So, this civil war Lanzman and Zombie keep predicting...

I understand what the right is doing to hasten it, with their criminal candidates and their embrace of white nationalists and Nazis, but what exactly is the left doing to get things rolling?

*Don't say Mueller. Prosecuting criminals isn't an act of war, especially when it's a loyal Republican leading the charge.

*Don't say antifa. Antifa has exactly one beef, and it's with fascists. Everyone's supposed to be against fascists.

*Don't say "the refuse to compromise!" Democrats are obsessed with bipartisan cooperation. That's what kept Obama from doing so much more than he did.

Existing. Like the Jews in Germany.

Antifa is a terrorist organization and tgey claim anyone who disagrees with them is a fascist so, fuck you, on that score.

Other than that good post.

Antifa has only one beef you say. What was their beef with this guy, is it because he carried an American flag?
https://reason.com/blog/2018/08/21/antifa-portland-evan-welch-violence

That dumb asses like 14D keep making excuses for a violent terrorist group says something and it is not a good something.

The article almost immediately acknowledges it was likely a misunderstanding, since the guy intentionally copied the fascists in an attempt to "take back" one of their symbols. I imagine a Buddhist trying to reclaim the swastika might have gotten beaten by accident as well.

Got to break a few eggs to make an omelet, eh?

Am I defending the people that attacked him? No. Am I saying he was an idiot for making such an easily misunderstood statement? Yes. But I'm not defending the beating of non-fascists.

There is nothing he will not excuse from his own side. The problem is Antifa is fascist and is a terrorist group. Fuck them and fuck shit stains like 14D who make excuses for violent terrorists.

By and large, by ignoring the right and looking down their nose at them.

I mean, fair enough, a lot of the stuff is pretty pathetic (gay marriage OMG! Trans people using the toilet for the gender they identify with ZOMG!), but you still need to drag these people along a little.

It's all right raising your nose in the air, and being all snotty about it, but then you get Trump. Or maybe worse down the line, US of Handmaids Tale, and yay you, have a golf clap.

Basically, it's all about about merely upsetting the torch and pitchfork brigade, not royally pissing them off. Mainly as they're inclined to do something about the latter and marks you out as being, at least, as big as moron as them.

Patience and intelligence work much better.

But her emails

Same things they've been doing. Pushing government as the answer to all concerns, nanny state nonsense like banning plastic straws, taxes out the wahzoo, erosion of personal property rights, political correctness, co-opting public education, on and on. You know, all the stuff you support.

Lol were you dropped on the head as an adult?

So the plastic straw will be what breaks the camel's back?

Seriously, think about it:

The left: "We're angry that so many on the right implicitly support Nazis!"
The right: "You banned plastic straws!"

CIVIL WAR IMMINENT.

Righto, keep on living in the dream world. So sadly predictable . . .

I'm not exactly a nanny-stater, and I'm fine with banning plastic straws. They're fucking things up in the oceans. Not fucking up the oceans I expect to come under government remit as well as personal responsibility.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Especially when they have been trained to believe that anything they aren't fed from their far right echo chamber is poison.

https://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed

I'm just saying, people like myself, who are definitely on the left, are fighting against fascism, autocracy and plutocracy, Nazism, systemic racism and sexism, and forced poverty.
You just gave an example of the right going to civil war over the banning of plastic straws. I mean, I think it's dumb to ban plastic straws, too, but plastic straws as a final tipping point for war? Really?

To better make my point:

"Grab her by the pussy."

"Obama didn't wear a flag lapel pin!"


Goddamn.

It's not about reasoning, we're not Vulcans, it's about the canard about boiling a frog.

Near where I live, one area was mostly white, now mostly Asian. Took about 20 years. No one really cares.

A similar area, same thing happened practically overnight. Cue hooting skinheads and burning police vans.

People aren't overly fond of change, do it too rapidly and you meet resistance, slowly and surely, and they don't see it til it's too late.

Carrying an American flag is offensive now?

Y'know what shuts down that resistance?
Tanks.
Segregationists were pretty tough picking on little kids, but then they saw some tanks, and they shut right the fuck up, and became good boys and girls.
Isn't that funny?
I find it hilarious.

