#most of the laws we get to vote on are yes/no individually

[the-crimson]

I have so many thoughts on the vote today because there are so many layers. All talk about the characters not the creators obviously :D

First off, I’m wanna say that Forever is literally doing his best XD he is trying to give the islanders say in the mods/rules etc and wanted this to be a silly test run just to wet everyone’s feet with the concept. There is no way he could have prepared or predicted how it would turn out.

Now, from Bad’s pov, it is very important that he started criticizing the way the vote was set up before people started voting. The only reason he got so angry is because no one was taking him seriously and so many people chose to punish him specifically for something harmless ie stealing furniture instead of removing an item that is a danger to the eggs and is 10x more destructive towards peoples builds. Yea replacing furniture is annoying but not nearly as annoying as having to replace roads constantly or rebuilding parts of ur base. The school was literally just destroyed due to mines and yet everyone is complaining about their furniture.

Then, on top of all these people - who Bad has given items to without question and dropped everything for to help in the past - dog piling on him, Roier gets to vote three times. This is what pushed Bad over the edge because at that point, this wasn’t a democracy anymore. Roier was literally rigging the votes in his favor.

The reason Forever’s current system is flawed is because you give the voters 5 options to give them the illusion of choice but if all the options are bad and they can’t choose to vote for these things to not happen, then they don’t actually have a choice. They are being complicit in their own oppression. Bad’s example was extreme but it gets the point across.

Does Bad blow up Cellbit’s base or Forever’s base? He’s giving you a choice so it’s democratic. It’s an extreme example but this is a method of slowly poisoning the people so they are complicit. If you give them four options that are obviously bad so everyone votes for the fifth then that wasn’t democracy. That was the illusion of choice.

That is a terrible system! I trust forever not to abuse it but Forever is a puppet for the federation! Do you know how easily they could manipulate this voting system? Very. Very easily.

So, going into Bad and Forever’s conversation, Bad was already flabbergasted at how bad this voting system was in addition to blatant voter fraud and the pain of a bunch of his friends betraying him. Bad is a powder keg ready to explode.

Forever comes over and they try to talk it out at first but it quickly becomes evident that neither of them are listening. Forever thinks Bad is upset because of the furniture thing and that’s why he’s against the voting system but that’s not the case! These two have completely different methods of approaching a council/democratic system and neither is willing to listen. Once Forever brought up meta reasons for shooting down Bad’s ideas, the conversation was effectively over.

And what I think people forget is that Bad has been an anarchist since day one. The only reason he ran for President was so he could dismantle the office aka so there wouldn’t be a President. He is willing to work with forever to try and make it work but Bad is constantly fighting his desire to dismantle it entirely - and that has nothing to do with Forever.

I see a lot of people taking it personally and acting like Bad has a grudge against Forever but that isn’t the case. He doesn’t want a president. The fact Bad hasn’t demolished the fed presidential office is a testament to his and Forever’s relationship. Bad knows and is trusting Forever that he is doing his genuine best for the people… the problem is is that Forever is a federation puppet whether he likes it or not.

The QSMP made the no stealing furniture law an actual law against Forever’s wishes and behind his back. My guess is they wanted to drive a wedge between Forever and Bad, a known anarchist and #1 federation hater. That’s why they made it law even though Forever thinks it’s still a joke.

Bad was the only one taking this vote seriously and actually thinking about the consequences because - on one hand - he was literally the only person who would be directly negatively impacted by this vote - and on the other hand - he wants what is best for the island as well and he immediately saw how this voting system could very easily be turned into a method of oppression by the federation. Unfortunately, no one else approached it with the same level of seriousness and when Forever talked with Bad, Forever was primed to assume Bad’s grievances were because he was being punished. They were set up to fail and the feds took advantage of that by making the law a Law.

Tomorrow(or whenever they meet next), after they both have time to cool off and gather their thoughts, they might be able to talk it out. This is communication smp after all. But there is no right answer here. This is politics and in politics, you will never make everyone happy.

People in the fandom are always gonna hate but if both Forever and Bad decide to go on opposed villain arcs, I will be sitting on the side lines munching popcorn and having a blast. They both deserve to go ape shit and I, for one, am looking forwards to the drama ;D

Just stay off Twitter maybe cuz everyone over there is insane…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Pavlovitz at The Beautiful Mess:

Ever since Republicans killed Roe v Wade, I’ve been hearing that Gen Z is so pissed off that Republicans have taken away women’s body autonomy, that they are going to show up en masse in November to reject them and Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris.

And the numbers are indeed showing unprecedented engagement by young voters and that they’re skewing decidedly Democrat. And while this reality gives me hope for this nation and its future, the idea that teenagers and twenty-somethings are expected to come in and save themselves from a political battle we adults lost, is an indictment of us all. They shouldn’t be in this place to begin with and we need to look in the mirror and face our shared failures: Over one hundred million of us couldn’t be bothered to vote. Others selfishly squandered their votes with third party support. Still others foolishly bought into the lie that Republicans would never overturn a law that was fixed and settled. Others of us may have simply relaxed, believing America would never see the unthinkable happen—until it did. No matter where we have individually fallen short, we all need to examine our consciences, repent from our specific mistakes, and most of all, be a part of repairing the damage we’ve made possible. Collectively, we have allowed Donald Trump, his predatory party, and three purchased, hand-picked Supreme Court justices to legislatively violate our daughters. It’s as simple as that.

We have failed to protect them from and that should fully grieve us all. So, yes, I’m glad Gen Z is disgusted, but we as their parents should be, too. Not only should we be disgusted, we should be vocal and visible. I hope we see more moms and dads come to the defense of all our kids; showing up at school board meetings and town civil gatherings and rallies and courthouse steps and church meetings and on social media and at family gatherings, and most of all in the voting booth. We should be forming a sprawling, outraged army that will flip America Blue without Gen Z’s help. We cannot fail our kids again, as we won’t get another chance to fix anything. As Donald Trump has promised, our votes and voices will not matter after November if we do not prevail. Right now, based on polls, the GOP is a few percentage points or a handful of states or possibly tens of thousands of votes away from instituting a national federal abortion ban, from subjugating every woman to Conservative Evangelical will, from continuing to take children’s healthcare out of the hands of parents and their physicians and into the hands of Conservative politicians.

And they won’t stop there. They will target same-sex marriage. They will continue to remove worker protections from minors, make it easier for adults to marry children, outlaw birth control, eliminate gender-affirming care. Part of Project 2025’s agenda includes erasing LGBTQ young people by removing all mentions of them in government institutions and organizations. Republicans have promised to criminalize LGBTQ advocates and allies and we need to believe them. The sickest of ironies in this moment, is that with all their histrionics and carrying on about the Left endangering the children of this nation, the Republican Party and the Evangelical Church have been projecting. They are the ones targeting our kids: their bodies, their marriages, their medical decisions, their very identities.

Parents and parents alone should make the decisions about what happens to their daughters and sons. These are choices to be made in the sacred space that is a family in their home, free from outside interference. Government does not belong there and the Church, only if invited by personal faith. Republicans and Evangelicals have no right to enter into that space and legislate their moral prejudices or mandate their antiquated theology for the rest of us. Another human being’s body and bedroom is not their jurisdiction: not a politician’s or a pastor’s.

Another home run post by John Pavlovitz.

[chickenleafs-world]

Rewatching the original animated X-men series in preparation for 97, so of course I’ve also been seeing a lot of X-men posts. And, as always, I have strong opinions on what people on the internet say. Most of the time those opinions are “how did these people read/watch X-men growing up and not get that they’re the villains” because people are being bigots and are upset that their favorite heroes aren’t. But sometimes I’m stuck being frustratingly close to agreeing and my strong opinions are much harder to voice. In part because you don’t want to walk into the Discourse Landmine, but also in part because there’s so much to go over on the take.

Case in point: the “Magneto is right, Xavier is wrong” take, where my main problem with people is more the lack of nuance than the base take. And I know most of the people saying it are also doing it in part as a joke and get the nuance is there, but it still irks me.

Let’s be clear, in general, Magneto is not right, but he isn’t wrong either. Xavier isn’t wrong, but he isn’t right either. Obviously it’s partly dependent on whoever is writing at the moment, but also depending on which individual take of Magneto’s or Xavier’s you’re talking about. Yes, sometimes Xavier is frustratingly, harmfully liberal. Yes, sometimes Erik is doing the best possible for mutant well being. But there’s a lot of wiggle room with individual portrayals, and I think Xavier deserves justice for it. I’m not saying Magneto is just a villain, Stan Lee himself didn’t see him as such, but depending on the writers he can certainly be wrong.

