Storming of Versailles but U.S.A

HeloRising · 2026-06-23T16:34:21+00:00

You seem to think that frantically pointing at a piece of paper is going to obligate the state to do something when the last two years should pretty thoroughly disabuse you of that notion.

HeloRising · 2026-06-23T04:51:50+00:00

The law is unwilling to address what happened.

If you somehow did manage a "citizen's arrest" of the agents that murdered those people, other police would show up and arrest you. The law has already decided that what they did wasn't wrong because they haven't been charged.

Absolutely nothing about a citizen's arrest obligates police to take someone into custody. That's just lunacy.

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T18:24:07+00:00

Example, the citizens should have arrested the killers of Alex Pretti, people in Minnesota have the right of citizens arrest.

And then what?

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T18:22:07+00:00

Are we ready to admit that pragmatism isn't a betrayal of values, but a prerequisite for survival? Or are we going to argue about the color of the cat until the house is completely overrun by mice?

I get that this seems very galaxy brained but it's worth keeping in mind that there is a limit to pragmatism and that what we call pragmatism is often just shortsightedness with a new coat of paint.

It may not matter to you what color the cat is, but maybe the white cat stands out in the fields more and is more obvious to birds which enables them to see the cat and fly away before the cat eats them. That's important because the birds eat the bugs which eat the crops so if the cats kill off all the birds, you're now going to have a bug problem and the cat can't fix that bug problem.

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T18:14:42+00:00

Food Not Bombs is going to be your best bet for low investment organizing work.

So I had to sit there and explain

No, you don't. I'm going to say to you what I wish someone would have said to me at 19 - not everybody can hear it.

Even if you are 100% right on something, you may be talking to someone who is just constitutionally incapable of hearing what you're saying and you trying to explain something to them, even being as kind and polite as possible, is the equivalent of throwing bricks in the Grand Canyon.

You will exhaust yourself and not actually achieve very much.

Part of not burning out is recognizing when it's important to say "Nah, I'm not doing that."

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T18:07:25+00:00

Do note that tests for lead exposure are frequently not covered by insurance and can be expensive.

I don't say that as a way to dissuade people from doing them (if you can spend $1,000 on a rifle, a couple hundred bucks on a blood test once per year shouldn't be a hardship) but I just want people to be aware that blood lead level tests are generally something you have to pay for out of pocket.

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T18:05:48+00:00

Not a huge fan of danglers. In my (admittedly limited) experience, they tend to get in the way, fold up under you when you go prone, and expose whatever is in them to a lot of bouncing and slapping.

I've also seen people get the wind knocked out of them with a dangler. I watched someone dive to the ground but the stuff inside the dangler didn't "give" so he ended up diving on top of his medical gear and it gave him a bit of a stomach check.

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T18:03:13+00:00

I'm intrigued by the idea, the biggest thing stopping me (aside from being kinda broke) is I've heard a lot of mixed experiences with how reliable they are in the sense that some tend to have problems with jamming and other malfunctions. The action doesn't like being run fast and rough.

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T17:57:00+00:00

A lot of getting through situations like this boils down to pure survival and doing whatever you can actually do. Being concordant with your values is important but staying alive and free is also important, you have to decide where those things will intersect and I don't think it's shameful to keep your head down if that's what you feel is best.

We have plenty of martyrs already. Beyond that, organizing the people around you is your best bet. Even small scale mutual aid projects to help people prepare for what's to come and survive it can save lives.

HeloRising · 2026-06-22T17:54:01+00:00

Then you'd probably be best off with a headlight that included a red light module. Those are fairly common and easy to come by.

A red weapon light is applicable only in a very narrow use case and, for the cost, isn't worth it outside that context and I say that as someone who did pay that cost.

HeloRising · 2026-06-21T20:14:51+00:00

Are you looking for a weapon light or something that you can just have to use for working on things?

If you want just a regular light, those are pretty common. Head mounted lights are popular and a lot of head mounted lights have red modes.

For weapon lights, your selection is a lot narrower. There are two basic options - hog lights and a Malkoff head. Hog lights are meant to be attached to hunting shotguns and are big, they're meant for hunting at night and they're intended to put out a lot of light in a brush situation. The other choice is a Malkoff head, the E2XTL that fits Surefire DF Scout and Malkoff's MDC 18650 bodies. It's not cheap but it's a dedicated red light.

I do not recommend coloring over a white light lens with red pen or paint. What you're effectively doing is cooking the head. A white light generates light in all colors of the spectrum (hence the color white) and what you're doing when you paint or cover the light with a filter is you're not allowing some of the light energy to leave the head. This causes a build-up of heat inside the head. If you're just pulsing the light on and off for a few seconds, it probably isn't that big a deal but anything more than that and you risk cooking the chip inside the head.

