“I know I support the murder of you and your people. But I’m still going to need you to vote for me, so that I can preserve democracy and the economy. You may not live to see it, but the rest of us will really appreciate it.”

I for one could never vote for a man to be president. Men are just too emotional to serve as leaders. Do you really want some roid-rage dude with his hands on the nuclear button? Please. Men are just too pigheaded, irrational, and obsessed with petty dominance issues to be trusted with real power. They’re like selfish little children. Can you imagine it, a male president? The very idea is laughable! Only someone who knows just how hard it is to birth and raise a child should be trusted with the power to direct the military to take lives. Only women can really grasp the real stakes involved. /s

Sure they have important differences. At the same time however, it is the height of tone-deaf arrogance to expect people to vote for their own genocidal oppressors.

Kamala likely lost Michigan due to her support for Israeli Apartheid and genocide. The Muslim population there quite understandably didn’t want to vote for her. You can’t really come to a group of people and say, “yes, we admit that we’re supporting a genocide of your people, but we need you to still vote for us for the good things we actually will do. We’re going to keep committing genocide against you, but we need you to vote for us for the sake of democracy.”

Trump and Kamala were largely indistinguishable on the Gaza issue. Trump is just a lot ruder about it. Yet, in the months following the election, we’ve seen countless gloating by centrist Democrats openly celebrating further violence by the Israelis, gleefully mocking Palestinians and their supporters, saying that this wouldn’t have happened if Kamala won. Now we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Biden, Kamala, and Trump all shared the same policy towards Israel - full and unconditional support with no limits or red lines whatsoever. Gaza was getting wiped off the map no matter who was elected. Notably, despite being still active in politics, to this day, neither Kamala nor Biden have spoken a single word publicly against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Even though they’re out of power and have nothing to lose by speaking out, they still fully support the actions of the Israeli government.

Are there still good reasons to have supported Kamala? Sure. But I also don’t expect anyone whose people are being genocided to vote for those other reasons. If you’re not willing to prevent a people from being literally murdered, then you can’t come groveling to those people, asking for their votes. If you don’t care about someone’s life, why should they care about your democracy? This is basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs shit. People don’t have the luxury of worrying about abstract goods like democracy when their basic material survival is threatened.

Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.

They could work to remove the destitution and desperation of working people. But if their workers weren’t in such dire straits, then they wouldn’t have so much power over them. Workers with good pay and a healthy work-life balance also have more time to pursue unionization and other political activities. Even if improving the lives of the people would objectively increase the wealth of the ultra-rich, it would still decrease their power. And ultimately, the only reason people ever obtain that level of wealth is because they desire power more than anything else. People who aren’t power-hungry monsters cash out and retire early long before they reach billionaire status.

Your prompts are especially critical when you decide to let ChatGPT run your reactor controls.

Honestly, this attitude is downright suicidal for our species right now. Capitalism took centuries to develop. Anything that replaces it will form over a similar time scale. And with climate change, that is time we do not have.

Allegation: the DNC exhibited overt favoritism in the primary process to ensure Hillary won the primary.

Your response: but Hillary won the primary, therefore she won the primary!

No one is disputing that she won the primary. The problem was the DNC put their thumb on the scale through the entire process. Hillary was the presumptive nominee from the beginning. People voting for Bernie on day one had to vote against headlines that said, “Hillary is already 1/3 of the way to getting the nomination!” The DNC also collaborated very closely with the Hillary campaign, and they did not do so with Bernie’s campaign. They even went so far as feeding her debate questions ahead of time.

Yes, obviously Hillary actually won the primary even without the superdelegates. Any brain-dead moron can consult wikipedia and see that. There’s no need to parrot the obvious. But you’re completely missing the core of the issue - that Hillary only won the majority of non-superdelegates and only won the primary popular vote because the DNC threw the weight of the entire party behind her nomination at the exclusion of all other candidates.

