A good friend of mines wife had to carry a fetus with un-treatable Gastroschisis to term (AKA died withing seconds of birth) because of these pro life shitstains.
I love how people who aren't part of the community think they know what's best for the community. Fucking assholes, outing kids into what could be a potentially dangerous situation, depending on the parents views.
I'd love to out their deepest, most well kept secrets, see how they feel.
It's disgusting how all these 'protections' they put in place will do more harm than good. You can tell it's coming from an anti trans standpoint as they're trying to scare people into staying hidden.
My point is that “the government” isn’t some black-box machine. The government is people. You can blame “the government” all you want, but it’s the people pulling the levers who deserve the blame. They should be named.
They’re serving both by educating. They aren’t serving by keeping secrets from parents.
The government forces us to send our kids to government run education centers at the threat of taking them from us. The least they can do is tell us what’s going on those 6-8 hours a day we are forced to give them our kids.
No, I think things like this that can cause a potential dangerous situation shouldn't be told. Coming out about anything, sexually, gender identity etc is a personal choice. Taking that from someone is a form of control.
If a teacher tries any of this shit when my kiddo is in school, I'm gonna lose it with them. It's up to my child if and when they feel comfortable telling me those things, if they ever realise they aren't straight or aren't the gender they were born as. It's their right to choose to tell me this. Not someone else. Just because they're children, doesn't mean we have rights to know everything. Their privacy is important too. Children are people, not possessions. They deserve respect. We don't demand someone's boss tells their family if they find out this stuff. We don't demand higher education teachers of over 18s to do this either. Just because their minors does not mean were entitled to know their private thoughts and feelings. Unless a child has admitted to thoughts of suicide/ harming themselves or others, I don't believe we should be told.
If they think a child has behavioural issues that need looking into, fine. That's good information. But outing someone, no matter their age is wrong and potentially dangerous. Luckily there's parents out there who will be accepting if they get information like this. But unfortunately there's parents who won't be, and depending on what those parents are like, it could result in some seriously bad situations arising.
I know my own parent was less then impressed when she found out Im pansexual. And they tried the whole 'but kids' and 'its just a phase thing.' which isn't as bad as some people/ children would get. But being invalidated doesn't feel good, especially on something that isn't an opinion, but a fact. Being told you're wrong for your sexuality or gender identity can do a lot of damage to people.
This is stupid. It shouldn't be a thing. I'm sick of the 'but the children' bullshit the government keep pushing as a cover for wanting more control. No end to end encryption, because we want to protect the children. Our children, because we want to protect the children. Access to your private messages, the children.
It's all bullshit they use to get people on board because children are an easy pawn to use. The government's of the world need to stop using children in pawns of their stupid games and just be honest. But how likely are people to listen if they say 'we want more control' over 'we are trying to protect the children!'
If a teacher tries any of this shit when my kiddo is in school, I’m gonna lose it with them. It’s up to my child if and when they feel comfortable telling me those things, if they ever realise they aren’t straight or aren’t the gender they were born as. It’s their right to choose to tell me this. Not someone else. Just because they’re children, doesn’t mean we have rights to know everything
If the kid is socially transitioning at school, I think that falls under behavior parents should know. Same if the kids are being shitheads in class or getting beat up at recess.
There’s a gap between questioning and transitioning. Kids need people they feel safe talking to. Kids need to be able to ask questions about the world without feeling like they’ll be punished. You mentioned in other comments about programs to reduce abuse, but what about something as simple as:
Mr Teacher, I have questions about what it means to be a boy or girl. I don’t want to ask my parents because they get mad when the topic comes up on the news.
Well, little Timmy, you shouldn’t have told me that because I now need to legally tell your parents. Hope you’re ready to feel unloved just for asking a question, nerd.
There’s a gap between questioning and transitioning
If Jimmy is now going by Cindy, that’s a social cue of transitioning.
Kids need people they feel safe talking to. Kids need to be able to ask questions about the world without feeling like they’ll be punished. You mentioned in other comments about programs to reduce abuse, but what about something as simple as:
I agree they need people they feel safe talking to. Schools have counselors.
It shouldn’t be up to teachers to determine the morality of what the kids saying and whether they should share it with the parents or not.
Well, little Timmy, you shouldn’t have told me that because I now need to legally tell your parents. Hope you’re ready to feel unloved just for asking a question, nerd.
See? You have to be incredibly hyperbolic to even create a situation where it’d be bad for parents to discuss with parents about the children’s behavior.
If instead of a teacher, your kid starts going to church and has these secret meetings with pastors and priests, are you comfortable with that?
If Jimmy is now going by Cindy, that’s a social cue of transitioning.
You say I’m using hyperbole in the same comment as this. You do know it’s possible to question gender without changing your name, right?
