Elon going to complain about another conspiracy going on while in reality it’s just that when crawlers are not able to open a certain URL they simply assume that the page doesn’t exist anymore. Google certainly didn’t “retaliate”, bots simply couldn’t find those pages anymore.
If I were making a web crawler, I would make it so that if a crawler finds a domain that appears to have changed dramatically or gone offline it will re-crawl the domain and flag already-crawled pages as potentially obsolete.
Or maybe it’s this guy, Dev from a canadian tv show called The Listener. They called the hacker ‘Dev’, I’m assuming it’s on purpose. thelistener.fandom.com/wiki/Dev_Clark
Yeah, that’s a pretty easy and reasonable conclusion to come to if you think about if for more than five seconds. I’m not sure Elon has any toes left after he keeps shooting himself in the feet.
Not even a month later and said company rebranded itself without checking trademarks. Now we have “X”, a brand that non only risks infringement of quite a few registered eu-trademarks but didn’t even apply for an own eu-trademark…
Crawl issues I am sure but also user experience issues. Google is sensitive to sending visitors to sites where metrics indicate users do not, like bounce rates etc. I don't use twt but if it is the case you have the be logged in to see anything now, a non-logged in user will click a link from Google hit a login page, and use the back button. I would assume Google will see that as a bad search result and use it less.
The funny thing about free speech is that naming who is part of a hate group can likely be argued as free speech moreso than "whaaah, we got fired for the awful shit we said", given that it's called freedom of speech and not freedom from the consequences of my speech. Doubly so when you're talking about consequences brought about by a private organization/not the government. After all, their place of employment has freedom of speech rights too, as well as the ability to choose who they associate with.
Right wing media spent the entire pandemic fighting against distancing, masks, vaccines, against science. And pretending horse dewormer was a miracle solution for everything. But it turns out reality isn’t a political opinion, and millions of people died because of those lies.
When humanity was fighting against covid, Republicans were fighting on the virus’ side
Will we ever be far enough removed from the pandemic that we can talk about how the federal government lied and ignored 100+ years worth of science on the efficacy of masking (including effective mask mandates during the “Spanish”/Kansas flu pandemic), without being accused of being an antivax conspiracy theorist?
I’m vaxed, waxed and ready to party, but it is a stone cold fact that they told people not to wear masks - and caused untold numbers of deaths - because they didn’t want the general public to reduce the current supply.
(Fauci also did an absolutely horrendous, I mean historically awful job dealing with the AIDS crisis, but I guess that’s for another time.)
It was a mistake. They screwed up. Talk about it all you want and learn from it. Don’t use it to justify not wearing a mask ever again regardless of all evidence presented.
I know you are not saying that.
My problem is the second part of that, so I have no issue with you.
I get frustrated trying to figure how this should go in the future because on the one hand infantilizing the citizenry is acting in bad faith. On the other hand, I lot of people seem to be incapable of critical thinking. The answer is probably somewhere between those extremes but I am not sure where.
There’s no evidence that it happened due to racism… As long as you ignore every single fact about what happened there and the mountains of evidence showing that it was based on racism.
I was hoping my sarcasm was evident. What I posted is essentially what this person is doing - ignoring the mountains of evidence and facts of the situation all of which point indisputably towards it being about race. Then, having ignored all that, they cast doubt on it being about race.
It’s a typical tactic of the right. Ignore all the overwhelming evidence in a situation and then, once that’s done, declare that the conclusion obtained from all that evidence is invalid because “there’s no evidence for that.”
I saw your sarcasm was just pointing it out the same way. Our local right wing network even calls it the Tulsa Race Massacre. And they love Trump and love whitwashing the news.
But as a Tulsa news station they are at least smart enough to call it what it is.
The south didn't actually like states rights, and expressly forbid confederate states from ever banning slavery. All because Northern States chose to ban slaver in an ad hoc manner.
the actual recording… and wow. I just dont even know how we can reach people like this. They are so convinced that they are the victims and that anything done to them is infringement on their right to hurt others.
I dont want to be a doomsayer but I think this country may be really screwed, without focused deprogramming they are convinced that the democrats want communism. Which is insane, because the democrats want status quo, and corporate oligarchy.