The rural lifestyle is dying. Even with the massive amount of subsidies taken from Productive America, Rural America is depopulating and the pace will only quicken as the average age of these areas continues to climb. Welcome to the modern economy. There really isn't much to be done outside of social support programs, which the Republican Party Donors don't want to pay for. At this point, it is obvious most of Trump's hard core supporters are nihilists. They'd rather burn down modern, urban, multicultural America than see others prosper the 'wrong way' (non-faith based poli-econ structures).

Not much you can do with such people except consistently point out the truth and wait for a) others in their party to recognize them for what they are*. b) they die out.

*Look at the complete collapse of the Republican Party in the suburbs. The increase in support for Trump and the Rs in rural areas mitigates the gains, but only partially and as mentioned above that is a well already going dry.

I know you like to tell yourselves that, but we've seen in the real world what happens when leftists get their way: totalitarian states complete with secret police and hobnailed boots. Ultimately the left is as much a movement toward authoritarian horse shit as is the right. You just dress it up in different terms. Ultimately, left and right meet around the back of the circle in the same place: government by a small group of self-appointed elites who "know what's best" for everyone else.

The complete quote is "nanny state nonsense like banning plastic straws," as in that's one example of a longstanding pattern of ever-increasing government control of every aspect of life, and the abandonment of the ideas of personal responsibility or individual liberty. Since leftism is very much a collectivist philosophy, it's only natural that leftist movements see individual people and their rights as unimportant, as only the collective matters.

Indeed. You'll not see me saying much in support of those kinds of things either.

I'm an anarchist and a communist, so... no. I believe in a lateral form of self-government where power is placed in the hands of the individual and the community in which they live. No more people at the top making themselves richer by starving the people at the bottom.

For example, those plastic straws? Don't ban them, just make them unnecessary. Make them obsolete.

Government interference bothers me as well. The problem is that it seems some just want the right to fuck people over and walk away scot-free, but when we talk about the rights of human beings not to die from easily preventable diseases in a system that places much more value on wealth than welfare, suddenly it's about government control. I'm in favoring of abolishing our government outright. It's a corrupt machine that needs dismantling.

Good.

Plastic in the Pacific ocean from the US (high count not low count) at most 3%. Amount of that originating from plastic straws? Didn't even make the top 50 list of origin sources. So, no, it really is not much of a problem and is just feel good nonsense from idiots. BTW 80% of the plastic comes from China and most of the rest from Asia.

So if these virtue signaling halfwits actually wanted to do some good then the most productive way to spend their time is advocating for better sanitation, trash collection, and the construction of landfills in Asia (especially China). That would actually have massive impact. Straws in the US? Almost no impact even if completely eliminated.

About two weeks ago I went to a Padres game (my employer bought us all tickets) and they had those cardboard straws... They were horrible. It got soggy halfway through my $8 lemonade which seemed to be marginally larger than a Dixie Cup.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X17301650

Oh, look! Actual science. Gee, it says straws have almost no impact on the amount of plastic in oceans. What is more there have been dozens of independent studies and they all come to the exact same conclusion, that straws are a red herring from dullards, so we will let the best available scientific evidence guide our policies, right?

Oh, who am I kidding? The left is as anti-science as the right when it comes to their own pet issues. A plague on both their houses.

What, like forcing trans people to use specific bathrooms? Or restricting legal medical procedures? Or stopping cities from deciding how they want to deal with illegal immigrants? You can't even see the emptiness of the accusations you're making.

The companies themselves are phasing out straws because it saves them a buck and makes them look good.

Don't whine about taxes being too high while the debt is still rising exponentially.

???

WHY FOOTBALL MAN NO STAND UP??? Fuck off with trying to claim political correctness is a completely left-wing phenomenon.

What are you babbling about now?


Regardless, how many states have Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures? How long have Republicans had a majority in the House and the Senate? How long has that orange atrocity been president now? Where are the lefties that are perpetrating all these horrible acts governing from, exactly?

I'm no fan of high taxes, political correctness or erosion of personal property rights. Calling the banning of plastic straws nanny state nonsense is ridiculous

We had our chance. Now we have shit like this:







If we can do anything to minimize and/or eliminate this sort of fucking unbelievable horseshit, then I'm all for it. Single use plastic is a massive problem

Either you didn't read the article or you're "playing" dumb. Either way, fuck off until you're ready to participate.

So the "fuck your feelings, snowflake" crowd is going to start shooting because we're hurting their feelings? That's so stupid I don't even know where to begin.