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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states.
Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state.
On March 13 2025 19:22 KT_Elwood wrote:
Saying that Trump can annex any part of Canada is like saying you believe him if he claims to have a 15" dick.
What oBlade and others do, is simply day dreaming of trump's imaginary 15" dick and what it could do. They like it very much. Will it hurt? Maybe? But the possibilities!
It's all nonsense and just "Flood the zone" tactics.
Yet more homophobic bullshit while failing to realize a country can add territory in ways other than annexation.
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On March 13 2025 19:22 KT_Elwood wrote:
Saying that Trump can annex any part of Canada is like saying you believe him if he claims to have a 15" dick.
What oBlade and others do, is simply day dreaming of trump's imaginary 15" dick and what it could do. They like it very much. Will it hurt? Maybe? But the possibilities!
It's all nonsense and just "Flood the zone" tactics.
It's just nationalist porn.
Growing your country because my dad is stronger than your dad and so on. They are not serious people, very dangerous people but not serious ones. It's a question of time before they start a war out of sheer ignorance/self delusion.
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I swear that oBlade has a roulette wheel with discussion topics and once a day he spins it and whatever it lands on is the topic of the day. Yesterday was "Black - Vance once said Trump was Hitler", today is "Red - Annex Canada".
And when he makes his post, all the little lemmings pile on to tell him he's ridiculous. I mean, I've done it. I've even justified why I was sitting at the computer typing instead of doing something useful to my wife with this xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/386/
But lets face it, we're all continuously being trolled. How about we just stop feeding him?
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On March 13 2025 19:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states. Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state.
I think you're no longer reading what you write or what others write. Replying to something like "Canada shouldn't be the 51st state" with something like "So what you're saying is that the United States can only have exactly 50 states?" is misunderstanding what was said.
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Excuse me, princess. At which point in my last post have I identified you as a male?
Also I don't know how my figure of speech is homophobic as dreaming about giant genitalia isn't really specific to gender identity or sexuality.
I thought you want annex but not annex canada to drive to alaska and get a hold of Penis Satan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_Satan
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Well that was fast:
Federal student loan site down Wednesday, a day after layoffs gutted Education Department
An hours-long outage Wednesday on StudentAid.gov, the federal website for student loans and financial aid, underscored the risks in rapidly gutting the Department of Education, as President Donald Trump aims to dismantle the agency.
Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages to Downdetector starting midday Wednesday, saying they were having trouble completing the form, which is required for financial aid at colleges nationwide. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a group of people who handle colleges’ financial aid awards, also received reports of users experiencing technical issues and having trouble completing the FAFSA. https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-education-department-outage-layoffs-5afb5a0a1b51bbe50e5961a63b419041
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box. There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful.
‘Fuck up’ is a (not exclusively I imagine) Northern Irish mashing of ‘shut up’ and ‘fuck off’. Apologies to our international readers who don’t know half the phrases I come out with now. Perhaps it’s old age, or perhaps the global explosion in nationalism is infecting my ability to suppress our vernacular.
As I said at the time, I have zero issue in investigating, and indeed potentially attributing COVID to just such a lab leak. I didn’t think Trump’s rhetoric was either responsible, nor useful at the time, nor informed by a sober consideration of information.
I am familiar with the concept of nation states changing, not really the point. Considering I live in a place with a peace partly negotiated by the United States (and it’s hard for some to keep gratitude for that given the current lot, but many of us do, meself included). And that has provisions for a future incorporation into Ireland, if the populace at large desires it.
And indeed, that day draws closer, step by step every poll shows it’s moving that way. Some Brits will be mad if it happens, some like myself, hey I’m alright with it.
However, what neither community would tolerate is either the Prime Minister or the Taioseach chatting about annexing us fully into either territory unilaterally.
Really not complicated stuff, and I know that you know this.
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
On March 13 2025 19:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:38 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states. Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state. I think you're no longer reading what you write or what others write. Replying to something like "Canada shouldn't be the 51st state" with something like "So what you're saying is that the United States can only have exactly 50 states?" is misunderstanding what was said.
It’s not misunderstanding, they’re not an idiot. Indeed, quite the keen intellect I might say.
