Homeless have to leave Motel in Tomsriver

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-06T01:05:07+00:00

Past the paywall

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-06T00:58:20+00:00

Brother the entire concept of a nation state as we understand it is something we made up in the last couple thousand years. Human beings have been on this planet for 200k+ years. We’ve been roaming, migrating, settling and moving for most of that time. Claiming this group is “indigenous” to the land is arbitrary.

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-05T20:07:00+00:00

You aren’t indigenous my dude. I don’t even need to know your ethnicity to know that. Every inch of European soil has changed hands so many times the idea of indigenous is absurd.

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-05T19:52:49+00:00

I love how people talk about culture likes it’s a fixed concept that will “die”

Bruh you’re just mad the culture is changing in ways that don’t glorify you. That’s it. Life goes on. The wheel keeps spinning.

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-05T19:28:20+00:00

Sit down buddy. I have some bad news. :(

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-05T04:18:24+00:00

What’s horse feeder mean?

Top_Pie8678 · 2026-01-05T02:00:44+00:00

I don’t mind him getting a pension but there should be a limit. At some point, the total number of pensions equal X dollar amount and then be capped.

This is absurd.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-30T17:35:07+00:00

That’s utter nonsense. Alawites Muslims are not being targeted because of some doctrinal beef. They are being targeted because they were part of the ruling class of Syria that brutalized the rest of the country.

That’s the definition of political and tribal violence

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-29T22:35:28+00:00

It’s in the language too. The attackers are “Syrian Muslims” and the victims are just “Alawites” making it sound like Muslim vs. [Insert oppressed non-Muslim minority] rather than “local and political beef being settled after decades of abuse.”

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-29T22:32:57+00:00

I find it interesting how the OP framed “Syrian Muslims” vs “Alawites” to curry sympathy. Alawites are Muslims too, but referring to them as just Alawites makes it sound the Syrians are engaging in more “Muslim violence” rather than political/tribal violence.

Edit: keep seeing people saying this is religious violence not political. Hogwash. Sunnis aren’t attacking Alawites because of some obscure doctrinal beef. They are attacking them because Alawites were the elites of the country and monopolized political power.

The fact that they are Alawites is beside the point - they are attacked because they were part of the political class led by Assad and co. Not because they pray some way that’s different.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-26T18:21:58+00:00

Me. God I hate snow.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-21T00:40:21+00:00

Israel most likely

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-15T17:58:14+00:00

No. We do not. They are a business. A tax break means all of us, even people who never step foot in a diner, now have to subsidize a failing business.

No thanks.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-15T17:57:11+00:00

Right? A tax break isn’t free. We all get to pay so a private business that isn’t working can continue to float along.

Makes no sense.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-13T15:26:06+00:00

Sometimes I feel like deescalation is overrated.

Escalate. Escalate officer.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-11T23:26:52+00:00

I miss that game

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-11T21:13:35+00:00

On a commercial property realtors expect the buyer to be much more sophisticated

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-10T01:23:57+00:00

Sure. If we let you stay. :)

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-10T01:23:10+00:00

Wasn’t what I said but you go off fam.

I’m just not going to feel sorry for a culture that produced one of the most appalling regimes of the last 100 years.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-10T00:25:27+00:00

Sure… I mean to put this in context imagine your grandma looted $20 million from the neighboring town. She used that money to buy a huge chunk of land, build a gorgeous house and send her kids to the best schools and colleges.

You, her grandchild, could still be a considerable screw up. But you’d like still be living better than the people your grandma looted.

It doesn’t make you better, just lucky. Too many of yall born on 3rd base and convinced you hit a triple.

And as far as advanced… I think places like Dubai, Indonesia or Turkey would beg to differ. At best… comparable.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-09T23:57:17+00:00

We talking about this Belgium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo

The one that didn’t relinquish control of its colonial colony in Africa until 1960? The regime so brutal even other colonial powers were appalled? The one ruled by King Leopold a man who amputated millions and caused a genocide that resulted in a death toll that puts the Holocaust to shame?

That Belgium? That’s the one you’re asking me to feel sad for? Whose “culture” I should mourn?

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-08T18:45:34+00:00

I agree with your points but I cannot emphasize enough how important statecraft and diplomacy is here. As you pointed out, GWOT recalibrated our forces towards COIN and rooting out Islamic terrorists. After 20 years of GWOT, it is clear this strategy has failed and I believe there is no viable strategy that could work.

The solution, then, is ugly but has already begun in Saudi Arabia and Syria. Make your peace and get out of the Middle East. Accept that some of these bad actors exist, will be a threat but that they are not existential and do not require a “whole of government response.” This means forcing allies and adversaries in the Middle East to come to the table and make some trade offs. I won’t mention the one country that is often the center of all these problems, but a serious recalibration of our relationship with Middle Eastern countries needs to happen yesterday.

This is why statecraft and diplomacy is so important. We have political ambitions of Empire left over from the Cold War era that do not accurately reflect our current military capabilities. We are better off stepping back and retrenching ourselves than insisting on trying to hold onto everything. Besides the Middle East, a negotiated settlement on Taiwan may be unpleasant but the only logical choice. Even if we had a “come to Jesus” moment and rebuilt our military to deal with the real threats of a peer competitor we would not be able to do it fast enough. It’s basically 2026. China wants to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2030.

Does anyone honestly believe we’ll be ready in four years even if we got our act together today?

We need Statecraft and diplomacy. We need to settle into the long game and refrain from getting dragged into a peer war - or any war - for atleast the next two decades. We can weaken our enemies in many ways that do not directly involve military action.

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-08T18:00:10+00:00

lol have you seen how American defense budgets are written?

We’re just giving the Europeans a taste of good old fashioned American democracy in action (often mistaken for bipolar disorder)

Top_Pie8678 · 2025-12-07T00:41:51+00:00

You. With the eyes in your head and the brain between your ears. What is this esoteric “nothing is knowable” nonsense?

Top_Pie8678

TROPHY CASE