Xavier is wrong when he focuses just on mutants with “useful” powers or conventionally attractive and human looks. He’s wrong when he puts the safety of bigots over the safety of the mutants they’re oppressing. He’s wrong when his only way of helping mutants is through the system. He’s wrong when he’s sending the X-men out to fight mutants more than bigots. He’s wrong when he hides he’s a mutant to avoid the stigma, even when the reveal would help solidarity and public trust. He’s wrong a lot.

But Xavier is right when he focuses on teaching mutants to love themselves and teaches them to control their powers and use them for good. He’s right when he says mutants and non-mutants can live in harmony. He’s right when he send the X-men out to destroy government/private property that’s being used to hurt mutants. He’s right when he takes out all his students, “attractive” or not, to speak up for mutant rights. He’s right when he sends the X-men to break innocent mutants out of prison/jail/unlawful containment. He’s right when he opens his institute to all mutants, so they have a safe place to go to. He’s right when he gives X-men choice and training for hard experiences, be it the choice to hide their powers or be open with them, to break out of jail/avoid arrest, or wait and go through an unfair trial for the sake of mutant visibility and legal precedent. He’s right when he finds places like the institute around the world. He’s right when he himself is on good terms with Magneto and works with him when it’s necessary for mutant good.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of writers put Professor X as a filthy liberal. It sucks. Focuses on performative acts, letting fascists take ground for the sake of “civility,” and putting minorities at risk for the sake of optics, those are all bad. But sometimes liberal acts can be tools in the tool box. Voting isn’t gonna solve shit, but it can make it go downhill slower. Putting gay people in media isn’t going to end homophobia, but it will normalize gay people. Testifying before Congress for mutant rights might not be the flashiest or most effective way to get mutants’ rights, but it is a way to advance public opinion and slow anti-mutant laws. Just that isn’t good enough to beat the liberal accusations, but combined with the actions of some incarnations it genuinely changes their context. We can’t ignore all the times that Xavier has actively sent the X-men out to break laws and destroy government property for the sake of mutant well being. As much as we joke about the X-men being liberals, they usually aren’t afraid to break laws, break property, and raise hell for the sake of their people. And don’t forget that lot’s of “peaceful” acts of protest still cause disruption and still make a difference, even when it seems liberal on the surface, and can be organized by genuinely leftist people. Lots of Professor X’s portrayals could be genuinely leftist.

Likewise, Magneto is right a lot. He’s right when he says mutants shouldn’t be forced to stay in places where they’re being violently persecuted. He’s right when he advocates mutants fight back when bigots attack instead of just taking it. He’s right when he takes in mutants despite how palatable or useful they are. He’s right to actively fight fascists rising to exterminate his people. He’s right when he gives no fucks about the law when it comes to protecting minorities. He’s right when he creates a safe haven for mutants.

But boy, Magneto is also wrong a lot. He’s wrong when he says mutants and non-mutants can’t live together. He’s wrong when he says non-mutants are inferior. He’s wrong when he gets upset at mutants for wanting to live in harmony with humans. He’s wrong when he invalidates mutants who are upset with where being a mutant has gotten them, without helping them through the complicated feelings it brings. He’s wrong when he frames the X-men, a fellow mutant group, for his crimes. He’s wrong when he says mutants should exterminate non-mutants. He’s wrong when he thinks a mutant ethnostate is the end-all-be-all of mutant rights.

Erik is the kind of antagonist you get. He’s right on a lot of things. He has a lot of emotional appeal. As a (let’s be honest, gay) Jewish holocaust survivor, you know he’s coming from experience with his tactics. He genuinely doesn’t hate Xavier in most incarnations. But that doesn’t mean that in the incarnations where he literally calls for genocide, he should be let off the hook. Violence and resistance are important to most leftists movements, or even just mildly progressive ones. Be it a civil war to end US slavery, the riots at Stonewall, slave rebellions, or any number of revolutionary wars, sometimes active violence is necessary to stop the passive violence that minorities go through while oppressed. At the same time, it’s a fundamentally leftist ideal to believe in rehabilitation and the importance of people changing. And it’s also important to remember that genocide is bad no matter who’s doing it. Letting the genocidal versions of Magneto off the hook because it was “for mutants” is the same logic that lets Israel get away with how it treats Palestine.

I know that’s a lot of rambling to say something a lot of people already know, but as much as I love the “magneto was right” memes and the posts making fun of liberal X-men, I don’t want the genuinely leftists parts of the X-men to go unappreciated, nor the genuinely harmful parts of Magneto’s ideology excused.

[dirtyfilthy]

You have to be a thief to be free.

Freedom is something that can't simply be just given to you. Freedom is precisely the kind of good that must always ALWAYS be stolen.

Some people seem to think the law has some kind of moral force in and of itself. I consider the law to be simply the blunt instrument of social policy.

Sure, there exist murderers and predators and various unspeakable things we really do have to deal with for the good of society. But the vast majority of laws simply aren't about such clear and present threats, but instead are attempts to engineer culture by means of criminalisation.

Imagine you inherited ten million dollars and you wanted to build a commune . You consider yourself to be a law abiding citizen, and you really do want to do everything exactly by the book --- I mean you are willing to follow every rule and regulation. Think they're ever gonna grant you a permit to build that shit? There is no chance in hell my friend, because a bunch of filthy hippies moving into the neighbourhood is almost guaranteed to lower the surrounding property values, and the local council would rather vote to have your throat slit in public before they ever agreed to let that happen.

Not in my back yard, buddy: the line must go up.

"Working within the system" is a convenient lie only ever echoed by useful idiots and those true fool believers who have managed to ignore how bitter the fake almond tastes in this godawful brand of off-label koolaid. Yes, you can definitely route around power, in fact most of the time i find it's the smarter option than performing a direct confrontation, but there ain't nowhere the likes of you and me are ever getting anywhere via trying to ingratiate ourselves with mere subservient obedience.

Cos that's exactly the way it's supposed to work. If you only follow along the ruts of the most well-worn roads, you will only every get to the same old destinations.

Go veer far off the beaten path. Poach your fresh pheasants from the overlapping fat slapping in the sun chair of the high lord's manor. Not like he'll ever notice the missing sixth negative exponent anyhow. So cut deeper, make the fucker feel it.

Steal when there is no individual victim. Learn what laws you can get away with breaking.

We need to build ourselves a new country, one with exact same geographical borders as in a conventional atlas, but that even a 1-to-1 map lacks the definition to contain.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: The War on the West | Real Time with Bill Maher

New Rule: For all the progressives and academics who refer to Israel as an "outpost of Western civilization" like it's a bad thing, please note: Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every goddamn liberal precept that Liberals are supposed to adore.

Individual liberty, scientific inquiry, rule of law, religious freedom, women's rights, human rights, democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech. Please somebody, stop us before we Enlighten again.

And since one can find all these concepts in today's Israel and virtually nowhere else in the Middle East, if anything, the world would be a better place if it had more Israels.

Of course, this message falls on deaf ears to the current crop who reduce everything to being only victims or victimizers, so Israel is lumped in as the toxic fruit of the victimizing West. The irony being that all marginalized people live better today because of western ideals, not in spite of them.

Martin Luther King used Henry David Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" to help shape the Civil Rights Movement. The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights owes its core to Rousseau and Voltaire. Kleisthenes never showed up for a sexual harassment seminar, but without him there's no democracy. The cop who murdered George Floyd got 21 years for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, an idea we got directly from John Locke, who no one in college would ever study anymore because he's so old, and so white, and so dead, and so Western.

Yes, that's how simple the Woke are. It's never about ideas. If it was, would they be cheering on Hamas for their liberation? Liberation? To do what? More freely preside over a country where there are no laws against sexual harassment, spousal rape, domestic violence, homophobia, honor killings or child marriage. This is who liberals think you should stand with? Women there should be so lucky as to get colonized by anybody else.

And for the record, the Jews didn't "colonize" Israel or anywhere ever, except maybe Boca Raton. Gaza wasn't seized by Israel like India or Kenya was by the British Empire. And the partitioning of the region wasn't decided by Jews, but by a vote of the United Nations in 1947 with everyone from Russia to Haiti voting for it. But apparently, they don't teach this at Drag Queen Story Hour anymore.

Now it is true that for too long we didn't study enough Asian or African or Latin American history. But part of the reason for that is, frankly, there's not as much to study. Colleges replaced courses in Western Civ -- boo! Eyeroll! Dead white men, am I right? -- they replace that with World Civilization classes, which is fine in theory, but what it meant in practice is you read queer poetry of the African diaspora instead of Shakespeare. And I'm sure there's value in both, but as usual, America only ever overcorrects.

