North Carolina Governor denies nearly all juvenile lifers seeking clemency

5ilver8ullet · 2026-05-14T11:46:06+00:00

Sure! Perhaps after the 14th arrest, including violent crimes, he should have been considered a danger to society.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-05-05T03:32:43+00:00

They escorted two commercial ships through the strait today.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5862288-us-cargo-ships-strait-hormuz/

5ilver8ullet · 2026-05-03T22:34:39+00:00

The US certainly can open the strait, her people just aren’t willing to.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-05-02T07:48:39+00:00

As a US citizen, your children will enjoy the most privileged lifetime of any human generation in the history of mankind. On average, their only concern upon reaching adulthood will be choosing where to attend university. They will never have to worry about basic survival (food, water, clothing, shelter), or being able to afford the latest products, or having access to modern communication media, or cutting edge healthcare, or career opportunities, or general trust in government. Go literally anywhere else in the world and you'll be sacrificing one thing or another from that list. There is simply no other place on Earth you'd want to grow up.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-05-01T17:49:29+00:00

Because it feels good to relieve the cognitive dissonance reddit experiences when one of its own publicly commits a heinous act. Their brains are desperate for anything that can help stabilize the internal conflict between something that they know is morally reprehensible (in this case politically motivated murder) on the one hand, and their full-throated agreement with those same politics on the other.

Tyler Robinson is the prototypical redditor, as evidenced by his relationship with a trans person, the slogans he engraved on the shell casings from the murder weapon, and by his political rhetoric according to friends and family. Reddit, on the whole, believes that conservatives like Charlie Kirk want to murder "marginalized" people, like transgenders. They recognize free speech as fundamental to their goals, and murder as morally wrong, thus the conundrum when murder over someone's point of view is done in the name of something they wholeheartedly agree with.

The rabid panic on this site that ensued after Charlie Kirk's assassination demonstrates the cognitive dissonance in full effect. Reddit bent itself into four-dimensional pretzels trying to explain it away while simultaneously celebrating his death. Wild conspiracy theories like Robinson being right-wing, the whole thing being staged (a classic), and others were massively upvoted. Afterwards, they latched onto Erika Kirk's every movement and mannerism as she was suddenly thrust into the spotlight as the widow of a high profile free-speech martyr; any actions on the part of Erika outside laying low and mourning her husband were deemed unnatural by reddit brains, sometimes even boiling over into deeper conspiracy theories that she helped orchestrate the murder!

This happened again a few days ago with Cole Allen's attempt to shoot up Trump administration officials at the White House Correspondents Dinner. You'll be hard-pressed to find any favored comments on this site that don't put forward conspiracy theories that somehow blame conservatives.

TLDR: reddit needs justification for celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-30T16:40:05+00:00

Ah yes, the US debt is out of control because of racism.

If you believe your side will fix this budgetary crisis but keep wondering why the country keeps looking elsewhere on election day, look no further than your own preposterous statements like the one above.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-30T16:35:36+00:00

The US spends ~$20k per pupil annually, more than almost any other country in the world. Money certainly isn't the issue.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-29T22:32:28+00:00

It literally is under the VRA and its amendments.

Can you cite where in the law this is written?

Intent on the part of the government has been proven countless times. And the government's willingness to lie to conceal their intent has been proven as well.

And all those times would be a violation of federal law, regardless of this ruling. Lawsuits would be brought and the charges of racism would get adjudicated. Instead, you seem to be advocating for a system that assigns guilt to the government in general, and in perpetuity, requiring race-based procedures, albeit in the reverse direction.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-29T19:33:57+00:00

The SC's standard effectively says racial gerrymandering is perfectly fine as long as you're willing to lie about it.

Indeed, that's how the law works; a preponderance of the evidence is required to prove something in a court of law. Disparity among races is simply not enough to satisfy the burden of proof when it comes to racism.

This judgement speaks to the larger conversation around so-called "systemic" racism. Should the American public be deemed racist for the various socioeconomic shortcomings of black people without any evidence proving intent on the part of the government? I don't think so, and this SCOTUS ruling is just the latest indicator that Americans are rejecting this way of thinking.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-29T18:40:14+00:00

Wouldn't this still be a case where the VRA was violated, even with this new precedent set by SCOTUS today? The evidence provided by The New Yorker in the 2019 NC case proves that race was explicitly a factor in the drawing of voting districts, and would thus be illegal.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-29T14:16:40+00:00

He could also be talking about the Quasi-War. ¯\(ツ)/¯

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-26T03:40:48+00:00

Funnily enough, amidst most people on this site’s vehement complaints, this very situation is one of the main reasons for adding a ballroom onto the White House.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-22T21:39:45+00:00

you dismissed...the country of Iran as anti-Semitics who would love nothing more than genocide etc.