In the case of the US, yes. The US started out as 13 independent countries. It was only the Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution that defined the US as a country. Disband the US constitution tomorrow, and the US becomes 50 independent countries.

They’re not being precise with their language, but their point is largely true. What they really mean is that the US has the oldest still active Constitution in the world. The UK has existed in a continuous government for far longer, but they don’t have a written Constitution like the US does.

Yeah, it’s easy to shit on Americans about being ignorant of history. But this person’s point is largely true. The US has had the same constitution in effect for nearly 250 years. It is the oldest written constitution on Earth still in effect. Most nations have revolutions or complete rewrites of their foundational legal documents long before they reach this point.

And this is also why the US has such political instability right now. We have a Constitution that was written for the needs of 250 years ago. It was formed from a series of compromises that made sense in the politics of 250 years ago. At this point, we really should scrap it entirely and start from scratch. Having the world’s oldest Constitution really isn’t something worth bragging over; it just means you’re running obsolete software.

This is true. Long range missiles like this are only practical with either nuclear warheads or modern precision guidance. If you can land them right on top of a tiny target, they’re useful. If your target is an area miles in diameter, they’re also useful. But back in WW2 they were just vanity projects.

Ah go shove a pineapple up your ass. A big one.

Trans women experience misogyny. Most transphobia is rooted in misogyny. If you’re subject to misogyny, you should count towards female hiring quotas.

Trans women are biologically women.

When you transition, you in a very literal way change your sex. Chromosomes do very very little for sex differentiation. All a Y chromosome, or specifically the SRY gene, does is tell the gonads to develop into testes. From there on, everything is hormonal. Biological sex is largely determined by hormones, not genetics.

And moreover, very few ever actually have their chromosomes tested. If you think sex is chromosomal, well, you don’t actually know your own sex.

Let’s also legalize hand grenades for defense against home invasion!

I wish for another wishing well.

Those were the evil Germans immigrating after the war. Not to be confused with the fine upstanding Ohio Hitlers.

I’m not a “prepper” in an “underground bunker” sense, but I do prepare for emergencies and instability, whatever form it may take: political, yes, but I also live on several fault lines

Assuming you’re a homeowner, make sure to check if your home insurance policy covers earthquake damage. By default most insurance policies don’t cover seismic.

There any sense on what would be good to stock up on now? When I’ve searched this, the advice is usually pretty worthless. Just advice indistinguishable from general prepper stuff. I’ve seen recommendations to stock up on things like flour, things that the US produces domestically in abundance. But some necessities are going to be more vulnerable to disruptions in shipments from China than others.

Anyone find a good guide or have a sense of what basic household necessities are going to be most vulnerable to disruption of trade with China? I’m not concerned with things like consumer electronics right now, those are luxuries. I’m talking basic food and household staples. I don’t need the standard prepper list that’s meant to prepare you for grave natural disasters. What’s really needed is an analysis of precisely what necessities are most likely to be interrupted by this.

Has anyone seen such a list, or have a sense for what necessities are most vulnerable here?

I mean, if it works, it works. We’ve addressed a lot of societal problems via liability-based approaches. ADA ramps and disability access come to mind. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s often a lot more tractable than trying to change the culture of an entire industry or profession. Activists spent decades trying to persuade architects and building owners to make their spaces accessible. But they simply didn’t want to change. Designing public buildings with ramps and elevators can have real drawbacks, both practically and aesthetically, and the building industry didn’t want to change. Congress could have made it illegal to not have ramps, a misdemeanor or felony, but who is legally responsible for a non compliant school? And does this sound like a law police would spend a lot of time enforcing? Are they going to devote resources to cracking down on inaccessible buildings?

In the end, it was simply easier to empower disabled people to be their own advocates. Let them sue building owners who won’t make their structures accessible. No need to convince a prosecutor or bureaucrat that disability access is worth their time. The people most affected can lead the charge instead.

Overall, the approach has worked quite well. While not perfect, it has radically changed the degree of accessibility for disabled people to public buildings and spaces.