@pettytalk said
A real expert on reality made the following affirmation.

"The real world, was created by the real Jesus, who is the real Word of God, who entered into the real world He created, as the real incarnate Word of God made fully human."

This is the sort of edifying-seeming word salad which results when religion devolves into religiosity, which is fairly widespread in Protestant circles. Everyone is his own biblical authority, no need to go to a seminary or study any theology, history, or classical languages.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along now.

@wildgrass said
No taxes though.

Also no public services or safety. I know, I've been there. The infrastructure is worse than in Europe during the black death -- no sanitation, the water that comes out of the taps is poisonous, garbage litters the streets, cadavers are left to rot by the roadside ...

@spruce112358 said
Libertarians are dancing in the streets. FINALLY, a place they can go with NO government!

“A portrait of Haitians trying to survive without a government”

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/18/1245048299/haiti-haitians-cap-haitien

Life in the state of nature is "poor, nasty, brutish, and short," said Thomas Hobbs. We see in Haiti a real-life case of what happens when a state is first corrupted by dictators and then fails altogether. So sad.

@sonhouse

Trying to curry favour with The Donald is like dancing on a volcano.

Just ask Rudy Giuliani or Mike Pence or Bill Barr ...

@cliff-mashburn said
Yet he's guilty of the worst kind of incompetence and dishonesty, constantly lying to the public while millions cross our border, in order to cover for Biden..

Incompetence?? Not telling the truth?? If they’d confirmed the impeachment, it would have set the bar so low that no congressman’s seat would’ve been secure.

@averagejoe1 said
You are right about Biden with his blank check. How much money are we up to now? Would you look that up for us. Have you heard he wants to pay off student loans? Do you think that will be it, because I think there will be something else, to pay off credit card debt, for example. Then he would control interest rates, restricting the interest a bank can charge on a mortgage ...[text shortened]... what democracy is, would be a good person to ask about Biden‘s transformation into being a dictator.

The essential thing about dictators is that they never leave office peacefully and on schedule. Now look at how Trump left office, and the legacy of January 6th.

@shavixmir said
So you’d vote for a blank cheque?

@AverageJoe1
Blank? Is our other choice anything but blank?


The 2024 election cycle is shaping up to be a choice between a blank cheque and a blank mind. Pretty dire options, I have to say.

@averagejoe1 said
Moonbus wants Trump to be like everyone else, toe the line. This comes from his socialistic tutelage, we are all the same, we will end up the same at the end of the day. No one should be different or try to be better than the other guy.
I try to be better than the other guy, every day. Ohhhh, mooonbus, they will slaaaaap you........

I don't care how weird he is personally. I just want him to obey the law and accept the consequences when he doesn't.

@kmax87 said
I agree but I think he's working with an outdated set of skills that worked very well for him, until the me too movement came along. The world has changed and no longer validates or enables his behaviour and the old dog he is, is unable to learn new tricks.

His strategy of intimidation brought him certain benefits in civil suits against private individuals and corporations, but will not work in a criminal suit against a state or federal government. Obviously he has not yet figured this out and either he’s not listening to his own legal team, or his own legal team is advising him rather badly.

@mchill said
- by attacking a judge?

Does he not realize judges have at least some judicial discretion when presiding over these trials that can have an impact on the verdict? Does he not realize judges decide prison sentences for those found guilty?

We need look no further than Aileen Cannon to see what a friendly judge can do for you, but Trump is turning this NY judge against hi ...[text shortened]... om/en-us/news/politics/trump-in-pennsylvania-attacks-judge-as-first-criminal-trial-looms/ar-BB1lE2TU

He’s grandstanding. It’s all he knows. Any publicity, even bad publicity, means people are talking about him. Look at any national news outlet: Trump, Trump, Trump. It’s so obvious that he thrives on making a spectacle of himself. Did Bill Clinton, or Obama, or Bush Sr., or Bush Jr., or Reagan, or Carter, make headlines when they left office? No, they retired into quiet obscurity. Trump cannot not be talked about. So he instigates ever more scurrilous incidents, just so people have to notice him. “Mommy, mommy, look at me!” He never grew past age 5, he just got louder.