Either it’s some intellectual exercise, like ‘debate, but hard mode’, which defending Donald Trump in perpetuity definitely is (I’m quite a decent debater and I sure as fuck couldn’t do it), or it’s earnest belief that requires paragraphs of deflection and tangents positively reeking of cognitive dissonance to exist.
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
On March 13 2025 19:50 Acrofales wrote:I swear that oBlade has a roulette wheel with discussion topics and once a day he spins it and whatever it lands on is the topic of the day. Yesterday was "Black - Vance once said Trump was Hitler", today is "Red - Annex Canada". And when he makes his post, all the little lemmings pile on to tell him he's ridiculous. I mean, I've done it. I've even justified why I was sitting at the computer typing instead of doing something useful to my wife with this xkcd: https://www.xkcd.com/386/But lets face it, we're all continuously being trolled. How about we just stop feeding him?
I have this mental image of him and Jimmy being roommates and just limbering up before their day.
‘Hey man what are you going with today?’
‘Yeah I’m thinking maybe a 9 paragraph response to a single sentence where I quote large portions of the Federalist Papers’
‘Nice, nice
‘What about you?
‘Ah today I dunno, have I overdone the wrestling references a bit? Should I go back to homesy anecdotes of befriending Italian Americans? I could maybe try actually engaging in a back-and-forth rather than just like, intermittently dropping my shit?’
‘Nah, the wrestling shit is gold man’
‘Cheese bro’
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On March 13 2025 20:10 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:38 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states. Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state. I think you're no longer reading what you write or what others write. Replying to something like "Canada shouldn't be the 51st state" with something like "So what you're saying is that the United States can only have exactly 50 states?" is misunderstanding what was said. It’s not misunderstanding, they’re not an idiot. Indeed, quite the keen intellect I might say. Either it’s some intellectual exercise, like ‘debate, but hard mode’, which defending Donald Trump in perpetuity definitely is (I’m quite a decent debater and I sure as fuck couldn’t do it), or it’s earnest belief that requires paragraphs of deflection and tangents positively reeking of cognitive dissonance to exist.
Eh, I think oBlade's misunderstanding may be more due to laziness on their part than idiocy. That being said, I also think that being stubborn or sincere doesn't necessarily indicate a keen intellect; it's not like they're doing a particularly impressive job at making pro-Trump arguments.
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Just as he promised during the election, Trump is accelerating the destruction of our planet:
"The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action. ... The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity. Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming."
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/climate/trump-ev-power-plant-rollbacks/index.html
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
On March 13 2025 20:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 20:10 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 19:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:38 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states. Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state. I think you're no longer reading what you write or what others write. Replying to something like "Canada shouldn't be the 51st state" with something like "So what you're saying is that the United States can only have exactly 50 states?" is misunderstanding what was said. It’s not misunderstanding, they’re not an idiot. Indeed, quite the keen intellect I might say. Either it’s some intellectual exercise, like ‘debate, but hard mode’, which defending Donald Trump in perpetuity definitely is (I’m quite a decent debater and I sure as fuck couldn’t do it), or it’s earnest belief that requires paragraphs of deflection and tangents positively reeking of cognitive dissonance to exist. Eh, I think oBlade's misunderstanding may be more due to laziness on their part than idiocy. That being said, I also think that being stubborn or sincere doesn't necessarily indicate a keen intellect; it's not like they're doing a particularly impressive job at making pro-Trump arguments.
I couldn’t do it if I started LARPing as TrumpbaT, there’s not much to work with. I mean a poor workman blames his tools, but sometimes they’re not wrong.
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On March 13 2025 20:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Just as he promised during the election, Trump is accelerating the destruction of our planet: "The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action. ... The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity. Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming." https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/climate/trump-ev-power-plant-rollbacks/index.html
Forget about climate change for a minute -- a sicker population is a less productive population. I mean, this should have bipartisan support, no one wants to live in a polluted shit hole.
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
On March 13 2025 20:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Just as he promised during the election, Trump is accelerating the destruction of our planet: "The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action. ... The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity. Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming." https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/climate/trump-ev-power-plant-rollbacks/index.html
Ah, fantastic. Sigh.
The thing with some of this is like, even if you don’t believe in climate change, I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t believe in regular air pollution, or that of water tables etc, and this also doesn’t exactly help there.
