REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, April 3, 2025 13:54
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 13154
PAGE 10 of 27

Sunday, February 16, 2025 12:15 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


JD Vance is Merely the Latest Conservative Christian to Use Nazi Camps to Cleanse His Antisemitism Sins

By Joel Swanson | February 13, 2025

https://religiondispatches.org/jd-vance-is-merely-the-latest-conservat
ive-christian-to-use-nazi-camps-to-cleanse-his-antisemitism-sins/

On Thursday of this past week, Vice President JD Vance visited the site of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, making him the latest in a string of American public officials to visit a former Nazi camp. The visit, timed to coincide with Vance’s trip to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, comes a year after Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and newly-installed most powerful person in the United States, visited Auschwitz last January.

It’s worth recalling the circumstances that led to Musk’s visit to Auschwitz a year ago. The visit came after months of antisemitic statements, including using his social media platform X to boost conspiracy theories accusing Jews of “flooding their country” with “hordes of minorities”; threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League for being the “biggest generators of anti-Semitism”; and accusing Hungarian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor George Soros of attempting to “erode the very fabric of civilization” because he “hates humanity.”

Finally, in the wake of a threatened advertiser boycott with the potential to harm Musk’s bottom line, he did what any wealthy celebrity accused of antisemitism does these days: he made a ritualized visit to a concentration camp or Holocaust museum to have his sins of bigotry washed clean. (In Musk’s case, he also made a similarly ritualized visit to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who, of course, has a long history of giving kosher passes to far-right antisemites in exchange for their support for the most right-wing elements within the Israeli government.) Musk’s brief trip to Auschwitz was enough to win instant forgiveness for his sins of antisemitism.

Except, of course, Musk was not radically, instantaneously transformed by his time at Auschwitz. He was not magically cleansed of his antisemitism. In the year after his trip to the infamous Nazi concentration camp, Musk reinstated the accounts of Holocaust deniers and praised a Holocaust revisionist historian. In just the past month alone, Musk infamously performed a Nazi salute at a Trump inauguration rally; joked about the Holocaust; told supporters of the German far-right party Alternative for Germany that Germany needs to “move beyond” its historical guilt for the Holocaust; and reinstated a briefly-fired 25-year-old government employee who had bragged about being “racist before it was cool” and called for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Because the truth is, a trip to Auschwitz or Dachau isn’t some instant cure for antisemitism. It does not wipe away years of bigotry and far-right sympathies in some blinding flash of moral enlightenment. In fact, Musk didn’t even take his trip to the death camp particularly seriously. According to the partner of an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who was the guest of honor for Musk’s visit to the site, Musk “did not care” about the trip at all, and was “unmoved by the experience.”

Art Spiegelman, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, and himself the child of Holocaust survivors, has noted that despite the Jewishness of the Holocaust, most of our cultural narratives about the atrocity are actually Christian in nature, because they see suffering as providing a path to moral enlightenment; as Spiegelman writes: “that notion of suffering is a very Christian notion, that somehow you’re ennobled by it.”

Spiegelman is correct, but I would argue that he doesn’t go far enough. Not only are our narratives about Holocaust suffering narratives of Christian redemptive suffering, but our Holocaust memorial sites have become Christian sites of instant redemption. We see the symbolic visit to Auschwitz or Dachau as a sort of Christian pilgrimage, a way to receive penance and be cleansed of one’s sins, in the same way that Christians speak of the conversion narrative of accepting Jesus and being forgiven.

For Jews, in contrast, repentance or teshuvah isn’t something to be granted based on a singular conversion experience, it’s a lengthy and arduous process that entails taking responsibility for one’s actions and making genuine steps to become a better person. In other words, precisely what Elon Musk has not shown himself capable of doing. Of course, not all Christians feel this way about repentance, and many do the hard work of atoning for sins based on their Christian principles. But the cheap grace offered by someone like Vance reflects a certain strand of Christian nationalism on the rise in the United States for quite some time.

Like Musk, JD Vance has a deep history of support for bigoted, far-right politics, a history that includes his own support for the German far-right party with a history of Holocaust minimization, his lies about Haitian migrants eating people’s pets (lies which have, incidentally, been compared to the age-old antisemitic blood libel, and which have led to increased neo-Nazi activity), and his administration banning governmental observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, supposedly in the name of fighting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. That’s not to mention his long and well-documented history of hostility to refugees and the queer community.

If Vance truly wanted to do teshuvah and atone for his history of bigotry and hatred, he would need to start by apologizing to all of the vulnerable communities he’s insulted and harmed, and proceed to demonstrate his commitment to change by challenging President Trump to adopt a less hateful stance toward migrants. That would be an example of genuine repentance.

But Vance won’t do that, of course. He visited Dachau and offered a few canned remarks about how inspired he was by the stories of the “unspeakable evil” he witnessed, and how he was “really moved by this site.” Then, when his trip to Europe concludes next week, he’ll return to the United States to continue overseeing the construction of internment camps to house migrants. He will proclaim himself morally enlightened before going right back to his bigotry.

And that, in the end, is the final insult to the memories of the Jews murdered at Dachau. It isn’t enough that they were murdered for being Jewish, but now the sacred site of their deaths has been used as a site of Christian pilgrimage, where the hard work of repentance and repair is replaced by easy, cheap penance and the instant cleansing of their manifold sins of bigotry. A Catholic politician has gone to Dachau, appropriated the site of Jewish mass murder, and will incorporate it into a Christian penitential logic of immediate forgiveness.

In the end even Dachau and Auschwitz have been colonized by the Christian nationalists—a new, if less obvious, form of supersessionism.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 2:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


You just keep writing and posting articles like that and see where it gets you.



There's 25% of the population who would love to see it done just to spite you at this point. Care to make it 45%?

Keep it up.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 2:27 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Israel has an unholy control over our nation's Mideast foreign policy. They portray themselves as long-suffering perpetual victims (as if no other ethnic group, religion, or nationality was ever genocided or suffered greatly!) while engaging in the exact same crimes they constantly wail about.

Fuck Israel. They're not "our allies in the Middle East". They're not defending our interests there (whateverthe fuck those are), they're just using us to knock over all of their neighboring states.

Visiting Auschwitz is just pandering to AIPAC and the (IMHO) easily-led American sheeplike public, who have been innoculated with pro-Jewish, pro-Israeli, and anti-Muslim propaganda for so long it feels natural.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 2:30 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Yeah.

Fuck Israel too.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 3:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SIX, I wish I had more time to chat with you about this. Right now I can only address this:

Quote:
I guess when you stop paying any attention and/or care to an entire generation or two of predominantly white males, you aren't paying attention to who the boys and young men are actually listening to.


So I looked him up, and there's a whole demographic out there I never knew existed. He gets 30 million views a month, but I'm sure those aren't unique views. So that's a million a day. If ppl check his website on average once a day, he has a million unique viewers. If they only check in on average three times a week, thats a bit over 2 million viewers. Quite a few!

Anyway, I think the answer to this isn't censorship or propaganda, I think the answer is to teach critical thinking.

Many agree we need it, but nobody has been able to say what that is or how to teach it.

Some people "follow the money". Others have benefitted from courses in rhetoric or debate.


Hubby always references something physically fundamental: energy. Not motivational or emotional energy ("I felt so much energy in the room!") but actual KWH, or whatever units energy is being measured in. It really works for him.

It also helps to have experienced a different culture. Americans are particularly hidebound. Even being stationed in Germany is an eye opener.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 4:20 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, I wish I had more time to chat with you about this. Right now I can only address this:

Quote:
I guess when you stop paying any attention and/or care to an entire generation or two of predominantly white males, you aren't paying attention to who the boys and young men are actually listening to.


So I looked him up, and there's a whole demographic out there I never knew existed. He gets 30 million views a month, but I'm sure those aren't unique views. So that's a million a day. If ppl check his website on average once a day, he has a million unique viewers. If they only check in on average three times a week, thats a bit over 2 million viewers. Quite a few!

Anyway, I think the answer to this isn't censorship or propaganda, I think the answer is to teach critical thinking.

Many agree we need it, but nobody has been able to say what that is or how to teach it.

Some people "follow the money". Others have benefitted from courses in rhetoric or debate.


Hubby always references something physically fundamental: energy. Not motivational or emotional energy ("I felt so much energy in the room!") but actual KWH, or whatever units energy is being measured in. It really works for him.

It also helps to have experienced a different culture. Americans are particularly hidebound. Even being stationed in Germany is an eye opener.
What would these "white males" understand when they read a novel such as The Day of the Locust (1939)? Most likely they don't read nor would they understand that they are living examples of the characters in a novel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Locust#Themes
The characters are outcasts, who have come to Hollywood to fulfill a dream or wish: "The importance of the wish in West's work was first noted by W. H. Auden, who declared (in one of the interludes in The Dyer's Hand) that West's novels were essentially "parables about a Kingdom of Hell whose ruler is not so much a Father of Lies as a Father of Wishes".[12] In this respect, James Light, in his book Violence, Dreams, and Dostoevsky: The Art of Nathanael West, suggests that The Day of the Locust falls in with a motif in West's fiction; the exposure of hopeful narratives in modern American culture as frauds.[13]

As some critics point out, West's novel was a radical challenge to modernist literature. Some modernists set themselves up in opposition to mass culture; West depicts it and makes it an integral part of the novel.[14] West's use of grotesque imagery and situations establishes the novel as a work of Juvenalian satire. His critique of Hollywood and the mentality of "the masses" depicts an America sick with vanity and the harbor of a malignant sense of perversity.