I dont want to be a doomsayer but I think this country may be really screwed,
I get that feeling too, like in 50 years when the rest of the world is studying what went wrong with the US, 2016-2024 will be the time period that they will be looking at...
This has been building up for a lot longer than that. Some people post to Reagan, but it’s even older than that. I’d put it back to the early televangelist starting to get involved in politics. Swaggart, Graham, Roberts, Hubbard, Bakker, Falwell, and especially Pat Robertson. Bastard even tried to run for president.
The two-party system gotta end so the big parties can split and leave their history behind. You could have another party born out of bernier-aoc-warren with better PR called People of America or.some shit, with actual socialist policies, but it probably would not make them as mad, because their grievances are with the “Democrats”, you know, like a rival football team.
problem is the its up to the Democrats and Republicans to choose to end the 2 party system. Which will never happen because they are both drunk with power.
I have spent my whole life advocating and voting for change and its clearly not working. maybe we can get the majority unionized and create a power block so big it cant be ignored anymore… but otherwise I just dont know what to do.
It's true that it's difficult, but it's not true that changing the voting system will never or has never happened. Link shows the states where RCV has been enacted on state and local levels. It's notable that it's mainly Democrat states that have enacted RCV and it's only Republican states that have banned it (which is fucking ridiculous). You could be the one to get RCV enacted in your city, which'll show everyone in your city how cool it is to have more choices, which'll then snowball into getting it enacted in your state, which long term could snowball into it getting enacted on the federal level.
You're nearly never more politically powerful than when you're one of a few dozen people in a city meeting.
ha… yeah no. I dont really want to get shot by my neighbours for trying to moderate politics in my “city” I dont even feel comfortable putting political signs on my lawn.
Absolutely agree. I don't know what form of doomscrolling leads to such a paranoid view of the world that they believe their neighbors would shoot them for advocating for mere voting reform, but it's certainly not healthy. It's also plainly ridiculous for them to advocate for unionizing in the same trigger happy society that'd apparently off them the second they enter a town hall.
no im just trapped in an unincorporated deep Red county, in the south. I im not paranoid, im just not dumb. I know exactly which neighbours I can be open with and its a shockingly small number. I am represented by people who advocate sedition and treason, I have neighbours who openly harass people who dont publicly identify as for Trump. Moderates have to run as independents and even then they are accused of being “Democrats” their are churches in my town that burn books in mass bonfires.
I will continue to try to change things by voting for moderate Republicans because at least then my vote counts. I will keep trying to appeal to the working-class people who have been left behind by education and globalization that support reasonable labour reform so long as its presented as a conservative ideal.
I advocate using their language, and appeal to their idea of fiscal responsibility, but no… I wont make myself a target in my house. I will go to rallies, I will go to parades, I vote in every election, but I dont preach about it to neighbours.
problem is the its up to the Democrats and Republicans to choose to end the 2 party system. Which will never happen because they are both drunk with power.
Fair, but the challenge is that not enough Democrats support it. So while its inaccurate to suggest both parties are equal, its fair to suggest that its not to the benefit of either party and that motivates at least some members.
Then maybe they should have corrected them when they were just starting out on all the crazy, rather than endorsing the dude that’s literally the closest thing this world has seen to the anti-christ.
Man there was this (satirical, but not inaccurate) blog about how trump actually matches many features of the anti-christ, but I can’t find it now, only a bunch of blogspam copying it
I'm not saying it's "special". Hypocritical, counterintuitive, ironic, sure...
What I'm saying is that Trump represents the very antithesis of what Christianity preaches. He is a very high-profile and public embodiment of their "seven deadly sins". Which, to me at least, is very anti-christ-like. I'm not sure why you need that spelled out...
I mean, if we’re being all passive-aggressive I’ll also happily point out that the seven deadly sins have nothing to do with the antichrist technically, they are not even mentioned in the bible afaik. So bit of a crappy argument really
Remember, the Antichrist is not just "really evil person". It's "really evil person who convinces a lot of people that he's a good person and a prophet".
The term is open to interpretation, but it certainly doesn’t simply refer to non-christians.
