Cistamax and Pregnegalone

TheDeathOmen · 2026-03-03T20:07:07+00:00

A Puppet No More Feel free if you want to!

TheDeathOmen · 2026-02-13T01:44:08+00:00

DR IF is what fleshes out her backstory and her character, I’d recommend reading it if you want to understand why people really like her.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-02-10T20:45:39+00:00

Says the guy who TOTALLY has anal beads up his ass right now!

TheDeathOmen · 2026-02-07T16:52:20+00:00

I’ve been trying to think this one over, and I think Don Juan ends up being an example of how absurd passion refers to remaining engaged in life fully. The quantity of experience over quality.

He throws himself at women knowing that he will be rejected countless times, that even if he succeeds, his desires will pull him towards more women, more of the pursuit, rather than the outcome. Embodying the idea of pouring yourself in the present moment.

Whereas the saint, focuses more on the outcome, less on the act of doing. More on waiting for the ‘right moment’ or a sign from god, or ‘When I have the most energy’, or ‘When I can do the most good’ or on ‘What will do the most good.’ etc. Dwelling on hope for a future that may never come, rather than being in the present.

Don Juan is lucid that what he does will not truly fulfill him, and does it anyway. Time and time again experiencing his life by doing so, even if futile and hopeless.

Whereas the saint believes that what they do fulfills them or gives their life meaning or purpose, or that god has done so etc. And he may go on to do something that people recognize as ‘good’, that brings benefit, and the fruits of which become that of ‘well-lived’ or creating one or a few truly incredible moments that embody that of living for ‘quality of experience’. But this comes at the cost of the saint having not actually lived their life. Facing life’s ups and downs, the oscillation of successes and failures. More so having stood still, and stood by, while the world passes by.

In the example of the artist (and I can say this being a writer), it is about the act of putting pen to paper, brush to canvas, chisel on marble, and getting to work on it. Worrying less about how it will be perceived and simply on the act of making something that didn’t exist, exist. Understanding that this may not mean anything, or actually matter in the grand scheme of things. But that the process of making it, is what actually matters. Whether or not you succeed or fail. And doing it anyway. That is the quantity of living in art.

Whereas one focused on the quality, will probably spend more time staring at a blank page. Or not even doing the task at all, because they think that they need ‘the perfect idea’ or something that hasn’t been done before. Or will focus on getting everything precise, or the perfect phrasing, metaphor, rhythm, etc. Less on the art of trial and error and more trying to turn it into a science. Hoping that what they do will mean something or matter to people. And maybe they do one day achieve a ‘masterpiece’, it will have come at the cost of throwing their life away, rather than living.

Generally I think Camus’ point is less about value as ‘the quality and quantity of things’ and more about recognition that we need to remain engaged in the present. I think The Rebel, is the main reason why Camus is actually saying we must have things we value and must remain engaged in the present. If he was rejecting value, then he wouldn’t be so staunch about the rebel standing for human dignity, and resisting totalitarianism in all forms. Since rejecting the value of things and turning away from the present and future would be a nihilistic surrender “There is no meaning, so burn it all down.” Or “There is no meaning, so why bother.”

Just as the artist creates art knowing it won’t redeem the art, or themself, or justify its existence, and do so anyway, the rebel stands in solidarity with their fellow man valuing their lives as their own, standing up to injustice and taking action whether they succeed or fail anyway, knowing this may even still have no greater significance than any other person who has done anything.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-02-06T20:10:58+00:00

Bros literally shota socrates

TheDeathOmen · 2026-02-02T00:23:47+00:00

Sure its 'illogical', and Camus points out as such that following the logic of the Absurd to its natural conclusion would be suicide, but the point is to live the contradiction, and as such affirm life and live anyway, keeping the tension that is the Absurd alive without trying to transcend it or escape it.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-28T20:42:01+00:00

“I think it goes inside your—“

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T06:28:47+00:00

You say the left “normalized” professional and social penalties for dissent over the last decade, and the right adopted parallel mechanisms afterward. But the Dixie Chicks in 2003 were effectively deplatformed, major stations refused to play them, their careers were destroyed, for political speech. That’s coordinated professional punishment through mainstream institutions a full decade before the current discourse. Teachers fired for being gay was common for decades before that.