The original title of the novel was The Cheated. The title of West's Day of the Locust is a biblical allusion to the Old Testament. Susan Sanderson writes:

The most famous literary or historical reference to locusts is in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, in which God sends a plague of locusts to the pharaoh of Egypt as retribution for refusing to free the enslaved Jews. Millions of locusts swarm over the lush fields of Egypt, destroying its food supplies. Destructive locusts also appear in the New Testament in the symbolic and apocalyptic book of Revelation. West's use of "locust" in his title evokes images of destruction and a land stripped bare of anything green and living. The novel is filled with images of destruction: Tod Hackett's painting entitled "The Burning of Los Angeles," his violent fantasies about Faye and the bloody result of the cockfight. A close examination of West's characters and his selective use of natural images, which include representations of violence and impotence — and which are therefore contrary to popular images linking nature and fertility — reveals that the locust in the title is Tod.[16]

*----*
The Day of the Locust was taught in my English class at Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena, Texas. The kids in that class would now be 72. I haven't kept up with every one of them, but the ones who misunderstood that simple novel went on to fail in life and have an early death. It is hazardous to your health not to be able to see yourself or characters in novels for what they are.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 4:40 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, I wish I had more time to chat with you about this. Right now I can only address this:

Quote:
I guess when you stop paying any attention and/or care to an entire generation or two of predominantly white males, you aren't paying attention to who the boys and young men are actually listening to.


So I looked him up, and there's a whole demographic out there I never knew existed. He gets 30 million views a month, but I'm sure those aren't unique views. So that's a million a day. If ppl check his website on average once a day, he has a million unique viewers. If they only check in on average three times a week, thats a bit over 2 million viewers. Quite a few!


Yeah. And he's just one dude who isn't Joe Rogan.

The Legacy Media really hasn't relized that it is dead yet. None of these people watching Asmon or Rogan or anyone else almost never tune into the news. In the case of Asmon, he shows it to them with a lot of commentary and some back and forth with followers.

Quote:
Anyway, I think the answer to this isn't censorship or propaganda, I think the answer is to teach critical thinking.


Overall, I think people watching stuff from somebody like Asmond is a good thing. I really do. And you have to know by now that I wasn't saying there should be any form of censorship, since fighting against that has always been one of my core values.

But I don't believe that engaging in this behavior does anything to foster any critical thinking skills. It's more herd-mentality that you see everywhere these days. They've managed to somehow poison the younger generations to grow up and make everything just like High School.

At least Asmond challenges bad takes, and from what I can tell he is pretty obviously well read, and isn't just some guy who should be talking Pokemon instead of Politics.

At 1 Million views per day, he's getting more viewership than most Cable News talking heads do.

Quote:
Many agree we need it, but nobody has been able to say what that is or how to teach it.


You simply can't be taught it. Not in a classroom. That's my take.

And the longer you keep the kid gloves on and refuse to put children into any position of even mild discomfort where they'd need to use their own noggins to get themselves out of a bad situation, they will grow up having never learned it and by then it's far too late for most of them. And they'll spend their entire adult lives unable to distinguish an opinion from a fact, and will be very easily propagandized.

Quote:
Some people "follow the money". Others have benefitted from courses in rhetoric or debate.

Hubby always references something physically fundamental: energy. Not motivational or emotional energy ("I felt so much energy in the room!") but actual KWH, or whatever units energy is being measured in. It really works for him.

It also helps to have experienced a different culture. Americans are particularly hidebound. Even being stationed in Germany is an eye opener.


I'm not getting what you mean by your husband referencing energy. You mean when you discuss politics with him he gives kWh ratings to different politicians, policies, etc.?


You can have plenty of different experiences just by living in America without going anywhere else. It's one of the reasons that the Left always putting everyone into boxes pisses me off so much. Nobody in my family did a goddamned bad thing to black people. We weren't even here early enough to do it. I drive around a shittier car than 95% of black people do. I don't want to hear about how great I have it or how bad my family was to anyone else anymore. And I especially don't ever want to hear out of some black millionaire like Anthony Mackie or Kapernick. We're done with that bullshit in 2025.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 5:32 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews

Meanwhile in Russia: Sergey Mikheyev says that in light of the Trump administration's express intent to abandon NATO allies in case they intervene in Ukraine, Russia should strike Brussels, London and Paris. Vladimir Solovyov wholeheartedly agrees.
8:39 PM · Feb 15, 2025
https://x.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1890954112100892934

Sergey Mikheyev says Russia should strike Brussels, London and Paris



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 5:39 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Back to SIX's original proposal: if you think the Federal employees' work is so important, why don't you pay their salaries?
Not counting the military, there are 2.6 million federal employees. On average, including benefits, they earn on the order of $140,000 a year. That works out to a little more than $350 billion a year. If Elon Musk fired half a million of them, that would save just 1% of the budget — not counting the cost of paying them unemployment benefits and the loss of tax revenue levied on their earnings (and the cost of losing the value of their work, just in case they had not been totally useless, as Musk, 6ix and Signym seem convinced they are).

https://andrewtobias.com/actions-we-can-take-today/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 6:01 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Boo hoo.

They should have saved their money while the getting was good.

If they're smart, they're in the process of learning a few life lessons right now.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 6:02 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews

Meanwhile in Russia: Sergey Mikheyev says that in light of the Trump administration's express intent to abandon NATO allies in case they intervene in Ukraine, Russia should strike Brussels, London and Paris. Vladimir Solovyov wholeheartedly agrees.


Fake news.

Gotta get as much of it that they can get out before the last of the final USAID payments dry up.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 6:43 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

You can have plenty of different experiences just by living in America without going anywhere else. It's one of the reasons that the Left always putting everyone into boxes pisses me off so much. Nobody in my family did a goddamned bad thing to black people. We weren't even here early enough to do it. I drive around a shittier car than 95% of black people do. I don't want to hear about how great I have it or how bad my family was to anyone else anymore. And I especially don't ever want to hear out of some black millionaire like Anthony Mackie or Kapernick. We're done with that bullshit in 2025.
Where did that Anthony Mackie reference come from? From another thread you started:

The Blacktain Anti-America Failure Thread
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=66463

Captain America: Brave New World stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, who takes up the mantle of Captain America.

Quoting 6ix: "It's a loser for Disney even at $180 Million, and that should be enough to keep them from making another one or trying to shoehorn in Black Anti-America as the leader of the Avengers going forward."

6ix, the Confederate slave-owners spoke the same as you: "Nobody in my family did a goddamned bad thing to black people." There are racists I know who say the same as you, but I know they do harm black people.

Quoting 6ix: "It's one of the reasons that the Left always putting everyone into boxes pisses me off so much." 6ix, you put yourself in a box by your behavior and then you deny doing what you did, which makes you a liar along with your unsavory way of life and political beliefs.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 6:57 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Julia Davis @JuliaDavisNews

Meanwhile in Russia: Sergey Mikheyev says that in light of the Trump administration's express intent to abandon NATO allies in case they intervene in Ukraine, Russia should strike Brussels, London and Paris. Vladimir Solovyov wholeheartedly agrees.


Fake news.

Gotta get as much of it as they can get out before the last of the final USAID payments dry up.
The Russians did say that. Why would the Russians feel so confident? Because Trump made a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the NATO alliance if reelected. To translate that into Trumptard language: If Russia attacked Brussels, London and Paris, Trump would not honor American treaties promising to stop the Russians.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-nato/index.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 10:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


What Trump said was that if NATO states sent soldiers into Ukraine they wouldn't be covered by Article 5. Which, if you think about it, makes sense, bc NATO is there to defend NATO members against attack, and sending your soldiers into a foreign nation doesn't mean you've been attacked.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 10:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Netanyahu To Rubio: Let's 'Finish the Job' Against Iran


Netanyahu is a mad dog

Quote:
Sunday, Feb 16, 2025 - 05:25 PM

Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, after which they gave a joint address before reporters in Jerusalem.

This is Rubio's first Middle East visit since becoming America's top diplomat. He and Bibi called for the total elimination of Hamas and the return of all the remaining hostages, following three being released on Saturday, including an American dual citizen.

Importantly, Netanyahu declared that Israel and the US should "finish the job" against Iran, a week after Trump in a Fox interview said the choice is on Tehran - either they can do a new deal to monitor their nuclear energy program or possibly get bombed into submission.

Rubio called the Islamic Republic the greatest source of instability in the region, and as a longtime supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"Hamas cannot continue as a military or a government force... they must be eliminated," Rubio additionally stated alongside Netanyahu, warning that the "gates of hell" could once again be opened against Hamas.

As for Netanyahu, he affirmed: "We discussed Trump's bold vision for Gaza's future and will work to ensure that vision becomes a reality." This vision has been roundly rejected by Arab states, especially Egypt and Jordan.

Trump earlier this month restored "maximum pressure" and fresh sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports, which reflects the policy of his first term, when he pulled the US out of the JCPOA nuclear deal with Tehran.

"Maybe they are trying to get new defense as we speak but their defense is largely gone... Iran is very nervous. I think they're scared. I think Iran would love to make a deal and I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them," Trump had said in the remarks just under a week ago.

"Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them," Trump had added. "I would prefer that not happen. I'd much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it," the president continued.

That's when Trump made one of the more interesting and provocative comments of the interview...

There's two ways to stopping them: With bombs or a written piece of paper.

So Rubio has reiterated this ultimatum from Jerusalem, with full approval of Netanyahu standing by his side. Iran has meanwhile said it won't respond to such threats, and has described that even if it wanted a deal, it can no longer trust Washington given it agreed to the JCPOA nuclear deal under Obama, and then Trump pulled out of it in 2018.


I think Iran is another nation that Trump can't bully. He's got no leverage on Iran short of a military attack.

Trump and Netanyahu ... a match made in hell.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 10:46 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

You can have plenty of different experiences just by living in America without going anywhere else. It's one of the reasons that the Left always putting everyone into boxes pisses me off so much. Nobody in my family did a goddamned bad thing to black people. We weren't even here early enough to do it. I drive around a shittier car than 95% of black people do. I don't want to hear about how great I have it or how bad my family was to anyone else anymore. And I especially don't ever want to hear out of some black millionaire like Anthony Mackie or Kapernick. We're done with that bullshit in 2025.
Where did that Anthony Mackie reference come from? From another thread you started:

The Blacktain Anti-America Failure Thread
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=66463

Captain America: Brave New World stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, who takes up the mantle of Captain America.

