Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

snark

I have no problem admitting when I have been wrong. I have been wrong here, I apologize for that. For not realizing how strong and evil the irrationality of religion and, in particular, the Catholic Church is, and its infection of the Supreme Court,

I will vote with my feet, I am going to leave the US to feed on its self-righteous, religious (i.e. insane) self. Seriously, I'm moving if I can Y'all can have the travesty that the voters seem to want.

To those that hide behind the catchphrases of "liberty" and "freedom," but also would deny autonomy to women over their own bodies against a blastocyte, because it supposedly contains a "soul," you are reprehensible pieces of shit.

Today was a dark, repugnant and deplorable in day in US history.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

I'm naive enough to have some hope that there will be a significant electoral backlash. Maybe.

I'm not sure propertied white males are that upset on the whole, so it's hard to see where the electoral backlash will come from.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'm not sure propertied white males are that upset on the whole, so it's hard to see where the electoral backlash will come from.

As to the possible electoral tide, Sebby predicted it, and at some point he has to be right for once?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

You are correct. Whether it was my rabid COVID denialism, my insistence that Roe v. Wade would never be overturned, or my continuing and ever-more-absurd assertions that Trump never represented a threat to democracy, my inability to understand what was happening in American politics was matched only by my arrogant belief that I, and I alone, was able to assess these issues free of bias and rampant emotionalism. I did not simply agree to disagree with you all on these issues — I derisively mocked you for taking a contrary position. If you said Roe v. Wade would be overturned, you were not just wrong. You were a hysterical (like a woman!), hair-on-fire liberal. If you said COVID was a serious threat that needed to be aggressively addressed early on, you were a scared sheep, engaging in performative acts of virtue signaling. I called you naive fools and emotional little children, even when, again and again, my sneering certitudes turned out to be … how shall I put this … inaccurate prognostications. But I now understand that corrupt institutions not only need active evil-doers in order to succeed — almost more so, they need the deniers and the apologists. The ones who tut tut and roll their eyes at those sounding the alarms, contemptuously superior in their ridiculous but unwavering belief that they are the only ones who can see through smoke and pronounce The Truth to the masses who have let themselves become consumed by childish emotion. I now realize that I was wrong, time and time again, and that I, in fact, was the useful idiot. I am sorry.

I was not a Covid denier. I wore masks and got vaxxed asap. Arguments over Covid were probably about degree of vigilance. I thought some people went nuts. And some are still nuts. I thought lockdowns were nuts after a certain point, and unrealistic, and I was right. If you doubt that, consider China over the past few months versus the United States.

Trump did not and still doesn't represent a serious threat to democracy. If Jan 6 hearings have exposed anything its that despite his insane level of effort to overthrow the election, in the end, He Never Had a Chance. The system held. The best he could was start a riot among dead enders that, although disgusting and unforgivable, never had a chance. And now he's sinking his own party's chances like a stone. DeSantis would walk away with it in 2024 the way things are going right now. But not if Trump kneecaps him.

Where I was wrong - dead wrong - is on Roe. I simply cannot fathom that the GOP has decided to trip this wire. Yes, I sneered about this being impossible. Because, well, to sane people it was fucking impossible. The party hierarchy of the GOP that I'd known observed a rule with these fucking evangelicals. Take their vote, but don't actually give them what they want.

I believed it would hold. I believed in "elites" that apparently no longer exist within the GOP. I thought that rational actors would prevail. And like so many economists who get markets and macro issues wrong every day, I missed the irrational actors. I missed the Federalist Society and the apparent degenerate vein of Catholic extremists within it.

I was a useful idiot to the extent that a band of nuts within the fringe right wing did something counterproductive, suicidal. My predictions don't count for shit, so I won't predict, but how the fuck do you see the flipping of Roe helping the GOP going forward? Look at the demographics. The GOP already has all the votes its going to have. Whatever inroads it is making with Latinos and Asians is now netted against an equivalent loss in suburban women.

It's also caused a huge loss of votes among moderate Rs. This isn't the only chat board or thread any of us use. How many Rs have now said this is a step too far and they are done with the party? The golf course Rs I've spoken to are all aghast. And yeah, they're fucking clueless. But the sentiment is, "How in the fuck did the trailer park class take over the party?"

I voted D most of the time anyway, but for the same reasons I could not vote and did not for Trump, I'm now compelled to vote straight D across the board, even if I detest the candidate.

