The title is from a sketch comedy set (YouTube link) in which a pair of SS officers begin to suspect that they are the bad guys. It’s funny because it’s true. For every person who consciously chooses to be an evil prick, there are countless others who follow without giving it much thought.
For me, the past 10 years or so of U.S. politics has driven home a lesson implicit in the history of prior millennia, i.e., that with the right prep work, any population can be molded into monsters. As Popehat on Bluesky points out, these guys are building molds right now:
They’ll call it “Moms for Consequences” or something dumb like that. And this incel-whisperer asshole will be on the advisory board:
Popehat describes the pathology that motivates a wingnut plutocrat-funded think-tank and asshole incel-whisperer to appoint themselves contraception cops and puts the scheme in its broader context:
It would be wrong to see this as just a prudish or Victorian or even sincerely religious attitude about sex. It’s about control. It’s about the authority of the state intruding into more and more parts of life, and about making more and more people complicit in the abuse of power.
The Nazis’ increasingly all-encompassing laws didn’t just serve policy goals. They served to normalize the idea of the state having authority in every segment of life, and to make more and more people complicit in enforcing that authority. That’s what totalitarianism means.
The Nazis passed anti-Jewish laws that forced more and more people to be complicit in enforcement and part of the machine excluding, shunning, and abusing Jews. The American Right wants abortion laws, IVF laws, contraceptive laws that will make more and more doctors, nurses, etc. complicit.
The fundamental concept is that most people, rather than stand up and say “I’m a terrible person if I go along with this,” will go along and rewrite their mental map to agree with it rather than think themselves terrible.
The anti-trans movement illustrates this. They KNOW there are very few trans kids, but they want to make as many people as possible — coaches, teachers, administrators — complicit in policing and excluding them. Same with the push for censorship of books.
Exactly so. Moms for Liberty, the Alabama Supreme Court, the Heritage Foundation, Rufo, et al., are totalitarians. They’re the baddies. There are many ways to oppose them, including at the ballot box, but the first step is to refuse to be complicit — to resist normalization of this bullshit on every level.
I feel like we’re due for a good old-fashioned “it’s none of your fucking business” backlash to these totalitarian busybodies. Could be just wishful thinking on my part because I believe so strongly in my bones that these moralizing freakazoids should stop demanding to inspect strangers’ underwear. I dunno.
Open thread.
Another Scott
Wikipedia tells me that Rufo, at age 39, has 3 children.
It’s all just mouth noises to gain power for these monsters.
Grr…,
Scott.
Thedeadcanary
Oh Ms. Cracker, you’ve got it so right.
kindness
So many of the complicit wing nuts who support a Trump/totalitarian regime enjoy making their opposition miserable. Their control of others is a boost to their apparently shabby self esteem. Part of that is they never think the misery they inflict will ever happen to them. The idea that eventually their chosen totalitarian government will turn on them never enters their minds. They just don’t think ahead that many steps.
We are stuck with idiots/angry toddlers run amuck as our opposition.
Shalimar
The pill fixes health problems for many people too, totally unrelated to sex. Including many women who always vote for Republicans. One of my nieces would be in mortal danger every month from the excessive blood loss if not for taking birth control pills.
Chris
“The state” has a weird role in their universe. Ideally, they don’t want it to be a factor at all, they just want to be the all-powerful Immortan Joe patriarchs of their shitty little families with absolute power over the womenfolk. But they also refuse to accept the existence of other families that aren’t patriarchal shit-shows run by other Immortan Joes, and demand that someone put these families in order, because a free woman anywhere is a threat to patriarchy everywhere. And, well, that “someone” is going to have to be the state, which means the state has to be brought under the control of themselves and people like themselves.
Marcopolo
“Making recreational sex bad again.” I dunno, that just sounds like a losing argument for winning at the ballot box, but generally speaking Americans are much more (at least outwardly) prudish about sex than our European cousins so who knows.
Yarrow
I’ve mentioned before that Colin Allred, Dem primary candidate for Senate in Texas, is using the word “freedom” a LOT in his ads. He’s saying things like, “the freedom to vote,” “the freedom to get an abortion and the medical care that you need.” There’s another ad where he stresses the abortion issue and again ties it to freedom.
I know VP Kamala Harris has been tying the word freedom to abortion. I’m excited to see it make its way down to the state level. Dems need to stress that they/we are the party of “freedom.” We want you and your family to live your life as you see fit. Not like those busybody Republicans that want to check your daughter’s private parts, take away birth control, and make it really hard for everyone to vote.
I don’t think they’d be using this line in their ads and on the campaign trail if they didn’t have some evidence that it was working. It’s a fantastic campaign strategy. I hope a lot of other Dem candidates get on board. Democrats are the party of freedom.
Omnes Omnibus
“The surest way to immunize yourself against fascism’s insidious ability to work even well-meaning people around to accepting inhumanity by starting with the people they think are the ickiest, is to steadfastly and immovably refuse to find any people icky; to relentlessly search your heart for any shred of revulsion against your fellow humans, and incinerate it.”
I would add that this does not mean that you can’t be revolted by the views that some people have.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly how understanding do I have to be to the views of some that deem that I am less of a human than they are because I am a woman or I wasn’t born in the US or I vote D.
I also don’t have to be understanding of the views of people who revere Gandhi’s assassin and value life of cattle more than human beings.
Chris
@kindness:
They like hurting people. Not that nothing else matters to them, but nothing else matters as much.
I tell people that as much as I learned in years and years of following the more formal kind of politics, the capstone of my political education came when I reposted a video in 2011 or 2012 of the Oakland police tossing a grenade on the unconscious body of a protester, at which point my wingnut uncle and cousin showed up in the comments section to giggle about how anarchists don’t believe in rules anyway so they can’t complain if the police broke them and checkmate libz.
It’s a nice clarifying reminder that you can stay up as many nights as you want passionately arguing politics on Facebook and in college dorm rooms with people like them, who’ll blanket you with quotes from Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson about inalienable rights and the beauty of the Constitution and deep concern about how if we allow the government to put up another street light we’re somehow engaging on a slippery slope that’ll lead us all to the gulags… but at the end of the day, it’s all shit. In the end, all they are is common thugs with a raging case of authoritarian personality disorder, who desperately want to watch a boot stamp on a human face forever so long as that face is somebody they don’t like, which probably means you, and they will come like iron to a magnet to anybody who offers them that.
It’s why as many nauseating things as the Republican Party has gone through in the last decade and change, none of them have surprised me. I didn’t see them all coming by a long shot, but I never had a moment where I thought “wow, I never in a million years thought they would cross that line!” Trump is who they are. It always has been.
moonbat
I’ve been on this bandwagaon for a while, BC.
Started over the last four years when Covid deniers began asking me why I wear a mask in public spaces. For a couple of years now my go-to response is: “It helps me mind my own damn business.”
Weirdly I think the social media, Tik-Tok, and cellphone craze has allowed this stuff to make a big comeback. When you are putting big chunks of your personal life online, jerks like this think they have the right to comment, judge, and correct you if what you’re doing doesn’t fit their twisted world view.
As a nation we need to go back to minding our own damn business and let other people mind theirs.
Now, I’m pretty sure there are some clouds outside that need yelling at.