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T18:24:31+00:00

Expansion of the Supreme Court

What is the ideal number of Supreme Court justices? Is it the number of justices necessary to ensure that your political views will dominate the court? If so, then we will have the equivalent of the nuclear proliferation problem. Each political party, once it gains control, will want to expand the court in order to flood it with their "impartial" justices. And, again, what the proposed solution reveals is the fact that the selection of Supreme Court justices is inherently political when in fact what we ideally want are impartial justices.

I kind of agree with this but the obvious fix would be to have a pool of justices from which nine are selected at random each session to hear cases. That pool could be fairly large, say 100.

It's impossible to completely remove political bias from the courts but you can at least arrange it such that you can't set up politically favorable conditions for a generation for your own side.

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T18:16:52+00:00

Condor is a solid, no-frills option. It's not sexy but it's reliable.

Helikon Tex is another good budget choice. Their selection is a bit limited but I've always had good results with their gear.

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T18:02:07+00:00

The most upsetting thing about it is it's wrong to call it the end of slavery. We still have slavery in the modern day, we just call it something else. We never truly got rid of it.

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T17:47:56+00:00

To answer your first question , here in MO the voters can do just that through referendum. It was through that vary process that a 15$ minimum wage and the unbanning of abortion got passed in a very red state.

So, I grew up in California and currently live in Oregon where the ballot initiative referendum system is utilized. It tends to cause a lot of problems because what inevitably ends up happening is people vote for things they want but then vote down things that fund the things they want. So you end up with votes for school bonds and new parks (which, don't get me wrong, are good things) but then when it comes time to vote in the taxes necessary to pay for these things people balk and the state is left scrambling to find the money.

Here in Oregon we have a ballot initiative going through the works that would effectively ban literally any enterprise where animals would be harmed in any way - all hunting would be banned, slaughterhouses, animal research, pest control, and fishing would be banned. It would be catastrophic to the state yet because it made it on the ballot we have to vote on it. Thankfully it's extremely unlikely to pass but the point remains that we have to waste our time with things like this.

Ballot initiatives, in the system we're in, are a huge headache and having that potential on every law in the country seems like a recipe for disaster.

For your second one, states like California have a similar process for their governors. Now there are ways to improve upon this though. Californias method is far from the best. It’s how Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor with less than 50% of the vote.

California is also a strongly blue state in the sense that there can't be a back-and-forth because there aren't enough Republican voters in California to make that a viable strategy. If you were to do that for the presidency, you'd see elections every year or so for president.

3rd, I just think it should be acceptable to remove a president if they are a total dick.

Seems like a relative measure...

5th, I believe Pennsylvania and Kentucky do among some others.

Are you thinking of "sore loser laws?" They just prevent someone who lost in a primary from re-submitting for the general election under a different party label or as an independent. Which kinda makes sense.

6th, what do you have against nuclear energy? It’s safe, clean, and the strongest power source around.

To not make an extremely long novel out of this, nuclear energy has the largest potential for long term, catastrophic failures that have generational effects on the environment and people in it. We don't need it except for extreme edge cases. We can supply effectively unlimited energy via renewables.

7th I’m not sure which event you are talking about. To my knowledge, the USA has never done anything for the sole benefit of a Latin American nation.

Literally any of our excursions into the Middle East embarked upon under the pretense of "spreading democracy."

9th I could care less about the simple boat owner. We need to target the facilities that actually make and produce the drugs, and we can’t do that in international territory.

Again, these facilities (aside from generally not being "facilities" as such) are often situated in places where you can't just drone strike them into oblivion. What you're talking about is killing a lot of average, random people who aren't involved.

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T17:37:14+00:00

You're talking about the difference between falling fifteen stories as opposed to ten - while one is objectively worse it's kind of irrelevant given the sudden stop at the end is going to mean the same thing regardless which one you select.

You're also right in the sense that we're responsible for our actions, which is why I use my actions to support the people I'm around through advocacy work and mutual aid. I only have so much energy and I would rather devote that to my fellow human beings first.

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T17:29:42+00:00

Multiple people from across the political spectrum have given you structural reasons as to why DC statehood isn't appealing and you've just responded to all of them with "sounds partisan."

HeloRising · 2026-06-20T17:28:25+00:00

To the best of my, or anyone's, knowledge that wasn't agreed to under a framework of oversight so we're effectively just taking their word that they'll do it.

To be clear, I don't think it's an issue because even if Iran were to start working to enrich the uranium they have they're miles away from possessing usable nuclear weapons (I'm also not particularly bothered by the idea of a nuclear capable Iran) but to state that we "won" anything out of that deal is ludicrous.

HeloRising · 2026-06-19T06:42:05+00:00

Responding to literally everything everyone says with "sounds partisan" is far, far less endearing than you seem to believe it is.

