You want to check my shape, let’s do push-ups together. Let’s run. Let’s do whatever you want to do. You may call me old, but I'm just old school. I'm cool. I'm ice cold. I've got Baja Blast flowing in my veins. Pop pop's jacked up on the Dew and will take you out behind the woodshed. That's how they did it in my day and that's a fact, Jack.

Or because it's stupid political theater giving Trump's base an out when he inevitably says some dumb bullshit during the debate and loses. He obviously never expected that ridiculous request to be granted. The act of playing along is an act of weakness, so it's never going to happen.

Also they're both going to be on drugs. All presidents are given various drugs. Some to keep them alive, some to help them concentrate. It's no big deal, it's a demanding job.

Edit: forgot Obama actually did show his birth cert. Shouldn't have played along though

Is he a frail, senile, old man? Or does pop pop crave the BLAST of tropical energy from an ice-cold MOUNTAIN DEW BAJA BLAST!?!? Which is it, repubs?

😳

I think it isn't going to be that effective a phrase. People don't understand why having lots of money (hoarding wealth) is a bad thing, necessarily, and it sort of implies that, if they were to just spend it it'd make the initial hoarding fine.

Gotta also focus on the fact that they essentially stole that money from workers through labor exploitation. The bare fact that they got the money to begin with is the problem, not just them holding onto it. If they were to spend it all on horrible capitalist enterprises rather than hoarding it, that'd be even worse. Even if they spent it all on "philanthropic" efforts, that's still worse than the workers having their fair share and the government being able to actually have that money to spend on social programs through taxes.

They should probably arrest that toddler then...

How do you explain me looking this psycho if there is no SATAN

That thumbnail is terrifying. Genuinely thought it was a dude wearing a roger stone mask wtf

I think that defining the heritage of a group of people in political terms is always a fascistic idea. Commonly, we don't really do that.

To use a classic "muh Western huritage" example, when someone talks about ancient Greek heritage, they mean cultural heritage - food, music, art, theater, sport, architecture, religion, philosophy - and cultural values like democracy, patriarchy, social hierarchy including class-based slave ownership, etc. A specific ruling group, governing document, or even a specific war doesn't really belong in that category - those are a part of the history of that group, but not core to their identity as a group.

"Southern" US cultural heritage is made up of music (jazz, rock, blues, country, just to name a few), regional cuisines like BBQ & Cajun, maybe some historical ways of life that had a lasting impact - like cowboys & ranching culture, landed gentry like plantation owners, chattel slavery & black sharecropping, white sharecropping, Mexican settlers, etc., protestant christianity (specifically Baptist christianity) and cultural values like racial hierarchy and apartheid and its lasting impacts, an old-world sense of chivalry, and rugged individualism - stuff like that.

What doesn't really make sense is to say that the Confederacy itself is a core component of the culture. Not just because it only lasted for 5 years and non-white Southerners weren't willing participants, but also because the ideas/beliefs that shaped the Confederacy were a part of the culture of the most powerful group at the time. In other words, it was part of the culture of the South that allowed and enabled the Confederacy to exist, not the Confederacy that created the culture.

From each according to their corruption, to each according to their greed

Wait so all the justices recieved $3M in gifts, and $2.4M of that was to Thomas? That's like 80% of the gifts.

Flameo, hotman

There aren't comics afaik and, thankfully, the Jodorowsky monstrosity didn't get made.

I mean, sure, but it's half of a story. So much of the criticism I saw totally left out that it was part 1 of 2. I ask because it'd be like watching The Fellowship of the Ring and being upset that it was just a story about some midgets going on a hike - it's a take you could only have if you weren't at all familiar with the source material or even generally what it's about. It's not an invalid take, necessarily, but it is one that ignores that it's only one part of a larger story. Dune Pt 1 was also a slower burn, and it's totally valid to dislike that sort of movie.

I hope you watch the second one and can appreciate the first one as part of that context. Dune (the book, not just the movies) is very good for a lot of reasons and was incredibly influential on sci-fi as a whole. It's obviously fine not to like it, of course, but as a lifelong fan, I just want everyone to give it a chance.

