The current tankie take to justify the war to avoid just accepting that Russia is conducting imperialism is that Ukraine is a Nazi country. That’s it, no nuance, nothing. It’s a Nazi country that needs to be liberated. No, you’re not allowed to ask any follow up questions. You can get that straight from Cowbee along with 19 pages of bullshit . It’s their current meta.
And conservative media has convinced half of America that all politicians are corrupt, and liberal politicians are more corrupt than conservative politicians, so that the left has no moral basis to accuse the right of corruption.
I believe this was the whole (or most of) the explanation at one point, but here in Trump’s second term I simply don’t believe it. The evangelicals who support Trump have long since simply made their peace the hypocrisy - he is God’s instrument no matter how personally flawed. Much of the rest of his base see hypocrisy as a sign of strength - yeah we condemn stuff and then do it ourselves , and we win anyways. Wtf are you going to do about it loser?
Your whole explanation seems like a post-hoc rationalization based on the increasingly untenable assumption that most people are genuinely good if you just get past all the noise. Evidence suggests that people will gladly vote for a wretched person like Trump if they think it means they’ll pay $50 less in taxes, all else be damned.
Trump is the culmination of long-festering sicknesses in American culture, not just the result of a media scam that just happened to bear fruit now.
So that when some friend or family member repeats a “gotcha” like “but you flew to Dublin for an environmental conference, lol” you can respond with “Yes, and I offset that consumption with x, y, and z, and I signed a petition to make next year’s conference virtual, and” etc, etc, etc. Show that the environment matters to you morally and that you are trying to do the right thing.
Most of the public opinion on this isn’t former through personal conversations with climate activists. It’s formed through mass consumption of the media, and the information environment currently maintained by the corporate media environment will never allow for that much context. Even if they mention carbon offsets momentarily they’ll follow it up with a 20 mins opinion segment from some lunatic just giving his opinion about how hypocritical it is regardless.
The average American does understand hypocrisy and morality.
Even if they understand it, they certainly don’t care about it enough to vote based on it.
Drinking anti freeze to resist being sprayed with liquid nitrogen is peak too.
Also I knew I could never be an actor when I tried to do the line “you gotta leave. Now.” in the same intonation as Chris Lloyd but couldn’t.
Suburban commando starring early 90s Hulk Hogan, best enjoyed on the original VHS .
Congrats guys you found a way to make a dating app with an even more skewed sex ratio.
At some point the person inhabiting the role described in the article has to want to be a political player and it seems Bill just doesn’t.
Best we can do is 100 percent unthinking support of Israel while you go die in a gutter. If you disagree you’re antisemitic. What, why won’t you vote for me?
The theoretical argument is that any justice system no matter how well thought out and well intentioned, will eventually result in edge cases where justice fails to be done. Especially when implemented on a large scale. There are already appeals, and those can fail too. Plenty of examples of people actually being railroaded.
You can just accept that , or you turn to democracy to try alleviate the most egregious cases. Thats what the pardon is for - no process, no more appeals. Just the president, the people’s highest representative, and a pen.
It sometimes works (as in, is probably a net benefit) when the person wielding this power fears the people and will pay (at least) a political price for misusing it. Pardoning someone he knows is a complete of the power. Enriching himself by essentially selling pardons throws the whole thing into the world of comedy. Any talk of the theoretical merits of it is laughable.
You can argue that this was inevitable. Maybe you’re right. But that was the intent, and it’s failure is another symptom of the American democracy degenerating towards failure. Trump won’t pay a price for this. Even on conservative forums where they hangwring about “not getting why he’s doing this” (as they stare straight at the naked corruption), none of them will change their votes. Nobody is interested in holding him accountable.
This democratic failure has widespread consequences. The open corruption of the pardons process is actually one of the smaller symptoms of it.
There are not files. There are only vibes. If your surf the vibe ocean well enough, you will find what you were looking for.
It’s interesting, this is true in the early days of the show but around season 4-5 it’s clear that while the humans (of earth) are still technologically primitive, they essentially are making use of huge swathes of the American military industrial complex. Especially in terms of r&d. Theyre also not beholden to centuries of rigid doctrine around combat. So even though a staff weapon is far more technologically advanced than a gun using gunpowder, the gun is more ergonomic, more usable, more accurate, comes in specialized forms, etc etc. Plus they can implement novel tactics like shooting laser guided missiles through the gate and painting targets with a laser.
That show was pretty cool.
That person isn’t understanding shit. If the election were tomorrow he would vote for Trump again . Defunding fema was literally in their platform. This guy is just a moron and his current misfortune hasn’t changed that.
True, but it prescribes rule by one party (the party of the proletariat) alone. In any possible practice this rule can only be held by a party that claims to represent the proletariat, a claim that may or may not be true at any given time.
It’s not “just democracy” when it explicitly prescribes a one party state.
mandates the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party
The democratic part is only within the ruling party, the one that claims to represent the proletariat.
The CCP’s authoritarianism stems in part from their attempt to implement the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The concept itself is pretty weird.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat
They still need Congress to fund it which seems unlikely.
It’s not like it’s banned across Canada. They will still be available elsewhere on the island even.
This is just as dumb as local city and state gun laws in the US. Gun nuts point at them and point out how they don’t work. Like no shit they don’t work when you can just drive for 20 mins and get one.
Edit: okay I got lost . I thought this was about the Canadian city of Victoria. Turns out it’s…not. I’m leaving this here as a monument of my stupidity.
The truth of determinism is relevant to the most popular conception of free will. That’s why this comes up repeatedly. People seem to want themselves to be free from causality itself, because being bound by it makes you not “free”, and just going through the motions.
The problem here is the definition of free will itself . Rather than demanding from the universe that your mind be inexplicably free form causality, why not just accept a more useful definition of free will? Such as the ability to make decisions without undue coercion. Vague as that is, it’s at least a workable definition.
Asimov also had this concept baked into the foundation series. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”.