Name Displayed

So I guess you lost that bid for a date with Bari?

Yes, and... The bigger the movement gets, the less you have to *argue* for its popularity. The proof is right there in the streets!

My profile pic is of me and my kid, my handle is easily searchable and identifiable to my name and job and probably address as well. What's the problem?

It doesn't make you a worse person or any less committed to freedom and justice and whatever American ideals you believe in if you can't be out there in the streets. It DOES mean you're generally less effective in the immediate term and it's important to recognize that.

And I get it, I've got a kid at home and it has for sure changed my risk assessment. But I think too many people are trying to convince themselves that they can be just as effective behind the lines in private as they can be at the front with their face out, and it's just simply not true.

I think I would argue that I'm emphasizing effectiveness rather than nobility, though tbf I do think the nobility is what makes it so effective. I just think the movement does itself a huge disservice when we let ourselves get scared into hiding.

Facing the threat is what makes the activism we're seeing so honorable. It's the whole point. "I am voluntarily putting my physical safety on the line for the sake of those who live with this danger every day by the mere fact of their existence" is the entire game.

To hunt down and murder/disappear activists. And even if it were, facing the state with your whole face and saying "fuck you" with your whole chest would *still* be a more powerful act than a bunch of anons could accomplish. We are not an insurgent minority. We don't have to act like it.

There are absolutely people, mostly POC and the undocumented, who are in real, immediate danger when they take to the streets. That is not the same as the risk most Americans face when they protest their government. The stochastic violence of the state is not the same as a coordinated program...

Seeing Joe from down the street get maced in the face while he holds hands with neighbors and sings Amazing Grace is 1000x more powerful and useful to the movement than a hundred bozos in balaclavas getting in the bastards' faces and setting trash on fire.

Not picking on you in particular but this completely misses the point. The power of this mass activism is in as many people as possible putting their face and name to the movement, as publicly as possible, in front of as many eyes as possible.

That's fair. Hadn't considered that.

I've followed for a while so I apologize if I've missed this somewhere, but are there any stories of people who saw this and thought the world was over and did something crazy? I can't imagine seeing this in that time's information environment and staying totally sane...

Virtually everyone who comments on American politics accepts the implicit premise that that Republican voters are owed deference while Democratic voters exist on sufferance.

anyone else notice that the west took a turn for the worse once the concept of signaling one’s own social virtue became derogatory, almost as if cynically deriding all displays of charity and good will is indicative of a deeply cynical and nihilistic society capable of collaborating in genocide

Why do I get the feeling he's not talking about the guy on his left here?

Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix.

solar and wind generated more electricity that coal for the first time ever in the first half of 2025. that's the good shit ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

I mean yes flag burning is protected speech but I feel like maybe the more important thing is that the man exercising the power of the presidency doesn’t get to by fiat create an offense and a mandatory minimum sentence and seemingly no judicial participation in the process?

This is a legitimately great thing I didn't know about! But I wonder if it's not like giving calculators to cats. Yes, they have the tool, but do they have the desire or prerequisite knowledge to use it. (People are the cats)

To put it simply: liberalism strives for a golden ideal that plainly acknowledges its shortcomings and accounts for them with public ritual, Klein would give us gilded shit.

But there is simply not enough acknowledgement in our culture that some people are terrible, some places are terrible, and that we should loudly and publicly name those people and places as antithetical to the national project and publicize their shortcomings and the consequences of their actions.

It would be much healthier to hold up (at least the evil ones) as exemplars to the rest of us. We shouldn't hide them away and pretend they aren't our neighbors, friends, and family; we should name the sickness and ritualize its excision and treatment. Combining a lot of my 2025 fever dreams here...

I think Klein would probably say yeah, there are some people too stupid/evil to be allowed to participate in a liberal society, but for him in practice that would mean institutionalization/incarceration as a way of removing them from the polity and moving on as if they never existed, BUT...

It has to be a desperation for order stacked on top of a naivete or blindness to human nature. They cling to an individualist liberalism that says we must allow every person to make their own choices, and believe they can construct a policy regime that leaves everyone with only the "right" choice.

Not my rules. We all know you can't enjoy things while a bad thing is happening to anyone, anywhere 🤷

This post will definitely not bring any humorless scolds out of the shadows. Not a chance.

Fluffers all the way down

Debasing myself as we speak

Also, like, it seems like everything but guns and video games are feminine-coded now? Why can't I garden with my bros? Why can't the mates meet for a frappe? Why can't the fellas do a movie night?

It is wonderful for you that you are able to find high-quality, fact-based news content on YouTube. That is a good thing. I support that 100%.