I’m not from the US but even that kinda offended me. To say that there has never been democracy in the US, clearly judged by your very narrow view of history is incredibly ignorant.
The US has always been a representative republic. For much of that time, it was representative of only a fraction of a fraction of the whole population.
Democracies will most likely always have flaws, I think it makes more sense to compare it to other systems in the same historical context than to apply a current vision of what a democracy should be.
Saying that the US isn’t a democracy because it’s a representative republic is like saying a shape isn’t a rectangle because it’s a square.
We aren’t a direct democracy. But in a representative republic power still stems from the people voting (ostensibly). Demoi (δῆμοι) meaning “peoples” and kratos (κράτος) meaning “power,” we get “democracy.” Power from the people.
While technically true, and for more reasons than you displayed knowledge of in the comments below (e.g., we really seem more of a “plutocracy”, where regardless of which side gets elected, the wealthy get their way outside of the legal system), it is also besides the point. We used to have more elements of democratic choices, like we were at least on the spectrum. Until Monday at least…
Genuine curiosity, I thought we collectively agreed not to bring “This”, and other underwhelmimg comments, to Lemmy. Why does this “This” have so many upvotes? Why not just upvote the OP of the thread? Is it a demographic thing? Is Lemmy gaining enough popularity that the Upvoters are unaware of the history of Lemmy’s complaints against Reddit that led to (in our view as) its downfall? Or does “This” and it’s related Upvoters mean Lemmy bots and Lemmy farms are already rampant?
Edit: Or, looking at the post history, maybe this was bait for me and I gobbled it up. If DMs are a thing here and anyone has recommendations for positive and enriching communities, I’m keen to explore and find fulfilling engagement! Getting a bit disenchanted by Lemmy/the internet in general. Are niche hobby communities the only wholesome, silly spaces left on the internet? The irony is not lost on me that my post is negative in itself. Just trying to find a place with good people to feel a bit of belonging.
Didn’t you hear? The president of the United States, who takes that same oath, exact same that any other military service member and elected official takes, is not actually bound by that oath, and can do whatever crimes they want so long as it’s a Republican president and the shriveled sack of justice, the SCrOTUS, says it’s official duties of the office!
The author came to the wrong conclusion. Yes the Supreme Court making themselves the authority on all federal policy will increase their case load. No, it does not mean they will actually need to do any more work. Cases will be backlogged for as long as they want.
Businesses can now dump toxic waste onto public lands knowing that they are safe from judgement for decades.
It also means that lower courts in practically any state can issue injunctions on federal policy as well, which is going to open the floodgates for crazy. They’ve pretty much just begged everyone to vote Democrat, and get the seating of SC Justices rewritten. That, or pack the court.
The court was already packed with activist judges appointed under suspicious or hypocritical circumstances who then lied to Congress during their confirmations about their deference to precedent on a host of issues only to the engage in a massive power grab from Congress. Subsequent action to rebalance the court is not court packing.
Court packing is the solution. It’s been suggested that the number of justices be increased to something like 20-30 (similar to the next lowest court is right now) and then judges be rotated out to other federal positions every few years (effectively a term limit in the SC itself).
This achieves two things 1) It allows for each administration to make appointments to the court as a routine matter, making it difficult to capture the court for generations at a time 2) the amount of judges waters down the influence of the extremist dipshits. We know this works because, as we saw in the past, even lunatics like Alito were kept in check when the court was not majority far-right.
As expected, the purpose of state is to facilitate relatively safe theft from classes not in control of it, and blocking justice is the primary method.
I was basically going to say the same thing, they’ll vote anyway, party over policy. It doesn’t matter what they propose. As long as Democrats disagree with it, their constituents will vote for it, standard team-driven advertising.
Most voters don’t care about politics at all, we just want what everyone else wants - a chance at opportunity, some form of health care and social security, you know, the good life. We can all pretty much agree on that and it’s really not that interesting a topic. So, politicians turn politics into a sports game because that’s what people care about and engage with, sports and competition, our old friend, Ego.
Most voters don’t care about politics at all, we just want what everyone else wants - a chance at opportunity, some form of health care and social security, you know, the good life.
I don’t understand retirement. Didn’t John Oliver just tell us that Millenials already don’t get to retire at 65? I am fucking livid, i am 35, my mom died at 62, I probably won’t even make it to 65 and all the money I have given to the government for this is going to be lost.
You know John Oliver is not actually the government minister in charge of When People Get to Retire?
Retirement is just a number. Once you hit that number, you can retire.
Talking about the “retirement age” is just the age at which social security benefits kick in. It doesn’t mean you’re no longer allowed to work after that age, or that you’re required to work until that age.
It’s not as simple as people pretend. But not all that complicated, either. 65 was the “full” retirement age before law changes in the 80s. For most workers today, it’s 67. But wait! The amount you will get per month from social security depends on 2 things – how much you paid into the system, and what age you actually are when you retire. You can start collecting at 62, but it will be considerably less per month than if you retire at the full retirement age. And to confuse things more, you can keep working until 70(?) and the amount you will get continues to increase every month, so I’m not sure why full retirement age is 67 instead of 70.
First you link to the wrong god damned instance of this case at SCOTUSBLOG (McKesson v Doe 2 instead of McKesson v Doe 3) you then don’t link, or you know just post, Justice Sotomayor’s remarks about why SCOTUS didn’t hear this case for the third time.
Of course you probably chose not to link, or state, her full remarks because if you HAD then you wouldn’t have been able to write that inflammatory headline.
SCOTUS already resolved this in 2023 with Counterman v. Colorado. It’s right there on pages 14/15 in the linked PDF.
Modern Media is a raging dumpster fire of inflammatory bullshit.
Edit: In case it’s not clear this Vox article was carefully crafted to leave the reader ignorant and outraged.
In Counterman, the Court made clear that the First Amendment bars the use of “an objective stand- ard” like negligence for punishing speech, id., at 78, 79, n. 5, and it read Claiborne and other incitement cases as “de- mand[ing] a showing of intent,” 600 U. S., at 81. The Court explained that “the First Amendment precludes punish- ment [for incitement], whether civil or criminal, unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder.”
…
Because this Court may deny certi- orari for many reasons, including that the law is not in need of further clarification, its denial today expresses no view about the merits of Mckesson’s claim. Although the Fifth Circuit did not have the benefit of this Court’s recent deci- sion in Counterman when it issued its opinion, the lower courts now do.
If I’m reading this right, this is basically saying “we just had a case about this, and the ruling is clear. Lower courts can go back and deal with it. There’s no reason for us to take it up again.” That basically right?
Looks like the standard has already been re-affirmed in other cases as incitement (knowing and intentional words to imminently cause lawless action) in order for a lawsuit to succeed.
The Louisiana Supreme Court did find that first responders (police, fire,EMT, etc) are indeed allowed to sue. There was some question of if they were disqualified from suing under the theory that getting attacked in a riot is just a job hazard for them. Vox might have taken offense to that for some reason.
This is all civil too, so no jail time or charges, just a legal fight about standards for culpability for the purposes of a civil case.
Its basically saying “we just had a case about this, and the ruling is clear. Lower courts can go back and deal with it. There’s no reason for us to take it up again.”
Oh FFS. I just read Sotomayor’s statement, and the Vox article is just a flat out lie (and apparently nobody else in the comments bothered to fact check it). You’re doing God’s work, Buelldozer.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this top comment digging into the case. I was very confused by the SCOTUSBLOG link and dug around on my own wondering why everything was from 2020 at first, then going back to the article and feeling like it was really off the rails.
Why isn’t this all over prime time news, including fox, so the christian voters can see it.
More importantly why aren’t the democrats and liberal establishment forcing this into the public eye. They could be using this to their advantage. Why aren’t we hearing about it as loudly as we should be. I’m not seeing it any where mainstream.
Fuck, biden should give a press announcement only for this.
There is a whole group of religious folks that are certain he is the antichrist and want to bring him to power so he can bring about the end of days, revelations, the rapture (where they will be saved), then after hell on earth, the 1000 years of peace…so…they are totally cool with his evil. It’s insane when you think about it from the position of nothing in religion being real.
I dont doubt it one bit. These people belong in mental institutions. Yet they’re allowed (encouraged?) to vote, as well as raise (indoctrinate) children into their ridiculous way of thinking.
(1) trillionaires (such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk) bought out the media - “prime time news” no longer exists, as it used to, now instead we have advertising segments meant to increase profitz
(2) the christians do not care - as evidenced by the fact that they already know. They just used him to accomplish their ends, of restricting abortion and whatever. Authoritarians just don’t think in terms like right or wrong, and rather what am I told to feel about this or that?
(3) also, yes they are THAT MUCH against the LGBTQIA+ “agenda” (of living life free from outside interference) that they could have watched the event happen live, heard her screams, and still vote for Trump. Some would still vote that way even if he had done it personally to them. It is an entirely different mindset, and we would do well to listen to it, rather than be surprised a few months from now (as we were before in 2016).
(4) if you want to understand it moar better-er, the best teacher I’ve seen is The Alt Right Playbook, by Innuendo Studios - I recommend starting at the beginning and going all the way through it, but the most relevant one to this discussion I think is this one.
TLDR: they know, they don’t care in the slightest - truly.
Thank you for the correction - it is Amazon that has 2 trillion and Tesla 1 trillion, but Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk themselves each have only ~0.2 trillion, so billionaires not trillionaires indeed. My words would carry more weight if I were more careful slinging them around:-).
It is not meant for, nor aimed at, them. Rather it is to help liberals become woken up to the fact that conservatives aren’t merely temporarily displaced liberals themselves, who simply need a slight course correction and then they’ll be eternally grateful for being shown to be wrong (as we would in reverse), but rather how they think fundamentally, foundationally, in an entirely different manner.
And everything gets filtered by that worldview. Hence, even someone who was personally raped by Trump himself may still vote for him, believing not in “him” but in how he can be strategically useful to their cause of returning America to a state that never existed for us where an emperor can do whatever he wants, and somehow that’s what will make us great (again?). Just like how Russia is “great” and “strong” now - you know, in spite of literally all of the evidence to the contrary.
But lest my message get lost here: Innuendo Studios isn’t poking fun of conservatives for ignoring literally all of the facts that contradict their worldview and instead believing in their fantasical magical wonderland - rather, it helps liberals realize that we are the ones who are ignoring literally all of the facts that contradict our worldview and instead believing in our fantasical magical wonderland, e.g. where Bernie Sanders had some kind of a ghost of a chance at winning despite bucking the system of powerful elites, or that Hillary would win so easily that she didn’t even need to bother campaigning in the Midwestern states (beyond bringing hot sauce in her purse), or that people are so scared of Trump that Biden is a shoe-in despite not having earned people’s votes or being able to finish a sentence. We will receive our rude awakening, once again, and as always we will blame not enough people for voting or whatever tidbit lies easily within reach - anything rather than own up to the fact that irl reality is hard, and might involve some actual effort to understand, both others, and most especially ourselves.
You know that little boy near the end of Sixth Sense whispering “I see dead people, walking around like regular people - they don’t know they’re dead!”? Imagine instead that he said “we are the same, conservatives and liberals - other-group-person=bad but same-group-person=good, ignoring any inconvenient facts to the contrary”. This is why we’re fucked up the ass, and so easily led like sheep by the billionaires - bc we refuse to learn, from either failures or success, and instead merely tell stories to convince ourselves of the rightness of our respective causes, since we enjoy those calm stories more than the harshness and complexity of reality.
It doesn’t help that the same billionaires have spent decades dumbing down education and making higher education prohibitively expensive. All while cramming every single wedge issues under the sun into the national narrative to further entrench this tribal mentality. I know all of what you say is true, but it seems all but impossible to combat at this point.
