Get used to hearing the "pull funding" threat, it's how they're going to start chipping away at minority rights (LGBTQ+, women, Latino, Black, etc).

Have your three branches of government pass an act tying a state-decision to federal funding ala the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, and we're going to see state's comply.

I got out in 2017 partially because I'm trans and Trump was coming into the oval office. He had made it clear that trans people would not be welcome in his military, and I wasn't going to risk being discharged because of President Bone Spurs.

The military held him off last time, but I'm not as hopeful this time. And I just wanted to throw out there: I personally believe the GOP is going to use federal funding to essentially strip LGBTQ+ people of their rights and healthcare access. It's going to be the Minimum Federal Drinking Age Act of 1984 again, where the fed is gonna say, "Sure, you can offer gender affirming care in your state... If you do, you won't have access to XYZ federal funding anymore."

And the states will let it happen.

I get it, everyone is upset that Trump won (including myself). But the voters are not solely to blame here.

Democrats put forward a candidate who lost to fascism. What does that say about your policies, your messaging, how the voters feel about you when you tell them "You have to vote for me because I'm not the other guy!"

Y'all need to accept that 1. The Democrats can grasp defeat from the jaws of victory like no one else, and 2. The American people want change, they want progress, they have had enough of the status quo system that isn't working for them anymore.

They spent the last four years living under Biden, and despite all the screeching about how well the economy was doing, Americans don't feel it. And instead of addressing that, or doing anything about it, Biden and the Democrat establishment would just point the finger at Republicans and say, "No, no, they're worse, trust us, they're worse, they're worse."

They've spent a year telling Americans, despite everything they're seeing and hearing from Palestine, that Israel needs this unconditional support, while the world votes to hold Israel accountable and the US vetos it, under a Democrat administration. Multiple times, while refusing to let any Palestinians on stage at the DNC to speak, but parading Republican after Republican because they finished licking Trump's ass and decided to give Kamala's a go. Arab and Muslim Americans organized a protest vote, over 100,000 strong in Michigan alone (which she's projected to lose, btw), and the Democrats sent Bill Clinton to lecture them on how Israel is only doing what's necessary to defend themselves.

So we've had four years of milquetoast progress at best from a candidate the Democrat's constituency already didn't like. He dropped out but didn't leave enough time for a new primary, so the Democrat Party pushed Kamala on us, and then had her run on a centrist, return-to-the-status-quo platform, while refusing to take any meaningful stand on Palestine, with their biggest policy being, "Hey, you have to vote for us because we're not fascist."

If the American people, people in general, don't feel like they're being represented, why would the feel like voting? This is a failure on the Democrats, 100%, for running platform policies and candidates that don't drive people to the polls. Say what you want about Trump, and there's plenty to say about the absolute piece of shit of a human being he is.

But he makes his voters feel listened to and heard, and Democrats may consider it regression, but Republicans get their policies done, and they show progress to their constituents. Democrats get nothing done, usually due to Republican fuckery, but the Republicans don't face similar fuckery, so the average voter doesn't care, they just see one wide getting their agenda accomplished and the other not.

So now I pose this question to you, and I'm genuinely asking, this isn't an "I gotcha, I am so smart!"

If a person doesn't feel represented by their government regardless of who's in power, and your life doesn't drastically improve under either candidate, well... What difference does it make which form of government is fucking you over?

I remember when I had my clearance, we were told anything we worked on was classified for a minimum of like 75 years, unless it was declassified earlier. I remember because they told is if we were 18, we could potentially legally talk about our work at the age of 93, assuming the classification wasn't extended.

Anyway, part of that briefing was the outlining of consequences should we leak any classified information. We were told if the information we leaked resulted in the death of an intelligence officer anywhere in the world, we could and likely would be tried for treason. And the punishment for treason during a time of war (Global War on Terror, amiright) could be death.

So... He'll be charged with treason like any of us plebs would have been, right? Right?!

The kid fucked up.

He stabbed someone to death, he didn't accidentally total his step dad's Corvette.

The man he killed is never going to go home again, and he's not going to do anything for the next 70 years. His family will spend every holiday without him, every milestone in their lives passed without him.

Because "the kid fucked up." 🙄

I told a cousin once I wasn't going to be lectured on morality by a woman whose sole contribution to society was how much money she could spend at a liquor store. That whole post I wrote was honestly, according to my brother, some of the best criticism he's read, quote, "You called her a lush without ever actually using the word, while also going up one side of her and down the other, saying everything the rest of us wanted to." That cousin, to this day, will not interact with me at family gatherings.

I also once threw shitty advice I was given back into my boss's face in my resignation text, to the point where he mentioned it felt "personal" when he called me to try to get me to stay. That was the resignation friends/family told me I should be a writer because, "You have a knack for telling people to go fuck themselves in a way where they thank you afterwards."

My go to, though, when someone insults me is to usually respond, "I've been called worse by better."

