You didn’t respond at all until I prompted you, and then it was only the part of the post I quoted, and it wasn’t even a serious response (“literally never, unless you can convince me otherwise”).

Be honest. You don’t actually read what anyone else posts. By all accounts you are only interested in debating semantics anyway:

The word you meant to use is ineffective. That is not what obsolete means.

A board of political appointees delivered social change through case law on a whim, after decades of protests and grassroots democratic efforts consistently failed to deliver actual legal reform. Why are you celebrating this?

”No matter that change never actually happened, the political class put on a good show of it and that’s just swell.”

When you have no other choice.

See, I actually answered the question. It wasn’t hard. Try it some time.

*sigh*

Don’t worry, soon we’ll go back to talking over you.

Go for it.

What this thread needs, is something drastic and definitive to happen in real life, which Eversor or his opponents can point to in order to resolve the debate. Or maybe you guys should look to history, but that is slipshod without a very careful and long examination, since history never repeats itself exactly, so that using it to resolve abstract differences just begs the question.

People really ought to go study history. Especially the rise of the Nazis, and ask questions about how they rose and try to find materials to answer those questions. There's little guesswork as the Nazi regime was well-documented and has been studied thoroughly.

Oh, that's certainly true. But where such an exercise just begs the question insofar as we are trying to resolve petty semantic differences, well, at some point you've gotta try to argue just how the particular historical example is in fact germane.

Whereas, if you simply wait for the actual, present day goings-on to just, well, happen, you'll know perfectly well how things... went (past tense). (Well, sorta. Maybe attempts to re-write narratives of recent events for ideological ends is most instructive of all). If you're around to experience it.

History is a sequence of idiots shouting “this time will be different”.

It also helps to read Kropotkin, and realize history has plenty of examples of people peacefully forming communal cities, no kings.

I think Canada and Mexico should accede to Trump’s unilateral trade demands. It’s not a pleasant idea to give America more privileges they didn’t earn, but I think agreeing to these demands will make Trump happy and he will leave the trade portfolio alone for a while. Certainly he won’t be buoyed by his success.

Now, I don’t know who this Churchill guy was, but he sounded like a smart guy so he’d probably agree with me.

Idiots are a problem for sure, but isn't it the liars who are the biggest problem?

Or maybe it's the people who want to be lied to.

Oh yeah, those are the idiots.

Don’t be ridiculous, humans naturally array themselves into massive social hierarchies. Alpha humans are just better and hungrier for status, so they naturally rise to the top of the hierarchy. Beta humans aren’t ambitious and stay where they are. Kings are merely just the billionaires and politicians of old, people who had the charisma and grit to accumulate power over a passive minority who voluntarily supported them. It’s all very natural and scientific.

(Everything in the above paragraph is bull****.)

Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve.

Jon you don't know what you're talking about. Alpha wolves is like a scientific concept, and it applies to guys like me because me and my bros are life a wolfpack, right? Where we stick together and go getting what we want and hustling our games and our side games and our meta games and posting pictures of ourselves at our fast food/big box retail jobs on snapchat with a caption about getting that money. Because we are willing to sacrifice to get the best females. Then we spend our whole paycheck on LARPing as Navy Seals. #alpha****

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-19/russia-is-using-marxist-strategies-and-so-is-trump

ahahahahahahaha

Private central planning services rentier holds a strong opinion about how the real problem is public central planning. The guillotines get slightly duller and shorter.

There will be no guillotines. Because of the slave morality that dominates, there will be talk of 'rehabilitation' of criminal billionaires and compassion for their circumstance.

If you need a detailed breakdown of this concept, please see my musical interpretation of this thread.

Spook just Nietzsche'd Reid's head off without even needing a guillotine.

Ayyy girl you know how i do

Also to be fair I probably Crowley'd his head off without him even knowing.

I really have to wonder, who is it that earnestly reads these articles? I have a hard time imagining the sort of person who would like that take.

You could almost say.. objective.

The kind of person who would pay $24,000 a year for a Bloomberg subscription.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/25/pf/insurance/las-vegas-shooting-health-care/index.html

Add in a cheeseburger and we've just about got the most American story ever.