And so, we're at this place now where the words "western civ" became kind of a shorthand for "white people ruined everything." But they didn't ruin everything. No, they didn't live up to their own ideals for far too long and committed atrocities. But people back then were all atrocious, not just the white ones depending on who had the power.

But it was the western Enlightenment that gave rise to the notion that the law of the jungle should be curbed. Henry David Thoreau. John Stewart Mill. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Three-named dudes. It was all about three-named dudes. Three-named dudes like that were the OG social justice warriors. The ideas that came through Athens, Rome, London, Paris, and yes Philadelphia, are what make life good for most people in free societies today. That the individuals have value, and even the powers that be must submit to the rule of law. That punishment should not be cruel and unusual. That accused people get a trial. That there is such a thing as a war crime.

Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it's ever done? You think only white people colonized? Historians estimate that the very non-western Mr Genghis Khan killed 40 million people, and that was in the 13th century. He single-handedly may have reduced the world's population by 11%. On the other hand, he kind of made up for it, because he was such a prolific colonizer of vaginas that today an estimated 16 million people are his direct descendants.

So, stop saying "western civilization" like it's a contradiction in terms. It's not. You're thinking of "moderate Republican."

==

The people who snarl "western civilization" went to elite universities with air conditioning where they used their MacBook Pros and iPhones on extensive Wi-Fi networks.

[eretzyisrael]

by Stacy Gittleman

Tlaib repeatedly used the term genocide — a term originally coined to describe the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust — when describing the tragic deaths of Gazan civilians. All casualty figures from the now eight-month war come from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health. Leading urban war experts, including West Point’s John Spencer, repeatedly stated that the precautions Israel has taken to prevent civilian harm during this war not only surpasses that of any military in history, including the United States, but also go above and beyond what is required by international law, according to reporting from Tablet magazine.

According to reports from the Israel Defense Forces, 12,000 Hamas terrorists have been killed and most of these are men.

Tlaib also repeatedly delivered a message that providing Israel with military aid takes away from funding social issues that are important to her progressive constituents. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the federal government allocated about 1% of total spending to foreign aid. This is consistent with trends over the past 20 years.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States committed over $3.3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel in 2022, with $8.8 million allocated to the country’s economy and the rest toward the Israeli military.

All current military aid to Israel is part of the 10-year, $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding signed with the U.S. in 2016. The MOU supports updating the Israeli aircraft fleet and maintaining the country’s missile defense system. The agreement commits $500 million in missile defense funding and $3.3 billion in other military funding each year from 2019 to 2028.

In February, Congress passed an emergency package of military aid to Israel to the tune of $14 billion. To this, Tlaib decried the decision as “funding genocide.”

To the responses of “shame” from the audience, Tlaib said: “I watched my colleagues, one by one voting yes to send $14 billion to the apartheid regime. All I kept thinking is that the United States is the primary investor and funder of genocide. We are literally co-conspirators.”

Getting it wrong

Of local interest was Tlaib’s misleading claim that there is currently no lead-free drinking water for Detroit’s schoolchildren.

In 2018, lead and copper were detected in water from drinking fountains in many Detroit Public Schools Community District buildings. All drinking fountains were disabled and covered with garbage bags.

In 2019, according to Chalk-beat, over 500 water hydration stations were installed at every district school with built-in filters to purify the water from any lead or copper. The project was made possible by $3 million in donations from companies, foundations, organizations and individual donors. No taxpayer money was on the project.

Additional funding signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in February 2024 provided $50 million in state funding to install lead-reducing water stations at schools and childcare centers throughout the state.

All state public schools and childcare centers must test their drinking water every two years, according to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

That’s it.... I’m unfollowing folks that loudly advocate against voting in the presidential election.

To a degree, I get it. Feeling forced to vote for Biden sucks….BUT do you REALLY think for one second Trump will make ANYTHING better?!?

This man has hardly hidden his intentions. And his followers sure don’t either.

If you don’t vote you are letting him win! You may think you are voicing your displeasure with Biden, but what good will that do when we end up with a president that will not hesitate to take advantage of the supreme court’s (INSANE) decision to effectively make the office above the law! Do you honestly think he won’t push that to the very limits to do the most appalling things? Just look at what he sis when he WASN’T immune!

Biden was always flawed, and now he is very likely becoming impaired through aging, BUT he isn’t outright evil and actually has some ethical standards. Plus, if he drops dead, well in a way we are voting for a party not an individual. Even the worst case scenario, with Biden, ahem, bowing out, we will still avoid the Trump nightmare.

Yes, I’m scared. I desperately want everyone to vote for ANYONE that the dems have running against Trump. Hell, I’d vote for my pet pig Ryoga if it would help keep that particular human out of office! Yet too many people don’t seem scared enough.

Watching people, reasonably wishing for something better, throw up their hands and surrender to the worst person possible drives me to despair. It’s watching people respond to a house in need of major repair work decide instead to burn it down with all the rest of us locked in. If they are trying to get everyone else to join them in pouring kerosene and lighting matches, it makes me angry.

I don’t have the energy for being angry or worried.

So I am unfollowing.

[qqueenofhades]

I truly hate to ask, but could you please break down exactly what's being proposed with Moore v Harper? From what I understand it's more possible meddling in voting rights but can't quite get the details anywhere.

Welp. Okay. Basically, Moore v. Harper, which SCOTUS is going to hear oral arguments for today, is a Frankenstein's monster of a case and the culmination of decades of Republican work to suppress and overturn elections by quote-unquote legal means (rather than you know, armed coups). In a nutshell, it proposes to totally undo the last 235 years of federalist democracy, under the guise of sticking to an "originalist!" interpretation of the Constitution. Fun, right? Fascists! They're just so fun!

The points at stake are these:

The Constitution technically grants individual state legislatures the ultimate authority over how that state selects its Electoral College delegates. As such, every state soon adopted laws stating that those electors shall be chosen by the popular vote. BUT, since the wording remains that the legislatures have the final say... you now see where the problems are incoming.

As such, if the fascists get their way, SCOTUS will just... throw out two centuries of precedent and allow state legislatures to select their presidential electors any old which way. This, and I cannot stress this enough, WILL NOT BE BY POPULAR VOTE, especially in Republican-controlled states. People can have their little elections and vote for their little candidates, but if the state legislature is not legally bound to respect their choice, they can appoint whichever electors they want. In the GOP dream scenario, a Democrat would win the state, the Republican-controlled legislature would ignore that, certify Republican electors (remember, the Constitution says they have the final say!!) and send them to the EC to vote for the Republican. This result would then, despite being a brazen subversion of democracy in plain sight, be legally binding.

In other words, a Democrat would never win a presidential election again, and the state legislatures would also probably not feel too fussed about respecting other results they disagreed with, i.e. for state-level results.

This is, yes, basically a nightmare. So! How worried should we be?

Kagan, Sotomayor, and KBJ, the court liberals, will vote against it.

Thomas and Alito will straight up vote for the worst possible version of this they can come up with and only then bother making up some nonsense legal theory to justify it, probably Blah Blah States' Rights.

Gorsuch will probably also vote for it, because his big thing is Textual Originalism!!!

So that's 3 for and 3 against. The wild cards here are Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.

Roberts will probably try to persuade the wingnuts to accept some watered-down, plausibly deniable version of this, not because he is a moderate (he's not) or because he doesn't want this (he does). However, he's been having a lot of fits over public perception of the court and he doesn't want to build popular support for reforming it, so as he did with Roe, he might try to come up with some milquetoast middle ground. However, since he did fail with Roe and then went ahead and voted with the rest of the conservatives anyway, he can NOT be trusted.

Kavanaugh is bought and paid for and will probably do whatever his puppetmasters tell him to do. Barrett is a theocrat and will probably vote for it.

I feel as if the most likely outcome is that we get some monstrosity stitched-together patchwork nightmare that gives more cover for GOP legislatures to "legally" meddle with election results, rather than straight-up ending democracy, but since they have done that before, we honestly don't know.

As I have said before, SCOTUS does not NEED to hear any case that comes before it. They have total discretion to refuse. So the fact that they agreed to hear this one means they do intend to do something bad. The only question is HOW bad.

FASCISM! SO FUN.

[measuringbliss]

French Politics: Revenge of the Sith

MASTERPOST

Previously...

(click the link to see the animation; the text is otherwise available just below)

During Emmanuel Macron's first mandate, the government had it easy. The main challenge was to try and convince everybody in the country that ~le wokisme~ would lead to the end of civilization. It was also seen that having a presidential candidate financially supported by a certain Russian dictator was somehow acceptable. Adding to that, speaking out against the president became essentially banned on television. The 2022 presidential election was characterized by the left acting stupid, the right acting stupid, and the French middle-class being absolutely clueless. However, the left prepared for the legislative elections by uniting under the NUPES name...