Quoting 6ix: "It's a loser for Disney even at $180 Million, and that should be enough to keep them from making another one or trying to shoehorn in Black Anti-America as the leader of the Avengers going forward."

6ix, the Confederate slave-owners spoke the same as you: "Nobody in my family did a goddamned bad thing to black people." There are racists I know who say the same as you, but I know they do harm black people.

Quoting 6ix: "It's one of the reasons that the Left always putting everyone into boxes pisses me off so much." 6ix, you put yourself in a box by your behavior and then you deny doing what you did, which makes you a liar along with your unsavory way of life and political beliefs.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two




How about 10 years of this rich little black bitch whining about how unprivileged he is?





--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Sunday, February 16, 2025 11:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I think its quaint, SIX, that you think you can understand so many different kinds of people without ever leaving your home state, let alone your nation.

The farthest I've gone is Canada, but I met students from Pakistan and India and Eastern European nations and the Congo and Egypt at university. Most of them came from wealthy families, but some not so much. Their attitudes and assumptions and how they approached other people ... and young attractive women (as I once was) ... were very different depending on where they came from. And occasionally left me ??????

And my lab hired people from mainland China, Taiwan, Burma, Syria, Russia, Israel, Ethiopia, Sweden, Finland ... again, all very different. If I were to actually VISIT those nations and meet a broader range of people (besides intelligent, competent, technically trained, English speaking, and relatively wealthy) I'm sure I would have many more ???? moments.

I find that people who come from other cultures often have the sharpest insight into ours, and better sources of info. It's something I wish I could reproduce, but being mostly embedded in this culture it's impossible.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:59 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think its quaint, SIX, that you think you can understand so many different kinds of people without ever leaving your home state, let alone your nation.

The farthest I've gone is Canada, but I met students from Pakistan and India and Eastern European nations and the Congo and Egypt at university. Most of them came from wealthy families, but some not so much. Their attitudes and assumptions and how they approached other people ... and young attractive women (as I once was) ... were very different depending on where they came from. And occasionally left me ??????

And my lab hired people from mainland China, Taiwan, Burma, Syria, Russia, Israel, Ethiopia, Sweden, Finland ... again, all very different. If I were to actually VISIT those nations and meet a broader range of people (besides intelligent, competent, technically trained, English speaking, and relatively wealthy) I'm sure I would have many more ???? moments.

I find that people who come from other cultures often have the sharpest insight into ours, and better sources of info. It's something I wish I could reproduce, but being mostly embedded in this culture it's impossible.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA




There's nothing quaint about it.

Your life and mine have almost zero overlap.

I don't need to go to India to see a different way of life. I can just walk my happy ass next door and do that.


So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 4:47 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.


And that's what's so quaint.

You obviously haven't run into anyone REALLY different bc if you did, you'd know.

You fit smack dab into a stereotype, SIX. A white Midwestern American male stereotype.

If you want to know along what lines I'll let you know.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 6:09 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


On Reddit, federal employees shared their experience. One wrote: “The thing that I can’t get over is that the actual richest man in the world directed my f*cking firing. I make $50K a year and work to keep drinking water safe. The richest man in the world decided that was an expense too great for the American taxpayer.”

It certainly appears that those in charge of the firings didn’t know what they were doing: on Thursday they fired more than 300 workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration, apparently not aware that they were the people who oversee the nation’s nuclear weapons. Today, Peter Alexander and Alexandra Marquez of NBC News reported that officials are now trying to rehire them but can’t figure out how to reach them because the workers lost access to their work email when they were fired.

MAGA voters are now discovering that much of what billionaire Elon Musk is cutting as “waste, fraud, and corruption” is programs that benefit them, often more than they benefit Democratic-dominated states. Dramatically, farmers, who backed Trump by a margin of three to one, are badly hit by the freeze on funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for conservation of land, soil, and water. “This isn’t just hippie-dippy stuff,” Wisconsin cattle, pig, and poultry farmer Aaron Pape told Linda Qiu and Julie Creswell of the New York Times. “This is affecting mainstream farmers.”

https://angrybearblog.com/2025/02/federal-government-should-regulate-b
usiness

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:02 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Our Government Is Experiencing a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly

Musk is moving fast and breaking important things

By Paul Krugman | Feb 17, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/our-government-is-experiencing-a

Last month SpaceX carried out a test launch of its in-development Starship rocket. Liftoff was achieved, but as the company later announced, “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn.” In other words, it exploded.

It would be wrong to think of this explosion as a disaster; new products often experience failures during testing. That is, after all, why we test them. Still, the euphemistic language reeks of unwillingness to take responsibility and admit that things didn’t go as planned. But then again, what would you expect from a company owned by Elon Musk?

And here’s the thing: If a rocket blows up, you can build a new rocket and try again. “Move fast and break things” is sometimes an OK approach if the things in question are just hardware, which can be replaced. But what if the object that experiences “rapid unscheduled disassembly” is something whose continued functioning is crucial to people’s lives — say, something like the U.S. government?

This isn’t a hypothetical question: Musk, with backing from Donald Trump, is blowing up significant parts of the U.S. government as you read this. And we can already see the shape of multiple potential disasters.

The Muskenjugend — the mostly very young people Musk has hired to work at the Department of Government Efficiency, which isn’t actually a government department in any legal sense but which Trump has effectively given huge and probably unconstitutional power to remake federal agencies — generally seem to share three characteristics.

First, they all seem to be extreme right-wing ideologues: whenever journalists investigate the social media trail of one of Musk’s operatives, what they find is horrifying. For example, Marko Elez, who had access to the Treasury Department’s central payments system, had in the recent past advocated racism and eugenics.

Second, they don’t know anything about the government agencies they’re supposedly going to make more efficient. That’s understandable. The federal government has around 2 million workers, many — I would say the vast majority — performing important public services, in a huge variety of fields. You can’t parachute into a government agency and expect to know in a matter of days which if any programs and employees are dispensable.

But the third characteristic of the Muskenjugend is that, like Musk himself, they’re arrogant. They believe that they can parachute into agencies and quickly identify what should be cut.

So last week, when the Trump administration began laying off large numbers of probationary workers, the only real questions were how quickly it would become clear that essential government functions were being compromised and just how scary the damage would be.

And the answers were that the damage became obvious almost immediately, and some of it looks very scary indeed.

A word about language: the term “probationary workers” can sound as if we’re talking about problem cases, people who’ve had poor performance reviews or something. But all it means is employees who were hired relatively recently, usually within the past year, and as a result have weaker job protection than their more senior colleagues.

So what would be your worst nightmare about large, hastily announced job cuts? Maybe firing the people responsible for keeping our nuclear weapons secure? Sure enough, on Thursday night, according to CNN’s reporting, Trump officials fired more than 300 staffers at the National Nuclear Security Administration, apparently unaware that this agency oversees America’s nukes. (Maybe the name should have been a giveaway?)

The next day, realizing the enormity of the error, the agency tried to reinstate those workers — but was having trouble getting in touch, because the terminated workers had already been locked out of their government email accounts.

Trump officials also summarily fired 3400 workers at the National Forest Service, which plays a critical role in fighting forest fires. The administration said that no firefighters were laid off, but right now — before fire season begins — is when the service should be trying to prevent fires by, among other things, clearing vegetation that can feed those fires. That work has now been hobbled, in some cases brought to a complete halt. (Remember when Trump blamed California for devastating fires, claiming that the state hadn’t raked enough leaves?)

There have been large layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just as America is experiencing a serious spike in ordinary flu cases and alarm bells are ringing about a potential bird flu pandemic. Under political pressure, the CDC has been withholding reports. So we might not even know about the next pandemic until it’s well underway.

Large layoffs have struck at the Department of Health and Human Services, including, according to CBS, half the officers of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, sometimes called the “disease detectives,” who play a crucial role in identifying public health threats. There have been layoffs at the FDA, which monitors the safety of food additives and medical devices.

And according to the union, several hundred workers have been fired at the Federal Aviation Administration.

The list goes on. But peering through the details, the overall strategy is clear: Musk and his minions decided to summarily fire as many federal workers as they could without making any effort to find out what these workers do and whether it’s important.

Despite Musk’s escalating claims, these firings won’t save tens of billions of dollars. Moreover, DOGE has mandated large layoffs at the IRS — creating an open season for wealthy tax evaders which will eventually increase the budget deficit.

So what is this about? Think of it as austerity theater: suddenly getting rid of thousands of federal workers looks strong and decisive to people who don’t understand what it will do. Remember, just a few weeks ago workers all across the federal government received a mass email urging them to take a buyout offer and “move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.” The new wave of layoffs probably reflects the fact that not many workers took the offer, realizing, correctly, that it was almost surely a scam.

Well, it seems all too likely that Americans are about to learn the real costs of austerity theater. Many of the suddenly laid off workers were providing essential services. Nor should we underestimate the demoralization the vindictive layoffs have created even among those workers who still have their jobs (so far.)

