Randolph-Dominic Manfred

I agree with a significant portion of your argument here, but hand waving away the difference between simple, easily digestible lies and complex, fibrous reality is a mistake.

Elevating effective communicators should be a priority, but America also needs to go to rehab for its addiction to bullshit

That was not an attack on you, or a fucking falsehood. I’m just saddened that the situation is so fucking far gone that we have to search for silver linings in the number of people MURDERED ON CAMERA BY OUR GOVERNMENT.

Jesus Christ.

“If we were truly a fascist state the body count in Minneapolis would be much higher.”

The fact that we are discussing small vs. large body count by definition means that there’s already a body count, which is already such an enormous fucking tragedy that it staggers me. THATS IT.

Please look at what you typed out.

Are we truly so far gone? “at least there have only been two extrajudicial executions caught on camera by masked federal agents who suffer no consequences”

I’m not upset at you, I understand what you are trying to say, but holy fuck that’s a nightmare.

What are the names of the agents who executed an American citizen, on camera? When are they being arrested for murder? We’re at that sorry point.

This splitting of hairs is distinction without a difference. If fascists fully control how the law is applied, then the letter of the law is meaningless.

Agreed. The problem is, you don’t know what that means. Literally no one does at this point.

I suspect personality matters more than policy right now. Be prepared for a candidate whose policies you’d find disqualifying but who rides in on charisma.

Newsom definitely ain’t it though.

…how’s the coffee? Do I get a free personality test?

Nice try, Tom. I may like to argue with you, but you aren’t tricking me into reading your copy of The Watchtower that easily.

And by proposing the same rates that represented “cuts” back then, he’d be painted as a radical socialist by today’s GOP, or frankly any member of the GOP in the last 30 years.

Context matters. Any political opinion that exists independently from the context of the moment is not policy, it’s dogma.

And Bluesky is right. Not only is 62 years absolutely long enough to qualify as a different time, the statement “corp taxes are currently too low” does not preclude taxes previously being too high.

As far as gotchas go, this is in “you aren’t sleepy? Funny, last night you said you were” territory.

Im glad you can recognize the underlying problem. It’s a shame you prefer to live in denial and that it will apparently take a true tragedy to shock you out of your complacency. I hope it never comes to that.

You as well.

National Guard troops on DC streets for Trump's crackdown will start carrying guns Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered National Guard troops to start carrying firearms while patrolling the streets of Washington for President Donald Trump’s law enforcement crackdown.

In D.C., it would seem, “indefinitely”.

C’mon, man, why are you so invested in arguing with me on this shit? You think I’m overreacting, fine, agree to disagree, but you should at least be willing to admit whats happening, even if you don’t agree with my terms.

apnews.com/article/wash...

I’m not even being facetious at this point. I’m genuinely curious what you feel is the appropriate way to describe what’s going on. Military with live ammunition, sent against US citizens purely for partisan reasons. What’s the catch all term for that?

Follow your own advice, bud.

Ok, let’s do the vocab thing again. Military has been sent into dissenting cities, with live ammunition, explicitly to punish and intimidate them on party lines. You feel “occupation” is too strong a word? How would you describe this unprecedented turn of events?

This is a crystal clear example of the dangers of normalizing this shit. Hey, I get it, bored National Guardsmen don’t seem scary, but it’s concerning that we’re already at “yeah, the military has been sent into blue cities for explicitly partisan intimidation, but it’s like, not THAT big of a deal”

A volunteer! Lovely!

Use your words, now. Since fascism is apparently off the table (despite fitting every basic and academic definition, but whatever), how would you describe military occupation of dissenting cities?

You comment on every single post Tom makes, surely you’ll have SOME insight.

So what is it, Tom? You seem so desperately invested in screaming into the void that it isn’t fascism, how would YOU describe what is happening? Again, illegal partisan military crackdown, with NO consequences.

Rubicon is in the rear view mirror, and you’re still trying to argue pedantry?

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a destroyed building and says please disperse ALT: a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a destroyed building and says please disperse

Ah, so a healthy democracy is when an authoritarian leader launches an illegal, partisan militarized crackdown and violates the rights of hundreds, and then a judge acknowledges the illegality and no one receives any consequences or repercussions. Got it.

Absolutely normal behavior for democracy.

Well, no, they couldn’t, because wages haven’t kept pace with the price of necessities and basic costs of living.

Sorry to jerk you back to reality here, but no cute allusions to cell phones and avocado toast can ignore the fact that “the American Dream” is further out of reach than in the past.

Listen, that’s insightful, accurate, and depressing.

Silver lining, there’s a decent chance that if they choose to visit the White House in the future, one of the rooms will be… The Room. where It Happens. So the building has that going for it.

I mean, he may not care but the consequences of right wing radicalism still affect both him and his followers. The fact that this whole circus seems like it might have been the result of an ideological conflict between Nick Fuentes and Charlie Kirk just punctuates how delusional a statement this is.

Since you seem unwilling or incapable of providing anything of substance to the discussion, nothing of value was lost on this day.

Your complaining about doctors protesting is consistent, but you seem to have evolved into making the false equivalence between masked outdoors protesting and maskless indoor gatherings (with documented death toll, no less).

“only a person who had windmills in his head could fail to realize it”

Reality is what makes him wrong. This fantasy that all authority is compromised if it is not perfect, uniform and monolithic is an absolute joke.

Oh, whole demographics completely ignored all health guidelines? Yeah, but some doctors went to a rally in masks! Those two are PRECISELY the same!

In a near-superhuman feat of myopic contrarianism, @radiofreetom.bsky.social has managed to start tilting at windmills on top of his daily hill to die on, and all over some doctors going to a rally a half a decade ago.

If there was a bullheadedness Olympics, you’d be heavily favored for the gold.

Ah, misunderstood your point. Fair enough.

Not sure if I agree, but I also might just be burnt out on people wringing their hands, clutching their pearls and scolding Democrat language while armed troops occupy our capitol on behest of a man self identifying with the term dictator.

Are you serious? No Democrat uses woke unironically anymore. Nobody. It has been thoroughly tainted by the GOP. The only people that talk about woke are the anti-woke grifters, and the people mocking them using their language.

I’m not really in a position to comment, I had already familiarized myself with WWII and the Holocaust via history books and Maus by 4th grade, but you’re probably right in general.

I’m a little confused how you feel Holocaust literature ties into students feeling blamed or labeled by teachers?

A massive portion of the problem is the numerous bad actors focused on convincing young boys that historical descriptors, like “white slaveowners”, are labels directed at them meant to belittle them.

It ends up hard to balance their upset about perceived labels against uncomfortable reality.

Yup. Their cartoonish monstrousness was balanced quite elegantly by their cowardice.

Though they would soon figure out that Fox News has primed Republicans to accept anything without question, and adapt. Hell, Newt would probably just bang his mistress in the hospital right in front of his wife.