It’s so hard to have any motivation to carry on in this world given a portion of it is fine with all manner of atrocities so long as “their guy” is “winning.” Why try to make anything better – be it more just, equal, enjoyable for all – when a good portion of the country (possibly the world) is so hell-bent on making it worse because they dislike a small subset of some insignificant problem?
Yesterday was the 4th. I just don’t know why anyone celebrated at all. What’s there to celebrate at this point when some will sell out their future, and the future of their own, for a “red hat?”
It does help though… it helps them. And that’s an important distinction that we would do well to recognize.
When a lion wants to eat you, b/c it is hungry or maybe it just wants to fatally bat you around for fun, it is not the lion’s job to not eat you - it is our job to not allow it to do so, or at least make our best attempt.
I am also not certain that this fight can be “won”. It most certainly can/will not if we do not even try.
Even so, there is value in learning things. Whatever comes after America will be rough, and it behooves us to wake the fuck up and face that rather than go back to sleep.
More to the point, it is more fun to live life awake and facing forward, than to have to constantly anticipate bad things that are inevitably coming but we have no idea when or how or what precisely it will look like. Maybe it won’t even be all that bad? But we’ll only know that if we look at it with our eyes.
But back to the fun aspect: why be Sisyphus, constantly struggling against things that we have no control over, when we can focus our attention on the things we can control? We cannot control “them” - we never will be able to control “them” - so why worry about it? That seems counterproductive. Instead, focus on what we can control, and the motivation returns. There is no spoon. No, seriously, there isn’t: we could only ever control ourselves, that’s it and that’s all that was ever possible, anywhere, at any time.
Another neat thing: when the USA broke away from England, it spawned an entire rash of similar actions in other colonies that gave the middle finger to the English kings, and other nations likewise ditched their own kings of their respective colonial empires as well (e.g. France). We inspired the entire fucking world. As Rome did before us. Even after we fall, nobody is taking that legacy away - it will live on for thousands of years when all of us have long since died, of causes natural and/or otherwise.
Moreover, they have updated to Democracy 2.0, while we remained mired in our 1.0 version, and really having downgraded even from that by allowing devolution into a 2-party system that brought us to this point. Maybe after a time we can import some of those newer democratic systems back in, if fascism replaces democracy and then democracy replaces that fascism, and we can have a bright shiny Democracy 3.0 then. Though one thing is for certain: Democracy 1.0 has already failed - not will fail in some future sense, but already. Either that or we can at least not be blamed overmuch for thinking thus, given how fatally we seem to be wounded lately.
Focus on what you can control. There is no spoon - only ourselves.
It should be revealing with a story like this just how controlled the media has actually become. The vast majority of major media outlets have been slowly bought out and/or heavily funded by right-wing groups. The story should be everywhere, but you’ll probably only see it in niche news sites and maybe MSNBC. This is also why all we really see are negative stories about Biden regardless of what Trump does or says.
The article describes why the story feels to them so strange and suspicious. For example
It was the end of an incredibly strange case that featured an anonymous plaintiff who had refused almost all requests for interviews, two anonymous corroborating witnesses whom no one in the press had spoken to, and a couple of seriously shady characters — with an anti-Trump agenda and a penchant for drama — who had aggressively shopped the story around to media outlets for over a year.
Those shady characters — a former reality TV producer who calls himself “Al Taylor” and a “Never Trump” conservative activist named Steve Baer — had been mostly unsuccessful in getting the media to bite. There are a few very good reasons for that, which the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim succinctly summed up: Taylor and Baer have been really sketchy about the whole thing, and since the accuser is anonymous, journalists can’t do anything to verify her claims. The only journalist who has actually interviewed Johnson, Emily Shugerman at Revelist, came away confused and even doubting whether Johnson really exists.
Since a tape of Trump bragging about sexual assault came out in early October, a dozen named women have come forward with credible, similar-sounding allegations of Trump forcibly kissing or groping them in exactly the way he described on that tape. Johnson’s case was an outlier, with far more salacious allegations from a source that seems far less credible.
And it goes much further. I guess not many wanted to go hard on this story with it seeming a bit sketchy. Like they said in the end
It’s true that the allegation is explosive, andcould make voters see Trump’s many disturbing comments about young girls over the years in a new light. But it’s also very dubious and uncertain, and there’s no real need to promote a case like that when a dozen women have come forward with much more credible stories, using their own names and making themselves available to reporters for scrutiny.
Well, as others said, it’s probably because it’s a 2016 article about a story that never got anywhere.
Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, who knows. But it’s definitely not the best thing to give press announcements about, especially considering all the horrible stuff Trump has verifiably done.
I don’t think they’ve read the article, which is a shame because it’s an interesting one. But it does make that point and comments about Clinto campaign
But the Clinton campaign hasn’t touched Johnson’s allegation, and with good reason. It’s true that the allegation is explosive, andcould make voters see Trump’s many disturbing comments about young girls over the years in a new light. But it’s also very dubious and uncertain, and there’s no real need to promote a case like that when a dozen women have come forward with much more credible stories, using their own names and making themselves available to reporters for scrutiny.
That’s not the point I’m making. I’m saying between inciting an insurrection, spending campaign funds for silencing pornstars, telling people to inject disinfectant in their veins, and sexual assault sentences… I’d say one shady rape allegation that never went anywhere is definitely not the main reason why he shouldn’t be president.
So a self-affirmed victim sends an email to a magazine. That email becomes a point of fact even though people involved either never confirmed it or straight up said it never happened.
This happens constantly. “News” is getting reported before or without confirmation. Shoot first, ask questions later, maybe put a blurb at the bottom a couple weeks later when nobody will read it correcting everything that was wrong.
Obviously the Clinton’s wouldn’t confirm it, but they’ve long since learned not to deny it either. Denying is nearly as bad as confirming, since it gives even a little more credibility to the claims, just by acknowledging its existence. Especially in this current political climate, commenting at all has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Highly recommend the book “Trust me, I’m Lying”. News consumers have to do their due diligence now and actually judge the sources of the news itself, even for sources previously thought to be reputable. The court of public opinion is all that matters, and it’s judged by old and new media alike. Spez and Musk and Zuck are all as powerful as Murdoch, and they’re the Supreme Court of Public Opinion.
