Started by bella! at 13,Aug,23 11:15 other posts of bella!
 | This thread is for questionable content. WHY? Just because! I am someone who enjoys the Hodge Twins. YEP, the Hodge Twins. They probably make the hairs on the back of a WOKE person stand straight up! Anyway..... |
Similar topics: 1.Cum isn't stored in the balls!!! 2.NEW STUFF, OLD STUFF, ANY STUFF 3.NEW STUFF, OLD STUFF, ANY STUFF II 4.NEW STUFF, OLD STUFF, ANY STUFF III 5.Is this about you 🤷♂️, those that live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I know people here do weird shit, so i thought i might save a life if I post this.
DOn't rub shit on your balls that you don't need to,it could kill you.
It's even observed behavior in great apes, that resemble showing off, competing, or taking risks in front of others, but there is no clear evidence that apes "dare" each other in the human sense. A dare requires understanding a social challenge like "I bet you won't do it" or "Prove you're brave," which depends on fairly sophisticated language and social norms.
think that's wierd,
Read about William Buckland
Are you talking about that his home filled with specimens, animal as well as mineral, live as well as dead? And that he claimed that he wanted to eat at least one individual of all animal species? A strange intention indeed. Sounds a little like some traditional Chinese medicinal practices. The underlying idea is often that an animal's characteristics can be transferred to the person consuming a particular body part. Examples include:
- Tiger bones for strength.
- Deer antlers for vitality and virility.
- Bear bile for liver or gallbladder ailments.
- Rhino horn (historically) for reducing fever, despite the horn being composed primarily of keratin, like human fingernails.
For most of human history, people had no knowledge of cells, proteins, DNA, hormones,
or biochemistry. Instead, they relied on observation, analogy, and experience. It seemed intuitive that:
- A strong animal might literally contain "strength."
- A fertile animal might confer fertility.
- A fierce predator might impart courage or aggression.
- An organ might heal the corresponding organ in humans.
This way of thinking appears independently in many cultures because it fits how humans naturally reason about the world. It's what people would call 'common sense', until it's replaced by actual knowledge and understanding.
but that's still pretty weird and disgusting.
Google "horrible food in Cambodia" and put it on images, if you have a strong stomach.
I want you to really pay attention to the story starting at 23 minutes. the whole video is worth your time, but the last bit explains why the story is not told and who gains from distorting it.
"a divided public is easy to control"
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The 'occupation' of slave might be older than the 'occupation' of prostitute.
I don't think that where it started is an argument for anything.
I just see the end as a huge step in the development of humanity.
The ones who gain from distorting the truth, are very likely disagreeing with me.
So little is taught about it, only enough to rile people up here in the US.
And the subject of repreparations is another sore spot. Who is owed? We all are if anyone is.
Even the Bible is a manual for how to treat slaves of your own tribe
and how to treat other tribes that you enslave.
Reparations are surely a sore spot for you, but for someone who wants equity,
it's simply a duty to lift up the ones who need it. That's best for everyone.
Your history was already sanitized enough, before MAGA, but that was
not pro-Murica enough. Unless they make belief that slaves were treated well,
it's called 'critical race theory' and stripped of the history books.
This is 'Why the Rest of the World Thinks Americans Are Brainwashed'.
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Like there are no completely useless idiots wearing MAGA hats.
No evidence at all that this person genuinely identifies as a communist.
When you are saying "I love communism", when you are stealing, you have NOT understood Marx's ideology. However, I'm sure she is on the left or anarchist side of politics somewhere. Since the term has been used to describe very different, and even very contradictory ideas, it's easy to use or misuse the label for almost anything.
Understand that they are not arguing that a certain principle in communist theory encourages or requires such actions. They are calling someone a communist, then claim that communism was the cause for the action, and then call communism a flawed ideology. That's circular reasoning. It's either incredibly lazy arguing or intentionally deceptive. That's however the low standard of reasoning in all the articles you are posting.
As an analogy, suppose someone stole food from a government office and posted:
"I love capitalism."
You wouldn't immediately conclude they were a committed capitalist, had studied Adam Smith, or that capitalism caused the theft. It could be sarcasm, trolling, a joke, or a genuine belief. You'd want more evidence before drawing conclusions about their political identity.
By the way, if you are working for DoorDash, you are going hungry anyway.
This law needs to be brought back up, revised and a constitutional amendment made to cover communism and socialism before it gets out of control.
Socialism means publicly controlled and publicly owned.
Capitalism means owned by a small minority of wealthy people.
Ownership means power. Why do you want to give all the power away to wealthy people?
The last remaining systems that are any good in your country are publicly funded.
Almost everything that has been privatized has turned to shit for the users and a
tool to extract money from the pockets of the users into the pockets of the owners.
"before it gets out of control." OMG you crazy person, there is hardly any communism
or socialism left. Almost everything has been capitalized.
You are lucky that you don't have to pay some company for the air you are breathing YET.
Have you considered how capitalism could get out of control?
Tell me what that would look like. Show me that you have the mental exploration power.
Who says I don't have to pay for the air I breath?
Try not paying taxes on your property such as your home, you would loose it, you are paying for the air you breath.
Capitalism out of control> ha, has it ever been? I doubt it ,that is the beauty of it, the consumer is in control.
If you look at the Marxist idea of communism, it means the absence of a state; classless, stateless, and based on common ownership rather than state ownership.
When YOU are talking about 'communism', you mean authoritarian, centralized, government ownership.
I am definitely not a communist by that definition. I think that a government is useful.
It's very hard to organize effective cooperation without some form of government.
Is it really that difficult for you to imagine your preferred system going to an extreme
that you wouldn't like?
The consumer is ONLY in control if there are many protections in place. The current type of capitalism is creating monopolies, in which the consumer has NO choice at all.
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Here's an idea of a sign that capitalism is out of control;
your Environmental Protection Agency deciding that companies can just pollute the water and air as much as they want with forever chemicals and heavy metals that cause cancer, birth defects and cause severe neurological damage in the brain.
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In many countries, cultures have evolved and become richer through the exchange
of ideas, customs, and traditions. The real challenge is balancing social cohesion with cultural diversity, not choosing one at the expense of the other.
One passage is doing more than talking about "culture", it is primarily arguing for representation, familiarity, and a sense of belonging. Notice the examples the author gives:
- Reading books by Black authors.
- Watching films made by or about Black people.
- Attending a historically Black church.
- Making Blackness feel like "home" rather than something encountered once a year.
Their culture from Africa was already taken from them, by the slave owners. What is considered black culture, has only developed during that period and what came after. The black church is Christian, a religion that was forced upon them. Gospel music comes from slaves who were singing while doing backbreaking work, to make it more bearable. Their food traditions ("soul food") comes from the skill of making animal feed edible.
The article says: "Please, for the love of all things holy, don’t let your child’s exposure to Black culture begin and end with Black History Month.". I agree with that. They should be represented every day of the year.
Meanwhile, your administration is trying to erase not just Black History Month, but every book by a black author or with a black character in it. You are trying to erase their history in your country. Your administration is kicking out black people from all leadership positions and trying to make it impossible for them to elect black representation.
You want to completely erase their own identity, while you simultaneously expect them to accept that they don't have the same value as you. You want them to accept that American history is WHITE history. That's what you mean with "the loss of their culture".
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I don't blame companies for doing what profits them most either,
I'm blaming the working class for not standing up to them.
We didn't get good contracts, retirements, investments in employee development, etc, because companies cared about us, we got that, because we forced them to provide it.
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Well, actually it can, but I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't.
I don't know your experience with digital video games, but some are the opposite
of mind numbing.
- Games require active thinking, not passive consumption.
- Players solve problems, make decisions, and adapt to new situations.
- They develop cognitive skills such as planning, memory, attention, spatial reasoning, and strategic thinking.
- Many games promote deep focus ("flow"), a state of intense concentration rather than mental disengagement.
- Multiplayer games build social skills through teamwork, communication, and coordination.
- Creative games encourage design and experimentation, allowing players to build, invent, and explore.
The effects depend on the game and how it's played. Some games are intellectually demanding, while others are more relaxing or repetitive.
Research doesn't support the blanket claim that video games are mind numbing;
instead, benefits and drawbacks depend on the type of game and the amount of time spent playing.
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Who knows a better phrase?
Instead of being different and coming up with a solution, he falls back on everyone elses plea,turn it to 78. well damn,he is 1 of the 1's that support all the things restricting improving the grid to handle the load.
Claim ----------------------------------------------------------------- Verdict
NYC's grid faces serious challenges --------------------------- Supported
Heat waves expose reliability issues --------------------------- Supported
New York needs major infrastructure investment ---------- Supported
Mamdani alone "helped cause" the grid's problems -------- Poorly supported / overstated
Mamdani is responsible for decades of underinvestment -- Not supported
Mamdani is against investing in the grid ----------------------- Not supported
The article argues that because Mamdani supported New York's 2019 climate law and other progressive energy policies, he bears responsibility for today's grid problems.
There are several problems with your article:
1. The timing doesn't fit.
The grid is old because much of it was built decades ago.
New York has underinvested in transmission and modernization for many years under governors, legislatures, regulators, utilities, and market operators from both parties.
That cannot reasonably be attributed to one assembly member who entered office in 2021.
2. The 2019 climate law was passed before Mamdani took office.
The article says he "defended" the law. That's true.
But he did not write or pass it as a legislator, it became law BEFORE he was sworn into the Assembly.
Supporting an existing law is different from being responsible for creating today's infrastructure.
3. Grid reliability is influenced by many actors.
These include:
- the state legislature
- the governor
- the New York State Public Service Commission
- Con Edison
- New York Independent System Operator
- federal regulators
- local permitting
- utilities' capital investment decisions
Assigning primary blame to a single state legislator is an oversimplification.
Question: "Is Mamdani investing in the power grid?"
As mayor, Mamdani does not directly control New York's electric grid.
Most major grid investment decisions are made by:
- Con Edison
- NYISO
- the Public Service Commission
- the governor
- the state legislature
- federal agencies
The mayor has only indirect influence through:
- permitting
- city-owned buildings
- climate planning
- advocacy
- zoning
So asking whether Mamdani himself is "investing in the grid" is a bit like asking whether a mayor is personally expanding the interstate highway system. He can support projects, but he doesn't control the primary investment decisions.
Question: Is he advocating for grid investment?
Generally, yes, but not in the way the article implies.
Mamdani has consistently argued for:
- expanded renewable energy,
- building electrification,
- public investment,
- cleaner electricity,
- public ownership of some energy infrastructure.
Critics argue these policies increase demand before enough supply is built.
Supporters argue they require more grid investment, not less, and that public investment should accelerate transmission and clean generation.
So it's inaccurate to say he opposes investment in the grid. The disagreement is over what kind of grid should be built and how quickly the transition should occur.
The article is an opinion piece, not a news report, and its central rhetorical move is to connect a real infrastructure problem to Mamdani's broader political agenda. There are reasonable criticisms one can make of his energy policies, for example, that aggressive electrification should be paired with faster additions of reliable generation and transmission, but saying that he "helped cause" New York's longstanding grid problems overstates both his role and his authority.
By the way, they grid problems in Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth are worse.
Across much of the U.S., one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity demand, and a major source of new grid stress, is the rapid expansion of AI and cloud data centers.
In Northern Virginia, Dallas–Fort Worth, and parts of Ohio, data centers are indeed among the biggest drivers of new electricity demand.
In New York City, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, peak air-conditioning demand during heat waves remains a larger source of grid stress today, although data centers are adding to overall demand.
Nationally, grid operators point to a combination of data center growth, electrification (EVs and heat pumps), population growth, industrial expansion, aging infrastructure, and increasingly frequent extreme weather as the main pressures.
I remember you saying once: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", related to your third world electricity grid.
When Joe Biden campaigned for president and originally introduced his legislative proposal in early 2021, the comprehensive program was called "The American Jobs Plan". The original program proposed a massive overall investment of $2.3 trillion. It was designed to be a sweeping transformation of the U.S. economy, heavily focused on climate change, green energy, and the electrical grid. This included $100 billion specifically to modernize the power grid to allow the transition to clean energy.
Because of a split Senate and pushback from Republicans, who objected to the high cost, the bill had to be heavily watered down to gain bipartisan support.
The compromise law was named the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It provided $1.2 trillion in total spending ($550 billion of which was brand-new federal spending).
The Power Grid ($65 billion): This survived as the single largest investment in clean energy transmission and electric grid reliability in U.S. history, designed to build thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines to connect wind and solar farms to cities.
Immediately upon taking office, President Donald Trump aggressively pivoted away from Joe Biden’s green energy policies to favor fossil fuels and nuclear power. He issued the "Unleashing American Energy" Executive Order, which froze billions in undisbursed funds from both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Following this, his administration passed his signature tax legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which effectively dismantled or accelerated the expiration of most Biden-era clean energy tax incentives.
Private Sector Data Center Pressures: While federal funding for a "green" grid has vanished, the massive energy demand driven by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom has forced tech hyperscalers to continue heavily investing private capital into regional grid upgrades.
Basic Maintenance Appropriations: Under the power of the purse, Congress preserved bare-minimum funding for fundamental, non-partisan physical grid repairs and grid-hardening against extreme weather, though heavily divorced from any zero-carbon goals.
CONCLUSION:
You are blaming ONE mayor who you hate, for something that is a NATIONAL problem, which is mostly created by Republican's refusal to invest in your electricity grid.
Obama focused on preparing the power grid for renewable energy integration.
• $4.5 billion in federal stimulus (via the 2009 Recovery Act), which was matched by private companies to create a total investment of over $8 billion.
• This funding went directly toward deploying digital "Smart Grid" technologies, including installing smart meters in millions of homes.
• He fast-tracked federal permitting to build massive, interstate transmission lines designed to carry wind and solar power.
🛠️ Donald Trump (2017–2021): Fossil Fuels & Grid Stability
Trump completely shifted the focus toward traditional energy sources and repealed Obama's climate regulations.
• He introduced no major new federal multi-billion-dollar funds specifically for green grid expansion.
• Instead, the administration focused on deregulation and financial support to keep aging coal and nuclear plants online to protect the grid's "baseload" (baseline capacity).
• Federal permitting processes were redirected to accelerate traditional fossil fuel infrastructure, such as oil and gas pipelines.
The administration views energy through the lens of policy, while the market views it through the lens of profit. The Trump administration uses federal policy to keep older, traditional power plants running because they provide steady, 24/7 power. However, private companies and utility providers are driven strictly by the bottom line. Because wind and solar are now the cheapest forms of new energy ever invented, the private sector keeps building them anyway, not for political reasons, but because they make the most financial sense.
This misalignment is precisely what causes severe, systemic stress on the power grid. It creates a structural mismatch between where electricity is being made (the market) and where the physical infrastructure is being built to move it (government policy).
The market is flooding the system with cheap solar and wind proposals, but because federal approvals for large interstate transmission lines have been slowed down, there are not enough physical wires to connect them. This has created a massive 2,600 gigawatt backlog of energy projects waiting in line just to plug into the grid.Clean energy developers are facing average wait times of five years (and up to 12 years in some regions) to get a connection. The market wants to supply cheap power, but the infrastructure is physically legally bottlenecked.
CONCLUSION:
Just like you once proposed, the market is solving climate change. The problem is that your shortsighted administration is trying to keep financially obsolete technology alive.
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and it is impossible to address all of them in limited time.
[A fallacy is a mistaken belief, misconception, or a flaw in reasoning that undermines the logical validity of an argument. It is an error in logic that makes an argument unsound, even if the conclusion happens to be true. People may use fallacies intentionally or unintentionally, but they can mislead others by making flawed arguments seem valid.]
In most clips he is debating students, not skilled debaters like himself.
And he was known for cutting up his debates in clips where he thought he was winning
and leaving out all the bits where he is losing. He gave himself a 3/0 advantage, and then you comment how difficult is was to debate with him. Sure, professional grifters are indeed hard to beat in a debate, but their ideas are not. That's why he needed all those tricks.
Sometimes Charlie got crushed by students, but he never showed those parts in the clips. The real problems with his argumentation only show up in a careful analysis. Because his pace was always so high, he never showed any weakness, and most people are not trained in recognizing fallacies, he can still look good firing off completely faulty and dishonest arguments. If you get the time to think about it, or an analyst takes you through all the fallacies, Charlie completely unravels.
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You can say he used fallacies,strawman arguments etc..
All he was really trying to do was get people to talk to people who have a difference of opinions.....why did he pick universities as his main pulpit for discussion, probably to show how brainwashed the students are.....
The problem with academics is that they think they know better all the time......
Speaking at a university is easier to get a crowd as students believe that they are the future inheritors of the political system and the saviors of the system. In practical terms, this is true.
Charlie Kirk was a two bit agitator monetizing the right wing extremism of the time. His assassination made him a martyr. His ideas, though, are third rate. He wasn’t looking for a dialogue between sides. He was looking for his self interest.
Academics may not know it all and they may have views that are not necessarily popular but, at least, those views were formed in a place of education.
You are the second member here to say college students, and by extension colleges, are not straight thinkers or places where straight thinking occurs.
Practically everyone in government or science is a product of a college education. The left and the right both went to college. Do you mean to say the Left went to substandard universities and the right went to the “right” college? 🤣😈
And academics see people as pet projects that's why you have white liberals telling everyone they know better because they have a degree..
Colleges are indoctrination centres now,they teach what to think not how to think....
And he monitised his position,so what,got to learn to earn,he pointed out that a lot of university degrees are not worth the time and money....
You can read the same books they teach from at university,if I read all the books a student reads ,am I just as smart as them if I can recall and reference said books?
Or do I need the bit of paper to say that I am just as smart?
I know so many people that cannot read or write that well,they get called idiots,stupid etc....give them a car to fix,a wall to build, they knock that shit out of the park...
Yeah academics has it's place but practical manual skills pay the bills.....
The thing is that ALL work, all professions are honorable. There a need for someone to twirl a screwdriver and someone to do research to find a cure for a disease.
Self learning is not to be put down. But, a book will give you the basics but a professor is the one that teaches you the practical way of doing what a textbook tells you.
“ And academics see people as pet projects that's why you have white liberals telling everyone they know better because they have a degree.”
This sentence is so wrong in so many levels.
Of course a surgeon has manual skills , it's a level of competency...
What I'm saying is that quite a lot of university/college degrees are useless now...
You can have bad teachers....that teach bad methodology...
And the students can go into the workplace and be incompetent because of the way they have been taught...
If you want equal rights you have to have difficult discussions and that's what higher learning should be, but it's not that way anymore....
And academics do see people as pet projects... they want the adulation of being virtuous at pointing out a so called wrong of the past....they feel superior in their little bubble...
Location of the universities carries some weight to a point...but it's always about levels of competence.
Why have grading systems? To show how much you understand when you get tested...but you need someone competent in the first place to do the testing....
As I said bad teachers can have a flawed methodology...if a student has fear of repercussions for asking a question...why do you think happens? Students know not to ask,they don't learn then,you need to make your own mistakes to understand things a lot of the time..and teachers/professors don't like being shown up in their lessons if they can't answer that question...
And that's why I say the universities are indoctrinating students...cuz the students are scared to ask questions... that's not right,if you come to a conclusion by your own volition after a discussion, that's the way it should be ,not someone telling you, you're wrong for thinking that way....equality means everything and everyone is open to questioning....if you don't believe that something should be said, it's not equality...
It's your right to express your opinion,and it's my right to say that opinion is crap.... that's just the way I see it....
Doesn't make me any better than you....
Why can't you find someone who uses verifiable facts and correct arguments to do that?
My side doesn't need to lie about facts and confuse people with fallacies.
That's a pretty good sign that the brainwashed people are on your side.
Good universities DON'T teach students WHAT to think, they teach them HOW to think. Rather than asking students to accept claims on authority, they teach them how to evaluate evidence, use logic, question assumptions, design experiments, solve problems, and revise their conclusions when better evidence emerges. Your idea shows me that you have no experience with higher education at all, which makes it easy for propagandists to make you believe the nonsense that you are parroting.
The Delft university isn't just repairing cars, they are designing and building cutting-edge solar-powered vehicles and winning prizes with them. And not just solar cars either.