Met a woman on OKCupid back in like 2014. We seemed to hit it off, so we agreed to a mall date since we were both broke (she was a college student, I was a youngster in the military). We were gonna get food and just kinda walk around and window shop and talk. Gonna try to keep this short, but a lot happened:

1. Had me pick her up from her dorm, went up to the dorm, her roommates were drinking even though everyone was underage, and they're thanking her for having mom get it for her. She's super nice about it, but proceeds to complain the entire drive and start getting emotional because she hates that they drink when they're underage, etc. Yet... She provides it...

2. She doesn't eat when we get to the mall, and instead spends the whole time I'm eating, talking. No breaks for me to respond, just keeps going.

3. We start walking around the mall, and she starts randomly pinching me. Like, painfully, randomly pinching me in my arms and torso. I'm finally like wtf is with the pinching, and she says that she was doing it because I wasn't holding her hand while we walked around... We just met, and the vibe is already pretty crap, and how in any way is that a way to communicate...

4. We finally leave and get back to her dorm, I walk her to her door, and I'm invited in by her/the roommates. Fine, I decline drinking because I'm a good sailor, but my date and I exchange some pleasantries with the roommates and then head to her room. It's basically just a bed, I think maybe she was just super nervous at the mall and being in her own environment she'll relax.

5. We're just chatting, and the pinching starts again, and she's kinda just going for it with no breaks. I'm getting pissed and finally grab her wrists and tell her to stop, and she bit me. On the chest, like, hard, not a romantic playful lil love bite. I'm, again, taken aback and am like, wtf?!?

6. She starts giggling and tells me that that's how women tell guys that want to make out/get intimate. What?! No, not how that works, at all... Especially not on a first date. But, fine, I tell her she can just ask, figuring she just wants to make out.

7. After a little while making out, the pinching starts again, and apparently this time it's how women say they want to have sex. I wasn't so turned off, it just didn't happen, like, at all.

8. She walked me back to my car, and I drove her back to her buildings door, and she bursts into tears about her roommates and the drinking again, I console her enough for her to feel better and go back to her room. Say goodnight, and she just sits there staring at me. I'm kinda done at this point and just ask what, and I get, "No kiss?" Fine...

9. Get a text while I'm driving home telling me it was one of the best dates of her life, she really hopes we can see each other again soon, she really liked me and was attracted to me, etc. I respectfully declined, and when she wouldn't just take that as an answer, I sent her a text essay outlining basically all of the above, and I honestly can't remember if she responded.

Honestly, she wasn't a bad person, and maybe at different stages in our lives things could've gone better... But she had a lot going on and a lot of life to live and learn from, and I wasn't up for the ride. Hope she's doing well, if she sees this and recognizes it, and that she stopped using pinching as a means of communication.

Oh, and to illustrate how hard the pinching/bite were, I had dime sized bruises all over my arms and torso the next day, and a bite mark bruise on my chest.

Can't wait to see another multi-billion dollar corporation get bailed out while I still don't have health insurance, and I'm still paying off credit card debt from during the Pandemic when the government gave people a measly $2400 over two years but handed out PPP loans and forgiveness to anyone that asked.

Fuck this country makes me ashamed to be a veteran.

The hallways one pisses me off to no extent. From the pig who killed him having "Get Fucked" or whatever it was engraved on his rifle, down to the very fact they responded with nothing but conflicting and confusing commands. He was told to crawl towards them but also keep his hands above his head, which is impossible to do, crawling requires hands and knees on the ground, shuffling only requires knees. Then, the clearly intoxicated and unarmed man crying and shuffling towards them has his pants keep falling down, and like any of us would do, instinctively kept pulling them back up. Instead of the pigs telling him to ignore his pants, y'know, to help alleviate some of the stress the poor guy is experiencing, they scream once at him to keep his hands up and then they open fire on him when he instinctively does it again. There's one of him, and at least half a dozen fully armed and armored pigs, and pulling pants up was soooooooooooooo threatening to these pieces of shit who like to play dress up as soldiers, they riddled him with bullets and he got to bleed out on a carpet in a hotel hallway.

The report was a man brandishing a rifle in a hotel window, and at no point did they guy give any evidence he was packing a rifle or trying to be uncooperative with the pigs. And they killed him, because he didn't want his pants to fall. Don't worry though, the pig that killed him was medically retired due to PTSD from the event. I bet the victim sure wishes he could've medically retired from PTSD, but that privilege is only for pigs apparently.

Years ago there was a profile on PoF that would hit me up every couple of months asking if they could castrate me. (I'm a trans woman)

It was weird, they weren't pushy or aggressive, more just, "Hey, you don't want them, right? Seems like a win win." Sometimes I'd play along and ask questions and stuff, but they wouldn't say much, and never actually made any effort to meet up.

I haven't thought about them in years, hahaha, but seeing your question brought it all back.

MLK Jr. literally wrote about this exact same thing in his Letter from Birmingham jail.

that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ ”