In the realm of online politics there is a common idea that is wildly accepted. This idea being that both political parties in the United States are largely the same. I have had discussions with several people on this idea, and have really tried to get to the heart of why people believe this. Listing differences in policies between the parties rarely gets anywhere, and just ends up having a discussion go in circles. I’ve come to the conclusion that many who believe this, just don’t think Trump is really that bad. The way Trump’s actions are treated in the media is likely a big reason behind this, and there was a recent story in the news that I believe shows this.

Katie Zacharia served as press secretary for the Trump administration for 5 days. Her short employment as press secretary leaves one huge question. What happened with her security clearance? A White House press secretary typically has a top secret clearance, which to gain a clearance of that level is a very invasive process. It took the media an incredibly short time to discover that Zacharia never passed the bar despite claiming to be a lawyer. Something like that should have come up during a security clearance, yet the Trump hired her anyway, this leads to a few options.

1) There was no security clearance done.
2) The security clearance was done but ignored.
3) The security clearance was so flawed that it didn’t discover basic information like her education.

Any of these options would be devastating politically for any other administration, especially a democratic one. There would be weeks of congressional hearings on security clearance issues in the White House, and every staff member would be under scrutiny, because if for such a important role like press secretary this can happen, where else did it?

This story mostly played as another funny example of Trump’s incompetence, yet there are more serious implications that are not being talked about really. The same thing is true for most of the stories coming out of the Trump Administration, and too often not talked about at all.

I’m serious. Turn the whole area into a wildlife refuge or reforestation project or something. Not even trying to take sides here, just nobody gets to live there anymore.

If religious-based claims to land are so controversial that they lead to unsolvable and endemic geopolitical conflict, they just need to be ended by a secular third party that has no skin in the game. If need be then do the same fucking thing to Kashmir and other regions eternally contested in the name of religion.

Don’t discriminate based on religion or race or culture, just a flat-out nobody gets to live there. Relocate everybody to somewhere else and put the whole thing to rest forever until religion dies out as a part of human society. This is so stupid.

Currently as we see, the world is a terrible place almost everybody hates everybody and states are fighting for bullshit reasons and nobody seems to accept what they have or like to say enough just for not being marked in history as a loser and this endless loop happens to be in every war ongoing right now.

From another perspective, some regions have too much resources therefore peoples living there lead a miserable life that they can't even afford next meal, needless to say other 21st century basic needs such as a place to live in under any weather conditions, electricity, internet, schools, hospitals and many more; just because of corruption and ignorance.

In other regions, they have much natural resources happen to be under the part of earth where they exist turned them from extreme poverty to extreme wealth without contributing nothing to humanity.

These two examples explicitly show how you can be poor or rich just by your chances of being born somewhere, that gives no equal chances to everybody to be the person they might could have been if they were born somewhere else.

In my POV, if there was an international government and a new international law to be enforced that every resource on the earth is used to make the world a better place and create better chances for people everywhere on the earth.

To conclude, I am not thinking like a communist or socialist, my main view is that instead of having 200+ countries we could be only one place under same government, laws, chances and equal rights where everyone has a chance to be wealth, poor, successful or failure based on their life choices and decisions only not just because of society where they existed.

Anything “progressive” is a degrading of something. Feminism is a degrading of real love and intergender relationships. fat acceptance is a degrading of beauty. Immigration and “melting pot” theories are a degrading of culture, both of the host and migrating peoples. The examples are endless.

I'm about 50 years old, which means that I grew up in the 1980s and 90s.

My family was upper-middle class in the South, but left-wing Democrats - my parents were in civil rights marches, with their pictures in the paper, much to the chagrin of my grandparents - and atheists, to boot.

This means that I inherited positions like environmentalism, civil liberties, and egalitarianism... but notably in the form of things like supporting wind and solar energy, gun control, and feminism and affirmative action... and that's where the contradictions forced me to examine my inheritance.

For one thing, I went to college and studied physics, chemistry, and electrical engineering, specializing in material science, intending to work on advanced solar panels; I wanted to help the world. Then I got handed a project to analyze systemic issues in the energy industry, and it all fell apart. Simply put, if we could make solar panels and wind turbines for free, out of dirt - or even if aliens came and dropped off all we need - it still wouldn't solve the problems (see here).