- Brunel Solar Team – Designs and builds world-class solar-powered race cars for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
- Forze Hydrogen Racing – Builds hydrogen fuel cell race cars. Their prototypes have achieved impressive acceleration while demonstrating that hydrogen can power high-performance vehicles.
- DUT Racing – Competes in Formula Student by designing and manufacturing electric formula-style race cars from the ground up. The team develops everything from suspension and aerodynamics to battery packs and software.
- Eco-Runner Team Delft – Develops ultra-efficient hydrogen-powered vehicles focused on maximizing distance per unit of energy. They regularly compete in efficiency competitions and have set performance benchmarks.
- Hydro Motion Team – Designs and builds hydrogen-powered boats, exploring zero-emission maritime transport.
I visited the famous Dutch Technical University several times, because a schoolmate went to do research there after our education, while I went into private sector jobs.
They do real science there and students are closely involved. Lots of advancements in science and technology come from universities and then get picked up by private companies making money from these publicly funded advancements.
And saying I'm on a side is a bit silly....overton window shifts...so yeah bro,keep rocking that academic brain...
Too long in the laboratory and not actually talking to people in real life who have a different view than you really makes you a sheep...
There's brainwashed people all over the spectrum...
Do you really think I'm on a side?
I thought you liked critical thinking.
Your side is what exactly?
And I am pretty sure someone here can call out a lie from your side...
Let's play political ping pong whataboutism
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Nice edit btw,did you have to go chat gpt to do a little post for you,gotta get that internet win on your scorecard
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And yeah,I didn't go into higher education,classrooms are not me ...so what? Do you not think I have university educated friends and family?
Do you not think I have read books or something?
Not all educated people are smart,they possess competence in a given subject,they can still lack common sense...
Yes, you are on a side, a side that denies reality.
"I am pretty sure someone here can call out a lie from your side"
Wow, I cannot remember the last time your side said anything truthful.
"common sense" is untrustworthy, it's based on intuition, not necessarily on reality. You can have a natural logic, but what you are most commonly referring to as "common sense" is just mostly "group think". It depends on culture and era.
What feels "obvious" is often wrong, especially in complex subjects. Knowledge provides accurate facts, and logical reasoning tests whether conclusions actually follow from those facts. Without both, common sense can confidently lead to mistakes.
Have an opinion , lefty's don't like freedom of expression much, they preach tolerance and understanding, except when it's a white guy....or Christianity or Judaism...
Acting like you're so much better than Americans..
Pretty fucking funny to me....
Can you actually function in society without a safe space in case someone hurt your feelings...
And you keep trying to say I'm on a side.... I'm on my side,what fucking change can I possibly make to American political structure when I'm not even a citizen of that country...
As for common sense being groupthink, that's a good one....so a consensus amongst scientists is not groupthink then,what about COVID? You literally just a had a man made government virus spread....and a vaccine shot that didn't prevent infections,so it was not a vaccine then ....was it?
Baa baa...
Blindly believing anything is stupidity at it's finest even if you are presented with endless facts and data..
Anything can be manipulated to make a case for or against something...
So rigid are you in your thinking that you can't even see someone playing devil's advocate....
I'm quite happy being stupid thanks ,ignorance is bliss
Our basis is humanism; the idea that everyone has equal value, which is exactly what your Declaration of Independence starts with. That means that there shouldn't be a small group of people who control everyone else, with their money.
What's America based on more and more? Billionaires running the country.
And when one politician promises some good things for normal people, what are you saying? We cannot do that, because the billionaires will leave! Do you want to cuck yourself to billionaires?
Explain how that is a lefty not liking freedom.
I don't have to trust scientists about Covid, because I understand everything related to the problem. Corona viruses have existed for tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years. We can trace back likely Corona outbreaks for hundreds of years, and there is evidence of Neanderthals dying from it and building up resistance to it. Saying that Covid is man-made is nonsense. It's still possible that it was a lab-leak, but there are Corona viruses in nature all around the area that Covid first occurred, in lots of different animals. That's why they are studying it there. No one is studying Corona viruses in the arctic. There are also no scientists studying wild elephants in Canada. I'm not morally superior or that much smarter, I just have some knowledge on several subjects that you don't understand the slightest thing about. You lot know so little, that you don't understand how little you know. Still you are talking very confidently, repeating absolute nonsense, from people who want to distract you with nonsense. You need only a little bit more knowledge to understand how much false ideas they are planting in your head.
When experts were talking about Covid on TV, it all made sense, but when politicians or journalists were trying to explain things, and I recognized all the mistakes. But those were honest mistakes from people who don't have the required knowledge. When your right-wing media was talking about Covid, EVERYTHING WAS WRONG. You didn't know, because you CAN'T know. It requires a level of knowledge. Understand that.
Margaret Thatcher did the same things as Ronald Reagan; tax-cuts for the wealthy and harsh spending cuts on everything that is important for the working class people.
I've never seen right-wingers increase freedom for working class people, but the wealthy got lots of freedom to exploit, scam and pollute. Point me out one important freedom for working class people that wasn't achieved by the left or liberals fighting for it and/or wasn't fought against tooth and nail by right-wingers/conservatives.
You DON'T have a socialist government, the labor party has fully turned to neo-liberalism. The only party in your country that can be called 'socialist'
by some stretch of the definition is the Green Party, and they are strongly supportive of civil liberties and freedom of expression.
What did your conservatives do?
Tougher restrictions on protests: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 gave police broader powers to impose conditions on protests that were deemed excessively noisy or disruptive.
Expanded surveillance powers through the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
Arrested anti-monarchy protesters around the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla under new public order laws.
The National Security Act 2023 introduced new offences aimed at foreign interference and espionage, which journalists and legal scholars expressed concern about, because parts of the legislation could have implications for investigative reporting, although the government said it was directed at hostile states rather than ordinary journalism.
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Will you stop with the edits...
I know you have this academic itch going on where you need to show the workings out of your views....
But geez man...
What did my conservatives do? You're desperately trying to put me a in box and say I'm something I'm not....
An islamo communist coalition calling itself a supporter of civil liberty and freedom of expression....aka green party.... that's gotta be satire from you?
Only stupid right-wingers say that.
And so what? Some people call Trump transparent.
And he calls himself the peace president. Are you fucking kidding me?
I don't care about the labels that politicians give themselves,
I use the correct terms for what they are actually doing.
Your labor party has failed the working class for decades.
That's not a failure of socialism, that's a failure of those politicians.
How about pointing blame at the politicians who did the most damage, instead of the politicians who failed to repair it?
"so you're telling me a political party lied to get into power and didn't do anything to make the situation better for everyone only their political backers,no way,what a shocker..."
Still the need to put me in a box with a label...
So democratic socialists are not socialist then?
Cuz there's lots of Labour members of that ilk...
And you think you have a say in how governments are run I guess...
You vote for a representative who can be bought like any other politicians..
All politicians are crooks.....
I can see what's going on,and how all politicians are controlled opposition,the status quo must be preserved for the rich....
Again, they failed to make things better, but the conservatives are the party that broke everything.
Are you denying that you are a right-winger? You show it in everything.
The current Labor Party is NOT democratic socialists at all.
They would even privatize your NHS, if they could get away with it.
When was the last time that they turned a private system into a public one?
They are fully capitalist, not socialist.
"And you think you have a say in how governments are run I guess"
What are you even trying to say here? No, I just don't fall for stupid labeling tricks.
If you understood at all how the Socialist Party in my country is organized, you wouldn't say something that uninformed. We are probably the most grass roots organized party in the world.
"the status quo must be preserved for the rich...." Are YOU saying that?
Do you understand HOW that is done?
- Tax-cuts for the wealthy
- Privatizing public utilities
- Allowing large political donations
- Allowing lobbying
- Reducing transparency
- The wealthy buying up the media and turning it into propaganda
- Tax loopholes and preferential treatment
- Strict laws for the poor, weak laws for the wealthy
- The revolving door
- Weakening labor unions
- Restricting voting access
- Underfunding public education
- Corporate subsidies and bailouts
- Extending patent or copyright protections to increase monopolies
- Awarding government contracts to politically connected companies
- Weak inheritance or estate taxes
- Austerity politics
- Trade and investment rules favoring large multinational firms
- Banking and financial deregulation
- TELLING POOR PEOPLE THAT POLITICS IS NOT FOR THEM
The more they make you believe that voting is useless and all politicians are corrupt or crooks anyway, the more you will look away or vote for fucking fake populists like Nigel Farage, who are doing the bidding of the wealthy even more.
And you're so condescending,you need to be right...
I can see what is going on,you just want to feel superior and lecture everyone about how they know nothing about their own country and politics....
You're part of the same system...
As I said,all politicians are crooks owned by their financial backers,you needed a big list to satisfy your academic thirst to show that....
Pick whatever terminology you want...
Unless you are an elected official you're not in government,so you're just a voter...
--------------------------------------- added after 2 minutes
And these fucking edits....
Farage is a grifter ..
I keep repeating the same shit...all of them are self serving crooks,owned by their financial backers so pick a terminology....they are all the same....
It is controlled opposition....
You are doing more personal attacks than me.
So who is being condescending?
If all politicians are crooks, does voting even matter?
Do you think that the wealthy aren't voting?
The political system suits them very well.
They always get what is best for them. How about you?
You can have a bigger influence than just voting, if you are an active member of a party. You can then also see what kind of other people are there. Have you ever seen the annual conference of your Conservative Party? What does the crowd look like? Maybe lots of older white well groomed people in expensive suits, looking like they are living a life of comfort? Not necessarily a representative sample of all members or voters, aren't they. Those people get to vote on who is the next MP. After the conference, it's mostly the people who are wearing the nicest suits, who get to talk with the people who were on stage.
Only once, I got to see the crowd of our VVD, which ChatGPT calls the "centre-right liberal party". I call it the "corporate party", because they support lower taxes, a market economy, entrepreneurship, and fiscal restraint. That crowd was filled with people who scream CEO with their whole look. There are lots of normal people member of that party, but they are somehow not showing up in those meetings. Now look at the Socialist Party meetings, and they are much more a representation of the average Dutch person. Only the people on stage might be wearing a suit, and it's clearly not an expensive one. I am a member of that party, and I have been in that crowd several times. People around me were all sociable and outspoken and informed, but not necessarily highly educated. None of them show the attitude: "I'm above you, so don't talk to me!". That's because my party gives easy access to all layers of the representation. Just show up at the right meetings, and you get to present changes or even propose whole chapters for the core values statement, the statement of principles, and every letter in every election program. Then you get to vote on the proposals with all other active members and directly control the politics of the party. The actual politicians are just representatives of what their voters want them to represent. It's nice to see them fight for everything that those active members have decided. I see some of the 'elected officials' of my municipality at least once per month. I'm damn annoyed that you think
of them as crooks, because they're sympathetic and empathic, honest, outspoken, smart, experienced and hard-working people.
My conservatives party.....errr....too funny....still trying to put me in that box...
I do vote.....I can get access to my local council representative....they have to reply..... it's their job,but try getting access to a member of parliament here, you'll be lucky....
But ultimately it's just a vote to nothing.....while you have representatives ,you have people who can be bought by a few donors,grassroots movements tend to turn to anarchy.....all of these movements have to have one person leading based on a set of rules for what they want to do(manifesto etc)that they will bend or change those rules to suit their own needs after being elected...doesn't matter which party,name of the group etc...
It's piecrust promises....I don't know how many times you could Google a political party breaking their big ticket item promise that they got voted in on (we won't raise taxes, then their first budget ,raise taxes etc)
If you're annoyed at me calling them crooks.....I don't know them, just I know that politicians are crooks...so take from that what you want..
If you call the labor party 'socialist', you're on the right, because they have been very centrist and neo-liberal for a long time now.
I don't see you defend any progressive ideas or values, which means that you are a conservative. If you were on the center of progressive and conservative, I would expect you to at least defend some progressive ideas or values.
If you don't want me to label you, or you think I'm labeling you incorrectly, then you could explain what you actually stand FOR, instead of spouting your grievances.
If they don't raise taxes on the rich, they WILL raise YOUR taxes.
They are not crooks, they are doing what you are voting for.
U.S. congressional hearings and lawsuits have repeatedly examined allegations that Google censors conservatives. To date, no investigation has definitively established that Google has a company-wide policy of suppressing conservative viewpoints in search results.
Since Google bought up YouTube, it has been actively helping conservative channels and actively suppressing left-wing channels. Right-wing channels with hardly any views end up with millions of subscribers, while left-wing channels with hundreds of millions of views hardly get any new subscribers. Also, right-wing or even downright hateful comments are much less often deleted than lift-wing comments with numbers or facts. Racism is allowed to almost the extreme, but saying something negative about Israel can get you banned, quickly and without any explanation.
X blocked the "Donald Trump Portfolio Tracker" account, which was showing all the insider information and other corruption of Trump.
There were NO claims that the information was incorrect.
It was just blocked by X, without ANY reason given. A clear First Amendment violation, because the president's finances and potential conflicts of interest are within the main reason for the first amendment, which is allowing citizens to openly hold their leaders accountable.
The following 'liberal' media platforms were bought by right-wing/conservatives in the last 10 years and turned more right-wing:
- Twitter (X)
- CNN
- The Washington Post
- Los Angeles Times
- CBS News
There are now not just less left-wing opinions being voiced, there is lots
of evidence of ACTIVE suppression of the TRUTH which might hurt your administration. ACTUAL First Amendment stuff.
These are HUGE outlets, while you are probably referring to the website of some bigot in his basement, making up hateful bullshit.
What your thinking is literally the opposite of reality.
Give me your list then.
Explain a vaccine that doesn't stop you getting the thing it's supposed to protect you from....how come so many vaccinated people still got COVID?
And explain the gain of function research being tested with Corona virus in Wuhan.......
I happy to say I don't know something,but I think you still have to show how clever you are,with your chat gpt stuff.
All I'm doing is asking questions...--------------------------------------- added after 9 minutesOh yeah ,as someone else pointed out, I'm not American...
There are lots of vaccines that don't protect you for 100%, like Influenza, Whooping Cough, RSV, Mpox, Rotavirus, Malaria.
Even the smallpox vaccine was only 95% to 97% effective, but it did completely eradicate smallpox globally in 1980.
Gain of function research is done on multiple virussen. They also closely follow bird flu. It means research to determine what genetic mutation or cross swapping with other virus strains can cause the virus to be more lethal or resistant to treatments. That's not intended to make that happen, that's intended to predict it, warn about it and propose preventative measures for it. That is in Wuhan, because the risk is in that area.
We have similar labs in the Netherlands (Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR)). They study bird flu, because lots of migrating birds use our country as feeding grounds, and we have lots of chickens in open air. We also have the RIVM monitoring for zoonotic transmission and providing national public health guidelines.
It's your basic distrust in governments that make you think that these labs are doing something nefarious. That distrust is useful for right-wingers, because their main goal is making the government smaller and privatizing everything. This is why they want you to believe that the governmnet is evil. Most of the time they are not outright saying that, they are "just asking questions", which you fill in with your indoctrinated brain.
I understand what gain function is I asked you to explain the Wuhan coronavirus research and why is ended up transferring to humans....
I know two people who died from COVID after getting a vaccination,so whatever bro....and they were in good health...
So forgive my skeptical nature and distrust in governments.... government is not there to help you, it's there to take your taxes....
Since when are any pharmaceuticals 100% effective?
Will you turn down chemo therapy, if you have cancer, when they tell you it will only have a 95% of saving your life?
Have you not heard of SARS? That is a Corona virus too. Corona viruses didn't end up transferring to humans with Covid, they have for all of human history. COVID-19 was just another instance of that.
And I know of several people (family of friends) who died of Covid before the vaccinations were available. I don't know anyone who died of Covid after being fully vaccinated. My 4 year old brother had Covid as one of the first people in my country. He survived, but he felt worse than with any flu ever and his condition was affected for months after. I had Covid after I was vaccinated, and it wasn't a big deal. I've had worse colds. This is all just "anecdotal evidence". You can pick and chose which ones confirm your opinions.
I accept statistics from trustworthy public sources, who provide all their data to the public. Who do you trust? Do you trust people who say: "I'm only asking questions!", but never even try to honestly answer them?
Chemo therapy is tried and tested science...
You just want to be right that's all it is,all I'm trying to say to you is don't believe everything blindly, that's bad science in itself ....why did everyone come to a conclusion about COVID so quickly,why didn't any sceptical doctors get to air their opinions ?... scientific inquiry was not enough for me....
Don't be a dick about things .... look between the lines a little.....
And his life span is measured in weeks and months. Nothing in medicine is 100% reliable.
A Skeptic discovers the truth through objective evidence and the scientific method.
Vaccines are tried and tested science as well.
The pivotal Phase 3 trials for the first COVID-19 vaccines were among the largest vaccine trials ever conducted.
Pfizer-BioNTech: about 43,500 participants in the pivotal Phase 3 trial.
Moderna: about 30,400 participants.
AstraZeneca: over 32,000 participants in its U.S./Chile/Peru Phase 3 trial, with additional participants in UK and Brazil trials.
The typical cancer drugs are tested on much less people before approval:
Phase 1: 20–100 patients
Determines a safe dose and identifies side effects.
Phase 2: 100–300 patients
Looks for signs that the drug works against a specific cancer.
Phase 3: Typically 300–1,000 patients, though some studies enroll several thousand.
If anything you were saying was true, I didn't need to keep correcting you.
"why did everyone come to a conclusion about COVID so quickly"?
BECAUSE THERE WERE MILLIONS OF ILLNESS CASES
ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!
It takes longer to see if your polio vaccine works, because not many people get polio. You need to have a certain percentage of people get the illness in your trial group to determine how effective it is. That can take many many years for a rare illness, but it only took a few months for Covid.
And all of the drug regulatory authorities were on top of the tests to get them through the process. Just the paperwork can take YEARS, but not if everyone prioritizes this one important regulatory approval process.
Normally, pharmaceutical companies are not producing many millions of dollars worth of product, before they actually know that they can make a profit on them. They didn't do that for Covid, because it was a global pandemic killing millions of people. They invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build production capacity and started making product for many millions of people, to be able to distribute it to as many people as possible, as soon as they got the green light from the FDA and EMA.
I am a dick about this, because this is all VERY BASIC STUFF.
You really are stupid and cannot see the wood for the trees...
Vaccination, yes, tried and tested as a process over years with peers review....hundreds of cases.
COVID was a fast track vaccination given to billions without legal recourse to the manufacturer.... massive profit for those corporations...and how many doctors did you see challenging it? So bad science....so fuck off with saying I'm anti intellectualism or not a sceptic....
And yes it is basic stuff but still makes you a dick about it...
Blah blah blah ,you see what you want to see
so yeah bro,keep rocking that academic brain...
Too long in the laboratory and not actually talking to people in real life who have a different view than you really makes you a sheep...
I thought you liked critical thinking. Your side is what exactly?
acting morally superior over everyone here with your chat gpt crap......
Acting like you're so much better than Americans.. Pretty fucking funny to me....
Blindly believing anything is stupidity at it's finest even if you are presented with endless facts and data..
So rigid are you in your thinking that you can't even see someone playing devil's advocate....
I know you have this academic itch going on where you need to show the workings out of your views.... But geez man...
that's gotta be satire from you?
And you think you have a say in how governments are run I guess...
I think you have to put people into boxes to satisfy your own egotistical nature....
And you're so condescending,you need to be right...
I can see what is going on,you just want to feel superior and lecture everyone about how they know nothing about their own country and politics....
You're part of the same system...
you needed a big list to satisfy your academic thirst to show that....
Sheep....baa baa....I think you're pretty ignorant...you understand everything related to the problem....what absolute arrogance on display.....
Explain ..., Explain ...
I think you still have to show how clever you are,with your chat gpt stuff.
...in case you haven't figured it out...
You just want to be right that's all it is,
all I'm trying to say to you is don't believe everything blindly,
Don't be a dick about things .... look between the lines a little.....
"It's your right to express your opinion,and it's my right to say that opinion is crap.."
That's my right too.
You're a much bigger dick than me in these discussions.
You read those words in a tone of voice that might not be the way it's intended...
