i think if we had to do the constitution again we should have had some kind of branch of government in charge of the money with the authority to declare war and pass laws and stuff, instead of just the "one special boy and nine wizards" setup we have now

I think bluesky would be roughly 300% better if people here were capable of reading “this is an assessment of the empirical reality of a situation” without assuming it comes with an implicit “and therefore I endorse the reality of that situation”

disaster: area man realizes he’s a bit hungry after brushing his teeth

All trends must inevitably continue until it’s a disaster. This is serious analysis.

Do we have a Constitution anymore, or is it just optional? Because if it’s the second thing it opens up a lot of options about what to do with these guys

A 37% rump that controls 55ish Senate seats for the forseeable future, which cannot enact its own policy but can essentially hamstring liberal fortunes via the fillibuster

The administration is claiming the power (1) to nationalize any private enterprise (2) in peacetime (3) arbitrarily and vindictively, (4) by fiat, (5) without compensation. That is, to control the means of production, with the power to take ownership for $0. Actual communism.

We need to demand punishment when Dems take power. People have to be imprisoned. People’s lives need to be ruined over what has been done to the world and the American people

re: Marathon, how is this the second extraction shooter released in recent memory that doesn't have saved loadouts? and why can't I click my upgrade slots and have it filter my inventory for those items c'mon this is solved technology for the genre guys

Possibly my most Boomer take is that transitioning to a post-literate culture is incompatible with a functioning democracy. Not just because people are substantively misinformed by TikTokkers or whatever, but because a brain conditioned by sustained engagement with text is wired differently.

taking my time before forming a judgment on Marathon. That game feels like you should give it a fair amount of play. you see, because it's a...

just had a realization that sent a shuddering chill all the way up my spine there will eventually be an esports team invited to the white house to celebrate their championship win

there's a lot of video game information i'm happy to let my brain store instead of important family history or details of what i did yesterday, but I feel like weapon attachment math isn't one of them. did we really need so much of that? we did not

i hate that trump has occupied so much of my mental space for such a large portion of my total lifespan. I have a recurring dream where I have to manage him as like an aide or an intern and he turns out to be surprisingly nice and constantly apologizes "it's the role they hired me for" who?!

The left is going to end up with the CIA in the national divorce because educational polarization means knowing anything about China or Iran at all is woke coded, let alone leaning their language and history.

my timeline has improved a bit after adopting a zero-tolerance policy for wrecker shit recommended

also look, if you are unable to recognize that *the enemy is the Republican Party* at this point, you're worse than useless.

kind of amazing that everything trump does can be understood through the lens of narcissism and it's related needs (e.g., self aggrandizement, revenge, domination, grievance validation). i don't think any character has been so one-dimensional, not even wile e coyote or scrooge mcduck

i feel like it should be cause for concern that many analysts are just assuming that after SCOTUS killed the tariffs, Trump is going to attack Iran. We're just letting the one special boy have an emotional support war?

The subheadline on this NYT piece is going to turn me into the Joker. Like... this... is exactly what trans people have been saying was going to happen for years.

Trump Suffers Setback Unrelated To Child Rape

he genuinely seemed angrier than i think i can remember seeing him in that one, i hope he goes and stress eats 8,000 mg of sodium about it

I can’t be the only one who wonders if I’ve gone insane and been hallucinating shit the past year or so.

We should try electing some kind of deliberative body that makes decisions about levying taxes.

I sense a disturbance in the force. as if a truth social post the length of Moby Dick is getting placed into the drafts.

we need a term for "inconsequential masochism." sometimes you feel the need to hurt yourself for no reason in a completely minor way. eat a meal slightly too big. that sort of thing. why yes i have reinstalled Rainbow Six: Siege, why do you ask

also one of the craziest evolutions of rapid response is how a month ago you'd be trying to get a plate check and you'd be like "VBZ 2552" and then have to repeat it 12 times and now 90% of us know the NATO alphabet and you'll get these girls going "Victor! Bravo! Zulu!" like they're fighter pilots

This is why everyone in leadership who talks about how they don’t need to sleep is stupid and lying. It’s a huge tell. Eric Adams used to talk about it all the time.

there should be more submarine movies

it goes beyond 'zero reward' we stopped COVID, we massively invested in infrastructure, we massively empowered workers, and we got the fuck out of afghanistan and the overwhelming message was "never do anything like any of those things, ever again"

why is it so hard to find a goddamn ereader with buttons nowadays the button is the light. the touchscreen is a false god. it has led man to sin.

This local Wolfdog joined an Olympic ski event and triggered the finish-line camera. This is Nazgul. He snuck into a cross-country skiing sprint this morning and raced the homestretch with some competitors before being escorted home. 14/10 someone get him a medal

the vaccine rollout was the most effective campaign for the public good our government had overseen in years, and no politician will ever be motivated to do such a thing again. absolutely zero political reward for it

mRNA vaccines may actually be the great invention of the 21st century and everyone should be a lot more angry about the attempts to kill them

bottom line re: two party system blues, to get better Democrats, you need better Republicans, and to get better Republicans, they have to be comprehensively defeated over and over again until they stop being psychopathic fascist magic thinking up-country degens

We know this in part because WE JUST WENT THROUGH IT. People spent years attacking Biden with complete reckless abandon, and excusing it by saying "We'll of course rally everyone back in 2024." It didn't happen! The miserable reputation you had created dragged us into oblivion.

You must vote. You must vote for the Democrat against Trump. There is no other remotely morally acceptable position. I’m sorry if this simple truth gets you yelled at but it’s still true

funny how a decade of hype around the "intellectual dark web" and the new free thinkers radically questioning democracy and all they ended up doing was duplicate gutter bigotry and basically medieval superstition that synarchists in an occult fascist polycule would have thought gauche

The gender version of this is why I am skeptical that we can win by out traditional masculinitying GOP. The very guys we were trying to win over flipped the fuck out and hated us even more when we send a war hero against a draft dodger and a football coach against a weird nerd who wears eyeliner.

1: yes, in fact. as long as there are fascists you have to keep fighting them. this is not complicated. 2: the democrats are not taking on maga's position on trans rights. or abortion. or immigration. go home you are high

It's actually amazing how Laconophilia has successfully laundered the reputation of a polity whose maximum size in population and territory was smaller than that of an average medieval kingdom with an infinitely smaller cultural output and far fewer military successes

If it was based in any country other than Greece the Spartan polity would be referred to as a "chiefdom" or some other derogatory term for a moribund half-state

Broadly speaking: reality tv is bad for democracy, influencers are bad for democracy, streamers are bad for democracy, YouTubers are bad for democracy. Exceptions to all categories exist, but it’s astonishing how absolutely clogged our political and media ecosystems are with low-info narcissists

Taking an anti-vaccination stances against a treatment that saves the life of ONE IN FIVE HUNDRED KIDS and has no verified deaths involving healthy recipients is not just anti-science and anti-logic, it's evil. I have studied this disease too extensively to soften that word. It's just evil.

the more you learn about the antebellum south the more you transform into this every plantation owner should have been put to death

This is so spot on

the reason i have moved to the center on some political issues and/or deradicalized depending on how you want to put it (i don’t think either term is correct, but i don’t have a clearly better one) is because i have seen enough evidence over time that leads me to believe my initial view was wrong

"I live in a democracy but the candidates I like rarely win. Therefore, democracy is of no use to me." is the basis of way too much leftist thought on here and frankly we need to do a lot better job shutting these people down and shaming them for it than we've been doing.