TheSanSabaSongbird

No, conservatism is ultimately about some people being naturally more deserving than others. It really is that simple. Everything else follows from that proposition. There's no reason to further complicate it by looking for more proximate explanations.

"Need" probably isn't the best word. It's not a "need" so much as it is a belief. They "believe" themselves to be better and more deserving. Everything else follows from that. Start plugging it into what you know about conservatives and you will immediately see that it's by far the best and simplest explanation.

Also bear in mind that people are often, and in fact quite usually, unaware of why they hold certain opinions and far from using reason to arrive at their opinions, tend to arrive at an opinion and then use reason to rationalize why it's correct.

The SCOTUS is a great example; we already know how the justices will rule because we already know their underlying opinions about the world. What we don't know is how they will justify their rulings. If this weren't true, then neither party would care about SCOTUS nominations. The fact that we care very much tells you that we all privately know that I am right.

You and I do it too. We all do. Some of us are more aware of it than others.

You will need a different source. That one is dodgy as fuck. We don't fight right wing disinformation by trotting out disinformation of our own, so unless you can come up with a better source, no one should take your claim seriously.

They already do avoid most journalists, for precisely that reason. Neutrality, to the insane Republican party, is the same thing as a far left bias.

It's really not that weird at all. It's a simple consequence of the EU having better consumer protection laws. Unfortunately the far right in the US is a lot stronger than in most of Europe and has been since the post-war era.

We also, in the US, have an old and antiquated system that was deliberately designed to be difficult to change because the founders had to convince the slave-owning class that abolition couldn't be forced on them if they agreed to join the newly-formed union. How did they do that? You guessed it! By making the Constitution almost impossible to change, which is one reason why it required the bloodiest war in our history to end slavery.

Again, there's nothing especially "weird" about it. As is true of a lot of contemporary reality, it's largely a consequence of history.

Interestingly, tipping culture is also at least tangentially a product of slavery as well, but that's a bit more complicated so I'll save it for another comment.

And if you're starting to suspect that a ton of what ails the US can be traced directly back to slavery, here's a hint; you may be on to something!

That said, it was the European colonial powers who brought slavery to North America in the first place, which kind of brings us full circle.

We actually do have that in the US as well, but it's typically in very fine print and a lot of people don't even know about it.

Not only that, but there's a very strong case to be made that from a purely economic perspective, a tipless system is better for everyone.

It's cultural appropriation!

It's also, interestingly, the symbol that the Zodiac Killer used.

That's my understanding. I always understood "Great Britain" to refer to the entire island composed of England, Scotland and Wales. Maybe I'm wrong or there are certain use exceptions?

I don't know about that. I've run across some real turds from Yamaha over the years. That said, it's been about 20 years since I last played one and maybe they've upped their game. For my money Guild makes the best lower-priced guitars, though granted they're mostly more expensive than Yamahas.

Not I. I downvoted because it's a stupid pointless comment that contributes nothing to the discussion. Can't speak for others however.

She has inside knowledge of one of the candidates. That's very relevant whether you like it or not.