Are you a Russian agent? At this point, I assume anyone still trying to stir that part is a Russian operative trying to sew division and discord.

There is a disconnect between what people want to be and what people are. And for some reason when this aspect is brought up people become offended.

Because you’re demanding I submit myself to a lifetime of harassment, abuse, and violence simply to appease your epistemological pedantry.

Today’s Headline: US government investigating ways to send US citizens without trial to El Salvadoran concentration camp.

Tomorrows Headline: Birth rates plummet in unprecedented and unexpected collapse.

Yup. One of the main reasons people oppose the death penalty is because of the proven record of innocent people receiving death sentences. Approximately 4% of people who receive death sentences are actually innocent. We execute many innocent people in this country. The system absolutely does not operate on the principle of “it is better for 1000 guilty to go free than for one innocent to be unjustly punished.”

Many oppose the death penalty because they realize just how poor our justice system is at actually determining guilt and innocence. Those who assume it is near-infallible will be much more likely to support the death penalty. So if you screen out those opposed to death sentences, you also screen out people who are more skeptical of the criminal justice system overall.

Very well. I look forward to start production of my own bootleg Tesla vehicles.

People’s passports are being revoked, the healthcare people need to keep breathing is being targeted for elimination, and it is the official policy of the sitting US president that being trans is by nature pedophilic, and that pedophiles deserve the death penalty.

Spare me your dismissive bullshit. If you think this is actually about sports, you are the dumbest motherfucker on the planet.

Time place and manner.

Is it OK for parents to show up wearing Nazi armbands when the team plays against a team with a large number of Jewish students on it?

It’s legal to own pornography. It’s not legal to show up to a middle school sporting event with a 3’x6’ poster of a money shot, unfurl it, and hold it high for all to see.

Yup. I’m pretty sour on Bethesda RPGs after getting burned hard by Starfield. But I have a hard time imagining even they could fuck up a simple remastering of a game I already loved in the past.

An entire town of dead people. It was hilarious.

I see you also follow the life philosophy of, “if you’re not on at least one watch list, are you even really living?” :D

Maybe. Maybe not. The bystander effect is real. And they have something to lose. If I’m being disappeared off to a death camp somewhere, I literally have nothing to lose.

I’m really torn on this. As a trans person, I’m a member of one of the groups most targeted by the regime. I’ve wanted nothing to do with firearms in the past, because frankly, I’ve dealt with a lot of depression at times in my life. Never enough to have any attempts, but enough to really give me pause about owning a weapon. The only weapons I want to own are fantasy props I make in my wood shop. I’m the exact opposite of a violent person. I am an educator; my greatest joy in life is when I can see my lessons spark the light of knowledge in others. Truthfully, I want nothing to do with firearms.

But this environment really makes me wonder. I would honestly rather die than be shipped off to be raped to death in some hellhole in El Salvadore. I would not survive long in a place like that.

I am very conflicted on this. Fuck this world. These are the kinds of choices no one should ever have to make. The world has gone mad.

The point is there are only so many ICE goons out there. If every person they tried to disappear took one of the bastards with them, this would end pretty damn quick.

I still remember my first playthrough. Low level character. I save scummed until I could sneak into the tower in the heart of the Imperial City. In the council chamber was a mage with an incredibly powerful staff. I pickpocketed it off of him, again using save scumming. I then traveled to Bravil and entered the castle there. As the Count of Bravil was giving a speech, I pulled out the staff and zapped him dead on his throne, right in front the of the whole court. I then got away from the assassination through the brilliant escape plan of running out the front door, murder weapon still in hand.

Damn I loved Oblivion.

Muuuuurrddeeerrr!!!

No, he’s not worried. And he has good reason not to be. He knows history. Obama didn’t hold the Bush administration officials responsible for their crimes. In fact, he happily kept using many of those illegal powers himself. And Biden didn’t hold the first Trump administration accountable for their crimes.

Liberal Democrats have a core character flaw. They don’t like confrontation. It’s the same impulse that causes them to reflexively seek out compromise with Republicans at every turn. They have this narcissistic trait that makes them think they can achieve their place in history by being a grand peacemaker. They always seek reconciliation without accountability.

I guarantee you, if another centrist Dem manages to win in 2028, their very first official act will be to come before the nation, try to be the grand peacemaker, and announce, “it is time for the nation to move on, all is forgiven!”

They can’t help themselves. They’re cowards to their core.

Oh yeah, you were there too! It was a great get together. Remember all that fun stuff we did?

Whoever it was and whatever they were planning, they’re innocent. They were actually hanging out with me at the time on the other side of the country. All the eye witnesses there were just high on ayahuasca and hallucinated the whole thing.

Yeah, people forget that there are some real hard limits on how far population can fall. What people fail to realize is that our level of technology is actually a function of our population. Mass production and industrial society requires a certain minimum population level and population density. If things fell so far that there were only 100 million humans on Earth, that would have profound implications on the level of technology we able to deploy and maintain. Past certain points, you by necessity start regressing technologically. At a population of 100 million, we would probably end up with a technology level more like the early to mid 19th century. You just can’t maintain complex supply chains with so few people. Economies simplify, and you end up back in an agrarian state. At that point, most of the population is working on farms again. Suddenly children become an economic boon for a family farm, a source of labor as they were historically. Then the birth rate soars again. And of course at some point you can’t maintain factories that turn out millions of birth control pills.

I don’t think we will actually hit these kind of hard limits. I think cultural factors will cause the birth rate to recover long before we start seriously regressing technologically. But it shows that we’re not at any risk of extinction here. Even if cultural factors never cause the birth rate to recover, eventually technological regression will serve as a hard limit.

I can’t predict what exactly those numbers are where these limits kick in, but it’s pretty intuitive they exist. If your population density falls so far that you’re back at hunter-gatherer population levels, well you’re going to be living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The truth is the US is essentially invincible when it comes to its actual physical security. The US dominates the North American continent. To the north and south it borders (until recently) friendly nations that have a fraction of our population and economy. Canada and Mexico could put up a good fight and insurgency if the US tried to invade and annex them, but the idea of either starting a war of aggression against the US is comical. It would be downright suicidal for either to voluntarily start a war to try and conquer territory from the US.

To the east and west, the US has two vast oceans. No Eastern Hemisphere power is ever going to be able to build a sufficient force to try to directly invade the US mainland. Not only does the US have a vast navy, the distances involved are simply insane. The only way an Eastern Hemisphere power would ever have hostile troops on US soil is if there were some civil war within the US that a foreign power involved itself in.

And to top it all off, the US maintains the most powerful nuclear arsenal on the planet. A nuclear bombardment is really the only threat to the US’s physical security, and the US would make sure that this was an act of suicide on the part of its attacker.

Oh, and just for fun, the US is absolutely awash in civilian firearms. We can’t even keep our children from getting a hold of them and shooting up schools. And that’s just a handful of troubled kids. Imagine what it would look like if some foreign power actually tried to put troops on the ground in the US. We literally have enough guns to put a firearm in the hands of every man, woman, and child in the country. We’re a nation of gun nuts with a cultural that celebrates and fetishizes militant independence and resistance.

The only real threat to the US’s physical safety is internal. If the US ever falls, it will be because of our own internal instability, not because of some hostile invasion by a foreign power.