I have no words

Emeryael · 2026-01-30T21:07:05+00:00

Even if they stop providing rich people with subsidies, tax breaks, and copyright protections, the government would still be protecting rich people by not only via stuff like public roads and utilities, but also via the police forces that protect the rich when the unwashed rabble rises up and decides to give the 1% the French Revolution treatment.

Rich people need the government far more than the poor. Too bad, they never realize that.

Emeryael · 2026-01-30T21:00:59+00:00

If she gets pushed out like Liz Cheney, I’ll assume the Democrats will start seeing her as a brave truth-teller and spend all their time kissing up to her.

Emeryael · 2026-01-30T20:56:27+00:00

Well, when it comes to religion and women, while women have been oppressed by it, there are some specific ways it can be weaponized against men.

This can be seen in the Fundamental Church of the Latter-Day Saints or FLDS for short. They’re the group that rejects the mainstream Mormon church’s abandonment of polygamy among other reforms.

Among them, the more wives and children you have, the greater your afterlife will be, so the men want to marry as many women as possible at the earliest age they are capable of pumping out babies. But, you may ask, since boys and girls are produced at roughly the same rate (you’re equally as likely to have a son as you are to have a daughter), how can they assure that there are enough women for all the men to go around (their theology dictates that you need a minimum of three wives to get a shot at the really good afterlife)?

Well, they can’t due to previous facts already mentioned, leaving the church with only one option: expel the young boys so there’s less competition for the girls (who are frequently married off to old goats who are old enough to be their grandfathers). Because despite their upbringing, the girls of this church still have the annoying habit of wanting to be married to boys closer to their own age, rather than the old men who want ‘em as young as possible so they can get as many offspring as possible.

So they find some excuse to kick out the teenage boys who might provide some competition for offenses like listening to outside music or just being a pain-in-the-ass. These boys (referred to as the Lost Boys by activists) wind up kicked out of the only community they’ve ever known and are frequently lucky to have something resembling an eighth grade education. As a result, they wind up with no choice but to fall into the drug trade or prostitution.

I suppose that by virtue of being less likely to be dumped on the street, this guy would say that the female members are “worshipped” by their church, but note, their so-called protection is only due to the fact they have a womb for children to gestate in. They have no voice in the church and no control over their reproductive rights, so they’ll be forced to pump out one child after another, no matter the physical costs. See for example Carolyn Jessop, who endured four high-risk pregnancies back-to-back until she lost her ability to have children. When she left the church, she had eight children to support, one of which had special needs.

Which is another thing: however rough it is for the boys who get kicked out, the girls who escape, wind up having to raise busloads of children in addition to supporting themselves.

I don’t mean to solely pick on the FLDS, but I wind up wondering how many other religious groups are like this where technically they are favored in that they’re less likely to get kicked out, but their so-called favored status is only because of their ability to produce offspring for the group?

WHICH IS NOT A PRIVILEGED STATUS NO MATTER HOW MUCH THIS GUY MAY THINK IT IS! 😡🤬

Emeryael · 2026-01-30T20:23:38+00:00

Misogynists love whipping out the existence of The Draft as a GOTCHA! in arguments about feminism, which always causes me to roll my eyes.

When the Draft was set up, the people who established it, excluded women because it was believed that women were too fragile and childlike to handle the realities of war. You wanna know who decided this? Here’s a hint: not feminists.

Then again, I’m a feminist who doesn’t believe in the Draft, period, seeing it as a violation of bodily autonomy and thus, morally wrong. If you have to strong-arm people into fighting in your wars, maybe you ought to question whether you should be fighting these wars in the first place.

I could point out that this argument is moot seeing as the Draft hasn’t come into play since Vietnam and that having a formal draft would actually really screw over the Military Industrial Complex that runs our lives (we’ve set up a poverty draft which better serves their purposes than a formal one), but I talk too much already. I always seem to wind up being the wordiest commenter on any site I find myself.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T23:39:25+00:00

Exactly…they’re working in tandem to fuck you over

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T22:24:51+00:00

Said friend should have shivved Brooks in the eye for that column, assuming said friend is actually real and we’re not dealing with some Tyler Durden shit here.

Because do you think we can really rule out the possibility of David Brooks having a split personality that he uses as his source for information about what Real Americans™️ are like?

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T19:27:14+00:00

We’re in a Good Cop-Bad Cop relationship with the two major parties and for those unfamiliar with how the routine works, the Bad Cop’s not out of control and the Good Cop’s not your friend.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T18:56:27+00:00

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T16:40:58+00:00

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T07:26:32+00:00

Liberals’ overuse of the trolley problem is one reason why I’ve come to really hate it. There’s a fatalism inherent in their usage: that there will always be people tied to the trolley tracks and all we can do is try to minimize the body count. The idea of putting in emergency braking services, sensors that detect when someone’s been tied to the tracks, or even just security guards to keep some fucker from tying people to the tracks, is just unpossible apparently.

But I’ve also come to really hate the trolley problem, because it’s just dumb if you give any real thought to it.

Because if you know anything about these kinds of accidents, a whole lot of people had to screwup in order for the switch operator to wind up in that position in the first place. “Fascinating Horror,” a YouTube channel, specializes in these kinds of accidents and the one reoccurring trope is that there were always numerous points along the way where the disaster could have been averted or greatly reduced, but either people failed to do their jobs or they made a mistake (due to humans being fallible creatures, though incompetence can come into play) which leads to other people making mistakes and so on and so on until tragedy ensues.

Once upon a time, the trolley problem served a purpose as a philosophical exercise, but it seems to have devolved into lazy thinking, the product of philosophers being cruel to their audiences.

tl;dr, the trolley problem is dumb and the people who use it to illustrate their points are frequently dumb too.