So what can you expect to read about in this post?

In no particular order: bad nicknames, a prolonged game of musical chairs, the end of democracy, and Elon Musk. Yes, Elon Musk is involved.

Terribly, thank you.

With Macron re-elected at the end of April 2022, he had to elect a Prime Minister. As is tradition, his previous Prime Minister, Jean Castex, resigned at the end of Macron's first term, after already having replaced Edouard Philippe in the middle of the mandate.

ENTER: ELISABETH BORNE

1) BORNE-OUT

Borne had previously been minister of transport, minister of ecology and minister of labour, employment and integration. She had quite a reputation, as her previous coworkers had nicknamed her "Madame Borne-out" - an obvious play on her name and "burn-out". She was also nicknamed "Madame Bornée" (Madam Stubborn) and, as recently re-discovered, "Méchanta" (a feminized version of the word "Mean").

Obvious Prime Minister material, right?

So an incompetent wimp was followed by sadistic lady with no empathy. Surely things would go perfectly well.

2) LEGISLATIVES

Next came the time to elect representatives at the National Assembly. Wikipedia describes it as the lower house of the French Parliament, the other, higher house being the Senate. We don't care about the Senate (for now), because the National Assembly is what votes on laws, while the Senate theoretically moderates the NA. The NA is more proeminent and its members are elected by the people.

Basically, the National Assembly is the core battlefield of this game of musical chairs.

I know it may be a bit boring, but you need to understand the basics to understand the drama. Think of it as the opening episodes of a Game of Thrones season, before shit hits the fan.

The National Assembly is constituted by 577 members, which means the majority sits at 289 seats. Usually, the president's party has most seats and thus, can basically do what they want.

"Usually."

As stated in the opening crawl, the French Left united until a single name (while still retaining their individual parties): NUPES. Basically, they would support each other and try to put a single candidate in each territory, instead of fighting against each other. Two communist parties opted out, as they didn't appreciate the main (but weakened) left party taking so much space in the coalition.

So here are the key parliamentary groups: NUPES (the left union), LIOT (utilitarian center union; they don't necessarily share views), Ensemble (Together, Macron's union), UDC (the right) and RN (far-right).

"Nobody won," said Gabriel Attal, the government's spokesperson at the time.

Macron's Ensemble party got 245 seats, so they didn't get a majority. For a while, it was thought the NUPES (the left union) might get the majority, but nope, they "only" got 131 seats - still consequent. A very bad surprise, however, came in the form of the far-right getting 89 seats, a historical score and more than the right union (64). However, Nazi newcomer Eric Zemmour didn't secure any seat for his far-right party so hey, we'll take the small victories.

So let's talk alliances: the Left union had 131 seats (32%). The Right (Macron + UDC) had 245 + 64 (38% + 7%). LIOT was a wild card (or rather, comprised of wild cards). You might assume that Macron's party, definitely right-wing, would get on just fine with the other right union, and strategically-speaking, they have 309 seats, that is, the majority.

However... Les Républicains, UDC's main party on the right, is presided by Eric Ciotti.

Let's play a game.

Here are two Nazis. One pretends to follow the same ideas as the government, and one pretends to follow the same ideas as the government. Who's who? You've got two hours.

So the two Right coalitions don't see eye to eye, but don't worry! Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, said that Marine Le Pen (far-right) was "too soft". He also continually supports cops. So what I'm saying is that the two Right coalitions are enemies but also very similar. Still, a lot of pride and resentment.

This also means the government is majorly fascist. Surely nothing might go wrong.

3) ENTER: 49.3

What is 49.3?

Pronounced /ka.ʁɑ̃tnœftʁwɑ/, 49.3 is an infamous part of the French Constitution. Americans have the Second Amendment, well we have 49.3.

49.3 exists exactly to face the kind of situation that the National Assembly is in: with no guarantee that a law will be approved by the NA, the Prime Minister might be tempted to bypass it completely. In doing so, the Prime Minister opens the possibility for the opposition to submit a vote of no confidence. If the National Assembly approves the vote of no confidence, the law is rejected and the Government is disassembled - only the President stays. That means organizing new Legislative Elections. If the vote of no confidence is rejected, the law is approved, goes to the Senate, then goes back to the National Assembly for a second read.

There's a big limitation to 49.3: you can't use it at will. That would be preposterous. Imagine a Prime Minister using 49:3 eleven times in six months. Couldn't happen, right?

Elisabeth Borne, by whom I really mean Emmanuel Macron, decided to do exactly that.

Ordinarily, the Prime Minister (so Borne) is only able to use 49:3 once per year... except for laws related to finances. And oh, would you look at that, Macron had a big project planned for a long time:

la réforme des retraites

The idea is to basically extended how long we need to the national pool for retirement, before we can retire ourselves and benefit from pension. There's been a fair bit of manipulation here: the government announced they would prolong the length by two years, then less than that, then more.. But it doesn't account for people who do hard work like construction workers and the likes. People die before reaching that age. Among other young people, we often joke that we won't get any pension, but it's out of apathy, really. It's a horrible reform, it creates more gender inequality and most of all, it's unneeded. The government's justification is that it's necessary, otherwise the country will be heavily indebted by 2050, but it's obviously a pretext. Dozens of experts have said he's wrong - but Macron loves to listen to people who agree with him. Know what we could do instead?

Currently, there's a guy who's richer than goddamn Elon Musk. His name is Bernard Arnault. He's the richest (officially) guy in the world. He's also French. He could fund everybody's pension for decades.

So. Anyway.

People were opposed to that reform from the very start, even in 2019-2020. Our deputies at the National Assembly filibustered for a while (basically sending thousands of amendments to be studied, most notably the Left union NUPES, while the Far-Right party RN's attempt at filibuster were lukewarm at best). Macron (through his Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe) used 49.3 to bypass the amendments... but then there were a lot of protests, and do you know what else happened at that time?

COVID-19, our beloved!

One positive consequence of the pandemic was that the government was so busy facing it (with no competence whatsoever, aside from lying a lot to the population) that they just gave up on any bill they were trying to pass.

The pandemic didn't stop, but everyone pretended it did, so here we were in 2022, and Macron was once again trying to make everybody accept his goddamn reform. Once again, filibuster happened and then Macron (through his Prime Minister, Borne) started using 49.3 like there's no tomorrow.

From October to December 2022, Borne used 49:3 ten times. Then on January 23th, 2023...

"Look out! New rule!"

The government taught us there were more than 3 numbers...

Bitches, bros and nonbinary hoes: please welcome 47.1!

Pronounced ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛtœ̃, 47.1 is the bad guy reappearing after you thought he'd been blown up already, but with broken teeth. It basically says to the deputies:

"Hey, if you don't vote for me quickly, I'll be automatically approved :-) Oh, and you can't filibuster your way through this either <3"

The bill would then go to the Senate (with a shortened debate time too), then again at the National Assembly.

"People know 49.3, it's very unpopular because it's brutal. But nobody knows about 47.1, it makes things easier for us," said a clueless Macron deputy.

People complained, because while they were confused at what exactly 47.1 entailed, they knew it was basically 49.3 with makeup.

Which it was.

4) NO CONFIDENCE

So the pension bill was voted at the Senate on March 11th, 2023. On March 15th, a Joint Committee approved it and added some stuff. On March 16th, the Senate approved the changes.

THEN IT WAS TIME... FOR THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY... TO VOTE FOR THE BILL AGAIN.

At this point, the bill was more than unpopular. Polls estimated than more than 70% of the French population was against the pension reform. The left-wing NUPES comprising 32% of the seats was very much against the bill. The far-right RN had also made it clear that they were against it (17%), as they'll do anything to be contrarian to the government - they're populists, after all. Even the right-wing-but-not-Macronist UDC (7%) was not very supportive of the bill - contrarians, proud, and a bit clueless too. But some of them truly believe the bill sucks, which is nice. They're not *all* unreasonable.

So Elisabeth Borne used her favorite secret weapon that we were beginning to miss:

i hope you appreciate my quality montage

Borne 49.3'd her way through the bill, inviting everybody to gang up on her for a vote of no confidence.

The next day, Friday, two motions were submitted:

the first one by LIOT, the center alliance. It was the most likely to be approved, contrary to...

the second one by RN, the right-wing party. It wasn't likely to be approved because the RN is (rightfully) stigmatized.

The votes would take place on the following Monday, after the weekend.

5) MONEY IS MAN'S BEST FRIEND

"Nobody asked you." (Arkunir proceeded to ratio Elon Musk a few more times, as well as Macron himself.)