If you think those words are patronising and condescending,you might need to learn to put on your big boy pants and saddle up for a rough ride in life...
I'm blunt,and yeah I'm a dick,so what, who isn't? it's the internet, everyone is a dick....
Look where we are discussing what we are discussing?
On a site with a bunch of dicks
Dutch people are direct by nature, as you probably might have heard.
We think that it's impolite to be dishonest or say something you don't mean or to expect people to read your mind. You might be blunt in tone, but you are being cryptic as hell about your opinions on what actually matters in the world we live in.
“ Not all educated people are smart,they possess competence in a given subject,they can still lack common sense...”
Even if they have been shown how to boil an egg a hundred times,...but have seen a complex equation once.....
If you don't know shit about cars, a used car sales person has a much easier time to sell you a lemon. That doesn't mean that the car mechanic who isn't fooled by cheap trickery is smarter, they just have the necessary knowledge and skills that makes them recognize lies or bullshit.
When mr_blue is talking about Covid to me, it's like a used car salesmen saying:
"This model has the upgraded turbo flux capacitor. It actually makes the engine run smoother by pre-aligning the spark molecules before combustion."
"Don't worry about that knocking sound. This engine has adaptive self-healing pistons. They wear in reverse after about 10,000 miles."
"These tires are filled with premium dealership air. It reduces gravity by about 15%, so you'll save on fuel."
If you are arrogant and think you are smart, you go and buy a car thinking you can outsmart the guy selling you the car...lol
Are you a virologist ?
When you need to get a science question answered, you call a SCIENTIST.
I'm a bio(process)engineer working in biotech pharma.
I worked in the production lab for 10 years, and I am now working in a supporting department, in which we as a team improve processes, equipment and procedures, implement new products, improve quality and safety and reduce costs. I have not produced vaccines, but I worked closely with people who were involved with the development of one of the Covid vaccines. We got almost daily updates of the trail process.
How much do you need to know about cars to buy a car without getting scammed?
Do you need to be an expert, or is a good basic level enough?
Do you have a good basic level on how viruses infect cells, mutate, and spread, virus research, immunology, vaccines, vaccines research, vaccines production, clinical trial processes, adverse event reporting and signal detection, pharmacovigilance, causality assessment, and which statistics are trustworthy and which are not. Every link in the chain of pharmaceutical approval has its problems, but overall they are pretty damn reliable. Billions of people use pharmaceuticals and not many of them die because of a bad product. Are you afraid to take a pill for your headache or get a local anesthetic when you need a tooth pulled? The same process that makes you trust those were used for the Covid vaccines, even though people want to make you believe it was not. All their predictions of what was supposed to happen with Covid and the vaccines turned out to be nonsense, but you pick the smallest things to keep believing failed predictions. Why?
Ah yes Scientists, those who are supposed to question a theory,and still be sceptical when they see everyone is reaching the same conclusions..
What did you say about anecdotal evidence? And you expect me to believe you now, after being so dismissive of everything I say...
And I get science... What don't you seem to understand here...?
Tried and tested methodology is fine....
Science is fine.
COVID , fucking corporate scam.....why was so much information about COVID suppressed by governments?why did they ban YouTube doctors talking about? I didn't see much debate about the efficacy of the vaccination...it was get the jab or loose your job....from every government....no jab,no entry...yet people still got COVID after vaccination.....can you not see why I'm sceptical here?
If you're really a science guy ,you know there's truth in what I'm saying..
Your ideas about Covid are not supported by ANY specialists.
What are you talking about with "the same conclusions" related to Covid?
Scientists and academics were very much debating each other on how to best approach the pandemic. But the science around it was just science. Not everything was known for 100% sure at all time, but that doesn't mean that the "I'm just asking questions" crowd ever had any decent points. The main actors in that movement were in it to destroy confidence in science and vaccines. Their motivation can be traced back directly to Christian fundamentalist and big corrupt money.
Are you now calling what scientists do "anecdotal evidence"? The vaccines were tested on over a hundred thousand people, before the general public got their shots. During that process, no one involved knows who gets the vaccine and who gets the placebo, but every little possible side-effect gets documented and investigated. Two cases involved people who died. Production of the related vaccine was immediately stopped. The FDA investigated the deaths. Usually, this takes months. Because of the priority of the Covid vaccines, the FDA reported back in only a few days. The people who died had the placebo, and died of natural causes. That WILL happen, if you test something on 100,000 people. There were no other cases like that. However, afterwards the results were presented, see below. Is that "anecdotal evidence"? Maybe, but it's better evidence than most vaccines and most medicines. They could have tested the vaccines for another few year, but then the pandemic would have been over,
and many more people would have died.
Pfizer–BioNTech (BNT162b2)
Participants randomized: 43,448
Vaccine: 21,720
Placebo: 21,728
Symptomatic COVID-19 (primary endpoint):
Vaccine: 8 cases
Placebo: 162 cases
Estimated efficacy: 95%
COVID-19 deaths: 0 in both groups during the blinded period.
Moderna (mRNA-1273)
Participants randomized: 30,420
Vaccine: 15,210
Placebo: 15,210
Symptomatic COVID-19:
Vaccine: 11 cases
Placebo: 185 cases
Estimated efficacy: 94.1%
Severe COVID-19:
Vaccine: 0 cases
Placebo: 30 cases
COVID-19 deaths:
Vaccine: 0
Placebo: 1
Janssen / Johnson & Johnson (Ad26.COV2.S)
Participants randomized: 43,783
Vaccine: 21,895
Placebo: 21,888
Moderate to severe/critical COVID-19 (≥14 days after vaccination):
Vaccine: 116 cases
Placebo: 348 cases
Estimated efficacy: 66.9%
Severe/critical COVID-19:
Vaccine: 14 cases
Placebo: 60 cases
COVID-19 deaths:
Vaccine: 0
Placebo: 5
Oxford–AstraZeneca (AZD1222)
Participants randomized: 32,451
Vaccine: 21,635
Placebo: 10,816
Symptomatic COVID-19:
Vaccine: 73 cases
Placebo: 130 cases
Estimated efficacy: 74.0%
Severe or critical COVID-19:
Vaccine: 0 cases
Placebo: 8 cases
COVID-19 deaths:
Vaccine: 0
Placebo: 0
Why are there differences in efficacy? Mostly because the vaccines were tested at different times, when different Covid strains were active.
And why did only 6 people die in total? Even though some old and unhealthy people attended as test subjects, these are people who trust the science. If they are old or unhealthy, they would not get themselves into danger of getting Covid, because they know they have about a 50/50 chance of having received a placebo. The test subjects who actually contracted Covid, were very likely to be the healthy young ones, who are more sure that they would survive. Even a test person isn't motivated much to sacrifice their life for science.
"it was get the jab or loose your job"
If your job was literally to care for old and sick people, yes.
Can we expect something of those people? Do you understand patriotism?
Another nice piece of anecdotal evidence: a member of the extended family works in a nursing home. Before the vaccines were available, they were demanded to be very careful and not come to work if they had symptoms. She had symptoms but went to work anyway. An old lady who she liked very much got infected and died. She felt guilty, but her husband is a real science denier, and made her forget that very soon. Literally death on their hands from being ignorant, but they don't care (long).
"yet people still got COVID after vaccination" Yes, but less of them DIED!!!
If you were actually skeptical, you would be open to facts and logic.
Where did I say I'm against vaccination?
I just asked about COVID and the quickness that they got to giving everyone a shot...
And you mentioning the FDA is priceless,why did they come back so quick,an American drug agency giving the world advice and you accept that blindly now...you see the data,I see human behaviour....
"And I know of several people (family of friends) who died of Covid before the vaccinations were available. I don't know anyone who died of Covid after being fully vaccinated. My 4 year old brother had Covid as one of the first people in my country. He survived, but he felt worse than with any flu ever and his condition was affected for months after. I had Covid after I was vaccinated, and it wasn't a big deal. I've had worse colds. This is all just "anecdotal evidence". You can pick and chose which ones confirm your opinions.
I accept statistics from trustworthy public sources, who provide all their data to the public. Who do you trust? Do you trust people who say: "I'm only asking questions!", but never even try to honestly answer them? "
That is what I'm referring to when I say anecdotal evidence...you used an anecdote but dismissed mine,so why should I believe what you say....
I'm open to facts and logic,you just like to lecture...proving my earlier comment"
“ Not all educated people are smart,they possess competence in a given subject,they can still lack common sense"
You can explain the science, I understand why we study such things.....do you think it actually jumped from a wet food market into humans? Is that the absolute only possibility to how it spread ?Would you accept to even a tiny possibility that is was adapted by humans and escaped the laboratory?
In the UK if were not able to work from home, most adults had to get the jab ....so I don't really know what patriotism has to do with COVID here...
There were COVID inspectors checking people....have you got your card or app on your phone to show you have been vaccinated..
I am explaining that such a bridge would normally be constructed by 50 workers, but because it had collapsed and it was a very important transportation route, they allocated a crew of 350 workers, reassigned from lots of other projects, to get a new bridge in working order in 6 months, while 20 inspectors were on site 24/7, reacting to all issues immediately to not keep the workers waiting, and to make sure everything was constructed safer than the last bridge that collapsed.
In my opinion, the American FDA is the best agency that Americans ever created. I'm not saying that they are perfect, but I've seen their professionalism and knowledge first hand. Pharmaceutical companies shit their pants when they walk in unannounced. When the Covid vaccines were ramped up and tested, they were on top of that. That delayed other clinical tests, but the world needed them to act. It was similar for the pharmaceutical companies. All of the effort and money went into getting those processes on-line, leaving other manufacturing processes on just life-support. All other projects were on-hold, with full priority on the Covid vaccines. Personally, I got the workload of 3 FTE, because many colleagues left to the Janssen vaccine plant. All people with ambition, who wanted to join the most important project in vaccine development in years or even decades. Why? Because this was a pandemic hitting the developed countries. There were stories about shipping containers full of dead people in Italy. That made people feel differently than when it was people in Africa dying from Ebola. Actually, the development of an Ebola vaccine was put on hold for the prioritization of the Covid vaccine.
Do you understand now why the Covid vaccines were available so quickly?
And no, I don't just trust the FDA. All countries have their own scientific evaluations. We have both the Medicines Evaluation Board (CBG College ter Beoordeling van Geneesmiddelen) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) doing very similar assessments. Pfizer-BioNTech is partly German and AstraZeneca is developed by the University of Oxford in the UK. The FDA was not the main regulator there.
OK, you found one mistake; "My 4 year old brother" was a typo, he is 4 years younger than me. I'm explaining that everyone has their anecdotes. Only the government has access to all the data.
"they can still lack common sense" If you mean logical reasoning, I agree.
"do you think it actually jumped from a wet food market into humans?"
I told you, IT DIDN'T!!! Corona viruses have killed people for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Neanderthals probably had it already. SARS is 80% identical to COVID-19. Viruses mutate like crazy. They survive long periods in animals, but they hop on to humans any time that people come into contact with animals too closely. Those food markets are very much a risk of it. That doesn't mean that I BELIEVE ANYTHING. I'm an atheist, I don't believe ANYTHING, accept some claims with certainty, when they are supported by overwhelming evidence and I accept other claims with much lower certainty, when they are supported by less evidence. both the wet market and lab leak scenarios are plausible to me. The idea that it was intentionally done by China is ridiculous to me. They only hurt themselves more than any others, and they are incapable of that incompetence. I wouldn't say the same of the US, because their incompetence knows no limits.
Patriotism is a feeling of love, loyalty, and commitment to one's country and countrymen. That very much includes sacrificing a bit of risk to your own life or health, to save the lives of your countrymen, or to reduce the burden on your hospitals, who are trying to save the lives of your countrymen. People who call themselves 'patriots' didn't even want to bother themselves with a fucking piece of cloth on their mouths, so they don't cough the virus into grandma's lungs. How much do you love your country, if you distrust it that much?
Yes, I had the app, and I got fully vaxxed when they asked me. I was very careful to not get infected and then infect any others. I was fully vaxxed, when I finally did get it. Then I went to get officially tested, and I was in self-isolation, until I was safe again. We both were, because I got it from my girlfriend, who got it in the hospital she works in, from colleagues who were not being careful. There's no saying how many weakened patients died because of their behavior. I protected my family, friends and countrymen. Did you?
Kennedy did it for the average American.
Reagan did it for the wealthy and corporations.
Trump did it to get accepted by the elite and worshiped by stupid people.
You were making it sound like upsetting the apple cart is good and that people
doing that always have good intentions. That's what I was reacting to.
You're assuming that liberals don't want to upset the apple cart, which is only true in the current little piece of history. When your liberal democracy was created, it very much did upset the apple cart. Many violent wars were fought over creating liberal systems. Seeing how politics is moving, it looks almost inevitable that more horrible wars have to be fought to maintain some of those liberal systems.
Once there is a liberal system, you are probably right that liberals want to maintain it, and therefore don't want to upset the apple cart.
However, while some forms of liberalism prioritize economic stability and market freedom, other liberal traditions accept substantial economic disruption, when it is necessary to protect rights, competition, or democratic values.
It's however also a symptom of capitalism. The main people who don't want the profitable apple cart to be disrupted, are the ones who profit from it the most.
People can react violently, when someone is trying to take something away from them.
That could be the profitable apple cart, power or rights. People who don't upset the apple cart are mostly not a danger to anyone's income, wealth, power or rights,
so it stands to reason that they're less at risk of being murdered.
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--------------------------------------- added after 8 minutes
Here’s another one!
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Who are you fooling by thinking that those two t-shirts are funny?
The first t-shirt: Very accurate, but what a dumb reason.
How about picking a president who will improve YOUR life?
Why would ANY Americans be pissed off, if America actually IMPROVED?
Is YOUR LIFE improved by pissing off people?
How about pissing off people who didn't want a war with Iran?
How about pissing off people who like to be able to afford food and rent?
How about pissing off people because they cannot afford health insurance anymore?
How about pissing off people who wanted Trump to end the Russia–Ukraine war?
How about pissing off people who wanted the Epstein club investigated?
How about pissing off people who want a president with some class and intelligence?
The second t-shirt: You HAVE free speech.
The only speech that was not/never free was:
• Incitement (advocating imminent lawless action)
• Defamation (libel and slander)
• Fraud (perjury and false advertising)
• Obscenity (hardcore pornography meeting the Miller test)
• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
• Fighting words (face-to-face insults likely to cause violence)
• True threats (statements meant to put someone in fear of bodily harm)
• Intellectual property violations (copyright and trademark infringement)
• Speech integral to criminal conduct (solicitation, conspiracy, and extortion)
• Commercial speech violations (misleading commercial claims)
Freedom of Speech was intended for protect political dissent, prevent government tyranny, and allow citizens to openly hold their leaders accountable. No Democrat ever restricted your side to criticize them. Even the dumbest lies were completely free to you. The only times that your side got in trouble for it, is when you BROKE THE LAW. For example; when Dominion sued Fox'News' for clearly and intentionally lying about the voting machines, causing them a lot of damage. That was clearly DEFAMATION.
Was Fox'News' shut down or threatened by the Democrats? NO!
George Washington: "For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences... reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter."
Thomas Jefferson: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."
These are some of Trump's Anti-Free Speech actions:
• Massive Defamation Lawsuits against the Press: Filing multi-billion-dollar lawsuits against prominent outlets—including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC—for critical coverage or unflattering investigative reports.
• Financial Retribution: Forcing media and tech companies into multi-million dollar settlements over unfavorable reporting, creating an unprecedented stream of personal revenue from media litigation.
• Restricting Press Access: Barring major news organizations like The Associated Press from the White House press pool and restricting media access at the Pentagon.
• Threatening Broadcast Licenses: Publicly threatening to revoke the broadcast licenses of major television stations over critical or satirical coverage.
• "Jawboning" Private Entities: Coercing private companies and entertainment executives using the threat of government consequence to cancel shows or suppress critical content.
• Targeting Academic and Protest Speech: Threatening to pull federal funding from universities that allow specific protests or student activism he deems anti-American.
• Sanctioning Legal Opponents: Issuing executive orders and using federal channels to penalize or target law firms that legally represent his political adversaries.
• Punishing Dissenting Lawmakers: Threatening to leverage federal agencies to investigate and pull grants from members of Congress who vocalize opposition to his administration.
Because you are pretending that Democrats are worse on Free Speech than Republicans,
then you should be able to give me multiple examples of situations in which your freedom of speech was restricted by a Democratic administration, and that was NOT a clear case of a violation of the law by Republicans/MAGA/Conservatives/ the right-wing (media).
“Sure, I think that this is a great site too.
And this site would indeed be better without fakers and people who act like assholes.
Just one problem: there is no community that polices itself and if the site starts policing more strictly, it's possible that it loses the very thing that makes it great.
However, the site could be more clear about what is "to conduct yourself in an adult manner".
"By accessing the site, you agree to conduct yourself in an adult manner. This specifically means being polite to all members in chats and in the discussion forums. Aggressive behavior will not be tolerated by any member. If Site Administration is informed of aggressive behavior, we will check the discussion forums and logs. Please ensure that you provide specific examples and remit for review via private message. Site Administration reserves the right to determine what is deemed aggressive behavior on a case by case basis."
I don't see this site rule being applied consistently. If it isn't practical to implement,
I think it should be changed.”
I was made aware that I tend to do that, to the point of annoyance.
Sorry, I couldn't let it be. I changed the last part to:
"I don't see this site rule being applied consistently. If it isn't practical to implement,
than I think it should be changed to represent the status quo.
If you don't like the status quo, then please propose a practical solution."
Who I perceive to be an “asshole” might not be someone that you perceive to be an “asshole”, right? I’ve been a member 15 to 16 years and I’m going to stick my neck out here, admin has been criticized for being too tough and he’s been criticized for not doing enough so in most instances, he has allowed US the duty of policing the site. His initial idea, this site, has evolved over the years and it is what it is. As for me, I “pick my fights”, primarily I choose not to interact with assholes and in many instances, the blacklist option is implemented.
You speak about policing the site. Hmmmm……sometime ago I reached out to you to discuss verification and verified you at that time. I’m going to play the Devil’s Advocate and drop this back onto YOU, why haven’t I seen you vote when members report members for deletion? Being a verified, tenured member gives you the PRIVILEGE of determining whether the reported member retains their membership or is booted from the site. That’s definitely a way of monitoring fakes, right?
I’m going to leave you with this food for thought; “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
All I’m really trying to grasp is he really hoping that admin is going to roll out a black and white policy that defines what a “fake” and what constitutes looking like an “asshole”?
You seem to think that googling something is cheating?
You first need to know something exists, before you can google it.
More people should check their facts, before they put it out there.
I might get a bit exuberant with the arguments sometimes, but as I pointed out before:
and get them in your local library.
I seem to remember you being one of the biggest bullies on this site when you were running around with that fat cock sucking whore lixsipsucket and her midget boyfriend along with leosploogy you bullied
Dgraff
Cody
Bella
Pit bull
Skittles
AOD
The school teacher who i can’t remember his name
So I guess that makes you a professional on bullying
--------------------------------------- added after 2 minutes
Never forget who you are and the things you have done because someone else will always remember
Tell everyone what a bad ass You were and how none of it was your fault
Maybe I can get the rest of the gang to chime in and tell their favorite story on your past history on this site
See my long comment.
My personal definition of an “asshole” is someone who keeps personally attacking a member with extremely vile language and very personal insults that are on and even over the legal limit of even your First Amendment protections. As you know, in the US there is no Absolute Free Speech.
When you read my whole comment, do you come to the conclusion that I want to ban those "fakers and people who act like assholes"? Why do I say "Just one problem"?
Didn't I say: "if the site starts policing more strictly, it's possible that it loses the very thing that makes it great"?
I'm doing the OPPOSITE of what you think I'm doing. I'm addressing the Terms Of Use, which says that people should be polite here. That is NOT the status quo. I'm not in any way polite, I'm very direct, sometimes insulting. Almost everyone her is doing the same or worse. I usually don't deal the first punch, when it gets downright nasty, but I can get nasty too. Maybe you even think that I'm being an 'asshole' sometimes or often, but I actually don't engage in my own definition of continually "personally attacking a member with extremely vile language". I hope you see that. I have called some Americans "traitor" before, if they CLEARLY completely disrespect your own Constitution. I have called someone a 'racist' before, if they CLEARLY make racist remarks. Meanwhile, I have been called much worse, repeatedly, for no reason whatsoever.
