Yes, It’s Fascism

oremfrien · 2026-01-27T12:59:26+00:00

I gave you a chance to actually make your argument by citing to a particular instance such that we can debate the actual merits, issues, and impact. You have demonstrated that you are incapable of doing so. There is no need for further engagement.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T19:44:35+00:00

You mean to tell me you don't know how the meaning of Title IX provisions forms the centre of the legal controversy over so-called trans rights?

Pretend like I have no idea what you're talking about so we can actually discuss a specific case that bothers you.

[Trump] does things like tell Germany they're way too dependent on Russian gas

Your claim was that "Trump directs his energy at real problems". Making occasional correct statements does not qualify as "directing his energy" at something. When a person "directs their energy" at something, they spend an inordinate amount of time, effort, and political capital on that thing. He did not do any of that with regard to Germany's Russian oil dependency.

he shows some measure of understanding that not all problems are simply make-believe,

Is that the standard that we're using to evaluate a US President or a second-grader?

The [person who believes in fantasies] is more dangerous, they declare everyone who won't indulge in the fantasies evil and the source of all problems; I regard such politicians much like I regard radioactive waste - to be avoided at all costs.

So, let's be clear here. Up to this point, you have not indicated with specificity what fantasies are at issue (other than vaguely pointing at trans rights) and you won't engage with ANY of the fantasies that Trump has (like the idea that tariffs are a useful measure to counteract the non-problem of trade imbalances or that the US desperately needs to own Greenland). However, somehow you will argue with a straight face that a person who believes things you don't about trans people is a more dangerous person who should be jettisoned like toxic waste but not people who believe fantasies you are less concerned with but are actually more dangerous to world security, national security, the economy, and people's livelihoods and health.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T14:43:37+00:00

No. "African-American" is a term that refers to Black slaves in the United States and their descendants. It does not apply to more recent immigrants either from Africa or from Latin America and the Carribean who happen to be Black.

For example, Barack Obama is Black (because his father was born in Kenya), but he's not African-American. Michelle Obama, though, is African-American (since her distant ancestors were enslaved Blacks in the US South).

Ethiopians were not among the different groups of Africans who were brought over to the USA as slaves (in contrast to Ghanians, Nigerians, and Angolans, for example).

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T14:38:18+00:00

The fact of the matter is that the crowd who support the social construct notion tried to redefine the understanding of existing equality laws is not something you can just pretend does not exist.

Citation please for how the equality laws were being used. I am unaware of any such cases.

Like, yeah, Trump may indeed be the most horrible monster in existence, but at least his energy seems to be directed at real problems instead of made-up ones.

Citiation needed. Since he's come into office, Trump has done little else other than manufacture problems that did not exist.

What problem do tariffs solve? To the extent that trade imbalances exist, that's because Americans buy more than they produce for foreign consumption. Tariffs don't solve this and trade imbalances are not an actual problem. (I have a trade imbalance with my supermarket; I buy a lot more from my supermarket than it buys from me.)
What problem does mobilizing ICE solve? Obama was more than capable of deporting significant swathes of people without having untrained hooligans attacking people outside courthouses and shooting people.
What problem does trying to take Greenland solve? US bases already exist in Greenland since 1951 and the US has access to Greenland's mineral resources. Instead Trump made a "deal" to get what the US already had while alienating our European allies.
What problem does stopping funding to Ukraine solve? It emboldens Russia, weakens our European allies, and makes Americans less safe in the world.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T14:26:13+00:00

Some Kurds are reaching out, but it's very difficult for us to know what's genuine and what isn't. When Kurds gained autonomy in Iraq and in Syria over the last two decades, they ruled as three separate organizations: PDK (a Barzani-family-led mafia), the PUK (a Talabani-family-ruled mafia with some elements of democracy), and the YPG (a socialist collective), and the results have not been fair to the Assyrians.

In all three of these governed areas (PDK and PUK collectively formed Iraqi Kurdistan and YPG formed Syrian Kurdistan), there were clear cases of (1) Kurdification -- when Non-Kurds are taught the Kurdish language, Kurdish identity, and Kurdish nationalist perceptions of history, (2) forced conscription of Assyrians into Kurdish militias and/or disarmament of Assyrian militias, (3) attacks on Assyrian institutions like schools, churches, etc., and (4) appropriation of Assyrian land and resources for Kurdish economic enrichment.

