leftzero

Turns out the smallest kitty is the least scaredy-cat of them all, while the biggest (Samson) is by far the most scared one.

Obviously, the smaller the cat, the harder to hit, and easier to hide.

It was the black death.

It caused wages to rise due to the reduction in available labour force, and increased social mobility (through the amount of positions it left available) and personal wealth of the survivors (through inheritance and looting), kick-starting the renaissance.

From there, it was all dominoes. More wealth allowed more commerce and innovation (here's where the naval technology comes in), which led to the discovery and ransacking (and eventual colonisation of America) which led to more wealth and commerce and innovation and social mobility, which led to less social stability, wars, more innovation, a series of political, social, and industrial revolutions, a vicious circle of runaway capitalism devouring everything in its path, the ideal of eternal growth, and the raping to death of the only world we have.

No black death, we'd probably still be living in the middle ages (with better plows and bigger cathedrals, sure, there was still plenty of innovation back then), and complaining about the cold instead of the ever rising heat.

Two things can both be wrong

When one of those two things is fascism, the other one is irrelevant.

The difference in magnitude between how wrong one objectively is and the other might be is so cosmically vast, that any comparison is moot.

You either stop fascism, by any means necessary, or you (and everyone else) suffers the consequences.

Again, there is no possible middle ground.

There is no possible “yes, but...”.

There are no other priorities.

There's no possible bargaining, rationalisation, justification, or argument.

Any attempt at such is either irrational or malicious, or most probably both.

When faced with an existential threat, you either do everything in your power to stop it, or you suffer its consequences, and allow everyone else to suffer them.

If you are not actively opposing fascism, you are enabling it.

You are a necessary accomplice and collaborator.

You are effectively indistinguishable from any other fascist, and equally responsible for any harm they cause.

Accept your responsibility and, if you don't like it, stop trying to justify yourself and start doing something about it.

how is it also not a problem for people to violate immigration law

Because they don't give a flying fuck about whether the people they're disappearing have violated any laws or not.

They've disappeared citizens, they've disappeared people following the legal process to immigrate, without letting them finish, they've disappeared tourists who didn't even have any intention to immigrate.

They're fascists. They don't care about the law. It's just an excuse to do what they want. Marketing to attract gullible racist idiots to their cause.

But, even if that wasn't enough, even if you don't care about their real motives, even if you don't care whether the law is good or not or how it's applied, as I said in my previous answer they're designing their new laws in such a way that it's impossible for anyone not to violate them.

Even if you were to always carry your parents' and grandparents' birth certificates on you, what about your great grandparents?

Everyone in the USA is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants! (Sure, some got there long enough ago that they were probably the first to arrive and can therefore be called natives, but they're the wrong colour, so they don't matter and will be disappeared anyway.)

Ironically, the only people who'll be able to prove they're in the country legally (not that it matters, since, as I said, the fascists don't care) will be those with a green card, properly stamped foreign passport, or similar documents.

Making laws impossible to follow and then applying them arbitrarily to achieve their own goals and not the laws' has been standard fascist fare since fascism was invented (and, before that, standard autocratic authoritarian fare).

Watching fascists do their thing and pointing at the law and saying that their victims deserved it or should have known better is disingenuous at best, almost certainly malicious, and definitely monstrous.

And I'll finish with this:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Now, I'm not an American, I don't care about American nationalism or pride, but this is what America, the USA, was supposed to be, what it was supposed to mean. A nation of immigrants, welcoming liberty seeking refugees to her shores. A beacon of freedom and democracy to which everyone could aspire.

Of course, it never really was that. But it was a nice thought.

Something is clear, though; anyone justifying the current government's actions in the name of defending America, or American ideals or culture is either extremely ignorant or an hypocrite. And they're most definitely un-American.

And I'll finish with this

Ah, no, wait, sorry, there's also this:

This is the problem I have that leaves me stuck in the middle.

There's no middle ground with fascists.

You're either actively against them, or you're part of the problem.

Maybe you're one of them, or just a useful hateful racist idiot aiding and abetting them while you wait for your turn to be disappeared for not being fascist enough, but if you're not fighting against them you're contributing to their crimes against humanity.

And if you're just a useful idiot, bear this in mind:

You won't appease them. They won't stop. They won't thank you. They won't hesitate to treat you like any other undesirable (including many who believed themselves to be part of their group). You'll end up like any other “illegal immigrant” when your turn comes.

And if they're not stopped, rest assured, it will come.

It makes complete sense when you understand that the goal isn't to deport “illegal immigrants” (whatever that's supposed to mean), but anyone they want (and that “deport” effectively means disappear).

Your only defence is to be a member (in good standing) of their group (and only as long as you remain in good standing).

Otherwise you're fair game.

And there's nothing you can legally do about it (except leave the country before they get to you, but then you risk getting caught as you cross the border to leave), because it's intentionally impossible for you to follow the law.

To clarify, local (i.e., municipal) police does exist (generally in towns and cities with more than 5,000 citizens), and is usually called guardia urbana, policía local, or policía municipal. These are who you'd call for a noise complaint.

There's also, as I said, the policía nacional and the guardia civil, both operating in the whole country.

And some autonomías (states, if Spain was federal...ish, which it sort of kind of is somewhat supposed to be, in theory, but effectively isn't, in practice) also have their own police force (which doesn't mean the others won't also operate there, of course).

It's a complicated country, mostly because it's really several, held together with duct tape and, occasionally, barbed wire.

Not the local police.

Not even the main Spanish police (the policía nacional).

The fucking guardia civil.

The military (despite the name) police inherited from Franco's dictatorship and somehow never disbanded.

The ones who attempted a coup back in '81 to bring back the dictatorship.

These ain't your regular local variety pigs.

There's absolutely no reason for them to have been called for a noise complaint.

Something stinks here, even more than the pigs themselves, even if they belong to a particularly stinky breed.

Horny cats might randomly bite your ankle (if male) or enrich your nights (and your neighbours') with the song of their people (if female), but I've never seen a cat trying to hump a human (or anything other than another cat).

Dogs? Sure. Endangered New Zealand flightless parrots? Yeah. Once. On video. Cats? Not once.

Is the first one a siamese..?

Extremely chatty critters, those...

Cats have standards.

The triangle / circle / square (or back / home / app tray) navigation system.

I've had to re-enable it on my last phones because they come with the much less usable new gesture navigation, and I dread the day it's not an option anymore.

The classic app drawer.

If I wanted an iPhone (with their cluttered, unusable, and extremely user hostile design) I'd get an iPhone.

I don't want my screen cluttered with random icons, I want multiple sliding screens with widgets for the apps I need to be able to check at a glance, with a row of quick access apps / app folders at the bottom (slidable and hidable if possible), with an icon to access the list of less used apps on the top right, where it used to be back when android was useable instead of a cheap iOS clone.

Luckily third party launchers are still a thing.

Indeed it is!