Mass shootings strengthen the economy.

So let's talk about the goings on in the courts of America.

As we all know, Trump was successful in nominating Neil Gorsuch. From what I can tell, this guy is even farther to the right than Scalia, and tipping the Supreme Court further to the right than they were previously. What effects will this have? Besides being to the right on gay rights, religious stuff and all that, he's questioned the validity of the Chevron doctrine, which gives some deference to federal agencies. Which, if he's successful in winning the other conservative justices to his side, could lead to an attack on the ability of regulatory agencies to regulate. Not to mention how he's likely to rule on anything involving labor rights.

Mitch McConnell also threatened the blue slip process of nominating judges, which gives senators the ability to block a president's nominations. Of course, Republicans made liberal use of the blue slip to block Obama's nominations. He's also preparing to nominate as many judges as possible, and some of the people Trump has nominated are loons, so that will be fun. And, Jeff Sessions criticized courts for using injunctions to stop Trump's travel ban. Which is actually a bit concerning, but, as before, the conservative bloc started the injunctions against petty stuff Obama was doing late in his term, when previously they had been rarely used. In other words, there's a clear challenge to the legitimacy of the courts and traditions, and the origin is the right-wing of this nation.

Of course, that's all at the national level. At the state level, you have **** like North Carolina legislators wanting to limit judges to two-year terms, forcing judges to actively campaign (and guess who profits from America's absurd system of campaign financing?).

Random thought that popped into my head: Do Trump supporters dislike the other political party so much that they throw in with Trump, despite cringing at all the stuff he says and does? Or does it actually appeal to them? I have a hard time accepting that anybody could be so dumb that they actually think Trump sounds tough or clever, but the more I live I have come to accept that this naive idealism of mine might be the dumbest thing of all.

have you EVER visited the midwest?

Well, I went to Ohio when I was like 12, but thankfully there were no other people for miles and miles from where we were staying.

So not really...

Simple answer: yes, people really could be so dumb.

Complicated answer: people don't put enough effort into evaluating sources, and self-reflecting honestly to come to new levels of understanding, nor do people challenge their own core beliefs often enough (I consider a great personal characteristic for someone to challenge their core ideals). Trump's success was enabled by other failings of the political system. Americans really don't know what to believe, partly out of ignorance but partly because so many are trying to slant everything story (to put it lightly) that people don't know what to trust or believe.

That's fine.

But don't they cringe on a deep level because of the way he phrases things? How can anybody not?

If they don't actually see anything wrong, then the stereotype from across the pond that we're just a bunch boobs is probably true.

business as normal when you have ~factionalized elites~

I DDG`d that phrase and got a website that talks about a "fragile state index". The US (and the UK) we recently downgraded to dark green ("stable") in their map, but not blue ("sustainable"). I guess it's good that we're better than Italy (green, also stable).

You guys know that Italy basically had their version of Trump not too long ago?

I think just about everybody recognizes something is wrong, but there's a million conflicting sources pointing the finger all over the place, and doing research and knowing how to filter good information from poor information is hard. Trump makes it simple: don't do it at all, just trust him. That's how he gets away with saying "I have sources" so often when he has none. As long as people have belief in Trump, and have belief that some foundation exists, they're okay. It doesn't matter that the foundation is quicksand and Trump is a bull****ter, it's easier than the onslaught of information for many people.

Even I have to admit, reading through news stories to figure out what the hell is going on can be a headache. I get why many people are adverse to it, but it's still something people should try to do.

90 years I guess isn't too long..

See my edit

The more I learn about Finland, the more I think it's one of the best countries. Not only did they kick the Soviet's asses, it ranks as one of the best places to live, and also isn't glorified by coffee shop socialists.

I know, I was going for a joke

Look, I get all that.

But again, what I want to know is just a bit more basic: do people cringe on the inside when they hear Trump or Sarah Palin talk? I need to know how many people think this is normal. I get the feeling lots of people like the folksy persona, but on some level I feel there have to be limits that Trump must be pushing. The only alternative is that I'm surrounded by morons.