I did use hyperbole to make my point, but only in how bluntly it would be said. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say there are shitty, but not abusive enough to lose their kids, parents out there, and I do think there are kids out there who would rather ask questions of other adults in their lives. I am making this argument about the edge cases, because I think the argument “this will only fuck over a small percentage of people” is a shit take. So is “teachers are government employees who should act as interchangable robots that kids can’t trust or confide in.”
You do know it’s possible to question gender without changing your name, right?
Yes, which is why I think it’s weird that you try to draw this line that encourages teachers to hide that from parents.
. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say there are shitty, but not abusive enough to lose their kids, parents out there,
And you think government employees should determine that simply because of their intuition? The movement from objectivity to subjectivity at the whim of the government is tragic.
I do think there are kids out there who would rather ask questions of other adults in their lives.
Therapists. Religious leaders. Aunts. Uncles.
Why does it have to be the teachers? The education system is a failure - our spending on schools tops the world. Literally 30% more per full time student than our peer countries. Our test scores are constantly at the bottom of those countries.
Then we’re being told that our schools are shitty because they’re underfunded. Then they tell us the students will do better if the teachers can teach them about gender and sexual ideologies at young ages, and have private conversations with the teachers.
Nah, dog. If our schools showed that they could teach our children math, english and science with the vast sums of money we keep throwing at them, maybe I’d buy it. But not with how shitty they’ve shown the education system is.
Weren’t you just talking about how you believe in small government and oppose authoritarianism in another post and yet here you are demanding that the government force educators to invade children’s privacy by spying on them and relaying their findings to parents?
You just linked to my comments, show me the comment were I “demand that the government force educators to invade children’s privacy by spying on them”
I never had, nor never will say that, because I think teachers should stay out of their kids personal lives for the most part. I don’t want any teacher spying exchanging secrets with kids.
Tell you what, I've been back and forth with this person somewhere else in this thread, and it really astounds me how someone could be both small government and demand the right to use the strong arm of the government to allow parents to surviel their child via their own teachers.
Then they question you because you can't prove they said that directly, as though inferring such without saying it absolves them of any guilt. Might work in court, but that doesn't work here.
I just stopped replying to them entirely as their latest comments are completely unhinged antigovernment rants and conspiracy theories plus they began completely contradicting themselves from one reply to the next, drastically changing their supposed ‘ideals’ to whatever suited their argument in that particuler moment.
This person needs intensive cult deprogramming if they’re genuine or a better job than working in a troll farm if they’re not.
Fantasising about sexual contact with children indicates that this person might groom children for real, because they have a sexual interest in doing so. As someone who was sexually assaulted as a child, it’s really not something that needs to happen.
Seems like then fantasizing about shooting people or carjacking or such indcates that person might do that activity for real to. There are a lot of car jackings nowadays and you know gta is real popular. mmmm. /s but seriously im not sure your first statement has merit. Especially when you look at where to draw the line. anime. manga. oil paintings. books. thoughts in ones head.
If you want to keep people who fantasise about sexually exploiting children around your family, be my guest. My family tried that, and I was raped. I didn’t like that, and I have drawn my own conclusions.
yeah and if you want to keep people who fantasize about murdering folk. you can't say one thing is a thing without saying the other is. Im sorry you were raped but I doubt it would be stopped by banning lolita.
You can call it a strawman but doing something evil if its killing folks or raping folks the effect should be the same when discussing non actual and actual. You can say this thing is a special case but when it comes to freedom of speech, which is anything that is not based in actual events. writing, speaking, thinking, art. Special circumstances becomes a real slippery slope (which can also be brought up as a fallacy which like all "fallacies" depend a lot on what else backs them up on how they are being presented)
If you’re asking whether anime, manga, oil paintings, and books glorifying the sexualization of children should also be banned, well, yes.
This is not comparable to glorifying violence, because real children are victimized in order to create some of these images, and the fact that it’s impossible to tell makes it even more imperative that all such imagery is banned, because the existence of fakes makes it even harder to identify real victims.
It’s like you know there’s an armed bomb on a street, but somebody else filled the street with fake bombs, because they get off on it or whatever. Maybe you’d say making fake bombs shouldn’t be illegal because they can’t harm anyone. But now suddenly they have made the job of law enforcement exponentially more difficult.
Sucks to be law enforcement then. I’m not giving up my rights to make their jobs easier. I hate hate HATE the trend towards loss of privacy and the “if you didn’t do anything wrong then you have nothing to hide” mindset. Fuck that.
How was the model trained? Probably using existing CSAM images. Those children are victims. Making derivative images of “imaginary” children doesn’t negate its exploitation of children all the way down.
So no, you are making false equivalence with your video game metaphors.
A generative AI model doesn’t require the exact thing it creates in its datasets. It most likely just combined regular nudity with a picture of a child.
