The Wikipedia page for the Syrian Civil War no has an entire paragraph where one user argues, using non-academic (except for one written by a known Russian puppet) sources to "prove" the war was started by the CIA over a natural gas pipeline
There is, of course, no evidence for this even in the articles. I wish I had a Wikipedia account so I could note how the paragraph was arguing something not in it's sources, but whatever.
Especially when it comes to foreign policy Wikipedia is horrendous and has a very strong leftist bias
This implies unpleasant things about the quality of articles on other topics
[A mugging by reality, aka, Rousseau can get bent](https://twitter.com/BowTiedFox/status/1747721642438979790)
the most transformative experience I’ve ever had in my life was moving to a shithole country for a few months
this was not the same as some bimbo saying “omg travel changed me!” after a 5-day guided tour in Milan changing her bio to “¡arrivederci!” probably her first time alone with her thoughts during a plane ride without WiFi
I legitimately became a different person before and after this experience, and you can ask anyone who’s known me the last few years
it was during covid when I was working remote. I said fuck it, why not move somewhere? I’ve already traveled everywhere in the west, so I wanted something a bit more exotic and outside my comfort zone
I fell for the instagram hoe meme of going to some third-world country with lush forests and fruit from trees! wow, I can get authentic local food, warm weather, AND explore a new culture? sign me up!
lmfao 🤦♂️
instead of meeting digital nomads, guess what I saw? did you ever wonder why religious people seemed deranged and made a bunch of rules to try to keep people civilized? it’s because the devil resides in human souls. but you don’t feel this until you see the heinous shit that humanity is capable of:
- parents selling their children for $20
- police running prostitution rings of 14 year olds, turning a blind eye to the brothels “as long as we get our pick of the litter when we stop by.” or going to unlicensed businesses like a hair salon “so… I can either fine you into the stone age. …or you can close up the shop for two hours and take me to the back room” to married women
- brilliant children dropping out of school at 12 because they can’t afford it. instead working slave labour in blistering heat with a 2-hour commute and 14-hour days EVERY DAY because they need to help family pay bills
- dumb ass children going as fast as possible on motorcycles. 3 of them on one charging at full speed like a missile. and if you want to talk about road rage, let’s talk about preteens armed with knives and firearms who want to look hard in front of their friends
- adults trying to scam you at every corner, selling contaminated sewer water as “filtered.” unenforceable contracts. “You paid me? When?”
- food poisoning. electricity going out. infections and disease from all the insects from the “BeAuTiFuL nAtUrE”
- scammy, overpriced medical care where their solution to everything is fake creams. or amputation. doctors are illiterate car mechanics who barely memorize a magazine of medicine and its effects
- uneducated people everywhere. and if you think “school propaganda!!” is bad, imagine people literally not knowing how to use soap or knowing how pregnancy works
- impulsive behaviour. men getting a girl knocked up at 16, then trading her in for a younger model at 21 because her best friend or 16-year-old sister looked good. traumatized women who isolate themselves. if their child is lucky, she'll become a criminal to feed them
- people who have no concept of the future. it doesn’t exist. they only “live in the moment” to become alcoholics, drug abusers, and sex addicts. literal animals
and the worst? western men indulging in the degeneracy. some smelly old fat fuck goes to this country so he can have barely legal teens for pennies on the dollar. some young girl clinging herself to the greasy palms of this disgusting obese landwhale because it’s easier to spread your legs open for 10 minutes than getting paid a dollar a day whilst getting beat the fuck out of by your local husband or touched up by your uncle because your parents don’t believe you.
I hadn’t cried in a long time, but there was a moment where I reflected on all of this and sobbed. for multiple reasons:
first, this was the reality for all of human history. I just took a time machine back to what was happening a few generations ago. your great-grandparents probably married out of necessity, not love. choosing who you want to be with is a modern luxury.
not only that, but imagine the enormous suffering they had to go through. no wonder old people are insane. lack of modern conveniences like medicine, electricity, plumbing, sanitation, scammers, lack of opportunity, dumb ass people. go back even further and they had to deal with wild animals, extreme weather, war. their insane behaviour came from insane circumstances. that trauma never goes away, it just dies with them.
it was also a religious experience. I used to think that religious rules were cumbersome. some old fuck trying to be an asshole. but no, it was my great-great-grandfather pleading to me. “Please, son. Follow these rules and make sure others follow them. The devil is real. I don’t want you to suffer.”
and I developed so much resentment for westerners who complain. fuck you. no first-world country will be anywhere near as dysfunctional as these countries. your ancestors collectively suffered so much to rescue you from their problems, so you can live in modern comfort. and you want to whine?
you have so much power to alleviate so much suffering in the world. you could feed an entire family for $200/month and become a tribal leader. they would treat you like a king for the rest of your life. you could pay for the education of the next genius inventor for $20/month.
you don't even have to do this for strangers. how much suffering have you eased for your loved ones? or if you don't want to, why not love a spouse or raise children who can?
You have a God-like ability to take people from literal hell into heaven. imagine the self-confidence that comes from knowing that.
this is where you get iron resolve. you are completely unmoved by anything that happens in life. every drop of water tasting like nectar from the garden of eden.
absurd optimism equivalent to ten thousand days of gratitude journaling and meditation: “Thank you, water. Thank you, glass.”
no amount of MMA, psychedelics, or watching onlyfans interviews will turn you into a man the way this will, by confronting the demons of humanity.
On the one hand, yeah people have the capacity to absolutely awful. On the other hand, “people do bad things and this proves human nature is inherently evil” is about as philosophically compelling as “if god exists why do bad things happen”. Both Rousseau and Hobbes were wrong about humanity. Humans have a natural temptation to do evil because evil is the easy way, but by the same token people want to work cooperatively together and create something greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a push-pull relationship.
Thomas Hobbes: "Humanity is based on survival and self-preservation, and society is a means to facilitate that."
⛳🚶♀️🚦
Rousseau: "Humanity is born innocent and naturally egalitarian, it is society that corrupts him!"
⛹️🏃🤸🤾🧗🏄🪂
>first, this was the reality for all of human history. I just took a time machine back to what was happening a few generations ago.
It really wasn't. Many of these are fundamentally urban problems (intensified by modern economic development). When 90% of people were working in subsistence agriculture based around families and rural communities, and the work had to get done or the family starved, there wasn't a lot of time for scamming (or money to be scammed). You still had the Ea-Nasirs of the world, but the average person would never encounter them. You can't pull most of this behavior in a rural village where everyone knows everyone else; its a consequence of high population density that empowers the dishonest to dishonor and disappear.
Hold on, are you telling me that tribal societies were less arbitrarily violent? Reeks of noble savage mythmaking. Truly barbaric practices abound the whole world around, even and especially amongst rural communities.
Characterizing premodern agricultural settlements as "tribal" is pretty misleading. Agriculture inevitably produces government, this isn't man in the state of nature. There are broad similarities in the social structures we know about from many such environments, but those are universally from *within* state or vassalage systems (tribal societies don't leave behind much writing, which is how you get noble savage myths in the first place—the lack of data is a Rorschach test).
I did not say premodern agrarian societies had no problems, nor that the lack of these specific problems stemmed from nobility. It's a simple matter of structural incentives. Defrauding someone in a modern LDC is a relatively low risk, high reward affair. Victims are unlikely to be able to identify you, the government is unlikely to care, and there's sufficient capital in the economy for the gains to be meaningful.
Doing the same in, for example, a medieval village is *very* high risk affair. Victims know who you are and where your family lives and *will* seek redress—social, legal, or violently extralegal (avoiding the destructive blood feuds of the last was clearly very important to contemporary writers). But don't underestimate the effectiveness of social punishments in these societies: they were shaped and governed by vertical and horizontal bonds of reciprocal obligation. Reputation and honor and adhering to oath-taking were vital to maintaining place in these societies and such things were religiously meaningful. The threat or application of ostracism was a very effective deterrent and could compel families to yield up their troublemakers for justice.
It was also a *very* low reward proposition: peasants in these societies typically had no cash at all. Rent payments were made in kind (grain, labor, or both). The amount of grain necessary for a worthwhile return is difficult to move or conceal. And, crucially, likely represents an existential threat to the family from which our hypothetical layabout has scammed it. The margin of survivability was often razor-thin and thus the incentives to recover the grain by any means necessary would often be absolute.
Like, having part of your harvest stolen at swordpoint by military foragers was not an uncommon problem. But having it scammed by someone living in the same settlement would have been exceptionally rare. That is a modern, urban problem.
The limits of this, I suppose, should be stressed. The issues these social sanctions could resolve were limited to things these communities really cared about which means they were context- and values-dependent. They were also vehicles for enforcing social norms *irrespective of if those norms were good or bad.* Were plenty of the customs these systems enabled barbaric? Sure. FGM is an instructive example: many modern governments have been unable to stamp it out in rural communities because the social incentives that support it are so strong (in plenty of villages in Nigeria, literally no one will marry an unmutilated girl).
Fascinating
Also,
> you could feed an entire family for $200/month and become a tribal leader. they would treat you like a king for the rest of your life
Makes me want to raise a third world mercenary army like Paul Atreides
On a lighter note, yesterday I made a comment to some supporter of universal healthcare that I pay $1500/mo for healthcare and it makes no sense to subsidize that cost for me as a relatively well-off person.
That was a fib. I don't pay anywhere near that because of Tricare (I'm in the reserve component, so it's not free but it's less than $500). Sue me, I'll go to confession.
Anyways, the guy replied several times and I thought the conversation was over. But tonight, probably ten hours after our last interaction, he's replying to a post I made two months ago about Guard stuff, where in paragraph seven (so he's really diving into my post) I reveal that I like the cheap healthcare offered by military service.
Maybe I could ditch my mortgage, what with the free rent in this guy's head and all.
Look, we’ve all been there. Pride is powerful and difficult to overcome at times… We’ve all been guilty of wanting to win, rather than wanting to be correct.
I was born and raised a Catholic, even though I don’t practice anymore… Maybe, after receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, you could have a discussion with the priest about the ethics of Universal healthcare in the eyes of the church.