So when we experience our next wave of devastating forest fires, when significant numbers of Americans begin dying from preventable diseases and faulty medical devices, remember: These disasters will be partly the fault of arrogant, ignorant men who decided to smash up a reasonably functional government.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:03 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump Is Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: Federal Prisons Are Purposely Inhumane

By Akela Lacy | February 16, 2025, 6:30 a.m.

https://theintercept.com/2025/02/16/trump-pam-bondi-death-penalty-exec
utions-prisons/

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued last week several memos to all Department of Justice employees including one with the subject: “Reviving the Federal Death Penalty and Lifting the Moratorium on Federal Executions.” It detailed exactly how her agency will put into practice an executive order to restart federal executions that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office.
https://theappeal.org/pam-bondi-attorney-general-memos/
https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1388561/dl?inline
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-the-
death-penalty-and-protecting-public-safety/

The memo denounced the pause on federal executions under former President Joe Biden and claimed DOJ officials had neglected their jobs by upholding a moratorium on federal executions in place since 2021, which halted a killing spree launched by Trump in his first term. “The Department’s political leadership disregarded these important responsibilities and supplanted the will of the people with their own personal beliefs,” the memo read.
https://theintercept.com/series/out-for-blood/

While there is no evidence that the death penalty achieves its purported goal to deter crime, the Trump administration wants the federal government to direct substantial resources and dollars to carrying out more executions, more quickly. Through its executive actions and policy memos, the administration is also stating something that criminal justice and human rights advocates have long said: that conditions in many federal detention facilities are inhumane, and Trump wants to keep them that way.
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/13363/chapter/1
https://theintercept.com/2021/01/03/death-penalty-capital-punishment-c
ovid-abolition/
https://theintercept.com/2022/07/26/atlanta-prison-suicide-senate-inve
stigation/

In the January 20 executive order, Trump directed his attorney general to evaluate the conditions of confinement for the 37 people commuted from federal death row at the end of Biden’s term and “take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/18/biden-federal-death-sentence-commu
tations/

The message is a direction to the federal government to use conditions of confinement as additional punishment — which is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, according to Miriam Gohara, a clinical professor of law at Yale University and a former federal public defender.

On top of that, it suggests that inhumane conditions in federal detention are the administration’s goal.

“The one thing that was clear from the order was that it sounded like the administration was going to try to influence placement of people, and try to do so under conditions that they called ‘monstrous’ in their order,” Gohara told The Intercept. Gohara spent over a decade representing clients sentenced to death in post-conviction litigation.

“Certainly, if I were leading the [Bureau of Prisons] or if I were working in the BOP, I wouldn’t want to suggest that there are any monstrous conditions in my facilities,” she said.

“That suggests that they’re actually encouraging the Bureau of Prisons to maintain monstrous conditions, or that they think they’re already monstrous conditions in the BOP somewhere, and that somebody could be put there. Which again, seems like a very odd thing for the executive to be saying about one of his agencies.”

The administration’s use of language describing federal detention as “monstrous” is on par with how Trump has spoken on criminal justice from the start, said death row attorney Dale Baich. He previously led the unit of the Arizona Federal Defender’s Office that represents people sentenced to death in post-conviction proceedings.

“I was really taken aback by the number of adjectives in the order,” Baich said. “But, you know, that’s how he campaigned, that’s how Project 2025 was drafted. We really shouldn’t be surprised.”

Incarcerated people and advocates for reform have long argued that conditions of incarceration across the board — from federal prisons to local jails — are inhumane and that the government has not done enough to address them. Even prior to the latest order, there are plenty of examples of detention facilities that have not taken corrective measures even under court order.
https://theintercept.com/2023/09/04/prison-labor-exploitation-america/
https://theintercept.com/2021/07/01/bop-mdc-brooklyn-warden-freezing-j
ail/
https://theintercept.com/series/climate-and-punishment/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/nyregion/rikers-contempt-receiversh
ip.html
https://abolitionistlawcenter.org/2024/08/18/held-in-contempt-over-jai
l-conditions-philly-must-pay-25m-and-quickly-boost-staffing-a-judge-has-ordered/
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/la-county-violates-court-order-and
-perpetuates-horrific-jails-conditions

Welcoming and embracing inhumane conditions in prisons as federal policy will make challenging those conditions even more difficult, Baich said. “It’s hard enough to challenge conditions of confinement when departments of corrections or the Bureau of Prisons is saying that it’s not unconstitutional,” he said.

“So I just think it’s going to be a real heavy lift going forward to challenge those conditions,” Baich said.

But challenges, he said, must continue. “What is important is to continue to pursue unconstitutional conditions of confinement and hold the government accountable.”

Bondi’s memo last week also directs Bureau of Prisons employees to work with states that allow executions to ensure they have “sufficient supplies and resources to impose the death penalty” — including lethal injection drugs — and helping to transfer federal detainees “to the appropriate authorities to carry out those sentences.”
https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1388561/dl#:~:text=Pursuant%20to%20Pr
esident%20Trump's%20Executivewith%20the%20relevant%20statutory%20considerations
https://www.toledoblade.com/local/politics/2025/02/11/governor-unsure-
that-trump-order-would-bring-back-ohio-executions/stories/20250211112

The order also directs the U.S. attorney general to look for opportunities to bring state capital charges against those with commuted federal death sentences and make relevant recommendations to state and local authorities, effectively finding another way to execute them. At its worst, that could look like the Department of Justice finding a way to federalize crimes in states without the death penalty — in other words, making a new constituency of suspects eligible for federal execution, Baich said.

States that don’t have the death penalty or only rarely use it are already bracing for how, if at all, Trump’s order might affect them. On Wednesday, Trump said judicial efforts to push back on his orders amounted to a “weaponization” of the courts.

Since Trump won the presidential election, at least one Democratic governor has already taken steps to downplay the state’s history of botched executions. In late November, Arizona’s Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs fired an independent commissioner before they were set to publish a report on their investigation into the state’s history of botched lethal injections. A draft of the report, which was never published, concluded that death by firing squad, barred in Arizona, was the only form of execution more quick and less painful than lethal injection. Arizona’s next execution, the first in two years, is scheduled for March 19.

Capital trials are expensive and resource-intensive, and it’s an open question whether the Trump administration would provide grants or additional support to rural counties that historically don’t have the capacity to carry out capital trials or executions. In a worst-case scenario, the administration could find a way to offer money to rural counties that often can’t afford to prosecute death penalty cases.

Trump’s Justice Department has already authorized the movement of one person to ensure their execution. On Wednesday, Bondi approved Oklahoma’s request to transfer George Hanson to the state from Louisiana for execution. Hanson was previously scheduled to be executed in Oklahoma in 2022, but Biden’s DOJ denied Oklahoma’s request to transfer him from Louisiana, where he is serving a life sentence for an unrelated conviction.
https://oklahomavoice.com/briefs/u-s-attorney-generals-office-agrees-t
o-transfer-prisoner-from-louisiana-for-oklahoma-execution/
https://oklahomavoice.com/briefs/oklahoma-attorney-general-requests-pr
isoner-transfer-for-execution/
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/feds-block-transfer-of-oklahoma-d
eath-row-inmate-halting-upcoming-execution-plan

Baich called the move an “example of this newly found cooperation between DOJ and the states.”

“Mr. Hanson was never going to get out of prison,” Baich said. “Deliberate decisions by government officials have deprived Mr. Hanson of the guarantees of due process. This trampling of constitutional protections and the rush to execute are consistent with what we saw at the end of the first Trump administration where thirteen people were executed.”

The Trump administration’s focus on accelerating federal executions takes away resources from the goals it claims to prioritize, Gohara said during a briefing on the order last month. Those stated goals include things like helping victims and curbing crime — at a time of historically low national rates.

“We now understand that the death penalty does nothing to promote public safety, and, in fact, detracts from public safety resources that actually could be used to help keep people free from crime and violence,” Gohara said. “If you’re spending money on expensive capital trials, you’re not spending money on doing things like using rape kits to clear old cases or to try to solve cold crimes.”

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:26 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Hayden Davis exposes Trump and Melania for crypto insider trading alongside other crimes

By Jai Hamid for CryptoPolitan | Feb 17, 2025

https://cryptorank.io/news/feed/4529f-hayden-davis-exposes-trump-melan
ia

In a mind-blowing interview with Coffeezilla, Kelsier’s Hayden Davis, the self-proclaimed launch strategist behind multiple political meme coin launches, openly admitted to insider trading, sniper wallets, and market manipulation — implicating presidents Donald Trump and Javier Milei as well as First Lady Melania Trump.

He detailed how meme coins like LIBRA were rigged from the start, how insiders had pre-launch access to tokens, and how every major launch was nothing more than a calculated financial game. “This is an insiders’ game. It’s an unregulated casino,” Hayden said, confirming that early buyers at a private dinner in Washington, D.C., were given access to Trump’s token before the public.

“I thought some of these meme coins could turn into something real,” Hayden added. “But the reality is, it’s just a game. The people who know how to play win. The rest lose.” Mind you this is the guy who launched the $LIBRA token that wiped $4.6 billion from the market in six hours.

Trump’s meme coin was rigged from day one

Hayden shared that before Trump’s token launch, a small group of investors were granted exclusive pre-sale access at a valuation of $500 million. According to him, these buyers were let in before the contract address was made public, so that they could purchase at rock-bottom prices before the retail frenzy.

“They gave people special access to buy in before it launched,” Hayden said. “That’s what I was told.” When pressed on where this happened, he named Washington, D.C., as the location where the deal allegedly took place.

Melania’s token, Hayden admitted, followed the same playbook. He was directly involved in the launch and confirmed that his team sniped it. The goal, according to him, was to counteract external snipers, but in reality, it meant insiders once again took the best entry positions before the public.

“We weren’t the big sniper,” Hayden said. “That’s what we were trying to avoid.” But on-chain data tells a different story. A wallet tied to his operation received $1.5 million worth of Melania’s token from an address labeled ‘Melania D Liquidity 2.0.’ The tokens were then dumped, crushing the price and leaving retail investors with massive losses.

How sniping and insider deals keep the market rigged

More at https://cryptorank.io/news/feed/4529f-hayden-davis-exposes-trump-melan
ia

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:41 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Will I Still Get to Give My Elevator Pitch for the Rule of Law?

By Ken MacVey | Monday, Feb 17, 2025, 5:00AM

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/02/will-i-still-get-to-give
-my-elevator-pitch-for-the-rule-of-law.html

Consider: President Trump signs an executive order that purports to obliterate a provision of the 14th Amendment regarding birthright citizenship. He fires in violation of Congressional statute seventeen inspector generals who are responsible for auditing multiple federal agencies for fraud, waste, and wrongdoing. He pronounces on his website that CBS should lose its license with the FCC and 60 Minutes should be shut down because of a televised interview of candidate Kamala Harris was allegedly edited in her favor. The FCC, with its new chairman appointed by Trump, puts the matter of the interview on its docket. Private citizen Elon Musk, who has made billions from government and spent over a quarter of a billion on Trump’s presidential campaign, roams with his band of anonymous minions through federal headquarters to digitally siphon confidential information, including personal information on millions of people. Thereupon Musk announces that agencies, jobs and congressionally appropriated funding for programs are to be terminated, which they are. The Trump’s Administration acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia in a letter posted on X thanks Musk for identifying individuals for criminal investigation and vows that he is prepared to “chase them to the end of the Earth.”

