Ah yes, because criminals are subhumans who should be exterminated like the cockroaches they are. And if we can’t take the trash out back like we should we can at least make it not our problem and make sure the cockroaches aren’t in our backyard. That’s what you’re saying right?

China is half a world away and isn’t directly involved in my day to day. The harms that China can do to me are significantly less than those American businesses.

It’s not about trust, it’s about accurate threat modeling.

I used to have that issue, the secret for me was that I needed to explicitly look for wide shoes (Xw as in 10.5w) my current shoes are going on 2 years now :D

Yeah, the longer it takes the worse it gets. That’s one of the points the parent meme is getting across. But that response tells me you missed what I was saying.

Reread and try again.

We’ve been living in an authoritarian right wing country for 25-50 years. Historically the tactic of “we must sacrifice [insert marginalized group here] or it’ll get worse for us all!!!” has been very effective.

I find it very hopeful that this was the year that people were finally very vocally opposed that tactic and think it’s a good sign going forward that things might actually get better. However, that is reliant on people like you waking up to the fact that no amount of time and effort put into reinforcing the sacrificial machine will ever change its fundamental nature and that what you view as “being entitled brats” is often simply refusing to participate in the death, enslavement and marginalization of others.

Is active resistance better? Yes! But token resistance while actively reinforcing the authoritarian right is worse than nothing. The vast majority of those “opportunities to volunteer and donate” are doing just that; a $5 donation to “lesser evil INC.” is still actively funding evil.

Your frustration and anxiety for the future is perfectly valid, and I appreciate that you are at least a little mad about the state of things. But I would ask that you step back, reevaluate, and redirect that rage and start punching up instead of looking for who to punch down at.

1. Get started. Don’t waste both our time with numbers pulled out of your ass and wild speculation. So long as the Soviet Union is our example, how many hours of work did it take to purchase a vehicle? How many hours would you actually need to stand in the “banana line”? Was that even a thing?
2. 5 year plan was a perfect example because it highlights that maybe “productive output” isn’t the best/only metric to judge by ;)
3. Sure, I’d argue that’s a bit different but fair enough. However, you should look into if it was better or worse under communism and whether that was a causative effect or correlative with other events going on at the same time?

1. “Under comunism every one is equal” No. It follows the “from each according to their capabilities, to each according to their needs” idea

2. The “phenomenon” you describe is not the cause nor related to the causes of famines within the Soviet Union or China.

3. Compare “production output” from pre-soviet to Soviet Russia. It was one of the most rapid and dramatic increase in productive output in known history. The first 5 year plan saw gross industrial output increase by 118%.

4. “It also creates parallel economies of bribes and favours because well connected and productive people still want to be above every one else, this gives unfair advantage mafias and criminals.” That very accurately describes the post soviet kleptocracy and modern Russian capitalist state.

5. “In my opinion, no pure system is good if it’s comunusim or capitalism. You have to have a bit of everything” then it stops being communist or capitalist at that point but something else entirely like socialist, syndicalist, communalist, etc. putting every possible form of socioeconomic organization on a capitalist-communist spectrum is extremely reductionist.

Overall wildly inaccurate, uninformed and heavily biased take. Second paragraph shows you have good opinions and solid instincts, you should work on making them a bit more informed.

International history is filled with examples like this. The history of the Russian gulags is probably the most stark example, they were actually pretty decent (comparably) before everything outside went to shit…

Hell, nowadays most major corporations do this. Just nobody uses the scare word “propaganda” to describe it.

Correlation vs. causation.

A lot of things which impact “intelligence” can also have varying impacts on speech/articulation/communication skills. However it is important to note that the correlation isn’t strongly positive or negative (IE savant syndrome).

So while some disorders may have some common correlations with specific speech/articulation patterns they (usually) are not good diagnostic criteria and extremely broad generalizations like the one above are particularly bad.

One look at that website should be pretty obvious it’s an incredibly biased and low effort source. I don’t doubt the general outline of the article as this seems like pretty standard colonizer/empire shit, but it also isn’t the “gotcha” you seem to think it is…

Another aspect to consider is whether you anticipate inflation to exceed interest. With all the threats of major tariff wars it might make sense not to pay them/resist paying for as long as possible for that reason alone.

Walmart, Kroger, etc.'s entire business model is to undercut other local stores to drive them out and become local monopolies. If they exist in a location there likely aren’t many, if any, local stores remaining…

As well as the original story as reported by Skynews before they replaced it in lockstep with other media.

How would you make it more reliable?

deal with illegals

You mean be the one putting them in cages? Running the concentration camps immigrant detention centers? Using their legal status as leverage for the modern equivalent of indentured servitude?

It turns out people aren’t very nice when they’re being abused.

champagne communists

So let’s stop speaking in euphemisms. When you say “illegals” that is explicitly genocidal language, little different than the usual ‘insects’, ‘vermin’, etc.

So why don’t we just kill them all? Just set up a militarized zone on the border and shoot anything that moves?

Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and then the house and Senate approve or deny the nomination. The current justices were nominated by Democrat majorities.

Kamala Harris is actively campaigning with Dick Cheney.

Electoral districts are drawn via bipartisan committee.

This is ultimately the problem with metaphors… What specifically are you looking for to confirm or deny?

Are Democrats holding a gun to your head?

Yes. They are called police, the gun isn’t figurative.

But if you want to change metaphors:

“if you leave him alone with your stuff he’s going to steal it, you better leave me alone with your stuff as I won’t steal it.”

They then invite the other guy over and help them steal it, but blame it on the other guy and say “we tried to stop it”. Who would you be more angry with?

Holding a gun to your head is “not doing anything”?

Yes, dictatorships and monarchies sometimes have a petition process, but they tend only to pay lip service. Not because they care, they will do as they please becaue they have the power-- hence a dictatorship.

You’re so close to getting it…

So if one person is holding you at gunpoint while another rummages through your pockets, you should definitely only be mad at the one going through your pockets right?