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I wanted to bring this one up, because I hadn't seen it before and maybe others in the thread would like to read it in full.
There's a research report on the influence of DEI on profitability of companies world wide www.mckinsey.com
A quick excerpt:
A strong business case for ethnic diversity is also consistent over time, with a 39 percent increased likelihood of outperformance for those in the top quartile of ethnic representation versus the bottom quartile. This has persisted even with eight new economies added in our analysis of 2022 financial data.
The penalties for low diversity on executive teams are also intensifying. Companies with representation of women exceeding 30 percent (and thus in the top quartile) are significantly more likely to financially outperform those with 30 percent or fewer. Similarly, companies in our top quartile for ethnic diversity show an average 27 percent financial advantage over others (Exhibit 2).
Both forms of diversity in executive teams appear to show an increased likelihood of above-average profitability. Companies in the top quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity in executive teams are on average 9 percent more likely to outperform their peers. (This gap has closed slightly since our previous report.) Meanwhile, those in the bottom quartile for both are 66 percent less likely to outperform financially on average, up from 27 percent in 2020, indicating that lack of diversity may be getting more expensive.
I am not an expert in this field so I cannot comment on the soundness of the methodology, but they've analised 1265 companies across 23 different countries so the information sounds reliable.
I'd like to pose this question to those commenters in the thread that argue against DEI initiatives. Assuming the information above is correct, how would you like companies go about diversifying their workforce to be able to remain competitive?
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On March 13 2025 21:21 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 20:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Just as he promised during the election, Trump is accelerating the destruction of our planet: "The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action. ... The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity. Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming." https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/climate/trump-ev-power-plant-rollbacks/index.html Forget about climate change for a minute -- a sicker population is a less productive population. I mean, this should have bipartisan support, no one wants to live in a polluted shit hole.
Given what we experienced during covid, it's clear that some people want the freedom to become sick and make others sick, even if that restricts the freedoms of other people.
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On March 13 2025 21:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 20:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Just as he promised during the election, Trump is accelerating the destruction of our planet: "The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action. ... The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity. Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming." https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/climate/trump-ev-power-plant-rollbacks/index.html Ah, fantastic. Sigh. The thing with some of this is like, even if you don’t believe in climate change, I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t believe in regular air pollution, or that of water tables etc, and this also doesn’t exactly help there.
That reminds me a little bit of how Creationists will sometimes concede that there is microevolution / changes within a species, yet refuse to believe in speciation / the evolution of new species. Sure, they may argue, pollution isn't great and you don't want to directly breathe in any black smoke that you can see, but those are just minor "common sense" things that each person may or may not care about, and to suggest that those normalized drawbacks would lead to the ice caps melting and the world burning up is just fearmongering and slippery slope craziness and a desire for government overreach (and something something "Big Science").
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On March 13 2025 19:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:38 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states. Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state. I think you're no longer reading what you write or what others write. Replying to something like "Canada shouldn't be the 51st state" with something like "So what you're saying is that the United States can only have exactly 50 states?" is misunderstanding what was said.
Okay, despite being explicitly told in the first sentence that I never said WombaT said that, you're going with this anyway because you think the point of the internet is to "get" people and don't really give a shit about geopolitics. What you have done is the equivalent of a math professor seeing someone say 2+2=4 and interject that someone else never said 2+2=5. Yeah. We all know what a strawman is.
The sentence "Canada should be the 51st state" can be negated at 3 points that I can see: Canada, or 51st, or should. It was not a subject raised or mentioned by me. I tried to explore everything. Instead of even just once giving your own opinion on Canada, you thought it was more fruitful to spend all your time asking me why 2+2=4 is relevant and repeating that nobody said 2+2=3. That's really helped us all.
On March 13 2025 20:04 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box. There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. ‘Fuck up’ is a (not exclusively I imagine) Northern Irish mashing of ‘shut up’ and ‘fuck off’. Apologies to our international readers who don’t know half the phrases I come out with now. Perhaps it’s old age, or perhaps the global explosion in nationalism is infecting my ability to suppress our vernacular. As I said at the time, I have zero issue in investigating, and indeed potentially attributing COVID to just such a lab leak. I didn’t think Trump’s rhetoric was either responsible, nor useful at the time, nor informed by a sober consideration of information. I am familiar with the concept of nation states changing, not really the point. Considering I live in a place with a peace partly negotiated by the United States (and it’s hard for some to keep gratitude for that given the current lot, but many of us do, meself included). And that has provisions for a future incorporation into Ireland, if the populace at large desires it. And indeed, that day draws closer, step by step every poll shows it’s moving that way. Some Brits will be mad if it happens, some like myself, hey I’m alright with it. However, what neither community would tolerate is either the Prime Minister or the Taioseach chatting about annexing us fully into either territory unilaterally. Really not complicated stuff, and I know that you know this.