Some interpretations view the antichrist as a specific individual or figure who opposes Christ in some hypothetical, end of days type situation, while others see it as a broader symbolic representation of a certain figure or person that represents the complete opposite of Christ’s teachings or the spirit of Christianity.
“Anti” can mean “opposite” just as much as it can mean “against”.
It may be there are worse people but they are more akin to satan (e.g Hitler was atheist (well not really he believed in the occult but didn't go down religion). Trump claims to be some sort of Jesus figure to religious so hits some.of the "pretends to be Christ" points of.the antichrist
(Edit Hitler religious views are very complex but I still. Stand by point he less acted like "Christ" figure than trump)
I’m going to take issue with your simplification and classification of Hitler, and the wider Nazi ideology here because I think this is very important given some of the patterns we see repeating from the early 20th century. There was a lot of nuance to the public and politically expedient viewpoints that Hitler professed regarding religion throughout his life versus his private viewpoints which colored the ideological mechanisms of Nazism.
It is tacitly incorrect to state that Hitler was an occultist, or an atheist by modern convention.
**Regarding Occultism:**He detested the mysticism, neo-paganism, and occult underpinnings that Himler brought to the party (specifically the SS). Hitler made it very clear that he considered these viewpoints to be sophistry and repugnant to his own view of the world, but he allowed them in so far as he supported Himler as a leader of the party.
**Regarding atheism:**Hitler, likewise, considered atheism to be an ideological evolution of Jewish Bolshevism that he believed was essentially responsible for the rise of Soviet Communism. It is well documented from close confidants who surrounded Hitler, and wrote about his views contemporaneously that he believed atheism was an ignorant and dangerous return to the animalistic hedonism of humanity.
Why am I bothering to quibble over these distinctions? Well, for one thing because truly dangerous political leaders generally possess the intelligence, as well as tactical forethought to manipulate and twist at the very heart of the tribal labelism that proliferates through the uneducated masses of society. They then warp these convenient in-group / out-group dynamics to fit the needs of their political ambitions. We see this today, although in a much lazier fashion, with the alliance of convenience between the neo-conservative and christian nationalist movements that have proven to be a foundational undergirding to the “Trump Cult” as it were.
We should all understand the complicated historical relationship of religion and politics from the 20th century. Especially regarding the manipulation of those relationships which lead to the rise of authoritarianism on a scale never seen before or since. Lest we go down that same road again, except the next time will invariably be the last time because the power of the technological panopticon we are now capable of creating would enslave humanity or destroy our species.
PS: If you’re interested in understanding the complexities of the religious and ideological positions espoused by Hitler throughout his life as well as the Nazi party as a whole this Wikipedia article on the subject is actually really good.
Someone mentioned this somewhere else in the thread, but the antichrist isn’t just a super-duper evil dude; he’s an evil dude with a religious following. He’s a guy where people voluntarily worship him. Not because they’re forced, not because they’re apathetic and just going with the flow, they willingly worship him. Additionally, trump has had pastors claim him to be sent from God, or that he is some kind of savior, which, iirc, is another characteristic of the antichrist. As evil as the others are, I’m pretty sure trump fits the bill better than they do.
The bible has a bunch of different references to oil, as it was used a lamp fuel(and some rituals).
This one refers to Revelation 6:6
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
From KJ or this one from the NIV
Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages, and six pounds of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”
Referring to how the price of food would go up, but oil and alcohol would not.
That’s an interesting read, thank you! Although I would still say most points on this list still apply to many fascist dictators
I’m not sure about the point regarding “one term”, surely the bible didn’t know about the system of presidential terms? How exactly does it say there? Same about oil, what is the biblical equivalent?
It’s all from the Benjamin Corey post I linked in a reply to the comment you’re replying to. The BIble is talking about different oil-- either food, or lamp oil. 'One term’s is a happy coincidence, the bible says ~3.5 years
considering his cult worships as the 2nd coming… he himself described himself as “the chosen one”, parrots reiligious one-liners while leading those who do worship him- and yes, that is the appropriate term- away from the teachings of christ.
