That alt-right dipshit lifted the idea from “The Gang of Four” lore from the 1980’s Cyberpunk 2020 TTRPG. He just replaced DEA with TSA, which in itself is asinine. Why not ATF? The TSA is a joke.
It’s not just the American people these days. Edward Snowden’s book goes into some detail about how the NSA has access to many counties internet infrastructure etc.
So in 2001 when the PATRIOT Act was signed, that created the Department of Homeland Security (or DHS) under which the FBI, CIA and NSA were placed. If we give the US the benefit of the doubt (for a moment) the notion was that some government departments that didn’t like each other very much would consolidate data for common concerns, which might help stop further terror attacks.
Spoiler: It didn’t stop further terror attacks. The DHS was so concerned about Islamist terror from the Middle East (so much so it was abducting Americans for being slightly too Arab and too Muslim) for the CIA Extrajudicial Detention and Enhanced Interrogation program. That is to say, they were being taken to foreign black sites to be tortured until their mind was scrambled.
One the other things I noticed at the time (I’m old) is how the DHS was beholden specifically to the executive branch of the US federal government, where before the FBI and law enforcement were kept at respectable distance so the president wouldn’t misuse police officers as goons or hit squads. In the 1930s, part of the point of the Waffen SS (or the SS in general) was to have a police / military force that was loyal not to Germany but to The Führer, himself In fact, it was a big deal in the NSDAP party doctrine to create chains of command and loyalty not through national structures but through structures of the party organization. So when George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, I was even then getting are we the baddies? vibes.
Anyway, so it’s a bit weird to me that the DHS isn’t mentioned here as the name of that giant thorny branch. Other than the TSA the other three were their own separate things until that happened.
He was a raging narcissist who perpetually thought he was smarter and more special than everyone around him. I’d say that fits pretty well with most libertarians I’ve met.
The Patriot act that passed with a ton of bipartisan support? That Patriot act? The one Obama promised to rescind while he was campaigning and then renewed after he won?
Don’t make the mistake of believing any of these assholes are on your side. The worst of the worst legislation is always bipartisan. We’ve got faces and heels and at the end of the day they’re working towards the same goals.
America has two authoritarian right-wing parties to pick from. One is less right wing than the other, but they’re still both to the right of the major right wing party in my country (New Zealand)
This is a reminder that Democrats, in large, are not leftists. They are capitalists. They pass capitalistic legislation that benefits largely the rich and status-quo, which makes them conservatives.
He got real close to an actual thought provoking comic here but just couldn’t resist drawing that arrow just in case we’re too dumb to get the message.
That’s it, that’s the tweet. They’re big mad that Lego offered the tiniest but of token support to queer and trans kids, and they think that - like anything that upsets them - it’s all part of the “Deep State Conspiracy.”
This is the kind of explanation that doesn’t explain anything to the people who need it explained.
If it helps, consider horseshoe theory as the idea that all authoritarian systems start doing similar things, completely independent of economic models.
It’s still not great, but at least there’s an observation in there.
You can start a separate conversation on whether there’s any value to conceptualizing a left/right spectrum at all (there isn’t)
Yes, someone that knows what words means knows that, but the people that unironically talk about horseshoe theory don’t, so all they see is someone who clearly doesn’t understand that “Them commies love dictators”
Because explaining exactly why it’s nonsense, even if you can point to certain “socialist dictators,” can be a good opening into deprogramming a liberal that can’t define liberal.
Just to flip this, do you have any sources that horseshoe theory is a real thing? That’s the funny thing about language, someone put Theory in the name and now people think it’s a real thing.
To save you the trouble, it hasn’t held up under academic study. Plenty of info on Wikipedia about it.
I liked the image, saw the author, unliked it, then realized that is cringe and shitty people can also have decent takes every now and then. I then reliked the image.
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