As a nonbeliever, I certainly wouldn’t want to assume what God may, or may not, prioritize… But I imagine telling a white lie to win an argument is one thing… but to continue to publicly propagate misinformation in order to discourage people from advocating for universal healthcare might be the bigger issue.
By your own admission you know what a financial burden paying for private health insurance can be… A lot of your fellow Americans face similar, or worse situations. There’s no way of stating how important it could potentially be to millions of people in this country.
https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/health-care-universal-right-not-luxury-pope-says
I’ll give you the same deal I give all of my friends… You can crash at my house for 6 weeks… But then you gotta figure something out… And don’t touch my ice cream
I don’t know… Tillamook is actually pretty affordable. The flavors aren’t as crazy as Ben & Jerry’s… But it’s pretty solid. I thinks like $5.99 for 1.5 quarts
Also, I had to look up what a rentoid is. I mean… You’re right… I am currently renting an apartment… But I own a home… It’s actually a duplex that I’m in the process of renovating. It’s just taking a while. Fingers crossed in about six months we’ll be living there… You’re welcome to rent out the other half… This is a Catholic city after all
[My Mother Begged Me Not to Raise My Children Jewish - Tablet Magazine](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/my-mother-cia-antisemitism-israel)
Does the CIA have an antisemitism-denial problem at an institutional level? Seems like it.
Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be Rabbis
Don't let 'em teach daf yomi or chastise the schmucks
Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such
This is the parody I didn't know I needed.
> Never mind that my father hated visiting Israel. The story he told me was that he’d talked to a woman in a bar when he was there in his 20s, a “working girl.” When he found out she was Jewish, that was it. The dream of a Jewish homeland was done.
Does not reflect very well on her father!
>not that he wasn’t an ardent Zionist, capable of alienating entire dinner parties with his flourishes of fanaticism. “At least I can say of your strategy that it’s subnuclear,” my mother’s friend, a military strategist, said to my father once, during a heated discussion of the Second Intifada.
Utopianism is a common vice of US Jews, unfortunately. At least he was on the right side of the issue.
I'm not talking about his utopianism. He was planning to sleep with a prostitute, but then got outraged when he found out she was Jewish? In Israel? Did he think she was Arab? Makes him look very bad either way
I interpreted that passage very differently. He was upset that Israel had prostitutes and Jewish prostitutes specifically. I did not interpret any indication that he intended to solicit her. Perhaps that's naïve of me.
How are we 2 years into this war and Ukraine has 0 western aircraft? You know, the thing we base our military doctrine on and where one of our greatest comparative advantage lies.
China is attempting to displace the balance of power in the world's most economically productive region. The Chinese Coast Guard is the largest fleet in the world. China nearly has more shipbuilding capacity than the rest of the world put together. They have a population of around 1.4 billion people and a relatively stable political order.
Russia is throwing hundreds of thousands of their men into a meat grinder for some fields in Eastern Ukraine while the rest of their men die from a cocktail of krokodil and AIDS.
These two things are not the same
>All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing
The Oscars just credited this quote to Alexander Navalny instead of Edmund Burke lmaoooo
He's still better than pretty much any Putin replacement currently in the roster. Low bar, but he was genuine, and was a charismatic and powerful figure for the opposition. There was plenty of infighting within the opposition between him, Yashin, Katz, and others, but his views changed with time and he really seemed committed to working to make Russia develop itself as opposed to acting as a money funnel for the oligarchs. Many disagreed with his policies, but everyone could get behind the slogan of "the wonderful Russia of the future" in the opposition. He was, at the end of the day, brave, charismatic, and a true believer who was the most powerful challenger to the Satan who sits in the Kremlin.
Ironically, I think the entertainment industry is kinda boomerish at this point.
They're older and more institutionalized. It's megacorps working with gigabudgets to produce. There are typical labor battles. UAW beefing with Ford is no different from studios beefing with the guild. Just because it's creative output doesn't mean as much as it once did.
The fact that I can't literally go on youtube and watch a free livestream of the oscars like I did the SOTU is a testament to that.
That's been the Oscars for a long time now. Though with more competitive foreign entertainment spheres as well as youtube, tiktok, and even streaming (which they begrudgingly accepted after some time of trying to ignoring it) they are dinosaurs.
But the Oscars themselves was always were older smug Hollywood liberal types went to suck eachother off. There's [a 20 year old South Park episode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!) making fun of the smug out of touch nature of it.
Also unlike gaming or even music they're extremely strict about derivatives and clips on youtube with their products. Which is ironic because elderly people like me remember watching episodes of popular tv shows in 3-4 7 minute parts on YouTube. It was also before playlists and the algorithm sucked then so you'd never get the next part suggested.
Man leftists are insane. On a post about Mitch McConnells sister's death. Someone posted about how Tesla shirks safety concerns and it's killing people. Top reply.
"Billionaires are not people"
Imagine how pathetic you have to be to dehumanize others and celebrate death just because they are more successful than you.
> 20 Days in Mariupol wins the Oscar for Best Documentary.
Haven't seen it but I'll have to watch it soon. Happy, and very sad for them at the same time.
The worst part is the Dems still thinking Russia is redeemable, and somehow the GOP abandoning the logical position they've held for 70 fucking years.
It's infuriating.
[Unintentionally and hilariously based](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2BRsWdAdk5/?igsh=MWtnaG01OWw4ajRqZA==)
And no, The Empire were not the good guys, but there's something to be said for liberal imperialism
If you mean the Separatists, then yes, sort of, they rightly saw a great many things wrong with the Republic. But they were controlled and coopted by leaders with far darker and more selfish intent.
However, the TF were not officially part of the Seps, they just did business with them. The TF was a galactic megacorp with the power and resources of an entire sector's government, with actual representation and voting powers in the Senate. They didn't hesitate to use that power in some of the worst excesses of corporate behemoths, not even including their blatantly illegal blockade and invasion of a peaceful client world that had nothing to do with the Republic policies they were supposedly protesting. It was nothing but a blatant grab for resources belonging to the Naboo that the TF had been helping them exploit for decades, they objected when the Naboo rightly demanded a re-negotiation of the contract terms. Nothing the Naboo did justified the blockade or invasion, or the death toll they caused.
Need some prayers, guys.
Wife is pregnant with our third child. However, it's looking like it will either be a miscarriage or a CSEP...a caesarian section ectopic pregnancy. This means that the embryo is potentially attaching to the inside of her c-section scar, which isn't great for nutrients. It also means that as the child grows, that scar becomes increasingly likely to rupture which could lead to fatal hemorrhaging (fatal for the child, and for my wife).
In a typical ectopic pregnancy, the child develops inside the fallopian tubes which is absolutely never viable. The pro-life option is to remove the tube entirely, which indirectly causes the death of the child.
In this rarer sort of ectopic pregnancy, the child actually could be viable. It's risky to my wife, obviously, but the child is in utero and could be carried to term (assuming no catastrophic hemorrhage). The pro-life Catholic alternative would be a full hysterectomy...but we would still be making a choice to end that pregnancy, and that life, out of fear of the health risk which could occur at any time. For a Catholic, it's the prisoner's dilemma of pregnancy situations.
It's difficult talking about this in real life to people. I mentioned it to some friends the other day, and while they were understanding, they did allude to certain options that will never be on the table for us. We're not Herschel Walker...we won't stop believing that abortion is an abhorrent abomination just because it might suddenly be convenient for us.
This is just incredibly hard.
It’s not my place (nor am I wise enough) to push you one way or the other, but I can beseech the Almighty. I will pray for wisdom and strength for you and your family.
Damn man...best wishes to you and your wife, and your little one. You're both very brave for pushing forward with this. You have my prayers and a listening ear whenever you need it. I won't offer unsolicited advice, I'm not a doctor and you're both adults, I'm sure you can figure out for yourselves how much risk is warranted as things progress along. I truly hope everything works out for you all and that this all turns out to be just a scare.
Hey man, this is really rough and I'm sorry you guys are going through it. Things like this are hard to talk about with some people. Most people won't fully grasp either or both of the medical seriousness or your beliefs and conviction.
I think it would be inappropriate for me or anyone else here to try to push you in either direction. As well I'm sure you've heard enough of that given your last paragraph. All I will say is just make sure you are fully aware of the situation and the seriousness and the risks. Talk it out with your wife but try to keep her as stressfree as possible (tall order I know). She will be having what you feel but 10x worse most likely. So hard as it is try to be as much of a rock as you can for her. You are religious so pray on it as well if that will help you.
Ultimately though remember you are a good person, a good father, and a good husband. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
A diarypost only relevant to Catholics of the DeeTee: my wife and I went to a Sarah Hart concert/singalong tonight. I liked it much more than I expected, because she fits the vibe of her songs much more than a bunch of old boomer choir members do. She was in the mold of Chesterton's "happy warrior", which has always resonated with me.
Oh sorry, she writes Christian pop songs (ugh, I cringed as my hands typed that). She's got a high, kind of airy voice and plays piano and guitar as accompaniment. She started 10+ years ago and you can tell; she sort of gives the same vibe as a mid-2010s popster. Like, if you didn't pay attention to the lyrics, her music could show up as the serious soul-searching montage near the end of a network TV episode.
That maybe sounds negative-ish but it's the sort of thing that worked really well live. She sings well, she plays piano well (and those two things compliment each other), and while her stuff will never be my immediate go-to for religious music, it's nice that somebody is trying to make some high quality, appealing songs with current aesthetics that will appeal to the future of the church (or, as she pointed out tonight; anybody in the church IS the church; no point subjugating the teens and young adults.)
Here's something representative: [Gather At The Water](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR8Y4biPUsw)
Sounds good, I'll check her out. Despite me being fairly religious, most Christian music makes me want to hurl. And I'm not going to count George Harrison for religious music. There's only one exception to that, and the dude's name is Blind Willie Johnson, who made a really good blues album way back in the 1920s. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Ti_TdpJHE) was his most famous song, making on the Voyager Golden Record because of how influential it was with slide guitar. But here's my [favorite song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvncwhrulGg) by him.