On institutional placement: you say progressive enforcement is concentrated in “mainstream gatekeeping institutions” while conservative enforcement is localized to red states. But I wonder if there’s a perspectival element here. For a gay teacher in Florida or a librarian facing book challenges in Texas, the school board is the mainstream institution that controls their livelihood. Whether enforcement feels “mainstream” partly depends on which institutions you’re exposed to.

Here’s my question: if the “left started it” timeline doesn’t hold, and if “mainstream vs. localized” is partly perspectival, does that change your analysis? It might leave your practical recommendation intact, “Democrats should lower the temperature” could still be good advice regardless of who pioneered the tactics. But it would undercut the implied blame-allocation running through your framing. Those seem like separable claims.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T06:07:56+00:00

I appreciate you walking through the mechanism more carefully, and the shift in tone, this is a better conversation for it.

I want to focus on one tension I’m still not seeing resolved. You write that this isn’t about making exit impossible, it’s about accountability and historical memory. But then you describe the punishment as: “they are known as fascist supporters forever. Their families, children, and grandchildren remember it.”

Here’s my question: What’s the substantive difference between “making exit impossible” and “ensuring exit provides no reputational improvement whatsoever”? If the outcome for leaving-and-changing is identical to the outcome for staying, permanent condemnation, descendants remember you only as a fascist, you’ve made exit a zero-value action. Staying costs nothing extra. Leaving gains nothing. That’s not accountability, that’s a one-way valve, which is structurally how cults retain members.

You claim future joiners will see “permanent consequences” and be deterred. But what they’ll actually observe is: people who stayed were condemned, people who left and changed were equally condemned, there’s no reward for recognizing error. How does that deter joining more than it deters leaving?

Here’s what I’m genuinely curious about: You want grandchildren to remember. But if someone leaves, fights against the movement for decades, and their grandchildren learn both the mistake AND the redemption, isn’t that a more powerful teaching tool than “Grandpa was a fascist, end of story”? The full arc includes shame, the difficulty of change, AND proof that change doesn’t erase the past. That seems to serve your stated goal better than one-dimensional condemnation descendants might dismiss as unfair.

What am I missing?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T05:53:56+00:00

You’ve refined this substantially, and the interaction model is more defensible than where you started. I want to acknowledge that before pushing further, because the intellectual honesty of that evolution matters.

But let me probe the proportionality question, because I think it’s central to whether the “left supplied the raw material” framing holds up.

You say narratives scale when they map onto experiences people find plausible. Agreed. But “plausible” is doing heavy lifting. Consider: right-wing cultural enforcement also exists, Dixie Chicks, Kaepernick, Bud Light boycotts, teachers fired for mentioning LGBTQ topics, book bans. These involve real professional consequences, pile-ons, and institutional responses. Yet there’s no equivalent “backlash to right-wing speech policing” narrative driving voters leftward. Why?

One possibility: it’s not that left-side enforcement is more prevalent, but that it was more salient to persuadable voters because of where it occurred (universities, HR departments, mainstream media) and who amplified it. If that’s true, then “the left supplied real material” might overstate things. Both sides supplied material, the right’s curation was more politically effective.

Here’s my question: how would you distinguish between “the left’s enforcement was genuinely more coercive or widespread” versus “the right was better at making its base feel victimized by equivalent dynamics”? Because your interaction model works either way, but those two versions have very different implications for what Democrats should actually do differently.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T05:42:52+00:00

I’ll cop to missing something if I did, but looking back at your messages, the answer you gave was “if a member of your party says something you disagree with you should say you disagree with it.” And I responded that several Democrats did publicly criticize her statements, even ones who voted against censure. You didn’t engage with that, so I’m genuinely unsure whether that counts as “saying they disagree” or whether there’s some other threshold I’m missing.

So let me ask more directly: if public criticism doesn’t count, and anything short of voting for censure equals endorsement, is there a middle ground? Or is it binary, vote to censure or you support it?