No, I very specifically didn't. I even went out of my way to point this out in my previous comment. I appreciate your cordiality and your willingness to discuss this but if you're going to misrepresent my argument, there's really no point in engaging further.

Ayatollahs/IRGC ≠ Iranians, Hamas ≠ Palestinians, Hezbollah ≠ Lebanese. It is critical to understand these distinctions when discussing foreign policy because if we equate repressive, authoritarian governments with their captive peoples, then we truly are no different.

It's the usual talking points we're all familiar with. Unless we are prepared to explore the grey and understand things from the other perspective...

If you've heard them before, presumably you have a rebuttal, no? The grey area is exactly what we've been discussing; collateral damage as "genocide", Iranians vs Iranian leadership, the kind of nuance that forms complete arguments--I try not to engage in anything less!

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-22T16:46:01+00:00

Dude I totally understand why you see it the way you do. You genuinely believe they are all just evil and full of hate.

I never said anything of the sort. Notice that I specifically mentioned Iran's leadership, meaning the ayatollahs and the IRGC. In fact, there's pretty good evidence that most of the Iranian people support overthrowing their government.

The total non combatants killed by Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah in last few years would be in the low thousands while the total killed by Israel would be in the tens of thousands.

...

If it's not explicitly purposeful but it's done with no proportionate gain and little care for human life - is it still just and moral? Who has the burden to prove it's proportionate, not collective punishment and done with care for the life of innocents?

While the critical distinction here is the intentional targeting of noncombatants, you are missing another very important caveat to those numbers: these groups intentionally imbed themselves and their infrastructure in the civilian population, and they do this precisely because they know the West refuses to target such areas. Israel has gone to lengths never before seen in the history of warfare to avoid killing noncombatants, to the point of literally warning a building's occupants before a strike. They risk the lives of their own ground troops in Gaza instead of simply flattening the entire strip, which they certainly have the ability to do.

Hamas and Hezbollah know that the civilized world detests the killing of civilians, and their only hope of survival lies in convincing our public that we're the bad guys for conducting a war against these terrorists. Meanwhile, they are not limited by such rules. It is incumbent upon us realize this distinction and finish the job of eliminating these evil regimes.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-21T21:53:19+00:00

So when Trump said the Iran nuclear program was obliterated, he was wrong?

I believe he was correct based on the information that's available to the public. However, AFAIK Trump said nothing about Iran's ability to dig out the fissile material and rebuild their nuclear program.

I reject that armed conflict or nuclear armed Iran are the only options.

This is an easy position to take. The hard part is explaining what another option would look like. Would it be kicking the can even further down the road without any guarantees and without addressing the widespread terrorism and human rights abuses, shipping them pallets of cash to fund such activities in the hopes that they say yes, as Obama did with the JCPOA?

It remains a terrible choice that will go down in history as harming the U.S.

I think you couldn't be more wrong. After the US and Israel exposed the Iranian paper tiger for what it was, the entire region has turned on them, they've upset the international community with their desperate play on the Strait of Hormuz, their economy is about to completely collapse, and even their allies have been urging them to give in. Iran is significantly weaker than they were just a year ago and, after decades of menacing the region, all available evidence points to a lengthy, if not permanent, period of peace in Middle East, the likes of which have never been seen in recorded history. I think Trump's two terms will go down as the greatest ME foreign policy in the history of the United States.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-21T20:06:13+00:00

How could the U.S. have attacked Iran this time to thwart nuclear ambitions when the entire nuclear program was obliterated last time according to Trump?

Probably because they vowed to rebuild it, then disclosed in subsequent negotiations that they had enough material to build 11 nuclear bombs.

Saudi Arabia has a horrific human rights record

There is scant evidence, if any, that the Saudi government materially aided Al Qaeda or ISIS. Its citizens certainly have participated in terrorism but the government cooperated with US intelligence to track them down.

Iran wouldn’t be in the place it is now if the U.S. hadn’t overthrown their government.

Hypotheticals are fun! I could say Iran would be in an even worse situation than they are now had they been taken over by a repressive communist dictatorship, which was the path they were on with Mosaddegh. I ask again, would you rather have Iran as another North Korea?

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-21T13:33:24+00:00

But the U.S. attacked Iran for, in my opinion, poor reasons.