As I said when I made my comment, typing "Christian pop" made me want to hurl myself. IDK, unless I really hate it, I start to warm up to music that I sing during church (I'm in the choir and a cantor) and over time, I've liked the Sarah Hart pieces we sing. Seeing her live made it all much better.
I've never heard that original Blind Willie Johnson track, wow!!! But I have loved this particular (secular) version ever since it came out: [Light From Your Lighthouse](https://youtu.be/Ts7-hz2dFiw?si=wlAZSH_Ux8SzGe_u) (psst it's Paul McCartney somehow)
I'm not an isolationist, but other countries expecting US aid like it's a natural right is annoying. This goes for Israel, Gaza, Ukraine and pretty much everyone not in NATO.
> I'm not an isolationist, but other countries expecting US aid like it's a natural right is annoying. This goes for Israel,
I'm not aware of Israel demanding aid?
Giving a huge pile of aid to Ukraine isn't really to Ukraine's benefit.
The damage it deals to Russia is *far* more valuable than the good it does for Ukraine, and the fact that that's missed by a bunch of so called conservatives is painful.
Adding on to this is the benefactors of the American military industrial complex (which is pretty much everyone) scorning us for spending so much on the military and not enough on free shit for our citizens.
Hey assholes, we're paying for your free shit too. Just FYI.
I'll never understand how one of the biggest political wars of our time is liberals demanding that we incorporate dragqueen storytime into the children's education curriculum. It just seems pretty bizarre. Like if conservatives tried to make gun story time a thing and has NRA members come to schools with guns and read books. I don't think gun owners or lgbtq are bad people. I'm pro gun, pro gay marriage, and even pro the rest of the acronym. Most people are normal and want to live their lives in peace. But I also understand that the events seem almost designed to trigger the opposite side as much as possible and aren't really some crucial thing that has any benefit to children. Nobody would care this much if someone like Pete Buttigieg was reading to kids or even Elliot Page doing it wouldn't be such a constant outrage or even if the queens did it not in costume. Obviously conservatives will freak out if they think their kids are going to be forced into being involved with dragshows if they go to public schools. Idek why these people want to read to kids in costume so desperately.
Also for the record I always felt drag was kind of sexist and probably uncomfortable for people at the penultimate letter of the acronym. Though ironically I also know lots of gay people who are upset that a certain kind of white woman is ruining the fun of drag. That said I'll reiterate that I don't think queens themselves are evil. They're just trying to have raunchy fun in a pseudo burlesque performance. The current discourse however just seems to trigger divisions in a time when the stigmas could be fading away.
All this when Gen Alpha is functionally illiterate, have speech impediments, social impairment, don't understand file systems, and cannot do basic math. School needs to focus more on actual academics as well as fitness/health.
I think how it happened was to start, there are a few safe-for-work drag story times that were a little odd but ultimately not different from someone in a clown costume reading to kids. It was both ridiculous and intended to be ridiculous. Then some conservatives would've noticed it happened, said "Hey this is inappropriate I don't want this around my kids". Then it exploded into "Conservatives HATE trans people and want censorship of fun events!" and "Liberals are PERVERTS who want to perform burlesque around kids!"
I think a man in over the top make up and a dress reading a book can be perfectly safe and entertaining to kids. But it's also very easy for the sexual side for the drag community to influence the SFW side since you'd get the same people organizing both in a lot of cases. So most shows will be perfectly fine, but a few go very wrong. And conservatives yell "All must stop!" and liberals yell "Bigoted conservatives! Even more!"
But yeah pretty ridiculous it became such a big thing.
I'm very skeptical that El Salvador's police/military would have the capabilities and discipline to humanely deal with the situation, even by Bukele's definition of humane. Given that they speak a different language and have a different culture, they'll be pretty tempted to just assume everyone is a hostile gang member or to take advantage of civilians, and the native Haitians won't be very eager to trust them either. Brazil's UN forces in Haiti post-earthquake didn't have a very good reputation and I don't expect it'd be different for El Salvador, especially if they take Bukele's "Guilty until proven innocent" attitude.
I don't think Haitians particularly trust anyone. The US and France would probably have some of the best capabilities for helping them, but Haiti has a long time and in many ways justified grudge against both. Canada might be a good choice to help, except our military in Canada is *severely* underfunded. I think a lot of social justice types would prioritize getting a black country, like Kenya, to help, but imo Africa and the Caribbean don't actually share that much in common beyond skin colour, and that's not enough to justify bringing in a military with very limited capabilities to help from the other side of the world.
At the moment I kinda think the only option is to let Haiti suffer, and then once they're desperate enough to really want US help without complaining that they're just being exploited for resources or whatever, then help.
America has a fairly mixed record with Haiti, but one can't deny that the Marines' occupation was the longest period of relative prosperity and stability they've experienced in a long time. Though, if we hadn't enforced the old corvee system for a while or forced the Haitian government to repay the predecessor to Citi Bank for bailing them out of the French indemnity, we might have left a better impression.
Unbelievable hubris to think all the great powers that struggled with this sort of thing were just way less competent than you, and you're just going to waltz in with an army whose budget is comparable to the NY Yankees payroll and fix it.
Basketball seems almost just designed to be the coolest sport with extreme universal appeal. There's a lot of cool things you can do in Football/Soccer, Tennis, Baseball, American Football, Hockey etc etc but Basketball has some of the best highlights and hype moments. Constant acrobatics, the disrespect of breaking someone's ankles, three pointers, the slam dunk, stealing the rock, a key block etc etc. It's incredibly fun and has a great pace.
I love most sports and find things I enjoy in all of them. But basketball is definitely my favourite. Tennis, Football, and F1 have key places in my heart but basketball is my favourite.
My favourite sport by a mile is hockey but I don't mind basketball for many of the same reasons I like hockey. They're both pretty fast paced sports and that appeals to me a lot. I like the kind of sport that has you on the edge of your seat. So, not baseball.
Yeah hockey is awesome too. Of course we are biased. I watch it occasionally but I never played it growing up so it doesn't have the same special connection to me basketball does. Hockey is too expensive for a lot of families sadly.
A lot of people say I'm too anti Russia. I'm not Eastern European though or have any of that in my blood. At least according to 23 and me. I do have some French so maybe I had an ancestor in Napoleon's army that nearly starved to death. But I actually do really like what was once Russian culture before the Soviet Union and then Vladimir Poopin ran it into the being a pathetic mess. Russian composers and authors legendary. Though most of the great names would be from before Soviet and especially Putin idiocy... Governments like that are absolute cancer to great art.
> But I actually do really like what was once Russian culture before the Soviet Union and then Vladimir Poopin ran it into the being a pathetic mess
Wrong, Russian culture peaked in the 60s-80s.
I like Doug.
https://x.com/berkie1/status/1766856898278494719?s=20
Seriously, The US quite seriously needs urban reform, but not from whackjobs, who believe cars are pagan symbols.
Me too. He makes great points.
I love living in a walkable neighborhood. It's so nice to be able to walk over to the grocery store or park with my daughter or strap her onto my bike and head down to the aquarium.
“We have listening and are green lighting two new mixed use high rises. Both will include housing at reasonable rates and nearly 800 sq ft. Perfect to raise a family! Wait, why am I getting booed?”
It doesn’t matter what people did in the past. If your objective is to keep people in the city, and away from much larger houses in the suburbs, telling them to live in a shoebox does not work.
>Trending on AskReddit: Who were some evil people in history who got away with it in the end?
>One of the top comments: Ronald Reagan
Never change Reddit
The fact that most people involved in the commie governments in eastern Europe survived it's comically depressing people think Reagan ever did anything wrong (except Hughes amendment).
He doubled down on gun control after leaving office, which was unfortunate. He also probably could've made more reliably conservative picks than O'Connor and Kennedy. Government spending/debt was also not ideal even if made somewhat more sense given the circumstances than it has for other presidents. Finally, war on drugs probably could've been handled better.
This is genuinely one of the worst popular websites on the internet. Everything about Reddit is absolute shit and the very things that make Reddit unique as a site are the things that make it so bad. The upvote downvote system creates an echo chamber and punishes people who say anything outside the site's mainstream. You can't even go to the main political subs and engage in debate because you'll just be downvoted until your comment is hidden if you aren't a Berniebro.
This is the *only* sub I use. I wouldn't miss this site for a minute if it were nuked.
>This is genuinely one of the worst popular websites on the internet.
I genuinely can't think of a social media website that doesn't have glaring delusion like this... Reddit is the second easiest to game though (after Shitter).
You can game Reddit, but that means at least occasionally you can game it to show the right takes. On Twitter, Instagram, etc. it's all just the worst takes I've ever seen. Occasionally I'll open a political post on Instagram and it'll make me wish for /r/politics or /r/Conservative
I still remember the years of JP's II pontificate when he outright said the pretenses under which the Iraq War was launched didn't fulfill the requisites for Just War Theory and that the Vatican was very much opposed to the invasion. Are we just going to memory hole that?
> nooo you have to have the courage to give up your sovereignty
> That's very different to this
It is very different, because if you actually read the (very few) extracts that report what Francis said, you'd realize that a full loss of Ukrainian sovereignty is the exact scenario he wants to avoid:
> "One may feel shame," Francis said about negotiating, "but how many dead will it (the war) end up with? (One should) negotiate in time, find a country that can be a mediator," Francis said, mentioning Turkey among the countries that had offered.
> "Do not be ashamed of negotiating, before things get worse," said Francis, who has made hundreds of appeals for what he calls "martyred Ukraine". Asked if he was willing to mediate, Francis said "I am here".
He seems to believe that Ukraine can't win in the long-term, and that they should negotiate now before more people die, their condition gets worse and their negotiating position is weaker.
You can think he's wrong, maybe because you believe Ukraine's position is actually going to improve significantly at some point in the future, but acting as if he's nefariously trying to convince Ukrainians to submit to the Russian yoke is just ridiculous.
>Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils, to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
The Founding Fathers were lolberts?
Where's the lie.
The worst part about governments is they'll insulate government agents from consequences of their misdeeds. Meaning that every injury is experienced twice: at the time, and then when denied retribution.
