Tom Swiss, HMSH

Harris won NY. Gillibrand also won. What is the point of your paranoid conspiracy theory?

Show me what democracy looks like? This is what democracy looks like. (Wasn't the context Thorn was addressing; but dealing with this fact in other contexts helps us do it at the political level.)

Comfort The Dying; We're All Dying It's a simple syllogism: Comfort the dying. Everyone is dying. Therefore, comfort everyone. In this time of increasing anger towards the "other" -- whether the "other" for you is the blue-haired non-b...

It’s a simple syllogism: Comfort the dying. Everyone is dying. Therefore, comfort everyone. In this time of increasing anger towards the “other” — whether the “other” for you is the blue-haired non-binary person or the red-hatted MAGA voter — it seems a radical idea.
www.patheos.com/blogs/thezen...

Amazing chart. Decades from now these Zoomer men will be nostalgic for Trump the way Boomers are for JFK, or the Alex P. Keaton subgroup of GenXers are for Reagan.

Communication: A Sigil for 2025 In a time when so many are deliberately cutting off communication -- calling for their political opponents to be censored, or celebrating the idea of going "no contact" with their families over politi...

www.patheos.com/blogs/thezen...

Fixing the Mailbox: A Holiday Omen So I'm making that my theme for 2025: communication. Let the way be opened, not just between the realm of spirit and the realm of humanity, but within the realm of humanity.Let's fix our mailboxes so ...

Fixing the Mailbox: A Holiday Omen. New post at The Zen Pagan.
"Friends, if you can’t communicate, you can’t work together. If you can’t work together, you can’t solve problems....This viscous...circle runs tighter and tighter until it tears itself apart..."
www.patheos.com/blogs/thezen...

Same argument as "History is irrelevant. Nazis have power. Jews do not. People who threaten the Master Race die. Jews cannot offer the same threat to people who attack them."

You are deeply evil excuse for a human being. May you someday understand what you are and repent of it.

I just explictly said it was "inexcusable". Your claim that I'm "making excuses" when I said the exact opposite, trying to put into my mouth the exact opposite words from the ones I said, indicates that you're either a liar or an fool.
Both are inexcusable, but I'm sure there's a cause.

"This is war, and in war, non-combatants die." So it was fine for Hamas to kill non-combatants on October 7?
Let's remember please the the British Empire and the Zionist movement started this fight, not the Palestinians.

There is a huge difference between "X is excusable" and "X has causes."

There's an old ST:TNG ep where Picard tells Worf that a screwup was "inexcusable. But understandable."

Assassinating robber barons in inexcusable. Don't.

But if you don't understand why it happens, you're ill-informed.

If you bomb the home of a murderer and kill his kids and neighbors, then you are a murderer. This is not hard for anyone except brutal military hegemons to understand, which is why brutal military hegemons are ultimate doomed to fail.

Look, folks: you cannot rationally be against capital punishment but in favor of freelance individuals making themselves judge, jury, & executioner to decide whose crimes merit execution.
Understanding this doesn't make you an apologist for criminals facing execution by the state or by vigilantes.

Not really seeing similarities? Flanagan was a disgruntled ex-employee of the TV station, his act of violence had nothing to do with UnitedHealthcare.

Regarding the current panic about "drones", it is worth remembering that during WWII, the USS New York tried to shoot down the planet Venus, its crew of sober, well-disciplined sailors mistaking it for a Japanese balloon.

The thing about shooting a CEO is, just like shooting a hard-drug dealer on the basis that his actions kill (or incarcerating one if you're less hardcore), there will just be a new one in his place the next day.

"Morally justified" or not, it just doesn't change anything.

Yes, yes, every major historical religion has to deal with the issue of how all the deeply evil shit in its holy books doesn't really mean what it says.
While I'm glad adherents have that argument rather than doing evil shit, I'd rather you rip up the sutras & seek mystical experience for yourself.

"God “commands us to wipe out Amalek, to ‘erase his memory from under the sky’ and ‘not to forget.’ I have fulfilled both.”"

Guy is citing a Biblical incident of genocide ("slay both man and woman, infant and suckling") to justify his role in the execution of a genocider. We're a fucked up species.

Some of us were here before the recent wave of pro-censorship folks rolled in, and think you belong here more than they do. But perhaps they'll manage to take the place over and make it the Blue MAGA version of Truth Social.

So an Islamist terrorist group toppled a Russian-backed dictator in the Greater Middle East? Well I'm sure that will work out to our advantage. Maybe we should even send them weapons.

You seem confused. This is a communications service, not a bar. No one is picking fistfights, and allusions to violence are asinine. Labeling Singal a "transphobe" only shows how deep in an echo chamber you are.

Closed-minded idiots gonna close their minds. Bye 👋

"How can anyone possibly be celebrating the act of a criminal who killed a member of the oppressive ruling class?" is a question that can only be asked by someone who's unfamiliar with The Hunger Games, Robin Hood, Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd", & a huge chunk of literature & folklore.

"People don't like you here"? Who made you the spokesperson for users of this communications service? Lots of us have been here before small-minded Blue Tribers rolled in looking for more of a "safe space".

It insane that @bsky.app is labeling this as "intolerance." A very bad sign for the future of this app's approach to content moderation.

To twist JFK a bit, when you make peacefully obtaining healthcare impossible, you make violent retribution on the monsters responsible for denying healthcare inevitable.

Bluesky Social suspends far-right ‘Libs of TikTok’ account SEATTLE, WA — A profile under the handle ‘Libs of TikTok’ was suspended from rising social media platform Bluesky Social on Monday.

BS already going down the path of censorship. If you can read this, you are in a bubble; make sure that you peek out of it from time to time.

jewelcitytimes.com/2024/12/02/b...

Books By Tom Swiss

While you're thinking about buying stuff, I have books. infamous.net/books/

Gratitude, Schmatitude Don't tell me how to feel

Gratitude, Schmatitude. Don't tell me how to feel!

open.substack.com/pub/theweird...htt

Thanksgiving Isn’t Colonialist… The 1621 celebration was not identified by anyone as the "First Thanksgiving" until 1841, when Rev. Alexander Young did so in his book Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. By then the New England Thanks...

"...at this time when we are so divided, as we look with dread to sitting down at Thanksgiving between our MAGA uncle & our uber-woke cousin, e can understand why Lincoln might have wanted to emphasize a story of potential enemies sitting down peacefully at the table"
www.patheos.com/blogs/thezen...

Hmm, sounds like an interesting read!