mozz

Wheres your red line between directly causing 6 million deaths and heavily funding and even sending airplanes to people who have killed 20k women and children. Because if one thinks its only genocide if you're directly ordering the death of 6 million, you're going to miss a lot of genocides that are clearly happening.

It’s actually a really good question. I think every iteration of US foreign policy I’ve been alive for has been horrific. I think a good way is, once it’s reduced to a choice between 2 options, pick the one that’s less bad if there is a massive visible difference (as there is in this election). And then, also, exercise pressure to push the less-bad option to be better (the uncommitted vote, calling and opposing aid for Israel, pushing in future primaries for candidates that are less bad).

Trying to push for better than Biden’s current standard I think is a great idea. The only part I object to is risking letting things get 10 times worse because of a pointless grandstanding gesture, while pretending that you’re helping.

Ukraine I definitely think we should send help to also, yes, and more than we have.

It’s not a matter of “this is where my line for something being bad,” it’s just that once it’s down to 2 options, you can pick the one that’s less bad and will save a bunch of lives instead of waiting for the US government to start having an enlightened foreign policy all of a sudden by magic, and then getting involved.

I imagine it’s just incredibly difficult to take your job super seriously when any given thing only happens like once every 5-10 years, and probably not to you. I imagine most secret service people who are doing security spend 100% of their careers just standing around and then retire with nothing having happened.

At one point, US embassy security details had this problem, and what they settled on was rotating active-duty combat troops in straight from the field so they were super alert. After about 6 months they would start to relax, and they would rotate them out and have fresh people.

I won’t claim to know what the answer is for the SS but clearly there are some issues with the way they’re doing it.

I will say, the instant Biden puts 6 million civilians to death and starts a war that kills 70 million people I'm definitely planning not to vote for him.

Or!

I know, when people write books about fascism they write about all the weapons Hitler sold to other countries and how that was the real problem and what those other countries did with the weapons. Everyone knows such a thing was un heard of before Hitler, and now under Biden, it's coming again. There are whole museums devoted to Hitler's weapons sales.

Or!

I know... some of the holocaust survivors who were alive in 2016 had these sort of chilling interviews where they talked about the eerie similarities between Biden and Hitler and how they really hoped people would realize how important it was not to vote for Biden. They didn't really put a lot of attention into who his opponent was, because they said that's not the point.

Take your pick, this one is a choose your own adventure

Your definition of Hitler is clearly very different from my definition of Hitler

For some, it’s a red line letting full-strength Hitler style genocidal authoritarian fascism take over the most powerful country in the world, and resisting it is a better idea than pointless gestures of token resistance to somewhat more minor world power misbehavior, which ultimately benefit literally nobody at all

But everybody’s different

I just rewatched the video and the cat definitely looks a little alarmed and disappointed when she drops the mouse and it bolts and the human does absolutely nothing to move to catch it

"Cynthia you're fuckin useless, I literally dropped the mouse ON YOUR HEAD I don't know what else I can do for you"

I wonder if some of them maybe hang out on social media where certain very vocal people they’ve never met tend to create a general picture of an overall narrative and what priorities seem important and what politicians are disappointing when seen in the light of that narrative

I wonder if you have actually had one of these conversations. They’ve never heard Trump say those things. They have no ideas what’s in his policies, or his speeches, or anything about anything. They just know what’s been reported to them, and it’s all Trump all the way.

It’s hard. Humans are wired a certain way. They knit together into little societies where everyone agrees about certain things. And if literally every single person including every flesh and blood person you talk with, and every person you are parasocially connected with on the TV and Facebook and all these weird news sites with names like realpatriotrollofhonor.com, all agrees it’s one way, and furthermore anyone who disagrees with any of it is the ENEMY and needs to be attacked and ostracized, it’s pretty tough to get to the truth on your own.

I think having a bizarrely fractured world in your head where this stuff all makes sense is much more common than just being a POS who loves authoritarians. I certainly won't say there is 0 overlap, and I’m not trying to excuse any of it in any way - just saying what I think is going on.

Because the media they consume amped them all up to think January 6th was all a fake, Biden is the one seizing power and stealing elections, and now he’s trying to disable the secret service protection of Trump and get him killed on purpose to stay in power, all kinds of crazy nonsense.

Even on January 6th, in the video where the guy is getting crushed in the door, you can hear a couple people in the crowd who are really alarmed that the guy is hurt. A lot of what’s going on with the Republican rank and file is that they are more or less normal people but the picture is their head is this crazy nonsense that makes it make sense to have the Republicans in charge. They think they are saving America when they are doing these things. I was talking with one yesterday, and he was super in favor of fair elections, paper ballots, representatives from both sides being there to oversee the process… basically he really doesn’t (like sincerely really doesn’t) want his side to steal the election. He just wants it to be fair. And his media has him all amped up on crazy nonsense where that’s not what is happening and the Democrats are stealing elections and ending American democracy and they have to be stopped. And so, the people who really do want to steal elections know exactly how to utilize him to do it.

The model where it’s just like 40% of Americans are these horrible people who are just doing violent crooked things on purpose, is not what it happening, and turning on a personal level against the people who are victimized by GOP propaganda is in my opinion not the way.

What happened to ls -d .* though

Just being hospitable

It means he loves you

Just take the mouse man. I want you to have it. You’re my boy and my mice are your mice man, do you understand? I see you eating broccoli and shit sometimes. I get you don’t want to say anything if times are hard, but just let me help. Take the mouse, man, and let’s just say no more about it.