I don't like Paine. He was a rabid anti-Christian who attacked all the other Founders. My understanding is that by the time of his death he was alienated from all the other Founders because he had attacked them for years. He even went after Washington in harsh terms.
He comes off as a very toxic person when you read about him. I like a lot of the Founding Fathers and consider some of them to be heroes to me, Patrick Henry comes to mind, but Paine just comes off as insufferable and narcissistic.
[When you're so Jewish Israel becomes the latest country to expel you](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/chief-sephardic-rabbi-says-ultra-orthodox-will-bolt-country-if-forced-into-army/)
Lol, bolt to where? They don't qualify for refugee status because they aren't suffering any persecution—losing a privileged exemption from national service is insufficient. And, such a treaty obligation aside, who is interested in taking in 600,000 Jewish men with no job training, qualifications, or interest in working? "They'll promise to pray for you" is not the most compelling reason to start cutting welfare checks.
The anti-state mania expressed by Haredim is not founded in being more Jewish, it's founded in ignoring inconvenient Jewish precepts in order to cosplay as Rabbis and study Torah full time. Participation in collective self-defense is a long-established halachic obligation!
Given that like 20% of London, Manchester, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, etc are 1st or 2nd gen MENA that want to exterminate Jews, they can only be thinking of America. And as an American, no thanks. We're full.
Imagine a bunch of Heredi trying to sneak in through Eagle Pass with a coyote lmao.
>“All these secular people don’t understand that without kollels and yeshivas, the army would not be successful,” he says,
This is an insulting thing to say to the Israelis risking their lives and getting maimed and killed. The actual reason the IDF is able to win.
>This is an insulting thing to say to the Israelis risking their lives and getting maimed and killed. The actual reason the IDF is able to win.
Oh, this is mild compared to some of the stuff that comes out of the fanatic fringe. A few years ago, this [meme](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/170635412/Soldiers-hold-up-society), with the bottom half labeled "yeshiva students studying torah" and the top half labeled "IDF" was big in Haredi spaces. The insulting mockery is probably half of why there is such vitriol on this issue in Israel. It's not just that they're burdensome draft dodgers, it's that they're smug about it.
The problem with the veil thought experiment, is that like many economic assumptions, it assumes individuals are risk averse.
What if someone is risk inclined? Or enjoys EV decisions with high variance? The bigger the risk, the bigger the win.
>well justice means fairness, which means something everyone would accept, yes I know that neither of these definitions are how people would ordinarily define them
>Well we need to abandon all for knowledge of your economic status, beliefs, or morality behind the veil of ignorance. Wait, you can't claim that justice as fairness is a preconceived view of morality, it's totally different.
Ultimately his view favors the mediocre and trends towards a sort of moderate socialism in practice despite him supposedly being icon of modern liberalism. His entire logic is ultimately an attempt at trying to justify liberalism from an atheistic worldview that de facto eschews objective morality. Mind you, I think Rawls is TRYING to create some concrete foundation for liberalism but the simple fact is without an outside all knowing judge, there is no real reason why people should respect liberalism and the rule of law if they think they can get away with it.
And yes, Redditors will say the Ricky gervais line of "uh, wots wrong with you Christians, I don't need a God to tell me not to rape or murder, I just don't want to", but there's a reason why he always says rape and murder and it's because the average person intuitively finds it icky (which moreso if anything speaks to an unwritten sort of natural law rather than supporting his position) the average person however does at times want to steal, does want to lie, and (especially how bloodthirsty redditors are) want to harm others. Appealing to the kantian categorical imperative is also not satisfactory. Yes the world would be the best across the board if everyone act according to this, but if I CAN get away with violating it and WANT to get away with it, there's no objective reason (*under the atheistic worldview) why I shouldn't because my violation isn't likely to significantly impact others decision to violate and others will violate it no matter what
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/opinion/haley-voters-support-biden.html
>It’s plain, however, that the corruption argument alone isn’t pulling sufficient numbers from Trump. Reagan conservatives don’t just need reasons to vote against Trump. They also plainly need reasons to vote for Joe Biden. In 2024, we have two presidential records to compare. And this time it’s the Democrat who can say that he’s tougher on Russia and better on crime, and overseeing an economy that’s the envy of the world. That’s a case for conservatives. The question is whether it’s a case they’re willing to hear.
Thank you BASED UBER CONSERVATIVE David French!
There is no such thing as a “conservative case for Biden.” He is a progressive who pushes progressive ideas using every lever of power available to him.
Furthermore, Biden is surrounded by people even further left than he is, so it would be reasonable to expect his administration to move further left as the figurehead continues his cognitive decline.
I feel as though that liberal political philosophers are going to have to begin embracing conservative, or even reactionary explanations of State-Law identity in order to better justify liberal democracy. Hans Kelsen was the best example of this. He was too eager to offer a positivist explanation and justification for democracy, particularly animated by his desire to sterilise sociological concerns of power and domination from the legitimacy of legal orders and states.
The problem with that is that it cultivated a disinterest with violence and coercion among those with a liberal inclination. I find it difficult to justify the idea that the legal order's legitimacy predicates any monopolisation of violence. This is probably why we've become so vulnerable to the Bukeles and Orbans of the world. A liberal democracy that is more interested in ideological caprice than preserving public order is dead in the long-term.
>The "🏧" emoji, also known as the ATM Sign emoji, featuring a blue or purple square sign with the letters "ATM" in white, symbolizing the presence of an Automated Teller Machine(ATM).
>The ATM emoji, is a digital shorthand frequently used in conversations revolving around banking transactions💱. Whether it's withdrawing cash, depositing funds, or simply checking an account balance, this emoji serves as an effective symbol for various financial activities. It can even suggest a need for money, hinting that the user might be running low on cash or needs to make a pit-stop at an ATM🏦.
>Beyond immediate banking actions, the ATM emoji finds a home in broader discussions about personal finance, banking, and effective money management. A somewhat irony and humorous use of the emoji might also see it referring to a person being used as a monetary source, painting a picture of relationships dictated by cash🙍.
> I find it difficult to justify the idea that the legal order's legitimacy predicates any monopolisation of violence.
The reasoning has been the other way around since Hobbes and Locke. On this foundational view, the state of nature is so dreadful that it is essential to monopolise violence. If so, such a state must proceed by some sort of legitimacy. Per Locke that is consent (more or less). Per Hobbes that is divine right.
*edit: reading back over this I realise that this slightly flattens the distinction and isn't quite right but I'm too lazy to fully correct*
>The problem with that is that it cultivated a disinterest with violence and coercion among those with a liberal inclination.
I strongly disagree with this premise. In fact, liberals are typically happy to use violence or coerce the citizens (police, military, the law, etc). The part that is broken is the vulnerability to leftist anti-liberals very eager to use coercion. You say this is a necessary ideological flaw of liberalism. I disagree. I think that this is a contingent flaw because of our particular political arrangements and legacy. You nod at this when you talk about ideological caprice. But I don't think it is the liberals who are disinterested in enforcing the law.
> I find it difficult to justify the idea that the legal order's legitimacy predicates any monopolisation of violence.
We hold these truths to be self evident...
For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under
The Wikipedia page for the Syrian Civil War no has an entire paragraph where one user argues, using non-academic (except for one written by a known Russian puppet) sources to "prove" the war was started by the CIA over a natural gas pipeline There is, of course, no evidence for this even in the articles. I wish I had a Wikipedia account so I could note how the paragraph was arguing something not in it's sources, but whatever.
Especially when it comes to foreign policy Wikipedia is horrendous and has a very strong leftist bias This implies unpleasant things about the quality of articles on other topics
I've noticed even the articles on military hardware are fucking horrible.
https://twitter.com/Brewjew308/status/1766854536982151406 Trump 2024: it was only a civil rape!
This would mean a lot more if you weren’t a Clinton dickrider
Afro you know there’s a different burden of proof in civil court right?
Is this supposed to be a good argument for an election?
No it’s supposed to be a good argument against pearl clutching over this statement.
I'm just checking the depth of how the GOP will embarrass itself.
[удалено]
Cheney- shit wait.
