There are no risks and no downsides to the behavior of the SCOTUS judges, starting but not ending with Clarence Thomas.
Ask yourself, if you did some paperwork and got massive financial rewards and zero risks, zero downsides, would you do it again? Would you do twice as much of it?
Unless Biden is seeking to employ himself he’s not crossing the picket line.
If I bring bottled water to the strikers I am not crossing the picket line.
If Biden parks himself among the strikers and tells them as president that striking is their right and that it is the American way, he is NOT crossing the picket line.
Enough gaslighting.
Biden could have showed up to offer his support to the striking teachers.
The most pro-labor president, ladies and gentlemen.
We are electing a King this November thanks to SCOTUS and the GOP.
Is Biden a good King for us? That’s what we need to be asking.
This November we will elect a King.
Anyone who still believes we are electing a president like usual is not paying attention.
Biden was a mediocre status quo manager, tweaks around the edges president who inspired no one. No one voted for Biden with love or with enthusiasm. As president Biden was just barely passable, more about damage mitigation (“I am not Trump!”) than about a positive, affirmative, forward looking VISION for America.
But we aren’t electing a president anymore.
We are electing a King.
As a prospective King, Biden is absolute trash. Biden can use his newly granted Kingly powers to immediately official act assassinate all 6 servative SCOTUS judges! Ruthless and efficient response is what befits a King. Biden is a goddamn sleepy and moist slug who can’t even protect himself from salt. Biden is weak, slow, lacks insight into the moment.
Biden had 4 years to deal with the structural wealth inequality issue in America. He’s ignored the issue because his billionaire donors paid him to ignore it. In other words, Biden does not think big, and cannot escape the big money influence. He’s a far cry from FDR. That’s Biden as president.
But as King? The requirements for a King are totally different. Biden needs to be removed immediately, and a ruthlessly hard left individual needs to be installed immediately. Nothing less will thwart the GOP while creating a path to the future we actually want to believe in and want to live in.
Once voting becomes conditional, it’s a precedent and then it will invite all kinds of people to adjust the conditions, to apply conditions selectively, etc.
A universal suffrage is much more defensible and harder to abuse.
Your concern is best addressed by making civics and power literacy mandatory, and sanely regulated gun ownership also mandatory. AR-15 is not an assault rifle. But people with a verifiable history of violent domestic abuse or violence toward animals at any age, no guns. Anyone caught in possession of a firearm while intoxicated, instant loss of the gun privilege. Armed robbery, larceny of firearms, no guns. Etc.
We should and will all have a vote.
Taxes can be imposed after the billionaires are afraid to bribe the government.
Right now there is zero risk, zero downside for a billionaire to finance elections, offer revolving door opportunities, control via ownership almost all the media. Also zero risk, zero downside for the public officials to whore themselves out. All the political whores are walking and jetting around in safety and in luxurious comfort. Why would these folks change their behaviours?
Right now when a government official renegs on their promises, there is zero risk, zero downside. Politicians can promise to raise taxes on the superrich and just never do it, and zero risk, zero downside.
Agreed. Also to add, it’s much better than having almost no power and almost no privacy like right now.
Besides, maybe you can think of another way to restrain the accumulationists at the top of society.
Right now being a billionaire is zero risk, zero downside. It’s not a trade-off but a strict upgrade from the middle class. No wonder the billionaires are insane and detached from reality.
So either risk (like randomly executing some of them every year), or a downside, or both have to be added to the equation to keep the top of the society in check.
I am with you. We should take POWER seriously, and in addition to civics power literacy should be taught.
Because voting and the entire Western civilization rests on the bottom up people power.
It’s like when pirates had true democratic governance before any country did. Because each pirate was willing to kill every other pirate in their sleep, and they each knew that about themselves and each other, and made a rational decision to vote. But imagine if most pirates were NOT willing to kill, and this unwillingness was also well known? Why the fuck would they each get a vote then? Think about it.
Love Tim Walz, he’s the best.
But if Biden does the deed above, I can be an exclusive Biden-stan for 4 years. IF!
4 years. Not forever.
And only with regard to presidency.
Outside of the context of the presidential election I can (and probably will, unless something important changes) still be a Tim Walz stan even if Biden does the deed.
As long as Biden refuses to exercise ruthlessness in my name and with my approval I will be bringing up Tim Walz as a vastly superior presidential candidate to Harris, Newsom, Whitmer, and the typical gaggle of the establishment picks.
What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey’s video Rules for Rulers, which isn’t quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that “corruption” isn’t so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.
