I agree that is probably a better option. How do you get connects to be private security for a billionaire though?

You clearly missed the point. Ends justify the means - join the military, get excellent training and inside knowledge and connections into the private security world, become a guard for a billionaire, turn on them, profit?

And let people walk all over you and then complain about being the victim. Mean people don’t deserve kindness, they deserve the same energy they’re giving out.

Taking the high road doesn’t work.

Maybe don’t go back in the corner? You need to learn to stand up for yourself otherwise you’ll just be bullied for the rest of your life.

Not just you, anyone with this attitude.

Oh boo fucking hoo they’re mean to you? Be even meaner.

I’ve met them, but they’re all members of the elite, horrified that the masses are finally resorting to violence against them, especially a member of their own class being a traitor towards them.

Most people are horrified by violence and the fact that we’ve come to this point, but most are also ambivalent at worst about this guy being on the receiving end of the violence. He would have a lot more sympathy if he wasn’t the CEO of a health insurance company that mostly acts as an extortion and protection racket.

It’s all good you don’t need to worry about it. I’m just some random on the internet.

When I was younger I used to get in arguments (usually political nature, I guess politics and power are unfortunately one of my special interests) online with random people. I’d get all upset about it, and it’s fair because it is upsetting. I was terribly, horrifically, violently bullied from kindergarten to college for being visibly queer and neurodivergent and have major trauma and ptsd from it (and other things too). As I’ve gotten older I realized that I was just constantly recreating the abusive conditions I grew up under, feeling bullied online just like I did in real life. The stress is in some ways addictive, it’s what your body knows and wants because it’s familiar and comforting even if it’s not ‘normal’ or healthy. I’ve been banned from every major social media platform for being militantly anti fascist. I’m an asshole and I’m proud of it. I’m a product of the violence I received when I was younger, which is why now as an adult I’m more militant than ever as this country falls deeper and deeper into fascism, aided by the tech industry that silences any voices truly critical of the direction we’re heading in. They amplify hate because it brings them revenue. They manipulate the masses because it brings them power.

Most of the people you argue with online probably aren’t even real and are bots used to manipulate public sentiment in favor of the elites (even division is favorable to them, far more so than unity). The people who are real are likely tweens and teenagers and have a naive view of the world, not being beaten to shit by it yet like adults are. And then there are the real people who are adults… but it says a lot about them (and me, shit) that they choose to spend their time arguing with strangers on the internet. Healthy people are too busy enjoying life to be wasting their time arguing with idiots on the internet.

but the existence of etymologically related terms doesn’t give an “out” to people using them for offense and denigration in either case

Never said it did. I remember the first time I saw retard being used in a technical sense and being thrown by it’s usage in todays world. Ultimately though you can’t police language, people are gonna say whatever dumb shit they want, doesn’t mean you have to listen. And no, anyone using “dumb” or “idiot” today is not referring to disabled people, those words stopped being used to describe disabled people multiple decades ago and are far removed from being associated with disabled people. Retard is a lot more recent, but even as a kid growing up in the 90s where calling people gay, queer and faggots were acceptable, even retard used as a slur back then was frowned upon.

👍🏻

What’s interesting about the word retard specifically is it’s still used as a technical term that has nothing to do with developmental disabilities - for example, fire retardant - to slow/stop something.

Really unkind in which threads? Yeah, I’m an asshole about politics, because I’ve had it up to here with backstabbing liberals who vote blue no matter who and scold the left while losing elections like it’s their job (because it is, they exist as a ratchet to prevent any kind of left wing reform). I’ve spent the last two and a half decades watching this country fall to fascism while there’s zero real opposition to it. As a queer neurodivergent I don’t have any more patience left for liberals.

Well that’s only because they don’t get held accountable for social murder

Honestly they are equally bad in different ways. Every successive government since 9/11 and perhaps even before has expanded the security state at the expense of our rights. The popularization of using executive orders to go around congress and the authorization of all sorts of military operations outside of congress is again, a both parties thing. The lack of checks and balances on our government and real representation is how we ended up here… it was obvious from the passage of the patriot act to me (and the subsequent failure of Obama, trump and biden to do anything about it) that one day a tyrant will use it to fully implement fascism. Look at how the security state - under biden - is responding to Luigi - would they do that for any other murder? No, they wouldn’t. Look at how democrat NY gov hochul is gonna set up a special crisis hotline for scared CEOs. Why isn’t she doing that for anyone else? Rhetorical question. Look at how biden pardoned the cash for kids judge (truly despicable wtf was he thinking) and left the climate science lawyer to rot? Look at how biden kept kids in cages and Obama kept prisoners in torture conditions at Guantanamo. The democrats are the banality of evil, the republicans are simply more overt and have their fascism in the National-Christian variety, also known as nat-c, aka christofascists. The democrats are technofascist - look at Obama’s cozy relationship with big tech and subsequent high tech surveillance state expanded under him with even more power for agencies such as the NSA… look at the social media algorithm manipulation that’s been going on since it started - under every admin. And now the US is blocking Chinese run tik tok - can’t have US spooks controlling a foreign run algorithm like they do in the US. The republicans are just the vanguard for fascism and the democrats backstop any reform towards the ever increasing right wing swing.

🎵 Killing in the name of 🎵

Rages against the machine

Unfortunately it’s required for the South Koreans (and probably North Koreans too?)

Except they don’t do that in America

With that theory, any word could become an insult.

They didn’t just decriminalize it, they legalized it so doctors could prescribe drugs. If you’re a heroin addict in Portugal, you can get pure clean heroin prescribed to you by a doctor and be put on a plan for treatment.

They went further than that. They legalized it so that doctors can prescribe it. If you were a heroin addict, the doctor can prescribe you heroin. You’d get clean pure heroin, not shit cut with fentanyl, and you’d get help with getting clean.

I love how much thought you put into this

I wouldn’t go as far as to say fuck Michael Moore, but I’d say all of the things you point out the entire liberal ecosystem was guilty of during Obama’s terms - and Biden’s too. It’s like the man could do no wrong despite doing a 180 on what he got elected on. The fact that liberals refused to hold Obama accountable is why we got trump in 2016. They doubled down with it being her turn despite the fact she was even more conservative and a warmonger than Obama (factually, Hillary voted for the Iraq war, Obama didn’t, both were democrat senators at the time).

Liberals only care about accountability when the other team is in charge. Omg there’s children in cages! (biden keeps those kids in cages, not a peep from liberals)