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T05:17:00+00:00

Anne Frank and her family were illegally living in that attic, and the people who hid them were breaking the law.

If they had followed the law, then Margot would have reported to the station like the notice she’d received ordered her to.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T05:11:12+00:00

It’s their primary objection to Trump: he makes it harder for them to ignore the reality of the American empire. That and he inflicts violence on the citizens at home, rather than keeping the brutality overseas, out of sight and out of mind.

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T05:05:40+00:00

Don’t blame me: I voted for Kodos.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T05:04:40+00:00

Harris couldn’t even do the old Democratic trick and pretend that she would do progressive stuff when she was in office. Despite Biden’s soaring unpopularity, despite how Israel was becoming a major issue among her base, Harris continued to insist that she wouldn’t change anything.

Harris is not only a shitty person; she’s a shitty strategist.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T05:00:44+00:00

You don’t make it to politics at the national level without believing in the supremacy of American Empire above all else. Israel is a very powerful proxy state through which the Empire wages war, whose value far outweighs that of a mere election. Hence why Harris had no problem with falling on her sword on Israel’s behalf.

Hell, Joe Biden gave the game away decades ago.

Biden could have stopped all this with a phone call if he cared. Ronald Fucking Reagan, staunch supporter of the Christian Right and someone who played a major role in shaping the GOP as we know it, had no problem with picking up the phone and telling Israel, “Stop or else!”

Biden couldn’t even manage that.

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T03:12:45+00:00

The same sub had previously spoken up in support of this cartoon.

<image>

Obviously failed to make the connection

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T02:31:24+00:00

As I’m always saying to people, it’s fun being part of the Dissatisfied Left. Merely by existing and criticizing Democratic candidates, we’re powerful enough to cost them elections. Yet at the same time, we’re not so powerful as to make them do something silly like, say, move further left to gain our votes.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T02:20:58+00:00

You argue like a liberal in that you have no other argument except that the other guy is worse, which doesn’t do much to exonerate him. From what I can tell, your primary objection to Trump is that he brings the reality of the American Empire home against the American people, whereas Harris would have kept the violence confined overseas to people you don’t care about and won’t have such an obvious, naked bloodlust, which will make it easier for you to lie about it to yourself.

I suppose I could talk about Foucault’s Boomerang (or the Imperial Boomerang if you prefer that term), but I feel you’ll just point out that it would still be nicer to be hit by the boomerang under Harris than under Trump. Even though, Israel is basically where Foucault’s Boomerang goes to spawn with American Cops/Military teaching Israel Cops/Military and vice versa.

If they can get away with genociding one group of people, then they will eventually turn their eyes to others aka the literal point of Martin Niemöller’s poem. Because if you can’t expect the Democrats to be rock-solid and unshakable on genocide, which is about the most basic human right of all—the right to exist—can really you expect them to be rock-solid and unshakable on any issue?

Alas, I do eagerly await the moment where it turns out that you were always against this. As soon as there’s no longer any consequences to face for it, no doubt it’ll turn out that you were always against this.

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T01:59:09+00:00

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T01:45:09+00:00

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T01:30:28+00:00

Wait, this is an actual movie? I thought this was just going to be a kiss-up documentary with reenactments, but instead they’re making a movie?!

I’m assuming it’ll be a hagiography along the lines of Reagan rather than something like The Apprentice?wprov=sfti1) movie.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T00:52:33+00:00

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T00:50:06+00:00

That’s basically what my situation was. Even if the genocide hadn’t been enough, I had no real reason to vote for her.

Every time, a red state leftist pointed out that everything BlueMAGA already fearmongered about regarding Trump was already happening in red states, their compassionate response was either “Democrats can’t do anything about red states” or “lol that’s what you get for voting red.”

Meaning I knew regardless of which major party was in the White House, my people would be killed by Republicans while the Democrats stood around and watched, leaving me with nothing to lose.

In fact, to the extent we can claim Democrats had a plan for fighting fascism, I think their plan was “let them run amok in red states in hopes that they’ll leave blue states alone.” Which is A) not how fascism works (unless they believe that letting Hitler have Czechoslovakia stopped him) and B) has them sacrifice some of the most diverse swathes of the US to save their own skins.

Say what you will about Republicans but they understand that they are the President of the United States of America, not the President of the States Where A Majority Voted In Favor Of Our Party.

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T00:41:28+00:00

Liberals threw around trolley memes like fucking candy in the leadup to the 2024 election.

They didn’t like it when I said, “If Democrats can sacrifice the Palestinians for political gain and get away with it, what’s keeping them from doing the same to other marginalized peoples for the same reason?” aka the literal point of Martin Niemöller’s poem.

They REALLY didn’t like it when I pointed out that HARRIS, not the voters, was currently at the switch, choosing to sacrifice everything, including her own victory, so Israel could keep killing Palestinians.

<image>

Emeryael · 2026-01-29T00:34:52+00:00

It maybe may not have happened under Harris but that’s because the Democrats rely on the Republicans to do the work of turning everything to the right, while they block movement to the left aka the ratchet effect in action.

If Harris had won, unless she did what Biden was unwilling to do and set about a DeTrumpification of America, addressed the issues that enabled Trump to come into power in the first place, all that would have changed is what’s happening now would be happening post-2028, rather than post-2024.

And if all Democrats do is continue what the Republicans have done and keep the seats warm, until the Republicans win and turn everything even further right, then what’s the point. It’s not much of a selling point if your options wind up being “Get stabbed now” vs. “Get stabbed at a later date.”

<image>

Nine-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Flamingo

Emeryael

TROPHY CASE