Occamsrazer

Plus it has a sweet soundtrack

I had similar experiences, and couldn't understand why they would discourage dialog and discussion around various issues. The thing is, they don't actually want dialog, they want to stamp out opposition to their views as though it never existed.

You probably commented on one of the verboten subreddits. That's how I got most of my bans.

That depends. Can you name any nazis? How do you define or identify a nazi?

I hate smoking stock photos. Clearly she has never smoked in her life.

Hah! I remember reddit

Centrists exist because they listen to alternative views and can empathize with those views even if they don't quite agree with them or if they can't decide between the pros and cons. But to an extremist on either side, it looks like they are stupid, weak, or possibly just bad people, because if they were smart, Good people, then the centrists would OBVIOUSLY agree with THEM, and then they wouldn't be centrists. This lacking of empathy or inability to understand opposing viewpoints, and therefore assuming malice or evil as the motive of anyone not WITH them, is the hallmark of all extremists.

Oh yeah, also people hate centrists because they come across as smug. Sorry about that.

Maybe I'm not understanding your comment, but in certain contexts, gender identity is not relevant but biological sex IS, such as in treatment or early diagnosis of cancers that are specific to one sex or the other. Hospitals need to be able to communicate verbally and in email or written correspondence about these things, but if language is obfuscated to the point where it is not clear what that individual's risks are (based on their sex), then it is only that individual who will be worse off for it. This point doesn't need to be extrapolated to larger contexts for political power, but it should also not be ignored because of possible implications to larger gender identity questions.

Do you actually believe this? I know a lot of conservatives, some more extreme than others, but none of them envision this kind of world, not even the ones that wanted to be at the Capitol on Jan 6. It's contrary to virtually all Christian, conservative values. The whole premise of this story wouldn't even hold up unless there were an extreme event causing a massive shortage of fertile women. In that case, there is no telling what kind of dystopia would emerge. Frank Herbert wrote "The White plague" in 1982 (a couple years before the handmaid's tale), where women were nearly wiped out altogether, and it plays out similar in some respects, wildly different in others. In any event, it's not a "goal" of any sane person, and certainly not the goal of half of the country.

The main problem with this book is in how it is applied by various people to Christianity in general (as opposed to a fringe cult), or used as an analogy of events today. It might apply in some cases, but those are so rare and unusual (back woods polygamist cults and the like), that they really don't deserve to be discussed in context of current politics.

Other than political gain for one team or the other, what is the argument for expanding the supreme Court?

I vowed to be done with it when it became subscription based, and now here I am. Kind of glad actually, been looking for an excuse for years as the site became more and more stale, unoriginal, and politics began to overwhelm everything. Maybe this is just how it has to be every decade or so.