@kellyjay said
Trust in a blind watchmaker is delusional, all hope in blind faith being placed in what can be nothing but fictitious facts.

Your barb misses the mark; I'm not the one here who believes in a blind watchmaker.

As for "fictitious facts", we can start with the account in Genesis: saying everything came from nothing, ex nihilo, because somebody uttered some power words ("let there be light" ) is the stuff of Harry Potter stories. It sure isn't science.

@spruce112358 said
...just sent me this text:

"I serve an audience of one; God is my judge.

It's Speaker Mike Johnson. Learn more about my mission to glorify Him: vote24.io/4DDNVN

STOP=end"
===
AN AUDIENCE OF ONE?!? WhoTF does this guy think he is?!?

Get this MF out of my democratic government NOW!!!

We have not yet seen the nadir of MAGA stupidity. As Pondy says, there’s no biggest number, and there’s no smallest negative number either.

@spruce112358 said
I actually have no problems with the rich pursuing wealth unhindered as long as they:

1) Don't harm, impose on, or place others at risk without consent, and,
2) Support the government that protects all our rights equally, proportionate to their wealth.

It's exactly the same standard I hold the Middle and Poorer Classes to.

A few more principles:

1) Taxes hav ...[text shortened]... en't paying attention.

We have to start paying attention.

*1% is a tad ambitious. Let's say 5.

Personally, I don't have a problem with people getting rich either. I do think using political office to get rich should impossible, and politicians' assets should be put into blind trusts while they are in office. This should be extended to their families too, insofar as family members are in a position to make capital out of it (viz. Jared Kushner getting $2 bn. from the Saudis for unknown services rendered).

'No taxation without representation' was a battle cry for the original British colonists in the 18th c. It needs to be tightened up these days: 'no tax without a plebiscite.' Govt. should have no power or authority to levy a new tax, or reduce or increase an existing tax, without putting it to a vote of those affected by it (meaning the people who will have to pay for it or it's effects). This is how Switzerland runs, by the way. If the Swiss govt. wants a tax, the constitution requires a plebiscite to be held; if the govt. says 'yes' and the tax payers say 'nay', the 'nays' have it and the govt. must accept this. This is a practicable recipe for fiscal responsibility. I would recommend this for every industrialized and post-industrialized nation. It presupposes, of course, a well- and truthfully-informed public, and that means a reliable and free press.

@averagejoe1 said
So, you too? Don't understand the logic, common sense, rationale and the law with regard to the Roe decision?. What else could their findings have been? You are aware, I am sure, that their total deliberatoins are based solely on the provisions of the Constitution. Why, you seem to disagree with Constitutional law??

Overturning a previous Supreme Court ruling for political expedience has nothing to do with logic, common sense, or Constitutional law. Nothing in the Constitution either requires or forbids abortions, so the previous ruling should have stayed in force; it's called "precedent." The recent court's overturning of the previous court's decision was arbitrary. There is quite a large body of scholarly legal research into the topic of "arbitrariness" in law -- I'll cut to the chase, it's a bad thing when courts and policy makers change things arbitrarily. Continuity is needful for long-range planning and stability. The recent court's decision to overrule the previous court's decision has plunged the country into a frenzy of hasty and poorly thought-out measures, some draconian and others even more lax than Roe, leading to a patchwork across multiple states. This is no improvement over Roe; it is worse. And that is why arbitrary reversals of previous decisions are to be avoided. Roe was sensible and testable (since it is pretty well-known when a fetus is viable outside the womb, including in incubators); what the USA has now is a stupid patchwork. For example, a zygote is a legal person at conception in Alabama now. A woman cannot possibly know whether she has conceived at the moment a sperm penetrates an ovum, but if she does something which causes her miscarry, she's a murderer! That is the stupidest court decision since Dread Scott.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Well, to be fair sir, I don't hand mine over to a fictitious deity.

"Fictitious deity" is a pleonasm.

Courtesy of the grammar police.