vvilld

No, no, no. You don't understand. That's how you make friends. You kill anyone who disagrees with you and implicitly threaten everyone else with extreme violence. Isn't that how everyone makes friends?

There were 100k+ in DC alone.

Can you explain this to me in very simple terms? What's the problem with .world? When I signed up I was told it was just the most broad, sort of "default" instance. What's wrong with it? Is there one with a larger user base I should be on instead?

What if I use the term 'tankie' unironically to refer to people to the right of me?

Yes. When I was a kid and early adult I was pretty heavily involved in Boy Scouts and fired guns a lot through that. My dad also took me hunting a couple of times. I haven't fired a gun in probably close to 20 years, though.

I would fire a gun if I had a need to, but I have 0 interest in doing so for recreation. I don't own a gun, and don't really have any interest in one.

A few reasons:

1. States are not currency sovereigns in that they do not create and control their own currency. All the money the state uses come from revenues they collect in taxes, fees, sales, etc. This is not the case for a national government, which creates all the money it needs for whatever it wants to spend money on. This gives the national government a lot more spending power than any state could possibly have, regardless of the state's GDP.

More importantly, though,

2. All states except Vermont have statutory or (state) constitutional requirements to have a balanced budget every year. This means they cannot run a budget surplus or deficit. Any surplus has to be spent or returned to taxpayers and any deficit needs to be resolved that year. This makes it incredibly difficult to run large programs like a M4A over time. When the state runs into a budget shortfall, the M4A system would be the first on the chopping block.

3. Insurance companies fight HARD against anything that hurts their business. This is specifically why Obamacare (the ACA) didn't include a public option despite Obama campaigning hard for a public option in the 2008 election. Insurance companies got their stooges in the Democratic Party to kill the public option when the ACA debates were going through Congress. They do the same in states when states try to do something about the healthcare industry. And if insurance companies publicly talk about a proposed bill causing them to raise rates or pull out of a market, that's a huge political stick to swing.

I'm not talking about rich people. I'm talking about people whose only investment assets are their mortgage and their 401k.

I was at the Washington Monument in DC today. It was huge. I've been to a lot of protests in DC and this was among the largest. The vibe wasn't anywhere close to as naively optimistic as the 2017 Women's March or the various Marches for Science. It wasn't as confrontational as the 2020 uprising or the 2017 Airport protests against the Muslim Ban. I think the closest vibe I can think of were the 2003 Iraq Invasion protests.

I really hope this is just a beginning and actions get larger and more aggressive.

If you genuinely belive most people have a year's worth of money saved up they can just live off of if needed then you're incredibly out of touch.

Whichever you put more alcohol into.

Typically, the only difference between a frozen margarita and one on the rocks is that the frozen has been blended. But they still have the same amount of tequila and triple sec (usually 1 shot of tequila and 2/3 shot of triple sec).

Belgium

Of course, when I went it was part of an school exchange trip when I was 17. I was almost always with a large group of American teenagers with only a few teachers as chaperones. It's 100% understandable why people wouldn't want to be particularly friendly to us.

Two things:

1. People see because they see the markets going down and want to get out before it hits bottom.

2. The bigger issue, though, is that a hell of a lot of people will lose their jobs and have no money. Remember the Great Recession? When the job market is that shitty and you lose your job, there aren't other ones available. No job means no income. You can apply for unemployment insurance, but that only covers a fraction of the income from your last job. So people can't afford to pay their bills. When you can't afford utilities, rent, gas, etc, but you have a 401k sitting there, it becomes the only option to pull money out of that. It's a super shitty decision to have to make, but when it's a question of losing your home or sacrificing your retirement, short-term material needs win out.