Do you know how to easily get the approbation of a people who's protesting against a financial reform? Just get a billionaire to support you! I'm sure this will not make anything worse. Macron loves dem billionaires, after all he gave the Légion d'Honneur (an official reward) to Jeff Bezos, you know, the Amazon guy, earlier during his second mandate. Macron also has very shady links to McKinsey...

So anyway, what a weekend. Americans started speaking out, complaining about us lazy French (to them, I'll reply: mobilize for your rights!), in particular Elon Musk, who proceeded to get ratio'd (the Twitter equivalent of getting owned) multiple times by French people.

Meanwhile, Aurore Bergé, controversial chief of Macron's party for her many bad faith arguments at the National Assembly, enjoined the right to own up to what some of them had been saying against the bill for weeks. So she basically unintentionally motivated some right-wing deputies to vote favorably to the motions of no confidence.

"Let's all get behind Aurore Bergé!"

Naturally, a lot of people joked about it. Some of us almost thought she was trying to destroy the party from inside.

Monday arrived, and I couldn't do anything except watch the hours-long stream of the National Assembly, starting at 4pm.

One member of every party gave a speech, basically repeating what they'd been saying. It was boring, endless, and it ended with Adrien Quatennens, and oh my god I haven't even talked about him but who cares, he's irrelevant for this portion of our history, but I still had to mention him as he represented people who don't belong to a specific party. I'll probably explain the deal about him when the time comes to talk about the 2027 presidential elections. This post is already long enough as is.

Then the votes finally happened. There was an agonizing 30 minutes to vote, and at the end of the first one (LIOT's)... It hadn't been approved. Basically all of the left, the far-right and LIOT had voted, and we only needed about 25 members of LR (the right who's not with Macron). We got a few of them, but not enough. The second vote was irrelevant. We had lost.

OR HAD WE?

Protests kept going. Actually, protests got bigger. Without much consultation, protests took place in the evening just after the vote.

In fact, as I'm writing this, the protests haven't stopped.

6) So, are we in a totalitarian state?

Study.com did a helpful explanation of what is a totalitarian state that I'll condense in simple points:

Rule by a single party: Macron certainly likes to think that's the case.

Control of the media: You could make a case for this. Officially, we have freedom of speech. Unofficially, journalists can't contradict the president. The medias love to pretend they're neutral when they're decidedly not (and a lot of big medias are owned by a fascist billionaire).

Control of education: Does defunding public education count? Possibly. The state of education in this country is regrettable, in spite of a lot of professors trying their very best.

Control of the population through propaganda, terror and intimidation: Police brutality is generalized, and Darmanin, Minister of Interior, wrongly declared that it was illegal for unwarned protests to take place. The cops enforce this fake rule by fining people who're there with no reason. There is definitely an attempt to quell the rebellion, not by listening to opponents, but by pushing through.

Control of the economy: 11 uses of an anti-democracy failsafe for the economy certainly looks like it.

The Council of Europe, Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and Iran (yeah...) called out France for its police brutality. My university has been blocked for a week and a half and has already confirmed that it will be blocked next week as well. There are recordings - actual recordings! - where cops threaten young people, and we know this isn't a rare case at all. Lots of aggression.

A kid just died during his high school final exam because the adults refused to help him.

Marion Game, the French voice of Lois in Malcolm in the Middle or Mallory Archer in Archer, died. She was a beloved actress. I'll miss her.

Not all of this is linked to the rest, but France is having a hard time right now.

7) Remember who the real enemy is

On March 22nd, Macron did an interview at 1pm, obviously speaking to the only part of the population that loves his pension reform: people who're already retired. He repeated what he's been saying for years: "The French people elected me for my program." even though he acknowledged, when he got re-elected, that a consequent (the majority, in fact) part of his voters had only done so to counter the far-right.

Macron also said, "The [Insert offensive term for people who only earn minimal wage] have never had a better purchasing power," which is bold, both because he was even more condescending than usual, and also because EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLY EXPENSIVE.

Around the same time, the French journal Libération said the following:

"When on March 21, Macron said that 'the mob, whichever it is, has no legitimacy compared to the people who affirm its sovereignty through elections', he disowns democracy three times. First off, he disowns any popular aspect of the protests, regardless of what they are, because if the mob has no legitimacy (although it is supported by unanimous unions) over one of the biggest opposition protests of the history of the 5th Republic (even with the support of the vast majority of society, especially among the workforce)... It means a social movement can't be recognized as the voice of the people."

The two other ways, summarized:

Macron's opinion isn't the voice of the people, as he can still act against the nation's interest

opposing "the crowd" and "the electors" disowns social democracy, ie. workers unions, through which the people also speak

I think it's a great formulation of what's going on.

What do you mean, that's not a King Charles?

Things aren't that bad, though. Macron had to ask King Charles III to not come visit France right now. He didn't expect the protests to get worse (for him) after the failed vote of no confidence.

Adèle Haenel, one of the leads in Portrait of a Lady on Fire and real-life lesbian, spoke out in favor of the workers and said feminists had to take part in the fight.

We got our own version of MinetaGate: in an interview given to the main gay magazine in France, Têtu, Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labour, said two things:

He came out as gay, which is something that we, the gay community, immediately rejected

He said that the government might need to use 49.3 again

It worked out so well last time...

Anyway...

I'll simply conclude with what the chief of the General Worker's Confederation said in regard to this interview:

"Either [Macron]'s completely unfamiliar with our system and that's very serious, or he's fucking with us."

[androxys]

Related to nothing else going on in America's political scene right now, I'm thinking about the series of civic workshops I've been devising and running for undergraduates.

The age demographic generally labelled "college-aged" (let's say 17-23) cares so much. It really warms my heart to see the amount of care and interest there is in engaging with politics and trying to make the world a better place for themselves and those who will come after. The problem that I feel like I see over and over is that they overemphasize the office of the president, and then maybe give a little attention to congress. The existence of the supreme court frustrates them, because to the average attendee the SC is this nebulous thing that people don't vote for.

And my job is trying to convince them that they do have an ability to engage, because it's all connected. Yes, voting for the president is important because the right to vote itself is important. It's important to consider who the president might nominate onto the supreme court. Voting for representatives and senators in congress is important because that congress will confirm justices, and you want to make sure that congress will actually confirm nominees.

This is all high level, but most of my job is actually talking about local government. They're the ones who make the laws that most directly affect you. We're currently in a political era of states having more and more individual power. This means being conscious and strategic about who you vote for locally is really important!

Sometimes people talk (with good intentions!) about how voting is only a first step. But then perhaps they don't get into details about what that next step is, and my average college student feels like they're at a loss. So much emphasis is placed on the vote, so then what comes next? I try to teach students that the day after you cast your votes, you try attend your county commissioners meeting. Sit in on your town council. Learn these people's names and faces--you might be surprised how often you see them at Walmart.

I provide students with a template on how to draft a letter to an elected representative, and walk through which level of government is appropriate for fielding different petitions or requests. We talk about when solidarity building is important, and how a letter campaign can be effective.

It's easy to throw hands up and say that everything is bad and hopeless and we should all just give up. I personally feel that attitude ignores a lot of realities that most people live with every day. There is a hunger out there to do more, but I also think there is a need to believe we can do more.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich AJC

* * * *

Chief Justice Roberts is a liar and a racist

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

JUN 29, 2023

You knew it was going to be him, didn’t you?  To write yet another Supreme Court decision basically saying, this whole race thing – we’re finished with it, and racism is over.  He wrote the last decision saying the same thing, Shelby County v. Holder, when he declared, essentially, that racism was a thing of the past, so we don’t need the enforcement provision in Article Five of the Voting Rights Act because it is “based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day,” and “our country has changed.”

That’s what Chief Justice Roberts said again today in the decision he wrote ending affirmative action in college admissions: “The student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,” he wrote.  Taking into consideration “the color of their skin” when deciding who to admit into college is wrong because, in words I hope he’ll be remembered for after he is long in the grave, “Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”

This is, to put it simply, a bald-faced lie.  Our entire history as a country from the day arguments began at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 has been about race.  The Constitution that was ratified in 1788 and put into force in 1789 dodged the issue of slavery with the infamous three-fifths clause, that not only permitted white people to own Black people in the Southern states but allowed slavery to spread west with the expansion of the country, directly leading to the Civil War in 1861.  That brutal conflict, which caused the deaths of more than 600,000 American citizens, led directly to the passage of the 13th and 14th Amendments, by which this country tried to make amends and deal with the original sin of slavery.  The South fought back with resistance to Reconstruction, leading to the years of the Jim Crow laws, which essentially stripped Black people in the South of rights granted to them as citizens, including the right to vote.  Segregation not only in public accommodations but in education was imposed by law in the South, leading to Brown v Board of Education, which declared that segregating students on the basis of race was illegal.  So-called massive resistance to integration followed in the South, leading directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Laws of 1957 and 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Roberts dismissed so handily in 2013, which led to the nearly immediate imposition of restrictions on the right to vote in multiple states, the legacy of which we are still dealing with in every election since.

