seek to consciously co-opt the way your brain “wires” itself into bad behaviors over time...to stop or replace those behaviors with a better alternative.  

When one is diagnosed with depression...they're generally given CBT (Therapy), talk therapy, or anti-depressants. Most of the time all three.

Except CBT no longer works and talk therapy isnt really all that effective. The studies on the effectiveness of anti-depressants are all over the place so I dont know what to believe about them though they seem to be more effective than not taking any. Historically up until the invention of anti-depressants, it was pretty widely accepted in American psychology that depression was just a minor problem that would pass with time:

 

But let’s face it...psychiatry is just another coping mechanism to deal with the world.

My problem with psychiatry is that it seems to exist solely to diagnose behaviors that conflict with what society considers ''normal'' and creates conditions out of thin air for people who simply refuse to conform to society's expectations. For example, back in the 19th Century...slaves who escaped from their masters were diagnosed with drapetomania and women who wouldn't submit to their husbands were diagnosed with hysteria. Then, from 1952 to 1973 homosexuality was a mental illness until psychiatry changed its mind and only up until recently the WHO changed its mind and said being transgender isn't a mental illness. I dont doubt that there are mental illnesses out there but one has to wonder how many of them are just normal albeit a different way of thinking/behavior. For example one of the genes responsible for ADHD also makes a person a born explorer. Perhaps instead of medicating a person with ADHD to fit the rigid confines of school/college/bean counter life...they should just drop out of school, join the military, or perhaps travel the world.

It just seems to me that in this country that there are societal expectations and anyone who doesn't live up to these expectation in which they dont derive some sort of satisfaction from being a work drone mindlessly sloughing it out at the office 70 hours a week bragging about how their ''on da grind'' while pumping out some children so the state can get its future payroll tax revenues is ''mentally ill.''

[Ilhan Apologist]

College is a scam. Most jobs could just be taught without a college degree. College degrees are a way for wealthy liberals to keep poor and middle class people out of certain industries they hold a monopoly in.

I agree with most of what you said, but not this. It's true that most jobs can be done without a college degree (and requiring a college degree to apply is usually pointless), but what about education for the intrinsic value of knowledge? People WANT to learn about history and biology, even if most of them won't end up with a job related to that. There's got to be more to life than just working for a wage until you retire, and education provides that. (that's why college needs to be tuition free, or at least affordable for everyone)

[Ilhan Apologist]

Anyway, for me: lawyers should always work for and be provided by the government. There's no reason why a richer person should be able to afford a better lawyer and therefore have an easier time staying out of legal trouble.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyway, for me: lawyers should always work for and be provided by the government. There's no reason why a richer person should be able to afford a better lawyer and therefore have an easier time staying out of legal trouble.

Oh, I agree with that big time. Add lawyers to the list of industries to nationalize.

[John Dule]

Anyway, for me: lawyers should always work for and be provided by the government. There's no reason why a richer person should be able to afford a better lawyer and therefore have an easier time staying out of legal trouble.

As someone who's hoping to go to law school soon, I'd probably try to find another line of work if this happened.

[MarkD]

My "outside the Overton window" view is that I don't think there should even be a minimum wage law at all, not just that I resist raising the minimum wage.

[Santander]

Anyway, for me: lawyers should always work for and be provided by the government. There's no reason why a richer person should be able to afford a better lawyer and therefore have an easier time staying out of legal trouble.

Oh, I agree with that big time. Add lawyers to the list of industries to nationalize.

Because the government is never wrong. This is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard. Listen to what you are even saying.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Inheritance should be taxed at 100 %.

[junior chįmp]

College is a scam. Most jobs could just be taught without a college degree. College degrees are a way for wealthy liberals to keep poor and middle class people out of certain industries they hold a monopoly in.

I agree with most of what you said, but not this. It's true that most jobs can be done without a college degree (and requiring a college degree to apply is usually pointless), but what about education for the intrinsic value of knowledge? People WANT to learn about history and biology, even if most of them won't end up with a job related to that. There's got to be more to life than just working for a wage until you retire, and education provides that. (that's why college needs to be tuition free, or at least affordable for everyone)

Nothing wrong with that but keep in mind that facts have a half-life. Most of what you will learn in college will turn out to be wrong and disproven in the future.

Although I agree with you. Nobody should have to pay for knowledge that is temporarily correct/relevant or a piece of paper so they can work a job that has nothing to do with their major because HR departments are too lazy to evaluate people on a case by case basis.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

1. Religious thought should have no more protection under the law than secular thought (ex. an employer should not be able to deny their employees contraceptive health coverage for religious reasons while being simultaneously unable to deny their employees contraceptive health coverage for secular reasons)

2. The Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act should be repealed (and the continual American outrage over the consumption of dog meat in other countries is ridiculous)

3. Sales taxes should be reduced or completely abolished, with the lost revenue being made up for by increased progressive income and/or capital gains taxes