Yea, it’s an archetype, but it’s funny how some predictions are oddly specific for such a broad recurrent archetype:
“… a despicable person will arise… a man of contempt… to whom the royal honor has not been rightfully conferred. He will slip in when least expected and will seize the kingdom through flattery and intrigue.” Daniel 11:21
“He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior… He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.” Daniel 8:25, 2 Thess 2:10
“But then the court will convene, and all his power will be taken away.” Daniel 7:26
From these, the Antichrist’s description is starting to sound like Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil and how that is scarier than fictional supernatural evil with horns and pitchforks.
It's a book of lessons learned from history, over a longer time span than our collective memory. Those who wrote it down knew that history repeats itself. Sadly many contemporary readers seem hell-bent on missing the point.
yep there are many like him around the world, and I’d wager to say that most of them are actually potentially more dangerous than Trump because they’re smarter and actually have an agenda of their own. What really did the USA in was not the person Trump, but rather that the whole republican apparatus and especially the corporate media went all in with him after it became clear he’d win the primaries. With the 2 party system, that means that basically half of the country was set up to deify him in a way that they haven’t really tried with previous republican candidates
i want to add - if you need to arm yourself but for some reason cannot have a gun, there are non-lethal weapons and guns out there. not perfect, but definitely better than going completely unarmed. if you are able to workout, that helps too. if you’re unarmed and a fast runner or a good fighter, that again is better than nothing at all.
this is exactly the situation. if everyone gets guns to protect from other guns then every thing turns into a gun battle and we all end up blind. and dead.
well if all it takes for that not to happen is the homophobes to treat the lgbtq+ community with some respect, for whatever reason, than maybe homophobes should show the lgbtq+ community some respect and leave them alone.
Except most of them are cowards who want easy targets. These fascist LARPers don’t want an epic shootout where they’d be even slightly at risk.
Though I admit that will become less true as current trends escalate. So it’s not a solution, more of a shitty workaround for a conflict that seems unsolvable and unavoidable.
I mean people used to be armed all the time and there wasn’t a daily massacre.
people like saying this, what could possibly go wrong? but really, what could really go wrong?
this kkk dude would have be dead for pulling a gun in front of an armed group, maybe he kills one but this should level out at some point. the crazies will cull themselves out.
Every other 1st world nation without an armed populous= no regular gun violence/massacres
Us as a nation= regularly experienced gun violence and massacres
We even have a test group- Australia. Experienced one gigantic massacre, took guns away, no more gunviolence/massacres.
And if that doesn’t sway you in the least, I can’t believe you think everybody in this nation is competent enough to be armed?!? I don’t even think everybody is competent enough to have a driver’s license and be on the road operating a dangerous high speed vehicle, (not to mention you need both a license and insurance to legally operate a car). I mean, have you met the “average” American? And you think EVERYONE should be able to legally own firearms?? Just nuts.
Indeed, I suspect we'd see some movement on gun control if minorities and marginalized people would begin exercising their 2A rights. We all know the story of Reagan and the Black Panthers and how that played out, I suspect the same thing would happen again.
At any rate, I recommend all my LGBTQ/PoC friends arm yourself now, spend some time at a range, maybe get some basic first-aid training, and most importantly start meeting and networking with like-minded people in your area, start building networks of people who're on your side. Law enforcement will not protect us; if the rightwing has their way we'll be living A Handmaids Tale and a lot of us will be dead or forced into some form of slavery. Fuck that, this is America, we're not a Christian nation no matter how much a bunch of fundamentalists want us to be, we're the land of the free, and when they decide to fuck around they need to find out.
if you’re under the impression they won’t figure out some way to create one law for “good christian americans” and a separate law for “those people” you fundamentally misunderstand what conservatism is about
Or they’ll just do what they’re already doing and enforce the law one way for this kkk member brandishing a loaded gun at minorities that Republicans hate, and another way for people like Tamir Rice.
This already exists! Many states have a denial clause in their concealed carry weapons permitting that is 🙄 justified🙄 for, “good cause” or “good moral character”. Given the rate of mass shootings, and the disproportionate number of them being committed by white men, it’s not a jump to say without clear definitions “good cause”, and “good moral character” are just another codified excuse to justify systemic oppression.
