Removing downvotes has been a good change overall, but giving users maybe 10 downvotes a month might nip a lot of shit in the bud.

1. Not having any coherent politics to start with, which means they had to grasp for something when they realized juvenile shit like libertarianism falls apart under the slightest pressure; and
2. Not giving a shit about poor people.

Probably got amplified whenever Whateverthefuckhisnameis Cuomo compared “Fredo” to the n-word.

Another point on the “competency” discussion is that you don’t need to be particularly competent if you (1) have all the resources the most powerful country on the planet can muster and (2) can get caught and still largely get away without punishment.

Say you or I want to bug someone’s home. Where do we get a bug? If nice equipment costs $10K, where do we get the money? How are we going to break into someone’s house undetected? Say we need to find out when they’re gone, the type of lock they have, and how to pick it – how are we doing surveillance? If we go online to do research or talk to a locksmith, does that leave an incriminating trail of evidence? How are we going to go through all the hours of recordings to make sense of any of it? If we need any help in this endeavor, how are we going to find willing, trustworthy people? If we get caught, how many years are we spending in prison?

All of this shit gets real easy if you have the resources, authority, and ass-covering ability of a federal agency. Competency isn’t what makes the CIA dangerous – it’s that if they want to fuck with you, they can put a dozen people on the job, and if you find out you’re being fucked with you have no recourse.

Dope ass posts by @TransComrade69 that everyone should read:

• The whole discussion series on Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue
• This great post on how to get strapped
• All of her other posts

Sorry to lose your efforts. This place has a lot of promise, but we have to do better by our trans comrades.

:cat-trans:

What percentage of vets would you estimate are persuadable?

That’s what I see as the central question here: if a group of people can be convinced to become leftists, we should be working with them regardless of whether it’s difficult. We’re not going anywhere unless we get literally tens of millions of more people on our side, and not all of those people are going to be perfect.

they even would’ve called Obama a commie

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/07/25/book-review-the-communist-does-frank-marshall-davis-have-an-ideological-godson-in-president-obama/?sh=51b11c6d3c5d

She’s not saying Maduro is an authoritarian here, though.

But if you goal is to build class consciousness

There are dozens of better ways to build class consciousness than talking about countries no one in America really knows about except in talking point form. Talking about universal healthcare instead of getting into a struggle session over a country that hasn’t existed for 25 years is one of them.

If you tell your buddies Cuba is great, the worst that can happen is they’ll think your political opinions are shit. And because you get to have an actual exchange with them – i.e., whatever you say about Cuba isn’t filtered through network media and social media until it becomes nothing more than “@hagensfohawk loves commie dictators” – you have a shot at breaking through superficial talking points and getting your buddies to reconsider what they know.

If a politician says Cuba is great, well, we know what happens – Bernie did it not even a year ago. He gained zero support from the left that he didn’t already have. All it did was launch a few fresh media cycles of “Bernie’s a commie!!1!!!” And while you’re right that they’ll call you a commie anyway, playing the same hits gets old after a while and loses its effectiveness. Giving them fresh meat can’t help and only hurts.

The only way to change that is if you and I have enough conversations with our buddies to where “hey, Cuba’s actually good” becomes a majority opinion.

Changing perceptions about socialist states has to come from the bottom up, not the top down.

Look at how Bernie’s entirely truthful, extremely moderate statements on Cuba’s healthcare and education programs was wielded against him. That’s what happens when political leaders try to change the tune about socialist states in a country that’s been strongly anti-communist for most of the last century. We have to have those conversations on the ground first.

Note that a few comments up I’ve already said killing someone over this is wrong. No one is arguing that people should get the death penalty for drawing Muhammad. The argument is that you’re a huge asshole if you do, because there’s no reason to do it besides pissing people off.

What if you never wear red but, upon being told you’re racist if you wear red on tuesdays, you decide to start wearing red on tuesdays? Does this circularly make you racist?

If I never did something – let’s call it drawing a picture of Muhammad – but I started doing it specifically to piss off a group of people my country has demonized and killed by the millions, yes, I would be an enormous piece of shit.

You realize christianity and islam are almost precisely the same fucking thing, right?

Bit of an oversimplification there

But I wear red plenty now, so it would at least be somewhat of a burden to remember not to wear red on Tuesdays. It’s not a burden at all to not draw Muhammed because I never draw him anyway.

It’s the going out of one’s way to be as offensive as possible that makes this asshole behavior. No one’s ordinary routine is being disrupted, no one’s being even slightly inconvenienced.

How common is wearing red? How common is drawing a picture of Muhammad?

The reasonableness of the request is in large part determined by how burdensome it is to fulfill.

i literally do not give a fuck what is offensive

eat my entire ass

fuck off

Civility at the expense of accomplishing something real is bullshit, but man, you’re not going to get very far with very many people if you’re just an outright asshole.

i have every right if i did want to

Yes, that’s exactly the “fuck you I do what I want” mentality I was criticizing. That makes you a massive piece of shit, even if you’re technically free to do it.

You shouldn’t be a massive piece of shit, and you certainly aren’t accomplishing anything if you choose to be one. You should be a decent human being.

Why would you ever draw Muhammad? About the only reason anyone ever does is in an attempt to deeply insult an enormous number of people. That kind of “fuck you I do what I want” mentality doesn’t garner much sympathy from me. Having a reasonable amount of respect for your fellow human beings (i.e., not doing something you would never otherwise do specifically to piss them off) is something we need more of.

Yeah, you’re free to yell the N-word at the top of your lungs in public. Yeah, if a black person decides to beat you to death for it they’re in the wrong, too. But my sympathy for you in that situation is limited because maybe you shouldn’t be an absolute piece of shit just because you technically can.

seeing you get all worked up about such a benign topic

This ain’t it

This might upset all you libs in here, but when bad things happen to bad people, some might call that justice.