Honus
As Rufo says, sex is for procreation. And eating and drinking is for nourishment. Lets apply his principles to that too. Start with eliminating any coronary surgery or medical treatment for consumers of high cholesterol food. No more consequence-free eating.
teezyskeeyz
@Marcopolo: Somehow the media will launder the message for them though. I’m sure DougJ could give us a great bothsides example.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Exactly the dilemma. Personally, I cannot do it. I am for freedom and I can’t empathize with those who want to take mine and others’ away.
Yarrow
@Honus: No more Viagra. If God gives you a limp dick he wants you to have a limp dick.
Scout211
Long read, but Chris Geidner’s commentary on his substack, Lawdork posted yesterday is well worth a read.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: The piece did not say that you have to be understanding of anyone’s views. It does say that we should fight the urge to see any “other” as less than human.
Edited to add a “not” where it was needed.
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s how I read that. When I see others as less than human it hurts me and in turn hurts our society. I don’t choose to go down that path, as much as I abhor some people’s actions and beliefs.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: Like I said, this is the lie at the center of Republicans’ anti-“Big Government” line: they’ve never wanted to get government off your back; they just want the mailed fist to ratify and enforce *their* lifestyle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: It’s why I pushed back on the people on Adam’s threads who call the Russians orcs. (Back when I used to participate in those threads)
Yarrow
@moonbat:
I thought this was already beginning to shift. I’ve read that Kids These Days are not using social media to post as much about their lives. Instead they’re using it to connect with people they know via direct/private messaging. There’s definitely a backlash by the now-older kids of “mommy bloggers” who had their entire childhood paraded online to make money for their parents. They’re not alone in their demographic about clamping down on what and how much they “share.”
Anonymous At Work
I prefer this retelling of the sketch: https://textsfromsuperheroes.com/image/185942917144
But then again, I’m a geek.
And let it sink in that the GOP is going to run on “No recreational sex for anyone” as a platform plank.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, I don’t doubt they are human. But they are the lowest, most degraded humans.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: That is how I feel about views in my own family that endanger my other actual family members. This isn’t always just some intellectual exercise. What my RWNJ brother thinks would be a good idea actually endangers other family members. If he is too thick in the head to see it is not my problem.
Percysowner
The thing that gets me is, there isn’t a medicine out there that doesn’t have SOME bad side effects for some people. Aspirin can cause bleeding, Tylenol can cause liver failure, NASID’s have many negative side effects and all of these are considered safe enough to sell over the counter. Heck foods can have negative side effects for some people. My son-in-law is allergic to bananas. Tons of kids are allergic to peanuts and soy or gluten. No one is saying we should ban those. It’s just such a silly argument that birth control causes problems for some women. Not that Right to Lifers are known for their massive brain power, but still.
smith
@Yarrow: Oh, I see them as human, all right. Old cynic that I am, I consider a thirst for cruelty a fully human trait.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: I don’t disagree with that. I just think, and I believe, the author of the piece is saying, that we need to guard against becoming a mirror image of what we are fighting.
Another Scott
Some silly guy tried to go after ABL today.
Don’t mansplain ABL. She knows what she’s talking about and always has receipts.
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@Percysowner:
It’s not a sincere argument. It’s just something they say to try to sound reasonable.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: That I agree with. I don’t participate in Adam’s threads for the reason you articulated and also that they veer in doom mongering as hard predictions.
Yarrow
@Percysowner: If you’re arguing in their territory (birth control side effect/health issues) you’re losing. Stay on the “they want to take away your birth control” and “they want to take away women’s control over their own bodies and lives” subjects. Make them refute those things. They can’t because their people say it.
smith
@Percysowner: “Birth control pills are dangerous” is a straw man argument. Pregnancy is more dangerous, and they are happy to impose it on anyone capable of becoming pregnant, damn the consequences, even a 10 year who has been raped by her father, or a woman whose previous pregnancies have nearly killed her.
Lyrebird
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks Omnes, I appreciate your addition.
And thanks @BettyCracker,
I’ve been saying similar things for a while, but very quietly. I hate that the MYOB phrase got used as some sort of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, when yeah it is NONE of their business.
And Rufo uses lies to get people hurt. Him & the monstrous Raichik should serve time. But even though I’ll never see things exactly as PopeHat does, I agree with him in that I try not to call those Rs or MTG monsters or vermin… they are people. People who need to be thwarted!
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: I read that essay this morning after following a link from an excerpt on Bluesky. It’s thought provoking for sure. I think he’s right, but getting to that state requires a lot of work from everyone, not just the usual suspects.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: We probably found it at the same place.
Lyrebird
Shout it from the rooftops!
It’s part of how Virginia got rid of Cuccinelli (sp?), since he wanted to bring back laws against 34+35.
Matt McIrvin
@smith: In that court ruling to rescind FDA approval of mifepristone, the claim is that it’s harmful not because of side effects, but because of its intended effect: the claim is that abortion itself is harm so it’s a harmful drug. That’s an argument for banning chemical contraception– based on ideas about “natural” body functions and the immorality of interfering with them.
Jinchi
I wonder if this ever occurs to the cops who wear the Punisher logo on their uniform?
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: I don’t see people whose views I despise as “less than human.” I see them as “all TOO human.”
Doesn’t change my views on their views, just means that I have to avoid the impulse to preen myself on being better than they are and wrestle constantly with the worse angels of my nature.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Exactly.
RaflW
Based on what I’m seeing about NYT coverage of Nex Benedict, coupled with all the past execrable op-eds and even ‘news’ coverage of trans issues, the Times has decided to come down firmly on the side of the totalitarians in terms of trans rights.
Also, Tom Edsall (again, at the FTFNYT) saying that Dems should somehow ‘moderate’ on civil, women’s, LGBTQ & reproductive rights is just so patently offensive. It’s surrendering under mild pressure from the right. Fuck that. Fuck him.
Geminid
@Yarrow: I am a Mary Peltola Democrat:
Salty Sam .
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for posting that. It’s a good piece.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: Measles is ‘natural’, and apparently on the upswing because these people have decided that they want a return to “Bring out your dead” wagons and all that.
When their tire-rims-and-anthrax idiocy was just about what they wanted for themselves, I guess I didn’t care that much. But this complete abandonment of the common good is going to end the roughly 65 years we’ve had where deadly childhood diseases were brought under control.
It’s utter madness to be hurtling back towards the dark.
coozledad
Yup. It’s shocking how many people are ready to be programmed into the trans panic mode. A few months ago Nancy Nall and the majority of her commentariat jumped head first into that vile shit. She picked up a couple of new outright Fascists in her comment thread, so by the metric of “every opinion matters” I guess she achieved a degree of success.
And all it took was “I’m not a TERF, but…”
JML
I mean, I don’t think the right-wing has a winning strategy in this neo-Puritanism, punish women for having sex movement they’re going down…but I’m always fearful of any reliance on a backlash. A lot of bad sh!t can get cemented into law, cause a ton of damage, and take years if not decades to undo.
I wonder how many of these kind of rulings and laws need to go through before the DC elites stop pretending that the extremists are coming for things like contraception and that the rank and file of the GOP will do nothing to stop it.
OzarkHillbilly
@moonbat: Started over the last four years when Covid deniers began asking me why I wear a mask in public spaces. For a couple of years now my go-to response is: “It helps me mind my own damn business.”