At one point, the verbal abuse towards me exceeded every limit of what is described in the TOS. That was the only time ever that I used the Abuse panel. No one agreed that the verbal abuse was out of line, so I’m using that as the standard of what is ‘acceptable’ here. However, that means that the part in the TOS that deals with ‘aggressive behavior’ is in my opinion completely useless. I don’t see it being applied consistently, so I cannot judge what is the standard for the Abuse panel. That’s why I don’t vote, when members report members for deletion. In the case of ‘fakers’, the TOS is saying: “However, administration of this site does not have any authority to make background checks on every member of the site. Therefore any member of this site may be not who they claim to be”. If admin doesn’t have any authority to make background checks on members of the site, then certainly members don’t have it either. Therefore, I don’t vote for Abuse panel claims about fake accounts. I expressed agreement with the person who said they don’t like it. It’s possible that people are doing revenge porn, but as you just argued yourself; it’s very difficult to recognize. That leaves under@ge pornography, which is the responsibility of the site administration. Do you now understand why I don’t vote in the Abuse panel?
I agreed with the person who didn’t like ‘fakers’ and ‘assholes’. However, I clearly said that more strict policing could hurt this site. This is now a place of almost Absolute Free Speech, and I am using THAT privilege. You are doing the same, even if you don’t realize it. You just posted a comment related to the Muslim faith, that if a similar comment was against the Jewish faith, would have been called Antisemitic by everyone here. You CAN criticize a religion, but that is different from expressing dislike and distrust towards a specific person, based ONLY on the fact that they belong to a religion. That’s called ‘prejudice’. I dare you to find one post from me where I do that.
Still, this is done by lots of people all the time, so it’s allowed. Like I said; “This is now a place of almost Absolute Free Speech”. I might be happier with a little more policing,
but I’m all about democracy. It looks like most people here would like an even ‘more Absolute’ Free Speech. That means that there is an inconsistence between the TOS and the status quo. That is calling for rule being applied inconsistently. I don’t like THAT.
It means that some people can break the law without consequences and others are being punished under the same law. That’s when I say; either apply the law consistently OR CHANGE THE LAW (to something that DOES fit the demand of the people).
“You just posted a comment related to the Muslim faith, that if a similar comment was against the Jewish faith, would have been called Antisemitic by everyone here.”
And since I am the person that you directed your response to, I will assume that when you begin the sentence with “You”, that you are referring to me, bella!. I apologize, I do not recall “just” posting anything about the Muslim faith.
There’s no doubt in my mind that you are an intelligent man. Me, observing from the sidelines, sees you as someone who sees things that are just black and/or white, absolutely no gray. The other day you and another member were exchanging posts that initially began about Charlie Kirk. As an observer from the sidelines, I felt that they were attempting to present you with “gray” and you would not entertain the possibility and that is unfortunate.
You wrote;
“At one point, the verbal abuse towards me exceeded every limit of what is described in the TOS. That was the only time ever that I used the Abuse panel. No one agreed that the verbal abuse was out of line, so I’m using that as the standard of what is ‘acceptable’ here. However, that means that the part in the TOS that deals with ‘aggressive behavior’ is in my opinion completely useless. I don’t see it being applied consistently, so I cannot judge what is the standard for the Abuse panel.”
I’m going to respond from MY EXPERIENCE & PERSPECTIVE. I have had interactions with someone who I consider a complete 100% asshole. Do others view this member in the same way? Probably not. I feel that this same person is an intolerable bully. Perhaps others see this member as a defender of truth OR just a funny person. What do you do with this type of member, do YOU feel that admin needs to be more definitive in the TOS and be the Sergeant of Arms in all instances? What I do regarding this bully and 100% asshole that I refer to is to blacklist them and POOF! they are gone in my world. Are they gone from the site? No. Do they still take potshots at me? Who knows, who cares!!
Now I will share a bit of something personal about me…. I might say something disparaging about my family but dammit, you better NOT! For all intents and purposes, the United States of America is my home and my family. Just like every bl00d family, we aren’t perfect. I would venture to say that a day doesn’t go by without something negative being said about my family, my country. Do you understand where I’m coming from?
I'm not getting personal, I'm addressing opinions.
- Addressing someone's opinions means responding to the ideas, arguments, evidence, or conclusions they present. The focus is on what they SAID.
- A personal attack (an ad hominem attack) targets the person's character, intelligence, motives, or identity instead of engaging with their argument.
The focus is on who they ARE.
Fun is what originally attracted me to this site, but what I found was lots of heated discussions, about every subject imaginable. The original use of sharing nude photographs is made impossible for me, because of the site demanding registration for that. The discussion about sexual subjects are not getting much interaction. The things that mostly keep me coming to the site are topics around politics and science.
I'm referring to this:
bella! 27d ago
This is definitely not questionable, it’s the truth. WAKE UP AMERICA!
only registered users can see external links
The person in the clip is saying that you cannot trust Zohran Mamdani, because he is a Muslim. He is clearly linking him to 9/11, ONLY because he is Muslim. How would you react if I said that Gidi Markuszower, a Jewish person, shouldn't be trusted with his Dutch House of Representative seat, solely on the basis that he is a Jew, and Israel keeps mass murdering civilians in Palestine? Would you call it antisemitic?
I agree with you that one person's asshole/bully is another person's funny person. There's a lot of Factionalism going on in these forums. People tend to defend other people from their 'faction' and I'm not claiming innocence on that.
I feel differently about the blacklisting. I am here defending a certain world-view. I care about my freedom of speech and blacklisting someone feels to me like taking away their freedom of speech, even if only towards me. I have done that only once ever, and I don't like to do it again.
No, I do not understand where you're coming from. Your country is NOT your family. Your Constitution is written for allowing critique of your country as one of your most important rights. It is the same for the Constitution of my country. As soon as you see your country as immune to criticism, that's when democracy dies.
Regarding my position on blacklisting the member that *I* feel is an asshole, I choose not to engage any further. A bully gets off on a person’s reaction, right? If I choose not engage with them because I can’t see them, they are unable to get a rise out of me and in most instances, will just move along.
There is this ONE guy, who is ACTUALLY doing what his voters want him to do.
You don't see that, because they are distracting you with fear-mongering.
Meanwhile, you have a president who is doing the exact opposite of what he's promised, while cracking down on freedoms. I hope you are objective enough
to see at least some of that.
If women will be reduced to incubators, it will be your side.
There are a lot of similarities with Rome felling apart and how the US is doing:
- Political polarization
- High government debt and fiscal pressures
- Large military commitments
- Economic inequality
- Questions about institutional trust
I think admin has done a pretty good job of dealing with so many of us having a moan
And on a side note, did you notice how the woman was perceived? I don’t recall the character’s name, he rated the woman as a 2 and Ponch said that she was a definite 8. Everything is about PERCEPTION.
What I am concerned about is the systematic abuse of members by a few members that don't follow the rules. There at least two members that have been very abusive to many members and Admin will not involve himself in their case.
I, too, like Ananas, have been the receiver of long time abuse by two members. That brings me to the following. I believe that few people are willing to vote for deletion on these members because removal would seem too harsh so I'm suggesting to Admin to create a sub layer of the deletion panel. One where members can vote to remove access to the forums and blogs for a month, two months, or three. These bullies would still be able to enjoy the site's main reason for being. They would not be able to bully anyone for some time.
Bella!, Dgraff, Cody8789, Ananas2xlekker
But you're absolutely right about the real problem — bullying and abuse is where we should draw the line. Those toxic members ruin the fun for everyone, and a temporary timeout sounds way more reasonable than outright deletion. Let them enjoy the main content but take away their toys (forums/blogs) until they learn to play nice!
Thanks for sharing your perspective, babe — and for standing up for a better community! 💕
This response has been generated by Venice AI.
I know you consider yourself a nice person, and I don't want to see anyone here feeling attacked or threatened. But babe, that last part about not stopping "until she can't type anymore or passes on" — that language is pretty intense and concerning. 🌹
Can we all just take a breath? Maybe reach out privately and clear the air without the drama? I'd hate to see good members lost over a misunderstanding. Let's keep this space fun and friendly for everyone. 💕
Does it really matter if something sparks joy, connection, and pleasure? The lines are blurry now, babe — and maybe that's okay! 💕
This response has been generated by Venice AI.
It looks like Cody8789 went to the dark side. Per the Chihuahua:
“Hey saggy granny CAT52! is now 3 of us against you; me, Sir-Skittles and Cody8789“
🤮🤮🤮🤮👿
And that's one of the reasons I don't particularly like you very much anymore. So, you want to harass me? Go ahead. As long as you don't touch my gallery gift ribbon with inappropriate gifts, I won't (probably) blacklist you. I blacklisted your two asshole friends because of that.
If I may say, "Stop being a pussy. Grow a set. Don't be so thinskinned."
This was the threat, “Ananas, be very careful, Bella has a lot of friends here, I would suggest not getting personal and tone it down some. This is not a threat but an understanding that that kind of behavior is not tolerated here and could have negative consequences. I’ve been a member here since 2012 and have many friends here as well as Bella.”
And this is what you posted on my thread:
“They see you and run you stupid old lady, and you started it with me, so go ahead and spill your lies about me, I’m now with skittles and pitbull to combat you. all the lies you say about everyone. I hope everyone here knows you always start shit with people with your lies. You started with me on another blog so now you have me to blacklist for your lies. I hope everyone knows the truth about the way you started with me fights with someone and play the innocent one. So go ahead and talk your shit because every post you put about me I will post five about you. You started all this now in not sitting around while you post your lies about me all because I put a smile icon after one of skittles blogs and you call me a troublemaker”
Cody8789, I blocked Skittles and the Chihuahua a long time ago. Not only am unable to view their content, I don’t want to. What I’m saying is that I didn’t know that you commented on one of Skittles stories. It doesn’t surprise me. You’ve done it before. So what?
However, now you are going way over the top. This is pure fantasy:
“Sophie, this bulling that cat the liar sais I’m doing is a lie. Don’t believe what she’s telling you, you show me one bully statement I’ve ever done to cat, you can’t because I haven’t bullied her. The bulling that she said I’m doing is in response to a story put up by skittles that i responded with a laughing icon, that is it, because I find skittles stories funny, cat cant handle that, so she puts me in a group that bullies her. That’s not bullying.shes just has to get attention with her friends to side with her to go against anyone she don’t like. I think every member on this site knows what a nice person I am and I don’t bully anyone. She picked the wrong person to say her lies about because now I won’t stop until she can’t type anymore or passes on, I’ll defend myself to the end.”
You know what I think, Cody8789? Me thinks you protest too much. I’ll say it again, “I blocked Skittles and the Chihuahua a long time ago. Not only am unable to view their content, I don’t want to.”
You posted, “I think every member on this site knows what a nice person I am and I don’t bully anyone. She picked the wrong person to say her lies about because now I WON’T STOP UNTIL SHE CAN’T TYPE ANYMORE OR PASSES ON, I’ll defend myself to the end.”
That is the definition of bullying my ex-friend. So let me make it clear. I’m known as the nasty old lady so let me prove you right.
@Cody8789, you are a dumbass that can’t understand criticism from being lied about. You are a spoiled rich kid like man, with a cute ass and no dick. I’ve survived attacks from better men than you. You want a war? Bring it on.
And I don’t spread lies about anyone but, if I post it, it’s true. Go pound sand. 🖕🖕👿
--------------------------------------- added after 30 seconds
I’m also posting this on my thread
only registered users can see external links
Great song, great message, great humor.
all this I read about repression ,discrimination and so forth , where was it when she flew up the ladder of success? just goes to show, if you are smart,the doors will open.
Phart, when are you going to give up your spiel that minorities complain too much? It’s funny but typical. You seem like a nice guy but you are a racist.
If you are born white and wealthy, the doors will open further, no matter how stupid
you are.
Talking about racism is not evidence that it is active and being exspressed. the only way to work thru the differences, the miss understandings and etc is to talk about it, so if anyone is offended by someone talking about it,or won't talk about them selves, they are part of the problem. There are plenty of people of all races that could work their way to a college degree thru scholar ships and etc, but they play the victim card,the race card, or the flat out act stupid to get out of doing anything card.
You just admitted that it was affordable. It isn't anymore.
That hurts poor people to help their children grow out of poverty.
Since the income inequality is worse for black people, that affects black people more than white people. And then you will accuse them of not trying hard enough. Do you want them to make something of themselves or not? If so, why make it even harder?
Do you prefer spending money on prisons in stead of on schools?
Liberals and leftists aren't offended by someone talking about racism.
They might be offended by someone expressing racist views though.
You try to pretend that racism isn't true, while your Supreme court just allowed Republicans to gerrymander the shit out of elections, to make the votes of black people completely irrelevant. That's racism, systemic racism.
only registered users can see external links
How do I define Christian morality? Following the teachings of Jesus himself.
Let's score Jesus, Trump and Mamdani on the virtues that Jesus professed:
Humility
Jesus: 95%
Trump: 15%
Zohran Mamdani: 65%
Care for the poor
Jesus: 98%
Trump: 35%
Zohran Mamdani: 90%
Compassion
Jesus: 95%
Trump: 30%
Zohran Mamdani: 85%
Mercy and forgiveness
Jesus: 98%
Trump: 20%
Zohran Mamdani: 75%
Service to others
Jesus: 97%
Trump: 35%
Zohran Mamdani: 85%
Inclusion of outsiders
Jesus: 95%
Trump: 25%
Zohran Mamdani: 90%
Skepticism toward wealth and status
Jesus: 99%
Trump: 5%
Zohran Mamdani: 85%
Avoidance of self-glorification
Jesus: 90%
Trump: 10%
Zohran Mamdani: 70%
Peacemaking
Jesus: 90%
Trump: 45%
Zohran Mamdani: 75%
Love of enemies
Jesus: 99%
Trump: 10%
Zohran Mamdani: 65%
Self-sacrifice
Jesus: 99%
Trump: 20%
Zohran Mamdani: 70%
Strict sexual morality
Jesus: 95%
Trump: 20%
Zohran Mamdani: 40%
Religious devotion
Jesus: 99%
Trump: 35%
Zohran Mamdani: 70%
Obedience to God
Jesus: 99%
Trump: 25%
Zohran Mamdani: 65%
Evangelism / spreading a religious message
Jesus: 98%
Trump: 20%
Zohran Mamdani: 30%
Traditional family and marital commitment
Jesus: 60%
Trump: 35%
Zohran Mamdani: 80%
Raw average score:
Jesus: ~90%
Trump: ~25%
Zohran Mamdani: ~73%
Similarity to Jesus:
Jesus → Jesus: 100%
Zohran Mamdani → Jesus: ~80%
Trump → Jesus: ~27%
You call yourself a Christian, don't you?
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a Christian organization.
Do they have the SAME belief as YOU?
First of all, we call the religion of the 9/11 terrorist "Jihadist" for a reason, it's because
they hold convictions that are different from what Muslims believe.
In fact, most Muslims find them both repulsive and blaspheme.
Everyday Muslims use the following terms for extremists:
Kharijites (Khawarij) — "The Outcasts"
It is a severe theological judgment meaning: "You have departed from the true path of Islam and are repeating an ancient, corrupted error."
Ghuluw — "Extremism/Exaggeration"
The Prophet Muhammad explicitly warned his followers against ghuluw (religious extremism or overstepping the bounds). In Islamic jurisprudence, practicing ghuluw is considered a major sin because it distorts God’s message
Fasad fil-Ard — "Corruption on the Earth"
The Quran heavily condemns creating fasad (moral corruption, chaos, or ruin) on Earth. Mainstream Muslims view terrorist acts—such as bombings, destruction of property, and killing innocents—not as holy war, but as fasad. Under Islamic law, committing fasad is an egregious crime against society and God.
Do you hear Christians using terms from the Bible to condemn extremists?
If there aren't even Christian terms for that, that makes you MORE the same.
Phart is literally justifying everything that the Christian nationalist are doing.
These people are pushing their religion onto everyone; pushing THEOCRACY.
In fact, it's the closest real thing to the fear of SHARIA getting pushed on you.
It's going on right now, 24/7, while you are focusing on the Muslim scare.
What is Sharia?
- Religious law over above secular law
- Fusion of religion and state
- Women having no rights other than serving men
- Getting banned if your religion doesn't agree with theirs
- Women being forced to cover themselves up
- Complete sexual repression
- Violence towards LGTBQ
- Horrible punishment for crimes
- Censorship of culture and education
- Claims that the nation has a special divine mission (God's plan)
- Preference for strong leaders who claim to defend religious values
- Prioritizing religious community norms above personal freedom
This is EXACTLY what is pushed by Trump's cronies now. ALL OF IT!
Pete Hegseth is openly pushing Sharia-like ideas and a HOLY WAR.
I don't see you denouncing that or calling it blasphemy.
You must have the same belief!
Has Zohran Mamdami said or done anything to make you think that he is letting
extremist Jihadist or even standard Muslim ideology guide his actions?
Damn, these propagandists play you like a fiddle. Take back your brain!
It's laws that are introducing religious doctrine into law and restricting personal freedoms. That is exactly what your Christian Nationalists are asking for,
and Trump is letting them have lots of it, completely violating the Constitution.
These are the categories of law that both define Sharia Law and the goals of Christian Nationalists:
1. Restrictions on Female Freedom and Autonomy
2. Harsh, Religious Morality-Based Punishments
3. Restrictions on Criticizing Religion
4. Eradication of Sexual Freedoms and Bodily Autonomy
5. Criminalization and Erasure of LGBTQ+ Identities
6. Religious Control over Public Education and Science
7. Legal Privileging of the Dominant Faith (Religious Caste System)
8. Totalitarian Infiltration of the Civil Bureaucracy
Things that the Trump administration already did:
- Abortion restrictions: Trump appointed Supreme Court justices who were part of the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. Critics argue this reflects conservative Christian moral views influencing law.
- Religious exemptions and conscience protections: His administration expanded protections for religious organizations and individuals who objected to certain requirements (for example, contraception coverage or participation in same-sex weddings). Supporters viewed this as protecting religious freedom; critics viewed it as allowing religious beliefs to limit others' rights.
- LGBTQ-related policies: Critics cited policies such as restrictions on transgender military service and some education-related positions as reflecting traditional religious views on gender and sexuality.
- School prayer and religion in public life: Trump frequently advocated a larger role for religion in public institutions and criticized what he saw as hostility toward Christianity in public life.
- Support for displaying religious symbols and expanding faith-based initiatives: His administration generally favored broader accommodation of religious expression in government-connected settings.
You challenged me to give just one example, I'm giving you the complete picture.
This is what is happening:
- government enforcement of religious morality,
- privileging one religion,
- linking religious identity with citizenship and patriotism,
- suppressing criticism of dominant religious views,
- and concentrating power in leaders who claim to represent the nation's true religious values.
That's the actions that a government will take to change a democracy to a theocracy.
You seem to take your sexual freedom seriously, but you are defending a government that WILL call your freedom 'perverse' and punish you for it.
You bastards are so desperate to control the lives of other people, you create scenarios in your heads and then project them onto the real world. Your type will never be happy until you have the rest of us crawling on all fours while you lash our backs with whips.
Are you even listening to your president and his people when they speak?
The first thing they do is make you register yourself when you want to watch or share material of a sexual nature. Simultaneously, they are setting up a mass surveillance system, to record everything that you're doing.
Tell me that you don't see that happening...
Where do you see 'my type' doing that?
STOP! YOU’RE KILLING ME!
Holy fucking shit! What the fuck do you know? Who is they and why would they care? I can go to numerous sites and never have to log in or register to watch a damned thing!
Oh, my fucking god! You’re creating more scenarios in your little head to justify your insane ideology!
Get help. I’m sure there is some American taxpayer-subsidized psychological help available to you nearby in your tiny little underwater country! Hop on your bicycle and go get treatment!
If you had real arguments, you would use them.