Yea absolutely, but also off-year elections are important too! We elect the House every 2year, the senate every 6, and there’s tons of local issues on the ballot every year.
Absolutely this. This is why Dems have had control of all 3 houses (house of reps, Senate, presidency) for only 4 years of the last 24 years. Voters don’t show up and then GOP gets one of them. We’ve all seen what happens when it’s president and not Senate - the GOP Senate blocked Obama’s supreme Court Justice.
The last time a single party held the presidency for more than 12 years was when FDR won 4 times. Prior to that it was civil war reconstruction.
Keeping the white house from 2020-2040 would be the longest single party streak without one president occupying the office more than 8 years. 3 consecutive Democrats would need to win. Ignoring the Democratic Republican steak at the beginning of the 19th century, because at one point everyone ran as a democratic Republican regardless.
My fear is Biden wins in '24, dies in office, we get President Harris, who is the party pick in '28 and she loses terribly because nobody likes her.
If Thomas and Alito make it to '28, they step down to assure a Republican replaces their seats.
So we get Republicans in 28 and 32, maintaining the 6-3 split, then Roberts and Sotomayor are out, eliminating the reliable swing vote (Roberts) and leaving the court with a 7-2 majority.
100% agree. We need to stop autopicking the next candidate just because they were VP. I don’t hate her, but she hasn’t done anything to stake a claim for the next seat.
we get President Harris, who is the party pick in '28 and she loses terribly because nobody likes her
Why wouldn’t people “like her”? If “nobody likes her” she would get 0% of the primary vote. She will likely be the Dem front runner in 2028, but we will have to see who runs.
This is why just electing Biden and conservative Democrats like him isn’t enough.
He’s had the power to expand the court or at the very least encourage Congress to do so (which the Democratic majorities absolutely would if he leaned on it hard enough) since day one and aware of the problem since before he even started his campaign, but he’s so far refused to and, like that other stance of his that the majority of the country disagrees with him on (his unconditional support of the genocidal apartheid regime), it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll ever change his mind.
Same goes for the rest of the out of touch Dem leadership: they’re supposed to represent everyone to the left of literal fascists, but in reality they mostly represent their rich owner donors and the increasingly tiny portion of the population that think the American Fascist Party has some good ideas but haven’t yet drunk the kool-aid.
Just to add, if Trump wins, they will certainly step down and Trump will appoint 40-year olds to the SC. Possibly the crazy lady from Florida. Voting Blue is the only thing that will stop this distopia.
I could see him nominating Cannon and Giuliani - sure Rudy would only be on the court until he died but Trump would still appoint the replacement five months later.
They wouldn’t put Rudy up there, it’s too much of a gamble when they could literally just put Ben Shapiro on there because there’s no such thing as an unqualified judge anymore and be safe forever.
Voting blue isn’t enough, though. It’s the bare minimum to keep the lights on while trying to repair the broken status quo that the Dem leadership and their owner donors love so much rather than let the fascists create something much worse.
It’s so fucking ridiculous that this needs to happen for America to not become a dictator/fascist country. Why the hell do we have to fight so hard to protect our nation’s well-being. How come these assholes can attack our country from within constantly for decades without anything happening to them. Ridiculous.
Because the founders assumed that our rulers would be rational actors. They didn’t have a plan for an entire party going bad. “Oh, sure, we’ll just add an impeachment clause so nobody has to get assassinated…” (paraphrasing Ben Franklin):
"The Founding Fathers wrote impeachment—originally a Roman political institution—into the constitution for the purpose of removing an official who had “rendered himself obnoxious,” in the words of Benjamin Franklin. Without impeachment, Franklin argued, citizens’ only recourse was assassination, which would leave the political official “not only deprived of his life but of the opportunity of vindicating his character.”
But they didn’t take the extra step to realize “What happens if that party refuses to impeach? Or indict? Or convict?” Suddenly there is no alternative.
Ideally, there needs to be a process to nullify the entire party, but I have no idea how you’d go about it.
The founders were entirely aware that not only an entire party, but the entire government could become irrational and work against our best interests: that’s why we have the second amendment as a backstop and last line of defense against authoritarian rule
The nature of democracy not being a system that relies purely on violence for legitimacy (unlike authoritarian forms of government) means that it is a constant forever war against the lapping waves of fascism attempting to slowly erode away our democratic institutions (because we, thankfully, don’t just use violence to immediately silence dissidents)
I think an entire generation of people raised in the peace dividend have forgotten this fact, figured that democracy is the natural course of things, ignored its badly needed maintenance, and are swiftly being reminded of it now that the damage is so readily apparent
money spent on elections to convince idiot sheep to vote for the wolf. money spent (invested) on the elected to get more money.
if PACs were shut down, and companies not people, and private donations capped, and the IRS watched money transfers like a hawk - it would slow some of the work of the billionaires.
I’ll give you an upvote for the satire/sarcasm, but I want you to know that it comes with a feeling of disgust towards myself for upvoting those words.
For the group railing against Sharia law the loudest, they sure do love to legislate religious beliefs. I guess the real problem was Sharia just wasn’t going far enough.
Basically they want to drag the country backwards about 200 years socio-politically, to a time where only white men had any rights at all, and women and children were more-or-less considered ‘property’.
The xtian activists definitely are aware of this overall trend (even if many of them will outright lie about it and many of the flock probably still think they are some kind of supermajority even if they have been losing adherents at about 1% every year for year after year) and it’s exactly why they are agitating to fundamentally change this country to a xtian one.
They want to be able to COMPEL people to join/stay in their little book club. The only difference between xtian radicals and Islamists is where the retconning leaves off is different. Both of them worship the same god of “the” bible - Allah/Yahweh/Jehovah and both of them have the same dim view of unbelievers and women and outsiders, etc…
Both of them worship the same god of “the” bible - Allah/Yahweh/Jehovah and both of them have the same dim view of unbelievers and women and outsiders, etc…
I agree, all religion is backwards. There’s always a group they don’t like. It just changes depending on your “God’s” region of authority.