Is that enough “constitutional history” and just plain old history for you, Mr. Chief Justice?  I would just like to point out that you can dismiss the history of race in this country and declare racism over only if you are a white man and you have power.

The decision of the Supreme Court today had all six Republican justices voting to end affirmative action and all three justices appointed by Democratic presidents voting against and signing a dissent.  The court’s decision and Robert’s blinkered opinion reflects an ongoing, yes historical, problem we have as citizens of the United States:  an abiding unwillingness or inability to put on the cloak of our brothers and imagine ourselves walking in their shoes.  That is all affirmative action is or ever has been – an attempt by colleges to imagine what it is like to be black or brown and do something about it. 

What we did about race for the first 175 years of our history was to use it against those whose skin color was not white.  The color of one’s skin was the one thing that many states, most of them but not all in the former Confederacy, considered when making decisions not only about college admissions, but about who to educate and how they should be educated:  white schools get this amount of money and new school books; Black schools get that amount of money and hand-me-down school books from the white schools.  Before that, during the years of slavery – part of our “constitutional history” as well, in case the Chief Justice hadn’t noticed – laws were written in the South making it illegal to educate the Black people who were enslaved by white people.  There were laws against integrating schools by race, allowing people to discriminate on the basis of race in renting or selling houses and apartments, allowing businesses to ban Black people from coming inside a restaurant, for example, and requiring them to order and pick up food from a window on the side or back of the restaurant’s building.

I could go on for the benefit of the Chief Justice, who seems to have forgotten our history of organized and legal discrimination on the basis of the color of one’s skin, but I know you get the picture. 

The court’s decision and Roberts’ decision is a lie, but worse than that, it violates what we might call the Constitution’s first commandment, found in its preamble:  We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…”

This Supreme Court’s entire jurisprudence is an outright rejection of that commandment and an assertion that the Union is perfect enough for them, thank you very much, and if the rest of you don’t believe the way we do, then to hell with you.  Our Union is not perfect, and this decision intentionally and purposefully turns back the clock to a time in our history when discrimination on the basis of skin color was not only allowed, but in many cases, written into the laws of our states and tolerated by our courts, including the Supreme Court.

Race in this country started out as our crime, and then it became our burden.  If you don’t believe that, ask any person whose skin is not white.  Ask Black people in the South who went to schools that did not have central heating systems and cafeterias while white schools just a short distance away had both of those things.  Ask Black people who applied to colleges, or applied for jobs, or applied for a loan at a bank, or applied to rent or buy an apartment or a house. 

I’m talking to you, Chief Justice Roberts.  Take off your robes and get off your ass and go out on the streets of Washington D.C. and ask any Black person you encounter how the color of their skin has affected them.  Then go back and read your own opinion and ask yourself if “our constitutional history” has tolerated what happened to them during their lives.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

I just read ur reblog for the “why is 18 the age where we’re considered adults?” Anon asked. And I’m currently 9teen there’s a lot of woes young adults face. But for some reason a lot of people’s answers to the challenges young adults face struggling to meet the threshold of maturity throughout history is to claim we aren’t responsible enough. Then the powers that be decide to make it harder for us to make our own decisions. limiting the autonomy of people considered younger. people in the past and in the modern era still consider the act of criminalizing common youthful actives in the common age of that time period to somehow be the most logical step to trying to cure a societal ill which doesn’t make sense to me.

But I do think it is unfair that legally a 56 and 46 year are not treated much differently by laws. like giving someone a ten year sentence could have unforeseeable consequences if they die at 60. I honestly don’t think I like that nature of law & order in general and i more want to meet people where they’re at. However I do find it disturbing that u can go to “adult” prison at the age of 8teen. Because even tho yes I do consider people over 8teen year olds capable of making many decisions in their lives. I personally know I’ve waited a long time to have my perspective finally taken seriously by older adults. It still seems nerve racking we put people into that environment at such a age.

When 8teen year olds to 25 year olds are still dealing with the possibility to adopt new experiences. When 8teen to 25 year old potentially are lacking a lot knowledge from experiences to come. And are still very much dealing with developmental changes (social and physical). Not many political systems take that into account. Especially since all people 18-25 don’t have much experiences to bounce off of expect for their teenage and childhood years. When someone gets kicked out at 8teen it’s not like they can just go to foster care (to my knowledge) . Honestly it’s kinda the same with foster care having ditched a lot kids once they turn 8teen.

There is societal pressure for everyone at every age but to a degree that’s kinda the problem too. Is there anything wrong with acknowledging the difference and treating someone who’s 8teen with the understanding that they’re 8teen differently. Like if someone felt they where groomed into sex work at 8teen I would want society to treat that situation somewhat differently than someone being groomed at age 27.

Not because of some abstract value system to each individual’s experiences. I still want both events to be addressed but there’s clearly a difference there and those two victims should be handled differently with regard to (and by acknowledging) their age rather than are they just an adult or child. And I think it is a factor that should be looked at more and evaluated better in our society. Cuz I’m not sure humans completely understand how to best account or how everyone’s different exist effects their maturity levels and how they chose to approach an experience. And I think as we learn we should adapt if want to possibly achieve a better quality of life.

I hope I’m making sense i hate how the law treats people when they meet their abstract rigid definition of adulthood. it’s oppressive and cruel. It’s also very unthinking to everyone differences in life in my opinion. Am I making any sense or do I sound crazy?

Also I’m not out here trying to make it so that 8teen year olds can’t vote or get banned from watching porn btw. But a majority of my issues are very much with how we are restricting younger people legally. And the unequal effects that has on their life. I’m currently 9teen and I’m willing to bet My brain probably looks different from 8teen even tho I don’t exactly know how.

Idk if I really explained my POV well at all but I value your perspective and wanted to know if my outlook sounds reasonable to u or not? I also think more people need to have theses conversations with themselves and asks questions like these. I think we should all examine the way of life and status quo.



Okay, so I have a lot to add about a lot of this.

But a brief overview

I think it's very hard to talk about age reform when it's not really age or age related laws that are the issue. The issue is systematic and is in every aspect that we need to fix first.

With issues of adult prisons and prison sentences, it's all perpetuated by the prison industrial complex.

The entirety of age laws being what they are is caused by the military industrial complex.

Foster care issues are caused (in large part) by the way the government treats often poor people and people of color.

None of these issues are actually age-related, but rather, parts of bigger issues that seem to fall unfairly on younger people. (Younger people absolutely are targeted by governments a lot too, don't get me wrong.)

It's just important to keep in mind none of these issues tend to stem from the adult vs child argument. They all form from systematic issues that are already in place.

Also I agree with the concept of "not adult vs child" is very hard to argue this in a way that doesn't open it up to a bigger conversation. Maturity is different for every person at every age.

An 18 year old can be a world more mature than a person who is 45. But how do we determine this? How do we apply this to laws without it opening the door for abuse? Again, linking it all back to systematic issues.

People in the past and in the modern era still consider the act of criminalizing common youthful actives in the common age of that time period to somehow be the most logical step to trying to cure a societal ill which doesn’t make sense to me.

I completely hear you. Unfortunately, this is a belief system engrained into society. They thrive off this age divide being between the young and the old. Financially, it's beneficial to sell the idea that old people are bad. And law wise, it's beneficial to sell the idea that young people are bad.

Financial gain from young people

When we're young, old people are authoritarians and they just don't get it. Teachers, parents, the law, the government, the old man down the street who always seems to be cranky. "Old" is synonymous with boring and uncool. Old people are out of touch, they're sad and they don't have fun. And of course, you would never be like that. You're going to be the exception when you get old. You and your friends will always like the cool things and have fun and never be out of touch.

This point of view is completely understandable, the idea that you will never be like that, but it misses the reason why there's that divide. People of different ages enjoy different things. People of different ages want different things. People of different ages can handle different things. It's all part of aging and one isn't inherently uncool. They're just very different. But when you're younger, it can be hard to believe one day you'll be the person who seems out of touch. But you recognize aging is an inevitable process.

So, how do you stop the process of aging without being able to actually stop it?