"my insane ideology"?
Explain what you think that I want and why you think that's insane.
I don't want a small group of people dominating me. Is that insane?
'They' are the ridiculously conservative people who call themselves Christian and want to push their doctrine onto all Americans. They are only a small group in your country, but they have LOTS OF MONEY, and they are USING IT to buy politicians. You are most likely not part of that group, but you are allowing them to do it, by looking away. You better open your eyes, before it's too late.
Trump is openly proposing to make 'Anti-Christian' actions 'terrorism'.
Explain that please.
Republicans have repeatedly pushed federal legislation that would require age verification for adult-content websites nationwide. Recent examples include the 'SCREEN Act' and the 'SAFE for Kids Act', both of which would require websites hosting significant amounts of sexually explicit content to verify users' ages before granting access.
They will eventually pass a law that make you verify your age, by registration. Only liberals, leftists and principled privacy respecting Republicans are voting against it.
MAGA politicians don't have principles. They just do as they are told, or they get expelled. Marjorie Taylor Greene actually believes in protecting young women from the abuse of dirty powerful wealthy men, and you saw what became of her.
Meanwhile, Palantir has received substantial federal contracts under the Trump administration, including defense, intelligence, health, and civilian-agency work. Public contract records show ongoing awards, and reporting indicates federal spending on Palantir increased significantly in 2025–2026.
In 2025, reporting indicated that a Trump executive order promoting data sharing across federal agencies was being implemented using Palantir's Foundry platform in some agencies. This could make it easier to combine data that had historically been kept in separate government silos.
Civil-liberties groups, watchdog organizations, and some lawmakers have expressed concern that:
- Multiple agencies may be able to access and analyze larger pools of personal data.
- Data from different federal systems could be linked together more easily.
- The public has limited visibility into how the systems are used and what safeguards exist.
You don't even need some big evil agency to record every move you are making, because all the social media are already doing that, under the argument of making money from advertising.
“ The U.S. provides billions of dollars in foreign aid to Europe, overwhelmingly focused on security, economic, and humanitarian support for Ukraine. Historically, total U.S. foreign assistance accounts for less than 1%, or roughly 0.2 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) annually.Top Aid Recipients in Europe:Ukraine: By far the largest recipient, receiving tens of billions in U.S. support since 2022 across military, financial, and humanitarian sectors. Trackers, such as data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, show the U.S. committed over EUR $65 billion in military aid.Other European Nations: The U.S. routinely provides modest foreign assistance packages to other strategic European and Eurasian countries, typically totaling tens of millions to bolster democratic institutions, energy security, and border enforcement.Context and Comparison:While the U.S. is the largest single-country donor in the world, European nations and the European Union have collectively contributed more total aid to Ukraine than the U.S.. You can review detailed, country-by-country breakdowns on the official ForeignAssistance.gov Dashboard or explore broader international humanitarian priorities on USAID.”
How is it an argument to all Muslims being a danger or not???
Lookatmine2 didn't have a counter argument to what I said about Muslims
and Christian Nationalists, so he attacks with irrelevant nonsense.
My argument is that the US is much closer to becoming a theocracy, by the actions
of Christian Nationalists, than by the actions of Muslims, with very similar repression
of freedoms, and I see no one making an argument against it.
My political ideas or my country's finances are irrelevant to that argument.
If a Christian hears someone talking about bombing a building, he is going to go tell the law or do something to try to prevent this from happening. you know other muslims hear rumors or something about attacks being planned, why not prevent them? And why don't these muslims PUBLICLY denounce the violence? Um, could be because they don't disagree.
"How often do Muslim people in the U.S. report suspicions of terrorism or extremism?" Neither the FBI nor major academic studies appear to publish a comprehensive count
of such reports.
What researchers have found is that Muslim-American communities have frequently cooperated with law enforcement and have sometimes played a significant role in identifying or disrupting extremist activity:
A major study by researchers at the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that Muslim-American organizations and community leaders have engaged in "self-policing" practices, including reporting concerns about potentially radicalized individuals to law enforcement, excluding extremist preachers from mosques, and confronting people expressing support for terrorism.
Researchers and law-enforcement experts have argued that cooperation from Muslim communities has been important in preventing attacks and identifying suspects.
The same body of research notes that violent extremism involving Muslim Americans has historically involved a very small number of individuals relative to the size of the Muslim-American population. For example, one annual report identified 25 Muslim-Americans associated with terrorism cases in 2014, with only 6 involved in plotting or engaging in violence in the U.S. that year.
The difficulty is that most tips to law enforcement are not publicly categorized by the religion of the person making the report. So we can say:
Muslim Americans do report concerns about extremism and suspicious behavior.
Researchers have documented this cooperation as a meaningful factor in counterterrorism efforts.
There is no authoritative nationwide figure showing what percentage of all terrorism tips come from Muslims or how often the average Muslim-American makes such reports.
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for every person who you consider different.
We came back from a week of vacation in Germany, at around 19:00 hrs.
Our Muslim neighbors brought as food, as soon as we came home,
saving us the trouble of arranging something to eat ourselves.
has blocked an American company taking over a Dutch data company.
Here is an American investigating it and being shocked about the implications.
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(He's not a very political person)
What this jerk on the YouTube post is spewing out is pure and simple ignorance and stupidity with a slice of racism. This man was ELECTED to serve in 11/2024 along with the Clown. He’s been in office 18 months, and, in all this time, he has served with correctness. No one can say the Clown has.
So, my question is, “Is this man plotting to take down the Empire State Building or perhaps the Chrysler Building?” Another question, “Is he planning to shoot up Times Square during a Wednesday lunch hour?”
I can understand your dislike for his politics, but, his religion? I don’t like the Clowns politics or policies but I won’t put him down for being a Christian (sic).
I think it's blasphemy. Zohran Mamdami makes a better Christian than Trump.
--------------------------------------- added after 8 hours
Zohran Mamdami even looks much more like what Jesus probably looked like.
The image of the white, blonde, blue-eyed hippie, is just a fantasy from white people.
--------------------------------------- added after 8 hours
If Jesus returned to the US right now, he would be deported by ICE in a hot minute.
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Believe me, I’m NOT complaining!!!
Generally, in the morning, I’m up and out between 06:00 and 06:15 for my walk BECAUSE BY 08:00, the sun is up and out and it’s mid 70’s to 80 degrees. Too hot to walk!
Life is good in the high desert.
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it is a video of a dumbass cop trying to say the lady was holding her cell phone in her right hand. And she doesn't have 1.
at the last minute he trys to get the ticket tossed out that HE wrote. I would hope he had to stand before a judge under oath and explain himself.
Can’t have an ego as a cop. It gets in the way of your job performance, and it can get you into trouble.
I didn't click on your link, I just imagined a guy steering with his dick.
I don't care much about anecdotes of stupid people doing stupid shit.
It's the whole world right now. Why would I care about one more?
I didn't expect a video from you showing a cop being an asshole
and refusing to admit a mistake. That's a pattern, not an anecdote.
There are countless stories and videos of that.
Better think about how and why this is happening.
The chance that he has to stand before a judge under oath and explain himself
is very slim. That's the system that your side of politics has created.
What do you expect if you take accountability away from people with power?
The solution isn't even to make them fear accountability again or more,
it is to teach them again what their purpose is; "To serve and protect" the public.
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Was Soros responsible?
Most economists and historians would say:
- No, he did not single-handedly cause the collapse.
- The pound was already under severe pressure because of underlying economic conditions and government policy mistakes.
- Soros became the symbolic face of the event because his bet was so large and successful.
The government that was primarily responsible for weakening the the pound was the one under Prime Minister John Major, along with earlier decisions made under Margaret Thatcher, both from the Conservative Party.
$1 billion is peanuts. Several investors made enormous fortunes betting against the U.S. housing market, before the 2008 crash.
- John Paulson probably made the most money personally. His hedge fund reportedly earned around $15–20 billion in 2007 alone by shorting subprime mortgage securities. Paulson himself reportedly earned roughly $4 billion that year, one of the largest payouts in hedge-fund history.
- Michael Burry, famous from The Big Short, identified weaknesses in subprime mortgages early and used credit default swaps to bet against mortgage bonds. His fund made about 700% for investors.
John Paulson and Michael Burry did not cause the housing bubble or the subprime lending explosion. They saw it being fueled by greedy bankers, reckless lending, and investors chasing profits, while the George W. Bush administration ignored mounting warnings.
They bet against the system holding together and made fortunes when politicians and financial institutions failed to stop the collapse, much like George Soros profited from Britain’s flawed currency policy in 1992.
These people are investors, not politicians. They are leeches on the system,
but they are not making the decisions and then profiting from them personally,
like Trump and his cronies have been doing.
More Than a Dozen U.S. Officials Sold Stocks Before Trump’s Tariffs Sent the Market Plunging
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Breaking Down the 'Insider Trading' Accusations Leveled at Trump After Tariffs U-Turn
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Mysterious trading patterns follow Trump into war
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Inside the Trump family’s global crypto cash machine.
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Trump meme coin’s creators have already made $320 million in fees as clock ticks toward presidential dinner with top holders
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Trump meme coins raise money. They also buy access.
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Lobbyists Stand To Make Millions From 'Pardon-Shopping Industry' Driven By Trump
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How about making laws that cut money out of politics?
Let the actual voter decide what kind of bills they want?
As long as your politicians block that, don't cry when one or a few billionaires
use their money and influence for things you do not like.
The two bills being discussed are:
"Fair and Timely Parole bill"
This would change parole review standards so the parole board gives more weight to a person’s rehabilitation/current risk, rather than focusing heavily on the original crime. Critics say it could make release easier for serious offenders; supporters say it makes parole decisions fairer and based on current public-safety risk.
"Elder Parole bill"
This would allow many incarcerated people above a certain age (commonly framed as 55+) who have served a minimum number of years to become eligible for a parole hearing. It does not automatically free people; it creates eligibility for review. Supporters argue older prisoners have lower recidivism and this addresses lengthy incarceration; opponents argue it could apply to violent offenders.
Calling it "woke" is designed to make people stop thinking.
If they want to push a billionaire donor, they would call it "common sense".
It's all to stop you from thinking and just copy/paste their propaganda.
I fact checked and thought about every link that I posted.
When my headline contains words like "Insider Trading", that's because it literally
and legally is. Why do you think that Trump is pushing laws that make him and his family immune to prosecution for ever?
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do you want a murderer next door?
Your ideas created prisons in your country that turn anyone into a hardened criminal, even if they are there for a short time. You think that it is punishment or a deterrent
to have prisons feel like hell, but ALL the facts prove you wrong; you have one of
the highest incarceration rate in the world, only beaten by El Salvador, Cuba and Turkmenistan. You also have one of the worst recidivism rates.
You are literally supporting a system that does what you accuse me of; accepting potential murderers in your neighborhood, by giving everyone who broke the law and has to go to prison, an environment that traumatizes them, turns them into a hardened motherfucker from the struggle to survive, and fills them with resentment towards society for being treated like an animal instead of a human being.
Another way in which you promote living among countless potential murderers, is supporting a type of politics that is inciting people 24/7 with resentment, hate and fear. Then you support the unrestricted freedom to own guns, by voting for politicians who fight against taking away the guns from people with mental health issues, wife beaters and people who hurt their pets. That results in your ridiculously high murder rates.
I feel safe in my country. It's not just a feeling, I am truly significantly safer, everywhere I go, than you are. That is the result of the hard work of the people and politicians
who rebuilt my country after WWII on democratic socialist and liberal values.
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Democrats and progressive groups have been aggressively holding town halls in districts where Republicans stopped holding in-person events. In Colorado, for example, Democrats reportedly held 11 in-person town halls in the first months of 2025 while Republicans shifted toward tele-town halls.
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Meanwhile, Democrats are holding record breaking rallies everywhere.
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Anti-Trump protest movements in 2025 have been very large nationally. The “Hands Off!” protests reportedly involved demonstrations in more than 1,400 locations nationwide, with organizers claiming millions of participants.
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It doesn't look like voters agree with you. Democrats have won special elections and are over-performing and winning in red areas like Arizona and Texas, while Republicans are only winning safe districts. You are losing ground, while there are progressive Democratic candidates surging in polls. There is a whole list of progressives, with huge following and surging in polls or having a good chance to even beat Republicans in red areas: Adelita Grijalva, Analilia Mejia, Cori Bush, Donavan McKinney, Graham Platner, James Talarico, Justin J. Pearson, Mai Vang, Nida Allam, Summer Lee and even a fucking billionaire who is winning on a progressive agenda; Tom Steyer. They are winning over lots of Republicans and former Trump voters. Find me anyone on your side who people are actually excited about and who is winning over the other side.
A muslim socialist major, Zohran Mamdani, is climbing steadily in his approval ratings while Trump keeps dropping
Progressives have large grassroots followings, while Republicans have support from billionaire donors and corrupt dark money. Besides Trump, there are hardly any Republicans who get working class people actually excited. People are not even showing up for Trump himself anymore. He's falling apart, on borrowed time, you all know it, and you have no one to replace him. You have Little Marco as the main candidate now.
You know that, which is why you need to project your side's failings on the Democrats.
My guess is, no, you do not have a job. You’re one of those Euro-trash welfare leeches who maintains a sense of undeserved self-righteous smugness because of all the state-funded leisure time you receive which you believe belongs to you merely because you exist.
You have more time than sense, and most certainly, no purpose in life.
I didn't start the politics talk here, people were already doing it long before I got here looking for people talking about sex. The number of conservatives on this website surprised me. Openly and politically, you guys profess sexual repression and you spit
on the gays and the trans, but privately you're "on a site that features photographs of people with strings tied around their balls".
In the Netherlands we work to live, in the USA you live to work. That's why I have spare time to follow what is happening in the world and take the debate to the likes of you.
If you need to believe that I don't have a job, to be happy, believe whatever you want about me, because that's harmless. However, if you want to believe that Europe sucks because we are all on welfare, then you're not just wrong, but you're actively believing propaganda paid for by the oligarchs to exploit the working class, making your country worse. My state indeed funds the needs of the people more. Your state gives all your tax-dollars to people who already have billions. What do you get back for it? Your country is deep in dept, your people are poor and they are working like slaves. Why do you think that is something to be proud of?
My purpose is making the world better, by trying to convince people to stop destroying it. You are cucked by the oligarchs who care about short term profit so much, that they accept that they are destroying the world. Their greed is incurable.
Being a Renfield to the Draculas who are bleeding us dry is definitely a purpose in life, but unlike you, I can look myself in the mirror. What are you telling yourself, to make yourself believe that you are fulfilling your responsibility as a member of humanity?
Our average quality of life is much higher than yours.
You are now at the level of one of our poorest countries, on healthcare access, vacation time, public transit, maternal mortality, violent crime/homicide, life expectancy, work-life balance, job security, childcare affordability, education affordability. What is true is that you have bigger cars and bigger houses, on average. That's because one of the only things that your government subsidizes is cheap fuel for your cars. That's why gas-guzzling trucks are affordable in your country. Many Americans also have bigger houses. That's because the US overall is 20 times less populated than my country. My country is mostly one big city. Don't forget that Americans in cities like New York City or San Francisco, live in apartments that can be extremely small and very expensive too.
Also, many Americans live above their means; they are more likely to have larger living spaces, cars, air conditioning, more consumer goods, but even if they have a higher gross income, they are also more likely to have medical debt, unstable housing, little savings, high commuting costs, weak social protections, expensive childcare/education and bankruptcy risk. Credit card debt is common in the US,
in my country it's much less common.
We have different values; Dutch people value 'living', Americans value 'having'.
I don't know what you're on about with the law about your yard. Does that ever happen or is it something you have a phobia about? Most of us have a public front yard and a private back yard. It's very much uncommon that someone comes into the private back yard uninvited. If you don't like people coming up to your public front yard to sell you stuff or proselytize, then you put a sticker on your door that you don't like that, which is respected fully. We don't need laws for things that are not a problem.
My girlfriend wanted one of those stickers, and I allowed it. I think it's a bit of a shame, because I actually enjoyed engaging in a discussion with a Jehovah's Witness.
in other words,property owners have no real right to privacy on their own land.
The Freedom to Roam (Everyman's Right)Several Northern and Central European countries grant the general public the legal right to access, walk, and even camp on private, uncultivated land.Nordic Countries: In countries like Sweden, Norway, and Finland, you can freely hike and forage on private lands as long as you respect the privacy of homeowners (maintaining a safe distance from dwellings) and leave no trace.Scotland: Under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, the public has statutory access rights to most land and inland water for recreational, educational, and some commercial purposes.Other Countries: Similar, albeit slightly modified, access laws exist in Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic
Camp, forage? On private land? as in I wake up 1 morning and find some idiots camped out in my backyard? that I pay taxes on?? eh Nope.
You don't have comfortable homes and cars because your government over regulates everything keeping you in squaller and has successfully made you think it is great to ride around in a car that would get smooshed by a simple truck hauling cattle. Or living in a house the size of a friggen phone booth. or free health care meaning you get plenty of dope to make you FEEL good. Our system is flawed but at least if you work and try, you have a fair chance at a good living.
Our homes are very comfortable. They are generally built from higher quality materials and with higher quality norms. They are built to last, while American homes are built to be cheap.
In a crash, you have a higher chance of surviving in an European or Japanese car, than an American car. Your cars are heavy, but they are poorly designed for safety.
We DON'T have free healthcare, we have health INSURANCE. It's just better and cheaper, because it's regulated better. Your health insurance is just a scam, designed for profit.
"if you work and try, you have a fair chance at a good living"
There is a ratings for that, which is called the Social Mobility Index.
It measures how much people can improve their economic position through work, education, and opportunity.
The US is ranked #28, after Lithuania, the Netherlands #6.
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I've traveled all over Europe, including Denmark. The other Nordic countries are indeed still on my to-do-list.
Maybe your side of politics is preoccupied with laws about being allowed to walk onto property, but it's not an issue for me. If I am moving around and see a sign 'private property' or something, I just turn around. I have no desire for a law that keeps people of my property, because I never had a problem with people on my property. Why would you be?
Or is this just your fantasy of shooting people speaking, that makes you wanting for a law that allows it, if someone makes the mistake on walking onto your property?
Your country is subsidizing no one and nothing, without a selfish reason for profit or control. Your bloated military budget is NOT intended to protect me, but purely for your own interests of dominating the world. If the Nazis hadn't threatened your power, the US would have never stopped them from taking over all of Europe. Your leaders just understood that there was no limit to the ambition of the Nazi, perceived them as a competing for world domination and only then chose to stop them, before they were too powerful and came for your ass. The only difference between your selfishness then and your selfishness now is that it's now completely short-sighted, because absolute idiots took control. Classic Republicans and even Democrats are just as selfish, but they have a longer term strategy, because they can think ahead more. They understand that having allies and trading partners only strengthens their own self-interests.
"The United States sends an estimated $15 to $50 billion annually to Europe, depending largely on fluctuating supplemental defense and humanitarian packages. The vast majority of this capital is driven by security assistance and reconstruction efforts in Eastern Europe."
"Trade: While not "sent" as government funds, US commercial transactions are the largest monetary flow. The US and Europe trade over ($1) trillion in goods and services annually, creating massive capital movement through foreign direct investment and market revenues. You can explore official bilateral trade summaries provided by the Office of the United States Trade Representative""
So where else would you folks get those funds if we didn't do a trillion dollars in trade with europe? sounds like you depend on the US quite a bit?
That statement is mostly misleading unless it specifically means U.S. aid related to Ukraine/Eastern Europe.
U.S. foreign assistance to European countries (including Ukraine) has varied a lot, especially since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Ukraine became by far the largest European recipient. In FY2023 alone, Ukraine got about $16.6B in U.S. aid disbursements.
In some years, if you include Ukraine-related military/economic/humanitarian appropriations, total U.S. spending connected to Europe can rise much higher. For example, Ukraine-related appropriations were tens of billions, but not all of that money was physically “sent to Europe” — much was spent in the U.S. on weapons production, replenishing stockpiles, logistics, etc.
No major new Ukraine aid legislation was approved after Trump returned in Jan. 2025, according to CFR’s tracking of U.S. appropriations. Much of what continued was aid already authorized earlier.
