We, a few of the People of the United States, in Order to form a more profitable Union, establish Dominance, insure domestic Exclusivity, provide for the private equity, promote the classist hierarchy, and secure the Blessings of Liberty only to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the Republican Party to do whatever it wants.
Was it the, “promote the general welfare” part? Because we could take that out too.
Edit: Spehleeng
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the Republican Party to do whatever it wants.
You should see the Newsmax article about it. It’s almost funny…almost.
Here for the obligatory “I’d tap that” quip.
I love this. Here are some more for those in need:
Everyone has a nearly government mandated tracking device shoved up their ass at all times…
Not necessarily. I have a large screen, so I have to carry it under my grundle.
…apparently knowing what every single human is doing every picosecond of the day isn’t enough and they need more tanks.
Try to see it from their perspective. What if an Asian college student posted a flyer with your picture, name, and job title in a public area. I bet then you’d be glad about them sending in a drone and 17 armored trucks through a suburban neighborhood to his parents’ house, where he doesn’t live, but what if there weren’t enough funding for all 17? What’re they supposed to do, go in with 16? That old, non-white couple could have had pointy sticks and other mystical Kung Fu accoutrements. It would have been a bloodbath.
That said, if I had to guess, at least some of the “clearance” in the past was just picking a random black person and stringing them up…
That’s a common misconception. They were actually very inclusive and made every effort to provide equal opportunity for all people who weren’t white, Anglo, Evangelical, conservative, cisgendered, heterosexual, English-speaking, non-poor, American citizens to participate in their unwilling scapegoat program at gunpoint.
They were also usually very stringent about due processes, like carefully collecting and preserving the planted evidence, taking each others witness statements until they become consistent, coordinating with coroners (when applicable) to help them achieve the right results, and working with DAs to ensure the defendant exercises their right to a trial so speedy they’ll miss it if they blink.
…then going out for doughnuts.
I apologize for being so argumentative, but I feel I must disagree again. Their diets are well known to be extremely diverse and aside from doughnuts include beignets, crullers, bear claws, danishes, eclairs, churros, apple fritters, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon twists, cronuts, long johns, maple bars, berliners, paczkis, tiger tails, malasadas, and doughnut holes, just to name a few.
Edit: formatting
I think they spelled “dystopia” wrong.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the perception from within Russia, but I also doubt it’s the case empirically and objectively. It was proobably good from 2000 to 2013 under Putin and then Medvedev, who was probably Putin’s puppet president.
But now, their GDP per capita is stagnant, if not in decline while their population is decreasing, and their GINI index is similar to that of the US and China. That’s a really bad combo. I can’t imagine how quality of life would be improving under those conditions.
Having said that, there are better metrics like median salary and median household income both adjusted for purchasing power parity, but I haven’t been able to find graphs for those. In fact it was kind of hard to find consistent economic data in general, which is another concern, but not really evidence of economic problems in and off itself.
I believe they’re living like it’s business as usual, but I’d attribute that to hypernormalization more than improvement in quality of life.
Wow, thank you for the thoughtful and very thorough response. I would very much like for this to be the case. Also, I learned a lot.
I like this theory, too. Regardless, I’m on board for whatever stops the killing while maintaining national sovereignty, and I mean that for any and all nations. I hope things get better for the citizens of Russia, too, but I don’t think it should be at the expense of Ukraine either. I just hope the US isn’t just protecting the sale of military equipment and supplies by drawing out the war.
Do we think this was the classic, “create a crisis and solve it” strategy, or are we about to find out later what unreasonable demand Ukraine had to cave to for survival?
Yeah, won’t this effectively result in de-facto unlimited campaign contributions, if not outright electioneering? Churches are often polling places for elections.
Was it because the US President threatened to annex Canada? I feel like that would probably do it.
If it helps, some models are showing it level off. If we advance climate science and use it to inform policy, we might be able to slowly contract our population while avoiding a “Children of Men” style collapse. I assume it would take a few thousand years to reach an equilibrium that allows us to maintain a habitable environment while still developing space-faring technology. The bonus is that the time it would take might change our practices into something a little more worthy of spreading to other planets if that ever becomes possible. I think with our current energy and pollution situation, we’ve guaranteed ourselves future hardships for many generations, but I don’t think it’s hopeless yet.
Regardless, other life has done similar stuff before. It resulted in mass extinction, but life moved on in some form. I hope the earth will be great with us in it, but if not, it will probably be fine without us, too.
Good to know. I definitely don’t want that. I should just go see a migration and enjoy them from a safe distance.
For me, it was the fireflies. I grew up in suburbs at the edge of a city, where the rural land started, just about as far as city water and sewer reached. It grew pretty quickly, and by the time I turned 18, I was about as close to the city center as I was to the outskirts. In that process, every summer, there were fewer and fewer of them until one year they were just gone. I was busy, so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but looking back, I regret not making an attempt to make a habitat for them in our garden.
It’s prob mimicking a puppy or something.
Why would you put that uncensored comment out here for us to see? Now I’m going to have nightmares as if directed by John Capenter about spiders that look exactly like puppies to humans until they attack.
They are most dangerous on Halloween, by the way:
Stay vigilant. Do not become a statisic.
Hmm. I do think I’d make a good, unusually benevolent, eldrich god. On the other hand, I still miss my beta fish that died 5 years ago. No telling how I’d react to the rise and fall of a spider family line, dozens of generations in length.
Tarantulas are cool, but I’d worry about dropping it. I know they typically don’t bite, and that their bites aren’t dangerous. Still, I don’t know if I could relate to it positively after that. It’s not rational. I’ve gotten mild dog bites and cat scratches from pets playing too rough, and those are much more dangerous. Tarantulas still pas the cuteness test, but I think the spider bias affects them more than jumping spiders.
I don’t think I’ve ever been uncomfortable having a jumping spider on me unexpectedly. It’s fun to watch them hunt. Watching the retinas in their big eyes move to track things is fun. It makes them seem more like adorable cartoon characters.
Obscenely wholesome or wholesomely obscene? You be the judge in the next episode of TALES OF INTEREST!