That’s a whole other thing than the AI model being trained on CSAM. I’m currently neutral on this topic so I’d recommend you replying to the main thread.
It’s not CSAM in the training dataset, it’s just pictures of children/people that are already publicly available. This goes on to the copyright side of things of AI instead of illegal training material.
It’s images of children used to make CSAM. No matter of your mental gymnastics can change that, nor the fact that those children’s consent was not obtained.
Why are you trying so hard to rationalize the creation of CSAM? Do you actually believe there is a context in which CSAM is OK? Are you that sick and perverted?
Because it really sounds like that’s what you’re trying to say, using copyright law as an excuse.
I’m not neutral about child porn, I’m very much against it, stop trying to put words in my mouth. I’m talking about this kind of use of AI could be in the very same category of loli imagery, since these are not real child sexual abuse material.
It’s every time with you people, you can’t have a discussion without accusing someone of being a pedo. If that’s your go-to that says a lot about how weak your argument is or what your motivations are.
You’re just projecting your unwillingness to ever take a stance that doesn’t personally benefit you.
Some people can think about things objectively and draw a conclusion that makes sense to them without personal benefit being a primary determinant of said conclusion.
You’re arguing against a victimless outlet that there is significant evidence would reduce the incidence of actual child molestation.
So let’s use your ‘logic’/argumentation: why are you against reducing child molestation? Why are you against fake pictures but not actual child molestation? Why do you want children to be molested?
Your claim that it’s victimless is, of course, false since real children are used in the training data without consent. This also ignores the fact that the result is child porn, for which you are arguing in support of.
Lastly, your claim that any of this results in any reduction in child abuse is spurious and unsubstantiated.
Your claim that it’s victimless is, of course, false since real children are used in the training data without consent.
Your assumption, but there are a ton of royalty-free images that contain children out there, more than enough for an AI to ‘learn’ proportions etc. Combine with adult nudity, and a generative AI can ‘bridge the gap’ create images of people that don’t exist (hence the word “generative”).
This also ignores the fact that the result is child porn
That’s not a fact. “Child porn” requires a child–pixels on a screen depicting a person that does not actually exist is not a child.
Lastly, your claim that any of this results in any reduction in child abuse is spurious and unsubstantiated.
I’m just making a reasonable guess based on what’s been found about other things in the same subcategory (Japanese research found that those who have actually molested a kid were less likely to have consumed porn comics depicting that subject matter, than the general population), and in other sex categories, like how the prevalence of rape fantasy porn online correlates with a massive reduction of real-life rape.
Seems pretty unlikely that this is going to be the one and only exception to date where a fictional facsimile doesn’t ‘satiate’ the urge to offend in real life, and instead encourages the ‘consumer’ to offend.
That’s just defending child porn with extra steps.
Why do you keep defending child porn? And why would you be so willing to die on the hill of defending child porn unless you, yourself, were a consumer of it? Yet, it was you who accused me of projection…
It’s the shamelessness of you and your position that I find most revolting, really.
That’s not really a nuanced take on what is going on. A bunch of images of children are studied so that the AI can learn how to draw children in general. The more children in the dataset, the less any one of them influences or resembles the output.
Ironically, you might have to train an AI specifically on CSAM in order for it to identify the kinds of images it should not produce.
I just hope that the Models aren’t trained on CSAM. Making generating stuff they can fap on ““ethical reasonable”” as no children would be involved. And I hope that those who have those tendancies can be helped one way or another that doesn’t involve chemical castration or incarceration.
Well, the image generator had to be trained on something first in order to spit out child porn. While it may be that the training set was solely drawn/rendered images, we don’t know that, and even if the output were in that style, it might very well be photorealistic images generated from real child porn and run through a filter.
Yes exactly. That people are then excusing this with “well it was trained on all.public images,” are just admitting you’re right and that there is a level of harm here since real materials are used. Even if they weren’t being used or if it was just a cartoon, the morality is still shaky because of the role porn plays in advertising. We already have laws about advertising because it’s so effective, including around cigarettes and prescriptions. Most porn, ESPECIALLY FREE PORN, is an ad to get you to buy other services. CP is not excluded from this rule - no one gets free lunch, so to speak. These materials are made and hosted for a reason.
The role that CP plays in most countries is difficult. It is used for blackmail. It is also used to generate money for countries (intelligence groups around the world host illegal porn ostensibly “to catch a predator,” but then why is it morally okay for them to distribute these images but no one else?). And it’s used as advertising for actual human trafficking organizations. And similar organizations exist for snuff and gore btw. And ofc animals. And any combination of those 3. Or did you all forget about those monkey torture videos, or the orangutan who was being sex trafficked? Or Daisy’s Destruction and Peter Scully?