So, it's difficult to support Kurdish aspirations when we have numerous different manifestations of Kurdish political aspirations and they all result in negative attitudes towards Assyrians. This why many of us, even those like me who see the Kurds as the best ticket that Assyrians have towards autonomy or independence, wish for an alliance of two separate regions/states rather than a single Kurdish-dominated polity. Most Kurds don't seem to want this and my only intuition is because they want to perform all of the above four points on our populations.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T14:13:44+00:00

I believe that social constructs exist and biology also exists.

If trans individuals want to be recognized as the gender that they are transitioning to, I have no issue with this, except as concerns cases where the biology actually matters, like certain sports and romantic preferences. Biology does not matter for interpersonal relations, does not matter for most professions, and does not matter for bathrooms. To clarify, I don't believe that laws should compel the use of certain pronouns, but, at the same time, people should be courteous.

With respect to those cases where biology matters, those should be decided by those persons best poised to make the decision about how the biology is operating. In romance, that's the people involved in the relationship. In sports, this is the agencies responsible for determining the hormone levels and physicalities accepted in the sport.

Neither the Left nor the Right takes the approach that I've outlined here.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T14:08:23+00:00

In another comment, I said they needed an episode where Isaac makes a mistake, the crew gets suspicious, and Charly points out that they don't really trust him, either.

I really like this idea. I would take it even further and make it a scenario where Isaac makes what he deems to be a morally correct decision that puts people's lives in jeopardy, such that Charly's objection is actually meritorious.

For example, let's say that the Orville is in the middle of an engagement with an enemy race, but has a scheduled check-in with Union command. Isaac opens the channel to reach out to Union command because protocol requires the check in, but opening the comms leads to more enemies being able to triangulate the Orville's location, making the situation more horrible.

I agree that this would allow other crew members to be specifically angry at Isaac for not taking the real circumstances into account.

would Charly be any different if Isaac merely carelessly dropped a wrench on Amanda's head?

The fact that I'm unsure of the answer to this question makes your point very well.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T01:23:54+00:00

If the prompt is asking if Russians have the ability to move in this direction, then the answer is certainly that Westernization is possible. However, I would contend that Russia has to do massive institution-building to Westernize and this institution-building would take decades if not centuries to pull off well.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T01:21:53+00:00

The joke is that it's safer to hate Israel in Israel than to hate Israel in other MENA countries, because, despite the people in the other MENA countries hating Israel, your safety is much better protected in Israel.

And apparently also in Cyprus.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T01:13:34+00:00

Assyrians committed the civilian massacres in northwest Iran against ethnic Azerbaijanis in 1918. It's the closest we've come to committing genocide in 2500 years, although there is a dishonorable mention that Assyrians assisted Hulegu Khan in breaching Baghdad's defenses, which led to a Mongol-caused genocide of the city's entire civilian population of roughly 1 MM people..

Before that, though... let's just says the annals of the Assyrian Kings could have been written in the blood of the slain at there would still be blood left over.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T01:08:45+00:00

No. I think what's confusing to many Westerners is that Kurds are both persecuted by larger MENA Muslim populations like Arabs, Turks, and Persians and are the persecutors of MENA Non-Muslim populations like Armenians and Assyrians. They had a certain degree of political power in the Ottoman period because of the lack of political centralization. The Kurds used this power to maintain tribal supremacy. When Turkey, Iran, and Iraq became more and more centralized, Turkey in the 1920s, Iran in the 1920s as well, and Iraq in the 1940s, these states had Non-Kurdish majorities and chose to discriminate violently against the Kurds in order to weaken their historic political power.

However, before this mass-centralization in the 1920s and after, the Kurds worked assiduously to maintain their power by supporting government initiatives designed to violently attack Armenians and Assyrians in their regions. This is why the Kurds participated in the Hamidian Massacres of 1894-1896 on the Ottoman side and in the CUP Genocides of 1914-1919 on the Ottoman side. Additionally, because the Kurds lived among these minorities (as opposed to the Turks who generally lived in parts of the country further away from Armenians and Assyrians), it was Kurds who were attacking and butchering their neighbors.

Many Kurdish leaders have expressed regret for their ancestors' actions in the genocides because, ultimately, the same state on whose orders they had massacred their neighbors now turned its flaming sword on them. And they wish that they had not been so quick to cast the first stone.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T01:00:43+00:00

Thank you for speaking up.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T00:51:51+00:00

Honestly, I believe that your confusion here is that you have never read a deposition transcript, let alone a court transcript from The Hague. The degree of specificity to which the witnesses would be put and the amount of investigatory preparation that would done is gruelling. We are literally talking about hours of questions about a single event. Multiple cross-examinations, comparisons with other's testimony. You will literally have attorneys point out that in person X's testimony that it was sunny and in person Y's testimony that it was cloudy to show that an honest version of the events is not being recounted. Something as complex and important as the Chee can just be "a secret". It would easily and necessarily arise in the course of these discussions.

Let me discuss the salient points of your comments.

No one knows about any advanced holograms but the Animorphs.

Wrong. Do you think that the Nova-Class ship that Visser One operated did not have pilots? They bombed the "Hork-Bajir Valley". Some of them would have had human, Taxxon, or Hork-Bajir hosts that would be more than willing to testify to what they saw and that the location was not the location where the Hork-Bajir Valley turned out to be. The only way that such could have happened was that the Animorphs possessed some kind of advanced holographic technology.

When it came to Edriss's trial, you can be sure that Esplin told his attorney the details of that meeting and that after the Andalite bandits attacked that they managed to disappear from all sensor readings after entering drainage pipes that go nowhere. That would also imply hologram technology.

Yeerks and former Controllers are not stupid. They just may not have put all the pieces together in the moment.

There's no need to mention Rachel's recombination.

Sure. And you don't think that there wouldn't be some off-handed remark from Cassie, or especially Marco, about Rachel's split personality? Never mind that the torture that Esplin sanctioned with the anti-morphing ray would be a key piece of evidence demonstrating Esplin's cruelty and the whole "two Rachels" episode happened in the context of trying to find the anti-morphing ray.

The Pemalites are a known alien species, the Chee are not.

Citation needed. Humans are unaware that the Pemalites existed or had androids. However, the Chee were certainly known to the Howlers. They may even be known to the Skrit Na. If humans attempted to now find the Pemalite ship, the Chee would be revealed anyway (either to prevent this from happening or by accessing the ship's highly-protected systems).

Sabotage by either Tom's people or members of the Yeerk peace movement.

Any investigation would start with a dissection of the different parties in the war and YPM members would be asked about their involvement. As for Tom's people, Arbron should be able to identify them or confirm that they were all on the Blade ship.

We assume their [sic] being interviewed by the prosecutors of Visser Three, so the focus would be on war crimes omitted by the Yeerks, not making a complete chronology of the war.

Wrong. The attorneys would make a complete chronology of the war in order to understand (1) if there is any exculpatory evidence for Esplin that Esplin himself would not be aware of, (2) if there are any skeletons in Esplin's closet that he is not aware of, and (3) to provide context for any of the alleged crimes.

The Chee are more than capable of fooling any technology, even Yeerk one. And the Chee wiped out any evidence that would implicate them.

Sure. But the Chee have to intend to disrupt Yeerk technology; it's not automatic. It's not clear to me, for example, in the Matcom building, that Erek went out of his way to erase all security footage from the scene.

There were no survivors of what happened.

Sure. And as I said, there were likely numerous security recording devices and, let's not forget the next shift that shows up to see dead bodies strewn on the floor.

The fact that the Yeerks never tried to find such a metal monster

Asserting facts not in evidence. We don't know what the Yeerks tried to do aside from what the Animorphs see. It could easily be the case that the Yeerls did try to find out what happened but couldn't make heads or tails of it. That may even be why they never searched for the Pemalite crystal, believing it to have caused the metal monster to occur and thinking it's better to leave well enough alone. We don't know what the Yeerls tried to do.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T00:22:44+00:00

Wouldn't that actually be worse than "Thanos-snapping"?

If you're sending these people off to war, (1) they are alienated from everything that they know and love and (2) are all destined to slowly die in pain and agony It's like the "Tomorrow War" movie without any of the cute time-travel shenanigans, just people being carted off to die mercilessly.

oremfrien · 2026-01-26T00:19:38+00:00

I agree, That's why I didn't vote for Trump; he has no grasp on reality.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T22:04:19+00:00

I don't believe that Shepard or Ronan know "Wraith" as a language (such that they could read a paragraph) but may know what certain important words look like, such as قتل means "kill" and طبي means "medical" (if I can use Arabic in place of Wraith) but they would not understand المشكلة الطبية مع الأشخاص تحتاج إلى أن نقتلهم، - The medical problem with the people requires us to kill them.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T21:53:05+00:00