Thankfully I have friends with a lot of land, but my local range is owned by an avid trump supporter. I’ve had serious conversation with my wife about owning a gun but she’d never pass a background check due to her mental health history.
There's a range here that requires an NRA membership to even join lol, I laughed in a ladies face when she told me that. I'm fortunate enough to live in a place with a few nice, public-access ranges that are run by/in cooperation with state parks and those are usually a little more welcoming places run by Rangemasters who take their job seriously.
Shooting can be a really fun hobby and a great way to bond with friends and family, it's a shame it's been so politicized and mischaracterized by people with questionable motivations.
While Tax the Rich is fair and accurate, I wish we could point out that this isn’t some undue burden. This is just reclaiming the surplus wealth they’ve extracted from the economy.
We can and should do far more, but this is a good start.
Yeah. This is a good first step. But it needs to go further. A lot of the wealth is not in direct income. We should be including in this capital gains, and perhaps imposing a similar tax on people with assets totally $10M+ or so. A lot of valuation comes at people holding huge assets and stocks, increasing in value and they take loans out on those assets to actually buy anything.
Libertarians think taxation is theft. Be sure to tell them every time they use a road, a hospital, a sporting ground, drink clean water they are stealing from the government and any one who paid more tax than them
Taxation IS theft. So what? We permit the government to steal from those fucknuts for the services they use. If they don’t like it, they can hire a bigger army than us.
It definitely isn't theft. It's the cost of living in the society that you want to live in. No one is forcing you to live in an area that has a tax price attached. You're free to move to a place with no taxes, but you don't want to live in those places. Being forced to pay with no other options is theft, choosing to live in an area with taxes providing services you want is not.
For all I know, there was some fuckoff group of cities in some fuckoff part of the world that somehow figured out how to live tax-free in 5000 BC before their civilization collapsed suddenly, so I didn’t want to push my luck.
Have you not seen a paystub? It would not surprise me if you haven’t, but they clearly show what taxes are being deducted. We’re already in a corporat hell hole. You really want ticket master in charge of roadways? There goes your right to traveling freely.
Yeah taxes suck, but take off your rose tinted glasses and truly look at what that free market would become. Think about how selfish you’d want to be in making your money and multiply that by, well everyone in the US. Whole lot of middle men that need to make money. I’d rather keep the personal profit out of it.
Last July. My property taxes are crazy high, because I live in an area with good schools and nice parks and amenities (eta such as a boat launch, public rock climbing along cliffs, a nice library, and near monthly open-air festivals in summer).
I no longer have a child in school and I haven’t used the parks in years, but guess what? I’m happy to contribute so other kids and my community can use those services because I’m not a narcissistic asshole.
It’s literally not. It’s the dues you pay to live in a society that then gives you the services you need to live.
You’re not obligated to pay taxes any more than you’re obligated to live in a society. You’re perfectly free to go live off the grid somewhere, free of those restrictions and also free from roads, fire services, clean water, sewage, cell service, hospitals, schools, and the rest. You’re free to enjoy your libertarian utopia until the bears decide otherwise.
There is no unclaimed territory where you could honestly claim to not need to pay taxes. Yes you could go off grid and hide, but you are still going to owe those taxes and it will be taken when they find you.
But who cares if they call it theft? I just agree. Fine it’s theft. The government is allowed to steal from you because society approves of it.
Sure there is. Perhaps not in the US, but if you’re dedicated to your convictions, the world is your oyster, and why would you want to stay in the US anyhow? In fact, you can buy a small boat and just move along coastlines, essentially invisible to everyone not charging you slip fees. (e: and you can often pay those with cash, no paper trail.)
Regardless, it’s still not theft if you use the services provided.
I think I’m confused. I was under the impression that the US government required taxes on any money earned anywhere on the planet. I’m pretty sure you required to pay taxes on whatever money you earn working part-time from your boat or whatever. Is that not the case?
You can work for cash and pay cash. If you really think taxation is theft, why would you work for someone who’s a slave to The Man and insisting on payroll taxes?
There are plenty of libertarian employers who also think taxation is theft and would rather not report your earnings. Hell, there are plenty of employers in the US who don’t report earnings because they mostly use undocumented workers.