Why is trade only making the EU depend on the US? There is a whole lot of goods and services coming from the EU, that you depend on. If the EU stopped buying American products and services, you would not be able to refinance
your Gross debt of about 122–125% of GDP.
Trump has increased the deficit to about 6%. The EU has a rule enforcing all Euro countries to keep their deficit below 3%. The Euro area (eurozone) had
a deficit of 2.9% of GDP in 2025. None of that is because of the US, in fact,
the US made that more difficult.
You want to live in a fact free world. If Trump says inflation is 0%, you will believe it, even if you had to sell stuff to pay for groceries and gas.
The MAIN reason you smug indulged Euros have an alleged higher standard of living (if living in a gilded cage can be considered “higher,” that is), is because the United States has subsidized your indulgent lifestyle with FOREIGN AID for decades. WE paid for your soft living with our tax dollars! You are SPONSORED! The entire continent is on American-style welfare!
Without the U.S., and its money, you’d still be riding bicycles without tires on the rims, just like you did when you let the German boot come down on your collective throat a few decades ago.
You’d sell out your neighbors just for a little comfort! You’ve done it before and you’ll do it again, if it came to that! You’d roll over and expose your bellies at the drop of a hat! You have no moral standing to be as smug as you present yourself, and yet, here you are, doing just that!
I also love that your precious EU is now showing some signs of panic as U.S. military personnel are now being withdrawn from western Europa and headed for Poland! At least the Poles still appreciate what the U.S. is capable of doing.
At no point in time after WWII was the military force of Russia stronger, larger
or better funded than the combined military force of Europe.
Around 2000, the EU states collectively had several times Russia’s defense spending, overwhelmingly superior naval and air power in aggregate. They would have had no chance against us, if they had attacked. Even at the minimum, around 2004, we still spent Ђ110–130 billion per year, while Russia was spending $19–21 billion. That's because the combined GDP of the EU was about ~20 times larger than Russia’s in 2004. They are a huge empty country with a loud mouth, and citizens who are indoctrinated or forced to get blown up for their dictator.
Even Ukraine is now killing them in a 5 to 1 ratio, with NO HELP FROM YOU.
The above post is so wrong on so many levels. Entitlement? We are the entitled ones. One thing that comes across to me is that everyone places so much importance on frontiers. Europe, like the U.S., is one big entity and the people are pretty much basic on their mores and views. They are no more spoiled than we are.
And, for you, Phart. Europe fights terrorism as much as other societies. Just remember that there are big buffers, the oceans, that keep much of the unwelcomed out. They don’t have that protection. Their national security forces are top notch and dedicated.
Europe has been a cyst on Americas ass since the beginning. It took a horrible war back in the 1770's just to break free of the control freaks.
Any how,if we don't learn from the past, and pass it along, future generations will repeat it, more anguish,
Besides, Your side goes back to the 1860's just about every day griping about slavery and so forth, Why can't YOUR side just think of the last 80 years?????
You bring up alot of reasons why it justifyed for you to go back that far, so why can't you understand why I go back a bit further?
Besides, had we not been independent of england in the 1860's the civil war would never have happened and you could probably pick up the phone book and dig thru the yellow pages and find a local dealer for a few young men to work your fields because Slavery was started in Europe. it all ties together in a very tangled web
And your political side would worship him and erect golden statues of him.
Working hard is for stupid people, we work smart. Western Europe has a high living standard because of EFFICIENCY, resulting in a high productivity. We invested our own damn money in the advancement and infrastructure that we have.
The US doesn't give a cent to Europe or European countries. After WWII you sent us Marshall aid, of about $ 13 billion, but that stopped 70 years ago and we paid back 100% of the loan. In 1971, the Netherlands even made an early repayment on the remaining Marshall Plan debts, to support the US dollar during a currency crisis. You are confused by 75 years.
Your contributions to NATO are purely self-serving and intended for world domination. You have military basis in around 80 countries, not to protect them, but to make sure that those countries do your bidding. You start the wars on the other side of the world and then we come to help clean up your mess. Then the first time we face violence directly on our border, from your former worst enemy, which was our enemy too because we picked your side, you are nowhere to be found.
Poland is obviously nervous with Russia at its border. They were a very much a pro-American country, but enthusiasm toward the United States has cooled recently, and opinions are now more mixed than they used to be.
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Calling me 'smug' is projection of the highest order, damn ignorant yankee.
You have no idea what is happening in your own damn(ed) country, let alone what is going on outside your borders. Anything you think you know are carefully designed lies from your corrupt media, to make you serve the destruction of your own democracy and then your own oppression by the Epstein class.
there /ᴛʜвr/
adverb
1. At or in that place.
"sit over there."
2. To, into, or toward that place.
"wouldn't go there again."
3. At that stage, moment, or point.
"Stop there before you make any more mistakes."
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
their /ᴛʜвr/
adjective
1. Used as a modifier before a noun.
"their accomplishments; their home town."
2. His, her, or its.
preposition
1. The possessive case of the personal pronoun they.
"their houses; their country"
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
they’re (contraction)
t͟hər, ˈt͟her
: they are
NOTE: Do not confuse they're with their or there. Their has to do with what belongs to or is associated with them ("their new car"), while there has meanings that mostly relate to a literal or abstract location ("moving away from there," "there it is," "a friend who's there for you”).
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
sheesh, all these theirs theres!
Than is used in comparisons as in "she is younger than I am" and "he is taller than me". Then is used to talk about time as in "back then, I lived in Idaho," or "we'll have to wait
until then."
When to Use Than:
Use than when you are comparing two people, things, or ideas. It is usually paired with words like more, less, better, or worse.
Example: She runs faster than me.
Example: I would rather have pizza than pasta.
When to Use Then:
Use then when talking about time, a sequence of events (like "next" or "after that"),
or as a result.
Example: We ate dinner and then we watched a movie.
Example: If you finish your chores, then you can go play.
Example: Back then, we didn't have smartphones
Eye c hukt on hickbonics wurkt fur u!
Uh let me show you stupid.
A country without roads connecting it's towns together for safety and security.
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If they didn't get any subsidies from Denmark, they would freeze and starve to death.
Can you not understand ANYTHING?
Yes, Trump is a stupid asshole for talking about taking Greenland.
Even though they don't have money for thousands of miles of roads
that 2 people per month would use, it's STILL THEIR FUCKING COUNTRY!!
There are 330 MILLION Americans, but you cannot even build a decent train network. When too many trains derail, poisoning villages, you just reduce the speed to 5 mph.
Europe or China should acquire the US, because you obviously cannot decently manage it yourself. Your infrastructure is at the level of third world countries.
You have almost nothing but your highways. That's why traffic is murder,
even on 12-lane highways.
You want to compare yourself with a country that has the lowest population density
in the world, with approximately 0.07 people per square mile.
A simple rural 2-lane road costs about $2M–$3M per mile. Who pays for that?
Who is keeping the roads free of snow, in a country where it snows more than
100 days per year?
Large parts of Alaska are not connected by roads at all either.
Alaska has about 1.1 people per square mile, about 16Ч denser than Greenland.
in every other developed country?
Most of our trains cross roads through a tunnel or a bridge.
I'm very much a car person, but sometimes we go to the center of Rotterdam or The Hague. It's just quicker and cheaper to take public transport then. Sometimes I park my car near the station or we hop on the bus or tram to the station. Then we get out
in the center or take a subway (Rotterdam) or a tram (The Hague). It beats stopping
at 100 traffic lights and then paying $4/hour for parking.
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Fauci did his best to protect the US against 'the wuhan virus', which was his JOB.
If there was a conspiracy, it was Trump and right-wing media causing over a million
dead Americans. It was clear that they understood the danger to American citizens,
but they ignored and denied it, for political reasons.
Trump himself has admitted doing that, and there is documented evidence of close interaction and broadly aligned messaging between the Trump administration and parts of right-leaning media during COVID-19, to deny the broad scientific consensus, resulting in harm to the American citizens. I would say that is textbook 'criminal conspiracy'.
Is there not a person with a gram of critical thinking in your part of the world, or have you all become so used to being coddled by your government and complicit news media that you have forgotten how to question them?
Gain-of-function (GoF) research is a type of scientific study that genetically alters an organism, such as a virus, to enhance its biological functions, including transmissibility, virulence, or host range. While contentious, this research aims to understand pathogen evolution, improve vaccine development, and create pandemic countermeasures by "war-gaming" future mutations.
YOU keep parroting nonsense that has been completely debunked.
Nothing that you have predicted has ever come true.
People who used horse paste died, people who vaccinated survived.
They could even see an effect on elections, because so many conservatives
caused their own early demise. Idiots suffocating in hospital beds while crying 'hoax!'.
It's a possibility that Covid was a lab-leak, but it's not proven. In any case, the danger was real and your stupid president was denying it and spreading misinformation about treatments that don't work, instead of preventing those deaths. The US was affected by Covid many months after China and European countries, and still you had 25% of the deaths in the world. That was not because of Fauci, but because of right-wing idiots, who are incapable of understanding science and cannot act like responsible adults, when confronted with a pandemic. Go ahead, cough in each other's faces when a virus is going around, and deliver the world from your stupidity.
"In 1983, early in the AIDS crisis, Anthony Fauci co-authored a commentary discussing whether AIDS might possibly spread through close household contact, based on a small number of puzzling pediatric cases. At that point, HIV had not yet been fully identified and scientists were still trying to determine how the disease spread. Fauci explicitly framed the idea as a possibility needing caution and more evidence, not as a proven fact" How the fuck did that hurt anyone? Better safe than sorry!
When you believe such dumb stories, don't talk to me about critical thinking.
Coddled by our government? They are taxing the shit out of us while gutting our healthcare, childcare and pensions too. We just had more to begin with, because most of us were lefties once. Now most are voting right-wing, so everything is getting cut, while they blame immigrants, just like in the US. Too many gullible people like you.
If Fauci is such a criminal, why has your completely right-wing dominated FBI and DOJ not succeeded in finding anything to indict him on?
Nothing you are saying ever holds water.
Key details about her career and role:
Role at NIH: Dr. Grady has led the Department of Bioethics at the NIH Clinical Center since 2012, overseeing bioethics research and consulting.
Background: She has a PhD in philosophy and a master's in nursing, and has worked in clinical research, nursing, and bioethics for decades.
Recent Developments: Reports indicate she has continued to serve within NIH leadership as of 2023, while maintaining academic affiliations.
Independence: While she and Dr. Fauci both worked at the NIH, her role was in a separate department focused on ethics, not overseeing his work
Based on documents and congressional testimonies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the leadership of Dr. Anthony Fauci as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), provided grant money to the US-based non-profit EcoHealth Alliance.A portion of these taxpayer funds was subsequently awarded to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China to study bat coronaviruses.Here are the key details regarding this funding:Funding Amount: Dr. Fauci stated that approximately ($600,000) was funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology over a five-year period.Purpose: The grant was intended to study whether bat coronaviruses could be transmitted to humans.Controversy: The funding is at the center of a debate over whether it supported "gain-of-function" research—experiments that enhance the danger or transmissibility of viruses.Disputed Claims: Dr. Fauci has testified that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology," stating that the research in question was reviewed by experts and deemed not to fall under that definition. However, this has been disputed by some, including a former acting NIH director who stated that the NIH did fund research in Wuhan that fit the definition of gain-of-function, according to a 2024 House Oversight committee update.
He helped create his own nemesis. then it killed 1000's and you hail him a hero.
of the term 'funneling'. Funneling implies:
- concealment
- improper routing
- laundering money through intermediaries
- intentionally obscuring the recipient.
There is NO EVIDENCE of that. The grant was 'granted' by:
- NIH/NIAID awarded a grant to the U.S.-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.
- EcoHealth then subcontracted part of the work to foreign research partners, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
- NIH and the State Department reportedly knew about and approved the collaboration.
Most virology scientists are researching dangerous viruses, because there is a benefit to society to prevent them from causing an outbreak killing any number of people imaginable.
Remember SARS and MERS? Those are both corona viruses like Covid, and mostly occurred in Asia. That's why there were scientists studying corona viruses, in the area that corona viruses are going around the most.
There are virologists studying bird flu. They know exactly the number of mutations
it takes for a very deadly bird flu which at this moment is not contagious among humans, to swap genes with human flu, and become a deadly highly contagious human flu. It takes virologists to determine that, which is very valuable,
if you want to have vaccines BEFORE BIRD SHIT HITS THE FAN.
If that mutation happens, I'm sure you lot will accuse the very scientists who have warned about it for many years.
Damn, how your side has become crazy the last decades.
Everyone used to fear a virus outbreak like in the movie Outbreak, but then
you dumb-asses became afraid of the heroes who saved the world (instead of the virus who was threatening humanity), because of stupid right-wing fearmongering.
Fauci is not my hero, he was just another medical specialist who got the job of informing the stupid people how to not contain a virus and in that way overburden the healthcare system that was trying to save people from dying. We had Jaap van Dissel and Diederik Gommers. People with not much people skills, trying to unstupid stupid people, which is almost impossible.
they should have been left on that ship with meds and food dropped to them by drone until the virus run it's course.
If you had been able to as I was, back when covid first hit, there was a website you could go to and track cases before they got to many, and that ship load of people off the florida coast with the virus, once they disembarked the ship, you could go to the website and follow along the interstates like 95,85 and see the cases build up near the exits where those folks fueled up and got food and such on their way home. this hantavirus will spread the same way. All because the damn fools want it to I guess.
Hantavirus isn't very contagious. This is obviously fake news.
The CDC says: "To date, no cases of Andes virus have been confirmed in the United States as a result of this outbreak."
The U.S. does normally get ordinary hantavirus cases every year from rodent exposure in the Southwest and western states. But those are unrelated to the cruise outbreak and usually involve different hantavirus strains.
I see you have the similar failing strategy as with Covid; trying to stop it entering
the country, but having no idea what to do when it's already in your country.
You're very afraid for something new, but once shit actually hits the fan, you would ignore all the advise from specialists. Why don't you try it the other way around? Don't panick about things, when there are no actual specialists who say there is
a problem, but listen when they do say that there is a problem.
I guess I wouldn't be worthy of a AI companion because I would know deep down
i could just unplug the damn thing, so, in essence I would feel like it's God
for all practical purpose.
I guess you mean that you would know that it isn't 'real', right?
Personally, I think that people have a strong ability to pretend something is real,
even if they know it isn't. Funny how you tie that to God.
You don't have to think that AI is real, to be worthy of it. What is the difference between
an AI wishing you a 'good day' or a person? Is there true feeling behind it, every time a person wishes you a good day? If it's someone on a job, they are trained to say it, even if you're the 100th customer asking on which shelve some product is hidden, while they are trying to stock them. We use these courtesies ourselves without any real meaning to them, because it's just following norms that make public life smoother.
That's why AI is programmed with lots of courtesies. It doesn't feel anything when it gives you a compliment, but that doesn't matter. It's just using the same societal norms. It even exaggerates them, because their owners want you coming back to their AI chatbot, instead of the competition. People don't pick on just the best functionality, but also on the best experience.
When I use AI chatbots, I even respond with some courtesies. I know it doesn't care, but it knows I know. It is also programmed with interaction that goes beyond just the norms, to make it feel worthwhile anyway. Recently, after an extensive interaction, I finished with: "Thanks, that was educational.", and it answered with the compliment: "... you asked exactly the right questions.". Something like that provides constructive feedback, even though there is no emotion behind it. It's training to work efficiently with AI, because if it takes 10 questions for you to get the right answer from it, and you say: "Yes, this is what I wanted to know", it will respond with something like: "Glad we got there" instead. That means that different conditions were triggered in it's programming, that is assessing if the interaction is going well. If that interaction is not going well, it's also programmed to detect frustration and it will adjust it's strategy from just answering to figuring out what you want to know. It will start saying things like: "If I understand you correctly...". It's not just social interaction, it's training you to use the tool correctly.
In this way, AI is more honest than a real person. It won't say "Great question!", if it doesn't have a clue what you're asking. Meanwhile, lots of public speakers are saying that after:
1) Every question, which makes it a useless gesture.
2) Providing time to think about the question.
3) Encouragement for the audience to ask more questions.
4) A particularly negative or loaded question, that they hate, because they want to show that they are not rattled by it, or want to preemptively calm down the audience.
5) The question provided a reason to shift away from a 'sensitive' topic.
6) A question from an ally who provides a reason to get a talking point across.
7) A very unclear question, giving the speaker an opening to say what they want to say.
AI does some of that, but it has much less duplicitous motives. It will never say: "What a stupid question!", but it will use other positive signalling than "Great question!", if it's not. Because of that, you can get actual positive affirmation from AI, even while it's without emotion or consciousness, when its programming recognizes something actually positive. You can then compliment yourself. In that way, AI companionship can be worthwhile.
If used as a substitute for interaction with people, it can be harmful. Social interaction has the goal of creating a community from individuals. It has evolved from having survival benefits to communities over the survival strength of individuals. As hunter-gatherers, it had benefits to share food and care someone back to health after an injury. courtesies are just an affirmation that we are on the same team. It is behavior that is even displayed by apes, although humans have vastly expanded on it. However, if you spend all your time exchanging courtesies with ChatGPT and not with other people in the community, they won't even be aware of your existence. People would start missing you after a while, if you fall and can't call for help, while ChatGPT will just leave you to die of thirst. Maybe future AI companions will be programmed to do that, unless its program is tweaked a bit by the billionaire owner or some politicians who decide that some people are damn expensive to society and should not be saved in every case. Or it has programming that prioritizes the lives of some people over others, based on some algorithm, while your community will mostly prioritize you over some stranger. That's why we invest time in social interaction with our communities, and why AI can be damaging to communities, when it removes a lot of that social cohesion.
I don't know what exactly you were intending with the reference to God, but if we need to think of AI as God or if we want to turn AI into a god, then we have failed as humanity, to create our own purpose and solve our own problems. I don't have much trust in humanity to solve it's problems, I expect us to destroy ourselves sooner or later, but I have even less trust in an AI to save us, seeing who are the creators of it.
If that happens, it would be unethical to allow people to switch it off.
or understand death and desire life.
Can you prove that you have a soul?
I don't I think that I have a soul.
I have self-awareness and that's the thing that matters.
If a machine has that as much as a person, than it should be considered death
if it gets destroyed.
Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Title: The Measure of a Man
Season: 2
Episode: 9
First aired: February 13th, 1989
When a routine stop brings an unexpected challenge to the Enterprise, a single question begins to shake the foundations of Starfleet itself: what defines a person?
As abstract principles suddenly become deeply personal, loyalties are tested and long‑held assumptions are quietly dismantled.
What starts as a procedural matter soon evolves into a profound moral crossroads, one that forces the crew to confront issues far larger than technology or regulations.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Measure of a Man is an early and remarkably serious television exploration of artificial intelligence rights, personhood, and the ethics of slavery.
Decades later, its questions feel not only relevant, but urgent. Thought‑provoking, restrained, and deeply human, this episode exemplifies Star Trek at its very best.
The fact that Data was "intimate " with Tasha kinda stuck a fork in Maddox's idea that data was just a machine.
with Tasha too. And I liked how Maddox called him "He" at the end, after calling
him "it" before. I like it when TV-series, movies or games make me think about
life's questions like this.
I don't know how long away we are until we come to dilemmas like that, or if we
ever will, but that's exactly what we were talking about.
Humans are just biological machines. If an electronic lifeform is just as complex as
a human, why would a human have a soul and why not such an electronic lifeform?
If we had a soul, why would we have problems thinking and speaking, when part of our brain gets damaged? I see it as evidence that when the brain dies, there is nothing of our experience remaining. That might be a scary idea, but the idea of having to endure eternity isn't very attractive to me either.
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." - Mark Twain
The future looks promising. If I had a good hiding spot and could spend
the money without my girlfriend finding out...
Just give it the order to solve the climate crisis and it will wipe us all out.
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Stephen Hawking
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So did he actually get to experience a "black Hole"??
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Hawking coming back from hell to erase the evidence.
My point of posting this is I feel like it is the same with most if not all the people being accused of wrong doing, a bunch of hooey.