Your parochial ellipsis there obviously overlaps with the international expletive for "mess up."
The thread was one about terrorism, we were talking about terrorism when you brought this up. You randomly came up with a laundry list of things you apparently find objectionable, out of nowhere, while accusing me of "cucking" for Blumpf, which I'll just grant for the sake of argument is a sentence that can be interpreted in a grammatical way, although I can't personally see a way to parse it.
Since you raised that set of complaints, I addressed two, covid and Canada. Now it turns out you don't have issues with the content that you brought up as stated: "Canada should be the 51st State./China did Covid." - instead you are backpedaling and saying no you just have problems with Blumpf, who is not me's, tone. Which wasn't anywhere in the sentences you dumped on me so we have no way of reading your mind. So, for:
1) Covid - you think a lab leak is possible and racism against Asian people is bad.+ Show Spoiler +Reasonable. But this is not deducible from the sentence "China did Covid." This might be an ego blow to you, but I do not have any idea of the history of your beliefs of the nuances of the relationship between tone and fact re:China and coronavirus. Be clear from the beginning and this doesn't happen.
2) Canada - you think it's possible it could be a state but invading and annexing places is bad. + Show Spoiler +Again the sentence "Canada should be the 51st State." contains no mention of "annexing" and so given that nobody else can read your mind it's not possible to know what you mean if you aren't clear.
meaning we are in full agreement and there was no point to your original attack except as a futile way to vicariously vent at Trump through me, which is bullshit.
If you really don't like orange Blumpf and want to get close and give him a piece of your mind, but you don't have access to him, that would suck. You also don't have my sympathy. Because you need to write him a letter your own self.
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On March 13 2025 21:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 21:26 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 20:53 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Just as he promised during the election, Trump is accelerating the destruction of our planet: "The Trump administration announced its intent to roll back major climate policies Wednesday, including rules that target pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s progress on clean air, clean water and climate action. ... The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will undo rules that would have pushed power plants and carmakers toward cleaner forms of energy. It also intends to roll back rules on soot, mercury and coal ash pollution, as well as the so-called “good neighbor rule” that regulates downwind air pollution, and eliminate its programs overseeing environmental justice and diversity. Significantly, Trump’s EPA is also preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding on the dangers of climate pollution that has served as the basis behind federal regulations to curb them. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming." https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/climate/trump-ev-power-plant-rollbacks/index.html Ah, fantastic. Sigh. The thing with some of this is like, even if you don’t believe in climate change, I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t believe in regular air pollution, or that of water tables etc, and this also doesn’t exactly help there. That reminds me a little bit of how Creationists will sometimes concede that there is microevolution / changes within a species, yet refuse to believe in speciation / the evolution of new species. Sure, they may argue, pollution isn't great and you don't want to directly breathe in any black smoke that you can see, but those are just minor "common sense" things that each person may or may not care about, and to suggest that those normalized drawbacks would lead to the ice caps melting and the world burning up is just fearmongering and slippery slope craziness and a desire for government overreach (and something something "Big Science").
I don't think i agree here. Pollution is only similar to climate change because both involve stuff going into the air. Other than that, they are very different topics. And i don't think we benefit from putting them into the same umbrella.
Pollution is an immediate and local problem, and that seems to be something that humanity is actually pretty good at handling. Everyone is happier if they can breathe the air around them. Changing stuff in your town makes things better in your town.
Climate change is much more diffuse, long-term and global. Changing stuff in your town doesn't really do anything. Only if all towns change stuff are effects felt. This kind of prisoners dilemma situation seems to be one that humanity is very bad at handling, because someone always chooses to snitch, which means that everyone chooses to snitch because otherwise they feel like suckers.
