One of the roads near my house was removed completely.

All roads near my house were removed completely.

Two different implications, no?

Yes, the title implies something more extreme than is actually proposed, but that’s why I read articles (usually) before commenting.

You just don’t realize how good we have it here, even if it means we have to work hard sometimes and get up early and spend five days a work working for someone else. That’s an opportunity millions of other humans can only dream of having.

Do you ever reflect on the fact that “we” have it good “here” because other people are suffering?

We are incredibly fortunate, but it comes at a serious cost. The cheap electronics and clothing and tchotchkes we drown ourselves in is made on the backs of folks less fortunate (not to mention the biosphere as a whole). We didn’t sign up to be on the side of exploitation, and we don’t want to live in ignorance of what supports our way of life.

It’s what it costs you now, and you don’t have alternatives now.

Maybe this will help you think about the future differently: be it planning to move or getting a different job so that you can use alternative transport, making smaller changes that would allow you to not use a car as much, or even long-term decisions like championing for change at the legislative level that might aid development of better transportation access.

Sorry, I took a more international route with the terminology: I meant state as in The State, not an individual state in the USA. Federal laws restricting the purchase of a firearm is IMHO the State interfering with the Second Amendment, if you’re taking a severely strict interpretation of it.

So that’s my question: is it OK to have the Federal restrictions on what you can buy (e.g. requiring a permit!), and from disallowing Felons? I’m a gun owner myself, but if you go back to what I opened with: the discrepancy between “The state can’t then come through and require a permit to own a gun” and seemingly OK with some Federal oversight is a hangup for a lot of us. If a handful of laws are common sense (no felons), why can’t we enact other common sense laws?

If I can barge into this comment chain, the confusion seems to stem from your initial comment.

It’s not really “common sense” though. The Constitution clearly says you have a right to own a gun.

The state can’t then come through and require a permit to own a gun.

It’s a Right, not a “right”*.

Isn’t the application of an FFL the state requiring a permit to own a (certain kind of) gun? Likewise, the state telling folks they can or can’t own guns just because of a few measly felonies…isn’t that against a strict interpretation of the Second Amendment? Doesn’t that deny them a “Right”?

In addition to what others have said (all those examples are equally misleading IMHO), given that its the 25th Anniversary of Half-Life, a lot of us are primed to hope for news of a new game from Valve.

I don’t know what days I don’t need that.

I had read your initial comment as insinuating the previous commenter was supporting hamas, and when someone directly challenged you on it, you didn’t reject that accusation.

So if you just wanted to point out the irony, consider my comment as much a non sequitor as your comment on its irony, which is - I suppose - at least irony-adjacent in itself.

Do you get mad at geologists for explaining why volcanoes erupt and kill people?

There’s a difference in understanding and supporting, or considering something morally correct.

As another example: I understand why some folks get sucked into gangs. If someone grows up in a crumbling school system, falls through the holes in whatever is left of a social safety net, has no proper familial support, and sees nothing but violence and economic despair day-to-day, joining a gang suddenly becomes a viable path to prosperity. Exceedingly dangerous, but this hypothetical teen can look around and see they’re likely to have a shit future regardless, so why not take that chance, right?

So this isn’t me saying that I support gang violence, but I can understand why it happens. Which is why my politics are what they are: we don’t need to just beat the shit out of gang members in the streets, but give folks support so they don’t feel like joining a gang is the only way to survive.

The other poster is (I think) making a similar kind of argument. What the fuck else is some kid in that situation going to grow up to be? Some folks will make it out alright, sure: but on the whole it’s a recipe for despair, which often leads to horrific acts. It doesn’t make the acts right, but we can understand a little more about the why.

What kind of legislation, though? Loot boxes seem like an easy one to write: gambling is illegal already in a lot of places. When it’s just exploitative greed, I’m not sure how it’s technically so different from charging exorbitant rates for swag at a baseball game or something. Or charging a few thousand bucks for a purse at some high-end fashion retailer.

