Seriously.

“Trump destroyed my multi generation family business, but I’d rather lose my multi generation family business than have a black, female, Democrat for president.”

That’s the level of brainwashing we’re dealing with. It’s profound.

The Emperor Calígula declared war against Poseidon, had his army march to the English Channel, and ordered them to strike the water with their weapons and collect sea shells as spoils of war.

So yeah, I think you’re on to something.

If you’re the person being arrested, your options are to surrender or fight and hope they only beat you within an inch of your life without actually killing you (with the understanding that the chances of them killing you are increasing every day). Unless you manager to use legal force against them in which case you are 100% dead.

Community defense is when OTHER people come to rescue you, typically using nonviolent methods to harass and inhibit the agents until they give up and leave. Of course, the chances that agents will just kill them are increasing every day, too. Either way, once you’ve been targeted you’ll likely need to go into hiding, and engaging legal council is probably a good idea even if you’re a citizen.

I don’t think this is pessimistic or nihilistic. I feel like it’s a pretty accurate assessment of the likely possibilities. I’m open to hearing other interpretations, though.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a blue or a red state if there aren’t any more elections because they’ve been suspended because of war with, say, NATO.

The absolute least we can do is force them to jump through the hoops. Like, I get that it feels pointless but it’s better than just giving up and letting them do whatever they want.

They WANT you to feel like there’s no point so that you’ll give up. They want you to give up because that’s the easiest way for them to win. Why give them the satisfaction? They haven’t actually won yet, but even if I can never win I’ll won’t give up no matter how impossible the victory, and neither should you.

Just because they mandate body cams doesn’t mean the agents are 1) wearing body cams, or 2) turning them on.

This is a fascist regime, they’ll say anything and do whatever they want. Policy and reality aren’t connected in any meaningful way. All you’ve pointed out is that they’re either lying or ignoring policy, both of which are par for the course.

No.

This is like my grandma wants to kill every groundhog in the world and is working on it one groundhog at a time, then she buys magic beans that the seller promises will make groundhogs easier and faster to kill after she plants them, but the seller is also a violent murderer and says that if she doesn’t buy them and plant them then he’ll stab her. So she buys and plants them, not because of the threat but because it’s what she wants to, and then she goes on killing groundhogs but now it’s faster and easier.

You see, the words “willing” and “tricked” are antithetical in this case. The threat is incidental to the story and, on a narrative level serves no purpose but to characterized the seller as evil; he didn’t threaten her because the threat was necessary to successfully extort her, he threatened her because it’s in his nature to threaten people. The threat doesn’t change the outcome in any way.

Right. Like, yeah, they might be Russian agents but they’re WILLING agents. If Russia is asking them to do things, they’re things these traitors already wanted to do.

Whether they’re Russian agents isn’t exactly irrelevant, but it also doesn’t really change anything. Russia night have sped up the process, but we’ve been on this road literally since the inception of our country.

Fascists weaponize hypocrisy to get what they want: power. Is anyone surprised anymore?

No court in the country would uphold Stand Your Ground used against a law enforcement officer of any kind, no matter what.

“Yeah but what if–”

“Except ICE doesn’t–”

“The person in the house doesn’t know–”

No Matter What

You’ve successfully and correctly identified the problem with using the “left-right sliding scale” to describe America as being that there is no left.

You don’t even understand enough to get why the comparison is relevant.

People said LITERALLY the same thing about ADHD. You’re straight up mistaken in your thinking, and you need people like me to tell you that because you refuse to learn about the things your criticizing on your own.

But you’re probably just going to accuse me of bias and ignore me. That’s what all the other science deniers do, too.

Being pro vaccine doesn’t excuse you for using anti-science and prejudice to attack other medications.

Maybe you should learn more

I don’t care

That’s what I’m talking about. You’re attacking a medication without understanding it and have an active desire to not understand it. You’ve made up your mind, in ignorance, and are using your prejudice to justify advocating against that thing you refuse to understand.

I see this exact attitude with all sorts of science deniers from Flat Earthers to racists. It makes the world a worse place. Stop it.

Came here to make this point.

You can be sure that when a person like DeSantis says “death to pediohiles” they’re thinking of trans people, not Trump.

I hope so. My next car was going to be a Toyota or a Honda, and… well…

The thing is that, afaik, coincidentally gerrymandering by race isn’t sufficient to get the map thrown out. It has to be intentionally gerrymandered by race, with evidence to support such an assertion.

And the incredible thing is that Republicans can’t keep their damned racist mouths shut, and they keep incriminating themselves by either saying the quiet part out loud or getting so specific with their gerrymandering that it’s no longer plausible that it’s just a coincidence.

They’d get away with it if they were smarter (but then, if they were smarter they wouldn’t be racists)

You misunderstood. They mean that the vaccine is still protecting from the strains that ARE in it, so it’s not reasonable to forego the vaccine just because of one strain that’s not in it.

Having a hobby with community helps a lot because it gives you the option of channeling that extra ambition into the community. For example, I do historical reenactment (Society for Creative Anacronism) and one if my hobbies is making coins. I’ve taken commissions, sure, but I get a lot more enjoyment out of learning and teaching about historical coin making and giving my coins away to people who don’t make their own (which is most people).

And of course there’s a smaller community of coin makers within the SCA, and we get to share our work with each other, talk shop, collaborate from time to time, etc.

Community really makes a big difference.

The craziest part is that the GOP would still run advertisements against him calling him a communist socialist fascist far left radical that wants to trans everybody and give all our money and jobs to those lazy freeloading illegals that he paid to vote for him.

No, actually, the craziest part is that MAGA would believe them.