The tax rate is never the issue.

Maybe not where you live, but here (Sweden) where the average worker pays ~60% tax on their earned income the perspective is a bit different :)

Right now certainly isn’t a time to be cutting taxes, but when the gov:t ends up… checks notes… spending 74mSEK on modern art for a rail link that had already overran its budget by 30% - it gets a bit jarring. Meanwhile hospitals across the country are in full cost cutting mode due to the ongoing recession and inflation.

Euro perspective - When I hear fiscally conservative, that means supporting a governmental policy that is frugal with spending and responsible with public assets and finances.

This has several parts, here are some of the most important:

a) Keeping a balanced budget - the government should not be spending more than it is collecting from taxes and income. (A little debt in dire times is fine, but that should be payed off when possible)

b) Responsible management and long term planning - the planning horizon should be counted in decades

c) Focusing on core tasks: national security, infrastructure, healthcare, education etc.

d) Not raising taxes unless strictly necessary, lowering them if it is permissible according to the above.

Socially liberal => supports personal liberties

Now why does government debt even matter? Well, because debt is owed somewhere, and if it becomes large may mean that the government is beholden to other parties for the debt.

Most research on human embryonic stem cells - currently impossible in western countries due to ethics concerns.

Theoretically, if a few stem cells from every embryo early on and frozen that might be a huge boon for them once they grow up to adults with potential health issues. Need a new heart? Grow one in a lab from the preserved cells - perfectly compatible.

Currently these kinds of things can’t be explored, and whilst the ethics may be dubious the potential medical benefits left on the table are astonishing.

A handful - lemmy.world because I found it first, feddit.nu because it’s Swedish, piefed because it seemed interesting, dbzero because of yarr and foss

Hamas has consistently struggled to articulate an achievable long-term strategy for alleviating the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

The author operates under the fundamentally flawed assumption that the terrorist hamas leadership cares about the well-being of the Gazan Arab population. They don’t - and either never have, or haven’t for a very long time. The primary interest of the political leadership, who live in other countries - far removed from the suffering of the people they supposedly lead, is to line their own pockets.

However, the fact that much of hamas upper echelons on the ground in Gaza was wiped out when hostilities resumed does imply that they misjudged the situation.

It was only a matter of time when it became clear they couldn’t agree on the terms for phase 2 of the ceasefire and phase 1 came to an end.

I’m honestly not sure where I stand myself on this. It’s a difficult issue and I’m not sure there can be “only one correct answer”.

as long as it does not support or provoke harm to other peoples

Who decides what is harmful or provocative?

A priest may find that the colander makes a mockery of religion, others might see a hijab as a symbol of oppression of women and others still may find that a certain slogan remind them of past trauma?

How do you strike a balance between dress code and preferences?

Should the state be free from religions, or free for all religions?

Does it even make sense to have the same rules in every country?

I myself am certainly biased in this context, given that I trust in science, evolution and the empiric process. Furthermore, I myself have been permanently negatively affected by religion, and all the ones I’ve encountered so far have been anti-scientific to a certain extent, regressive and denounce my own personal views. Does it not make sense then that I am anti-religious?

If I had to quickly codify my stance at this moment, I would say that I’m fine with freedom of religion to the extent that it intersects with the other personal liberties (Freedom of thought, expression, personal autonomy) that I think everyone should have the right to. However, I don’t think religion should give anyone preferential treatment in any context - religious organizations and religious folk should be subjected to the same regulations as a person of another (or no) belief or organization.

For instance, that might include exemptions from dress codes. In this case I would be against it unless the dress code would be equivalently relaxed for everyone, which I certainly wouldn’t support in some contexts. Some examples from healthcare for instance (since I’ve experience in the field) - it is imperative that what you wear is hygienic for the safety of the patient, and some of your duties might go against the personal beliefs of some people (abortion for instance). That doesn’t mean that you should be exempt from those duties or regulations because of your personal convictions. Suck it up, or go find another job.

From what I’ve read on the topic, this take seems misguided at best or outright wrong at worst. Historically, secularism in France has been a primarily liberal/socialist/anti-monarchist pursuit.

French secularism has its origin in the French revolution, half a century before Algeria came under French control. Religious institutions were viewed as a part of the aristocratic establishment and the concept of laïcité was introduced under the revolutionary era and entrenched (along with concepts such as freedoms of thought, expression & conscience) during the Napoleonic era. Further progress in this direction was not made by imperialists, but rather revolutionaries after bloody conflict (the French commune for instance) and generally steps were taken to repeal them when conservative/monarchist governments dominated.

To start off, you could write entire essays delving into this topic. Everything I’ve written in my reply is very condensed, so if you feel something lacks nuance, it’s probably to keep it brief rather than because I thought it is “THE ONE AND ONLY ANSWER”. Here goes.

Religious freedom has two key parts: freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

Which of these holds prominence is different depending on the secular country you’re in, and usually has a lot to do with the historic path that the nation and dominant culture took to become secular.

In France organized religion had an authoritarian position in society, dominating it for more than a millenium. It took literal centuries of bloodshed and more than one revolution to put an end to that dominance. That is the origin of those laws. The lessons behind their making were learned at the cost of many lives, and personally I don’t think that such laws should be ripped up without proper consideration.

Religion, particularly the organized kind is designed to spread and exert power over people and societies. Furthermore, unlike many other things such as ethnicity, sex or disabilities, it is a strongly held personal belief, which is a choice. Yes, there is some nuance there, but it is mostly based on convictions and antiquated traditions, much like the old republican laws themselves perhaps.