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Northern Ireland26018 Posts
On March 13 2025 21:41 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 19:51 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:38 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 19:14 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box.
There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. What was it about WombaT's post that inspired you to write all this? It seems irrelevant. He didn't say the United States isn't allowed to have a 51st state, nor did he say that the United States has always had exactly 50 states. Nor have I said that he said that. The bounds of relevance are US politics, not "responding to WombaT." But go back to his post and get as far as the second sentence of it to find the direct relevance. Make your own determination as to whether WombaT was literally and sincerely supporting the idea Canada should be the 51st state. I think you're no longer reading what you write or what others write. Replying to something like "Canada shouldn't be the 51st state" with something like "So what you're saying is that the United States can only have exactly 50 states?" is misunderstanding what was said. Okay, despite being explicitly told in the first sentence that I never said WombaT said that, you're going with this anyway because you think the point of the internet is to "get" people and don't really give a shit about geopolitics. What you have done is the equivalent of a math professor seeing someone say 2+2=4 and interject that someone else never said 2+2=5. Yeah. We all know what a strawman is. The sentence "Canada should be the 51st state" can be negated at 3 points that I can see: Canada, or 51st, or should. It was not a subject raised or mentioned by me. I tried to explore everything. Instead of even just once giving your own opinion on Canada, you thought it was more fruitful to spend all your time asking me why 2+2=4 is relevant and repeating that nobody said 2+2=3. That's really helped us all. Show nested quote +On March 13 2025 20:04 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 19:04 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 14:55 WombaT wrote:On March 13 2025 14:09 oBlade wrote:On March 13 2025 05:07 Vivax wrote:On March 13 2025 04:22 oBlade wrote:Anybody messing with transportation in any way should be poetically railroaded by terrorism statutes. Mass slashing of tires, breaking city blocks worth of windows, catalytic converter harvesting, blocking entire highways with those conga lines. If it creates fear or has any political component, as we already know it does with Tesla, it belongs in GITMO not society. No country need tolerate this. Counterpoint: Saboteurs in the third Reich faced execution, they‘d be the terrorists you‘d speak highly of in another context. It‘s currently not very clear yet if the US is approaching that tier of villainy. But the danger is always there once the technology is advanced enough and everyone on the left has been branded a terrorist and punished. Looks like Trump is scrambling to find an enemy in his narrative and so far he has presented Canada, Europe, China, Mexico, Ukraine and Russia as potential adversaries who didn‘t say thank you enough perhaps. I think you‘re mostly safe until paramilitaries start terrorizing people though. He's not "scrambling," he's railed against foreign trade deficits for 40 years, and at least two of that list are explicitly recognized as geopolitical rivals to the US even by the establishment. If you were living on the eastern frontier and some partisans blew up your barn killing all your horses, you wouldn't appreciate this as being righteous sabotage against the Third Reich's efforts. It would be citizens terrorizing citizens. Neighbors preying on weaker neighbors. Every state recognizes violence against itself already, whether that's Timothy McVeigh or Stauffenberg. But the notion a country can't keep its citizens safe because a hypothetical totalitarian state might interpret keeping its citizens as a Futurama Santa Claus locking-up of tens of millions of anti-voters reeks of the slippery slope fallacy. If we arrest very bad people, what if the government later arrests normal people? Better not to risk it then? And the whole idea of arresting criminals is rooted in authoritarianism? Not buying it for now. Yes, it’s just trade deficits. Canada should be the 51st State. Europe should pay its way. Oh wait it did but fuck them anyway. China did Covid. Ukraine should fuck up and be grateful. Russia should [insert when something actually happens there] Why cuck so, so hard for this man? Like if I want to sit in the corner while my partner gets ploughed, I’d at least want the other half of that equation to be decent to look at, metaphorically speaking. But Trump? Lmao. It’s fucking unreal, I half expect some kind of Truman Show/aliens were just running an experiment style reveal. It’s profoundly ridiculous. In certain ways he’s worse than a Hitler or Stalin, and unlike those blokes people are free to criticise and choose to tie themselves up in a million knots of absolute bullshit than ever do so. Ya can say many things about Hitler or Stalin, ya can’t say they didn’t care. Trump is a dictator without a cause, both of which in any sane world would disqualify him for this kind of