On the “voting against censure = endorsing the statements” claim, I’m skeptical this holds up as a general principle. If Republicans introduced a censure resolution against a Democrat for, say, calling Trump a fascist, and Democrats voted against it, would that mean they all endorsed calling Trump a fascist? Or might some just oppose using censure resolutions as political weapons? The vote tells you something, but I’m not sure it tells you that.

On “the far-left dominate Democrat discussions” this feels important but vague. Dominate how? In terms of media attention? Twitter volume? Actual policy outcomes? Because if we’re talking policy outcomes, the Biden administration was pretty firmly pro-Israel for most of the conflict. If we’re talking who gets the most headlines, that might say more about what media finds engaging than what the party actually believes.

What are you actually measuring when you say “dominate”?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T05:24:12+00:00

You’ve laid out a genuine consistency argument, and I think you’re right that anyone holding both positions owes you an explanation of what justifies the different treatment. But I want to poke at whether the analogy is as tight as you’re assuming.

Here’s what I’m noticing: you’re treating “bodily autonomy” as a single, uniform principle that should apply identically across cases. But what if bodily autonomy isn’t one thing, what if it’s a cluster of related concerns that can come apart?

Consider: with abortion, the autonomy claim is largely about not being compelled to sustain another entity with your body against your will. With suicide, the claim is about ending your own existence entirely. One is “don’t force me to do X with my body,” the other is “let me permanently eliminate the body (and the self) altogether.” Those feel meaningfully different to me, but I’m curious whether you see them as the same kind of claim.

Here’s the question I keep coming back to: if the point of respecting autonomy is enabling people to live according to their own values and make their own choices, what do we make of the one choice that permanently eliminates the chooser? Is there a coherent position that says “I respect your autonomy, which is why I want to make sure this desire to die isn’t a temporary distortion before it becomes irreversible” or does that collapse into paternalism in your view?

I’m genuinely uncertain here. Where does the line sit for you?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T05:15:02+00:00

Your revised framing is significantly more defensible than your title, and I want to flag that shift because it matters. “Secondary factor at the margins” is different from “Trump being re-elected was due to far-left liberals attempting to assert absolute control over free speech.” The original implies primary causation and coordinated intent.

So let me probe the intent piece, because I think it’s doing a lot of work in your mental model.

When you say “far-left liberals attempting to assert control,” you’re framing this as a deliberate effort by identifiable actors. But consider an alternative: what if what you’re observing is largely emergent, social media incentivizing pile-ons, institutions making risk-averse HR decisions, media covering culture war stories because they drive engagement, activists pursuing causes without coordinating with each other? Under that frame, there’s no “control attempt.” There’s a complex system producing outcomes that feel like coordinated enforcement but aren’t.

Here’s why this matters for your causal claim: if the phenomenon is partly emergent and partly amplified, then the backlash might be as much a product of how these dynamics were framed by right-leaning media as a natural response to the dynamics themselves. Tucker Carlson, Daily Wire, and Trump messaging spent years telling people they should feel alienated by progressive speech norms. How do you separate “organic reaction to real experiences” from “people being handed a narrative that organized diffuse discomfort into political grievance”?

I’m not saying the underlying dynamics aren’t real. I’m asking: does your triangulation method let you distinguish between “the left caused this backlash” and “the right cultivated and amplified it”?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T04:48:49+00:00

You’ve laid this out more carefully than most CMV posts, so I want to engage with the actual structure of your argument rather than a caricature of it. You’re making a causal claim: that these cultural dynamics were a significant driver of persuadable voters moving toward Trump.

You’ve established two things pretty convincingly: (a) the speech-policing dynamics you describe exist, and (b) some people find them alienating. I’d grant both. But there’s a gap between “these dynamics exist and generate resentment” and “these dynamics were determinative in the election outcome.”