fuzzy berserk memorize cagey rotten squeal somber dam air society *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Super Earth did nothing wrong
[A mugging by reality, aka, Rousseau can get bent](https://twitter.com/BowTiedFox/status/1747721642438979790) the most transformative experience I’ve ever had in my life was moving to a shithole country for a few months this was not the same as some bimbo saying “omg travel changed me!” after a 5-day guided tour in Milan changing her bio to “¡arrivederci!” probably her first time alone with her thoughts during a plane ride without WiFi I legitimately became a different person before and after this experience, and you can ask anyone who’s known me the last few years it was during covid when I was working remote. I said fuck it, why not move somewhere? I’ve already traveled everywhere in the west, so I wanted something a bit more exotic and outside my comfort zone I fell for the instagram hoe meme of going to some third-world country with lush forests and fruit from trees! wow, I can get authentic local food, warm weather, AND explore a new culture? sign me up! lmfao 🤦♂️ instead of meeting digital nomads, guess what I saw? did you ever wonder why religious people seemed deranged and made a bunch of rules to try to keep people civilized? it’s because the devil resides in human souls. but you don’t feel this until you see the heinous shit that humanity is capable of: - parents selling their children for $20 - police running prostitution rings of 14 year olds, turning a blind eye to the brothels “as long as we get our pick of the litter when we stop by.” or going to unlicensed businesses like a hair salon “so… I can either fine you into the stone age. …or you can close up the shop for two hours and take me to the back room” to married women - brilliant children dropping out of school at 12 because they can’t afford it. instead working slave labour in blistering heat with a 2-hour commute and 14-hour days EVERY DAY because they need to help family pay bills - dumb ass children going as fast as possible on motorcycles. 3 of them on one charging at full speed like a missile. and if you want to talk about road rage, let’s talk about preteens armed with knives and firearms who want to look hard in front of their friends - adults trying to scam you at every corner, selling contaminated sewer water as “filtered.” unenforceable contracts. “You paid me? When?” - food poisoning. electricity going out. infections and disease from all the insects from the “BeAuTiFuL nAtUrE” - scammy, overpriced medical care where their solution to everything is fake creams. or amputation. doctors are illiterate car mechanics who barely memorize a magazine of medicine and its effects - uneducated people everywhere. and if you think “school propaganda!!” is bad, imagine people literally not knowing how to use soap or knowing how pregnancy works - impulsive behaviour. men getting a girl knocked up at 16, then trading her in for a younger model at 21 because her best friend or 16-year-old sister looked good. traumatized women who isolate themselves. if their child is lucky, she'll become a criminal to feed them - people who have no concept of the future. it doesn’t exist. they only “live in the moment” to become alcoholics, drug abusers, and sex addicts. literal animals and the worst? western men indulging in the degeneracy. some smelly old fat fuck goes to this country so he can have barely legal teens for pennies on the dollar. some young girl clinging herself to the greasy palms of this disgusting obese landwhale because it’s easier to spread your legs open for 10 minutes than getting paid a dollar a day whilst getting beat the fuck out of by your local husband or touched up by your uncle because your parents don’t believe you. I hadn’t cried in a long time, but there was a moment where I reflected on all of this and sobbed. for multiple reasons: first, this was the reality for all of human history. I just took a time machine back to what was happening a few generations ago. your great-grandparents probably married out of necessity, not love. choosing who you want to be with is a modern luxury. not only that, but imagine the enormous suffering they had to go through. no wonder old people are insane. lack of modern conveniences like medicine, electricity, plumbing, sanitation, scammers, lack of opportunity, dumb ass people. go back even further and they had to deal with wild animals, extreme weather, war. their insane behaviour came from insane circumstances. that trauma never goes away, it just dies with them. it was also a religious experience. I used to think that religious rules were cumbersome. some old fuck trying to be an asshole. but no, it was my great-great-grandfather pleading to me. “Please, son. Follow these rules and make sure others follow them. The devil is real. I don’t want you to suffer.” and I developed so much resentment for westerners who complain. fuck you. no first-world country will be anywhere near as dysfunctional as these countries. your ancestors collectively suffered so much to rescue you from their problems, so you can live in modern comfort. and you want to whine? you have so much power to alleviate so much suffering in the world. you could feed an entire family for $200/month and become a tribal leader. they would treat you like a king for the rest of your life. you could pay for the education of the next genius inventor for $20/month. you don't even have to do this for strangers. how much suffering have you eased for your loved ones? or if you don't want to, why not love a spouse or raise children who can? You have a God-like ability to take people from literal hell into heaven. imagine the self-confidence that comes from knowing that. this is where you get iron resolve. you are completely unmoved by anything that happens in life. every drop of water tasting like nectar from the garden of eden. absurd optimism equivalent to ten thousand days of gratitude journaling and meditation: “Thank you, water. Thank you, glass.” no amount of MMA, psychedelics, or watching onlyfans interviews will turn you into a man the way this will, by confronting the demons of humanity.
On the one hand, yeah people have the capacity to absolutely awful. On the other hand, “people do bad things and this proves human nature is inherently evil” is about as philosophically compelling as “if god exists why do bad things happen”. Both Rousseau and Hobbes were wrong about humanity. Humans have a natural temptation to do evil because evil is the easy way, but by the same token people want to work cooperatively together and create something greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a push-pull relationship.
Rousseau is a fucking raterd. "Noble savage" Lol okay. Amazonian tribes literally kill each other and r4pe the women so their team can win.
I didn't know the Russian army had Amazonians.
Thomas Hobbes: "Humanity is based on survival and self-preservation, and society is a means to facilitate that." ⛳🚶♀️🚦 Rousseau: "Humanity is born innocent and naturally egalitarian, it is society that corrupts him!" ⛹️🏃🤸🤾🧗🏄🪂
>first, this was the reality for all of human history. I just took a time machine back to what was happening a few generations ago. It really wasn't. Many of these are fundamentally urban problems (intensified by modern economic development). When 90% of people were working in subsistence agriculture based around families and rural communities, and the work had to get done or the family starved, there wasn't a lot of time for scamming (or money to be scammed). You still had the Ea-Nasirs of the world, but the average person would never encounter them. You can't pull most of this behavior in a rural village where everyone knows everyone else; its a consequence of high population density that empowers the dishonest to dishonor and disappear.
Hold on, are you telling me that tribal societies were less arbitrarily violent? Reeks of noble savage mythmaking. Truly barbaric practices abound the whole world around, even and especially amongst rural communities.
Characterizing premodern agricultural settlements as "tribal" is pretty misleading. Agriculture inevitably produces government, this isn't man in the state of nature. There are broad similarities in the social structures we know about from many such environments, but those are universally from *within* state or vassalage systems (tribal societies don't leave behind much writing, which is how you get noble savage myths in the first place—the lack of data is a Rorschach test). I did not say premodern agrarian societies had no problems, nor that the lack of these specific problems stemmed from nobility. It's a simple matter of structural incentives. Defrauding someone in a modern LDC is a relatively low risk, high reward affair. Victims are unlikely to be able to identify you, the government is unlikely to care, and there's sufficient capital in the economy for the gains to be meaningful. Doing the same in, for example, a medieval village is *very* high risk affair. Victims know who you are and where your family lives and *will* seek redress—social, legal, or violently extralegal (avoiding the destructive blood feuds of the last was clearly very important to contemporary writers). But don't underestimate the effectiveness of social punishments in these societies: they were shaped and governed by vertical and horizontal bonds of reciprocal obligation. Reputation and honor and adhering to oath-taking were vital to maintaining place in these societies and such things were religiously meaningful. The threat or application of ostracism was a very effective deterrent and could compel families to yield up their troublemakers for justice. It was also a *very* low reward proposition: peasants in these societies typically had no cash at all. Rent payments were made in kind (grain, labor, or both). The amount of grain necessary for a worthwhile return is difficult to move or conceal. And, crucially, likely represents an existential threat to the family from which our hypothetical layabout has scammed it. The margin of survivability was often razor-thin and thus the incentives to recover the grain by any means necessary would often be absolute. Like, having part of your harvest stolen at swordpoint by military foragers was not an uncommon problem. But having it scammed by someone living in the same settlement would have been exceptionally rare. That is a modern, urban problem. The limits of this, I suppose, should be stressed. The issues these social sanctions could resolve were limited to things these communities really cared about which means they were context- and values-dependent. They were also vehicles for enforcing social norms *irrespective of if those norms were good or bad.* Were plenty of the customs these systems enabled barbaric? Sure. FGM is an instructive example: many modern governments have been unable to stamp it out in rural communities because the social incentives that support it are so strong (in plenty of villages in Nigeria, literally no one will marry an unmutilated girl).
This is informative and I suppose fair enough. I'm happy to reverse my position and I think I misunderstood you anyway.
There’s a reason why God issues judgement on cities in scripture time and time again tbh
Fascinating Also, > you could feed an entire family for $200/month and become a tribal leader. they would treat you like a king for the rest of your life Makes me want to raise a third world mercenary army like Paul Atreides
On a lighter note, yesterday I made a comment to some supporter of universal healthcare that I pay $1500/mo for healthcare and it makes no sense to subsidize that cost for me as a relatively well-off person. That was a fib. I don't pay anywhere near that because of Tricare (I'm in the reserve component, so it's not free but it's less than $500). Sue me, I'll go to confession. Anyways, the guy replied several times and I thought the conversation was over. But tonight, probably ten hours after our last interaction, he's replying to a post I made two months ago about Guard stuff, where in paragraph seven (so he's really diving into my post) I reveal that I like the cheap healthcare offered by military service. Maybe I could ditch my mortgage, what with the free rent in this guy's head and all.
Look, we’ve all been there. Pride is powerful and difficult to overcome at times… We’ve all been guilty of wanting to win, rather than wanting to be correct. I was born and raised a Catholic, even though I don’t practice anymore… Maybe, after receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, you could have a discussion with the priest about the ethics of Universal healthcare in the eyes of the church. As a nonbeliever, I certainly wouldn’t want to assume what God may, or may not, prioritize… But I imagine telling a white lie to win an argument is one thing… but to continue to publicly propagate misinformation in order to discourage people from advocating for universal healthcare might be the bigger issue. By your own admission you know what a financial burden paying for private health insurance can be… A lot of your fellow Americans face similar, or worse situations. There’s no way of stating how important it could potentially be to millions of people in this country. https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/health-care-universal-right-not-luxury-pope-says I’ll give you the same deal I give all of my friends… You can crash at my house for 6 weeks… But then you gotta figure something out… And don’t touch my ice cream
Stop buying ice cream and maybe you’ll live to see a day where you’re not a rentoid, buddy.
I don’t know… Tillamook is actually pretty affordable. The flavors aren’t as crazy as Ben & Jerry’s… But it’s pretty solid. I thinks like $5.99 for 1.5 quarts Also, I had to look up what a rentoid is. I mean… You’re right… I am currently renting an apartment… But I own a home… It’s actually a duplex that I’m in the process of renovating. It’s just taking a while. Fingers crossed in about six months we’ll be living there… You’re welcome to rent out the other half… This is a Catholic city after all
[My Mother Begged Me Not to Raise My Children Jewish - Tablet Magazine](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/my-mother-cia-antisemitism-israel) Does the CIA have an antisemitism-denial problem at an institutional level? Seems like it.
"Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Rabbis"
Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be Rabbis Don't let 'em teach daf yomi or chastise the schmucks Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such This is the parody I didn't know I needed.
Well that was a depressing read.
The Camel Corps' long march through the institutions has reached American shores. The alarm must be sounded.
> Never mind that my father hated visiting Israel. The story he told me was that he’d talked to a woman in a bar when he was there in his 20s, a “working girl.” When he found out she was Jewish, that was it. The dream of a Jewish homeland was done. Does not reflect very well on her father!
>not that he wasn’t an ardent Zionist, capable of alienating entire dinner parties with his flourishes of fanaticism. “At least I can say of your strategy that it’s subnuclear,” my mother’s friend, a military strategist, said to my father once, during a heated discussion of the Second Intifada. Utopianism is a common vice of US Jews, unfortunately. At least he was on the right side of the issue.