Much more at https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/02/will-i-still-get-to-give
-my-elevator-pitch-for-the-rule-of-law.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:59 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Six Sentences
Cut out of Washington’s Farewell Address, they’re what we need to read right now.

By Alexis Coe | Feb 17, 2025 5:40 AM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/presidents-day-2025-holida
y-george-washington-history.html

In 1796, George Washington struck six pointed sentences from his Farewell Address. I’d largely forgotten about them—the final address contains enough wisdom to fill volumes—until, on a whim, I revisited the drafts. What I found was revelatory: a chilling prophecy of the constitutional crisis now threatening to engulf our nation. These excised lines from the Farewell Address serve not only as a warning but as a prescient prophecy of the political turmoil and factionalism that would later shape the nation’s history. They reveal Washington’s deep understanding of the fragile nature of democratic institutions and the ever-present threats of demagoguery and partisan strife. This Presidents Day, these rediscovered warnings serve not as a eulogy for our experiment in self-governance, but as a rallying cry for its reinvigoration.

“In Republics of narrow extent,” Washington cautioned in this purged passage, “it is not difficult for those who at any time hold the reins of Power, and command the ordinary public favor, to overturn the established Constitution, in favor of their own aggrandisement.” Washington offered the blueprint of the modern demagogue, a Cassandra-like prophecy of executive overreach and populist fervor. His words eerily prefigure the rise of Andrew Jackson’s “spoils system,” Gov. Huey Long’s Louisiana fiefdom, and our current era of autocracy amplified by social media. Washington, having spurned a crown himself, recognized the siren song that could bewitch even ostensibly democratic leaders, particularly in polities where checks on power are easily subverted.

“Partial combinations of men, who though not in Office, from birth, riches or other sources of distinction, have extraordinary influence & numerous adherents” would subvert the very foundations of the republic, Washington warned. To become a demagogue, a president would need more than a powerful political party; he’d depend on a cabal of powerful citizens—the wealthy puppet masters, media barons, and shadow influencers—who could provide the scaffolding for a president to dismantle democratic norms. The enablers of tyranny, Washington predicted, wouldn’t be public servants, but private citizens who thought nothing of trading constitutional principles for a seat at the table of power.

Washington, who transitioned seamlessly from general to president and back to private citizen, could easily imagine a demagogue giving in to the perilous temptation to use martial power as a political cudgel. “By debauching the military force, by surprising some commanding citadel, or by some other sudden & unforeseen movement, the fate of the Republic is decided,” he warned, intimating that the president could deploy troops for domestic political ends, quelling protests, rounding up people he deems undesirable, and undermining electoral processes.

But then, suddenly, there’s good news. Washington’s analysis in this excised section pivots to a cautious optimism about large republics—at a time when the United States territory extended only to the Mississippi River. “But in Republics of large extent, usurpations can scarcely make its way through these avenues,” Washington writes to “Friends & Fellow-Citizens,” in an address that was published in newspapers rather than delivered to Congress. “The powers and opportunities of resistance of a wide extended and numerous nation, defy the successful efforts of the ordinary military force, or of any Collections which wealth and patronage may call to their aid.” Echoing James Madison in Federalist No. 10, he places faith in size as democracy’s invisible shield. The American experiment, sprawling across half a continent, was to be a Gordian knot too complex for any would-be Alexander to slice through.

Notably, Washington’s emphasis on “resistance” suggests a populace capable of thwarting tyranny through its sheer diversity and geographic spread—a prescient nod to the grassroots movements and state-level pushback that would often serve as bulwarks against federal overreach in centuries to come.

The last line Washington omitted, however, qualifies that optimism with a sobering coda: “In such Republics, it is safe to assert, that the conflicts of popular factions are the chief, if not the only inlets, of usurpation and Tyranny.” The Achilles’ heel of large democracies—their very diversity, if channeled into blind factionalism—could become the instrument of their undoing. Washington had no crystal ball, and yet he vaguely described a country where political tribes hunker in digital bunkers, consuming and creating partisan journalism, lobbing grenades across an ever-widening chasm of mutual incomprehension.

Why did Washington strike these pointed lines from his Farewell Address? Alexander Hamilton, by then a New York lawyer who still played the president’s éminence grise, wanted Washington to exit as he entered: a unifying figure optimistic about the “infant nation.” He warned that Washington’s draft, tinged with partisan bitterness, would not “wear well.” In 2025, however, it’s clear that Hamilton was being shortsighted. The irony stings: In preserving Washington’s unifying legacy, perhaps those words that could have unified Americans in a more important way—against the very factionalism now threatening our republic—were erased.

Is it too late? Now that we’ve unearthed these lines, we can’t unsee them. This Presidents Day, Washington’s cuts serve as a clarion call, challenging us to prove that a republic can indeed survive the very pluralism that defines it. They demand action: confront divisive rhetoric, safeguard democratic institutions, and remain vigilant against fast and furious authoritarianism. The choice is ours. History awaits our answer.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 10:43 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.


And that's what's so quaint.

You obviously haven't run into anyone REALLY different bc if you did, you'd know.

You fit smack dab into a stereotype, SIX. A white Midwestern American male stereotype.

If you want to know along what lines I'll let you know.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA



I don't give a shit about stupid opinions, wherever the source.

But by all means, knock yourself out if you're bored.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 11:58 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, is terrified:

Washington Post refuses to run $115,000 ad titled ‘Fire Elon Musk,’ report says

‘Who’s running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk,’ reads the advert, which was intended for Tuesday’s edition of the newspaper

By James Liddell | Monday 17 February 2025 10:46 GMT

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/washingt
on-post-musk-doge-ad-trump-b2699407.html

The Washington Post pulled out of running a $115,000 front and back page advert that called for President Donald Trump to “fire” Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency head, according to a new report.

Members of Congress, political pundits and the public have watched the world’s richest man and his non-official advisory body, DOGE, tear through various government departments, as he attempts to slash bureaucracy and cut $2 trillion in federal spending.

Advocacy group Common Cause, in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund, signed an agreement for a scathing anti-Musk wrap advert for Tuesday’s edition of the newspaper, as well as a full page inside the paper, according to The Hill.

The newspaper containing the “Fire Elon Musk” wrap was meant to be delivered to subscribers at Congress, the Pentagon and the White House, per the outlet.

“Who’s running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?,” the ad, which is still available on Common Cause’s website, reads, along with a cut-out of a laughing Musk and the White House.

It continues: “Since day one, Elon has created chaos and confusion and put our livelihoods at risk. And he is accountable to no one but himself. The Constitution only allows for one president at a time. Call Your Senators and tell them it’s time Donald Trump fire Elon Musk.”

A QR code at the bottom of the page directs readers to the link “Fire.Musk.org” along with a call for donations between $10 and $100 to help the organization hold “power accountable.”

On Monday, Musk took a swipe at the Southern Poverty Law Center in an X post addressing The Post’s refusal to run the ad. “The SPLC is yet another scam. No more mooching off the taxpayer for them,” he tweeted.

Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomón said it was “a signed agreement” and the advert “didn’t raise any concerns that it would be something too inflammatory for them” before the artwork was sent, she told The Hill.

No money was exchanged as the advert didn’t run, she added.

Solomón questioned whether it was the relationship between Jeff Bezos, who attended Trump’s inauguration last month, and the president which meant the advert was pulled from the almost 150-year-old newspaper of record.

“Is it because we’re critical of what’s happening with Elon Musk? Is it only ok to run things in The Post now that won’t anger the president or won’t have him calling Jeff Bezos asking why this was allowed?,” she continued.

Solomón said that artwork was submitted to The Post last week and the group was subsequently told the advert could be inside the paper, but not the wrap.

The newspaper did not explain why it decided to axe the wrap ad, she added.

And while The Post considers advertising from all points of view, it has the right to require substantiation of facts. Advertisers are advised to obtain “the requisite permissions” when using the names or likenesses of individuals, the website reads.

The Common Cause president claimed that The Post sent the group an example advert from the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers of a large picture of the Trump flashing a thumbs up, paying homage to the president’s promise to “end the electric vehicle mandate on Day 1.”

“They gave us some sample art to show us what it would look like. It was a thank-you Donald Trump piece of art,” Solomón said.

“It just causes concern for us. Are they fearful of his reaction?”

Last week, Trump signed an executive order giving Musk even more power, requiring federal agencies to cooperate with DOGE cutting their staffing levels and restricting new hires.

Standing in the Oval Office, Musk refuted that he was leading a coup or “hostile takeover” of government.

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what people are going to get,” he said.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:17 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Musk should be disqualified for responsible positions based on the names he gives his children. If he can't do that simple job right, he can't be trusted with more complicated decisions:

As previously stated, Musk has welcomed 13 children that we know of. He and his first wife, Justine Musk, welcomed six children together named Nevada (who tragically passed away at 10 weeks old), twins Griffan and Vivian, born in April 2004, and triplets Kai, Saxon, and Damian, born in Jan 2006.

Then, he and Grimes welcomed three children named X Æ A-Xii, born in May 2020, Exa Dark Sideræl, born in Dec 2021, and Techno Mechanicus. He and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis also welcomed three children together: twins Azure and Strider, and another child, whose name has never been revealed, back in 2024. And now, he allegedly welcomed a 13th child with Clair.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-gave-one-word-163523012.
html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:21 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Government by the Billionaire Class for the Billionaire Class



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Your TDS is really flaring up today, huh?

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:25 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Government by the Billionaire Class for the Billionaire Class

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Democrats won the votes of Americans making over $100,000. Trump won the votes of those making less than $100,000.