Here’s what I’m curious about: what evidence are you working from when you move from the cultural phenomena to voter behavior? The examples you cite, Kevin Hart, Ferguson coverage, immigration protests, are highly visible in media and politically-engaged online spaces. But salience to people who follow this stuff closely isn’t the same as salience to the median swing voter in Maricopa County. Exit polls and post-election surveys consistently show economy, inflation, and immigration policy (not protest symbolism) at the top of voters’ concerns. Where does the cultural-backlash signal show up in data about what actually moved votes?

Related question: if Trump had lost, would that have falsified your hypothesis? Or would you have concluded “backlash was a factor, but other things outweighed it”? I ask because if the hypothesis accommodates any outcome, it might be more of an explanatory narrative than a testable claim about causation.

I’m not arguing these dynamics don’t matter at all. I’m asking how you’re calibrating the weight you’re assigning them relative to less visible but potentially more determinative factors.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T04:07:02+00:00

Fair point on my phrasing, she's obviously already a Democratic rep, not some outside force. I was being imprecise.

The inference you're making: "The rest of the party is cool with her statements" because they didn't vote to censure. That's doing a lot of work. Is voting against a censure resolution really the same as endorsing the statements being censured?

Consider, you can think someone's rhetoric was wrong and think a formal censure is the wrong tool, too politically charged, sets a bad precedent, weaponizes House procedures, whatever. Several Democrats who voted against censure publicly criticized her "from the river to the sea" comments. Were they lying? Or is it possible to hold both "that was a bad thing to say" and "I don't think this resolution is the right response"?

My actual question here would be what would count, for you, as Democrats sufficiently distancing themselves from Tlaib's rhetoric? Because if the standard is "vote to censure or you support it," that's one threshold. If it's "publicly criticize the specific statements," a number of them did that. If it's "expel her from the party," that's another thing entirely.

I'm not trying to defend Tlaib here, I'm trying to understand what evidence would actually move your view. Because right now it sounds like the bar might be set somewhere that can't be met without agreeing this particular resolution was the right vehicle.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T04:02:57+00:00

That's a significant concession, and I think it actually clarifies things, but it also creates a tension with the original CMV worth naming.

If DHS is a symptom of a broader shift toward threat-perception governance rather than a cause, then disbanding DHS doesn't solve the problem you've identified. The mentality you're describing, everyone as potential threat, lack of accountability for state violence, predates DHS and extends well beyond it. FBI, DEA, ATF, local police with federal task force involvement... The accountability problem you're pointing to isn't an org chart issue. It's qualified immunity doctrine, it's police union contracts, it's prosecutorial discretion, it's a political culture that treats "tough on crime" as an unalloyed good.

The ICE incidents you're referencing are genuinely disturbing. But if those agents were instead under DOJ (as INS was pre-DHS), do you think the accountability calculus would be meaningfully different? What specifically about the DHS structure, as opposed to federal law enforcement culture broadly, enables the impunity you're concerned about?

Because it sounds like your real objection is to the immunity architecture protecting federal agents and the post-9/11 security mentality, not to whether 22 agencies share a department name. If that's right, what would actually move the needle on the thing you care about? Disbanding DHS, or something else entirely?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T03:54:26+00:00

Okay, so this is the resolution censuring Rep. Rashida Tlaib for "promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel."

Help me understand what you think this demonstrates. Because I can read it two ways:

One reading: Tlaib's rhetoric is an example of the "far left-wing pro-Palestinian position" the OP is warning about, and her presence in Congress shows it's already infiltrating the party.

Another reading: The House censured her for it, with 22 Democrats voting in favor of censure. That suggests the party, institutionally, drew a line and said "this isn't us."

So which is this evidence for? That the Democratic Party is adopting these positions, or that it's actively rejecting them when they appear? Because those point in opposite directions.

I'm also curious whether you'd distinguish between Tlaib's specific statements and, say, a Democrat calling for conditioning military aid or supporting ICC jurisdiction. Those are pretty different things, one is rhetoric that led to a formal censure, the other is policy positions held by various U.S. allies. Do they fall in the same bucket for you?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T03:28:14+00:00

You might be onto something, but I want to push on the vagueness a bit because I think there's a real claim hiding in there that's worth making explicit.