Surprisingly enough to me, nobody has ever asked me that. If anyone ever does, my ready reply will be, “To protect my family and yours.”
Sister Golden Bear
More than just inspecting underwear, they’re talking about inspecting
kids’girls’ genitals before they’re allowed to play sports to ferret out any possible trans girls. Yes, really.Sorry, no link because I’m not yet sufficiently caffeinated to find the reference, but it was within the last week or so.
Noskilz
Probably. One difference for many of the public is that a great deal of this GOP bullsh*t didn’t affect them directly, so it wasn’t real to them – attacking reproductive health and sex does.
A recent illustration that has nothing to do with abortion or sex, in Tennessee some of our local legislators floated the idea of banning the sale of refrigerated beer in gas stations and grocery stores to reduce drunken driving, the idea died very quickly.
There haven’t been many foolish things our local GOP-controlled TN State government haven’t been willing to embrace when it comes to guns, covid, or refusing Federal grants for education under the mistaken impression that circumvents having to meet Federal requirements – where an underlying attitude of “no one can tell me what to do” seems to be the guiding principle. I have a hard time imagining either the general public or horny rednecks are really interested in putting up with the “trad” fantasyland imbeciles like Rufo are pushing. Things that screw over other people, whatever, but this is going to screw them over in ways far too concrete and immediate to abstract away with a stupid meme from a forwarded email.
moonbat
@Yarrow: I devoutly hope so! I feel for those kids the same way I feel for the puppies and kitties in those rescue videos that spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on the misery of the animal instead of JUST HELPING THE ANIMAL!
If your child is so lovable, cute and funny why don’t you just PUT DOWN THE PHONE and spend time with them??
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … GovExec.com:
(Emphasis added.)
Electing monsters who want to break the government has real consequences. Demanding accountability while refusing to place people in positions who are supposed to be accountable is yet another way to chip away at functioning government.
Something like “if the Senate doesn’t approve or reject a nomination within 90 days” is superficially appealing, it probably is unconstitutional. Congress needs to fix the laws that demand explicit approval of all of these lower-level positions (and needs to rationalize its processes).
Yes, the SCOTUS attempts to make Congress and the Courts an executive agency that writes all regulations is yet another tactic to try to break the government.
“The Congress, with concurrence of the Courts, must explicitly approve major regulations. The fact that the Congress and the Courts cannot do their explicitly stated duties in a timely manner is not our problem. [ wink, wink, nudge, nudge ]…”
Grr…,
Scott.
Frankensteinbeck
Yet again, conservatives have a grade school understanding of science. Evolutionary research has made it very clear that sex has all sorts of purposes. Humanity is the type of animal where recreational sex creates social bonds that improve the chance of passing on genes.
@Chris:
This. Everything you said. I’ve seen the same stuff, grew up around it, and nothing they want to do has surprised me.
That also means don’t get too hopped up on the idea these are totalitarian schemes. That’s a side effect. Maybe 1% of them think that way. Leaders and followers both, the cruelty is the point. Even people who have a lot of kindness hiding the cruelty want that cruelty more.
Mike in NC
The miniseries “Masters of the Air” on Apple TV is an excellent if grim dose of history. Forget about trash like “Hogan’s Heroes”. Many of the American bomber crewmen who were shot down over Nazi Germany never made it to a prison camp because they were casually murdered by civilians or the police and their bodies dumped into unmarked graves.
moonbat
@OzarkHillbilly: The correct answer, of course. I just get so offended when people feel like they have the right to get up in my face and try to police what I wear on my person when it has absolutely no effect on them.
Baud
I would like sex to be inconsequential. Let’s heighten the contradictions.
West of the Rockies
I bet Rufo is a crappy father. Oh, he’s probably okay until a child shows any resistance or personality or interest in anything Rufo disdain.
And go ahead, GOP. Expand your tent with your “Sex is bad” message. That will bring in the yutes.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly. And the admonition applies to us as well — as noted in the article, not too many years ago, there were folks on the left who loved implying Sarah Palin or Ann Colter were trans women. Because ick. Thankfully, we’ve moved past that.
People may have monstrous views and engage in monstrous actions, but they’re still people. People we need to fight against with all our might, but still people. Because we know where not regarding people as people leads.
coozledad
@Jinchi:
“I wonder if this ever occurs to the cops who wear the Punisher logo on their uniform?”
Shortly after the Roxboro NC police issued a permit for the Klan to march down Main street, my wife discovered the new logo on the police cruisers was the same as the banner for the Klan’s webpage (Providence,VA.)
When she published that information there was a shitstorm, and a demand to take her post down from some unexpected quarters, notably some mindless cop boosters in the Democratic party. We expected that shit from the local Fascistry, but not people we’d supported with our money and time.
The party has gotten younger here, hence better, but there are still a few old shitheads who can’t break free of their cop show mentality. It makes me reflect upon the ultimate kindness that is death.
West of the Rockies
@moonbat:
Well, have you seen Cole’s new overalls? I bet he pairs them with Crocs.
JMG
This is a digression, but it’s an open thread, and it is about politics, sort of. Today is the first day of in person voting for the March 5 primary in Massachusetts. That’s also the date of the town elections, so early voting started today for that as well. The voting site is a spacious town function hall (concerts and lectures held there) which has, like most buildings in most Massachusetts town centers, very limited parking. There is a spirited contest. between an incumbent select board member and a challenger. Supporters of both were out in force in front of the site waving signs. In what I regard as a basic error in campaign strategy, these good citizens had taken up all the parking spaces. I drove right on by and will try again Monday when the volunteers are back at their lives.
Another Scott
Navalny’s body has been released to his mother (~ 8 days after his death was announced).
Peace and comfort to his family,
Scott.
TBone
Mark Twain
trollhattan
@Another Scott: “Covenant marriage” like our House Speaker? Seems to come with the territory.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Someone once told me it was just like brushing your teeth.
OzarkHillbilly
It’s one answer anyway, and hopefully it makes them think about it.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA…. Who am I kidding?
trollhattan
@West of the Rockies:
“Daddy, read us the story of Adam and Steve, pleeeeeease?”
moonbat
@West of the Rockies: I welcome Cole’s hallucinogenic hillbilly vibe!
ETA: MUCH better than picturing him in his au naturel mopping get up.
JML
@coozledad: people want to believe that their local police are good, that they will help them in a crisis, and will respond when called. They should be able to believe that. It’s very hard for a lot of people that have never personally experienced what today’s police culture has become in so many places for them to accept that things have gotten beyond a few rotten apples. So they fall back on the “not every cop” mantra…and deep down some of them are also afraid that if they criticize too loudly, the cops might stop showing up for them.
trollhattan
@moonbat: It was asked on another thread whether they come in a shorts version, and I noted that scissors technology is usually at hand and summer is coming.
Cole has been deployed to Iraq and I presume remembers what actual heat is like.
TBone
Mark Twain’s skepticism and humor in this treatise is informative (at least for me, it was a look back that I found fascinating).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science_(book)
Sister Golden Bear
@trollhattan:
Hey now, we don’t use Eve’s deadname.
zhena gogolia
@Sister Golden Bear: 😂
Delk
Who’s going to tell the residents of The Villages that they are going to have to stop the key parties?