Man - I know most folks feel the best thing to do is get rid of religion all together - but at this stage I’d settle for and support a new, loud, and active Christian sect denouncing xtian radicals and the churches that support them as Satanic corruptions.
Believe Old Testament and its edicts mean a damn practical thing in today’s world? Satan.
Insisting on not rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s? Satan.
Treating your fellow humans as lesser for anything whatsoever? Satan.
Corrupting Bible verses to justify creating suffering and not rendering aid to anyone who needs it? 100% Satan.
Forcing means to reduce anyone’s capacity to exercise free will, the one key thing their creator deity granted all humans? Sounds like Satan to me.
And so on. I realize this is deeply naive. But part of the reason I like The Louvin Brother’s song Satan is Real is whenever I hear the guy’s testimony on Satan, I think about about people in the offending churches:
I grew selfish, and un-neighbourly My friends turned against me And finally, my home was broken apart
The Louvin Brothers themselves would likely vehemently disagree, but - does this sound like anyone you know?
Personally I think it says everything that the Abrahamic version of the Theft of Fire leads to the idea that we should hate and denounce the thief rather than see him as responsible for us being raised above essentially being animals. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is analogous to Prometheus, Mātariśvan, Amirani, Pkharmat, Grandmother Spider, etc.
I also find it interesting that the Theft of Fire is a nearly universal myth (as close as anything gets) - a divine or semi-divine being (often but not always a trickster-type) taking a symbol (often a fire, in the Torah a fruit) representing knowledge against the will of those in power and giving it to man, thus leading to the ability of man to be free to create civilization.
Yeah, while I get the general idea of “beware of the hubris brought about by technology”, but the message from the bible way oversteers into general ignorance and so on. There is a real anti-Promethean streak within this country anyway, and I attribute a lot of that to xtians.
I’d be all for trying to up our game in the instruction of critical thinking and spotting logical fallacies. I think if religion were to be removed, it might just be supplanted by something just as stupid (for example: the antivax/“stop the steal”/antimask/qanon/pizzagate memeplex) instead of being supplanted by reason.
I still love that both of these are renderings of the same four letter word, יהוה, or yodh-he-vav-he. Because written Hebrew has a 22 letter alphabet but doesn’t have vowels (but does include a silent letter for when you stick two distinctly separate vowel sounds together - think the two Os in cooperate).
Small group grabbed a huge piece. They didn’t do that quietly. People stopped caring, became more self centered, and we lost sight of communities. We allowed this shit and we need to start voting like it.
Slight non sequitur, but slightly connected (welcome to my brain). Anyone can safely ignore this long, rambling comment.
There’s a series of books called The Laundry Files by Charles Stross. It starts off as kind of an HP Lovecraft meets spy novel meets a sys admin workplace humor thing. Somewhere in there, I think it’s the 4th book, there’s one called The Apocalypse Codex that deals with a quiverful group of Christian true believers that are accidentally worshipping an otherworldly horror and using parasites to “save” folks. It even features a forced birth center. I’ve known quiverfull, prosperity gospel, literalist folks my entire life, but every time I hear about quiverfull people I still think about that novel. I can highly recommend the series if anything I wrote above sounds remotely interesting, especially if you can get the audiobooks. Here’s one of my favorite passages from that book:
“They’re believers, Mr. Howard. Pentecostalist dispensationalists—they are saved, but they are surrounded by the unsaved, and they think their master is returning imminently, and anyone who isn’t saved by the time of his arrival is doomed. So they intend to save everyone whether or not they want to be saved, one brain parasite at a time.”
Other than the extra-dimensional horror, I think the book pretty accurately describes the mindset of those people. The series metaphor for modern society is so good that he had to delay and rewrite the last book because the original plan, prior to the pandemic, was to have the final resolution be a highly contagious disease.
I’ll have to check it out. Every time I see some of the radical xtianist/magabrained set in action, I think about the way that America is portrayed in The Rapture of the Nerds.
Yeah we had a big quiverfull church not far from where I used to live. They were in a cycle of being in the news every few years for how they promote their flock to get on government assistance to afford more kids. People making six figure incomes were getting a variety of benefits because they had over a dozen kids, in two cases two dozen kids. This would piss people, garner calls for legal changes to stop this abuse, bring up how they are exactly the type of people who want to scare people with “welfare queen” stories, etc.
For a couple generations, the pumping out children mandate made it grow. However, around the third generation they started seeing a steep decline in parishionership. Basically the founding members’ kids weren’t nearly as willing to stay in this cult, and by their grand children’s generation, their birthrate wasn’t enough to replace their flock. By the time their great grand kids’ generation came around (current time) they were quickly dwindling in numbers. Now every time their welfare stuff hits the news they now have interviews with people who cut their families off, and left the cult, being interviewed about how insane they are.
From what I have been able to find, this seems to be the general timeline of these “super family” sects. They burn themselves out, and as time time progresses, the burnout comes more, and more, quickly. So the long term prospects of the baby factory faiths isn’t good.
By the time the oldest kids become parents they’re already tired of being parents because mom and dad can’t possibly keep up with a dozen kids and sure aren’t paying nannies and babysitters.
By the time a couple generations go by, there’s no more help. They still get government assistance if they don’t get out but grandma and great-grandma still have school aged kids and aren’t helping (let’s face it, pappy ain’t doing it).
So who the fuck is taking care of these hundred and change kids? It’s only good for a surge unless you have multiple wives (again, you know the guys aren’t doing it), which is not happening at a rate that makes a difference, although that happens a little bit. So by that third generation you’ve got a fuck-ton of kids who definitely think it’s bullshit.
I grew up in a semi-related cult and saw that happen in real time. The one I grew up in wasn’t the “super family” welfare abuse type but did preach to have as many as you could handle while still being able to afford them. I personally know the people you’re talking about and they’re super literalists, young earth creationists, and dispensationalists who hand wave millennialism with “a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day”. Some of them believe that the war in heaven started the day the Jewish people went back to Israel and that the horsemen of the apocalypse are already here. Some referred to covid as either Plague or Death until they decided it was fake. They’re sure that every event is the harbinger of the rapture.
