I vented on a local Facebook group when that happened. Saying that the continued police abuse of the emergency alert system would quickly cause the alerts to mean nothing. I frequently also got amber alerts for the opposite end of the state, well over twelve hours away.
To say that my concern was an unpopular opinion would be a massive understatement. People were downright hostile. A lot of locals could never fathom that what I was saying was true. And they used all the four letter words to tell me so. A sheriff's deputy called me a godless cop hater and a disgusting person.
Fortunately that particular cop is unemployed for abusing his power and some domestic abuse allegations. Oh and trying to fight his neighbor while in uniform.
And and I'm still right. They abused the alert system so much it is useless. And children and the elderly and innocent paid that price with their lives.
If the usa turned inward on itself any more it would become a black hole.
I'm no fan of dhs. But on a national scale. On a world scale, This is insane and dangerous. It's mind blowing how badly our government is behaving and the short sightedness of it all.
Multiple countries at war or on the verge of war. Elimination of usaid and most foreign aid. Intelligence organizations decimated by layoffs and budget cuts. Internal conflicts rising and dissent growing. A paramility forming that can ignore our internal rules and arrest people on a whim...
This is what happens when the people in charge have no idea what they are doing.
This will take decades to sort out. Maybe more. And we have years more of exactly this sort of behavior.
The American empire is falling. Torn apart from the inside by greedy madmen.
As an American, I can't say I'm thrilled about it. But God damn it is happening quickly.
I'm a dairy farmer. A lot of my friends and associates are too. Our community is built on immigrant labor.
This is wrecking shit. The paranoia is at levels you cant imagine. The workers are scared. The owners are scared. Regardless of income level or status, everyone is stressed to say the least.
The only consolation I have had was, just this past weekend, I got to look at my neighbor who was stressing and venting about what he will do when ice shows up. And I looked this man dead in the eyes and told him "you got exactly what you voted for, and exactly what you supported"
And he looked at me and agreed. "Yeah, you are right" he was defeated. To say that to me is an acknowledgement of absolute defeat.
It's funny
It sounds nice to think "I warned you". That smug superiority sounds good in your mind. It's vindication. It's another thing entirely to watch you community terrified to move because they collectively fucked up. Vindication doesn't help the people kidnapped from your community. The destruction of generations of work and mutual cooperation.
I own a dairy. We pay a fare wage. I've never had a white guy last longer than a week. Jobs for immigrants, legal or not, are important to my community, my local economy, and our nation as a whole. Historically, this sort of thing is old hat.
I'm constantly torn listening to the comments and replies on Lemmy that are spot on, but also have no context to how anything actually works.
My " no kings" truck window paint today drew some ire from the locals, but I'll stand by my employees and friends. It maybe helps that I've also been driving around for years with a "Ted Cruz ate my son" and a local NPR sticker as well. They know not to talk politics at the bar with me anymore. But damn it if I'm not trying in my own way.
All in all, we may be staring to make some headway on this immigration/ice thing. But it's not happening fast enough.
It never should have gotten this bad to begin with.
Oh the story of Israel's nonsense over the past 60 plus years is so messed up. I made the comparison in jest, but it's crazy.
They really are the worst ride or die ally of all time. And the geopolitical math hasn't made any sense since the cold war ended. Unless you have a secret religious need for the end of days.
Yeah I'm the idiot for not believing I can outlast a United States government spending spree.
Have you seen all the wars we've been in the last 25 years? Have you seen our defence budget? Our janitorial budget? Our paper clip budget?
Fucking hell.
For all the financial suffering you are willing to "suffer through", most goes to corporations. Not the government.
You aren't even a rounding error in the feds books. To do that would make you a multimillionaire.
And the people around you? Yeah good luck. Just a fraction of a percent under fifty percent, believe it or not, they voted for this shit. They have been playing the 'financial suffering for the greater good' card since the tariffs started. And they are better organized and propogandized. Trust me, I've heard it a lot. And they even have hats!
Let's try to come up with some better reasoning before you think your personal morals and convictions can outlast the united states ability to throw money at literally everything...
Clearly you don't understand how taxation works. Or what a Deficit is. This is literally the same logic the right is using to justify tariffs and mass deportations.
"We will just make the government waste our money until they can't handle it anymore!"
As if we haven't been doing that for decades already.
Hawkeye:
War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy:
How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye:
Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy:
Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye:
Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
The black eye was signal enough to short that only a moron couldn't see this as the start of the breakdown. We've been waiting for this to come to a head since the campaign trail. No one is supposed it is happening. Most are surprised it took this long.
Me here just waiting to also not play the next one.
It's just another flavor of starfield but somehow so much more shittier.
Make me a game that doesn't release looking like it's a beta release. Then I may be interested.
English as a language was seen as too easy. So we decided to mix it up.
Why would you ever be the global language of trade and commerce and the go between for multiple nations, whose entire structure is a hodgepodge of latin, Germanic, and mistranslated root structures and made up rules, if you didn't decide to mix it up from time to time and region to region?
Embrace the bastard language standard. This is the way.
Needle is pointy. Needle sometimes does not push button. Needle digs in and makes doubt and concern.
Needle may work, but requires dedication that causes anxiety.
Needle maybe will break things inside and the only way to know for sure is to hit a very uncomfortable point of no return for the result.
Needle is danger maybe, and I hate the needle for that. But sometimes needle is necessary.
It's funny. That story I referenced is describing exactly your sentiment.