TBone
@JML: my mom and (former cop) stepdad didn’t understand why I detested police in general when my dad was a good guy. Then he got stopped while unable to successfully navigate a traffic circle in D.C. and was not respected despite the F.O.P. badge prominently displayed on his license plate. I never had to explain myself again.
Jackie
@Yarrow: I have high hopes for Colin Allred beating Cruz (after he wins his primary.) Texans have had six more years to really know who Cruz is, and I think (hope) they’re pretty much disgusted by him.
randy khan
People have sex because they like it, and have since the beginning of humanity. People have sex at times when it will not lead to children all the time, and we’re wired to have sex whether or not a baby is likely to result (or whether or not it’s even possible). To say otherwise is to deny human nature.
TBone
@Delk: 😆 I know a guy that lives there, I could make the call.
coozledad
@JML:I used to work at a cop bar in Durham, and after hearing them discuss the beatings they gave people on the elevator at the downtown headquarters, and the tattoos they got for each kill, I started to recognize they were a gang. One of them was rebuffed by a Duke student, and when she left the bar, he cuffed her and put his foot on her neck. He later did an interview with Al Goldstien’s SCREW magazine where he said “chicks love that uniform, and the guns.”
I know why the owner encouraged the cops to hang out there. It was a rough part of town. But goddamn if I don’t think they made it worse.
moonbat
@trollhattan:
Can’t wait to see what Cole’s summer fashion lineup has in store.
Betty Cracker
@coozledad:
Bingo!
Baud
Good time to remember that insurance companies have to cover contraceptives for free because of Obamacare.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
What brand toothpaste do you use?
TBone
@moonbat: ❤️
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: I wish I’d been as graceful yesterday.
Cheryl from Maryland
@RaflW: also, so one disagrees with Nex Benedict’s gender presentation? How does that become a right to bully, assault and probably kill her? Only in the land of these RWNJ fascist assholes.
Jackie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve only been asked a few times. My response is “Why do you care?” and walk away while they’re sputtering for a reply.
Delk
Oklahoma State Senator Tom Woods when asked about the death of Nex Benedict
The Thin Black Duke
It’s instructive to remember that the cops are there to “protect and serve” the status quo, and sometimes there are marginalized groups who, by their existence in that chapter of American history, did not belong there. It was against the law to drink from a “White Only” water fountain, for example, and if you ignored that, the cop was only doing their job when they shoved your illegal black ass into the back of a police cruiser.
Baud
I’m disappointed that more liberals aren’t in favor of banning sex for procreation.
What happened to us?
AlaskaReader
@Geminid: Huh. So you’re good with promoting fossil fuels over alternatives, eh?
Baud
@moonbat:
We don’t needle libertarians enough for their abject failure to win over the right.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Sister Golden Bear: LOL
OzarkHillbilly
We got old?
Jackie
@Frankensteinbeck:
It’s fun to ask anyone stating that, is then why were females given a clitoris? With a straight face (that part’s hard 😁)
Jackie
@Another Scott: From your link:
I’m afraid Putin will use Navalny’s funeral to make arrests, if it’s held publicly.☹️
AlaskaReader
Was reading an AP article about various oaths and who refuses to sign onto them and ran across this nugget.
Didn’t see any news of that at the time, kinda thought that was newsworthy.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Probably. Now we just let people live their lives.
trnc
@Shalimar: IIRC, the pill was developed to treat a medical issue and was later discovered to prevent pregnancy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: A sad state of affairs.
Baud
@AlaskaReader:
You want him to lie?
zhena gogolia
@Baud: 😂
TBone
A modest proposal 😉 Mandatory vasectomies for all males who want a driver’s license. It’s reversible (as is a license suspension when you’ve paid your dues) with a permission slip signed by a responsible female, a doctor, AND a lawyer.
RevRick
@Matt McIrvin: Look where the ideological heart of the GOP lies today. It’s Dixie. And Dixie only mouths things like states’ rights or small government when it suits its purpose. The Antebellum South was dead set against the rights of Northern states to grant the vote to black men, or to demand habeas corpus and trial by jury for accused escaped slaves, or of personal liberty laws which decreed that entrance into a state meant emancipation. In fact, the South demanded rigid enforcement of the most draconian law in our history: the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slavery and Jim Crow were the original modern fascism. They haven’t changed.
gene108
@Another Scott:
He and his wife have only had sex three times, obviously.
RevRick
@Jackie: Allred can beat Cruz if Biden wins Texas. Otherwise, I doubt it.
wjca
As with lots of new stuff, social media started being adopted slowly. Then it became a fad, and (apparently) everyone was doing it. Which exposed the short-comings, unintended consequences, etc. And finally, as with other fads, it is settling at a level and in circumstances where it makes sense and is useful. (Meanwhile, of course, there’s a new fad.)
I recall when birth control pills first became available. Oh wow! FREEDOM! And quite a few young women siezing the opportunity for one night stands with any guy who took their fancy. Didn’t last. By now, that kind of behavior is pretty rare,** in part because the possibility is just . . . usual. Young women have far more freedom when it comes to sex than they did a century ago. But, unless they have the misfortune to be raised in one of the fundamentalist groups which never left the 19th century, they don’t go overboard the way we saw when contraception was brand new.
I expect we are going thru something similar with AI. Currently, it’s being embraced for anything and everything were it is even remotely possible to use it. In time, it will get scaled back to the places that it’s actually useful.
** Hence to unhappiness and resentment of the incels.
AlaskaReader
@Baud: It would be nice to know if he understands what being a Mary Peltola Democrat means.
Fish, Family and Freedom isn’t the whole package.
Baud
@AlaskaReader:
I think you followed my comment back to the wrong place. I was commenting to the Trump thing.
AlaskaReader
@Baud: Yes, I did associate your comment with the other previous post. My bad.
As for Trump lying, he didn’t have a problem the first two times he was asked.
scav
I’m sure condoms protective role against STDs will equally be ignored in their drive to restrict sex to its productive core. Syphilis is just God’s way of pointing out the unworthy — shouldn’t interfere with that! And clearly, with rates rising even among the seemingly godly breeders, He’s ready and willing to smite the unrighteous as soon as those pesky impediments to his wroth are done away with.
delphinium
@West of the Rockies:
Hmm, wonder what he is going to do then once his wife is menopausal or if his sperm count declines. Forgo sex? Also if recreational sex is such a concern for Rufo, he should be demanding that men to keep their pants zipped.
Baud
@scav:
I blame and thank Biden.
japa21
Just a few points.
First, regarding the link OO posted and to which there has been a variety of replies. Understanding is not the same as agreeing with. After 9/11, many on the left were talking about trying to understand why it happened and that might help fight that mentality. The GOP used that to bash Dems as weak, that we wanted to provide therapy instead of fighting the terrorists. Yet, the original argument is still valid.
So yes, we should try to understand. The danger in that is not that we may come to agree, but that it is a humanizing process. The benefit is that by humanizing the opposition we can actually work against them more efficiently.
As to mask wearing, I haven’t been asked a lot, but I have a few go to responses. To protect you and my family is one of them. If a get a sense that the person asking is a Christianist, I usually respond, truthfully, “I wear my mask because I am a Christian, and as such, I strive not to hurt people.”
Another Scott
Meanwhile, from the don’t get mad get even files, Trader Joe’s United.