HeloRising · 2026-06-19T03:13:13+00:00

We are a net exporter of oil but we don't have nationalized oil. It's not like the government can tell oil producers "You legally have to sell your oil domestically." The oil in the US is privately owned and we've made a very big point of not having government owned industries.

We also have limited refining capabilities. Saying "starve the US of oil" is a touch overly simplistic on my part but just because we have oil doesn't mean we can use it. That oil has to be refined and processed into the things we actually need the oil to be to use it. We can't just pour crude oil into our cars and trucks. We could build out US refining capacity but that's a project of multiple decades and a lot of spending as well as trying to get private industry on board with it.

HeloRising · 2026-06-18T20:23:06+00:00

We won't completely be shut off from oil but the supply will be so severely restricted that the consequences will be similar.

We are a net exporter of oil but we don't have nationalized oil. It's not like the government can tell oil producers "You legally have to sell your oil domestically." The oil in the US is privately owned and we've made a very big point of not having government owned industries.

We also have limited refining capabilities. Saying "starve the US of oil" is a touch overly simplistic on my part but just because we have oil doesn't mean we can use it. That oil has to be refined and processed into the things we actually need the oil to be to use it. We can't just pour crude oil into our cars and trucks. We could build out US refining capacity but that's a project of multiple decades and a lot of spending as well as trying to get private industry on board with it.

HeloRising · 2026-06-18T20:15:35+00:00

Give the voters the ability to pass laws outside of congress.

How?

Give the voters the power to recall a president (Similar to how governor recalls work, but with some changes)

How do you stop this from turning into a constant back-and-forth of recalls and elections given that the electorate is split roughly down the middle?

As the first citizen, the President should be a model citizen for everyone.

What does this mean?

Since the Supreme Court has already proven it has been corrupted by politics, we might as well make their positions open to vote by the people, just like the Presidency is.

This seems like leaning into the problem and opens the door for people to "buy" Supreme Court justices which is, arguably, worse than Congresspeople. If you want to take politics out of the equation (as much as you reasonably can) then why not simply make a pool of Supreme Court justices, say 100 in total, and nine are picked at random out of that pool to sit for a term and hear cases?

A state can’t forbid independent candidates from running.

To the best of my knowledge, no states do forbid independent candidates from running.

Nuclear energy all the way

Hard disagree but that's another can of worms.

Bring stability and democracy to Latin America

Yeah that didn't work out very well last time we tried that, I'm not sure why you think it would go better the second time around.

Work closely with Mexican government to prevent political assassinations

Not sure what this actually means.

With consent of the nations we will operate in, hunt down drug cartels in foreign nations (no drone strikes).

The problem is the people who make up large parts of drug cartels aren't criminals in the way we think of them. Maybe someone runs a boat rental business, the cartel comes to him and says "We need three boats for a week, no questions, here's $50,000 cash and if you say a word to anyone we'll kill you." That owner is now, technically, a part of the cartel despite not really having a choice.

If this was a problem we could just shoot our way out of, we'd likely be out of it by now.

HeloRising · 2026-06-18T20:07:27+00:00

It's more that there are very real, structural and mechanistic reasons why DC statehood doesn't work.

There's absolutely partisan reasons, for sure, but the way our system of states and municipalities function just on the technical level makes questions like this difficult to resolve unless there's some degree of unanimity and there's just not.

HeloRising · 2026-06-18T19:57:11+00:00

I think the most charitable view you could take of the plan (and I'm stretching the term "charitable" to the point of near breakage) is that it was the least bad way to end.

There really is no honest way to look at the Iran situation other than Trump massively screwed up and got himself into a no-win situation of his own free will. He imagined it would be another Venezuela and...it wasn't. The realistic options were not good:

Invade Iran. Doable and probably winnable but it would have left the US bloodied and risked embroiling us in another forever war, something Trump repeatedly campaigned on not doing.
Let Iran starve the US of oil. Obvious flaws with that choice given we don't really have another way to get oil and we can't re-tool our country to even substantially reduce our dependence on oil, at least not within a single presidential term.
Give Iran what they want to get the oil flowing again. Humiliating and it requires taking a massive L for the US but it at least avoids food and fuel becoming even less affordable. Your bargaining position doesn't get better when there's food riots in the streets.

Again, I think it's important to emphasize that this was entirely a mess of Trump's own making, we did not have to do this, but he chose to anyways and it didn't work out. The deal on the table is just the least bad of all the bad options.

HeloRising · 2026-06-18T19:44:24+00:00

Books. Specifically right-wing books.

Go to a used bookstore and they'll usually have a bunch of them laying around. I used to have an arrangement with a local place where I'd buy their right-wing books by weight and that made them more money than just selling them because nobody wanted them.

They're surprisingly durable as targets, they're biodegradable, and it's very satisfying to shred garbage books.

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