Well, as you get a bit older, you start having society pushing the idea that aging is Bad on you a lot harder. Being old looks bad, being old feels bad, old people don't get it and you can tell someone's old by the way they look. Wrinkles? Bad. Age spots? Bad. Old people are ugly and that's bad. So you should look young and beautiful because that's good.

So you funnel money into creams and lotions and fancy skin lights, you pay to have your hair dyed when you start going grey, you invest in the pharmaceutical and other beauty industries.

(Note: This exists on a lot of levels, much like every other societal problem does. It also exists because of the beauty industry and body standards in general.)

But at the same time, the government doesn't really want young people to be in control of anything. So that's where the next part comes in.

The benefits of laws against young people

Since the dawn of man, who has been most of the revolutionaries? When you think of societal reform, who do you most often imagine leading the pack? What do all these pictures seem to have in common?

Young people are scary for the government. Young people tend to bring radical change and that's the exact opposite of what they want.

So, the government sells the idea that young people are irrational and exactly what's wrong with this country. Young people are basically still kids and so they should be disregarded.

That's why you get the take of "young people are ruining this country and everything they do is bad" from older people. This is why you get concepts of "legally an adult but technically a child."

(This is also contributed to by left-leaning people who are anti trans, anti kink, anti porn, etc. They also fuel into the idea that "yeah teenagers technically count as adults, but they're still kids so they shouldn't have access to these things.")

This is part of why I so strongly hate the argument of "18 year olds shouldn't be pressured to vote" or "18 is too early to vote, you're practically still a child."

You are trusted with a car at the age of 16. You can literally buy a machine capable of killing you and everyone else on the road. You're trusted with making responsible choices with that, but you can't make choices for your own vote?

But the car issue stems from capitalism. You can work at 16 and you often need a car to commute. So, of course, the government wants workers to be able to work. It's also easy to underpay and exploit underage workers.

And people forget 18 year olds didn't use to be able to vote. We gained that right after we got tired of the country exploiting us. We could be sent to war at 18, but we couldn't vote. So, instead of having to give up exploiting and killing teenagers, the government decided "yeah I guess you guys can vote now."

Is there anything wrong with acknowledging the difference and treating someone who’s 8teen with the understanding that they’re 8teen differently. Like if someone felt they where groomed into sex work at 8teen I would want society to treat that situation somewhat differently than someone being groomed at age 27.

In the case of sexual exploitation, I think both should be handled with the exact same level of care and compassion. Because at least to me, a victim is a victim no matter their age. And there's no way to account for if one was more vulnerable than the other.

I think the issue with this is, again, everyone is different at every age.

For instance, is an 18 year old with a good support system and a good view of the world inherently more vulnerable (due to age) than a 27 year old with no support system and an upbringing where they ended up with an altered view of the world? (So for instance, the 18 year old was taught about sexual exploitation and how to be safe whereas the 27 year old in this context never had that.)

I also think it's important to be careful about the ways we treat victims differently based on perceived differences.

For example, do you think we should treat afab victims of sexual abuse differently than amab victims of sexual abuse? Because there are a lot of mental and emotional differences between people socialized as men versus people socialized as women. Especially in regards to sex and how they view it. This is, of course, caused by societal issues and treating them differently, but it is still a prevalent issue.

So. In short, yes you make sense. But the age conversation is a much bigger (systematic) issue than we really give it credit for.

[stevensaus]

In the days around the first political debate in 2024, a particular political idea kept resurfacing (again): The idea that Joe Biden is a bad candidate not due to his age, but because he supports --- these are direct quotes, not sarcasm quotes -- "genocide" in Palestine, passed laws that "imprisoned Black men", and so on. Their point -- express or implied -- is something like "they're both the same, they all are oppressors, they're all oligarchs," etc. I am not going to argue whether or not any of those things -- or whatever other policy complaint you have about Biden or the Democrats -- are true. I am also not going to argue whether or not they are important. There's three simple reasons for that. Voting is harm reduction. You can have multiple political strategies Voting alone is not enough Yes, I've read the essay "Voting is not Harm Reduction." It literally begins (emphasis mine): Though there are some political distinctions between the two prominent parties in the so-called U.S., they all pledge their allegiance to the same flag. Red or blue, they’re both still stripes on a rag waving over stolen lands that comprise a country built by stolen lives. We don’t dismiss the reality that, on the scale of U.S. settler colonial violence, even the slightest degree of harm can mean life or death for those most vulnerable. Voting is not Harm Reduction It accurately points out that the idea of "'voting as harm reduction' obscures and perpetuates settler-colonial violence," to which I'd add it also obscures the oligarchic control and self-reinforcing class and race structure of the system. That is, it does so if that is the only thing you do, and that you continue to give that lesser evil a pass on the evil they do. The whole concept makes the presumption that the only action that one can take is voting (or otherwise working within the government structure)... and that not voting has a larger effect than voting. It's like a secular version of Pascal's wager. If voting has no effect because both parties are the same, then I might as well vote, since it won't make a difference. However, if voting does have an effect, particularly one that "can mean life or death for those most vulnerable," then I should vote. The absurdly low individual cost to me of voting makes the ethical math worse. To explicitly choose to not vote when that result could literally mean the difference between life and death to someone in a more vulnerable position than myself is a staggering amount of arrogant privilege. HOWEVER. That does not mean -- and has never meant -- voting is enough. It also does not mean that the party/group/individual I voted for cannot be criticized when it does awful stuff. That idea -- exemplified by the GOP's term "RINO" to get people to toe the ideological line -- is closely associated with fascist rulers (see: Russia, China, North Korea), so... yeah, I'm gonna criticize "my side" when they're wrong. That's all we need to say about that. But voting also still isn't enough. There are many ways to take political and social action, and if you can't think of any, there's local and national groups that I'm sure would be happy to have your help. I don't just mean PACs and political parties (though they're certainly included). Here's some other examples: Dayton's Have A Gay Day is not an explicitly political group, but they definitely have an impact in our area not only in supporting those who need assistance, but in promoting equality. The Interfaith Alliance forges "powerful alliances among people of diverse faiths and beliefs to build a resilient, inclusive democracy and fulfill America’s promise of religious freedom and civil rights not just for some, but for all." The Major Taylor Project "breaks down barriers to cycling for youth of color in King and Pierce County" in Washington State. Taking action includes small actions like speaking up when there's something bigoted said at the office. By pestering reporters and editors to, oh, cover a race fairly. And so on.

If there is a benefit I gained from reading "Voting is not Harm Reduction," it is remembering that direct action does not mean it has to be explicitly within the political process and that voting -- even when it does reduce harm, is not enough. Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay https://ideatrash.net/2024/07/voting-is-harm-reduction-but-voting-is-also-not-enough.html?feed_id=183&_unique_id=668ca3df322d0

[alphabetsoup-blogposts]

So, there was a little pulse...

of energy, a little kerfuffle, but over what? The "asset value" point? Something I posted earlier? The salary matching that seemed to link F and R—two apparently wholly unconnected individuals?

I don't know what you draw from it and I know that when perceptive people try to extrapolate to theories from their uncanny observations they usually get it wrong.

But I can tell you what I took it to be as I processed it over time, what I told K (in part) and my commuting friend (in whole) that I feared.

I gradually came to the view that there was a constellation of things going on in which several individuals were getting what they wanted and I was being sacrificed accordingly.

I thought that B (the other half of the duo) was on a "Britain Needs Women" or "Women Should be Socially Useful" kick that matched up with his fears about the status of law in London after Brexit and somehow in his own mind gave him permission to take an interest in my career choices. I don't want to go too far with this because I really don't understand it at all or even know whether it is true. Worst case scenario, however, perhaps he thought "Joanna could join the Brotherhood" (*agggghhh*) and he influenced the situation accordingly over a long period of time. In that schema, the role with F would have been a kind of distantly analogous practice and cv boost. Whatever. I do remember his asking to come into see me in 2013 and saying in this slow, curious, thoughtful way "Oh yes, you know all about [gauges], don't you?" as if suddenly struck forcibly by my expertise. I want to be brief but I will just remind you that, later on, when I was begging everyone for a lead on a job, PD broke out with "But I thought B said..." in a mildly, offended horrified tone before cutting himself off and refusing to say more. (I have documented it more precisely somewhere.) That is just the teensiest bit of this big picture of getting the strangest kinds of brush off and finding out that random third parties thought that B had views on my career choices.