Just finished watching! Great stuff, thank you for mentioning it.
This is “born to run” by Christopher McDougall running theory right?
First I hear of this McDougall. I learned everything I typed on my own, painfully, by running in all the wrong ways first. That’s why I was about 42 when I learned how to run.
That said, if McDougall says the same things I say, great! No one should suffer injuries from heel stomping like I had. No one should go through the same hell as I. No one should have to cough up blood from their lungs due to overly rapid breathing, like I had. No one should believe the rate of breathing is a fixed and inborn quality. Instead everyone should know that the rate of breathing is a trainable quality. And the rate of breathing depends on the calmness of one’s deep mind. The calmer the mind, the slower the breathing can be. Hence why I advised to enter a sleep-like state.
I also combined running with meditation and psychoenergetic training (I learned psychoenergetics from Nanci Trivellato and Robert Bruce). That’s basically it in a nutshell.
Are battle maces worth it? I kinda think just beating a sledgehammer hammer into the ground would be an equivalent range of motion.
Don’t know about that, boss.
It probably depends on your goals?
I suggested running first because that one exercise just does waaaaaaay too much benefit in waaaaaay too many areas.
But there are lots of highly specific exercises like partial lifts, finger strength, static exertions, dynamic tension a la Charles Atlas, etc. All depends on your goals and time/energy availability.
What I described will make one tough and resilient like a solder with an endless gas tank.
like a rural person would legitimately live and die by their belief system, so e.g. when they opposed ObamaCare, even though many did it without truly understanding what it even meant, others on the other hand did know what it meant, and still opposed it, even for themselves.
This is conduct of an ideal imperial subject: selfless to the bone. This self-effacement, self-denial, self-hatred never ever stays with just their own person.
The fascsists will never win. They didn’t even win WW2, never mind today. But will they leave a mark? They already have via SCOTUS. That’s not in doubt. Will they leave an even bigger mark before we clean them up? Almost certainly.
We are at war, and have been all this while. Cold war, asymmetric war, hot war, civil war, unconventional war, information war, etc. That’s the reality of living in a world with not just competing interests, but living with grossly incompatible interests, incompatible worldviews, and incompatible value systems all vying for dominance.
What truly messed me up though was watching CGP Grey’s video Rules for Rulers, which isn’t quite Machiavellian though it gives off similar tones in that it encourages people to open their eyes to some of those uncomfortable Truths: that “corruption” isn’t so much a flaw - although it most definitely is that too, especially when taken to excess - as it is a necessary grease to keep the system working. We ignore this at our peril.
In a democracy everyone is a ruler, just not exclusively.
But culturally we have been bred for generations to have the mindset of a subject. We are learning what it means for each to be responsible for their own world the way a monarch would be, but without the exclusivity of a monarch.
This is an evolutionary process. When monarchies fell, the mindset, the values, the sensibilities of subjecthood didn’t just vanish overnight.
Democracy will prevail but there will be painful lessons.
Disagree on Williamson being a loon.
I don’t view privacy as an unconditional right. Also perfect privacy is impossible.
If you are a small individual whose decisions will not make big waves in society, you can be completely anonymous as far as I am concerned.
If you command great resources and can singlehandedly significantly affect my world with a stroke of a pen, I need to watch you, because you are dangerous to my world.
Right now our society is exactly upside down in this aspect.
I am always learning, but I have accepted that I own my process of learning. This means I enjoy discussions and it is possible for me to learn something new in a discussion or to remind myself of something I don’t want to forget, and I sometimes enjoy good company, but the grand strategy of my cognition and the final say on meanings and values are not collaborative for me, but the sole responsibility of myself to myself.
I enjoy solitude every bit as much as I enjoy good company.
Wealth is only a prerequisite up to a point, beyond which wealth transitions into a luxury as opposed to something life-giving or dignifying.
I can accept accumulations up to somewhere between $50 and $150 million.
People with extreme accumulations have to be watched and regulated if we want a society that optimizes for broad dignity.
If you want to optimize for peak dignity, monarchies with unlimited accumulations are the best for that.
Lies. All lies.
Trump loves fascism and tyranny just so long as he’s the tyrant.
I despise autocracies but if my foe forces me into an autocratic ruleset, I will be ruthless and lightning quick. Don’t like it? Don’t even think about establishing an autocratic ruleset. Meanwhile while an autocratic ruleset is still in effect I will use it to end it in a spectacularly bloody manner. Once the autocratic ruleset is over and all the relevant individuals thirsty for autocracy have been properly dealt with, I will return to being an institutionalist.