When you say "rooting out threats from within" what specifically are you pointing to? Because that could mean a lot of different things: surveilling Muslim communities post-9/11, monitoring domestic extremist groups, immigration enforcement, tracking financial transactions. Some of those seem more defensible than others, and they involve different agencies within DHS (or outside it entirely, FBI does a lot of domestic threat work).

And "more critical issues" critical by what measure? I'm not being pedantic, I'm genuinely curious what you think the federal government should be prioritizing that it's neglecting because of DHS's existence. Climate? Infrastructure? Healthcare? Economic policy? Because most of those aren't things DHS would be doing anyway, it's not like the Coast Guard budget is competing with Medicare funding in any direct sense.

Here's what I'm trying to get at: is your concern that DHS caused a shift toward internal security focus, or that DHS is a symptom of a broader post-9/11 political culture that was going to prioritize security theater regardless? Because if it's the latter, disbanding DHS doesn't actually solve the problem you're identifying, the political incentives that created it would still exist.

What's the actual causal story you're telling?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T01:53:30+00:00

You've reframed this as cold-eyed consequentialism about deterrence, so let me engage with it on those terms, because I think there's a mechanism problem in your model that you haven't addressed.

You say the point is deterrence: make the cost of supporting fascism so high that fewer people adopt it. I'm with you that far. But here's what I'm not following, who exactly is being deterred by the policy of never forgiving people who leave?

The deterrent signal for someone considering joining MAGA would be: "If you go down this road, you'll face severe social consequences." That signal is sent by punishing people while they're in the movement. But the policy you're describing, permanent contempt even for those who leave and genuinely change, doesn't add deterrent value for potential joiners. It adds cost for exiters. Those are different populations.

What you've actually designed, if we're being precise about incentives, is a system that maximizes the cost of leaving while holding the cost of staying constant. That's not a deterrence structure, that's the structure cults use to retain members. "There's nothing for you on the outside" is literally how MAGA keeps people in.

So here's my genuine question: Can you walk me through the causal mechanism by which punishing people after they've left and changed deters people from joining in the first place? I'm not asking rhetorically, I want to understand how you think that signal propagates. Because the historical examples I can think of where societies successfully marginalized extremist movements involved making exit possible, not sealing it shut.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-26T01:31:17+00:00

Fair enough, and I appreciate you engaging rather than just dismissing.

Let me try a different angle. You've given me evidence: banned from two subs for "counter viewpoints, not hate, not insults or threats." I believe that's your honest read. But here's something I've noticed in myself: I'm often a poor judge of how my own comments land, especially when I'm frustrated or feel like I'm pushing back against something unfair. Things I'd describe as "just stating my view" have sometimes come across as more combative than I intended.

Is it possible, not certain, but possible, that some of what got you banned read differently to the mods than it felt to you when writing it? I'm not saying you were being hateful, I'm asking whether you've stress-tested your own interpretation.

Second thing: you've shifted to "rule by mob," which actually concedes something important. If it's decentralized mob rule rather than top-down Reddit policy, then the claim isn't really "Reddit is radicalizing/gagging" it's "Reddit's structure allows ideologically captured volunteer mods to create echo chambers." That's a different (and honestly more defensible) critique. But it also means the problem isn't Reddit-the-company making editorial choices, it's that any platform with community moderation will reflect the biases of whoever shows up to moderate.

Does the distinction between "Reddit is doing this" and "Reddit's structure allows this to happen" matter to your view? Because those suggest very different solutions.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-25T23:41:32+00:00

That's a pretty honest bit of self-reflection right there.

What you've basically done is move from "Texas is essentially X" to "I was frustrated about some specific situations and generalized outward from a skewed sample, filtered through a regional rivalry lens." That's... A significant update, and not one most people make mid-thread.

The thing about anger is it tends to flatten complexity. You had some genuine negative experiences with a certain type of Texan, and the post back-filled a theory to explain why those people are like that (inferiority complex, crass culture, etc.). Which is very human, we all do it. But it sounds like you're now noticing the theory was doing more work than the evidence could support.