So it’s important to not allow these advertisers to combine their most famous monkey torture video with enough AI that they can say it’s AI generated, but it’s really just an ad for their monkey torture productions. And even if NONE of the footage was from illegal or similar events and was 100% thought of by AI - it can still be used as an ad for these groups if they host it. Cartoons can be ads ofc.
Wild corn dogs are an outright plague where I live. When I was younger, me and my buddies would lay snares to catch to corn dogs. When we caught one, we’d roast it over a fire to make popcorn. Corn dog cutlets served with popcorn from the same corn dog is popular meal, especially among the less fortunate. Even though some of the affluent consider it the equivalent to eating rat meat. When me pa got me first rifle when I turned 14, I spent a few days just shooting corn dogs.
There is a difference between something immediately identifiable as a drawing and something almost photorealistic. If a generated image is indistinguishable from a real photo, it should be treated the same.
I don’t advocate for either but it should NOT be treated the same. one doesn’t involve a child being involved and traumatized, id rather a necrophiliac make ai generated pics instead of… you know.
Not a great comparison, because unlike withh violent games or movies, you can’t say that there is no danger to anyone in allowing these images to be created or distributed. If they are indistinguishable from the real thing, it then becomes impossible to identify actual human victims.
There’s also a strong argument that the availability of imagery like this only encourages behavioral escalation in people who suffer from the affliction of being a sick fucking pervert pedophile. It’s not methadone for them, as some would argue. It’s just fueling their addiction, not replacing it.
More seriously though, Hamas not mistreating her beyond the initial act of kidnapping makes sense. The entire purpose of taking hostages is to use the threat of harm as leverage. So there’s incentive to keep them in relatively good condition, because as soon as anything happens to them that leverage is lost. Of course, people don’t always remember that, and the whole thing relies on all parties involved at least pretending to act in good faith.
Because if Hamas executed the hostages, they’d have even less bargaining power than they already do. Unfortunately, Netanyahu doesn’t seem to care much about the hostages anyway.
Except that they don’t. The ultimate goal of the war according to Netanyahu is to “destroy Hamas”, no elaboration on what that means tho. Securing the hostages is just an optional mission and he made that very clear in the past.
Hamas would have never gotten that strong in the first place if Netanyahu weren’t appalled by the PLO’s stance of a two country solution and had not worked actively against them. He does not want to accept a state of Palestine, holding true to the old Likud manifesto “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”
It’s funny how that stance is acceptable when it’s Israel that threatens and enacts genocide.
look the hostages were weak, they don’t deserve to live, just like the victims of the holocaust.
don’t look at me like that, it was the Israeli Minister of national security that said this shit, can’t I go quoting the only democracy in the m.east’s government?
Keeping in mind that I’m not an expert on Islam by any metric, I don’t think there’s any religious prohibitions, because executing people was something that ISIS was notorious for. I’ll also note that this tendency was one of the reasons everyone else in the region dogpiled them.
Fundamentalists picking and choosing which rules apply and which individuals are considered valid targets isn’t a good way to understand the tenets of a religion. Which of course means Hamas may also pick and choose, but just because ISIS did something doesn’t mean it’s the norm.
ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. They is the Israel of Islam. Zionism is not Judaism. ISIS is not Islam. Almost everything ISIS does is strictly forbidden in the Quran.
ISIS did not enact Sharia law when it comes to war. Their unhinged interpretation of the Qu’ran (they did not accept not the full thing ofc just the passages that they deemed relevant for their agenda) was basically that everyone that does not accept their ultra-fanatic retardedness is infidel. And then they proclaimed Jihad and in Jihad, infidels are cleansed (also not the meaning of Jihad in the Qu’ran, but ISIS’ interpretation).
It’s best to forget about ISIS when talking about rules of Islam, they are about as much Islamic as the KKK are Protestant Christians.
I cannot edit a deleted comment, so here is a revision of what I posted:
ISIS did not enact Sharia law when it comes to war. Their unhinged interpretation of the Qu’ran (they did not accept not the full thing ofc just the passages that they deemed relevant for their agenda) was basically that everyone that does not accept their ultra-fanatic extremism is infidel. And then they proclaimed Jihad and in Jihad, infidels are cleansed (also not the meaning of Jihad in the Qu’ran, but ISIS’ interpretation).
It’s best to forget about ISIS when talking about rules of Islam, they are about as much Islamic as the KKK are Protestant Christians.
If they wanted to kill the hostages, they would have just killed them instead of taking them hostage. The whole point of a hostage is that it increases your power at the negotiating table. It gives you leverage. The hostage is something to trade in exchange for concessions, or the threat of harm to force the opponent’s cooperation. Neither of those work if the hostage has been killed or harmed, because any bargaining power you would have had from holding them goes right out the window as soon as the hostage is killed.
A Hamas guard who killed an Israeli hostage acted “in revenge” and against instructions after he heard news that his two children had been killed in an Israeli strike, a spokesperson for the group’s armed wing said on Thursday.