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
wjca
There’s a certain temptation to tell them:
“If you weren’t a complete pervert, you would asking for a cheek swab to look at chromosomes. Which would actually prove something. But you didn’t, so…”
Unfortunately, that would just buy into their view of trans people. But the temptation to expose them for what they are is definitely there.
RaflW
@Delk: These Christians always edit out the “render unto Caesar” part. Jesus was asked if Jews should pay taxes, and that was his answer. He did not say “render unto Caesar, but maximize deductions and use scam loopholes.”
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I quit reading those threads because so many of the people posting are unrelenting in their negativity, with Adam being one of the worst. OTOH when I read about the R’s main impeachment witness being in contact with Russian intelligence I thought “I knew that a long time ago” because of Adam. I hate that all his time is spent on Ukraine now.
delphinium
@Delk:
Seems Senator Tom needs to spend less time wanking and read up on the First Amendment regarding separation of church and state. Also, “to the faith they choose” as long as it is Christian, right Senator?
EarthWindFire
@Chris: Come sit next to me. You can’t be anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-trans, etc. without being pro big government. Trump was the final stage of GOP devolution by embracing that basic fact. And they went for it, hook, line, and sinker.
The only satisfying conversations I’ve had with conservatives these past several years is rubbing their noses in the small government bullshit they’ve clung to for so long. Not an attractive thing, I know, but I’m just as human as anyone.
Ksmiami
@delphinium: he should tell that to people living and swinging in the Villages
EarthWindFire
When I hear that, I always reply, “So are earthquakes but I don’t remember us cheering for one to show up.” The reactions are interesting.
cain
@randy khan: You can’t override the animal instincts of humans. You can guide it. Our bulwark is our intelligence.
cain
@OzarkHillbilly: That doesn’t explain all the STDs in the The Villages. :-)
They’ll probably be infected with measles soon.
Eunicecycle
@EarthWindFire: I guess you could say that about any disease, including cancer. The body has gone haywire but it is natural. Again why the Rs arguments become contradictory.
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
Relatedly, Dan Davies’ substack this week:
(Emphasis added.)
Useful concepts there.
Grr…,
Scott.
Soprano2
@cain: Lots of them are either vaccinated or had it and survived, like my husband did.
brantl
@Omnes Omnibus: But don’t you think Putin matches Sauron?
Juju
@Matt McIrvin: someone should tell them that they can’t take just about any drug because it interferes with a natural bodily function. No more laxatives for you, you’re meant to be constipated. If you get cancer, the treatments for that interfere with a natural process.
wjca
But perhaps, being anti-vaxx, they will refuse to get the shingles vaccine. Being of an age where they probably actually had chicken pox rather than the vaccine, that could mean fun times ahead for them.
Another Scott
WhiteHouse.gov has a good, comprehensive, statement from the G7 on Ukraine today.
Worth a click.
Cheers,
Scott.
delphinium
@japa21:
I understand that a lot of these people are in a perpetual state of aggrievement and anger; wanting to live in a world which doesn’t currently exist. Trying to force their unpopular world view will not bring them lasting peace or happiness, because deep down there is something profoundly missing in their lives. The escape from themselves will be to up the ante to the next horror. The only way out is for them to take responsibility and change their perspective/behavior (not that many of them will). Beyond that, we cannot be expected to continually throw out a line in their water if they prefer instead to keep drowning.
ETA: typo
Skippy-san
If you look hard at Rufo’s “career”, all you will find is that he has accomplished nothing. His entire career since leaving college has been subsisting off Wingnut Welfare. He could not be bothered to serve his country, nor could he try to accomplish anything meaningful. All he does is work hard at making other people suffer.
He’s a worthless grifter and an evil man.
brantl
These god-bothering assholes have decided that “rectitude” is their excuse for dragging the color out of the lives of people who live in color, down to their miserable level of black-and-white. The sons of bitches have no subtlety of discriminating between what’s good in life and what isn’t, and insist that you can’t have any, either. They believe that they are all sinners, so you MUST be one, too, and all that “freedom” will just lead you astray, as it would THEIR juvenile little asses. The children in the room insist no one can be old enough to get a driver’s license.
Uncle Cosmo
One of my friends who occasionally shows up at the local swing dance once lambasted me for my particularly colorful shirt because he claimed looking at it made him dizzy. Years earlier a woman at a squares&contra dance evening laid into me for wearing after-shave because she claimed she was allergic to all alcohol-based fragrances. I have often needed to advise people wearing masks that I have problems understanding them because my hearing is impaired (among other things, the degree to which people in conversation read facial expressions as an aid to comprehension is IMO substantially underappreciated).
Slippery slopes are all around, even for those who try to make every allowance for consideration. Just sayin’.
TBone
Jeff T nails it again, especially the fried chicken.
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/this-week-in-stupid-february-24-edition
🎶 https://youtu.be/BCCqeHm5VDY
Sister Golden Bear
@EarthWindFire: Arsenic is natural too. But I don’t see people rushing to season their food (and other people’s food) with it.
Eolirin
@RevRick: I think Allred can win if Biden loses by 1-2 points. That’d be about enough of a swing from the 2020 numbers that, if he were to do about as well as Beto did, that it should cross him over.
Biden actually winning Texas would be seismic. And there’s no way Cruz holds his seat if that happens.
Villago Delenda Est
There is a way to deal with the Heritage Foundation: it’s called the Ripley Solution.
Tony G
Exactly true. Great point. I put some (certainly not all) of the blame for going along with this totalitarian bullshit on physicians and hospital administrators. These people are well compensated financially, and can afford to tell state officials who try to restrict medical care for women to go fuck themselves. When they don’t, they enable the pseudo-religious totalitarians.
West of the Rockies
@Delk:
I just sent that flaming asshole an email. Thanks for the alert.
Villago Delenda Est
@RevRick: Prezactly.
TBone
@Another Scott: excellent heads up.
West of the Rockies
@delphinium:
Yup. If sex is purely for procreation, it follows all porn and strip clubs and lingerie shops, and any films with sexual content (however benign) must be eliminated. Wonder how that would impact the economy and GOP conventions.
AlaskaReader
Trump:
We’re going to take over Washington DC.
We’re going to have very powerful crime.
schrodingers_cat
@japa21: I have a very good idea of what makes the RWNJs in India tick. I am in their in group, so they think I am one of them. So they tell me, that’s how I know.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then, you destroy yourself.
Richard M Nixon
RaflW
@cain: Semi-relatedly, with measles on the upswing in the US, Tom Levenson was skeeting recently to encourage folks who maybe got an MMR many decades ago to have a titer test done to see if one still has antibodies.
A cursory look suggests the test isn’t all that expensive, but it probably also requires an office visit and attendant costs.
I did a quick check of my records, and I got a solo measles shot in 1981 (probably because of incomplete records as a kid overseas?) and then had to get an MMR in 1989, which coincides with enrolling at the University of Texas and probably lacking the other M and the R records (they also required a negative T.B. test since I was born in that hotbed of disease, Switzerland).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, but at the very same time these people want less government. That’s quite the contradiction and the we are seeing their cognitive dissonance in action in Congress.
RaflW
@West of the Rockies: Classic econ 101 theoretical question: If sex work is forced to go further underground, do rates go up or down? I’d expect a relatively inelastic demand curve from those dirty* Republicans, so it all depends on what one thinks the supply curve looks like.