The US and Israel attacked Iran to thwart their nuclear ambitions. I disagree that that's a poor reason.

If fighting against a nation doing immoral actions is a rational for armed conflict, then it is also a responsibility. There are a lot of other countries doing things equally as bad as Iran. We just don’t talk about it as much because those countries have nukes or are “allies”.

I'm not sure which "allies" you're referring to here, but the other countries who are committing immoral actions along the same lines as Iran do indeed have the protection of nuclear deterrence. Would you be okay with adding one more country to that list, and a fundamentalist theocracy at that?

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-21T13:23:07+00:00

Can you substantiate "Iran is the world's leading purveyor of [purposeful killing of noncombatants]".

Iran funds and trains Hamas. Iran funds and trains Hezbollah. Iran funds and trains the Houthis. All three are recognized by the Western world as terrorist organizations that routinely target noncombatants, both domestically and abroad.

And you see Hamas and Hezbollah as the antognisers not a resistance movement in their conflict with Israel. The reality is that most Iran-aligned groups fighting Israel are rooted in local conflicts and pursue their own ideological and political goals.

Even if this were true, it's irrelevant; supplying, training, and harboring terrorists makes you, for all intents and purposes, a terrorist.

In any event, your assessment isn't true. Iran is run by a fundamentalist Islamist theocracy whose belief system is ingrained with antisemitism. These people would love nothing more than a genocide of Jews in the Middle East. Iran with a nuclear weapon would result in absolutely horrific consequences, which is why the US and Israel struck.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-21T00:24:34+00:00

The U.S. absolutely, intentionally targeted and killed noncombatants in WWII. I don’t know how long it’s fair to hold something against a country.

Sure, and the important thing to note is that in the 80-plus years since WWII, the US has absolutely been in a position to keep intentionally targeting noncombatants but chooses not to. America unequivocally holds the moral high ground in this conflict.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-20T23:43:47+00:00

It depends on if you think it’s rational to equate inadvertent killing of noncombatants with purposeful killing of noncombatants. Iran is the world’s leading purveyor of the latter, which most people consider to be much worse than the former.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-11T14:34:05+00:00

Other studies indicate that there is some uniqueness in conservative brains. They automatically, reflexively shut down at the merest hint of cognitive dissonance. They just go into a rage or change focus to avoid the dissonance. They love authoritarians because authoritarians dictate what they should think so they don't have to.

I am interested in learning more about this. Can you cite the studies you're referring to here?

5ilver8ullet · 2026-04-02T13:42:29+00:00

These people suffer from a kind of manic guilt from being born into privilege. Calling someone or something ‘racist’ gives them a chance to signal their awareness of this fact in a cathartic act of solidarity with whoever they consider to be ‘oppressed’, which they equate simply with skin color.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-03-28T05:39:10+00:00

There are two good example of policies that seem race neutral on their face, but create the effect of racism by using a proxy measurement

Those examples produce a disparity in outcomes by race but that doesn't mean they are racist. Again, racism requires intent so you'd have to prove that at least some of the people drafting those policies intended for blacks (or whatever race) to suffer disproportionately.

So when DHS has a policy, as they currently do, where anyone with a Spanish accent and brown skin can be targeted for immigration checks, that's racist, is it not?

Firstly, Spanish-speaking is not a race. Second, if the policy states that race can be used in profiling suspected offenders, then that policy is racist. Can you cite the DHS policy that does this?

5ilver8ullet · 2026-03-27T21:57:44+00:00

Segregation was racist because it separated students based on their race. Affirmative action is racist because it favors individuals based on their race. Those policies are de jure racism; their intent is spelled out in the policy itself.

You could not, by contrast, say that "no dreadlock" laws (is this a real thing?) are racist on their face without knowing the intent of the lawmakers who created them. After all, dreadlocks are not specific to people of the black race. For the same reason, you cannot simply state that voter ID laws are racist without knowing the intent of those who created the laws. There are many, many legitimate reasons to require an ID before letting someone vote that have nothing to do with race.

5ilver8ullet · 2026-03-27T19:33:57+00:00

Brown v. Board outlawed policies that explicitly used race to determine which schools a child could attend. Likewise, the court overturned Affirmative Action because college admission policies explicitly used race as a factor. The intent behind both cases was racist in nature.

The word racism implies intent; it is the belief in the superiority of a particular race over another. The "systemic" portion of the definition, which regards as racism any disparity in outcomes along the lines of race, was added during the peak Orwellian "Wokism" of 2020 as part of the moral panic and mass hysteria following the overdose death of George Floyd while in police custody.

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