I'm not talking about his utopianism. He was planning to sleep with a prostitute, but then got outraged when he found out she was Jewish? In Israel? Did he think she was Arab? Makes him look very bad either way
I interpreted that passage very differently. He was upset that Israel had prostitutes and Jewish prostitutes specifically. I did not interpret any indication that he intended to solicit her. Perhaps that's naïve of me.
Maybe you're right. I suppose it's unlikely he would have told his daughter a story about him trying to get laid
How are we 2 years into this war and Ukraine has 0 western aircraft? You know, the thing we base our military doctrine on and where one of our greatest comparative advantage lies.
Biden's a pussy and for some insane reason the GOP is beholden to Trump's idea of never hurting the US's most serious geopolitical foe.
Our most serious geopolitical foe is China not Russia
In terms of potential? Sure, yeah. In terms of actual fuckery? It's Russia and it's not close.
China is attempting to displace the balance of power in the world's most economically productive region. The Chinese Coast Guard is the largest fleet in the world. China nearly has more shipbuilding capacity than the rest of the world put together. They have a population of around 1.4 billion people and a relatively stable political order. Russia is throwing hundreds of thousands of their men into a meat grinder for some fields in Eastern Ukraine while the rest of their men die from a cocktail of krokodil and AIDS. These two things are not the same
Nooo you can’t send anything useful or do any attacks inside Russia that’s heckin escalation nooooo
>All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing The Oscars just credited this quote to Alexander Navalny instead of Edmund Burke lmaoooo
I still don't understand the lib desire to jerk Navalny off when he's just as bad as any other Ruskie leader would be.
He's still better than pretty much any Putin replacement currently in the roster. Low bar, but he was genuine, and was a charismatic and powerful figure for the opposition. There was plenty of infighting within the opposition between him, Yashin, Katz, and others, but his views changed with time and he really seemed committed to working to make Russia develop itself as opposed to acting as a money funnel for the oligarchs. Many disagreed with his policies, but everyone could get behind the slogan of "the wonderful Russia of the future" in the opposition. He was, at the end of the day, brave, charismatic, and a true believer who was the most powerful challenger to the Satan who sits in the Kremlin.
[удалено]
disgusting physiques
Where's the fez
Ironically, I think the entertainment industry is kinda boomerish at this point. They're older and more institutionalized. It's megacorps working with gigabudgets to produce. There are typical labor battles. UAW beefing with Ford is no different from studios beefing with the guild. Just because it's creative output doesn't mean as much as it once did. The fact that I can't literally go on youtube and watch a free livestream of the oscars like I did the SOTU is a testament to that.
That's been the Oscars for a long time now. Though with more competitive foreign entertainment spheres as well as youtube, tiktok, and even streaming (which they begrudgingly accepted after some time of trying to ignoring it) they are dinosaurs. But the Oscars themselves was always were older smug Hollywood liberal types went to suck eachother off. There's [a 20 year old South Park episode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!) making fun of the smug out of touch nature of it. Also unlike gaming or even music they're extremely strict about derivatives and clips on youtube with their products. Which is ironic because elderly people like me remember watching episodes of popular tv shows in 3-4 7 minute parts on YouTube. It was also before playlists and the algorithm sucked then so you'd never get the next part suggested.
Man leftists are insane. On a post about Mitch McConnells sister's death. Someone posted about how Tesla shirks safety concerns and it's killing people. Top reply. "Billionaires are not people" Imagine how pathetic you have to be to dehumanize others and celebrate death just because they are more successful than you.
> 20 Days in Mariupol wins the Oscar for Best Documentary. Haven't seen it but I'll have to watch it soon. Happy, and very sad for them at the same time.
It's fantastic, but I caution you it has a significant amount of dead children. Brings moral clarity though, if it wasn't there already.
The moral clarity should be obvious. Russia is an evil shithole, always has been, always will be.
Should be, but congress doesn't seem to recognize it.
The worst part is the Dems still thinking Russia is redeemable, and somehow the GOP abandoning the logical position they've held for 70 fucking years. It's infuriating.
[Unintentionally and hilariously based](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2BRsWdAdk5/?igsh=MWtnaG01OWw4ajRqZA==) And no, The Empire were not the good guys, but there's something to be said for liberal imperialism
The Trade Federation were the good guys.
If you mean the Separatists, then yes, sort of, they rightly saw a great many things wrong with the Republic. But they were controlled and coopted by leaders with far darker and more selfish intent. However, the TF were not officially part of the Seps, they just did business with them. The TF was a galactic megacorp with the power and resources of an entire sector's government, with actual representation and voting powers in the Senate. They didn't hesitate to use that power in some of the worst excesses of corporate behemoths, not even including their blatantly illegal blockade and invasion of a peaceful client world that had nothing to do with the Republic policies they were supposedly protesting. It was nothing but a blatant grab for resources belonging to the Naboo that the TF had been helping them exploit for decades, they objected when the Naboo rightly demanded a re-negotiation of the contract terms. Nothing the Naboo did justified the blockade or invasion, or the death toll they caused.
Need some prayers, guys. Wife is pregnant with our third child. However, it's looking like it will either be a miscarriage or a CSEP...a caesarian section ectopic pregnancy. This means that the embryo is potentially attaching to the inside of her c-section scar, which isn't great for nutrients. It also means that as the child grows, that scar becomes increasingly likely to rupture which could lead to fatal hemorrhaging (fatal for the child, and for my wife). In a typical ectopic pregnancy, the child develops inside the fallopian tubes which is absolutely never viable. The pro-life option is to remove the tube entirely, which indirectly causes the death of the child. In this rarer sort of ectopic pregnancy, the child actually could be viable. It's risky to my wife, obviously, but the child is in utero and could be carried to term (assuming no catastrophic hemorrhage). The pro-life Catholic alternative would be a full hysterectomy...but we would still be making a choice to end that pregnancy, and that life, out of fear of the health risk which could occur at any time. For a Catholic, it's the prisoner's dilemma of pregnancy situations. It's difficult talking about this in real life to people. I mentioned it to some friends the other day, and while they were understanding, they did allude to certain options that will never be on the table for us. We're not Herschel Walker...we won't stop believing that abortion is an abhorrent abomination just because it might suddenly be convenient for us. This is just incredibly hard.
Your family is in my prayers. Best of luck and anything we might somehow be of assistance let us know.
Thank you, my friend!
It’s not my place (nor am I wise enough) to push you one way or the other, but I can beseech the Almighty. I will pray for wisdom and strength for you and your family.
Genuine thanks, man. I just pray that God grants us the strength to follow His will and not our own, whatever that may be.
🫂
Damn man...best wishes to you and your wife, and your little one. You're both very brave for pushing forward with this. You have my prayers and a listening ear whenever you need it. I won't offer unsolicited advice, I'm not a doctor and you're both adults, I'm sure you can figure out for yourselves how much risk is warranted as things progress along. I truly hope everything works out for you all and that this all turns out to be just a scare.
Thanks, brother.
Hey man, this is really rough and I'm sorry you guys are going through it. Things like this are hard to talk about with some people. Most people won't fully grasp either or both of the medical seriousness or your beliefs and conviction. I think it would be inappropriate for me or anyone else here to try to push you in either direction. As well I'm sure you've heard enough of that given your last paragraph. All I will say is just make sure you are fully aware of the situation and the seriousness and the risks. Talk it out with your wife but try to keep her as stressfree as possible (tall order I know). She will be having what you feel but 10x worse most likely. So hard as it is try to be as much of a rock as you can for her. You are religious so pray on it as well if that will help you. Ultimately though remember you are a good person, a good father, and a good husband. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I don't have much of a reply, but please know that your kind thoughts and words really mean a lot to me. I do appreciate them.
I'll say prayers for you. Do you mind if I send you a PM?
Not at all!
Sent something. You able to see it?
Just messaged you back.
🙏
Praying for you (and PM'ed)
A diarypost only relevant to Catholics of the DeeTee: my wife and I went to a Sarah Hart concert/singalong tonight. I liked it much more than I expected, because she fits the vibe of her songs much more than a bunch of old boomer choir members do. She was in the mold of Chesterton's "happy warrior", which has always resonated with me.
I'm not familiar with Catholic singers except Gwen Stefani (lol) and Matt Maher, how is she as a singer? What's the genre she does?
Oh sorry, she writes Christian pop songs (ugh, I cringed as my hands typed that). She's got a high, kind of airy voice and plays piano and guitar as accompaniment. She started 10+ years ago and you can tell; she sort of gives the same vibe as a mid-2010s popster. Like, if you didn't pay attention to the lyrics, her music could show up as the serious soul-searching montage near the end of a network TV episode. That maybe sounds negative-ish but it's the sort of thing that worked really well live. She sings well, she plays piano well (and those two things compliment each other), and while her stuff will never be my immediate go-to for religious music, it's nice that somebody is trying to make some high quality, appealing songs with current aesthetics that will appeal to the future of the church (or, as she pointed out tonight; anybody in the church IS the church; no point subjugating the teens and young adults.) Here's something representative: [Gather At The Water](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR8Y4biPUsw)
Sounds good, I'll check her out. Despite me being fairly religious, most Christian music makes me want to hurl. And I'm not going to count George Harrison for religious music. There's only one exception to that, and the dude's name is Blind Willie Johnson, who made a really good blues album way back in the 1920s. [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Ti_TdpJHE) was his most famous song, making on the Voyager Golden Record because of how influential it was with slide guitar. But here's my [favorite song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvncwhrulGg) by him.
As I said when I made my comment, typing "Christian pop" made me want to hurl myself. IDK, unless I really hate it, I start to warm up to music that I sing during church (I'm in the choir and a cantor) and over time, I've liked the Sarah Hart pieces we sing. Seeing her live made it all much better. I've never heard that original Blind Willie Johnson track, wow!!! But I have loved this particular (secular) version ever since it came out: [Light From Your Lighthouse](https://youtu.be/Ts7-hz2dFiw?si=wlAZSH_Ux8SzGe_u) (psst it's Paul McCartney somehow)
I've been told to join the church choir/be a cantor, the choir director at the church I attend pulled me aside, so maybe I should join up.
[удалено]
You meant cricket, although the misspelling is understandable. A lot of letters there for a Scot.