Hearing these people talk is fucking wild. I know they’re a minority, but if you go into some of the more insular rural communities you’ll meet them and they are fucking serious. They don’t understand why you and all of their kids can’t just see what’s happening.
I lived an hour away from a “church” that did shit like snake handling. They did not talk about their sect to strangers and were generally very wary of anyone not in their cult. Very strange people. Sorry you had to live through that.
I guess they talked to us because we were the “light” version of their church. I don’t really know how they’d treat a real outsider I guess. They always tried getting us to come to church stuff with them.
It was normal to me. My parents weren’t bad people and they didn’t make me raise my younger siblings. I didn’t get abused like a lot of the kids around me. I put up with some bullshit, but we all do to some extent.
They’re saying that about every religion. I guess the Muslims are also having a bunch of kids. Idk, I think a war fought with pussy is a war in which everyone loses.
…and admitting that you know it exists is grounds for you not being allowed on a jury.
But yeah, judges judge the law, juries judge the facts. so the judge can corral how the trial proceeds and explain to the jury what criteria they are supposed to be following and what evidence they are supposed to consider but the jury can decide what it wants and their decision cannot be challenged - which means if they decide that someone is guilty/not guilty for reasons wholly unrelated to what the law actually says then that’s what it is.
It’s why I was surprised that Trump was found guilty on all counts in the NY trial - I was expecting a mistrial due to hung jury before the trial even started because I was expecting at least one hardcore supporter/opponent of Trump who was going to vote based on that regardless of the evidence making it impossible to have a unanimous agreement.
I was expecting a mistrial due to hung jury before the trial even started because I was expecting at least one hardcore supporter/opponent of Trump who was going to vote based on that regardless of the evidence
Anyone that hardcore is easy to filter out. They would check the Facebook of any potential jurors before starting.
And with child marriage looking to make a comeback, you can bet your ass that arranged marriage will also return.
Turns out the full Biblical definition of marriage is again, women and girls have no say in who they marry. Just wait. First they legalize child marriage, then they legalize arranged marriage. Got a debt to pay off? Just offer the guy you owe money to your daughter. Want to move up the social ladder at work? Have your daughter marry into a higher class. Don’t worry about what she wants. Marriage isn’t about “love”, whatever that is. It’s a tool for moving up in the world. /s
But it’s almost like they want European-style feudalism back. The CEOs and billionaires become the new nobility, and we all become serfs, and we are basically already there. But, I have a plan. I’ll join my liege lord’s army and hopefully I’ll serve honorably enough that he shall award me a fief and small parcel of land. Then y’all can move in and become my serfs!
I was married, later divorced, and am now in a position where I’ve been in a committed relationship for more than 10 years, but we aren’t married.
The benefits are clear and pushed onto us: I can’t share health care with my partner if we aren’t married. The system is rigged to make people in relationships eventually get married.
What state do you live in if you don’t mind me asking. Many states have rules that would allow you to add them to their insurance if you live together for a length of time. A year for AZ is what popped up when I went to search because I’m here on a work trip.
This is why my husband and I got married after 10 years together. Originally neither of us cared because we were essentially already married. But doing it officially then I could be on his insurance, and if anything happens where one of us gets incapacitated the other can make healthcare decisions. Sucks that’s how it works though.
I was in the same boat as you. However, I met my wife while working overseas. We dated and lived together for two years.
The only reason we got married was for immigration reasons. If she could have came to the US easier then we would still be “dating.”
Once she got to the US, she asked why we divorce so much. I explained for 99% of people we get married for 3 reasons; pregnant, religion, or financial. Once one of those are resolved we split.
It is due to the system pushing you into young marriage. To produce kids young and never own anything but work non stop.
Remember work 50 years for the possibility to enjoy 10, maybe.
There’s like 1200 legal benefits to marriage iirc. Things like being able to visit in the hospital outside of visiting hours, possessions going to your spouse after death if there’s no will, stuff like that.
The concept of the European style family is a tool of conservative control. When you create specific boundaries on what is considered kinship you create subjects of economic categories. If you get a bunch of kickbacks for playing by the rules then there are also people who are purposefully excluded from playing to create additional economic goads. Like if you are disowned from your family you can lose generational wealth and support which is designed to keep young people in line by way of fear . Welfare and social securities weakens the economic ties of the family politic control to make you reliant on the support of the people you are related to by blood and to keep people who might be your chosen family at a distance unable to help.
So called “family values” aren’t lovely dovey nice things. They are to make being an individual with different needs a failure state.
Isn’t this the same argument as “if women can’t have abortions, they will stop having sex”?
Nobody gets married under the assumption they will get divorced. Marriage is supposed to be a gesture of a life long commitment.
On top of that, there are financial benefits to getting married.
I highly doubt this would stop anyone from getting married.
People should stop getting married because it’s a government contract based in religion - it’s gross and I don’t want either of those things being involved in my relationships.
I fully agree marriage should be simple with little to no government or religion involvement. That’s why we see less people getting married or if they do it’s later in life.
The only real reason to get married now is financial and health benefits. That’s it.
Making it harder to divorce will lead to the ones waiting to rethink if it’s even worth it.
Marriage rates have already been dropping and divorce is an available option. Removing that out isn’t going to increase people’s confidence about going into marriage.
And as the nightmare stories come out about the guys (and probably some girls, too) who change overnight once the marriage license is official (or annulment period ends or whatever becomes the “now you’re locked in as long as I don’t get caught cheating”), it’ll only go down further.
There will also be a reaction to the women who decide to just stop being loyal once they are done with a marriage but can’t get out.
Better fix: make life difficult for the assholes pushing for these policies instead of shrugging your shoulders and saying “guess it’s their fault when everything goes to Hell.”