:)
* No kink shaming intended. They’re dirty due to hypocrisy.
moonbat
@Uncle Cosmo: The caveat to all live and let live maxims is, of course, as long as it hurts no one else.
But if you have to anticipate every possible way someone else might be affected by every thing you do, you might end up never leaving the house. Or go about drab and smelly.
Country music makes me squirm and cologne makes me sneeze, but I don’t expect other people to give up either. If it bothers me I can always move off.
kalakal
@Delk:
Moral? He’s officially approving of a child being beaten to death. And claiming the murderers did the right, moral thing. Why doesn’t he get it on the state flag “Oklahoma, where murder is the morally right thing to do” ? When they put up their 10 Commandants signs on the classroom walls will the 6th read “Thou shalt kill”?
I am so angry I could spit blood
I hope he contracts an agonizing, incurable disease
RaflW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They just want less taxes, and fewer ‘handouts’ to poors. It’s always been bullshit to claim they want less government. The desire has always been to direct the bennies uphill and to the correct people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mike in NC: Yes, and the Luftwaffel had so many officers who were buddies of the leadership that were POWs of the Allies they were frantic to stop the killings of down Allied airmen to the point the Luftwaffel had flying squads to snatch these airmen up before the civilians got to them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@RaflW: If you pay attention to them “less government” means different things to different factions in the Right. One of the reasons Trump is the Lizard King is he will shamelessly promise the world to the person in-front of him at that moment, so most of them assume he is on their side. Again, this why the GOP in Congress can’t get shit done.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this is why they blow off Trump’s antics “Well, God is just using Trump like a tool”
Betty Cracker
@kalakal: As a friend’s elderly mother used to say of such people, “He should die in a fire.” (It was funny in her Brooklyn accent!)
RaflW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Though in a lot of ways, “Not getting shit done” is the outcome of choice for many elected Republicans. Even if the thing not done is something their base wants, since they can always blame “Washington” for the inaction. And get re-elected to inact some more (their voters mistakenly hear that as “enact”).
Betty Cracker
@Melancholy Jaques: Whoa — speaking of a guy who should have followed his own advice!
kalakal
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
He’s a tool alright
smith
Draconian laws + Risk-averse doctors = Dead women
Cacti
The 21st century Republican Party is a fascist fertility cult.
eversor
@kalakal:
I’ll note “thou shalt not kill” is in the Old Testament of the Bible. Where the Old Testament, New Testament, God, and even Christ do explictly call for death, sadistic punishments, and even self multilation repeatedly thoughtout the rest of it. So it’s clear that “thou shalt not kill” does not mean what people are liberal brunches who lie and pretend all that other stuff isn’t in the Bible want to claim it means.
The Bible is clear that wantonly killing people for no good reason is off the books. But it’s also extremely specific that crimes around sex, gender, patriarchy, and all sorts of social conservative issues are punishable by death and that death or horrific multilation is the God, Christ, and Christian required response with no room for negotiation. These are not just sanctioned killings but demanded killings.
Like it or not, the dude is entirely consistent with the teachings of his religion. Far more so than anybody who thinks patriarchy is bad but also claims to be a Christian.
brantl
@Miss Bianca:
We all do. THEY all DON’T.
Chris
@EarthWindFire:
The idea that American conservatives are for “small government” only works if you reduce all political questions to nothing but the economic sphere, so that it doesn’t matter how intrusively personal the government is in your life or how completely unaccountable their law enforcers are, so long as taxes are low and regulations are few. But even once you shrink down to the economic sphere, it’s still bullshit; they don’t like government interference in the economy to inconvenience management and the rich, but government interference in the economy to inconvenience labor and the poor is AOK.
And that’s how you end up with generations of conservatives worshiping the ground that Franco and Pinochet walked on, but expecting you to take them seriously when they claim to believe deeply in limited government: because they’re full of shit.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: Perfectly said. Exactly right. This is why I hate the whole notion that we need to better understand them. They really aren’t complicated. Shitty people who get off on it.
Chris
@coozledad:
Only been following politics for about 20 or 25 years, but one thing I’ve definitely found is that there’s a stupendous number of people who are just itching to find the one issue that’ll allow them to proclaim that The Left Has Gone Too Far This Time and run screaming into the arms of the far right.
People blame this on individual factions like “centrists” or “the dirtbag left” or whatever, but it’s just across the entire spectrum. “I used to be a liberal, but ever since 9/11, I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick!” was one symptom. So is “Genocide Joe.” So was portraying Hillary and Trump as equally corrupt. So was portraying Sanders and Trump as equally extreme. So is the current panic of trans rights. So are all the shitty comedians that devolve into anti-woke bitter old cranks.
It’s as if there’s a huge part of the population who don’t start out that way but actually want to turn into their senile Fox-News-talking-point-drooling uncle, and consider it as much of a life milestone as graduating high school, getting a job, getting married, getting a mortgage, going on Social Security, etc.
Jackie
Mike Johnson must have gotten a talking to from the House Speaker aka TIFG as he did a 180 re IVF:
Baud
@Chris:
Agree.
Baud
@Jackie:
Trump > God
davecb
Hey folks, I just read this on mastodon…
Did we notice this? I didn’t find it with the site search…
https://www.salon.com/2024/02/23/dr-john-gartner-on-a-tale-of-two-brains-bidens-brain-is-aging-brain-is-dementing/
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-dementia/
Annie
@delphinium:
he will divorce her and marry a younger woman.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: And he should know!
cain
@Jackie: How can he support IVF given his support life at fertilization. He literally cannot do it. What a loon.
Baud
@cain:
Sure he can. Just because he opposes the murder of babies in some circumstances doesn’t mean he can’t support it in appropriate circumstances.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@cain: he can say anything, especially what Trump tells him to say.
Geminid
@cain: Mike Johnson is a very agile fellow.
TriassicSands
It would be wrong to see this as just a prudish or Victorian or even sincerely religious attitude about sex. It’s about control.
That makes it even worse, since religion is so often (and fundamentally) is about control. That is surely one of the reasons why Republicans are so committed to the kinds of religion they endorse. The Catholic Church is clearly about control, which explains why so many American Catholics don’t follow all of its practices. Right wing Protestantism is every bit as bad. Many of the Catholics I have known don’t want to give up the religion, but have no intention of following its practices regarding reproduction.
smith
@Jackie: So on IVF they had a choice between placating either the Talibangicals or suburban women, and they chose the latter. I suppose they might reason that the Christopaths have no other place to put their votes, since they certainly won’t vote for godless Dems.
It’s the opposite of the choice the GQP politicians made concerning abortion, though. I wonder how many votes they’ll salvage by slicing it so fine?
Baud
@Geminid: Heh.
Jackie
@cain: He parrots what ever his puppet master tells him.
I’m sure Johnson does NOT support IVF – he’s quoted saying as such.
BUT TIFG came out VERY STRONGLY and BIGGLY supporting IVF and told his MAGAts they must do so, too. So Johnson flipped – at least publicly. What’s going to happen with his co-sponsoring of the Life at Conception Act is anyone’s guess.
Baud
@Jackie: He’ll rename it the Life at Conception Act*
*Some exceptions may apply.
Jackie
@smith: It’s going to be entertaining this election season watching GQP/MAGA candidates trying to appease both the Taliban and suburban white couples trying to grow their families.