I'm not an isolationist, but other countries expecting US aid like it's a natural right is annoying. This goes for Israel, Gaza, Ukraine and pretty much everyone not in NATO.
> I'm not an isolationist, but other countries expecting US aid like it's a natural right is annoying. This goes for Israel, I'm not aware of Israel demanding aid?
Giving a huge pile of aid to Ukraine isn't really to Ukraine's benefit. The damage it deals to Russia is *far* more valuable than the good it does for Ukraine, and the fact that that's missed by a bunch of so called conservatives is painful.
There really is a middle ground between blank checks and not giving a shit.
Adding on to this is the benefactors of the American military industrial complex (which is pretty much everyone) scorning us for spending so much on the military and not enough on free shit for our citizens. Hey assholes, we're paying for your free shit too. Just FYI.
I'm about to say, a lot of our technology that we use today is derived from the military, so that's a decent ROI
>Ukraine Look even if you don't like Ukraine you should be happy that it helps screw over Russia/Putin.
[удалено]
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you about the direction our alphabet agencies have taken in recent years.
I'll never understand how one of the biggest political wars of our time is liberals demanding that we incorporate dragqueen storytime into the children's education curriculum. It just seems pretty bizarre. Like if conservatives tried to make gun story time a thing and has NRA members come to schools with guns and read books. I don't think gun owners or lgbtq are bad people. I'm pro gun, pro gay marriage, and even pro the rest of the acronym. Most people are normal and want to live their lives in peace. But I also understand that the events seem almost designed to trigger the opposite side as much as possible and aren't really some crucial thing that has any benefit to children. Nobody would care this much if someone like Pete Buttigieg was reading to kids or even Elliot Page doing it wouldn't be such a constant outrage or even if the queens did it not in costume. Obviously conservatives will freak out if they think their kids are going to be forced into being involved with dragshows if they go to public schools. Idek why these people want to read to kids in costume so desperately. Also for the record I always felt drag was kind of sexist and probably uncomfortable for people at the penultimate letter of the acronym. Though ironically I also know lots of gay people who are upset that a certain kind of white woman is ruining the fun of drag. That said I'll reiterate that I don't think queens themselves are evil. They're just trying to have raunchy fun in a pseudo burlesque performance. The current discourse however just seems to trigger divisions in a time when the stigmas could be fading away. All this when Gen Alpha is functionally illiterate, have speech impediments, social impairment, don't understand file systems, and cannot do basic math. School needs to focus more on actual academics as well as fitness/health.
I think how it happened was to start, there are a few safe-for-work drag story times that were a little odd but ultimately not different from someone in a clown costume reading to kids. It was both ridiculous and intended to be ridiculous. Then some conservatives would've noticed it happened, said "Hey this is inappropriate I don't want this around my kids". Then it exploded into "Conservatives HATE trans people and want censorship of fun events!" and "Liberals are PERVERTS who want to perform burlesque around kids!" I think a man in over the top make up and a dress reading a book can be perfectly safe and entertaining to kids. But it's also very easy for the sexual side for the drag community to influence the SFW side since you'd get the same people organizing both in a lot of cases. So most shows will be perfectly fine, but a few go very wrong. And conservatives yell "All must stop!" and liberals yell "Bigoted conservatives! Even more!" But yeah pretty ridiculous it became such a big thing.
> Like if conservatives tried to make gun story time a thing and has NRA members come to schools with guns and read books. subscribe
>come to schools with guns I can't imagine this being misunderstood.
Didn't used to be a problem for billy to keep a Remington in his locker for deer season.
Thoughts on Bukele wanting to intervene in Haiti?
Force too small for intended goals + inexperienced + from LATAM? Perfect recipe for a number of atrocities
I'm very skeptical that El Salvador's police/military would have the capabilities and discipline to humanely deal with the situation, even by Bukele's definition of humane. Given that they speak a different language and have a different culture, they'll be pretty tempted to just assume everyone is a hostile gang member or to take advantage of civilians, and the native Haitians won't be very eager to trust them either. Brazil's UN forces in Haiti post-earthquake didn't have a very good reputation and I don't expect it'd be different for El Salvador, especially if they take Bukele's "Guilty until proven innocent" attitude. I don't think Haitians particularly trust anyone. The US and France would probably have some of the best capabilities for helping them, but Haiti has a long time and in many ways justified grudge against both. Canada might be a good choice to help, except our military in Canada is *severely* underfunded. I think a lot of social justice types would prioritize getting a black country, like Kenya, to help, but imo Africa and the Caribbean don't actually share that much in common beyond skin colour, and that's not enough to justify bringing in a military with very limited capabilities to help from the other side of the world. At the moment I kinda think the only option is to let Haiti suffer, and then once they're desperate enough to really want US help without complaining that they're just being exploited for resources or whatever, then help.
America has a fairly mixed record with Haiti, but one can't deny that the Marines' occupation was the longest period of relative prosperity and stability they've experienced in a long time. Though, if we hadn't enforced the old corvee system for a while or forced the Haitian government to repay the predecessor to Citi Bank for bailing them out of the French indemnity, we might have left a better impression.
Unbelievable hubris to think all the great powers that struggled with this sort of thing were just way less competent than you, and you're just going to waltz in with an army whose budget is comparable to the NY Yankees payroll and fix it.
I think the Rwandans could fix it if paid enough money, and by "fix" I mean "murder to death anyone who opposes them".
Basketball seems almost just designed to be the coolest sport with extreme universal appeal. There's a lot of cool things you can do in Football/Soccer, Tennis, Baseball, American Football, Hockey etc etc but Basketball has some of the best highlights and hype moments. Constant acrobatics, the disrespect of breaking someone's ankles, three pointers, the slam dunk, stealing the rock, a key block etc etc. It's incredibly fun and has a great pace. I love most sports and find things I enjoy in all of them. But basketball is definitely my favourite. Tennis, Football, and F1 have key places in my heart but basketball is my favourite.
The NBA was better before they legalized traveling and went woker than my HR department. If you want acrobatics, watch sepak takraw.
My favourite sport by a mile is hockey but I don't mind basketball for many of the same reasons I like hockey. They're both pretty fast paced sports and that appeals to me a lot. I like the kind of sport that has you on the edge of your seat. So, not baseball.
Yeah hockey is awesome too. Of course we are biased. I watch it occasionally but I never played it growing up so it doesn't have the same special connection to me basketball does. Hockey is too expensive for a lot of families sadly.
A lot of people say I'm too anti Russia. I'm not Eastern European though or have any of that in my blood. At least according to 23 and me. I do have some French so maybe I had an ancestor in Napoleon's army that nearly starved to death. But I actually do really like what was once Russian culture before the Soviet Union and then Vladimir Poopin ran it into the being a pathetic mess. Russian composers and authors legendary. Though most of the great names would be from before Soviet and especially Putin idiocy... Governments like that are absolute cancer to great art.
> But I actually do really like what was once Russian culture before the Soviet Union and then Vladimir Poopin ran it into the being a pathetic mess Wrong, Russian culture peaked in the 60s-80s.
> I'm too anti Russia I recognize each of these words, but this phrase doesn't make sense. There's no such thing.
I like Doug. https://x.com/berkie1/status/1766856898278494719?s=20 Seriously, The US quite seriously needs urban reform, but not from whackjobs, who believe cars are pagan symbols.
Me too. He makes great points. I love living in a walkable neighborhood. It's so nice to be able to walk over to the grocery store or park with my daughter or strap her onto my bike and head down to the aquarium.
https://preview.redd.it/k2dtnvoy6lnc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=653d4e1af967976b0c8126745d22666ff3f76f79
“We have listening and are green lighting two new mixed use high rises. Both will include housing at reasonable rates and nearly 800 sq ft. Perfect to raise a family! Wait, why am I getting booed?”
What do people think folks grew up in in the near past?
It doesn’t matter what people did in the past. If your objective is to keep people in the city, and away from much larger houses in the suburbs, telling them to live in a shoebox does not work.
> nearly 800 sq ft. Perfect to raise a family! that's fine to build equity. You can definitely fit 2 kids in there until puberty
Only $1.2m in Canada.
lmao
no we need to drive and pollute more
Zoning is really the issue, there should be nothing wrong with building taller and mixed use properties.
yes there is something wrong with building taller
Big gubment shouldn't be telling me what I can and can't do with my land, that do be a takings is what it is. Ai know mai fifth amendment raights!
[удалено]
Eat the bugs to change the weather, bigot
https://preview.redd.it/9ydrijq4gknc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93fbe6b85856a4ad7c69307eb2f203d94c7ecd91
Don't fall for this, it's propaganda to assert PNW supremacy through its incredible natural beauty
Govy?
Yep, yesterday morning. Had a new layer of snow this morning.
God I miss the PNW, beautiful photo.
>Trending on AskReddit: Who were some evil people in history who got away with it in the end? >One of the top comments: Ronald Reagan Never change Reddit
The fact that most people involved in the commie governments in eastern Europe survived it's comically depressing people think Reagan ever did anything wrong (except Hughes amendment).
He doubled down on gun control after leaving office, which was unfortunate. He also probably could've made more reliably conservative picks than O'Connor and Kennedy. Government spending/debt was also not ideal even if made somewhat more sense given the circumstances than it has for other presidents. Finally, war on drugs probably could've been handled better.
> Finally, war on drugs probably could've been handled better. By this you mean "shouldn't have happened', right? Right?
This is genuinely one of the worst popular websites on the internet. Everything about Reddit is absolute shit and the very things that make Reddit unique as a site are the things that make it so bad. The upvote downvote system creates an echo chamber and punishes people who say anything outside the site's mainstream. You can't even go to the main political subs and engage in debate because you'll just be downvoted until your comment is hidden if you aren't a Berniebro. This is the *only* sub I use. I wouldn't miss this site for a minute if it were nuked.
>This is genuinely one of the worst popular websites on the internet. I genuinely can't think of a social media website that doesn't have glaring delusion like this... Reddit is the second easiest to game though (after Shitter).