“The (Hamas) soldier assigned as a guard acted in a retaliatory manner, against instructions, after he received information that his two children were martyred in one of the massacres conducted by the enemy,” Abu Ubaida said on Telegram.
“The incident doesn’t represent our ethics and the instructions of our religion in dealing with captives. We will reinforce the instructions,” he added.
Watching it, it looks like a stunt / setup to show how “dangerous the border is” or some bullshit. You never know what’s going on in the moldy orange’s brain.
Sounds like he was just being an asshole and wanting to end the interview which the reported kept extending with questions. Seems like this is non-news.
I think he got upset that she stepped in front of him to block his way before asking her question. He took it as disrespect and made the excuse to leave.
Thanks. What a shitty news article to not even provide the video (yet still include a completely unrelated random video at the top of the page anyway).
You’ll notice that when a news source leaves out the obvious thing, a quote with context, video, picture, whatever, they’re hyping something up that’s not what the headline leads you to believe.
Glad you posted the clip instead of Newsweek’s bond music video.
The only thing the clip really shows is that RFK Jr was meant to be a Biden spoiler. Florida politicians have a history of using this tactic. However, Kennedy was only stealing Trump votes. Now the rapists are joining forces like usual.
Gotta say, as someone who identifies as a progressive, she's really been beating my expectations compared to what she was saying and doing back in the 2020 primaries.
I’m hoping she’s mostly just playing soft on Israel for now is to avoid more criticism of being antisemitic. When Israel started their attempted genocide, most of the Biden administration was silent on it, and we didn’t hear or see anything from Harris, when she did eventually have a public appearance about a month later, she was pretty much the first person in the administration to say anything remotely pro-peace.
I’m probably just huffing copium but I hope she’s just taking AIPAC’s money (not sure if they are giving her any, but better in her hands than theirs) and getting through the election, and then going to go full prosecutor on Israel/Netanyahu.
Trump just called Netanyahu and told him to turn down the cease fire. All your complaints about Harris should be gone and Trump should be in prison for being a traitor promoting more death for political gain.
Doesn’t really matter what Trump does if she still supports giving Israel weapons. Netanyahu doesn’t care about the ceasefire anyway. That’s been obvious for awhile now.
Trump said on day one he’d let Israel “finish the job”. What is wrong with you? Bizarro delusion to even consider democrats approach anything other than vastly superior to Republicans.
I’m going to critize anyone who is currently enabling a genocide. That shouldn’t be controversial, but then I guess there’s more Nazi sympathizers in the US than I thought.
You can’t expect me to clap and applaud for Democrats as they send over bombs and run interference for Israel, just because they act a little sad about it. My advice: ignore what people say, especially politicians, and see what they do.
Also, “if we don’t do a genocide, someone else will” is a terrible excuse to do a genocide. And take a house like the Israeli settlers do lol.
Then in that case I hope you enjoy the last few tastes of freedom before Gilead arises. No hard feelings when I’m given the order by Führer Trump to round you and your family into the camps? I’ll just be following orders, after all. Work will set you free eventually! Oh and don’t mind the ash, that’s just the Palestinians and Muslims.
Or she could just not arm the Israelis. I think Kamala has a better chance of doing that then Biden who was to the right of Reagan and Kissinger on Israel, and with a enough public support and pressure, I think she would, so I’m not going to stop and I don’t think the protestors should, either. She’s been unnervingly quiet on the issue except for saying “ceasefire” a lot, which unfortunately doesn’t mean much without actual leverage on the Israelis to make them accept one without constantly changing their terms. But as awareness spreads, they are being forced to acknowledge it more and more even though they don’t want to. Sure they barely mentioned the protestors at the DNC, but they did do it once or twice (way less than the problem of antisemitism but it’s something). It’s progress and people have to continue to fight, not lay down, cover their eyes and ears, and pretend a genocide isn’t happening from your hypocritical elected leaders, who are on the podium talking about freedom and peace and how good they are at standing up to bullies and doing the right thing, while thousands of innocent civilians are dying from bombs or starving to death at our hand. I can’t people even believe that is an option, it blows my mind.
If this country prefers fascism over avoiding a genocide, then it’s basically already fascist via its policies, or it’s not a democracy. If it’s the former, then you are the bad guys, I’m sorry, and you deserve to be as comfortable as a Nazi supporting Hitler. But the good thing is that genocide doesn’t have to be guaranteed just because both candidates support it. LGBTQ issues weren’t on the ballot until people caused a huge fuss about it, same with women’s suffrage, and slavery, etc. People were pressured into doing the right things on this even when they felt kind of uncomfortable about it. If we just accepted things the way they were because both Democrats and Republicans supported it, then we still wouldn’t have gay marriage. But it eventually became uncomfortable and embarrassing to be a Democrat who doesn’t support it which is why Hillary Clinton eventually switched on the issue even though her husband signed DOMA. So no, just because both parties support a thing doesn’t mean we have to accept it, and if it’s wrong, we shouldn’t. And I can’t think of a chiefer wrong than genocide (yes, I would rank it even worse than work camps).