To be clear: I loathe the FOMO trends in game development, overpriced skins, micro/macro-transactions, and all the “credit/XP boosters” type bullshit. Turning money into ingame currencies to obfuscate actual prices, the general design of games frontloading fun and then squeezing dollars out of you to feel that same high again…I’m just skeptical that there’s anything to do about it from a legal perspective that doesn’t apply to most of the rest of the capitalist enterprises out there. Please though, I want to be wrong about this, so any examples of how to curb some of these excesses would be great.

Didn’t you just lay out why it is a social problem, though? Men are disproportionately abusing folks because they’re disproportionately in power.

Clearly testosterone plays a major role in causing aggressive behavior, and men tend to have more testosterone, but that also isn’t a clear-cut division between groups, and folks with lower testosterone can certainly still be aggressive monsters. Oversimplifying the problem isn’t going to fix things.

We don’t disagree: there’s a short-sightedness that causes folks to say things like “once the boomers die out, things will be great”. There are systemic issues that gauze the greed and fear and violence, and the folks that get swept up in these movements are in large part products of their environment, as we all are.

So we need to change the environment, but otherwise well-meaning folks don’t want it to change because they benefit from it, even when they are vaguely aware that there are monsters out there that keep it that way. I’d like to think there’s more liberals/moderates who would be allies against fascism if this kind of thing can be communicated in a way that doesn’t alienate folks, but I’m also sympathetic to arguments that fiery language is necessary to rattle people out of comfort zones… So in sum, thanks for the good discussion.

Call it pedantry if you want, but the fascists themselves are what truly “makes fascism possible”.

Yes, there are plenty of folks have culpability in allowing these fucks gain control, from short-sighted collaborators who just want profit, idiots who think “they can’t really be that bad”, but there’s an extent to which I think we should be careful about victim-blaming well-meaning (but naive) folks who believe that Liberty and Justice will win the day (being misled by whitewashed historical narratives who erase the boots on the ground required to make social and political changes - and the organization necessary to resist the rise of fascists).

I get your point, and clearly (from the paragraph I just typed) agree to an extent - I just think it’s reductive to the point of undermining the movements against fascism when “liberals” all get thrown in the same basket.

No, I just didn’t think the second part negated the first part. I read it as the defense being to some degree legitimate, but that he was doing so out of self-interest. I was trying to underscore how absurd his so-called defense was.

In other words, my apologies! I didn’t intend for my attempt at an explanation as criticism of you, or start some pointless quibbling internet argument (because I imagine we’re all tired of those). Take care out there.

While the general “can’t fault a man for protecting his children” is a milquetoast statement we can all agree with, it’s obfuscating what really happened.

He wasn’t chasing away a coyote with a pointed stick: the dude posted a bizarre attack (name-calling, non sequiturs, claims of fraud) on attorneys and the judge for what appears to be a legitimate inquiry.

Initially the CDC didn’t know how much asymptomatic spread was going to be a factor: that definitely changes the math on advising everyone to mask up. By July of 2020 they were unequivocal: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-wear-masks.html

Reminds me of a great pair of line from a Warren Zevon song: “I can saw a woman in two, but you won’t want to look in the box when I’m through.”

It’s not disingenuous. Jewish people literally just weren’t there until very recently. You’re talking like 1000+ years ago.

This is the central question everyone can’t agree on, right? Which group that conquered the region and eradicated their enemies has the “rights” to the land? I’m seriously ignorant on the subject, and more than happy to delete this comment if it’s not really adding to anything, but we’re calibrating our standards of who has the rights to a region based on what the latest Empire said, be it Ottomans or Romans or however far back we want to go, until we’re talking literally Neolithic folks showing up, right? I’m not religious, so there’s a critical part of this conflict I simply cannot fundamentally understand.

The difference between making claims based on occupation in the late 1800s versus late 800s seems arbitrary, to me. That said, I know that can sound patently ridiculous, since we’re talking generations we can count on one hand versus the same number of Empires controlling the land: so this is where I throw my hands up and just cry a little. Solidarity to everyone suffering oppression and terrorism, in whatever forms they take.

Good guess, but doesn’t look like it: July is when the Earth is at its furthest point from the sun.