It’s not Nazi-inspired. If it was a government program creating a public portal for relatively standardized private-market health insurance with subsidies for the working poor who aren’t already covered under their employer, sure…
3 Likes
I worry about it and I don’t live there. Just because the republican candidates seem to be racing to outdo each other on the xenophobic bat-shit craziness does not mean that your electorate will be sensible rather than jumping on the bandwagon.
4 Likes
I’m stuck in a meeting without Photoshop access, but can I get at least partial credit for the idea of a gif of Christopher Walken, with Trump’s “hair” that just says ‘Needs More Systems?’
Meeting bailed upon!
Apologies to Mr. Walken…though you two have remarkably similar hair.
6 Likes
There you go Hillary; I corrected this for you.
3 Likes
When I read of Trump’s plans this morning, my initial thought was, “Man, Trump is turning into ‘Inarticulate Hitler.’” Next I expect him to suggest that disabled people needed to be murdered en masse because, “Disabled people are losers - we need to get rid of losers so they’re not holding us back.” It seems pretty much in line with what he’s said.
Part of the suggestion was that their religion would be marked on their identity cards…
The Republican rhetoric from this presidential race has taught me that yes, it could happen here. I always thought it would take a lot of time and major cultural shifts for something like that to happen in the US (again), but popular Republicans have shown we’re a lot closer to that than I would have ever suspected.
10 Likes
Trump would make a great President, perhaps the greatest President, I mean. . . he’s already keeping us safe, since there hasn’t been a terrorist attack on US soil since he started his campaign. He may not even need to start this Muslim database thingy, since his very awesomeness will make all the loser terrorists quake with fear. Duh.
Grow a brain, morans!
3 Likes
Well, fortunately all those people with guns are going to rise up and fight the oppressive government that would do stuff like that, right?
7 Likes
man, i hate that photo of him, and EVERYONE uses it. ok, so i hate pretty much every photo of him, but that one especially so.
1 Like
Aside from the obvious objections; shouldn’t we have learned the lesson that it is dangerously easy to expand your precious database into total uselessness?
Once you put enough people on The List, it is more or less logistically impossible to treat those on the list much differently from those off the list. So you establish the Seriously For Real List; and are pretty much back where you started; only with higher DBA bills.
The media coverage of the Paris attacks is still settling down; but it appears that multiple attackers were “known to intelligence services” or similar not-terribly-descriptive variants of On The List; and it apparently didn’t have much effect.
If you want ‘the list’ to be useful; you either have to be strict enough about admission criteria that you can afford, and justify, doing something additional to people on it; or you have to be so…ethically dis-inhibited… that just rounding up everyone on The List and sending them to the camps is on the table.
That is what adds an extra layer of repugnance to this sort of plan: it’s bad enough to start with the xenophobe’s scapegoat of the moment rather than some actually justifiable selection criteria; but the use of sloppy selection criteria(however tasteful or tasteless), will give you a list that is either utterly useless as a security tool; or is useful only for the most egregious and indiscriminate collective punishment purposes. Best case, you end up wasting a lot of money having spooks and cops chase ghosts. Worst case, people get upset that those tedious procedural protections are making it take too long to process everyone on The List; and you relax standards in order to purge the Xenos more efficiently.
1 Like
My feelings for the fate of America…
1 Like
Meanwhile, Ben Carson ups the crazy ante by being shocked that America doesn’t already have systems in place to constantly track all citizens, because he thinks that’s a swell idea. The party of small government, my ass.
https://amp.twimg.com/v/5c3a2a84-682e-4d33-84a5-1e1069b49911
12 Likes
I agree, it’s humbling to see similar attitudes bubbling to the surface. I’m having a hard time articulating my thoughts exactly, but I understand it doesn’t take a wholly evil and complete population of a country to be complicit in creating an atrocity, and the last few months make it clear that there are popular attitudes much closer to the edge than I’m comfortable with. Tribalism is a hell of a phenomenon.
3 Likes
We need to know your name, your address, your job, your use of transit, your credit card receipts (except at gun stores), your bank account balance and transactions (except when there is a transfer to a gun store), your full list of purchases (except guns), the contents of your house (except guns), your political beliefs (except those regarding guns), etc.
12 Likes
It’s kind of interesting in a way to watch… As they’ve been painting themselves into an extremist corner for many years now and are left with a handful of candidates with the sanity equivalent to a box of crazed ferrets to choose from.
I just hope their gamble doesn’t get lucky and they get elected, it’ll make the Bush years seem frighteningly moderate in comparison 
1 Like
Statistically, given the politics of gun ownership, those are likely to be the people creating the problem in the first place. I’m not sure how that works out in relation to that justification for gun ownership…
That ain’t a single!
1 Like
I noticed that afterwards – didn’t notice on my mobile.
Here’s the actual exchange.
2 Likes
Fine, you’re on for a buck.
(What’s the bet again?)
1 Like
I have to say, I’m kind of waiting for the US empire to implode and Mr Hairpiece here might just be the git to get it done…
2 Likes