Kamala Harris received and spent in full more than 4 times the amount of campaign contributions than Trump did.

The amount of Billionaires supporting the Democratic Party leading up to the 2024 election was greater than 2-to-1 over Trump.


Get your facts straight, or shut the fuck up.



Also, Bernie Sanders has been the #1 recipient of Big Pharma dollars to his campaigns in Congress. And I know that Bernie is just as unaware of where is money is coming from as Eric Adams was and like most politicians are, but when you're the guy rallying against Big Pharma every day and "speaking truth to power", you should probably have some good accountants making sure that you aren't the biggest recipient of Big Pharma money in Congress.

It also helps the Democrats very little, when Bernie has a net worth over $3 Million and 3 large properties that make most American's houses look like shacks by comparison. That $3 Million is especially impressive, considering that Bernie Sanders has never worked a single day in his very long and privileged life.

Fuck you, Bernie.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:38 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your TDS is really flaring up today, huh?

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, stop walking around the house naked except for wearing your underpants as a hat. You look crazy to the neighbors. Trump always looks crazy, regardless of how he dresses.

“He who saves his country does not violate any laws.” - Trump
“The good of the state stands above the law.” - Hitler

https://x.com/krassenstein/status/1890831415358488974
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-post-critics-declaring-law/story
?id=118880089

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 12:46 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your TDS is really flaring up today, huh?

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, stop walking around the house naked except for wearing your underpants as a hat.


I'm retired. I can do whatever the fuck I want to while I'm in my house.

Also. My underpants aren't made of tin foil, so I don't see what the benefit of wearing them on my head would accomplish.

I know you jerk off to the image in your head of me multiple times every day, but I hate to break it to you that I'm currently wearing a hoodie and sweatpants in the middle of a very cold flash this week.

But 6 months from now in the dead of summer I will be bare-ass naked when I'm destroying your stupid takes.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 1:35 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm retired. I can do whatever the fuck I want to while I'm in my house.

Also. My underpants aren't made of tin foil, so I don't see what the benefit of wearing them on my head would accomplish.

But 6 months from now in the dead of summer I will be bare-ass naked when I'm destroying your stupid takes.
So, my speculations were right. I was right about Trump, too, that he can't run a business:

'Honestly terrifying': Yosemite National Park is in chaos because of Trump

California's beloved national park is on the brink of disaster

By Ashley Harrell, National Parks Bureau Chief | Feb 13, 2025

https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/yosemite-national-park
-in-chaos-20163260.php

Yosemite National Park is in trouble. Hamstrung by President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze, hundreds of rescinded job offers and the threat of coming layoffs, the park is poised to enter its busiest months of the year severely short-staffed. Not only that, but the park’s day-use reservation system — created to protect park resources and improve the visitor experience by reducing crowding — appears unlikely to return this year because of Trump.

Worst of it all, say current and former National Park Service employees, nonprofit leaders and other Yosemite experts interviewed by SFGATE, is that decades of efforts to protect the park’s ecosystems for future generations are being derailed by Trump.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Yosemite is forced to operate with a skeleton staff and no restrictions on visitors. It happened before in December 2018, during Trump’s first term. Without park rangers to guide and monitor their behavior, visitors left garbage at scenic viewpoints, brought dogs to ecologically sensitive meadows and other areas where pets were prohibited, drove over curbs, and even defecated on the ground next to locked restrooms, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. When temperatures dropped, the garbage and human waste froze to the ground. (All caused by Trump being a giant asshole who arbitrarily shut down the National Park Service.)

“The trash cans weren’t getting emptied. There was so much garbage, and everything was getting overrun,” remembers Ken Yager, president of the Yosemite Climbing Association and founder of Yosemite Facelift, a yearly volunteer trash cleanup.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 2:33 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm retired. I can do whatever the fuck I want to while I'm in my house.

Also. My underpants aren't made of tin foil, so I don't see what the benefit of wearing them on my head would accomplish.

But 6 months from now in the dead of summer I will be bare-ass naked when I'm destroying your stupid takes.
So, my speculations were right.


You're a fucking idiot.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 2:45 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.


And that's what's so quaint.

You obviously haven't run into anyone REALLY different bc if you did, you'd know.

You fit smack dab into a stereotype, SIX. A white Midwestern American male stereotype.

If you want to know along what lines I'll let you know.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA



I don't give a shit about stupid opinions, wherever the source.

But by all means, knock yourself out if you're bored.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Also part of the stereotype: Nobody can tell you anything.

You have personality traits that mesh well with some American stereotypes. You're highly intelligent but also deeply oppositional. You have something like ADHD. That meshes with some American cultural stereotypes of individualism, disdain for authority and authoritative education (YOU HATE BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO), independence, do-it-yourselfism.

That is very much tolerated, and even encouraged, in many parts of America. In other cultures, those traits would be beaten out of you, or at least strongly discouraged.

In India, for example, the key to getting ahead is a formal degree and CONNECTIONS. Without it, you're relegated to the unwashed masses. Independent business activity, such as restoring houses or even building a farmholding, would probably be preyed on by corrupt officials and gangs from all sides until nothing was left. You'd be left beating up on women as an expression of your stubbornness.

In China, the big cultural trait seems to be Fitting In. There is room for small independent businesses, but your oppositional political reactions would get you in trouble with your neighbors and probably most officials. The intrusive ever-present cyber-everything and various social credit databases would bug the shit out of you.

In much of eastern Europe, formal education is still prized. Not by you. Aside from perhaps having difficulty attending to formal lectures, YOU HATE BEING TOLD "THE FACTS" by someone you think is a simpering twit.

In western Europe and Britain, which are highly conformist, you'd have to parrot the LGBTQ/ globalist line and get vaccinated.

Clearly, none of the Muslim cultures are for you, not (just) bc they're Muslim... bc even if you could get past your prejudice against that specific religion, you're still non-religious. YOU HATE BEING TOLD WHAT TO BELIEVE.

Based on the number of do-it-yourself vidoes by highly skilled individual craftsmen, you'd probably fit in comfortably in Poland or Vietnam. Most likely Poland bc of climate similarity.

The point being, SIX, that some of your personality traits are at least tolerated here. We have a meme of "the rugged individualist", "the rebel" etc, but those are mostly absent from other cultures. They value other traits.

At least, that's how I see it.




----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 2:52 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by second:

“He who saves his country does not violate any laws.” - Trump
“The good of the state stands above the law.” - Hitler






Nice quote second, says it all.

T

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 4:50 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.


And that's what's so quaint.

You obviously haven't run into anyone REALLY different bc if you did, you'd know.

You fit smack dab into a stereotype, SIX. A white Midwestern American male stereotype.

If you want to know along what lines I'll let you know.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA



I don't give a shit about stupid opinions, wherever the source.

But by all means, knock yourself out if you're bored.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Also part of the stereotype: Nobody can tell you anything.


Fuck your stereotype.

Here's a stereotype for you. That's a "man" thing.

It's also very much a woman thing too.





P.S. I've run into plenty of people who are far different than me. Doesn't matter what color they are, I generally go out of my way to be nowhere within their vicinity if I find them to be unpalatable. I don't go on Twitter and bitch about every time some idiot pisses me off. There's plenty of room for me and the rest of the idiots.


And just because men and women in other countries have most of their individuality beaten out of them, doesn't mean they like it.

I don't believe that outside of advanced brainwashing techniques that we aren't privy to, there isn't any way to truly beat out the individuality out of any person. Short of truly dehumanizing somebody through drugs and stimulation over a prolonged period of time, the only way you're going to get people to give up their individuality is if you get them to willingly give it up because whatever you're offering is so good that they just can't live without it after they've had a taste.


I'm not so far removed from a person who wakes every morning to do slave labor for somebody else under an oppressive government. By that I mean I have enough life experience, abuse, trauma and adversity in my life where I can empathize with anyone in that situation. These people are not without their individuality, even if most of their lives they've been stripped of their dignity.

Quite frankly, you sound like Second right now, Sigs.

You don't know me. And I'm certainly nowhere near the same fucking ballpark as whatever your California-born Midwestern Stereotype in your head is telling you that I am.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 4:51 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Trump delivers ‘massive victory for China’ as he weakens Western alliance

The South China Morning Post reports:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3298855/china-courts
-frazzled-europe-western-alliance-wavers

The world shook this weekend as deep cracks appeared in the transatlantic alliance during a glitzy security summit in Munich. One guest was ready to capitalise: China.

Top officials from the United States and Europe spent a chaotic weekend trading barbs over values, Ukraine and democracy, with US Vice-President J.D. Vance clashing with a series of German leaders over his courting of the far-right ahead of next week’s federal election.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within,” said Vance, who later met Alice Weidel, the leader of the Alternative for Germany, which has been branded “extremist” by German authorities, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Over lunch on Saturday, meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg stoked further despair by saying Europe would not be included in peace talks, even as European boots would be expected on the ground in Ukraine. Vance and others also hinted that America’s security guarantee for Europe was in question.

In the margins, Beijing was making hay.

In a diplomatic blitz, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his conservative opponent Friedrich Merz, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, and counterparts from the European Union, Germany, Spain, and France. On each occasion, according to foreign ministry statements, he pitched China as a partner to Europe and a friend of the existing order.

“China is pleased to see Germany play an important role in the multipolar pattern and is willing to deepen all-round cooperation … and provide more certainty for the turbulent world,” Wang told Scholz, according to a readout.

During a meeting with the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, meanwhile, Wang “emphasised that China supports all efforts conducive to peace and supports Europe’s important role in the peace talks process,” contrasting with Kellogg’s assertions that Europe should not be involved.

Wang made a more blatant pitch to Europe during a keynote speech on Friday, where – right after Vance – he said talk of “China attempting to change the [global] order” has gone quiet in light of Trump’s return.

“Now we don’t see much talk of that because now there is a country that is withdrawing from international treaties and organisations and I think in Europe, you can feel chills almost every day,” the veteran diplomat said.

