Do you think the GOP - and trump's camp specifically - have gotten more or less extreme/vengeful in the last four years? After the 2020 loss, have they gotten more or less friendly toward the norms of a democratic system of government?
Climate change denial. That's the biggest thing for me: they apologized, but it took fifteen years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ManBearPig
I never jived much with the general nihilism and both/all sides-ism I felt from it, which is probably unfair given it's meant to be a crass comedy.
Yeah, given that it's around a hundred bucks (at best) a month for a pickup, and I can rent a pickup from a big box store for 20 bucks...the math works out to do that as often as weekly and still save money, considering registration/tag/maintenance. That's considering that my wife and I have one car, and one motorcycle: the differential in going from a car to a truck isn't as egregious as motorcycle or no second car, of course.
Also, it's always fun to get a huge haul of materials with my motorcycle gear on, seeing folks clearly wonder if I've thought through my decisions.
All of these things can be true at the same time.
Absolutely true: I'm also far-Left, and am a scientist working in the sustainability field.
I know I have complicated views on this (shaming her specifically), mostly because there's not the same number of posts shaming CEOs and others making even worse choices.
The way I process it would be as if a major new corporation had a crime segment running nightly, but only showed young Black men who were arrested for violent crimes. Sure, it's not technically incorrect - since they were each arrested - but it's misleading in a way that should be examined, and people would rightly question why they're not showing other folks doing the same things.
To be clear - I'm not equating the folks who share or make these memes with racists, but I am using it as an extreme example of ways in which outsized attention to certain celebrities/public figures can come across. I laughed at this and other memes, but I think it's worth examining why we can name and shame Swift, but not CEOs and others who are more fundamentally responsible for inequities and climate destruction. I'm way-overanalyzing a meme here, since name recognition is doing most of the work (who would click on a meme with the name of some CEO they don't recognize, versus Swift?), but I do think we could/should do more to drag some of the true ghouls out there into the light and start mocking them, in addition to the folks normally raked over the coals.
Also, I understand that part of that is the hypocrisy, but I'm reminded of what the great Norm MacDonald had to say about hypocrisy:
The comedian Patton Oswalt, he told me "I think the worst part of the Cosby thing was the hypocrisy." And I disagree. I thought it was the raping. It's my feeling most rapists are hypocrites. You don't meet many that go "I like raping and I know it's not politically correct but, by god" and people go "well, he's not being a hypocrite and that's the worst part!"
But...if you think free public university is a good thing...isn't not giving loan forgiveness analogous to saying "folks should stay in jail for trumped up marijuana charges until it's legal Federally"? IMHO people shouldn't have these loans in the first place.
If we can't afford loan forgiveness, we can't afford free public university. We can simultaneously fix the problems of the past while trying to improve things for the future.
Ok well there we go: I don't think sex work is inherently "lame", nor that it should be stigmatized.
I've never had sex for money, or paid for sex, but I don't see why it should be illegal or shameful. I've watched plenty of porn that's shameful because of the exploitation of folks, but there's good porn out there that isn't that. As for literally prostitution, and not the broader sex work label...some folks are too anxious to have sex without it, some people want to engage in really specific kinks, some people are just bored and want no strings attached sex.
Sex is as natural as eating, and I think being a good chef is something to be proud of.
You're getting dragged in the discussion below, and while I think I understand your more specific points below, I'd like to offer some perspective on this general point instead of continuing down those lines.
Here you've set the tone by calling sex inherently shameful. Not being serious/dignified isn't the same as shameful. For me, shame comes with some moral failing. I'm ashamed when I disappoint someone, or get angry for something petty, or act petty myself. Not because of being undignified. I'm not ashamed when I fart, that's just my body. However, I am ashamed when I fart in a public place, because it's smelly and few people deserve to suffer like that.
So my counterargument to your perspective here: sex isn't inherently shameful, but it can be because of context. Banging too loud when having guests over is shameful: not because of being loud, but because of the lack of consent - being too loud when everyone around consents to that kind of behavior is fine. No shame if you're in a place where everyone is hooking up, and everyone knows the walls are thin. That's just fun. Not dignified, not serious, but fun. So the sex part isn't the problem. Not inherently.
To the main point - if everyone would just be cool about sex work, I honestly think folks wouldn't ascribe shame to participating in sex work. I've lived in small communities in the Amazon where there was essentially no shame associated with consensual non monogamy, outside of the religious folk. Different social structure and beliefs in that region made it much more open...so I heartily reject calling sex a shameful act. That's too much moral baggage to ascribe to such a natural, zesty enterprise.
Note what kind of car the bell is on
Yeah: gotta be crisis actors, if Alex Jones taught us anything, right?
Hell yeah! If you aren't familiar with the some, they were trolling folks with "I Kill Children" to lampoon folks swept up in moral panics: it feels all to relevant today, given the moral panic around LGBTQ+ folks.
I guess you would have been one of the folks confused by the Dead Kennedys back in the day, if you find satire so threatening that you're talking about violent retribution.
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Charapaso
joined 4 months ago
Thank you for the reply: because we can go back even further to Hunter S Thompson with Fear and Loathing on the campaign trail 72, where he makes the same observation about every election cycle being "the big one".
It's just that I do think the GOP has gotten more extreme in many ways, and the right wing media sphere is a major part of that. At least in my experience over the last few decades. Looking back at what the John Birch folks said back then, it's a lot more mainstream. Just some of the demographic groups targeted are different
As for the elections: it's going to be interesting, since you're absolutely correct...the right showed up to vote, and enough of the Democrats stayed at home that the GOP might take that as a sign they don't need to ratfuck so much. I'm just not as confident that the anti democratic sentiment isn't just rhetoric meant for political theatre. Hopefully I'm wrong, but the mainstream right seems to be trending toward authoritarian more than libertarian these days.