R was acting from mixed motives—there's a wealth of evidence and no need to reiterate it all here. He would talk about his love for me and call me "Princess" and I know if he were talking to you he would say it was "avuncular" but that is often not how it came across. He was manifestly furious in a tight lipped way when he walked in on me talking to GG on the phone in 2013. (I had already told him of the relationship one earlier Saturday. He developed the habit of hanging out at my little office annex when I worked at weekends and I told him as part of an effort to "manage" the situation by creating a boundary of sorts. TLDR.) He invited me to the Bleeding Heart Bistro a few months later. I reciprocated with a casual supper invitation—again trying to "manage" the situation (he was, after all, arguably the most influential figure in my life at the time)—and he came with flowers. There were countless coffees and so forth, some perhaps (but not many) at my prompting. Sure, it could all be, y'know, confusion and stuff that happens. I felt guilty, actually, for mixed messages at the time. As the years wore on, however, I felt that it was a scarring tragedy because it had impacted all those choices we're talking about. From 2016, as soon as I could extricate myself from self-employment, I avoided him as completely as possible. I tried, btw, to open a conversation about it with DG when I resigned but he ignored it and then later trotted out his happy "yes we did [turn a mental health issue into a ritual humiliation], didn't we?" line. (That, btw, was in reference to an unnecessary and unsolicited vote he organised which, he informed me, R had won and I had lost). So, what am I saying? I'm saying that if B had the strategic idea that I should join their Brotherhood and stay in London, then R certainly had his own reasons for concurring.

And F? Well, that's the hardest. He didn't want me there ab initio. I'll never understand that. I sorta assumed that whoever DID want me in that role had some kind of power over F. But I'll tell you who that shadowy pro-Jo figure wasn't—it wasn't Mr Big, Mr Big's Right Hand Man, AV or even CM, to whom they all deferred. They didn't want me there either. Perhaps... well, I just don't know. The obvious person I suppose might be GG but I know him to be scrupulously ethical so I've always rejected that idea. Plus, I just don't think the UK govt would have deferred to him over even the smallest thing. They manifestly and expressly hated him. The Tendering Committee and their connections to people I knew have always seemed like a more fruitful avenue of enquiry but not one I am at liberty to pursue. Worst case scenario, I was being boxed in as some kind of devious manoeuvre to "get at" GG in some way but that seems a little "noirish" even for me (and also wholly ineffective). So, in the the end, I dunno. I dunno. I dunno. But what I am saying, in essence, is that F, Mr Big, Mr Big's Right Hand Man, AV, EV and CM were all aligned in wanting to acquire the [gauges] and perhaps I came with that territory until such time as they could safely get rid of me(?)

And K and the other Ds? Well, she was one of the people who tried very early on in July 2016 to persuade me that the thing to do was to pivot to the message that London was still open and secure for legal business. (There are two views, I suppose, on whether that is "addressing legal uncertainty" but I was not convinced it was fully aligned with the regulator's strictures.) Anyway, I am saying that, although most of the Ds probably had no views on my career choices per se they would have vaguely agreed, I think, with a plan for the development of the architecture as a whole. The broad architecture being: London is great, notwithstanding Brexit, because here we have unique expertise in law and finance—and gauges in particular—which is linked in various strategic ways to the Brotherhood, the old lady and to market participants. And, anyway, if I were right about B, who exactly, in legal or political practice, would say "no" to him and his ideas about one single mother's career choices on a point of principle?

And my Commuting Friend? I dunno. I thought she was wholly unconnected but then she started acting very, very oddly and my heart broke.

[here-queer-jointpain-severe]

Listen here's the thing - those of us who are working towards a Free Palestine never figured out a backup plan. We never came up with one singular option that we could vote for in a block instead of Biden. Not during the Democratic primaries, and not now behind a third party candidate. There needs to be a revolution, yes, but

Revolutions need to be planned and revolutions need safety nets to protect marginalized folks who are at the most risk

I live in Texas. A Trump presidency is what allowed the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade and lead to skyrocketing issues with miscarriage complications. A Trump presidency made the border crisis absolutely worse and stoked up the racism in this state to the point that we now have a "show your papers" law on the book for anyone who might "look" undocumented. A Trump presidency lead to the trickle down effect of my now having a fucking antivax COVID denier as a rep.

Am I in favor of genocide? Fuck no. President Biden is supporting and funding the death of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. He is part of a colonizer regime who is using the IOF as a proxy force to take power in the Middle East. But what he doesn't do is use and abuse executive orders in order to push his agenda. He's also not going to sign bills such as gender affirming care bans, abortion bans, or the deportation of all immigrants. That means that yes, conservative states are still dangerous, but there also are states that are safe havens where people have the ability to get the care they need.

Here's the thing: I don't have the option to put trans kids, undocumented immigrants, people with uteruses, or people with disabilities in a more vulnerable position. We cannot sacrifice anyone for the purpose of breaking down our systems. A revolution that does not provide safe havens for marginalized groups to keep them from being the first victims is just as morally heinous as a colonizer regime enacting a genocide.

We cannot value the urgency of the revolution over the quality of the revolution.

Stop blaming individuals for having to choose to get a tiny modicum of protection and put the onus back on the government that is chaining us to the Electoral College and the two party system. Keep protesting and pushing and making sure our anger is known. But don't come for those of us who have sat and thought long and hard about this and are extremely reluctantly voting for Biden out of a tiny sliver of hope for harm reduction. Trust us, we're not happy about it either.

Didn't think you support genocide but cool. Good to know where you stand.

Do you genuinely believe that Donald fucking Trump will halt military aid to Israel and call for a ceasefire upon election? Genuinely.

Because if you don't, then sitting on some high horse re not voting or voting for Trump, which in essence is the same thing, will result in an equal if not increased amount of genocide AND a shit ton of protections for queer people, disabled people, social and environmental programs will be gone. Not to mention the fact that the Supreme Court will likely become even more skewed Republican than it already is. I wish I could vote for a Democratic candidate other than Biden but we're now past that point. There are no other options. And we do not have the luxury of voicing our disgust with Biden by withholding our votes. Jesus Christ. No. I do not support genocide. I've called politicians, I've helped behind the scenes with protests, and for the last 6 months I've allocated my LRPD royalty donations to Drs without Borders and the Gaza Sunbirds, but in the next election I will vote for Biden while gritting my teeth because I'm a rational human being and when I set aside the emotion of it I recognize that we are in a bad place now but it could get a whole hell of a lot worse. Please do not be naive.

So I guess my tldr answer is: No, I don't support genocide but it sure seems like you do provided your quippy excuse for not voting makes you feel better about yourself.

[imspardagus]

The Democratic Kingdom of West Korea

(Formerly known as Great Britain)

I read in the papers that the Government has drawn up legislation to outlaw “anyone who “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values.” Yes, our government, that collection of corrupt lying scumbags who are paid by us to run the country’s services as public servants.

The irony in this is of almost unimaginable proportions. One of the great British values, as claimed, is tolerance; another is freedom of expression; yet another is individual liberty. Don’t take my word for it, check with the Government. Yet here they are, using our money and our resources to frame laws that are intolerant, that will stifle opinion and that will curtail the individual liberty of anyone who dares to say so.

George Orwell would recognise the language and appreciate the plot. All we need now is to force King Charles to abdicate in favour of Kim Jong Un and get a fleet of tugs to drag us round the Cape to the Pacific and the Tories‘ ambition of making us an Asian autocracy will be complete. War is peace, hate is love, lies are truth.

One of the marks of extremism, according to these crooks (and crooks’ henchmen), is “the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy”. That would be the “system” which ensures that the Tories can claim an 80 seat majority on the back of a minority of the votes cast across the country, that ensures that most of the country is not represented by the party it voted for, that demands that elected MPs must put their party before their judgment or conscience or the national interest, that allows MPs to absent themselves for protracted periods while drawing full pay and expenses from the State, that enables a handful of MPs from one party to determine who will lead the government and then empowers that un-mandated individual to hand out jobs, contracts and honours to his or her cronies. That system. Well, no surprise that they would want to protect that from critical analysis and change.

Another mark of extremism, apparently, is “undermining” Britain’s institutions. Now that comes as a bit more of a surprise from a gaggle of hoorays who have expended most of their efforts in the past few years undermining the courts, the NHS, the schools and universities, the BBC and the immigration systems in this country, not to mention its water supplies, its fishing industry, its manufacturing capacity, its markets, its housing stock, its public transport networks, its local administration and its roads…

But I suppose I should be personally grateful. All my life I have chided myself for being too “middle of the road”, too “safe”, too reasonable. Now, if these unelected ne’erdowells have their way, without moving an inch I will overnight achieve the notoriety of being an extremist. Because, like many people in this country, I believe that widespread reform, particularly of Parliament, is essential – essential precisely in order to prevent these bandits, these traitorous, self-serving parasites, from ever being able to threaten this fine country again. I have always assumed that I was upholding what it means to be British. Apparently however, that makes me an enemy of the people.

So be it. Or should that be Soviet?