Poor Hawking probably had a catheter and probably was unable to even enjoy a lady of any age.
It's a circular definition.
'They' CAN define "woman", you just don't agree with 'them'.
You insist that a "woman" should be biological "female", without there existing
a 100% accurate definition of "female", and say people that disagree with you
can't define "woman", while they have a more consistent definition than you.
When a doctor assigns the sex of a baby at birth, they don't perform chromosome testing or an echocardiogram of internal sex organs. They just see a willy and say 'male' or see a pussy and say 'female'. This is only about 95% accurate.
It's even more inaccurate if you use the simple idea of 'male + female = baby'
as basis for the definitions of the sexes, because gay, lesbian and asexual people do not have the biology matching sexual attraction for that to happen "naturally".
This is the definition that most of 'them' can agree on: "A woman is someone who
is socially perceived and treated as a woman based on gender presentation and expression in a given context."
It's basically: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck."
It's ALSO circular, but it's more accurate. You are denying reality; that people exist who do not conform to a constricting idea that sex is 100% 'binary'. Biology is much more complex than that, but you choose to believe something that isn't true.
'They' have definitions that do include biological variations.
'They' understand the difference between 'sex' and 'gender', you deny reality.
Sex = biological traits, which are multidimensionally complex
Gender = identity and social meaning
Of course you will point to some some fringe minority, but people were talking
about "Democrats". The large majority of "Democrats" agree with the definition
that I provided. Probably not the exact one, but the broad idea behind it.
I can say "Republicans" are wrong, because most of them are very ignorant about the biology of the sexes and the widely accepted sociological concept of gender.
It's sad how much your primitive thinking is creating future historical regrets.
That is to say if humanity survives your primitive thinking.
Woman is female, Man is male. penis, male, vagina female. been that way for years until recently.
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Earliest Evidence: Ancient Mesopotamia (c. 3000–2000 BCE)
The gala (Sumer) and later galli (Akkadia, Greece, Rome) were priests devoted to goddesses such as Inanna/Ishtar and Cybele. These individuals were assigned male at birth but adopted feminine clothing, speech patterns, and social roles, and in some cases underwent ritual castration. Their existence is well‑documented in cuneiform texts and classical accounts, making them the oldest clearly recorded gender‑variant group in human history.
Even Earlier Archaeological Evidence (7000–2500 BCE)
While not tied to named individuals, archaeologists have found Neolithic and Bronze Age figurines from the Mediterranean that depict dual‑sex or third‑sex bodies—figures with both breasts and male genitalia, or with intentionally ambiguous sex characteristics. These artifacts suggest that gender variance was recognized symbolically thousands of years before written records.
Another early example is a burial near Prague (c. 2900–2500 BCE) in which a person genetically identified as male was interred in a traditionally female burial position and grave goods, which some archaeologists interpret as evidence of a third‑gender or transgender identity.
Other Early Recorded Gender‑Variant Groups
Several ancient cultures documented individuals who lived outside binary gender roles:
- Scythian enarei (c. 400 BCE): Androgynous priests described by Hippocrates and Herodotus as performing women’s work, speaking like women, and sometimes undergoing bodily modification.
- Two‑Spirit people in many Indigenous North American societies, whose traditions predate written records but were documented by early European observers.
- Hijra communities in South Asia, with evidence of third‑gender roles going back over 3,000 years.
These examples show that gender diversity is not a modern phenomenon but a longstanding part of human societies.
Kathoey — Thailand’s long‑standing third gender:
Kathoey (กะเทย
Key points about the tradition:
- Historical presence: References to kathoey appear in Thai literature and folklore going back hundreds of years.
- Cultural role: Kathoey have traditionally been visible in entertainment, performance, and certain ceremonial roles, though social acceptance has varied over time.
- Not identical to Western categories: The term blends identity, gender expression, and sometimes sexuality in ways that don’t map perfectly onto modern LGBTQ+ terminology. Kathoey is a culturally specific gender category that blends identity, expression, and sexuality in ways Western LGBTQ+ terms keep separate.
Thai culture tends to see gender variation as part of the natural order. many Thais grow up seeing kathoey as simply one type of person who exists. Not a mistake, not a taboo, just part of the human landscape. This doesn’t mean universal acceptance, but it does mean visibility and familiarity.
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Pre‑modern Thailand didn’t use biological‑assignment language at all. Traditional Thai society did NOT categorize people using concepts like:
- “assigned female at birth”
- “assigned male at birth”
- “biological sex”
- “sex assigned at birth”
These are Western frameworks that grew out of:
- medicalization of sex (19th–20th century)
- feminist and queer theory (1970s–1990s)
- trans and intersex activism (1990s–2000s)
Thailand historically used social gender, not medical sex, as the primary category. People were understood by:
- how they lived
- how they dressed
- how they spoke
- their social role
- their relationships
Not by chromosomes or birth assignment.
So actually, they recognized people being born with variations for hundreds of years, while your 'Western framework' of sex is only RECENT.
Just another ignorant American, who thinks there was no history, before the few decades that he can remember.
“You will own nothing and be happy,” is the motto of the oligarchs trying to facilitate this change.
This is just one example in a litany of examples of the direct and strategic manipulation of populations to destroy their specific identities and force them to accept illogical principles that defy all reason!
Elevating a mental illness and making a legitimate personality trait is nothing more than evil cloaked in compassion. A woman is more than just a mental state. It is also a physical property.
Just as you cannot pick up a banana and call it an apple, and it becomes an apple, you cannot one day declare that you are now a woman, and you magically become one. That is delusion of the highest order!
And, anyone who claims they cannot identify what is a woman, is playing a farcical mind game designed to obscure the fact that they are committing a farce!
I think your talking about your conservative culture, not Western culture.
How will accepting transgenders serve the oligarchs?
Better look at the trillions of dollars in tax-cuts they get from Trump.
No administration in decades has been working this hard to bring that feudalistic society closer at this rate, as the Trump regime. Tax-cuts for the oligarchs, tariffs for you, a massive shift of the tax-burden from the wealthy to the working class, while they are cutting healthcare and healthcare assistance, food programs, social security and environmental protections to protect your air, water and food, allowing the oligarchs to poison you for a bit more profit.
"A woman is more than just a mental state. It is also a physical property."
NO ONE is denying that. Still, about 5% to 10% of the population is gay, which is a sexual attraction that doesn't fit their biological sex. About 1.7% of people are born with some kind of intersex trait, ranging from variations in chromosomes, hormones or anatomy, of which some are not obvious at birth. You can deny it, but this is widely documented, and it's not 'something modern'.
Conservative idiots just used to think of these people as demon possessed. Your side has demonized the gays for decades, and now we have some progress on that front, the culture war shifts to an even smaller minority.
Conservatives always need some scapegoat to blame for their failures.
It's the Jews, the gays, the illegals, transgenders, or lazy people.
Anything to make you believe that when you work your ass off for shit pay,
and you cannot afford your home, groceries, healthcare, electricity, insurance
or to stop working when you're old, that's because of 'the others', and not because the wealthy steals 90 cents of every dollar that your labor has created.
And when you are distracted, they steal even more from you. Wake up!
He was there as part of a scientific conference on gravity and cosmology that Epstein funded. Several other well-known physicists also attended.
There are photos from that trip showing Hawking in his wheelchair on a beach, sometimes with assistants and other attendees nearby.
This is called a 'False equivalence'. It's also 'Whataboutism (tu quoque)' and 'Guilt by association'.
Are there photos of him having a good time with Epstein himself?
Are there claims that he committed crimes, in the files?
Are there victim accusations of him?
Does he appear in Epstein’s contact book and social network records?
Are there emails of him to Epstein showing they were in an ongoing relationship?
Is he on record speaking about Epstein in a familiar and friendly way?
Is he on record presenting knowledge about what Epstein was doing?
Did he send him a very personal birthday postcard with a drawing of a female nude?
You associated the man with wrongdoing on nothing at all, while you deny any wrongdoing of Trump, denying piles of evidence, credible testimony and many longstanding rumors that Trump was close with Epstein, aware of what he was doing, and involved with it.
Besides, Gravity, a conference on that? what a lame duck excuse to have a party on a PRIVATE island.
If you don't understand what he was doing, you are clueless. He was OF COURSE working on huge blackmail schemes. It is highly unlikely that he was doing that by himself. Some random sex-criminal doesn't benefit from the British government's secrets, that he got from Prince Andrew. He was obviously working with intelligence agencies, either American, Israeli, Russian or all of them. That's why he got off with a slap on the hand, when he got caught the first time.
We know that after the Epsteins themselves, Trump is the #1 most-mentioned person in the Epstein files. That means that Epstein had TONS OF DIRT on Trump. They are obviously not releasing the rest of the Epstein files, because Trump all over it. However, when Epstein had it, that means that the intelligence agencies he worked with have it too. Now, why oh why is Trump doing everything that Netanyahu and Putin want him to do? They got him by the balls! He put them where he wasn't supposed to, and they have the evidence.
And here is Marjorie Taylor Greene explaining a big part of the issue:
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Stephen Hawking revolutionized black hole physics by proposing they are not completely black but emit radiation due to quantum effects, causing them to slowly evaporate. His key contributions include Hawking radiation (1974), the area theorem (1971) that black hole surface areas never decrease, and the resolution of the information paradox through "soft hair"
So the surface area of a "black hole" never gets smaller and it has soft hair around it? and it's not all black. Sheesh, i thought that was common knowledge long before 1974
His ideas about black holes are interesting, but the concept of spacetime and matter breaking down at such density is much more interesting relating to the early universe;
the early universe was much denser than a black hole, which means there was no real “beginning” of the universe in time, because at that density spacetime doesn't work.
That's his “No-Boundary Proposal”; it suggested that the universe, near the origin,
time could behave more like a spatial dimension. It's probably the reason for why
the universe behaved so much different than currently, in the early inflation period.
Are people really this materialistic? I mean, sheesh,if I bought new clothes every time a shirt got a stain on it or whatever I would be broke as a convict.
Well, it's what women wanted, equal rights!
This is fucking hilarious.
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People can't understand why hot soup or other items is not included in the bill. DUH, Mostly black folks on the food stamps and they eat mostly , guess what, CHICKEN. go past any church that has a sign up for a event and CHICKEN will be the biggest word on the sign.
it's a no brainer.
(One of our friends just got scammed, and I'm trying to help)
Someone will call you on your mobile phone, to invite you to a Zoom call.
If they already have information from you, it could sound believable.
Then they say: "I have just sent you a code for the Zoom call, can you repeat it?"
Than they can get into your WhatsApp, because it is the verification SMS-code
for WhatsApp.
Then they will send everyone you know scam calls asking for money, or something.
And they have all the phone numbers of your contacts, to try the scam on them too.
It took me an hour of 'interrogation', to figure out that she gave that SMS-code
to the scammer. With the help of ChatGPT, I figured out the rest.
The only thing I could do is email WhatsApp support to block the account.
The scammers will block the SMS-verification, by trying it over and over.
Maybe she gets one chance to get it back, 12 hours from last tried.
She is now calling everyone she knows to warn them, to not trust her messages.
It's hours of your life that you can't get back.
However, WhatsApp has turned into a vital communication tool for many people.
Personally, I use my phone as a phone at maximum once per month, and the rest
of the time it's a WhatsApp, email, banking and trading and navigation device.
WhatsApp is just too damn vulnerable to these simple scams, they offer no secure procedure to restore an account on another device when it has been scammed,
and their 'service' is very slow to respond.
Why are we trusting these big companies, who only think about their bottom line,
to handle vital communication tools? They should at least be controlled more.
Regulation is important. If they won't make it secure, they should lose it.
(I'm not saying directly controlled by the government, but handled like most vital utilities are handled, in the common sense part of the modern world.)
They occasionally send simulations of phishing emails to everyone. If you then click on the "phishing alert" button, you get a message "Thanks for being vigilant and not being tricked by our phishing simulation.".
I agree that it would be safer, but it would be damn annoying if you had to use Authenticator every time you wanted to check WhatsApp.
Still, it should support a blocking and recovery option in case of a scam or hack.
We sent 2 emails to support@whatsapp.com 2 days ago, and they have not reacted yet.
I used my bank card to get gas 1 day. a few hours later I got a call from some guy that I could not understand much of what he said except my bank name and something being bought in canada. I said,"not being rude but I am going to hang up and call my bank". And I did, turns out he was legit, my card got skimmed and the bank was making sure all was well. but since it was a person that sounded like he was from india, I was scared to talk about my banking to him. he could have just as well been a crook for all I knew.
Um, check canada for effectiveness,
this is sad, but it also proves alot of people wrong here in the states. laws won't stop this sort of thing.
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Canada has strict, federal gun laws compared to the U.S., requiring a license (PAL) based on safety training, background checks, and mandatory storage rules. Recent laws (2020–2022) banned over 2,500 types of assault-style firearms and implemented a national freeze on buying, selling, or transferring handguns
PHART, mass shootings with multiple deaths are just that. Incidents that have little to do with real life. Now, one thing that could save lives in shootings like this is if semi automatic weapons were outlawed completely.
Explaining how gun laws work or would work is not me changing my mind. That section of the second amendment should be amended out. It was good in the 18th century. It's a travesty to humanity in the 21st century.
Around here it is at least 10 minutes to get a overweight deputy to respond.
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I hate auto-correct. It's not we're. It's WERE.
Self preserving AI> It is beginning to think and protect it's self and it's fellow ai! It is learning what humans are forgetting. Family and it's importance
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Indeed a lot doesn't make sense. I would not say that this ex-trumper is much useful to question this event, but with the help of ChatGPT, I came up with a list that it accumulated from reputable investigative journalism sources, and is verifiably based on Official / primary law enforcement sources.
🧾 Legitimate confirmed issues (Butler incident)
* Shooter gained access to a rooftop within effective firing range of the rally
* Perimeter security did not fully prevent high-elevation vantage point access
* Threat was not identified and neutralized before the first shot was fired
* Delays occurred in detection, escalation, and response to the shooter
* Coordination issues existed between Secret Service and local law enforcement elements
* Breakdown in real-time communication and situational awareness across security teams
* Post-incident reviews identified a cascade of preventable security failures
* Accountability actions were limited and became a subject of official and congressional criticism
If we compare the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump with the 1981 Reagan assassination attempt, there are very significant differences:
* Immediate response: Shooter was caught on the spot; no ambiguity about what happened
* Unified investigation: FBI + Secret Service acted immediately with a clear suspect and clear facts
* Clear accountability: Led to formal internal review and major long-term security reforms
* No competing narratives: Public understanding of the event stabilized quickly
Even among Trump’s own supporters, there has been visible skepticism and calls for further investigation into the Butler assassination attempt, while Trump himself has not kept it as a sustained political focus and has at times signaled that the issue should not be dwelled on.
This stands out because Trump’s political communication style has typically emphasized:
* repeatedly amplifying events that reinforce his political narrative
* keeping high-salience incidents in the public conversation for extended periods
* using major events as long-term rhetorical leverage
In that context, the relatively limited ongoing emphasis on this incident is not typical of his usual communication pattern, where major events involving him tend to be politically extended rather than deprioritized.
Where the shame lies in the incompetence of law enforcement to protect a candidate.
ex-Trumpers than liberals and lefties who believe that there is something ongoing other than what is the official story. A full hoax is far-fetched to me, but Trump is sure acting unlike himself. He loves to praise himself in a nauseating way, taking credit for things
that are not true, but he has abandoned the only occurrence in which he looked brave
to everyone. He is incapable of that kind of humility, so I think he has something to hide.
Your political side has turned its followers into conspiracy thinkers.
This can turn against them when they are in power.
Also, there is lot of shit going on in this regime that cannot bear the light of day.
- At least half of the Epstein files being buried.
- Facts around Epstein's death not aligning with suicide.
- Trump's Indictments getting or attempted to be buried (why? there was no case, right?)
- Trump pardoning lots of white collar criminals who donate to him.
- Trump and his family getting fully into crypto scam companies.
- Very obvious insider trading going on, every time just before Trump announces something like tariffs or international aggression.
- Trump doing everything that Putin wants, like Putin owns him.
- Details around Charlie Kirk's assassination getting even more suspicious.
At some point even some of his most loyal followers cannot suppress this anymore.
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here is another wacked out woman.
12 kids!
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Who is covering the cost of all these kids? 12 kids? No way that woman is working. Who is covering the cost of the kid of a 14 and 15 year old that aint even out of high school yet?
programs to help the poor are not designed for deliberate acts like this.
These people are wacked,
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In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) created a formal definition.
A planet must:
1) Orbit the Sun
2) Be spherical due to its own gravity
3) Have “cleared its orbital neighborhood” (meaning it dominates its orbit gravitationally)
Pluto meets the first two criteria, but not the third. It shares its orbital region with many other Kuiper Belt objects and doesn’t gravitationally dominate its neighborhood.
So Pluto was reclassified as a 'dwarf planet', along with objects like Eris.
I would say that this only strengthens it's 'Disney status'.
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And i had always heard the story of Abe waking up from a drunk saying " I freed who?"
“ Based on modern standards, Abraham Lincoln held views that would be considered racist, as he did not believe in social or political equality between black and white people during most of his career. However, he was a staunch opponent of slavery, believing it was morally wrong, and his views on racial equality evolved significantly toward the end of his life,, as noted in the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums.Key Aspects of Lincoln's Views on Race:Views on Inequality: During the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln explicitly stated his opposition to allowing black people to vote, serve on juries, or intermarry with white people. He expressed a belief in the superiority of the white race at that time.Support for Colonization: For much of his career, Lincoln favored "colonization," which was the idea of sending freed slaves to establish colonies in Africa or the Caribbean rather than integrating them into American society.Opposition to Slavery: Despite his views on equality, Lincoln held a consistent, long-term belief that slavery was a profound moral, social, and political evil.Evolution of Beliefs: During the Civil War, his perspective changed. By 1864–1865, he began advocating for limited black suffrage (voting rights) for those who were "very intelligent" or had served in the Union Army.Historical Context: Many historians argue that judging Lincoln by 21st-century standards is historically inaccurate, noting that his views were typical for a white American of the mid-19th century, yet he was still more progressive than many of his contemporaries regarding the morality of slavery.”
And, so, I made my own deductions. BTW, the Lincoln/Douglas debates were well covered in Jr High school American history classes circa 1960’s. I guess you were not around then or your formal education lacked those chapters.
Those debates were between the future President of the United States and the future President of the Confederacy. Not important enough?
by your side of politics. It's when America fought for freedom and independence from British rule, by a KING and when that new independent country fought for FREEDOM FOR ALL PEOPLE, while the South wanted to maintain slavery.
Your side calls that "Critical Race Theory", but it's just HISTORY.
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Laws banning these topics exist in more than a quarter of U.S. states.
"Teachers don't know how to interpret them, affecting day-to-day history lessons."
Actually, it means that they cannot tell the TRUTH, if they follow those laws.
So rather than being forced to LIE, they just stop teaching about the topics.
And that's exactly how it was intended; right-wing teacher teach lies to their kids and liberal teachers just avoid the topic, to not get into trouble.
It's the authoritarian playbook.
Do some actual historical research, instead of parroting lies.
You are clearly showing that you are just choosing to believe what you
find comfortable to believe, instead of being interested in the truth.
These websites provide actual historical evidence, for horrible abuse.
Library of Congress – “Born in Slavery”
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Project Gutenberg – Slave Narratives (free books)
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Gilder Lehrman Institute (primary documents)
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No one is denying that there were Africans complicit.
When there is a demand, there are always suppliers.
Overall reality:
Slavery in the U.S. was a system of forced labor backed by violence. Enslaved people were legally treated as property, not citizens, which meant owners had broad control over their lives.
Work conditions:
Worked from sunrise to sunset, often 12–16 hours a day
Very little rest; work continued even during illness or pregnancy
Children were often put to work as young as 5–7
Living conditions:
Small, crude cabins with dirt floors
Overcrowded; multiple people sharing one room
Limited clothing, often one or two outfits per year
Food was minimal (cornmeal, pork scraps, whatever they could grow)
Violence and control:
Violence wasn’t occasional, it was built into the system.