Edit: there are comics actually. Huh.

They were working on it long before the pandemic, so that's invalid. But you read the book and believe that? Or did you not know what it was about beforehand?

That is a fair point. My only counterargument would be that due to the way cities are set up, a large portion of those emissions come from commuting. The reason people commute is they have to earn money to pay bills so they can feed their kids and keep a roof over their heads.

So, asking people to drive less could mean asking them to give up their employment, which could be much more than "giving up the comforts of their lives" like the OP suggested - again, it could really put their livelihoods in jeopardy. And, without an organized cause, clear goal, a call to action, and clear communication about why their specific sacrifices are necessary, people will not take such huge risks.

I'd argue that: 1) what is extreme changes over time, 2) a system of government being extreme de facto means it will have less support; the more support it has, the less extreme it is by definition, 3) the less support a system of government hass, the more force will be required to maintain it.

I am also under a system of government that is oppressive and monopolizes violence, but if the government had less popular support, I fully believe it would proportionally ramp up the oppression and violence. In fact, I'd argue that it's currently happening in the US.

If we understand "Leftism" to be about a relationship to the means of production - namely one in which the workers/plroletarian class owns the means of production - then the USSR certainly was socialist/leftist to a significant degree.

Since leftism is about that relationship to the means of production, that also means that a government can be both Leftist and Authoritarian. We can discuss to what degree an ideal leftist government should be "authoritarian", but that is less a conversation about the economic aspects of leftist political ideology and more about the political philosophy around personal freedoms, freedom of speech, etc. - none of which are completely cut & dry.

One could easily argue that some degree of "authoritarianism" is necessary to protect greater freedoms at the expense of lesser ones - that could be a coherent pro personal freedom and pro authoritarian argument. One could also argue that the anarchist conception of personal freedom is doomed to fail without an "authoritarian" power hierarchy to protect those freedoms. All I'm saying is the question of to what degree the power of the state should be limited is by no means answered.

The problem is: what does it mean to do that? Right now, we don't have an organized revolution or movement. There needs to be a specific call to action. If you want people to "give up the comforts" of their lives, they need to know what doing that will accomplish, what the specific goal of the movement is, and how "giving up the comforts" will help to achieve it.

What you might actually be asking is for people to risk their jobs by going on general strike, their homes by not paying rent, etc. This is really more than "the comforts of their lives", it is their ability to survive and feed their families.

The other problem is, any cause that only requires people to "give up the comforts of their lives" likely won't be highly impactful. For instance, general strike and protest might help the climate crisis, but giving up plastic straws and driving less or whatever really won't make much of a dent compared to the massive impacts of global capitalism.

Extremists? Sure - they are, by definition, as they are outside of normal, status quo political ideologies. Authoritarian? No of course not. Anarchists are anti-authoritarian. I'm only saying that past communist states (namely PRC and USSR) have been authoritarian and fascist states have also been authoritarian.

Obviously modern neoliberal states are also authoritarian, but the classic horseshoe is almost exclusively applied to fascism and communism. Since it is incoherent as a political theory, I'm sure you could apply it similarly to any polar opposite ideologies and come up with something they share in common.

Horseshoe theory is dumb, but it's really just an observation of the loudest ideologies on the far left and far right, which both happen to be authoritarian. Authoritarianism becomes necessary as you move toward the extremes because you have to coerce some people/classes to accept the system. And it's true that real-world instances of both Fascism and Communism have been authoritarian, and so they share some things in common. It isn't a particularly nuanced or deep understanding, but it is true that authoritarian forms of gov't are authoritarian. The difference lies in the details. Communists used authoritarianism against capitalists and the nobility, and fascists used it against minorities. Horseshoe theory conflates "authoritarianism" with extreme Left and Right-wing ideologies. This contrasts against anarchism (and by extension the broad anti fascist movement), of course, which is extremely anti-authoritarian (hence why horseshoe theory completely falls apart here).