PhilipTheBucket

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I meant listen to people like this. I definitely didn't mean listen to the MAGA people, no.

That oughta fix it

Maybe stop saying the exact things the Russian bots are saying?

I don't at all think that every single person (or even most of them) that thinks shooting right-wing politicians is a good idea, is a Russian bot. But definitely I think you should rethink what you believe and closely and calmly read up on what the people who disagree with you think about it, if you're so similar to the literal Russian bots that people are prone to confusing you for one.

They did, somewhat, back in the early 20th century. There was a massive labor movement, direct engagement into political life by a whole lot of ordinary people, and a big effort to turn the awesome power of the central government into working to address ordinary (white) people's problems.

It's part of what made it into a superpower by the 1950s. Before that it was just farms and racism. Then we got lazy, and let the assholes take over as the decades rolled by. But we can recover again, it just takes a ton of work.

very specific academic definition that most people use

Definitely not lol. Almost nothing in political philosophy works this way, where everyone generally agrees on what the big and heavy loaded words mean, that have been in use worldwide and for centuries in all kinds of situations.

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.[1][2] Liberals espouse various and sometimes conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.[3] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[4][5]: 11 

So that's the definition that everyone agrees on -- so any liberal would strongly oppose Israel, because they're violating any number of those principles (basically all of them), right? You'd agree with that? Or no? I have a feeling you're about to educate me again.

Thank you for providing an excellent example of how people react once that "enemy" box that I was talking about gets triggered. "It's not my fault you were raised" etc is a perfect example of how people talk when they think they're talking to an "enemy," and attacking is more important than anything else.

(Mao also thought that killing all the birds would help the agriculture, I don't really take him as any kind of authority on how stuff works. MLK Jr. would have been a better example.)

Too many people on the left don’t want illegal immigration. I don’t want illegal immigration. But, I really am disgusted with how it’s being handled now (and in the past too).

Jesse what the fuck are you talking about

I personally don't care about "illegal immigration." I've had good friends who came here "illegally," and ones who've experienced some extremely severe consequences because of it. Fuck that. But even regardless of all that, what ICE is currently doing has absolutely 0 to do with enforcing immigration law. They're actually breaking immigration law left and right and violating a bunch of different court orders. If you care about "legal vs illegal," which again in this case I couldn't possibly give less of a fuck about, you should be extremely upset against ICE right now, and agitating to stop them.

Now, I don’t mean we should all go shoot people

Good, glad we agree on that part.

but those politicians and “influencers” promoting hate and fascism need to feel deep down that they are truly unsafe.

I don't necessarily disagree. But, there is a way to do that that can escalate into a real revolution of the people that will still maintain a working country. There is also a way to do it that can escalate into AOC and Bernie being the first up on the assassination list, along with Hasanabi, Paul Pelosi, the local mayor if he tries to put in bike lanes, fuckin' whatever.

This particular way of "fighting" for improvement is guaranteed to make things worse.

We need to make them stop—with escalating intensity that stops when they stop.

This part, I completely agree with. Is your impression that shooting Charlie Kirk will make them stop? I think it will make them accelerate. There is no number of Charlie Kirks that you can shoot that will ever make them stop.

They have a lot more money for security than Elizabeth Warren does. There is one side and one side only that will be disproportionately impacted by this.

Yeah, dental issue. Sure.

I don't think the chicken likes it.

Reposted it just so I could paste this comment, the original was in a place I am banned from:

They’re not the same, but if you look at the big picture, like a livable vs an unlivable biosphere, then the slightly-lesser evil is still omnicidally evil (and helping with a genocide).

Record oil and gas drilling, multi-time failure to codify Roe, redlining, gave away the public option, Manchin’s removed, Bibi’s removed, tricked Warren to betray Bernie for nothing, fascist crackdown on peacefully protesting college kids, ancient dinosaur who’s out of touch. I could go on.

There are other options aside from red and blue, and as a swing state voter, I’ll be taking them.

Biden oversaw the largest expansion of oil drilling in American history. Have US CO2 emissions declined under Biden’s term? He also put up huge tariffs on Chinese EVs, batteries, and solar panels. He chose to put American business interests ahead of helping the environment. A few days ago, as a lame duck, he grabbed headlines by barring oil drilling in a bunch of US waters. But he only banned drilling in areas that the oil industry has no interest in operating in anyway. The coastal areas that actually have a potential for future drilling expansion? He left those alone. All style and no substance; it’s the Biden way.

Him giving a bit of relief to problems he created doesn’t make him good. Him throwing money at corporations doesn’t make him good. Biden has done some good things, but his achievements are overstated, inflated, and are far away from what would be considered good overall.

These are quotes from various idiots, before the elections. It's worthwhile to study the form of their super passionate arguments here -- notably, the extreme emotional tone about it, and also the hyper-focus on particular aspects, and catchy arguments. It sounds like it makes sense. But none of it is "here's a chart of the overall impact of Biden's term, and here's what will probably happen under Trump." Which would be, you know, the actual picture, like this image.

You should donate (and volunteer) for the people organizing against ICE, or legal defense for people in their crosshairs. That can develop into an actual resistance as things get worse and steadily worse (which they probably will). Donating to encourage random assassination will instead make things exponentially worse, it will basically hand it over to the Charlie Kirks of the world.