Now I voted (not that it would have mattered as Kamala was going to win my state regardless), but for the sake of argument I also didn’t see minorities NOT being brutalized and killed under Biden or Obama. Or Clinton for that matter.

Getting high as shit may be the origin of culture to have cultural roles in the first place

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Looks like we pronounce it like the Swede’s do, and German is halfway to English pronunciation. I would probably blame the Germanic parts of English along with significant Swedish settlement in US cheese producing regions.

Exactly what I am talking about along with the immortalized cell lines stolen from minorities. I have no problems with people donating themselves to science or being appropriately compensated with thoroughly informed consent, the advances to science are critical. I just don’t want the biomedical equivalent of OpenAI stealing IP happening to make the 0.1% even richer.

The main concerns I see are if it is actually only individual organs, and things like your rights to your own genetic code/cell lines.

It’s time for Voodoo to make a triumphant return!

You will never get human trials for anything that hasn’t passed animal testing until we have lab grown human organs/organ systems, but that is a ways out and also somewhat controversial. Coning partial people or parts of people needs a lot of safeguards.

Are you talking about the Donald Trump who is definitely on the Epstein list, because the only reason to disappear evidence against your opponents is because you are also on there? I am also experiencing that particular deja vu.

I know several boomers who still believe Trump knew/knows nothing about Project 2025 and the amount of stuff getting completed on the Project 2025 is just purely coincidental. They cannot handle having been unable to tell Trump was lying about that, so cognitive dissonance it is

That’s what happens when the left goes full divestment from and demonization of guns for multiple decades. Even Marx knew it was a dumb idea, but saying “hell yes we are coming for your AR-15s and AK-47s” was just too tempting. The far right gun nuts are going authoritarian and the centrists are still hoping this doesn’t end in a shooting (civil) war.

You’re either actively against them, or you’re part of the problem.

I’ll take this whole section generously as a nebulous “you” and not you directly calling me either “one of them or a useful hateful racist”.

Two things can both be wrong, it’s not a zero sum game between open borders and fascist police states. Treating it as such caused the Democrats to lose some amount of support base, and did contribute to Trump getting reelected. The increase in Trump support from Hispanics and other immigrant groups was partially from resentment with treating illegal immigration as equivalent to legal immigration.

Yes, the poem on the Statue of Liberty is wonderful, and should still apply as the US is and should remain a nation of immigrants. That is not the same as having open borders for anyone and everyone, and it never has been.

So who and how many from those hostile countries to we have to kill to stop them from being hostile? Do we do it blitzkrieg style or Gaza style until all the hostiles are gone? Do you have the reeducation camps ready to ensure whatever resulted in the countries becoming hostile in the first place can’t happen again?

I don’t know about you, but this is starting to sound like a lot more work (and maybe a lot more death) than just dealing with borders.

“illegal immigrants” (whatever that’s supposed to mean)

Attempting to violate constitutional law through executive order is vile, and all law enforcement should be in uniform and identifiable (and held to higher standards than non-law enforcement) so I am completely against everything Trump is doing, but let’s not pretend illegal immigration isn’t a thing as a knee jerk in the other direction.

Illegal immigration is crossing the border without legally passing through customs to establish a legal right to be in that country, or overstaying your legal right to be there (Visa). People who are in a country illegally are rightfully subject to deportation back to wherever they are citizens. Pretending otherwise just helps more moderate people buy into the propaganda and let’s the ratchet work more easily.

We are all rightly complaining about Trump violating the law, so how is it also not a problem for people to violate immigration law? This is the problem I have that leaves me stuck in the middle.

Sanctuary cities that flaunt immigration law are, while not just as bad, still bad. When Trump (lies) and says he only wants to target people here illegally who commit crimes, and a sanctuary city prevents law enforcement cooperation with ICE, that just adds to the narrative of felon illegal immigrants and then you have ICE going after those people at home and grabbing everyone around them as by catch. This only helps the Trump.

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The vast and rapid modernization and industrialization of Russia at the start was a success, but my opinion is that Marxist-Leninism stopped in the USSR when Stalin seized the country and turned it into a crony dictatorship. I don’t believe that lasted long enough to be truly called a success, as it immediately fell to the authoritarianism it overthrew from the monarchy.

If you don’t think that Stalinism was the death of Marxist-Leninism in the USSR then the bread lines, famines, forced labor and relocation, imperial expansionism, etc. as broadly reported by those that lived there and lived through it are a product of socialism. I also believe that would count as failures of socialism and not proof of success.

I agree with you that the PRC is still nominally socialist, but believe they also went Stalinist instead of Marxist-Leninist. I would call them Stalinist Communist rather than socialist. I also do not think the juice was worth the squeeze with the number of dead in the revolution and aftermath, but there is no telling what an alternative would have looked like so that is just, like, my opinion man. I personally don’t consider China as a socialist success story, but instead another warning example for how easily Communism can be corrupted/captured from within.

I totally give you that Marxist-Leninism was the defining ideology of the 20th century, but I’d call it the fuse that lead to “Communism” the failed authoritarian ideology. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is to WWI. That is a hell of a lot more than Georgism ever got, to be sure, but would still say there has never been a successful Marxist country because they never remain Marxist for long.

I know I’m going to get downvoted for this, but since the USSR was a historical failure and Marxists claim China isn’t actually Communist but Capitalist, can’t we say the same for Marxism? An interesting historical curiosity, but it was never actually implemented and thus can’t be said to have ever taken off.

Both Georgists and Marxists get to complain about how things would be so much better if someone would actually just do it the right way for once. I say this as a left leaning Georgist Libertarian, to my heart in the right place Marxist cousins.

Are you saying that most Jewish people aren’t actually Jewish anymore because they became white Europeans when their ancestors left the middle east, or at least that Hamas is saying that?

Awesome, how do yoi like the Graphene experience? I just switched from Samsung to a Pixel and installed Graphene as soon as I got it. Still getting used to things, and still using some Google services and apps. Have you found good replacements for things like Android Auto and RCS for text messages (not that I can get RCS working yet in any case)?

NextCloud and Ente look interesting, I need to check those out for Photos and Drive alternatives.

I literally just had mine too, there’s dozens of us. Dozens! Happy birthday.