A question follows, should a person based on an arbitrary strong personal conviction be granted special treatment?

If yes… then I argue that this should not be limited to “religious” beliefs. The only thing that makes those particular sets of beliefs special, after all, is tradition and mass adoption, much like our own cultures. So, lets consider some other minority beliefs. Should a furry who “needs” to wear wolf ears be allowed to wear that? A sikh their turban? A pastafarian their mandated colander? What if someone strongly believes that they can’t go outside without wearing a CocaCola branded cap (mmm delicious ad revenue)?

The reuters article is rather sparse, CNN has a more in depth one.

This is the worst mass shooting in Swedish history to date.

Minister of State Ulf Kristersson held a press conference a few hours ago, and the King has issued a statement also.

It’s honestly quite draining with the constantly escalating violence. Many here didn’t initially react or realize the magnitude when the initial news hit after lunch citing five people shot.

Right now though one of our most prolific Swedish online forums (flashback) is down due to excessive traffic, and last I saw the news have blown up on mainstream platforms too.

Not surprising in the slightest. Greenland has to varying extents been affiliated with the Scandinavias for more than a thousand years now, whilst the connection to the US is… nonexistent.

Nuclear isn’t dispatchable.

This statement is false.

“A dispatchable source of electricity refers to an electrical power system, such as a power plant, that can be turned on or off; in other words they can adjust their power output supplied to the electrical grid on demand. Most conventional power sources such as coal or nuclear power plants are dispatchable in order to meet the always changing electricity demands of the population. In contrast, many renewable energy sources are intermittent and non-dispatchable, such as wind power or solar power which can only generate electricity while their primary energy flow is input on them.”

Source: EnergyEducation.ca (Provided by the University of Calgary)

Either you don’t know what you’re talking about, or are actively deceptive. I sincerely hope it is the prior. As such, I suggest that you educate yourself on the topic before commenting further to avoid spreading disinformation.

The main argument for nuclear is not its individual cost, neither for remewables. The main argument is that we need to rid ourselves of fossil fuels.

When planning for a future global energy system w/o fossil fuels, nuclear power has a key role to play as the most reliable source of clean, dispatchable electricity. This allows it to punch far above its equivalent capacity by massively reduce the need for expensive grid scale storage solutions.

Source 1: IEA (2019), Nuclear Power in a Clean Energy System, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/nuclear-power-in-a-clean-energy-system, Licence: CC BY 4.0

Source 2: NEA (2019), The Costs of Decarbonisation: System Costs with High Shares of Nuclear and Renewables, OECD Publishing, Paris https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_15000

Please do stay!

Yeah, a lot of the fediverse has an extreme left slant, and that’s coming from someone living in a rather left-leaning country.

As someone who jumped the reddit ship during the blackout protest and has been here ever since, mostly out of principle, it has slowly been getting better as more people filter in.

I would be positively shocked if this gained traction. Many islamic countries seem to be limiting rather than extending womens and girls rights at the moment.

the other judges all judged Israel was plausibly committing genocide

This statement is incorrect.

https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-05-en.pdf

Indeed, the basis on which she dismissed the provisions is quite important. She highlights that one of the fundamental parts that according to the ICJ are necessary to constitute a genocide (intent) is not present. For all of you interested, her full opinion is available to read here. In short, she stated that because of the lack of intent there is no genocide in Gaza (as defined by the ICJ).

I will note that she hadn’t before this ruling been considered “pro-Israel”. Though it has historically been the opinion of some moderators in this community that statements like hers constitute “Pro-Israel propaganda”.

The relevant part from the genocide convention:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical…

Here are some excerpts from the opinion of judge Sebutinde:

… Some of the preconditions for the indication of provisional measures have not been met — South Africa has not demonstrated, even on a prima facie basis, that the acts allegedly committed by Israel and of which the Applicant complains, were committed with the necessary genocidal intent, and that as a result, they are capable of falling within the scope of the Genocide Convention — Similarly, since the acts allegedly committed by Israel were not accompanied by a genocidal intent, the Applicant has not demonstrated that the rights it asserts and for which it seeks protection through the indication of provisional measures are plausible under the Genocide Convention — The provisional measures indicated by the Court in this Order are not warranted.

Later in the document there are more detailed explanations, but I will spoiler them to avoid a huge wall of text:

Previous moderation has indicated that discussion of this topic is ban-worthy in this community. As such I will not be responding to any comments unless a moderator in this community actively says otherwise. Those interested in a civil discussion can however send me a DM instead, as I find the topic important and worthy of discussion.

Yeah I don’t expect Kim’d let anybody leave NK that isn’t either fanatically loyal or under their thumb somehow even whilst abroad.

Even if the claims are true, which from what I’ve read there isn’t much evidence at all

There is plenty of evidence, but maybe you need a refresher.

Archival link (haaretz): https://archive.is/sRK4M

Warning, graphical content: https://www.7thofoctober.com/

Denying the events of October 7th is comparable to denying the events of 9/11. Both terrible events, which traumatized an entire people and caused wars where a much greater number of people got hurt and died. Yet, attempting to deny or trivialize the origin event is a surefire way to make those affected by it not listen to another word of what you’re trying to get across.

It has been presented, innumerous times, but maybe you need a refresher.

Archival link (haaretz): https://archive.is/sRK4M

Warning, graphical content: https://www.7thofoctober.com/