azimir

I feel you misunderstood. North Korea has elections. Russia has elections. Syria under Assas had elections. Strangely, the dictators always won by huge margins. Many dictators have a farce of a democracy to both give the people they rule a veneer of hope of freedom and to muddy the waters on the international stage.

Stalin had elections in Soviet Russia but he made it clear he didn't care who voted. He cared about who counted the votes. Once the democratic institutions are subverted and their independence destroyed by a leader that leader gets to choose who sits in the seats: judges, legislators, bureaucrats, officers, and especially elections officials.

You're right about the citizens being responsible for defending the institutions. In the end, the ultimate responsibility for the health of the republic lies with the people, not the government. The US does not understand just how much we have failed to defend the republic and we are on the verge of losing it.

It's the same reason dictators love elections: they appoint the people who run them to wrap the dictators actions in a veil of fake approval and oversight. It's just rubber stamping fascism.

Conservatism consists of one core value: there should be laws that protect, but do not bind, the in group while the same laws bind, but do not protect, the out group.

Then immediately borrow real money against the paper value of your new merger company. Pocket a few billion and use some to bribe the feds to not audit you.

It's crime all the way down.

The "Land of the Brave" but was completely belied by our response to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. We cried and lashes out at random thing until we hurt ourselves over and over.

Brave would have been standing strong and not trying to genocide the middle East writ large. Instead we did the PATRIOT act maneuver and removed our civil liberties before flushing our world leadership position down the toilet out of fear.

Here's the especially fun part: the people deciding 'norm' will always find a way to slice the in group into ever smaller wedges.

The Right Wing is a death cult. It eats everything until they're forced to eat themselves because without an out group to persecute they don't have any real purpose. So, they just keep making more out group until they're forced to shoot themselves too.

Land of the free! Small government!

Just small enough to fit into your pants...

Every vote for a Republican/Conservative is a vote against liberty.

It's been that way on a lot of vectors. For example, if you are neurotic about something and poor, you are called crazy. If you're neurotic about the same thing and rich, then you're eccentric.

That is a gute Idee.

I'll make a note and see if I can convince someone to tag along for our appointment.

So far my German immigration process has been hazy at every step. It's more like the information isn't clear and the process requires careful reading of shifting rules all the time. Not so much antagonism, more like underfunded infrastructure.

We're moving with as many of our adult children as we can convince and logistically manage out of this place. The US is losing two STEM PhD holders, multiple bachelors in engineering, and other bachelors degree holders. Yes, we're stupidly lucky to have the resources to make the move, but it's going to basically destroy my retirement resources. It's worth it if my children have a chance of a better life. We're racing the clock to get out before the borders are closed.

Fuck the Nazis in charge of this place and the people who voted them into power.

Danke!

I've been visiting Germany since 1995. I've been to many countries around the world, but there's something about how Germany feels that's just right to me. I'm very excited to really give it a try as a new home.

I've been dreaming about having a döner. It's time.