But yeah, you're right. I didn't realize I was dealing with suicide bombers and perjuring SCOTUS justices. I thought sanity prevailed on issues of such grave cultural importance... that as it had despite Trump's efforts to flip the election, the systems would hold, the precedent would hold. So when you call me a useful idiot in this instance, I happily own it. It means it I simply wasn't acquainted enough with crazy to see this is as possible. And that's an odd thing coming from me.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

I have no problem admitting when I have been wrong. I have been wrong here, I apologize for that. For not realizing how strong and evil the irrationality of religion and, in particular, the Catholic Church is, and its infection of the Supreme Court,

I will vote with my feet, I am going to leave the US to feed on its self-righteous, religious (i.e. insane) self. Seriously, I'm moving if I can Y'all can have the travesty that the voters seem to want.

To those that hide behind the catchphrases of "liberty" and "freedom," but also would deny autonomy to women over their own bodies against a blastocyte, because it supposedly contains a "soul," you are reprehensible pieces of shit.

Today was a dark, repugnant and deplorable in day in US history.

The most galling part of it was reading Roberts' concurrence. I disagreed with it, but it was an off-ramp, and a defensible one with which the Right would have a difficult time finding fault. Mississippi had only sought to regulate, and Roberts would be giving them the technically limited result sought.

The five advocates on the court deliberately chose to take an extreme and unnecessary position. It was a fuck you to the country, and Thomas' comment was a threat. There's no other way to take it.

The Court is illegitimate. Doing what it did the same week it flipped a 110 year old gun regulation in NY eliminated any doubt it is a nakedly political institution. Ruling in favor of a coach praying on the field as it did today makes a trifecta explaining the Court in a nutshell. God, guns, and Calvinist punishment for women.

But there are greater pieces of shit. In the wake of this, I've heard no more than a dozen times, "Well, one can just drive to another state to get an abortion." Those people are the most fetid pieces of shit.

They also fail to grasp what's coming. The real insanity starts when the red states start making it a felony to send abortion pills into them.

Ultimately, litigation of the equal protection issue - that any law rendering women unable to exercise the same level of bodily autonomy as men is unconstitutional - is the final battle on this issue. When that case hits the Court, which should be within two years, SCOTUS will be forced to either follow the law or admit it is, as currently composed, an illegitimate institution. I don't see how it can avoid cert, as there will be differing decisions in different circuits.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump did not and still doesn't represent a serious threat to democracy. If Jan 6 hearings have exposed anything its that despite his insane level of effort to overthrow the election, in the end, He Never Had a Chance. The system held. The best he could was start a riot among dead enders that, although disgusting and unforgivable, never had a chance. And now he's sinking his own party's chances like a stone. DeSantis would walk away with it in 2024 the way things are going right now. But not if Trump kneecaps him.

Not to distract from Roe and Dobbs, but you are so totally wrong about this. Democracy only works because the side that loses elections gives up power. Trump has normalized the idea that this doesn't apply to Republicans.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The Court is illegitimate. Doing what it did the same week it flipped a 110 year old gun regulation in NY eliminated any doubt it is a nakedly political institution. Ruling in favor of a coach praying on the field as it did today makes a trifecta explaining the Court in a nutshell. God, guns, and Calvinist punishment for women.

The Constitution is whatever the right wing says it is. This is just the start. We are in for rule by judges, not the rule of law, as the Dobbs dissent says.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

God, guns, and Calvinist punishment for women.

Right Wing Calvinist Punishment v. Right Wing Catholic Punishment, pros and cons?

Discuss.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The Constitution is whatever the right wing says it is. This is just the start. We are in for rule by judges, not the rule of law, as the Dobbs dissent says.

This is an excellent coda:

“The core conservative belief about the culture war is that there is a Real America that is conservative, and a usurper America that is liberal. This, not historical research, not legal analysis, is the prime means of constitutional interpretation for its current majority. And while the justices will both pretend and insist otherwise, the public need not flatter their imperious delusions. They should take the right-wing justices’ vow that other constitutional rights are safe for precisely what it is worth—which is to say, absolutely nothing.”

It is shocking some of what I’ve heard from radicals (they are not “conservative,” which is a defensible position, but “social radicals”) in response to my own angry comments.

I was advised that the states with trigger bans are “real America,” and in each instance, those states were compared to CA. So in one exchange I’d changed the comparison, noting that CA is left wing extreme, but that there are plenty of purple states, mine included, where we want the right to choose. I was told the purple states are gutless, like Roberts. They don’t have the guts to take a stand.

