Aha, I gotcha. That’s a pretty apt analogy, I like it. Yeah, it’s pretty frustrating talking philosophy with someone and they’re all like “it’s not that deep, bro”, when in reality, it’s a hotly contested topic in academic philosophy. So I guess it’d be like “bro, it’s just a flat, red surface” when you’re trying to talk about how the stem is attached to the core in a way.

I’ve found that I generally don’t look down on anyone pretty much ever. I don’t get it when someone lacks intellectual curiosity, but I never look down on them for it since it’s just not everyone’s cup of tea. However, when someone has disdain or actively rejects deeper inquiry, hoo boy, I can’t help but suddenly feel a pretty aggressive anger as if they not only choose to be stupid, but are trying to socially pressure everyone else to choose to be stupid. That’s just not acceptable.

What are non-apple rotators?

I was so ready to fight you with that first half, not gonna lie. I’m very much so in the camp that Charlie Kirk no longer being alive is a good thing, however, I do think the way he died may be a bad thing in that it kinda makes him a martyr. I think one huge mistake that people make with things like this is to not recognize that truly evil people were indeed still human. The most evil humans to ever live in Imperial Japan’s Unit 731 needed to die by any means necessary, but they were still human.

I think that the belief that all humans are good or that all humans are bad is something that fundamentally distorts how we think about others, especially in political spaces. Humans aren’t innately morally aligned, work is put in to align anyone one way or another. People change, and, again, work must be put in to do so. All that to say that someone deserving death for how evil they are isn’t something easily determined, neither is it so black and white, nor can you ignore the potential for change. I think Charlie Kirk is a good example as I’m not really convinced he was reasonably unlikely to change versus someone like Nick Fuentes. However, the damage he has done to political discourse would be something difficult to overcome and can’t be ignored due to the scale. While I agree that him being dead is a net positive for humanity, I can’t agree with anyone saying it’s an easy slam-dunk determination to make.

They didn’t say anyone was preventing them from doing this, they just expressed a desire. I don’t understand why you would go on the offensive for such a tame post, even if it is a bit cringe.

Yeah, for sure, it’s difficult to reconcile putting yourself in someone else’s shoes with what they should be ideally doing. I know I can pretty easily lose perspective myself. It’s easy to look back at Germany in the 1930s saying that people in general should have done more, but I think we do a disservice to those that actually did their best with what they had on top of just trying to survive in the first place. And for others, we don’t know all the reasons they may have had for their inaction. I don’t know if we could even honestly say they would know what to do if given the option.

And while I certainly agree with the sentiment of resistance by any means vs a dictator taking over your country and killing people extrajudicially, it’s hardly ever that black and white, neither is it really ever very clear what fighting in a way that actually matters looks like. So while it would definitely be more satisfying to hunt down ICE agents like the ghouls they are, this would only serve to escalate an already volatile situation and make matters worse for literally everyone where more peaceful and boring solutions are still available. I think our best bet rhetoric-wise is to strongly encourage good actions and movements already happening, rather than yell at and further discourage those not engaged.

Yeah, it’s still a bit early for midterm campaigns, but I imagine the “campaigning” they’re talking about is the general campaign stratgizing the election organizations do as a job. Midterms usually start kicking up around springtime.

I mean like, what are we supposed to do with this? You can say that democrats aren’t doing anything about this, but what does that even mean? The author goes on and on about the dangers of fixed elections and all, which, I mean, yeah, but it’s pretty easy to shift the burden of proof by making a claim that people aren’t doing anything about it. Okay? I can’t help but notice the author didn’t mention what they think they should see to “do something about it”. The only thing he mentions the dems are doing is running a campaign like business as usual, but nothing else. He makes the claim that this is the dems just ignoring the threats, but not only is that not necessarily true, it’s actually a legitimate political tactic used to fight said election fraud. I don’t know if the dems are actually doing that or disregarding the dangers and pretending like everything is fine as the author implies, but the author also doesn’t know that. This reeks of doomer/defeatist bullshit.

Let’s not get it twisted; I’m not defending the dems at all. My take is that some of them are doing things, and lots of establishment dems are doing nothing to the point of obstructing any form of resistance other dem officials are trying. I think the reason the establishment dems are like this is just plain apathy and complacency, but that’s just speculation. In terms of democrats resisting election interference, I think they’re just too scattered and aimless in approach to make meaningful progress.