position. Ukraine has already fucked up but I suspect you meant to write "shut the." German intelligence concluded covid was a likely lab leak in 2020. Were they acting on Drumpf's orders? Almost every state in the Union was not a state, until it became a state. With the exception of the original 13 colonies, and a few special cases of states being spun off other states, mostly from Virginia. When Hawaii became a state, it was because it wasn't a part of America, and then it was a part of America, and then it became a state. This process is not historically finalized or finished at any point. There is no condition in the Constitution that decrees when the US is "done." The fact that the flag has had exactly 50 stars your whole life means nothing. It is possible to expand the Union. It is possible to shrink it. Inside the confines of the US's own system. With no revolution. There can be a State of Puerto Rico. There can be a Douglass Commonwealth. There can be a Jefferson State. You've probably heard of one of those. Think outside the box. There can even be one or a bunch of states from Canada as well. I certainly don't think the cultural, economic, or geographic gaps between Canada and the US are so wide as to make the exercise impossible and I don't hate the northern neighbors in any way that would preclude them from the chance at joining the Union. Do you? I've driven to Alaska. The idea of it not being an international trip is intriguing. I find the proposition worth investigation. I certainly don't see that it's self-disproving such that just listing it the way you have does anything other than show us your Trump "ick." Which is probably the only purpose of your whole post anyway. In the 50s you would be one of the people posting in newspapers "Alaska the 49th state? It's not even connected to the rest. Eisenhower is a dictator." The box is comfortable but not useful. ‘Fuck up’ is a (not exclusively I imagine) Northern Irish mashing of ‘shut up’ and ‘fuck off’. Apologies to our international readers who don’t know half the phrases I come out with now. Perhaps it’s old age, or perhaps the global explosion in nationalism is infecting my ability to suppress our vernacular. As I said at the time, I have zero issue in investigating, and indeed potentially attributing COVID to just such a lab leak. I didn’t think Trump’s rhetoric was either responsible, nor useful at the time, nor informed by a sober consideration of information. I am familiar with the concept of nation states changing, not really the point. Considering I live in a place with a peace partly negotiated by the United States (and it’s hard for some to keep gratitude for that given the current lot, but many of us do, meself included). And that has provisions for a future incorporation into Ireland, if the populace at large desires it. And indeed, that day draws closer, step by step every poll shows it’s moving that way. Some Brits will be mad if it happens, some like myself, hey I’m alright with it. However, what neither community would tolerate is either the Prime Minister or the Taioseach chatting about annexing us fully into either territory unilaterally. Really not complicated stuff, and I know that you know this. Your parochial ellipsis there obviously overlaps with the international expletive for "mess up." The thread was one about terrorism, we were talking about terrorism when you brought this up. You randomly came up with a laundry list of things you apparently find objectionable, out of nowhere, while accusing me of "cucking" for Blumpf, which I'll just grant for the sake of argument is a sentence that can be interpreted in a grammatical way, although I can't personally see a way to parse it. Since you raised that set of complaints, I addressed two, covid and Canada. Now it turns out you don't have issues with the content that you brought up as stated: "Canada should be the 51st State./China did Covid." - instead you are backpedaling and saying no you just have problems with Blumpf, who is not me's, tone. Which wasn't anywhere in the sentences you dumped on me so we have no way of reading your mind. So, for: 1) Covid - you think a lab leak is possible and racism against Asian people is bad.+ Show Spoiler +Reasonable. But this is not deducible from the sentence "China did Covid." This might be an ego blow to you, but I do not have any idea of the history of your beliefs of the nuances of the relationship between tone and fact re:China and coronavirus. Be clear from the beginning and this doesn't happen. 2) Canada - you think it's possible it could be a state but invading and annexing places is bad. + Show Spoiler +Again the sentence "Canada should be the 51st State." contains no mention of "annexing" and so given that nobody else can read your mind it's not possible to know what you mean if you aren't clear. meaning we are in full agreement and there was no point to your original attack except as a futile way to vicariously vent at Trump through me, which is bullshit. If you really don't like orange Blumpf and want to get close and give him a piece of your mind, but you don't have access to him, that would suck. You also don't have my sympathy. Because you need to write him a letter your own self.
You do you. Not much of a dancer anyway and I couldn’t be fucked with this one
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