Jackie
@Baud: 😂
Another Scott
@davecb: I’ve pointed to this interview with TIFG with German TV in September 2001 (4:37) shows that his brain was weird (the biggest thing he kept going back to over and over again was the need to rebuild – not the loss of life), but he could hold a linear, spontaneous conversation.
In his SC rally yesterday, (1:34:30), he’s reading from a teleprompter and adlibbing. He doesn’t sound like someone with obvious dementia to me. He’s mainly just a pathological narcissist, a shameless liar, and a politician who has no respect for his fellow citizens.
Scroll to 1:25:00 (he was talking for nearly 80 minutes at that point) and listen to all the lies, if you have the stomach for it. 🤮 The sing-song delivery is yet another insult on top of the message.
Nah, his brain isn’t broken that way, IMHO. It’s broken in many, many other ways.
Ah, but “remember Reagan” I hear people yelling. He left office in January 1989. His Alzheimer’s diagnosis was announced in 1994. He died in June 2004. If TIFG has Alzheimer’s, he could have it for a very long time.
As always, there is no One Weird Trick that will save us. We have to do the work to defeat him – he’s not going away easily.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
japa21
While it takes a little work, you can support life at conception and IVF. The key is that all the frozen embryos must be kept safe and can never be destroyed. If a frozen embryo is destroyed via an accident, as happened in the Alabama case, it would be a case on involuntary manslaughter.
It should be noted re Catholicism, that the faith and teachings actually have different standings. The faith is based in scripture, the teachings man made. Virtually all the teachings regarding reproduction, including life begins at conception, have no basis in scripture. Indeed, it can be argued very convincingly, that scripture, in fact, says the opposite.
Jackie
@Another Scott: He sounds desperate to me. His only hope and salvation is getting re-elected to stay out of jail. Our job is to deny him.
Another Scott
@Jackie: 💯
👍
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@japa21:
That destroys IVF as a practical matter since no one is going to take on that responsibility.
Chris Johnson
@Chris: ‘Dirtbag left’ is purely a Russian op.
This became obvious way before it was really mainstream plausible: if you saw how they talked and what kinds of things their subreddit mod teams took very very seriously, you could see how tightly they were managed.
They were among the first to take a loud mocking tone over ‘Russiagate’, quickest to scorn anybody pursuing legal action and insist it wouldn’t work (or was being self-sabotaged to aid Trump), and if you sounded like you wanted to suggest Russia WAS getting involved in US politics, you got a rapid and immediate coordinated downvote brigade to make your remark invisible, or a ban. They weren’t messing around. They were a full-on Kremlin operation originally intended to attack Hillary from the left after she won the Presidency, and they adapted real quick.
japa21
@Baud: As I said, convoluted way to support both concepts. I didn’t say it was practical.
MomSense
Like I said the other day here on B-J, forced birth is fascist.
MomSense
@japa21:
For much of the Catholic Church’s history they supported abortion up until the time of “quickening” which is 16-20 weeks. This is also in line with Islam’s view that a fetus doesn’t become a potential person until “ensoulment”.
Saint Brigid was a midwife and provided abortions. She was much loved and had a devoted following which is why the church made her a saint.
ColoradoGuy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: In the late Nineteenth Century, the Comstock Acts tightly controlled not just contraception, but enabled local police to jail people for sending information about birth control through the mail. Or holding a public meeting on the subject. Margaret Sanger and her allies spent a fair amount of time in jail for doing just these things … the risk, and the intimidation, were real. In some states, the Comstock Acts are still on the books.
At the same time, businesses were free to poison the public with lethal patent medicines, adulterate and poison food, and run railways as they saw fit. Or for banks to speculate on the stock market, or corporations to poison the environment as much as they wanted. Freedom for me, the wealthy business owner, but none for you.
coozledad
@Chris Johnson: Yes. Our local “progressive” candidate for NC House 2 in 2016 didn’t waste a minute after Trump was elected to chastise Democrats for resistance.
Central Planning
@West of the Rockies: I once saw a pair of Crocs that were the same color red as Ronald McDonald’s hair and highlights on his clothing. Since then, I have been in search of Crocs of the same color so I could call them my Ray Crocs.
Sadly, my immediate family (the majority (ok all) of which are < 27 years old) have no idea who that is, or why that would be funny.
Anoniminous
@JML:
If you want the cops to come when you call run a doughnut shop.
Otherwise they’ll get there when they get around to feeling like it. Or not, See Uvalde Texas.
Chris
@Chris Johnson:
First time I saw it was in 2014 when the original Ukraine mess started. On this very blog, actually. It was like a right-wing parody of a left-wing movement. I’d seen plenty of debates on liberal websites about Syria, Libya, Iraq, et al in the previous decade and a half, with a reasonable amount of stupid arguments, but large numbers of posters on left-wing websites suddenly bleating all the same talking points in unison that just happened to perfectly line up with the party line of the hostile dictator in question, that I hadn’t seen before. “The anti-war protesters are all moles for Saddam!” was a right-wing talking point, not a reality. Until all of a sudden it was.
But yes, point taken that “dirtbag left” doesn’t just mean left-wing fringe in general.
AWJ
@Chris Johnson: The “dirtbag left”‘s positions on the Syrian Civil War were another giant red flag (grotesquely pro-Assad, complete with cruel memes mocking the victims of the regime’s barrel bombs and poison gas as stooges of Obama’s imperialism)
Geminid
@Chris Johnson: It’s a weird network. There’s an Iranian military-tech guy I follow some, and one night last Spring he was discussing the contest between Israeli F-35 “stealth” fighters and Iranian low-band radar, and then he reposted a tweet by the producer of an anti-vaccer movie: ”
Then it was back to military technology.
Chris
@coozledad:
I smelled funny business at least as far back as the Assange and Snowden debates in the early 2010s. And part of it was precisely because the breed of ostensibly left-wing activists coalescing around them clearly wasn’t just anti-war-on-terror or anti-U.S. generically, but specifically anti-Obama, anti-Democrat, and anti-liberal.
At the time, it was dismissed as “well, they’re just going against Obama and the Democrats because they’re the ones running America now, you just don’t like it because now the buck stops at your party.” But the more time went on, the clearer it got that it was definitely more than that, and by 2016 they’d erupted into full-blown Trump apologists, a stance they maintained all through the Trump years instead of switching back to Republican-bashing like they would have if it were simply the “keep bashing whoever’s currently running the security state” thing like they’d claimed.
Fake Irishman
@Baud:
say that thing again about Obamacare mandating contraceptive coverage. (Despite all the holes that have been shot in the mandate, it’s still made a huge difference)
Also, women can’t be charged more than men for premiums.
Sally
@OzarkHillbilly: I realise this thread has probably long gone. I refused to get into the debate with them, it is useless. So I asked back – why do you want to know? Not the response they were expecting. Oh I just wondered. Oh, and I turn away to resume my walk. So why do you wear it? Is it compulsory for me to answer your question? If they continue to press me, I just continue to ask questions – why do you want to know, why do you have the presumption to accost me in this way, why should I have to justify myself to you? Am I allowed to wear a hat? Do I live in a country that allows me to wear or not wear a scarf? Etc. It usually amuses the bystanders. In fact I do this to try to educate the bystanders that this is a matter of personal taste. I come off sounding reasonable, the accuser comes off as a jerk. I do not want to debate them about the seriousness of covid, I want the debate to be about my freedom to do as I wish (all usual caveats apply!).