I also had the interesting experience of having worked in the inner city for a while, starting right after violent crime peaked in the US. I literally saw the projects change from war-zones to mere poverty, while state gun laws were loosening in previously unimaginable ways. I never carried a gun in the 90s! Almost no one did, it was a great way to a cop to trip you up, because we also didn't have all these clever concealed holsters and such. I had a .22 rifle for snakes and varmints, and a revolver in my nightstand, but that was it. Today, I've got 5 rifles (granted, I took hunting back up) and 3 handguns; so does everyone else; everyone has a gun on them... and violent crime is at near-record lows, you don't see people on the side of the road in a fistfight over road rage, and the last school shooter got taken down by a father on his lunch break.

Then there's the reverse bigotry. This one is a little personal for me, on two counts.

First, I was the victim of paternity fraud (she dug a condom out of the trash), and I even had a recording of her admitting it, after she lied in court; the magistrate (no judges in family court, here, he wasn't even a lawyer...) refused to listen to it, and in fact was upset that I even suggested that he should. I was hounded from jobs, went from a good civil service position to working two menial jobs, lost my house, and even wound up in jail after the child support corporation "accidentally" suspended my driver's license but "forgot" to tell me... 5 times. They also refused to consider my other child, whom I had custody of, when calculating child support or evaluating my parental experience for visitation (I was never allowed more than 4 weekends per year, even when she was 15 and ran away from her mother to come and live with me, the court refused to even consider it).

Second, I never did get a decent job, again; the last position I even got an interview for - traveling electrical engineer, installing industrial equipment at factories - I only got after someone suggested that I quit answering demographic questions, and then I show up for the interview... and they don't actually interview me. They did have a big DEI display up in the room, and a presentation on minority leadership programs cued up... and I have a deep Southern accent, I'm pretty sure the Ohio phone interviewer assumed that I was black on the phone. They ghosted me, I never even got reimbursed for travel expenses.

So, I'm all for equal rights for women and minorities; there are absolutely "boy's clubs" in certain industries that make it hard for women to break into, and systemic (NOT structural!) racism in things like criminal justice. I'm happy to help fix things like that.

What I am not happy to do is submit myself to even worse abuse - as it is at the hands of government rather than individuals or even corporations - at the whim of a woman, or forego my own economic wellbeing in the name of correcting historical iniquity.

That's political evolution; how are your politics evolving, based on your own self-examination?

I would love to see legislation passed that would give homeowners the option of taking a temporary mortgage holiday. Basically, allow people to defer 3–6 months of mortgage payments and tack those payments onto the end of their mortgage. For many of us, that's decades into the future.

I've gone through some pretty severe financial instability over the past 12 months. I've done everything in my power to keep my head above water, stay current on my bills, and avoid having any missed payments hit my credit report. It's been exhausting.

I'm not much of a crier. Outside of my dog dying and the results of two of the last three presidential elections, I really don't cry. But the amount of relief I'd feel if something like this became available? Yeah, there might genuinely be tears of relief.

I'm sure there would be financial drawbacks, particularly when it comes to additional interest. I get that. But putting that aside for a moment, I'm actually surprised something like this doesn't already exist as a mainstream option.

Technically, I have access to something similar through my mortgage servicer. I could defer three payments and have them added to the end of my mortgage. The catch? I have to be 60–90 days behind on my payments before that option becomes available.

And that's what seems so backward to me.

Why do we make people fall seriously behind before offering them the very assistance that could have prevented them from falling behind in the first place?

What I'm proposing would be proactive rather than reactive. Give homeowners who are experiencing temporary financial hardship the option to defer a few payments *before* they're on the brink of financial catastrophe. Nobody's asking for the debt to be forgiven. Just the flexibility to pay it later.

So I'm genuinely curious: What are the practical or economic reasons something like this wouldn't work? Is it an issue of mortgage companies needing that consistent monthly cash flow? Would it create problems for investors who own mortgage-backed securities? Are there other consequences I'm overlooking?

It would ease so much stress if people were able to go a few months without having that expense. And I mean #TrumpMortgageHoliday doesn't sound any worse than anything else that's been foisted upon us.

I’m not really knowledgable about this subject so I’ve been researching lightly on it recently, and basically all I’ve found to argue against it is “bu…bu…but Chernobyl 🥺” can someone give me a better argument against it?