This is how I felt about Roe being overturned several years ago. It would unleash hell on Republicans and make them incredibly unpopular, but it would not be worth the cost of women suffering.
And unfortunately, I was right. It has proved utterly disastrous to Republicans, but a lot of women have suffered. People have had to go through pain and experiences that no one should ever have to – except perhaps the conservative SCOTUS justices, Trump, and Republican senators.
offtopic: Other than Trump and MAGAts using it, such capitalization could look interesting. As something, indeed, characteristically American. And it might make texts more legible sometimes (I’m not joking), a bit like with Bionic Reader.
He was offered a $1*million/year for life if he retired. It’s not about the money, it’s about the corruption he is able to provide to his rich “friends”…
Let me add a side dish of - I’m increasingly convinced they want a system designed such that we can all work to increase the wealth of the 1% right up to the moment we drop dead in our cubicles.
No need to be unconvinced, right wingers have explicitly said that’s what they want. Benny Shaps recently said something to the effect of “It’s unhealthy to retire, everyone that retires ends up dying in a few years. We should all work as long as possible.”
Perhaps it’s that social security doesn’t let folks do much beyond existing. If they had money to travel and adventure and indulge in hobbies, maybe folks would live longer. Ben just convinced me that we need to pay people way more both while they work and in retirement.
It’s also because personal fulfillment and social connections (and a lot of physical activity) in western society are built entirely around work. You make friends at work, you talk to people at work, you walk around and move at work. Work is meant to sort of be your mental stimulation. So many people simply forget/don’t have the resources to develop connections outside of work, and then when they retire even with money they find themselves lost and aimless. Some find new ways to self-fufill, but others don’t. Without some external motivation forcing them to develop, they wither, because the system has not taught them otherwise.
Eh. Work gives me none of that. Been remote since COVID. I do get mental stimulation but honestly I get plenty of that from social media and video games - keeps my mind active and focused. If I ever do get to retire I’ll probably add woodworking to my hobbies. Most likely I’ll either die working or get some horrible disease and die because I couldn’t work and lost insurance.
But I’ll tell you, I’m fifty. Been in my career for twenty five years. I still enjoy what I do but I’m getting fucking tired of the way software development is managed. People and corporations suck all the enjoyment out of otherwise fulfilling careers. I’m not looking to retire but if I hit the lottery tomorrow (which I won’t because I don’t gamble) I wouldn’t look back. Maybe I’d go fishing with my dad more. Once he retires.
But I’ll tell you, I’m fifty. Been in my career for twenty five years. I still enjoy what I do but I’m getting fucking tired of the way software development is managed. People and corporations suck all the enjoyment out of otherwise fulfilling careers. I’m not looking to retire but if I hit the lottery tomorrow (which I won’t because I don’t gamble) I wouldn’t look back. Maybe I’d go fishing with my dad more. Once he retires.
We’re not so very different you and I. Take a couple words out and mad-lib them and I could have written this.
Fist-bump fellow disgruntled Gen-X’er. May we both win Fuck You money.
Good point. If social security won’t allow for us to live with at least at a reasonable quality of life, then it’s as if life just gets worse from there.
My dad is on disability and social security. He doesn’t really treat himself or go on vacations anymore! Instead it’s a balance between the mortgage and every day expenses.
I am an older millennial and have come to realize most adults don’t have hobbies. They either give up on it all or try to make their kids a hobby, which is a whole different level of self destruction.
I was chatting with the self imposed suburban adult “friends” and told them how I recently started learning the guitar. None of them understood. “Why would you do that? You won’t be in a band.” I am not trying to be goddamn Kirk Hammet or try out for Dreamtheater, I just want to be able to play some rifts for myself and noodle around.
People get their weird idea that a hobby must also be a means to an end rather than just something creative to pass time.
The policies they vote for again and again are definitely designed for the wealthy to only get wealthier. However what they are being sold, is a world they no longer understand, being turned against them and their children. This is the lie they’re swallowing when they vote red.
They don’t think they’re voting to enrich the elites, they believe they’re saving the future for unborn children. If you listen to the rhetoric it’s very apparent. To me it’s sad as these folks think they’re doing the right thing for their children and by proxy the world.
If he’s such an existential threat (and he is), why the fuck are they not forcing the geriatric incompetent running on their ticket to drop out? They’re sleepwalking into fascism and it’s terrifying.
My semi-secret conspiracy theory adjacent theory is it’s intentional. That not all, but many, of the Democratic national party is in bed with the same big businesses paying off Republicans, and they’re prepared to pull a Hindenburg and install the very fascists they claim to resist once they can no longer hide their betrayal.
I also do think it’s primarily a money issue. Some of it might be those donors wanting the two parties to do different things, by basically leading the democrats into their graves.
I stand that Kamala’s best chance is to hold the ship steady as is, and then ask Biden to resign in December or January.
There’s a lot of racists out there. I feel like if she’s at the top of the ticket, she’s gonna get dragged down. Biden truly is serving as an effective shield for her. Either way, Kamala is the implicit vote if anything wrong happens to Biden (which I admit is increasingly likely given his age).
It makes no sense for Kamala to rush to the top of the ticket given her position.
Wasn’t this always the angle, even when people called his age out last election? The argument was that Kamala Harris would step up, and that Biden didn’t want a second term.
Given Harris’ recent comments in the press regarding stuff she’d fix “if given power”, I wonder if she’s even on the VP card this time around? IMO, AOC might be a smarter choice for VP, since the left love her and the right loathe her. She’d bring a lot of younger disenfranchised people back around, and that might be enough.
Biden never any public or official statement about only serving 1-term, in fact when that story started circulating, the official response from his campaign was to say that they were not ruling it out.
There’s a lot of racists out there. I feel like if she’s at the top of the ticket, she’s gonna get dragged down.
This is just preemptive cope to avoid having to reflect on whether the Democratic leadership and its preferred candidates are actually the thing that needs change, and she’s not even an actual candidate yet. Kamala’s biggest problem is not that she isn’t white. Obama was a Black man, but he had heaps of charisma. Kamala has all the charisma of a plate of lutefisk,and people flat out do not like her. She is also irrevocably tied to Biden and his legacy, likely to her detriment amongst the crowds you would most worry about not voting for her because of her not being white.