You’re not obligated to pay taxes any more than you’re obligated to live in a society.
That’s not actually true. As a practical matter you can easily dodge your obligation by getting a job under the table that pays on cash, but the legal obligation remains. If you go without income and property entirely you’ll have the same problems any homeless person does.
You’re perfectly free to go live off the grid somewhere, free of those restrictions and also free from roads, fire services, clean water, sewage, cell service, hospitals, schools, and the rest.
Also false. You can’t just legally flee the country, and there’s nowhere inside the country you can do things like own a home without paying taxes on it.
I’m not defending the tax-free attitude of liberterians here, but I am most certainly emphasizing that your claims are false.
That’s why I mentioned boat, not home, ownership. Buy one outright, work for cash and pay cash. Sure, you’ll be living on the fringes of society, but if you’re truly libertarian, that shouldn’t matter – in fact, it’s a bonus.
Focus on the right wing libertarians, the leftist ones are somewhere between minarchists and anarchists depending on which one you talk to. They are also usually pretty chill, plus they like guns and are marginally more intelligent on what should be done with said guns.
Also every time they use anything that involves radio transmission, eat food that is safe, breathe air that is clean, flush their poop into the sewer system, or work in a safe environment.
I was gonna link to The New Yorker’s Libertarian Police Department story again, but fuck it. I’m pasting the whole thing here.
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.
I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
I remember arguing with some guy on Reddit who thought the entire judicial system should be private and people would just go along with it because their reputation would be hurt if they didn’t accept whatever punishment the private judges said they should get.
That’s a joke, but I have talked to libertarians who think that if the road is full of potholes, neighbors should come together and pay for the road to be repaved.
I tend to somewhat agree: if someone believes that infrastructure should be privatized, I think their neighbors should come together and use that person to build a new speed bump on the road.
Honestly, libertarians are free to do that now. Where I live there are loads of both potholes and libertarians. What’s stopping them from practicing what they preach and fixing the problem themselves? They’d get more street cred (literally) that way. Be the change.
But no. The real answer is it’s always someone else’s problem, and that’s why government exists.
I grew up in a college town where repaving did actually work like that: streets didn’t get repaired at all unless a majority of the homeowners voted to approve a surtax to pay for it. In areas that were mostly college student rentals, the scumlord “homeowners” always voted against the surtax and the streets were nearly un-drivable, more like uneven dirt roads with big chunks of broken asphalt embedded in them.
Even removing the terms “surplus wealth” and “extracted” - which I don’t necessarily disagree with in all instances but which isn’t going to win anyone over - this still is not some undue burden.
I’d like to see this tackled as a simple conversation between discretionary and non-discretionary spending. A poor person struggles with even sales tax increases because they have little discretionary income. A rich person has vastly more discretionary income and thus is the least burdened by new taxation of any sort.
Gets around all the “fair tax”/“flat tax” arguments right from the jump.
It’s beyond me why Americans, who scream about government taxation, can’t see how large corporations essentially have added a hidden, ever increasing line item tax to their paychecks to extract wealth.
And then we fawn over billionaires donating their money to causes we perceive as beneficial to society - they’re just returning stolen money without interest or penalty, which could have been better used when money was actually earned.
It’s beyond me why Americans, who scream about government taxation, can’t see how large corporations essentially have added a hidden, ever increasing line item tax to their paychecks to extract wealth.
It is largely because they see these price increases as consequences of some hidden government hand, while price cuts are attributed to a competitive marketplace. In short, its propaganda.
We train people, from an early age, to believe that competition brings prices down and regulation forces prices up. We don’t learn about the profit motive as an upward price impulse or spend significant amounts of time on monopolies and their impact on marginal pricing. We absolutely 100% do not ever discuss the difference between Exchange Value and Utility Value when discussing economic productivity. The impact of speculative investments on retail prices is straight out never mentioned ever.
So all anyone has left to go on is “gas prices are up because the government did a war” and “computer prices are up because the government did a tariff” and “food prices are up because the government did a tax”.