While Wang’s language was not new, it was in stark contrast with Vance’s. The clear conclusion for many observers was that China sees an opening to improve ties with Europe and, potentially, drive a new wedge in the already fraught transatlantic alliance.

“On China’s side, there’s a great opportunity now that the ideological-driven alliance between the US and EU is subject to change,” said Cheng Li, the founding director of the Centre on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong, who described the US’ rhetoric at the summit as “astonishing”.

The early signs are that after a stormy few years in the EU-China relationship, some leaders in a Trump-battered Europe might be receptive to Beijing’s advances.

“This is a massive victory for China. It is just amazing what Trump has delivered to them, in less than a month,” said one European diplomat, who was not authorised to speak publicly.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 5:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Fuck off, stupid.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 5:15 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:

“He who saves his country does not violate any laws.” - Trump
“The good of the state stands above the law.” - Hitler

Nice quote second, says it all.

T
Trump adopts view of legal impunity invoked by neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik

In his 1500-page manifesto, “A European Declaration of Independence,” Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist who murdered 77 people on July 22, 2011, in the section headed “Because our survival depends on it,” writes, “He who saves his country, violates no law,” which has been attributed (without evidence) to Napoleon.

Donald Trump has now emphatically made the same declaration.

Much more at https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/02/16/trump-adopts-view-of-legal
-impunity-invoked-by-neo-nazi-terrorist-anders-behring-breivik/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 5:37 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck off, stupid.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
50501 Organizers Launch 'Not My Presidents Day' Nationwide Day of Action

https://www.newsweek.com/50501-movement-organizaers-not-my-presidenti-
day-protests-2029529

Dear Americans who do not wish to become Nazis

https://imgur.com/gallery/dear-americans-who-do-not-wish-to-become-naz
is-LweTrb4

Dear Americans,

On this 17th of February, your People have organised a nationwide protest.

Your country’s democracy is being torn apart while you threaten our own democracies around the world, even threatening to invade us, your own allies.

We are at a critical fork in history, much like the world was in the 1930’s. You are the only ones with the collective power to make sure your own country stays on the right side of it.

You need to drop whatever you’re doing and show up today. And every day after that, until you have won back your freedom and your democracy.

You won’t change anything with your endless “Punch a Nazi/Luigi/Guillotine” memes.
It’s time to grow a collective spine. The same collective spine populations around the world have shown against dictators.

Get out there. Stand up.

Do not become the Free World’s Enemy. Do not allow your leaders to make Nazis out of you all.

Show us you are still our friends.

I beg you.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 5:40 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.



Quote:
SIX: So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.

SIGNY: Also part of the stereotype: Nobody can tell you anything.

SIX: Fuck your stereotype.
Here's a stereotype for you. That's a "man" thing.
It's also very much a woman thing too.


Not in other cultures. Here, it's celebrated. Elsewhere, not so much.



Quote:
SIX: P.S. I've run into plenty of people who are far different than me. Doesn't matter what color they are
Do you think I'm talking about COLOR????


Quote:
SIX: I generally go out of my way to be nowhere within their vicinity if I find them to be unpalatable. I don't go on Twitter and bitch about every time some idiot pisses me off. There's plenty of room for me and the rest of the idiots.
Oh, that's another celebrated stereotype: "The Loner".


Quote:
SIX: And just because men and women in other countries have most of their individuality beaten out of them, doesn't mean they like it.
Bc, IN YOUR OPINION, people are all BASICALLY LIKE YOU.


Quote:
SIX: I don't believe that outside of advanced brainwashing techniques that we aren't privy to, there isn't any way to truly beat out the individuality out of any person.
This reminds me of a sociology course that a coworker attended. The teacher said something like "We think were all infivuduals, but I can tell you with 90% accuracy what you all have in your wallets" and proved it by making them take out their wallets and listing what was inside.

People are mostly social creatures and just want to get along at a fundamental level. Would you fart at table at your friend's house? Show up unwashed and stinky? Be rude to your friends? Piss off your doctor?
If you want to see truly unsocialized people, check out schizophrenics and feral people.

Quote:
SIX: I'm not so far removed from a person who wakes every morning to do slave labor for somebody else under an oppressive government. By that I mean I have enough life experience, abuse, trauma and adversity in my life where I can empathize with anyone in that situation. These people are not without their individuality, even if most of their lives they've been stripped of their dignity.

Quite frankly, you sound like Second right now, Sigs.


I think you're missing the point.

Quote:
SIX: You don't know me. And I'm certainly nowhere near the same fucking ballpark as whatever your California-born Midwestern Stereotype in your head is telling you that I am.


No, that is what YOUR head is telling you what I mean. What I mean is ...

The loner.
The rebel.
The rugged individualist.
The plainspoken man.
The person clever enough to do all of the above.

Those are some of our culturally-celebrated stereotypes portrayed over and over again in movies and TV by white men. Little relevance to people of many other cultures, who probably wonder why anyone would make a movie out of such characters.

People ARE NOT basically like you, SIX. Most of them aren't anywhere near as oppositional as you, and most aren't as smart as you.

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Me neither.



*****

Back on topic.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 5:51 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck off, stupid.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
I know life is hard for Trumptards. I'm around them, watching how poorly they handle life's contingencies. If Trump continues on this path, he will make life even harder for them than when Biden was President.

Can Trump Tank the Biden Economy? Here Are Eight Ways

By Dean Baker | Feb 16, 2025

https://cepr.net/publications/can-trump-tank-the-biden-economy-here-ar
e-eight-ways/

President Biden handed off the best economy to an incoming president since at least the 2001 handoff from Clinton to Bush II. In his last quarter in office, GDP grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate (final demand, which excludes inventory fluctuations, grew at a 3.2 percent rate). That brought the average growth rate for Biden’s presidency to 3.2 percent, the highest since Clinton’s second term.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.0 percent in January, keeping it in the narrow band between 4.0 percent and 4.3 percent it has been in since last May. For Biden’s whole term the unemployment rate averaged 4.1 percent, the lowest since Johnson’s last term, more than half a century ago.

Inflation is still slightly above the Fed’s 2.0 percent target, but it shows no clear trend. It’s worth noting in this respect that below 2.0 percent inflation rates were largely a post-Great Recession story. Prior to the Great Recession, inflation generally ran somewhat about 2.0 percent. Inflation, as measured by the CPI, was 3.4 percent in 2000, the last year of the Clinton administration.

In addition, productivity growth has been unexpectedly fast, running at close to a 2.0 percent rate in the last year. And these productivity gains are being passed on in rising real wages, with workers across the wage ladder getting their share of productivity growth.

This translates into an extraordinarily good economic picture, but we know that Donald Trump has big plans for the economy. Given his bold pronouncements coming daily, or even hourly, he has many possible routes for ending the boom we have been seeing.

Here are my eight favorite economy wreckers, in no particular order:

1 Stock market crash,

2 Mass deportation,

3 Tariffs run wild,

4 Pandemic wipe out,

5 Global warming disasters,

6 Splurge of spending cuts,

7 Debt limit crisis,

8 Messing with economic data.

My views on the likelihood of the dangers changes by the hour, or even the minute, as some new craziness spews out of Donald Trump or Elon Musk’s mouth or social media feed. Rather than making an arbitrary, as of this minute, ordering, I’m just going to say that these are equally likely. I’ll quickly go through each in turn.

More at https://cepr.net/publications/can-trump-tank-the-biden-economy-here-ar
e-eight-ways/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 6:17 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
"This Might Be The Biggest Fraud In History"

However, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with streamlining the federal bureaucracy, returned very excited to his social media platform around midnight, unveiling what "might be the biggest fraud in history."

Musk posted a spreadsheet of Social Security Administration data showing "numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!"
IDK what that means. What are the possible entries?

Quote:
The data shows that 20.789 million Americans are collecting social security benefits over the age of 100. Drilling down into the age buckets, benefits are still being paid out to folks over 140!

"Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security," Musk emphasized.

One X user pointed out that 2023 data showed the US population at around 334.9 million. However, Musk's data (likely from DOGE's 'Big Balls' analyst) shows 394 million names in the Social Security Administration database.

Musk responded: "Yes, there are FAR more "eligible" social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history."


Illegals get fake papers created for them, including fake SSNs. They're paying into the system, but will probably not collect benefits. Most likely this represents a net inflow to SSN.

Still, it should be cleaned up.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 6:32 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I wonder if Second has even realized that he's allowed himself to be propagandized so much that he's actively sitting on the sidelines and cheering for America to lose the game.



Fucking idiot.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 6:56 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
SIX: So I'm confused when you say "our culture". I don't feel I share culture with anyone whom I've never met, let alone spent any real time with.

SIGNY: Also part of the stereotype: Nobody can tell you anything.

SIX: Fuck your stereotype.
Here's a stereotype for you. That's a "man" thing.
It's also very much a woman thing too.


Not in other cultures. Here, it's celebrated. Elsewhere, not so much.


What does that matter? You're going to believe what some media from other countries says the people believe about individualism? Or you're going to believe some Muslim woman you knew personally who had decades of her diseased religion beaten into her physically, emotionally and spiritually all of her life? That Muslim woman who is a survivor of and currently still in the everyday process of abuse? If you really got to TRULY know her, and you got her to talk to you about things she dare not speak to anyone for fear of what happened to her in the past happening again, you would realize that up until that very instant you never really knew her at all.

People are people. They aren't Borg. Anybody who is telling you that they do not think of themselves as an individual is either lying to you or they have suffered a lifetime of abuse.

Quote:
Quote:
SIX: P.S. I've run into plenty of people who are far different than me. Doesn't matter what color they are
Do you think I'm talking about COLOR????


That was probably more for the benefits of the idiots reading this than it was for you.

Quote:
Quote:
SIX: I generally go out of my way to be nowhere within their vicinity if I find them to be unpalatable. I don't go on Twitter and bitch about every time some idiot pisses me off. There's plenty of room for me and the rest of the idiots.
Oh, that's another celebrated stereotype: "The Loner".