In fact, Democrats are the correct people to pressure on this because they are the ones who historically adapt to these changing times faster than Republicans. Look, I like Kamala. A lot. I upvote all the articles about her like this one. I was really afraid her VP pick would be Shapiro, but luckily she picked a really good one. In fact, this is the only issue I see is a problem in her platform, her silence on this. I’m praying she’s quietly taking AIPAC money and then going to do a switcheroo in office and suddenly be harsher on Israel. But I’m not going to rely on that pipe dream, and tell people with a good point to shut up because she might do that instead of the more likely thing every President has done for the last 50 years. I’m going to encourage them to keep up the pressure so she feels safer in the public to do that. Because this is a big issue. There’s no bigger issue. If this isn’t your red line, then you don’t have one. Which I guess is fine for some people, but others do because they really believed “never again” meant “never again”.
At the very least, you’re the kind of people who would’ve said to people in the Civil Rights era to stop causing so much trouble or “you would get the Republicans elected and then life would be really bad for you blacks” , even while they were having issues voting, getting lynched, etc. How about instead of that selfishness where you tell an oppressed group and their allies to shut up about their suffering or more people will suffer, you have some solidarity and tell your elected officials to do the right thing. Telling black people to sit at the back of the bus so poor whites can have a better life, telling trans people to shut up so gays and lesbians can have a better life, telling poor people to shut up so middle-class people can have decency and a nice 401k, etc. It doesn’t work. People don’t shut up when they, their friends, or their family is dying, or even strangers if they have non-performative empathy.
How about instead you tell the pro-IDF supporters to shut up and suck it up and vote for the Democrats, or a literal antisemite will control the White House, and unfortunately that means they can’t have the genocide they want, but no candidate is perfect and at least they wouldn’t be voting for the pro-Nazi candidate. Use that energy to shout them down. Make it embarrassing to be a Zionist, make it as out-of-touch to support sending weapons to Israel as it would be to send weapons to Russia, or support abortion as a Democrat. If the UK, fucking terf island who had been voting for conservatives for like the last 20 years, can do it, then the US of A can with a supposedly progressive Presidential candidate.
And I hope if Trump is elected, you’ll shout against him, too. Don’t just follow orders, follow your conscience, that’s what I’ve been saying the whole time! On the other hand, maybe the people in camps with me will finally learn to empathize with the Palestinian armed resistance when they’re also in a concentration camp lol, so at least there’s that glower silver lining.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. I’m sure this will get lots of downvotes but whatever. Don’t be afraid to criticize your candidates. If you picked the right one (and hopefully Kamala is that), then they can and will improve to keep their job. Just because one is worse doesn’t mean you can’t criticize the other, or that they can’t do better in some aspects. They’re human, not idols to be worshipped.
You’re an idealist that wants to see people held accountable, I can understand that… But right now we have a choice between someone who is opposing genocide without enough fervor, versus one that will actively support and contribute to it.
Idk about idealism, it’s basic politics. There’s a reason Biden has tepidly supported abortion despite clearly not being a fan of it. Everyone else in the party got on board, but some people had to stand up for what was right first, and you don’t get that done by meekly going with whatever who is in charge is saying. Very few politicians lead from the front, they go with where the wind is blowing, and that requires some people to speak up.
Meanwhile, the comment above said all your complaints about Kamala should be gone because Trump tried to call Netanyahu to stifle a deal that wasn’t getting done anyway. Really? You don’t see the problem in that logic?
You guys, we don’t have to be in a cult like the Republicans. You’re allowed to criticize your leaders when they do wrong, I promise nothing bad will happen to you. I’m not even saying vote Trump or don’t vote Kamala, I was honestly just agreeing with the person saying I wish her Israel policy was better, but apparently we’re not allowed to bring that up or liberals go insane? If it worked that way, Biden wouldn’t have had to step down because denigrating Trump for 4 years would’ve crushed him in the polls long ago instead of making it so close. A random Lemmy user saying I wish Kamala said “the genocide is bad”, similarly isn’t going to doom her campaign.
Also it’s not just not opposing it vs someone who said they will support it. It’s someone’s who’s currently in the administration that is actively enabling it vs someone who isn’t, but said they would do the same but wag their finger less. Materially it’s not much of a difference. It’s like Trump’s complaints about Biden and the border. He already tried to pass a bill that would basically do what Trump would do, he’s just being less outwardly racist about it, so Trump is complaining about it when in reality he probably wouldn’t do that much different.
