Yes. They’re in a D/s relationship with Trump.
3 Likes
What concerns me more is the nearly 40% of the electorate who looked at a choice between Trump and Clinton and shrugged their shoulders and didn’t vote, or gagged and didn’t vote. That portion who wish us harm has always been there (although I think the number is lower that 1/3, but that’s just my opinion) and I have always been aware of them. The apathetic and the people who equate the Clintons of politics with the Trumps of politics are the ones who really frighten me. We outnumber the 1/3 you talk about, but we don’t outnumber them + 40%.
4 Likes
-
If he is in a state where it is legal, he could buy one now. But they are prohibitively expensive due to supply and demand.
-
To make it where it is affordable they would have to repeal the 1986 law that closed the NFA registry for new entries. (Might happen, but its not like, an actual bill, but you will still have to go through the ATF background and pay a $200 tax and wait a year.)
OR
-
Repeal the NFA - but that I don’t see happening.
-
Getting an FFL license is easy, but not cheap. He could do that under Obama (its not that expensive, but more than the average person wants to pay.)
-
This reaffirms my theory that nothing makes an American want something more than if you ban it. They should ban like broccoli or something.
3 Likes
Exactly. 45 gets tossed out, then we have President Pence who will try to make this a “Christian” nation. Not to mention Bannon will still be there
thanks for harshing my buzz man!!
don’t worry, the Swedes are good at rebuilding.
Silly boy, free speech only applies if I like what you are saying!! - TGOP/Drumpf/alt-right
Easy. Tell them 'You want the South to rise again, fine" Get all the progressives out, let the Southern states/Texas leave, watch them flounder around without federal money.
3 Likes
Except, ironically, most of the cowboys that they romanticize were Latino or black.
11 Likes
I’m pretty sure that if we dissolved the union the same dynamic would play out on a smaller scale as rural countries rebel against the urban centers. New York, for example, already has a movement to separate upstate from the city. We talk about red states and blue states, but so much of this is really urban vs. rural—and it’s worth remembering where our food comes from.
5 Likes
true…
humans are such a stupid bunch…
1 Like
Would the people who like this t-shirt think it would be OK if someone made a similar shirt with “Deplorables” instead of “Journalist”? Or would they start frothing at the mouth about how some liberal wants to kill them?
14 Likes
Deep in our hearts, we all know the answer to that question… Not that they’d ever admit to it.
8 Likes
28 Likes
I think our time would be better spent talking to nonvoters and centrists about the need to contain the fascist right.
9 Likes
####Who says white racist-fascists don’t have a sense of humor?!
1 Like
These are the same people who are convinced that Obamacare is a pox upon the country and needs to be repealed as soon as possible, while simultaneously getting health coverage from the ACA (the proper term for the very program they “hate”). This is the next step in that “logical” progression. American politicians, especially the Republicans, have gotten fat off of getting people to actively go against their own self interest for years. This tinpot dictatorship is just the endgame, it just wasn’t supposed to be headed by an orange baboon with tiny hands.
7 Likes
I think it’s that’s a fairly dangerous path to go down. We on the left have achieved a massive cultural shift in Western society over the last few decades which has made rendered the institutions treasured by millions of people more or less meaningless.
For the substantial percentage of the population for whom diversity is not welcome, the policies that I favour (and that have decisively won) have harmed them, destroying social bonds and organizations that were instrumental in their lives.
I consider those changes to be worth the cost (perhaps because I’m not paying those costs), but I notice that most of us the left aren’t in a hurry to have open borders, admit a billion and have the culture that we value swept away, despite it producing better results for humanity as a whole.
This doesn’t discount the good of our policies. But pretending that the harm is all “them inflicting it on us” is ignoring the reality that a substantial proportion of the populace holds a happiness/utility function distinctly different from our own, and we’ve been in a more or less unbroken win sequence for the last 70 years at their expense.
Social change doesn’t move fast enough for my liking, as I see the harm that intolerance causes. But I’m not going to pretend that social change doesn’t make a lot of people unhappy - and I am willing to harm them (by making them unhappy) to see social change advance further.
It’s wise to remember that tolerance of differences is not the natural state of humanity. It’s a condition that we’re programmed against by evolution. And pushing tolerance is always going to seem counter-intuitive, unnatural, and outright misery-making to a significant segment of the population.
(Luckily, we’re a pretty flexible species. If we can hold most our gains for a generation or two, we seem to make a new normal. Sadly for me, I want change in years, not centuries.)
2 Likes
I have an intelligent friend with whom I have a lot in common, except for his being on the extreme right. He tries to research things and thinks his views are completely valid. However, he has the most intense confirmation bias I’ve ever seen (he thinks voter fraud is far more widespread than it is, and thinks voters who can’t get to the polls probably shouldn’t vote anyway). I have tried to talk to him but nothing works. He’s not violent at all, but his vote counts. I could never change his opinion in a million years.
I think this is the only path to restoring the country. But what do we do with the armed and violent people who think like my friend do? They are an incredible danger, and now feel empowered.
3 Likes
I think I need you to be more specific because I don’t see how diversity has harmed anyone or ruined anyone’s social bonds or organizations. By making the public sphere more inclusive we’re not demanding that anyone give up their own way of life. Building a mosque doesn’t mean you have to tear down a church. Gay marriage may be legal, but it’s not mandatory.
They may feel social change as an attack upon their way of life, but they’re simply wrong. The only thing they’re losing is privilege and, if anything, they benefit from this. When medical school isn’t just for white men anymore, there’s more competition—but when you need heart surgery, you want the best doctor available, not the best white male doctor.
I understand where you’re coming from with respect to the psychology of it. I just don’t agree that social change (as opposed to neoliberal economic policies) has actually harmed anyone.
7 Likes
Couldn’t agree more. Am I right?
Underpaid, exploited Mexican farmhands without citizenship papers.
7 Likes
How odd. If we take happiness out of the equation, then aren’t we taking the Libertarian point of view that the State should only be promoting economic growth and physical security - happiness is not a concern for government?
Indeed, but the bulk of the developed world would go to war to protect it’s economic privilege rather than see the average household earn a world-wide average income. Would you call it harm that if suddenly had to share our unearned bounty with the rest of the world and our income dropped to average $10K?
Most of the world would see it as justice and egalitarianism. But wouldn’t you see it as harm?
1 Like
I agree that much of the bounty is unearned, but your reductio ad absurdum suggests to me that you think you’re a player in a zero sum game. I think this game has a different sum.
8 Likes