And then we fawn over billionaires donating their money to causes we perceive as beneficial to society - they’re just returning stolen money without interest or penalty, which could have been better used when money was actually earned.
Philanthropy is when a single incredibly rich guy gives money away for free.
Public Spending is when a soulless bureaucracy steals Peter to pay Paul.
Therefore, public sector bad and private sector good.
also, being a flagrant criminal makes a judge impose restrictions and punishments while acting not too happy about your behavior. In fact, it's their job.
but part of this is based on the fact that President Trump was impeached twice and acquitted twice by the Senate. I think there’s more of an appetite on the right now for impeachment because it really hasn’t been respected the way it was for the last 150, 200 years
Is this for guy for real? When you brazenly break the law, and try to go outside separation of powers as president, not to mention attempt a coup, that deserves an impeachment. I can’t think of anything more fitting to impeach over. What delusional world are we living know right now?
It’s opening Pandora’s box in a way. Now we have to deal with republicans in the house forcing McCarthy to bring impeachment to a vote, which is eerily reminiscent of democrats forcing Pelosi to do the same.
Why are you referencing the second impeachment? Congress couldn’t do anything at that point. Trump was already out of office. That’s akin to the trial of the dead pope, what would it have changed?
Now, if you referenced the first, maybe there would be something else to discuss. But I’m guessing you didn’t since it isn’t as inflammatory as Jan 6th
I vote straight democrat btw. Far from a centrist, but I am a realist who recognizes when something is unnecessary.
"Now we have to deal with republicans in the house forcing McCarthy to bring impeachment to a vote, which is eerily reminiscent of democrats forcing Pelosi to do the same."
Republicans pressuring McCarthy to impeach Biden with no evidence of any wrongdoing is not reminiscent of democrats pressuring, not forcing, Pelosi to impeach Trump when Pelosi was also accusing Trump of a coverup. Your link does not support your statement in any way.
They are in no way comparable beyond "party wants to do X and leadership is hesitant", which is basically a description of the state of congress any any point in time.
Are you suggesting we should just lay down and shrug when someone breaks the law in an attempt to dismantle democracy in this country? Because there’s a sizeable portion of Republicans that agree with what’s happening and are actively participating that makes it political to try to stop it?
I still can’t believe they voted that way, even after being forced to evacuate the chamber for their own safety. Just shows how far up their own ass some of these people are.
Isn’t impeachment always a political weapon? Also, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Nobody can see the future, so to find out for sure if he would get convicted or not, they had to impeach him. Lastly, by doing so, even if they knew the conviction chances were slim, they accomplished, at least, two things. First, they definitively declared their belief that his actions made him unfit to be president. Secondly, they forced every congressperson to pick a side.
What do you mean we couldn’t see the future? The vast majority of the Republican Party are Trump loyalists. They know if they don’t follow him, they’re doomed. Look at Liz Cheney.
I mean exactly what I said. Sure, you can make some educated guesses, but you don’t know for sure. Most people didn’t think Trumpty Dumpty would win in 2016.
Walters was paid approximately $120,000 a year by Every Kid Counts Oklahoma compared to his state salary of $40,000. The Frontier and Oklahoma Watch reported that Every Kid Counts Oklahoma was funded by national school privatization advocates and charter school expansion advocates, such as the Walton Family Foundation and another group founded by Charles Koch.
I’m going to assume that’s a foundation devoted to making sure everyone watches the Roberto Benigni film ‘Life is Beautiful’, in which case I’m totally onboard.
It’s just astounding to me that this guy is actually running their schools. I never used to feel this way, but I don’t think I could ever move to a state like this. I want to have a family and can’t imagine worrying about people like this being in charge of educating my children.
Just this whole attitude towards the thing shows how crooked he is. As far as I can tell, Biden has tried to remain hands-off from the Justice Dept and just let them do their own thing to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. And I believe that’s more or less been how most Presidents have tried to behave since maybe Nixon EXCEPT for Trump, who seems to view it as his own personal legal hit-squad, to be used for just litigating people he doesn’t like, instead of… y’know, administering justice. He completely misunderstands the purpose of government and really should not be allowed anywhere near the position. He should be rotting in prison now, he’s a complete shitstain on history.
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