Oh yeah? How celebrated is it really?

Most white male loners, even the heroes and anti-heroes (or more often than not the white males who invented these characters), end up with a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head or some other equally dramatic exit off the stage, on their own terms.

Quote:
Quote:
SIX: And just because men and women in other countries have most of their individuality beaten out of them, doesn't mean they like it.
Bc, IN YOUR OPINION, people are all BASICALLY LIKE YOU.


This has nothing to do with me. This is a debate over spirituality that has been going on for thousands of years before you started throwing your stereotypes at me this morning.

Quote:
Quote:
SIX: I don't believe that outside of advanced brainwashing techniques that we aren't privy to, there isn't any way to truly beat out the individuality out of any person.
This reminds me of a sociology course that a coworker attended. The teacher said something like "We think were all infivuduals, but I can tell you with 90% accuracy what you all have in your wallets" and proved it by making them take out their wallets and listing what was inside.


Wow! Impressive. Nostradamus levels of intuition on that one! How profound!

Are you fucking kidding me here?

THIS RIGHT HERE IS AN EXACT EXAMPLE OF HOW THE LIBERALS HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHING THE INDIVIDUALITY RIGHT OUT OF PEOPLE IN COLLEGES.

So the fuck what? If you want to live in a society, you're going to carry around money, and a photo ID which is most likely a driver's license if you want to drive a car in a society as well as a student ID that comes with the life of debt and wage slavery that it represents.

What else you got, Socrates? What else am I carrying in my pockets?

No. Actually... I don't have a cell phone. I haven't carried one of those around since 2014.

Get fucked.

Quote:
People are mostly social creatures and just want to get along at a fundamental level. Would you fart at table at your friend's house? Show up unwashed and stinky? Be rude to your friends? Piss off your doctor?
If you want to see truly unsocialized people, check out schizophrenics and feral people.


Why are you choosing to take this to the extreme? You're making a bunch of stupid fucking strawmen arguments here.

It depends on the person. The INDIVIDUAL. My buddy I play pool with shit talks all the time and I feel quite comfortable insulting him. Even his 10 year old home-schooled daughter gets in on the action, and spoiler alert: she's going to be more successful than anybody in her school district that attended public school is.

If I've been out working all day and I drop by, I'm probably going to smell like shit. But I didn't drop by out of the blue. I don't do that. I was invited, and I let you know I was probably going to smell like shit if I came over that day.

Piss off my doctor? Are you forgetting who you're talking to?

Fuck my doctor.

Quote:
Quote:
SIX: I'm not so far removed from a person who wakes every morning to do slave labor for somebody else under an oppressive government. By that I mean I have enough life experience, abuse, trauma and adversity in my life where I can empathize with anyone in that situation. These people are not without their individuality, even if most of their lives they've been stripped of their dignity.

Quite frankly, you sound like Second right now, Sigs.


I think you're missing the point.


I don't know if I am.

Quote:
Quote:
SIX: You don't know me. And I'm certainly nowhere near the same fucking ballpark as whatever your California-born Midwestern Stereotype in your head is telling you that I am.


No, that is what YOUR head is telling you what I mean. What I mean is ...

The loner.
The rebel.
The rugged individualist.
The plainspoken man.
The person clever enough to do all of the above.


That is what your head is telling you that I identify as. I don't brand myself.

Quote:
Those are some of our culturally-celebrated stereotypes portrayed over and over again in movies and TV by white men. Little relevance to people of many other cultures, who probably wonder why anyone would make a movie out of such characters.

People ARE NOT basically like you, SIX. Most of them aren't anywhere near as oppositional as you, and most aren't as smart as you.

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Me neither.



Intelligence is a burden I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Being confrontational should not be conflated with the human spirit or individuality.

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:16 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I didn't say you IDENTIFY AS, but that's how you behave. Consistently and predictably. In a post somewhere up there, you even said you are always "against the power". Even to the point of being against what you were previously for. That's being oppositional.

I've pointed it out to you time and again. "Nobody ever died of Covid" but the vaccine, which is a subset of viral proteins, kills? That's not fact or logic. That just comes from you absofuckinglutely hating being told what to do.

That opposition, which IMHO is on the far end of the bell curve, is part of what makes you, you, and not somebody else. That's what makes others different from you. It's also something that makes it possible for you to be manipulated. All someone has to do is tell you on authority, with threats, what to do and you'll pull in the opposite direction, whether it makes sense or not. IMHO.



-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 7:50 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I wonder if Second has even realized that he's allowed himself to be propagandized so much that he's actively sitting on the sidelines and cheering for America to lose the game.



Fucking idiot.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
When Einstein left Germany in December of 1932, he didn’t have to be a genius to know where the country was headed because the head of Germany was telling the world his plans. Most Germans didn't see a problem with the vague outlines of the master plan. By August 1939, Einstein wrote President Roosevelt a request to nuke Germany. Most Americans don't see a problem with the vague and foggy outline of Trump's master plan, but a letter similar to Einstein's will be written about the USA if Trump does not stop what he told the world about his plans.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240801-it-was-the-one-great-mist
ake-in-my-life-the-letter-from-einstein-that-ushered-in-the-age-of-the-atomic-bomb

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

Monday, February 17, 2025 8:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I didn't say you IDENTIFY AS, but that's how you behave. Consistently and predictably. In a post somewhere up there, you even said you are always "against the power". Even to the point of being against what you were previously for. That's being oppositional.


No. That is not what I said. I never once said that I was against anything that I was previously for. If everything that I was for is carried out by the Trump Administration, that's great.

My concern now comes with the fact that unlike last time, my guy is in there and he ACTUALLY has power, when he had near-zero power 8 years ago relative to now.

That is concerning to me for a WIDE variety of reasons, and my biggest question is what the fuck happened to all that pushback from the side that had been crushing every one of us just months ago.

I'm not an idiot and I'm not going to sit back now and feel like I actually won anything. This has all been far too easy after the election. They're throwing us an Orgy of things we've wanted to see for decades, when we've been taught that nothing ever changes, and all of the campaign promises made are forgotten about after the election takes place.

Now I'm supposed to believe that one man, Donald Trump, is strong enough to take all of them on at one time and that they've fallen before him? Not a chance.

He's being allowed to do what he's doing either because it's what they've wanted all along, or they aren't concerned about what he's doing. Either one of those scenarios is far more troubling than anything I'd imagined before the election.

If he starts really doing things that they don't want him to be doing and he doesn't back down, they will resort to removing him from the equation. Maybe they've already made up their mind to do that and they're just letting enough time pass between the election and the attempt on his life leading up to it so all that isn't so fresh in everyone's minds when they do it. They would know, even though most people forget things after 3 or 4 weeks, something like this would take a little while more to forget about.

I personally have zero regret for my vote, and I am not against anything I was previously for.

Quote:
I've pointed it out to you time and again. "Nobody ever died of Covid" but the vaccine, which is a subset of viral proteins, kills? That's not fact or logic. That just comes from you absofuckinglutely hating being told what to do.


That DOES come from facts and logic. The papers are out there for everyone to read all about it. Whether or not you choose to educate yourself or stick your head in the ground is your choice.

Quote:
That opposition, which IMHO is on the far end of the bell curve, is part of what makes you, you, and not somebody else. That's what makes others different from you. It's also something that makes it possible for you to be manipulated. All someone has to do is tell you on authority, with threats, what to do and you'll pull in the opposite direction, whether it makes sense or not. IMHO.


And all of that didn't just happen overnight in a vacuum.

It happened here, in some random town in America over the course of nearly half a century. The same random town in America that had plenty of otherwise very similar people who ended up entirely different from one another.

Thank you for proving my point for me.




Also, I would think that me expressing my trepidation about everything that is going on right now would prove how difficult it would be to manipulate me. Anything I see online and any people I talk to are over the moon about all of this shit.

I'm the one that's going to start being accused of being a Liberal one day if I keep shitting on everyone's parade and I don't just let them enjoy this after all they've been through.

I think it would take a very long time before anybody I know would start insulting me for any of my takes. But I'm just waiting for the day that JSF comes back in here and calls me a Libtard. It probably won't be long.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

NOTIFY: Y   |  REPLY  |  REPLY WITH QUOTE  |  TOP  |  HOME  

YOUR OPTIONS

NEW POSTS TODAY

USERPOST DATE
SIGNYM 04.03 00:40
6ixStringJack 04.03 01:45
SIGNYM 04.03 04:12
second 04.03 06:24
second 04.03 06:26
second 04.03 06:29
second 04.03 07:10
second 04.03 08:03
second 04.03 08:44
6ixStringJack 04.03 10:23
6ixStringJack 04.03 11:08
SIGNYM 04.03 12:50
SIGNYM 04.03 13:12
6ixStringJack 04.03 13:54

OTHER TOPICS

DISCUSSIONS
Russian losses in Ukraine
Thu, April 3, 2025 16:44 - 1191 posts
Countdown to Trumps 2026 Impeachment.
Thu, April 3, 2025 15:06 - 52 posts
Midterms 2026
Thu, April 3, 2025 13:55 - 32 posts
Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
Thu, April 3, 2025 13:54 - 1303 posts
All things Space
Thu, April 3, 2025 11:21 - 306 posts
A.I Artificial Intelligence AI
Thu, April 3, 2025 11:20 - 299 posts
The Boomer politics vs Gen-X vs Gen Y Melenials vs Generation Z
Thu, April 3, 2025 11:19 - 59 posts
Japanese Culture, S.Korea movies are now outselling American entertainment products
Thu, April 3, 2025 10:56 - 82 posts
Left VS. Right on the economy
Thu, April 3, 2025 08:58 - 27 posts
F'n Mexicans
Thu, April 3, 2025 08:30 - 50 posts
What kind of superpower could China be?
Thu, April 3, 2025 06:43 - 80 posts
Russia Invades Ukraine. Again
Thu, April 3, 2025 06:36 - 8091 posts
 VIEW MORE TOPICS 

FFF.NET SOCIAL