Citizen Alan
@Honus: You’re not going nearly far enough. If eating and drinking is only for nourishment, then it should be illegal to eat or drink anything but water and bland, tasteless sugar-free power bars. Because anything that tastes good is just a gateway to the sin of gluttony.
Citizen Alan
@Yarrow: I have said many times that the thing I hate the most about Republicans is that they made me hate them. Before George Bush dragged us into Iraq (and sent a beloved family member over there with the Mississippi National Guard to get shot at so he could resolve his Oedipus issues), I really don’t think I hated anyone. Now, I despise Republicans so much I genuinely don’t consider them to be fully human. I don’t think they have souls.
Sally
@JML: People have forgotten what the saying “a few rotten apples” is. It is not there are only a few rotten apples in the barrel, it is a few rotten apples spoil the barrel. That is, when rotten apples are permitted to fester in the barrel, they infect the rest. When there are a few corrupt police in the force, it requires the rest to turn blind eye, and eventually be coerced into joining them in their criminality.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
This is probably getting deeper into philosophy or theology than I’m equipped for, but to me it’s precisely because they are fully human and have souls that I hate their fucking guts.
If they weren’t fully human, hating them would be meaningless. It’d be like hating a jellyfish for stinging you. It doesn’t know it’s doing anything wrong; it’s a damn jellyfish. The fact that they have the same brains and ability for moral reasoning as any of us and choose to exercise it the way they do is exactly what makes them such pieces of shit.
Chris Johnson
@Chris: The specific dirtbag lefts I’m thinking of, had a knack for ‘ironically’ arguing that Trump would in fact be better for leftist aims than, first Hillary, then Biden.
It’s that sort of irony poisoning where wouldn’t it be interesting if that was actually the payload, and they sure seem to like to be edgy and ironic in that particular way a whole lot.
Only leftists that I’m interested in anymore are the ones who’re ride or die for Biden, even if they struggle to deal with him. The problem there is that they aren’t really democrats, they’re zealots just like the MAGAs. A lot of them would really like to see all the Republicans disenfranchised, which puts them at odds with Biden who knows it’s his job to represent all Americans, just not to wreck the place doing it.
You represent dangerously insane people by managing them, not by trying to exterminate them. Biden’s been doing exactly what he should, and ardent leftists will never truly appreciate that, because they don’t actually value democracy unless they win every time.
Kayla Rudbek
@EarthWindFire: and my go-to is “arsenic is perfectly natural too”
Citizen Alan
@Baud: That’s because most of us realize that Libertarians are lying hypocrites who really are just Republicans in every way that matters except they’re embarrassed to be associated with religious fundamentalists.
Citizen Alan
@Jackie: It’s even funnier when a fundie talks about how “unnatural” anal sex is because God didn’t make us that way, and then you ask “So why did God put the male prostate where he did?”
brantl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And WHAT a tool!
Sally
@Baud: They have said quite clearly that they do believe life begins when the sperm fertilises the ovum. As Haley said, those blastocysts in the clinics are all babies, and so can’t be left to perish. It is why they are going after the contraceptives (hormone therapy) that prohibit implantation.
sab
@Citizen Alan: I am the first Democrat in my midwestern family. They first became Republican back when Lincoln did. I am not willing to concede that they were all monsters or even racists (dixiecrats anyone?) One of my grandfather’s sisters spent twenty years teaching in southern Sudan before Nazis made it too dangerous to stay.
Fiscal conservatives yes. Religious nutbags no. The religious nutbags used to be too pure to vote until the dixiecrats got them in harness.
Not venting at you in particular. Just at the blogmind opinion that all Republicans have been monsters forever, when modern Republicans all over the country are just re-labelled dixicrats and not traditional Republicans at all.
TheTruffle
@Marcopolo: I’m not sure how it could be a winning message for them. It is a definitely wedge issue that Democrats and freedom loving types could use against them. Especially given who their party leader is.
@Yarrow: It is GOOD to see the Democrats use the word “Freedom” again and again.
Say, where are the libertarians right now. Surely they’re hopping mad over these totalitarian assholes. Right?
brantl
@Citizen Alan: Nah, libertarians are Republicans who want to smoke dope.
sab
@Citizen Alan: Yikes (and an interesting thought and I don’t even have one being an old lady.)
Citizen Alan
@RaflW:
I think the moment I realized that “pro-life” was an utterly bullshit term was when I noticed the perfect overlap between the people who wanted to abolish abortion and the people who got spitting mad whenever they saw a woman with two or more small children paying for groceries with an EBT card. They want poor women to have as many children as possible and then watch them all starve.
sab
@Citizen Alan: Punishment for not sensible sex. Thomas Malthus redux.
Citizen Alan
@Cacti:
Citizen Alan
@japa21:
Here’s the thing that kills me: The idea that a frozen embryo fertilized via IVF is a child is not only moronic in the extreme, it is blasphemous! They are saying that if a scientist or doctor (a) removes an egg from a woman and puts it in a petri dish, (b) removes a single spermatozoa out of a cup of spern some man has masturbated into, and (c) injects the latter into the former with a needle, that ensouls the “child” regardless of whether it is ever put into a woman so it can actually develop. How is that not saying that the doctor in this instance is basically God?
Citizen Alan
@sab: I never said that Republicans have been monsters forever. I think it’s been a flawed, power-hungry party since approximately Grover Cleveland’s second term, but there have certainly been admirable Republicans (both officials and voters). But I think the rot started with Nixon who aggressively courted the Southern racists who rejected the Democratic Party after 1964. It grew under Reagan who thought Philadelpha, MS was the ideal place to start his 1980 campaign not 15 years after Chaney, Goodman, and Schwermer were murdered. And it has metasticized over the last 25 years to the point that it is demonstrably and overtly hostile to American Democracy. It has become the Final Revenge of the Confederacy. And I don’t care how much volunteer work in the Third World someone has done if they come back and support literal monsters back at home.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: My husband was diagnosed with vascular dementia in August 2023. I can tell you for sure that he was having symptoms two years before that, and maybe even earlier. I go back and forth about whether TFG might have dementia. From the outside it’s hard to tell. A year ago you could have talked to my husband and not known anything was wrong. In fact, today you could talk to him and think he is normal, but he’s not. It’s possible TFG’s problems are due to overuse of drugs, too, which could explain why he sometimes seems fine and sometimes doesn’t.
japa21
@Citizen Alan:
Can’t disagree with that.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: My MIL developed Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Before she and her husband moved in with us, when things got too bad for them, she developed various coping mechanisms. E.g. she would tear each page of the newspaper after she was done reading it so that she wouldn’t read it again.
:-(
It’s hard.
Best of luck, and take care of yourself.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Citizen Alan: I am sorry.
When I said “not venting at you in particular” I was trying to say that I know that you haven’t said that all Republicans have been monsters forever, but that I was using your comment as an opening.
Apparently that didn’t work and I am sorry that I implied an opinion to you that you don’t hold and that I never thought you held.
SWMBO
https://www.tiktok.com/@nononsensespirituality/video/7337421727787453742?_r=1&_t=8k2R0IWD991