chaonaut

I can't speak for the people with the power to actually make this policy, but for the people I know who have been big believers in this, it's because this is the part of the Bible they actually like: Jesus coming down from Heaven with sword in hand to destroy all the wrongdoers (read: people the believers don't like). They have absolutely massive amounts of Christian fanfiction devoted to how they want all this to go down (see: The Left Behind series). This is their superhero power fantasy type beliefs.

What do you make of the angle that bringing international news coverage and a response from Homeland Security within a day or so was the level of platform size/privilege/success that offsets the legal liability he opened himself up to? Additionally, if this had progressed to a longer-term detainment or worse, would being a relatively public figure as a political prisoner offer any justification for the risk taken?

I certainly don't believe that the state of affairs where CBP acts with such impunity is a good one, so I wonder at what point does a public figure taking a risk that ought not be a risk (that police routinely go on such fishing expeditions hoping to find something remotely actionable is the problem, in my view) is a worthwhile use of their fame and popularity?

Take some queues from Van Hollen and use the power they've assembled to get themselves elected, and mobilize themselves and their voters to address the problems directly instead of making large shows of asking Republicans to do the right thing.

Yeah, it's only Nazi if it comes from the Bavarian region of Germany, otherwise it's only sparkling fascism.

I think you underestimate how much of this administration is about mindless spite.

I think you're vastly underestimating the scale, and underestimating how much damage will be suffered in the short term. It's honestly not all that surprising that you would come to that answer, though, because it's the same mindset that's leading Trump and his oligarch cronies to what they're doing. But both COVID and 08 were backstopped by the US economy. We're looking at the situation where those happen, but the US is unable to be that backstop. Might the Eurozone become that backstop? Potentially, but the severe economic impacts that the US weathered as a result would be borne completely by Euro, which only holds up a fraction of the the world markets that the US. Might the Euro, might Finland, might even you specifically come out on top? Maybe! But it wouldn't be on top of this economy, but one that has undergone a severe change because a simply massive portion of the global economy that exists at this moment would simply no longer be there.

Burning the US down to divvy it up amongst themselves so they can run their own little technofiefdoms is all but their stated goal. They're talking about network states and crypto-resever currencies, and salivating at the prospect of having entire populations that they control outright to be the grist for their techno-futurist fantasies of being the sole owners of the cyberpunk dystopian mega corps.

So, a lot of the things the contemporary world depends on requires significant amounts of shipping. Like, honestly kind of mind-boggling amounts, and things that you often think are produced nearby go through planet-spanning supply chains. Now, consider that, as a part of the rebuilding in the post-World-Wars was based on funnelling world oil through US refineries, and backing the world economy on US Dollar, much of the world economy is run on the idea that "the US is good for it", and whatever business is done relies by and large on the US continuing to make timely debt payments (this is distinctly not the US paying off debts).

So, what happens if that stops happening? The whole economy comes crashing to a halt as people no longer have the guarantees they need to do worldwide business. Sure, the Euro exists and it's the second largest reserve currency, but over half of the world does business in USD, but that is a lot of guarantees that would have to shift basically immediately, and something is going to fall through as there just isn't the resources on hand to take it on all at once.

So, how does that wind up hurting Finland, the Euro and everyone, and not just collapse around them? Because im the mad dash to not be the "last ones out of USD" there's going to be something of the global supply chain that doesn't have somewhere to go, and as you may remember from the issues with the global supply chain in 2020, everything is set up to be "Just In Time" with no one having to keep inventory on hand. But when parts of the supply chain can no longer deliver "Just In Time" that doesn't just stop there. Other parts of the supply chain wind up depending on those things arriving when they were supposed to, and have little to no recourse when they don't.

If you want to understand how bad this can get, look at what happened in the 2008 financial crisis, and realize that a significant part of what stopped it from being more of a collapse is the U.S. stepping in and saying "the U.S. is good for it" despite how questionable of a call that may have been.

If you think the global superpower can collapse without devestating repercussions around the world, you do not understand how interconnected financial markets are and how much thing like "being able to have food at the local supermarket" depend on things going predictably. This is less "USA knocked off the board" and more "kicking out a leg of the table holding the board up"

Look at the statistics, please. The margins were not "but for Palestinian Americans, Harris would have won". You can scapegoat Palestinians all the way until it's time to demand people vote Democrats because they're holding themselves hostage again, but it's not going to win them the votes they need to have a chance at winning. And in the meantime, while they're whining about how raw the deal they got in the election, we're watching them sit on their hands during Musk's takeover.

My Democratic Representative talking about being "proud to attend the inauguration" and "[standing] at the ready, willing to work with this administration" seems to be. I'm sure it's fine and not at all a concern and that the Democratic Party will definitely stand up for what matters, whenever they decide that is.

Why are you ranking genders? Did you spend time under the impression that men were the better gender? Can you even see how fucked it is to relegate an entire gender as second class? If you bought into the idea that women were somehow less than you by mere virtue of being women, can you not see how they might bear some justified disdain for you specifically?

No, I don't see men as a "lesser" gender, I don't see women as "lesser", either. They are simply different ways of experiencing the world, and the near coin flip odds of what the doctor will say when they check your genitals for the first time isn't gonna be the way that I determine who are worthwhile people.

There's more to masculinity and manhood than fitting the awful mold that the hegemonic powers have set out for us. If you stop trying to "win at gender", or whathaveyou, maybe you can become the sort of man that doesn't take gender as a zero-sum game