For those who oppose genocide, our only hope is that Kamala is being quiet about it because her boss is running the genocide, and she’ll be more outwardly opposed if she either wins or loses. I hope so, but the mood at the DNC has not been encouraging for people following Palestine, and her husband seems to be a pretty fervent Zionist; so just hoping without taking action, pressuring, or even just bringing it up in conversation, the literal least someone could do, seems naive if you want any change on the issue.
Oh definitely. That’s clear, but it’s already pretty damn bad. You should read some of the stories. A dad went to get a birth certificate for his two twin girls that were just born and returned home to find his whole house, his wife, his daughters, everyone he ever cared about gone. These bombs have made in the USA on them are, they are dropped by USA vehicles, or launched by our weapon systems. You think that guy cares that Trump would be worse? I don’t think he could even imagine worse if he tried.
How about instead of cheering for nicer genocide or meaner genocide, we, you know, complain about it? If something like that happened to us, I hope people in other parts of the world would folllow Ireland, South Africa, or Colombia’s example; and not that of the whipped Americans who sheepishly shrug with a “What you are going to do?” look.
I know it’s uncomfortable to hear when we’re all cheering for the new administration and feeling good and stuff, I’ve been loving the vibes, too. But the literal least we could do for them is bring it up, with a “I like her, I just wish she was better about this issue” without dog piling the person. You’re not personally betraying her or anything if you do that. We don’t have to love Israel. It’s not a requirement to being an American, and I don’t know how people got that idea that it was.
I think she has to toe the line because she is still the acting VP. Going against the president in that position is not a good look. That said it makes knowing her actual position there really tough.
The fact that she didn’t have to face a primary this year is a political gift. She didn’t have to go.on record while jockeying to differentiate herself and the instant unanimous support from the entire Democratic party means she can just be herself
In the 2020 primaries the race was between the moderates and Bernie, why wouldn’t she have felt comfortable being more progressive when Bernie was doing so well?
She started out the 2020 primaries pretty progressive, but would usually roll-back her positions a day later, presumably after some adviser told her it wouldn’t play in Peoria or would anger a megadonor. Maybe that’s where her heart actually lies and her trainwreck of a campaign made her realize those advisors were bad people to listen to.
Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]
That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience…
—Vermont Constitution, 1793
Really wish we could have got that “or erect or support” clause in the US Constitution. Would have made for some interesting court arguments about tax exempt status.
The real problem is when there’s no employees available to open the cabinet. I’m sorry, Home Depot, but I’m not going to run around the store trying to find someone only to have them call someone else just so I can get a $50 roll of copper wire.
Not to mention that in some locations there’s so few employees, you’ll end up walking a mile before someone says, “I’ll have someone meet you there.” Then no one shows up.
I went to Seattle for a tech conference. The supermarkets are crazy depressing. There was like 5 staff members, a Spanish lady with a cast on her leg, two kids under 20, a really big guy at the bakery isle, and a 25 yo woman who was stocking and managing a cash register.
There was also a bunch of weirdos outside and not a security guard in sight.
Then a mile or two away are million dollar housesn and billion dollar tech companies.
Except when they accost you to do that stupid fucking survey and just dive right in without your consent. Boy, they find you then… When deciding between Lowe’s and Home Depot, I lean toward going to Lowe’s simply because of that bullshit.
My daughter loves Five Below. Last time I went there, they forced me to rate my shopping experience between 1 and 10 in order to finish checking out. I did 5 because fuck their statistics.
The third-party sales people trying to scam you into a new AC are the best. My go-to is “Sorry, you’d have to ask my landlord.” I haven’t had a landlord in years.
Once at a store the person wearing a DirectTV shirt said “what do you use for TV service?” I just said “we have lots of DVDs we don’t watch” he didn’t even try to continue the sales pitch
It’s ridiculous. I had the same issue for a 50ft roll of 14 gauge romex. Not even the good 10/3 stuff. This was bottom-of-the-barrel 14/2. I was then able to walk over and grab a $100 cable tester and a box of CAT6 right off the shelf.
I guess crackheads aren’t stealing cable testers or ethernet cable.
“Romex” is a brand name for a type of non-metallic (NM) insulated wire. It’s pretty much the standard for 95% of the wire that’s run in a typical house in North America, and kind of looks like a big flat extension cable. There’s an external plastic sheath that holds all the wires together (that’s the non-metallic part, as opposed to say, running it in metal conduit), and then each wire inside is also insulated, aside from the ground conductor. When you see something like 12/2 or 10/3, that’s the wire gauge (12 or 10 gauge) and then the number of current carrying conductors on the inside (2 or 3, plus a ground).
Romex is that whitish electrical cable you sometimes see in unfinished basements, goes from the breaker box to junction boxes. White cable, nailed to the studs with that white plastic tab with a nail on each side, goes to a blue or metal box with outlets in it.