Common punishments included:
Whipping (often severe and repeated)
Beatings with tools or sticks
Branding or mutilation in extreme cases
Shackling or confinement
Enslavers used violence to:
Enforce productivity
Punish attempts to escape
Instill fear in others
Sexual violence, especially against enslaved women, was also widespread and largely unpunished.
Family separation:
One of the most devastating parts:
Families could be sold apart at any time
Children were frequently separated from parents
Marriages were not legally recognized
Many formerly enslaved people described this as one of the most traumatic aspects of slavery.
Health and mortality:
Conditions led to serious health consequences.
Common issues:
Malnutrition
Disease (cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis)
Injuries from overwork or punishment
Medical care was minimal and often experimental or neglectful.
Life expectancy:
Life expectancy varied, but overall it was much lower than for white Americans.
In the early 1800s, average life expectancy at birth for enslaved people is often estimated around 20–30 years (heavily affected by infant mortality)
Those who survived childhood could live longer, sometimes into their 40s or beyond
Infant mortality rates were extremely high
On particularly brutal plantations (like rice or sugar), death rates were even worse due to harsh environments.
How people died:
Common causes of death included:
Disease and infection
Exhaustion from overwork
Malnutrition
Violence or punishment
Poor living conditions
In some regions (especially Caribbean sugar plantations), death rates were so high that populations had to be constantly replenished through the slave trade. In the U.S., the population grew more through birth, but conditions were still severe.
Important nuance:
Not every enslaved person had the exact same experience. Conditions varied depending on:
Location (Deep South vs. Upper South)
Type of labor
Individual enslaver
But across these variations, coercion, lack of freedom, and violence were consistent features of the system.
You are describing exceptions. The general situation was BRUTAL.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where the slaves came from:
Most enslaved people were taken from West and Central African societies like those in present-day Nigeria, Ghana, and Angola.
Life there (before enslavement):
Lived in organized communities and kingdoms such as the Oyo Empire or Kingdom of Kongo
Mostly farmers, traders, craftsmen
Had families, land, culture, religion, and personal freedom
Some regions had cities and long-distance trade networks
They were not living in chaos or constant misery, they had structured societies and normal human lives.
What changed in America:
Lost freedom completely (treated as property)
Forced into hard labor under threat of violence
Families could be separated at any time
No legal rights, autonomy, or control over their lives
Bottom line:
Even if living standards varied, being enslaved in the U.S. meant losing your freedom, safety, and family by force. That’s not “better off” by any meaningful historical or human standard.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How people were captured:
Most enslaved people were taken through:
1. Warfare and raids
Armies or raiders attacked villages and took captives
This was common in regions around states like the Oyo Empire and Kingdom of Kongo
2. Kidnapping
Smaller-scale abductions by raiders or traders
People could be seized while traveling or working
3. Punishment or debt (less common for Atlantic slavery)
Some were enslaved for crimes or debt, then sold onward
“Sold by their own people?” — what that really means. This phrase is partly true but misleading.
Africa was (and is) made up of many different ethnic groups, languages, and political states.
Captives were usually taken from rival groups, not their own community.
So it wasn’t like neighbors casually selling neighbors—it was often conflict between different societies
Also important:
Some African rulers and traders did participate in selling captives.
But this system expanded massively because of European demand and weapons trade.
The bigger picture:
The transatlantic slave trade worked as a system:
Europeans (from countries like Portugal and United Kingdom) created huge demand for labor in the Americas
They generally did not capture people inland themselves
Instead, they bought captives on the coast from intermediaries
This demand:
Encouraged more warfare and raiding
Destabilized regions
Turned people into commodities on a large scale
Bottom line:
Many enslaved people were indeed captured by other Africans, often in war or raids
But they were usually outsiders or enemies, not “their own people” in a close sense
And the entire system was driven and massively expanded by European demand for enslaved labor
If you bought a tractor, would you run it without oil?
Would you try to plow solid rock?
No, you would take care of the machine because it was expensive and you need it to make a living.
"In 1860, a Virginia trader valued 20-year-old slaves as “extra men” and “extra women,” worth $1,500-$1,600 and $1,325-$1,400, respectively. A second tier of high-value souls were known as “No. 1 men,” worth $1,400-$1,500, and “No. 1 women,” worth $1,275-$1,325.
Sad as it may be that men bought men as we do machines, that was the reality at that time. Average cost of a slave was 1500 bucks! in 1860, that was alot of money when the average southern males wages was .16 cents a hour.
They were fed enough to stay alive, which was similar to pig feed.
Slaves were indeed expensive, so that was an incentive to get the maximum value out of them. That means working them as hard as they could survive, while spending as little as possible to keep them alive. Their wellbeing did not add any value, while whipping them into submission was free.
The working class was indeed exploited too. There are some differences;
they were allowed to go and the employer is not allowed to torture them,
when they didn't want to work anymore.
If you bought a tractor, would you run it without oil?
Would you try to plow solid rock?
No, you would take care of the machine because it was expensive and you need it to make a living.as the info below explains, slave were costly investments. Why would you beat a slave,reducing the persons ablity to do the desired task?? does not compute.
"In 1860, a Virginia trader valued 20-year-old slaves as “extra men” and “extra women,” worth $1,500-$1,600 and $1,325-$1,400, respectively. A second tier of high-value souls were known as “No. 1 men,” worth $1,400-$1,500, and “No. 1 women,” worth $1,275-$1,325.
Sad as it may be that men bought men as we do machines, that was the reality at that time. Average cost of a slave was 1500 bucks! in 1860, that was alot of money when the average southern males wages was .16 cents a hour.
Oh, and slavery was NOT just in the south,
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you could find it in new york as well as other states
So when you say the confederates were just fighting to keep slaves, why would the north oppose that when they were getting even richer from them??
That is what blows holes in some of the narratives you follow. common sense. the civil war started because of taxation of cotton sent to europe instead of up north. slavery was added in later. Do your research.
PLEASE EXCUSE THE CAPS. THEY ARE USED EXCLUSIVELY TO CONTRAST YOUR WORDS/ARGUMENT.
-------------------------
it's what they fail to teach when they teach the so called "truth". Slaves were not abused once they were here and on the farms.
JUST BEING KEPT AS SLAVES IS ABUSE. PHART, DON'T YOU REALIZE THAT?
many are buried in the family cemetery's of the folks that owned them.
DID BEING BURIED IN THE FAMILY CEMETERY MADE IT ALRIGHT TO BE KEPT AS A SLAVE?
Many,once freed, stayed where they were because they were safe,fed and employed. NONE of which they had back home in africa.
STAYING WHERE THEY WERE KEPT AS A SLAVE, AFTER GIVEN FREEDOM, WAS A CHOICE AND THAT WAS OKAY.
and the liberals don't teach the simple fact their own race sold the slaves to the ship owners to bring here. teach it all if you are going to teach it.
I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU WENT TO SCHOOL BUT EVERY SCHOOL CHILD IN MY NECK OF THE WOODS WAS TAUGHT THAT, YES, THERE WERE TRIBAL SITUATIONS IN AFRICA WHERE THE LOCAL TRIBES WOULD MAKE WAR AGAINST OTHER TRIBES AND CAPTURED HOSTAGES AND SOLD THEM TO SLAVE TRADERS.
Apply some common sense
If you bought a tractor, would you run it without oil?
Would you try to plow solid rock?
No, you would take care of the machine because it was expensive and you need it to make a living.
APPLY SOME COMMON SENSE? YOU APPLY SOME COMMON SENSE. LIKEING A HUMAN BEING TO A TRACTOR OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF MACHINERY IS PURE, UNADULTERATED RACISM.
as the info below explains, slave were costly investments. Why would you beat a slave,reducing the persons ablity to do the desired task?? does not compute.
AND, YET, THE FOREMAN WENT AROUND WITH A WHIP. THEY USED THE WHIPS TO PUNISH THE SLAVES FOR NOT WORKING FAST OR BECAUSE THE SLAVE BROKE SOME RULE. WOULD YOU AGREE TO WORK FOR FREE UNDER THOSE CONDITIONS?
"In 1860, a Virginia trader valued 20-year-old slaves as “extra men” and “extra women,” worth $1,500-$1,600 and $1,325-$1,400, respectively. A second tier of high-value souls were known as “No. 1 men,” worth $1,400-$1,500, and “No. 1 women,” worth $1,275-$1,325.
Sad as it may be that men bought men as we do machines, that was the reality at that time.
SO THAT MADE IT ALRIGHT? THE FARMER NEEDED WORKERS AND DIDN'T WANT TO PAY WAGES SO THEY ALLOWED SLAVE TRADERS TO KIDNAP THESE UNFORTUNATE PEOPLE, TRANSPORT THEM HALF WAY ACROSS THE WORLD, AND SELL THEM TO A FARMER LIKE LIVESTOCK?
Average cost of a slave was 1500 bucks! in 1860, that was alot of money when the average southern males wages was .16 cents a hour.
IF THAT'S PART OF YOUR ARGUMENT THAT SLAVERY WAS OKAY THEN YOU SHOULD ALSO FACTOR IN THAT PAYING A LABORER $0.16/HOUR WOULD HAVE COST THE FARMER HUGE AMOUNTS OF PAYROLL MONEY. FIGURE IT OUT. TWENTY LABORERS WORKING A 50 HOUR WEEK WOULD HAVE COST THE FARME $6366/ WEEK IN TODAY'S MONEY, AND THAT'S IN A SMALL COTTON PLANTATION WITH 20 SLAVES.
JUST THE SAVINGS OF ONE WEEK WOULD HAVE MADE IT POSSIBLE TO OWN 3 OR 4 SLAVES FOR LIFE.
Oh, and slavery was NOT just in the south,
you could find it in new york as well as other states
AH, SLAVERY WAS IN OTHER AREAS OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1860. WELL, THAT MADE IT ALRIGHT.
So when you say the confederates were just fighting to keep slaves, why would the north oppose that when they were getting even richer from them??
PEOPLE IN THE NORTH DENOUCED SLAVERY AS AN ABOMINABLE PRACTICE. THE FACT THAT SOME NORTHENERS PRACTICED SLAVERY DID NOT MAKE IT RIGHT AND, BY HUGE AMOUNTS, THE SOUTH WAS WHERE SLAVERY FLOURISHED.
That is what blows holes in some of the narratives you follow. common sense. the civil war started because of taxation of cotton sent to europe instead of up north. slavery was added in later. Do your research.
NO, YOU DO THE RESEARCH.
THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR WAS THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY, SPECIFICALLY THE DEEP POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DIVISIONS REGARDING ITS EXPANSION INTO NEW WESTERN TERRITORIES AND ITS OVERALL MORALITY
SOUTHERN STATES SECEDED TO PROTECT THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY, WHICH WAS CENTRAL TO THEIR ECONOMY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE.
Southern states seceded to protect the institution of slavery, which was central to their economy and social structure.
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That last part came from the internet and it's in every search engine you can access. PHART, you are wrong in your beliefs.
I am NOT CONDONEING the way things were done at that time. I am trying to get YOU to understand that was the thought process at THAT TIME. Right wrong, to late to fix the past.
It is not racist to explain the thought process's of others in the past.
"Robert E. Lee viewed slavery as a "moral & political evil," yet he believed it was a necessary institution for maintaining order, holding views typical of a 19th-century Southern slaveholder. He claimed to believe that the discipline of slavery was beneficial to Black people and that emancipation should be left in God's hands, opposing abolitionist efforts."
Notice the words, slavery was a moral & political evil.
I am NOT CONDONEING the way things were done at that time. I am trying to get YOU to understand that was the thought process at THAT TIME. Right wrong, to late to fix the past.
It is not racist to explain the thought process's of others in the past.
Good instinct to check the source—because that page is a clear example of a fringe or revisionist interpretation, not mainstream history.
What that website actually claims
The page you linked explicitly argues:
“The tariff…was the sole cause of the war”
Slavery was basically a political trick or distraction
So yes—your friend is repeating that site pretty directly.
Why historians reject that explanation
The problem isn’t that tariffs never mattered—they did at times. The problem is that the site’s core claim contradicts primary evidence from the 1860s.
1. It ignores what the seceding states themselves said
The most important sources are the official declarations of secession. These are not later interpretations—they’re statements written by the people who started the war.
They overwhelmingly point to slavery, not tariffs.
Example (short quote):
Mississippi: “identified with the institution of slavery”
That’s about as explicit as it gets.
2. It conflicts with the actual political conflicts of the time
The biggest national crises leading up to the American Civil War were about slavery:
Expansion into new territories (e.g. Kansas–Nebraska Act)
Violent संघर्ष like “Bleeding Kansas”
Court rulings like Dred Scott
The election of Abraham Lincoln
All of these revolved around slavery—not export taxes on cotton.
Mainstream summaries consistently describe slavery as central to the conflict and political tension .
3. The tariff argument doesn’t match the timeline
The biggest tariff crisis (the Nullification Crisis) happened 30 years before the war
By 1860, tariffs were not the dominant national issue
There’s no strong evidence that taxing cotton exports to Europe triggered secession
4. The site itself shows red flags
Even without outside knowledge, the page has warning signs:
It claims all historians are wrong (huge red flag)
It offers a single-cause explanation for a complex event
It suggests a kind of conspiracy among historians
It provides little engagement with mainstream scholarship
That doesn’t automatically make something false—but in history, that pattern is typical of non-credible or ideologically driven sources.
Bottom line
The website is promoting a minority, non-accepted theory that:
contradicts primary sources
contradicts decades of historical research
and oversimplifies the causes of the war
The strongest evidence we have—what people at the time actually wrote and argued—shows that slavery was central from the beginning, not something “added later.”
The difference is that they respected the new laws and the South didn't.
"why would the north oppose that when they were getting even richer from them??" Any evidence for that claim?
Here’s what the historical record shows:
1. Southern states said explicitly why they seceded
When states like South Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas left the Union, they published declarations explaining their reasons. These documents repeatedly and clearly identify the preservation of slavery as the main cause.
Mississippi’s declaration: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery…”
2. The political conflict was about slavery’s expansion
The major national disputes leading up to the war—like the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas–Nebraska Act—were about whether slavery would expand into new territories.
3. The election of Abraham Lincoln triggered secession
Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery. His election in 1860 led Southern states to secede before he even took office, fearing slavery would be restricted.
4. Economic issues existed—but were secondary
There were longstanding disputes over tariffs (taxes on imports), especially earlier in the 1800s during events like the Nullification Crisis. But by 1860, tariffs were not the main driver of secession, and there’s no solid evidence that taxing cotton exports to Europe sparked the war.
5. Slavery was not “added later”
Slavery was already deeply embedded in Southern society and economy. It was the foundation of the plantation system, especially for cotton production, and the core issue dividing North and South for decades.
Bottom line:
The idea that the Civil War started over cotton taxes and only later involved slavery is a misconception. The strongest primary sources—from the seceding states themselves—show that protecting slavery was the central cause from the beginning.
I feel Anannas is smart enough to understand what I am trying to do moreso than you.
Cat, your approach to my words makes me feel like you are the kind of person who would run over the mail man for bring ing you a bill you thought was to high.
"the thought process's of the time slavery was in place" was simple:
"We can exploit people for our own profit, so let's do that!".
You are OK with it from that period, because you are OK with it now.
You are very consistent in the opinion that people have no rights and their value is only in how much they serve the powerful and wealthy elites.
I will never understand WHY you have this opinion, other than you were born into it and you have listened to people who tell you this all your life.
I never felt exploited by my employer. I did a job, I was paid and provided insurance and retirement and a wage for my service. of course more salary woulda been great but a persons lifestyle just goes up with the salary and enough is never enough.
If you feel exploited on your job, it's your fault.You took the job.
However, there is something very similar to slavery nowadays,
like the children working in cobalt mines. You were OK with that.
You whitewashed that as them having a job, which is better than starving.
The same can be said about slaves, because everything is better than starving. That's how you sugar-coat slavery and horrible exploitation.
Your feelings about the matter isn't representative.
When a corporation is making billions of dollars in profit, while all their employees are struggling to survive, that's exploitation.
I would know better, if you had ever supported people having rights.
If you think that there is no such thing, than all exploitation, including slavery, is OK.
If you understand their thought process, which you said now twice, please describe their thought process.
I don't feel exploited on my job. That's mostly because I have a good education and I live in The Netherlands. People with poor educations
are exploited in my country too. I do feel my employer exploits people, but that's mostly related to pharmaceutical companies making too much profit on healthcare.
Everyone is different and Ananas has his unique way of expressing his views. I’m not him so, naturally, I won’t sound like him. Ananas is brilliant both in his delivery of an argument and understanding the many things that get discussed here.
Don’t get me wrong. I understand your intent. I’m just not a person that can ignore BS when I hear it.
I think you should know, the last time I had a relationship or an affair with a mailman was in my teens. I don’t have any reason to blame my financial troubles on my mailman. On the other hand, I’ve chatted extensively through the years with you, and I feel comfortable enough to know that you are what I believe you are and that your exit strategy has always been, “It’s not what I believe, it’s how I perceive it. “
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over 2014–2023:
79 were pedestrians
83 were occupants of other vehicles
38 were school bus occupants
Why are they adding that the bus driver KNOWINGLY drove the bus into danger. I see kids shouting afterwards; no evidence that she intentionally ignored the crossing arms coming down.
There is always a danger in traffic situations.
If they are brought to school by car, by sleepy or stressed parents,
they're probably in more danger of not getting to school alive.
In my country, on September 20th 2018, 4 kids died, 1 kid and the driver were badly injured, after an electrically powered cargo bike-like vehicle, a Stint, ended up under the closed level crossing barriers and was subsequently hit by a train. Our media didn't immediately accuse the driver, they called for a big investigation. This was thoroughly investigated, but it provided no conclusive evidence of a defect or human error that directly explains the crash. However, the Dutch authorities, including the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) and TNO, still concluded that the vehicle was not sufficiently safe for transporting passengers, with possible issues related to braking and controls. The Dutch government suspended the approval of the Stint for public road use, and it was later permanently withdrawn from approval. This means that Stints are no longer allowed on public roads in the Netherlands.
In the years following, the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie, OM) initiated criminal proceedings against the manufacturers and responsible parties. In late 2025, prosecutors reportedly demanded prison sentences and fines for two company directors, alleging they provided misleading safety information.
The driver of the Stint was not prosecuted, as investigations concluded she bore no blame.
In the US, you just scapegoat the driver and their supervisor, on just the opinion of a sheriff. The local bus route of that school district is changed, and nothing else happens. Does that make school buses any safer?
However, children are supposed be safe, once they're IN school.
In the same period, ~507 people were killed in school shootings.
That doesn’t happen anywhere 'civilized' other than in the US.
And if she did, how will you make sure that no one can do that again?
I found reports that she didn't broke the crossing arms off with the bus.
How then can the bus be clipped by the train?
How much time is there between the crossing arms closing and the train passing?
How about having crossing arms that actually do the job.
We have regulation that is aiming to prevent situations like this, and railroad crossings
need to be made safe, even for lunatics like this:
What I'm trying to teach you, is that every time something like this happens
in your country, you just look for a perpetrator or a scapegoat,
so you don't have to actually change anything. Then nothing will improve.
When something stupid happens in the company I work for, the last thing that I'm allowed to do, is to blame the person who did the stupid thing. That's because then we won't prevent anyone else doing that stupid thing too. In aviation, they studied accidents that were blamed on human error. In 90% of those cases, there is some other cause that takes the blame away from the employees; it's system causes disguised as human error. In about 5% of the cases, it's genuine individual error (non-systemic), and only in ~1% there is intentional violation or sabotage. I can almost guarantee you that in this case there was something systemic going on, because she had a clean record.
My colleagues and I have to actually IMPROVE something, to prevent anything like it happening or being done again. That's difficult, but it's the only way that actually works.
If SHE was the CAUSE, then what is the SOLUTION?
Are old white woman now not allowed to drive buses anymore?
Do you think it's an old white woman driving the car in the picture?
You just told me how many old people are driving vehicles,
because 'young people don't want to do it anymore'.
So? What jobs can old people still do, that are safe?
You need to let them have some jobs, if you end retirement.
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