The right I’ve interacted with seems to want the fight, and respects its adversaries, more than it respects the middle.

The country’s irreparably rent. Less is on the right path.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Not to distract from Roe and Dobbs, but you are so totally wrong about this. Democracy only works because the side that loses elections gives up power. Trump has normalized the idea that this doesn't apply to Republicans.

I don’t think so. Everyone knows the Big Lie is a Goebbels/Bernays confection that Trump is spouting because he is mentally ill and of infantile bent that cannot allow graceful concession.

People howled about how 2016 was somehow rigged by Russians, but it faded. It faded more quickly because Hillary didn’t fan the flames. As Trump recedes, and he is, the Big Lie will fade.

My bigger fear is what comes after November. If the red wave is as big as it might be, the dysfunction to follow will possibly undo the country. People don’t follow laws they deem illegitimate. And I don’t think people like me should have to follow any laws coming from social conservatives. If the state houses turn dark red and the right tries to enforce a socially conservative agenda, you will see the enforcement powers of govt at the state level tested.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Right wing media and Rs looking to whatabout are carping about threats to Justices. As though it’s possible to even compare that to the damage they’ve just created.

An apt reply, IMO:

I can’t agree with the threat of violence. But it’s more than arguable that he who unjustifiably strips the most essential rights of others, knowingly, forfeits his right to walk in public without looking over his shoulder.

Caveat emptor? Perhaps Newton’s Third Law in action? Analogies abound. But a lifetime of fear seems an appropriate toll for having crossed this bridge.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Right Wing Calvinist Punishment v. Right Wing Catholic Punishment, pros and cons?

Discuss.

Well, technically the Catholics aren’t supposed to hang anyone for witchcraft, heresy, or any other crime.

But when it comes to “right to life,” capital punishment just seems to… slip their minds.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

My bigger fear is what comes after November. If the red wave is as big as it might be, the dysfunction to follow will possibly undo the country. People don’t follow laws they deem illegitimate. And I don’t think people like me should have to follow any laws coming from social conservatives. If the state houses turn dark red and the right tries to enforce a socially conservative agenda, you will see the enforcement powers of govt at the state level tested.

I've been living with this level of crazy for about two years. We've been right-wing for 20 years, but not like this, not to this level. With the exception of Lubbock/Amarillo and Midland/Odessa, every major metropolitan area in this state is purple leaning blue. And we are totally hamstrung by the insanity coming out of Austin. And it's going to get worse. We saw the testing in the 2000 election, where city/county governments were trying to get creative to get voting easier during a pandemic. Austin went batshit, and they're specifically writing laws to dilute the power of the cities/counties. That's why the insane bounty law was written, because they knew there was no way in hell our DAs were going to prosecute on the abortion bans.

As for the Big Lie. They either believe it or it's so sacrosanct to their ethos at this point that they can't refute it. Only 13 Republicans were willing to say it was bullshit of the 140plus running in primaries for US Rep. And they heckled the heck out of my be-eypatched representative at the state convention last week because he's one of them. Moderate Rs are not welcome in that party anymore. I'd feel bad for them except they made this bargain, and most of them want the bullshit that happened with SCOTUS this session.

Our only hope is that the overreach is too much. But with gerrymandering and disenfranchising, who knows if the groundswell will be enough to overcome these assholes.

My kid is 10th generation Texan. I love the state. But we will have to leave if it gets too much worse.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Well, technically the Catholics aren’t supposed to hang anyone for witchcraft, heresy, or any other crime.

But when it comes to “right to life,” capital punishment just seems to… slip their minds.

Yeah, you don't see too many Bishops calling to withhold communion from Barrett because she let another inmate get executed.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Right wing media and Rs looking to whatabout are carping about threats to Justices. As though it’s possible to even compare that to the damage they’ve just created.

An apt reply, IMO:

I can’t agree with the threat of violence. But it’s more than arguable that he who unjustifiably strips the most essential rights of others, knowingly, forfeits his right to walk in public without looking over his shoulder.

Caveat emptor? Perhaps Newton’s Third Law in action? Analogies abound. But a lifetime of fear seems an appropriate toll for having crossed this bridge.

The right wing are the sorest winners, I swear.

And none of those assholes should dine out peacefully until they resign from the bench in disgrace. And then only every other outing should be heckle free.