The copper in that is pretty thick so nowadays a lot of places lock up the wires so people don’t try to make off with a bunch of it
I’m not a professional electrician, but I believe the color of the cable is standardized, too. The white cable you refer to is 14-gauge, which is standard for a 15-amp household outlet. 12-gauge is yellow, and 10-gauge is orange.
There are now officially two Americas: the one grounded in actual, factual reality, and one so deluded by propaganda and hate that reality is no longer in their grasp. How do you counter act this? How do you stop Don Quixote from fighting the evil windmills?
investing more in education sure wouldnt hurt, getting money OUT of politics, basically all the things a social compact is for.
congress has to legislate responsibly or bear responsibility for flushing the states dowm the shitter.
Get term limits going.
Illegalize gerrymandering.
Vote Harris.
there are lots of things to do, and the best thing for the average American to do is vote and donate time if they have it.
or you could become an activist lawyer. or movement lawyer.
there are lots of important things to do, but Congress bears the responsibility to get most of this done and has chosen not to for decades becuase It’s way easier to profit off their positions of privilege.
Corporations are not people. They should not be able to lobby, donate funds, or be a scapegoat for their executives in a lawsuit.
Restore truth in print laws, which were removed thanks to corporations being considered as people and allowed advertisers to lobby this legislation be removed under the guise of it hurting their buisness.
Then you’ve got a chance of stopping this shit. But these two legislative changes can be attributed to as the first to steps on the horrible path our democracies have taken to their ultimate enshitification where they have taken the power from the people and put it in the hands of the wealthy.
I find it funny that all the replies to this comment are things like, “get money out of politics” or “increase spending on education.” In other words, things that require legislative action.
So all we need to fix our broken system is for that broken system to work correctly. Got it.
The dude’s only hireable trait is the lack of it. Trump thinks he can win on his own merit and just wants an obedient stooge to make sure Jan 6 actually happens this time.
It struck me a while back that it’s likely not so much that Trump lies per se as that his brain is broken in such a way that he just doesn’t distinguish between truth and falsehood. To him, that’s a meaningless concept. He just says, and means, whatever he says at the moment, based entirely on how it might serve his interests to say it.
He measures value in other people differently - primarily based on their loyalty to him. But again, the part of his brain that distinguishes between truth and falsehood is broken, so all that takes is a profession of loyalty. And as far as that goes, Vance is particularly notable, since he has in the past criticized Trump, but is now sucking up to him. I think that to Trump, in his narcissism, that’s especially appealing because it means that he won him over.
So then it’s not so much that he expects Vance to lie as that he expects Vance to remain loyal. It’s not so much that he sees integrity as an obstacle and the lack thereof as an advantage as that he sees it as a threat to loyalty and its absence as an aid to loyalty.
All of that also explains how it is that Trump - an inveterate liar and back-stabber - is so willing to trust people and so bitter and petulant when they turn against him. Since he doesn’t distinguish between truth and falsehood, he doesn’t see the expectation that they lie on his behalf as anything unusual, nor does he recognize the likelihood that they’ll one day want to or be coerced to stop lying and tell the truth instead. To him, it’s just a simple question of whether they’ll remain loyal to him by saying what he wants them to say (with no understanding of the relevance of the fact that it’s a lie) or betray him by saying what his opponents want them to say (similarly with no understanding of the relevance of the fact that it’s the truth).
So in Vance, he sees someone that he won over to his side, and his lack of integrity as a lack of that misplaced loyalty that’s led others (Pence, for example) to, as he sees it, betray him.
He bankrupted 3 casinos and a number of other businesses at the same time.
The banks couldn’t simply seize the properties so they paid him to keep those businesses running until they could be, which meant Trump, by bankrupting businesses, was being paid tens of millions of dollars a year by the banks he owed money to. The longer he kept going bankrupt, the longer they kept paying him.
He drew loans on those businesses he was never realistically going to be able to pay back, he lied to regulators about it. The plan was for the casinos to fail. It always was.
That’s all he has ever done. Born into wealth by the work of his mother. Like Musk and his father. When you’re that rich, you can fail your entire life and still be rich.
If people just understood this more broadly, the misplaced respect for them wouldn’t exist.
It’s just redundancy. Xitter already captured the right wing/fashy crowd as its target audience, Truth Social is basically just the same thing with a smaller audience. Why use both? …Or either, if you’re a reasonable person.
But what if the fetus told the pregnant woman it would kill her and itself if she doesn’t kill her husband. Afraid of dying and losing her fetus she kills her husband.
Let’s say the fetus gets a death sentence because obviously this person initiated everything. Would they wait for it to be born before killing it? Or would they kill it before birth what would be basically an abortion. But abortions are outlawed…
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