So to my point, if it is the case that dems(or literally anyone else) are actually doing some form of something, then that gives people something to join and something to do. However, if we’re faced with “the dems are doing nothing”, then boy does that sure give fuel to those that want us to be hopeless and do nothing. So, again, what’s the point of this article?

So, something stands out to me here:

Since americas president is threatening to invade my country’s territory, your fake ass opinion means nothing to me.

Umm… what? What does the actions of the head of state have to do with the opinions of the people of said state? That doesn’t make any sense. That would be equivalent to me meeting a regular ass Russian person and saying “PUTIN IS DOING AN IMPERIALIST INVASION OF UKRAINE AND THREATENED TO NUKE MY COUNTRY, SO YOUR OPINION MEANS NOTHING TO ME!” The Russian people aren’t responsible for the things their government does. That’s why I always make sure to be accurate in pointing out that it’s Putin and the oligarchs doing the imperialism, not [all] Russians. I meet a Russian actively supporting Putin and his imperialist ambitions? Yeah, fuck that guy, then. But, in my personal experience, I have yet to meet a single Russian person IRL that didn’t fucking hate Putin. It’s almost as if people have lives independent of their state of residence and those that run that state.

So maybe redirect your anger at those who earned it? Something tells me that might be more constructive than directing your anger at random people for arbitrary reasons.

Aww, look at that, they think I’m wise.

… what? Who is making that argument and what are you even trying to say? What you’re describing here would not necessitate calling it war, it could more accurately be called terrorism. In the context of the post and article, yeah, they’re playing very loose with their definition of war. I would indeed call it a war if, as they propose, a state’s national guard actively took up coordinated armed resistance against the federal government,but that’s not what’s happening. They try to imply from a hypothetical war game that a university put together having parallels with what’s happening in Minnesota and Illinois right now Proves that we’re in the beginning of a civil war. This is over-sensationalized and just plain irresponsible. Not to mention they failed to demonstrate that what’s happening now necessitates that we’re “In the first phase of civil war”. The kind of civil unrest and state-sponsored terrorism we’re seeing in our country has happened countless times in the past without leading to war. So yeah, to say this is what war looks like is a very loose definition of war and generally just irresponsible.

Look, I acknowledge and appreciate the very real truth of armed resistance being a necessity in the event of a full fascist takeover, but we’re still not there yet. The republican(not the party) institutions are still in place and the American government very much so still exists as a non-fascist democratic-republic, but yes, the fascists are encroaching. To give legitimate, organized armed resistance would dramatically accelerate a fascist takeover and then we would have no other choice but to resist via full Rebellion. That is the absolute last option for reasons even beyond the pure and absolute devastation of war, which should be reason enough. To have a fighting chance as a Rebellion, you need the networks built up, which is what is happening now through these protests and mutual aid networks. You need public opinion on your side, this is being built up by the outrage response to brutalization of peaceful demonstrators. With strong enough public opinion, the military is on your side, being made up of the public. More demonstrations = more demonstrators = stronger networks built for resistance movements. This all takes time. So even if we’re playing by doomer rules as if the American government is already a lost cause, the current action by the people is necessary.

However, in the world of politics in the struggle to prevent a fascist state, all these movements have the primary purpose of enacting social change within the confines of the current system. Overthrowing the current system would necessitate mass armed conflict with a very uncertain outcome. An outcome that will very certainly have a worse short-term outcome due to the conflict and instability, and could easily have a worse long-term outcome if resistance movements prove to have weak cohesion. Generating enough political capital in the movements forming and acting today have proven many times in the country’s history to enact good and lasting change without armed Rebellion being necessary.

As much as fascist scum absolutely deserve being literally curb-stomped upon their appearance, these political movements don’t exist in a vacuum and we have to navigate the egotistical and fleeting opinion of the general public in order to effectively drive out fascism. We can cry out all we like about the public acting too soft toward fascists, but that, unfortunately, plays right into their hands.