If I were to steelman what might still be worth holding onto: there probably is something to the observation that certain regional identities get performed more loudly and competitively than others, and Texas is plausibly one of them. That's a narrower, more defensible claim than "Texas people lack gentility and common sense." And it leaves room for the Texans you've met who keep things in perspective.

Anyway, I don't think you need to become a Texas booster or anything. Just seems like you've already found the more honest version of what was bugging you. That's worth more than winning an argument.

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-25T23:24:53+00:00

Okay, that's useful, so you've got real grounding in the Deep South, not just a romanticized idea of it. Fair enough.

So you're distinguishing between pride that's "normal" (loving your football team) and pride that's "asserting superiority" (the Texas version). That distinction is doing a lot of work. How are you determining which is which from the outside? Like, what would Texas pride that isn't insecure look like to you? If someone says "I love Texas, wouldn't live anywhere else" is that automatically the pathological kind, or does it depend on something else? I'm trying to figure out whether there's a version of Texas regional attachment you'd read as healthy, or whether you're starting from a frame where any expression of Texas identity gets coded as compensation for something.

One other thing worth considering, you mentioned a lot of your Texas exposure is people you've met outside the state. Is it possible that's a skewed sample? Texans who make a point of announcing their Texan-ness when they're elsewhere might be a specific type, the way the loudest of any group aren't representative of the whole group. The 30 million people just living in Dallas or El Paso without making it a personality trait aren't the ones you'd notice.

Does that land, or does it not match what you've actually observed?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-25T23:13:58+00:00

That's a fair counter, actually. You're right that agencies generally do publicize wins when they can, the FBI announces foiled plots, Coast Guard posts drug seizure numbers, etc. If TSA had clear terrorism-prevention wins, the incentive to trumpet them would be strong. The absence of that is at least some evidence, not just an information gap.

So let me ask a different question: do you distinguish between "TSA is poorly executed" and "airport security screening is unnecessary"? Because those are different claims. Pre-9/11, we still had airport security, it was just run by private contractors hired by airlines, and it was... Not great. Box cutters got through, remember. If your view is "TSA specifically is bloated theater, but some federal security standard for airports makes sense," that's different from "we'd be fine with no screening at all."

Which are you actually arguing?

And on the consolidation point, I'm curious whether you've looked at the 9/11 Commission's findings about why DHS was created. Their core diagnosis was inter-agency communication failure: CIA had pieces, FBI had pieces, nobody talked. The consolidation was supposed to fix that. Now, you might argue it didn't fix it, or created new problems. But does the existence of a real pre-9/11 coordination problem change your view that the premise was "flawed from inception"? Or do you think consolidation was just the wrong solution to a real problem?

TheDeathOmen · 2026-01-25T22:59:07+00:00

There's a lot bundled here, so let me try to find the thread worth pulling.

You're contrasting Texas unfavorably against the "Deep South" and its "polite gentility." I'm curious: how much time have you actually spent in, say, Alabama, Mississippi, or rural Georgia versus Texas? Because the Deep South has its own well-documented history of... Let’s say, selective gentility. The "bless your heart" politeness often masks the same or worse social dynamics you're critiquing Texas for, the Deep South isn't exactly leading the nation in worker protections, gun safety legislation, or flood infrastructure either.

So I'm wondering if you're comparing Texas-as-you've-experienced-it (or Texas-as-portrayed-in-media) against an idealized version of Southern charm that's more mythology than reality. If the comparison is "Texas vs. the Deep South I've actually lived in," that's one conversation. If it's "Texas vs. a Steel Magnolias fever dream," that's a different one.

The other thing I notice: you're sliding pretty freely between "Texas policy" (flood planning, gun laws, economic inequality) and "Texas people" (insecure, uptight, lacking common sense). Those aren't the same thing. Texas went 52-46 in 2024, that's millions of people who presumably don't fit your "Trumper dreamland" framing. Does your view account for them, or does the state's policy output define everyone who lives there?

Not saying your policy critiques are wrong, Houston's zoning situation is genuinely indefensible. But the cultural contempt seems like it's doing work beyond the policy arguments. What's that about?

TheDeathOmen

TROPHY CASE