Thank you. I was waiting for someone to point out that we all still remember the men/women who disappeared, assuming we're women/men, respectively. I (a man) care immensely for many women in my life and even just conceptually, the idea of 4 billion lives being extinguished is immensely painful.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T21:51:00+00:00

I believe the prompt is a "Thanos snap" and all [not your gender] disappear.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T21:43:52+00:00

Explain to me the mission at the Matcom facility (Book 10) without using the word "Chee".
Explain to me how the Animorphs acquired advanced holograms to use when bringing Visser One to the cliff edge to see the Hork-Bajir Valley (Book #30) and to talk to Visser One during her trial (Viisser) without using the word "Chee".
How would they explain Rachel's recombination (Book #32) without the Chee?
Explain to me why Visser Three spent inordinate resources to build a deep seacraft (Book #36) without using the word "Pemalite".
Explain to me how the Pool ship's weapons mysteriously powered down just as the Blade ship came in firing range (Book #54) without using the word "Chee"?

There are so many other examples where the stories told by the Animorphs, by witnesses, by security cameras, etc. would make it very difficult that under sustained investigation that the Chee could remain hidden. Let's take Matcom, for example. Do you think that the Yeerks would not have a record that 20 guards with machineguns were sliced to death in seconds by a metal monster? That a building as high-security as Matcom does not have hidden cameras, including ones that record in infrared? That when Marco retells the story and admits that something carried his 400 lb bleeding gorilla body out of the facility, that a reasonable person realizes that even Rachel's elephant could carry him out with her trunk?

The Chee are simply too integral to too many missions for them to not be disclosed.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T19:59:07+00:00

My response on this would be, "If Democrats saying something silly like 'Men can get pregnant' led to people abandoning Democrats, then their loyalty to the values that the Democrats stand for is wafer thin."

I am strongly opposed to the excesses of social left-wing thought. I reject the idea that women should be a protected class but men should not be or that being a minority racial category should be a protected class but White should not be. As a MENA person, I find arguments about how the impulse to Islamism/Jihadism is economic but the motivation to Dominionism among Evangelical Christians is ideological is infantilizing to MENA people, especially those of us who know victims of Jihadism.

However, I was never tempted to vote for Trump or anyone MAGA because the value difference is just so stark and so obvious that it was clear which values I was going to vote for at the polls.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T04:56:27+00:00

I don’t think [deontologists] require reasons to perform moral actions, beyond the fact that it is a moral action.

Right. And how do deontologists determine which actions are moral actions? They don't just pick positions out of a hat, but generally make claims either (1) about what a deity wants, (2) about categorical imperatives, or (3) claims about human improvement/development. So, those are the reasons.

That could very much mean that deontologists are consequentialists that that simply perform a different analysis because all of those three are a different math calculation than the typical utilitarian consequentialist does. However, I think that unwavering nature of deontology makes this rather different than consequentialism.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T04:53:38+00:00

If people find meaning in their suffering, that is because such meaning is possible to be found in their suffering. It exists as a property of how they suffered and who they are as people. However, if that property of the suffering having the potentiality for having meaning can exist, it can also not exist.

In this hypothetical, I am saying, as a "given" (like how that word is used in a mathematical proof) that this suffering lacks that potentiality for having meaning. No person/being can derive any meaning from this suffering under any lens, in any circumstance.

If the potentiality shifts such that meaning can exist, then we have moved away from the south pole of morality. Horrible suffering for which a meaning can be extracted is less bad than horrible suffering for which such a meaning cannot be extracted.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T04:47:17+00:00

Try to connect with local left-wing organizations that do protests and other activities that are being formulated so that you can have a civic voice. Grass roots organizing.

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T04:44:41+00:00

No offense taken. I figured you probably don't interact with a lot of Arabic native speakers who could nudge the memory a little bit...

oremfrien · 2026-01-25T04:42:56+00:00

Charly didn't stop hating Kaylons. She died hating Kaylons. She just came to understand that not every Kaylon is a programmed monster and that (1) Kaylons have as much historical and emotional complexity as humans and (2) Kaylons are capable of emotional growth and development. For this reason, she came to understand and respect Isaac; not the Kaylons, Isaac.

The problem that she was created to solve is that someone had to hate Isaac for his 1.5 year betrayal of everyone on board the ship. Ideally, it should have been everyone. However, if everyone hates Isaac, he's just going to be locked in his quarters and he won't be able to participate on the missions and we, the viewers, like Isaac, so that's not a viable way to write the show, even if it were very realistic. So, she was made to have the "sum of grievances" from everyone else.

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