Yeah, that’s a super loose definition of war. This is one of those things that you wouldn’t even know until after the fact anyway. Way too many people are eager for a civil war while very obviously not understanding what all that entails.

Bro, fucking what??? Have you not seen the mass protests, mass strikes, walkouts, mutual aid networks popping up, increasing pressure on elected officials, mass counter-surveillance, etc??? TF you mean Americans “won’t” act when it’s already fucking happening? Or are you one of those edgelords that thinks open armed rebellion is the only real form of action? You legitimately might be online way too much. Go outside, spend some time in the real world.

I mean, sure? Probably even? But this really only emphasizes my point that they’re straight up stupid and beyond incompetent. Even the Romans, for how brutal they were, understood the importance of civic justice in maintaining the continued rule of the state. If the state no longer maintains it’s judiciary responsibility, they’ve basically abdicated their own legitimacy. You can say that the state isn’t abdicating it’s legitimacy if it at least is bound by some of it’s laws, but if the state picks and chooses, is the state not directly questioning it’s own legitimacy? I should point out that it’s hyperbolic for me to say that the state not binding itself to any one law abdicates it’s legitimacy, but there are certain points of judiciary responsibility that will greatly erode the legitimacy of the state if it doesn’t maintain them or at least appear to. A very public murder like this is definitely one of those points. Erosion of state legitimacy brings a fragmentation of those that would maintain it’s power, and I really don’t think they’re considering this factor at all. Those in essential positions within the government will become less inclined to maintain their loyalty to the state and be much more tempted to join those seeking to resist the state’s existence. Setting this precedence sets this administration on a trajectory to an untenable position. The waning loyalty and increasing sentiment of resistance isn’t something that is generally very visible until it VERY much so is. They seem to think they can keep literally and figuratively shooting at us, but it won’t be surprising to those paying attention when more and more of “their own” start shooting back at them.

Uhhh… uh oh. Considering the immediate and widespread outrage response across the country from this very public murder, this is a boldly stupid move. Resentment and distrust of the US government is already at an all time high, and doubling down on an extrajudicial murder like this is only going to not only grow that resentment, but popularize the idea that if the people want justice, they’ll have to do it themselves. This administration has been making some especially stupid moves recently and I don’t think the world is prepared for the consequences. Like yeah, sure, the trump admin has always blahblahblah, no shit. I must emphasize that this particular term of the administration hasn’t even been this stupid until the last few months. They are very much so overplaying their hand right now and they are absolutely not in a position to handle this level of escalation. I’m pretty sure they both think they have way more control than they actually do and have way too much faith in very inadequate contingencies. They’re gonna continue having the appearance of being firmly in control, but at this rate, it’s just a matter of time before it blows up in their face and then no one is in control. I can’t emphasize enough how unprepared we all are for how quickly that will happen when it does.

Three times. In *fucking Atlantic City *.

I kinda figured I wasn’t the only one to think Gollum when I initially saw this, but it’s good to have it confirmed with poetry such as this.

Look man, I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy here, but I’m not exactly expecting a quacking duck-shaped car to roll out of the fucking Duck Factory.

Oh hey, I appreciate you engaging with my absurd and irrationally earnest beef with this idiom.

So I hear what you’re saying about salt helping with bitter flavors, but I don’t think the flavor of poison is the primary issue with why you wouldn’t want to ingest it. I think my point still stands that if we’re doing this weird eating information thing, you still just don’t eat it if it’s poison, regardless of whether you do or don’t have an antidote. Or a way to flavor it.

I was actually aware of the Latin word translated as salt for this idiom also meaning wit, and I’m actually glad you brought it up. “Consider this with a grain of wit” would be a fantastic idiom and I’d be all for it. All the more reason “take it with a grain of salt” makes no sense if it’s a bad translation.

I understand the idiom stands as it does in our language because language standards are more about usage than rigid systemic rules, but COME ON! There’s gotta be a line, right? I get that trying to standardize language is real tricky and historically has been very problematic (looking at you, rich Victorian British fucks), but man, some of these things are so useless that they couldn’t even qualify as filler words. I know it’s weird how hard I hate this fucking idiom, but also fuck this idiom.

Not trying to throw shade your way, just to be clear. I appreciate your engagement. All shade reserved for this damn idiom, though.