Most polls put her on par with Biden. Dataforprogress.org has her leading when “fitness” and “strength” are brought into question, but that’s the only poll I’ve seen where she has any lead at all.
If he’s such an existential threat (and he is), why the fuck are they not forcing the geriatric incompetent running on their ticket to drop out?
Because their rank-and-file voters who voted in the primary voted for him. This primary and last primary. And if you want people to leave your party in a big exodus, invalidating their primary vote is how you do that. They learned that in Bernie’s race. I voted for Biden, he wasn’t the only person to run in the primary, I’ll be damned if the “party elite” select some other candidate anyways, why even vote in the primaries at that point? May as well register for the R primary since they at least had more candidates and (so far) appear to respect their primary process so my vote would actually mean something.
One thing you’ll notice is that the venn diagram for people who complain about only having “two choices” and the people who don’t participate in primaries is nearly a perfect circle. You get an overwhelming amount of choices if you vote in every primary and every election.If you only vote once every 2 or 4 years and skip the primaries, yeah, you get two choices.
No one considers this primary a real vote, or that a vote from four years ago indicates current preferences. If it did, 50% of Democrats who watched the debate wouldn’t want him to step aside.
50% of people who watched the debate didn’t participate in the primaries. Most people don’t vote, and of those who do vote, most don’t participate in primaries. Nobody of consequence ran. Literally anybody could have run. They didn’t. It’s not the fault of “DNC leadership” that nobody stepped up to the plate to run.
FWIW some people did run, Biden wasn’t literally the only candidate. I had more than one candidate on my primary ballot and I voted for Biden because he had the best chance of winning the general. In fact, Biden lost the primary in American Samoa. If you swap Biden for somebody else, you’ve invalidated my primary vote. That’s just as much a threat to democracy as anything else.
Nobody of consequence ran. Literally anybody could have run. They didn’t.
Yes, exactly. That’s why no one considers their vote in the 2024 primary to be a real indication of preference. If you think your vote for a forgone conclusion was some solemn compact, that’s a you issue. Votes without meaningful choice aren’t meaningful votes.
Democracy doesn’t guarantee you’ll have good options, just that you have options. The time to express the greatest degree of preference is primaries. It’s how the system works. You can be mad about that, but that’s how it works. And it’s fair, and it’s democratic, and anybody can participate in it. And every four years, like clockwork, people come out of the woodwork to complain about how their vote doesn’t matter and the two-party system is corrupt and yada yada who never even took the time to vote in the primary or downballot elections. It’s equivalent to people who complain that the president isn’t getting x done while not voting in mid-terms to secure a congress who can make sure those things actually can get done. Primaries and downballot elections are how to build a candidate’s resume and experience to run in a presidential election. Luckily for primary voters, the party doesn’t listen to these people, they respect the ballots cast by their primary voters. I don’t think they should have run Hillary, but she got the most primary votes so that’s who they ran. There is nobody to blame there but her primary voters.
The levers of power are available to people, we just have to consistently use them.
I’m not mad about it, that’s usually how incumbent primaries go. No one believes single-contender votes are sacred expressions of democracy though. Maybe no one except you, but as previously stated, that’s a you issue.
Biden and the DNC knew that if he was forced to actually debate in an open primary, he’d be weakened as a candidate and would eventually lose to Trump. So they rigged the primary, hoped they could sneak a senile old man through without us realizing, and now they got caught.
The people in power are perfectly content to lose the cycle and try again in 2028. Newsom, Whitmer, etc. are all lining up to run against Trump’s VP next cycle since he’s term limited. And the reason Biden hasn’t been thrown overboard yet is that the other potential candidates haven’t decided if they want to throw away their carefully laid plans for 2028 to take a gamble here in 2024.
The only people that truly believe Trump winning in 2024 means there won’t be an election in 2028 are the most myopic hyper partisan Democrat voters, and they believe that because it’s a useful fallacy for the Democratic elite to have them believe. Because fear is the only motivator they have left at this point. But their actions clearly show that they don’t believe it themselves.
I have voted in every primary and general election since I turned 18 in 98, and not one of the candidates I have voted for in the primary has ever won. Sure we get “loads of candidates,” and then the party picks the worst of the lot. Then of course there are states like KY and PA where I can’t vote in the primary since you have to declare a party, and that’s against my religion.
I’ve voted in every primary and local election since the year 2000 and had a Kucinich for President bumper sticker and I still complain about the choices because my preferred candidate has never won. Ever.
Meanwhile, back in reality, the GOP recently lost two more special elections in places they normally wouldn't & nationwide the Democrats are still beating polling by 9+ points at the ballot box post Roe V. Wade fuckery by SCotUS. Also, the GOP's bank accounts are literally being looted by the Trumps which will devastate down-ballot politicians.
I'm assuming they are using AI or a something similar for targeting polling to get the "answers" they want,
Polling hasn't been anywhere near accurate since 2016, but the Media needs its horse race. Make sure you vote & make sure 3 other people vote & we've got this.
EDIT: the silly little fascist symp @syllogi has been blocked by everyone, so all they can do is sad little downvotes. How pathetic you are, fash.
Exactly. Who do you think is more likely to answer a phone poll? A rural landline to an older man with nothing better to do then shout “Trump” into the receiver OR an urban mobile number owned by a young non-white woman with two kids?
These polls oversample loud conservatives and undersample quieter Democrats with actual lives. Remember 2020 when Trump had lots of “enthusiasm” at his rallies? How’d that work out?
It doesn’t matter how enthusiastic your vote is, it matters if you vote. Just vote and help others to do the same. Sign up for a Biden or local Democrat’s GOTV effort. That’s actual democracy.
Dude exactly, also a bunch of us dems are just of the type who wouldn’t participate regardless even if they got a hold of us. If they want my time they have to pay.
vox.com
Top