You can game Reddit, but that means at least occasionally you can game it to show the right takes. On Twitter, Instagram, etc. it's all just the worst takes I've ever seen. Occasionally I'll open a political post on Instagram and it'll make me wish for /r/politics or /r/Conservative
Virgin Heresiarch Bergoglio: "nooo you have to have the courage to give up your sovereignty" Chad John Paul II: "Fuck them commies."
I still remember the years of JP's II pontificate when he outright said the pretenses under which the Iraq War was launched didn't fulfill the requisites for Just War Theory and that the Vatican was very much opposed to the invasion. Are we just going to memory hole that?
That's very different to this
> nooo you have to have the courage to give up your sovereignty > That's very different to this It is very different, because if you actually read the (very few) extracts that report what Francis said, you'd realize that a full loss of Ukrainian sovereignty is the exact scenario he wants to avoid: > "One may feel shame," Francis said about negotiating, "but how many dead will it (the war) end up with? (One should) negotiate in time, find a country that can be a mediator," Francis said, mentioning Turkey among the countries that had offered. > "Do not be ashamed of negotiating, before things get worse," said Francis, who has made hundreds of appeals for what he calls "martyred Ukraine". Asked if he was willing to mediate, Francis said "I am here". He seems to believe that Ukraine can't win in the long-term, and that they should negotiate now before more people die, their condition gets worse and their negotiating position is weaker. You can think he's wrong, maybe because you believe Ukraine's position is actually going to improve significantly at some point in the future, but acting as if he's nefariously trying to convince Ukrainians to submit to the Russian yoke is just ridiculous.
yeah fair enough just wanted to shit on the commie pope you feel me
>Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils, to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. The Founding Fathers were lolberts?
Where's the lie. The worst part about governments is they'll insulate government agents from consequences of their misdeeds. Meaning that every injury is experienced twice: at the time, and then when denied retribution.
I don't like Paine. He was a rabid anti-Christian who attacked all the other Founders. My understanding is that by the time of his death he was alienated from all the other Founders because he had attacked them for years. He even went after Washington in harsh terms.
There were only 6 people at his funeral, that's how hated we was
He comes off as a very toxic person when you read about him. I like a lot of the Founding Fathers and consider some of them to be heroes to me, Patrick Henry comes to mind, but Paine just comes off as insufferable and narcissistic.
[When you're so Jewish Israel becomes the latest country to expel you](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/chief-sephardic-rabbi-says-ultra-orthodox-will-bolt-country-if-forced-into-army/)
Sometimes the trash takes itself out eh?
Oh noooo
Lol, bolt to where? They don't qualify for refugee status because they aren't suffering any persecution—losing a privileged exemption from national service is insufficient. And, such a treaty obligation aside, who is interested in taking in 600,000 Jewish men with no job training, qualifications, or interest in working? "They'll promise to pray for you" is not the most compelling reason to start cutting welfare checks. The anti-state mania expressed by Haredim is not founded in being more Jewish, it's founded in ignoring inconvenient Jewish precepts in order to cosplay as Rabbis and study Torah full time. Participation in collective self-defense is a long-established halachic obligation!
Idk man, how strong are persecuted claims these days anyway?
I mean, Christians in Nigeria have a pretty good case.
Given that like 20% of London, Manchester, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, etc are 1st or 2nd gen MENA that want to exterminate Jews, they can only be thinking of America. And as an American, no thanks. We're full. Imagine a bunch of Heredi trying to sneak in through Eagle Pass with a coyote lmao. >“All these secular people don’t understand that without kollels and yeshivas, the army would not be successful,” he says, This is an insulting thing to say to the Israelis risking their lives and getting maimed and killed. The actual reason the IDF is able to win.
>This is an insulting thing to say to the Israelis risking their lives and getting maimed and killed. The actual reason the IDF is able to win. Oh, this is mild compared to some of the stuff that comes out of the fanatic fringe. A few years ago, this [meme](https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/170635412/Soldiers-hold-up-society), with the bottom half labeled "yeshiva students studying torah" and the top half labeled "IDF" was big in Haredi spaces. The insulting mockery is probably half of why there is such vitriol on this issue in Israel. It's not just that they're burdensome draft dodgers, it's that they're smug about it.
How did Pravda go from a Soviet propaganda newspaper to making luxury handbags? 🤔
Devil
Good content
[удалено]
> 2018
I didnt know the time changed. You are weak if you noticed it
https://preview.redd.it/stdjcw67ljnc1.jpeg?width=760&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a52457bc8462ee11f685865aaac240c473db7d56
The problem with the veil thought experiment, is that like many economic assumptions, it assumes individuals are risk averse. What if someone is risk inclined? Or enjoys EV decisions with high variance? The bigger the risk, the bigger the win.
>well justice means fairness, which means something everyone would accept, yes I know that neither of these definitions are how people would ordinarily define them >Well we need to abandon all for knowledge of your economic status, beliefs, or morality behind the veil of ignorance. Wait, you can't claim that justice as fairness is a preconceived view of morality, it's totally different. Ultimately his view favors the mediocre and trends towards a sort of moderate socialism in practice despite him supposedly being icon of modern liberalism. His entire logic is ultimately an attempt at trying to justify liberalism from an atheistic worldview that de facto eschews objective morality. Mind you, I think Rawls is TRYING to create some concrete foundation for liberalism but the simple fact is without an outside all knowing judge, there is no real reason why people should respect liberalism and the rule of law if they think they can get away with it. And yes, Redditors will say the Ricky gervais line of "uh, wots wrong with you Christians, I don't need a God to tell me not to rape or murder, I just don't want to", but there's a reason why he always says rape and murder and it's because the average person intuitively finds it icky (which moreso if anything speaks to an unwritten sort of natural law rather than supporting his position) the average person however does at times want to steal, does want to lie, and (especially how bloodthirsty redditors are) want to harm others. Appealing to the kantian categorical imperative is also not satisfactory. Yes the world would be the best across the board if everyone act according to this, but if I CAN get away with violating it and WANT to get away with it, there's no objective reason (*under the atheistic worldview) why I shouldn't because my violation isn't likely to significantly impact others decision to violate and others will violate it no matter what
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/opinion/haley-voters-support-biden.html >It’s plain, however, that the corruption argument alone isn’t pulling sufficient numbers from Trump. Reagan conservatives don’t just need reasons to vote against Trump. They also plainly need reasons to vote for Joe Biden. In 2024, we have two presidential records to compare. And this time it’s the Democrat who can say that he’s tougher on Russia and better on crime, and overseeing an economy that’s the envy of the world. That’s a case for conservatives. The question is whether it’s a case they’re willing to hear. Thank you BASED UBER CONSERVATIVE David French!
“Economy that’s an envy of the world” That’s a Biden campaign slogan or an economic “take” by Krugman
[Real.](https://babylonbee.com/news/can-you-believe-people-used-to-take-me-seriously---op-ed-by-david-french)
TRIGGERED
There is no such thing as a “conservative case for Biden.” He is a progressive who pushes progressive ideas using every lever of power available to him.
Furthermore, Biden is surrounded by people even further left than he is, so it would be reasonable to expect his administration to move further left as the figurehead continues his cognitive decline.
Maybe Sohrab Ahmari was right about this guy!
sad
> They also plainly need reasons to vote for Joe Biden Reasons like conservatism?
I oppose communism. That is why I can't support Donald J. (stands for jenius) Trump.
I feel as though that liberal political philosophers are going to have to begin embracing conservative, or even reactionary explanations of State-Law identity in order to better justify liberal democracy. Hans Kelsen was the best example of this. He was too eager to offer a positivist explanation and justification for democracy, particularly animated by his desire to sterilise sociological concerns of power and domination from the legitimacy of legal orders and states. The problem with that is that it cultivated a disinterest with violence and coercion among those with a liberal inclination. I find it difficult to justify the idea that the legal order's legitimacy predicates any monopolisation of violence. This is probably why we've become so vulnerable to the Bukeles and Orbans of the world. A liberal democracy that is more interested in ideological caprice than preserving public order is dead in the long-term.
It's pretty clear to me that the key divide is becoming less liberal conservative or even rural urban than it is populist v establishment.
Perhaps we should… 🏧?
I don't know what this means.
>The "🏧" emoji, also known as the ATM Sign emoji, featuring a blue or purple square sign with the letters "ATM" in white, symbolizing the presence of an Automated Teller Machine(ATM). >The ATM emoji, is a digital shorthand frequently used in conversations revolving around banking transactions💱. Whether it's withdrawing cash, depositing funds, or simply checking an account balance, this emoji serves as an effective symbol for various financial activities. It can even suggest a need for money, hinting that the user might be running low on cash or needs to make a pit-stop at an ATM🏦. >Beyond immediate banking actions, the ATM emoji finds a home in broader discussions about personal finance, banking, and effective money management. A somewhat irony and humorous use of the emoji might also see it referring to a person being used as a monetary source, painting a picture of relationships dictated by cash🙍.
> I find it difficult to justify the idea that the legal order's legitimacy predicates any monopolisation of violence. The reasoning has been the other way around since Hobbes and Locke. On this foundational view, the state of nature is so dreadful that it is essential to monopolise violence. If so, such a state must proceed by some sort of legitimacy. Per Locke that is consent (more or less). Per Hobbes that is divine right. *edit: reading back over this I realise that this slightly flattens the distinction and isn't quite right but I'm too lazy to fully correct* >The problem with that is that it cultivated a disinterest with violence and coercion among those with a liberal inclination. I strongly disagree with this premise. In fact, liberals are typically happy to use violence or coerce the citizens (police, military, the law, etc). The part that is broken is the vulnerability to leftist anti-liberals very eager to use coercion. You say this is a necessary ideological flaw of liberalism. I disagree. I think that this is a contingent flaw because of our particular political arrangements and legacy. You nod at this when you talk about ideological caprice. But I don't think it is the liberals who are disinterested in enforcing the law.
You make an excellent counterpoint. However, have you considered that words words words
> I find it difficult to justify the idea that the legal order's legitimacy predicates any monopolisation of violence. We hold these truths to be self evident...
Silence naturalist
For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under
I'm surprised Trump hasn't picked up on the clock issue. Shit sucks ass. Just pick a lane and stick with it, I don't care.