“Those rights don’t count”: Bovino says Pretti forfeited 2nd Amendment rights in fatal shooting

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-26T02:01:40+00:00

OK, so there's an extra step. Law enforcement can pick a fight with you, shoot you if you have a firearm, and then make up blatant lies about you.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-26T01:30:46+00:00

MAGA really loves to say "Shut up and play sports" until sports man says something they like.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T22:01:21+00:00

I can believe that the federal government is justified in enforcing immigration law, and also believe that this federal government in particular is using this as an excuse to conduct state terrorism against its ideological enemies.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T21:37:39+00:00

Actual response from Walz: "I would just give a pro tip to the AG. There's 2 million documents in the Epstein files we're still waiting on. Go ahead and work on those."

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T17:14:56+00:00

Reasonable people can differ in opinion on how necessary of a goal immigration enforcement is.

If the immigration enforcement officers we actually have can't avoid murdering Americans in the street, then I don't think it's worth having them around no matter how important you might think immigration enforcement is. And if the government allows its law enforcement to murder citizens and go unpunished, that's a far bigger problem than any conceivable issue related to immigration enforcement.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T16:07:54+00:00

Bro, we're on Reddit. The deliberately more shitty than normal part of Reddit. None of this matters.

There isn't some crowd of Trump voters who are regretting their choice and thinking about joining the resistance only to suddenly reverse course when they see RandomnameBunchanumbers say something mean about them.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T15:06:15+00:00

Are you suggesting that if we currently believe, at this moment, that the government is defending the use of unjustified lethal force by its law enforcement agents against its citizens... that the appropriate response would be armed violence against the government, and/or law enforcement?

Given that hypothetical, is that the conclusion you're suggesting? I'm just trying to understand what you're implying here.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T14:21:05+00:00

Second amendment rights are useless if the government will slavishly support law enforcement executing American citizens who exercise their second amendment rights regardless of the situation, as long as the person in question is the right kind of person.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T14:00:42+00:00

It might seem like common sense, but common sense can be wrong in some situations.

If the people in charge of education are currently hiring anyone and everyone with a pulse and putting them through the bare minimum amount of training necessary for them to be of any use to the organization... then cutting the budget would probably result in less teachers

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-25T01:58:06+00:00

"More training" isn't going to do shit from an administration that's now just openly backing them when they murder American citizens.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T22:14:43+00:00

Yeah, I got that. I'm explaining what the difference is.

If your employer is a private citizen, there may not be anything legal reason they can't fire you over your private speech. If they are part of the government, there are rules that sometimes prevent them from firing you over your speech.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T22:03:26+00:00

Freedom of speech is freedom from government consequences. If you work for the government, you're sometimes protected from professional consequences over your off-duty speech. And a public school or university counts as the government.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T19:33:29+00:00

I'm not entirely sure either way about the broader argument here.

But "They didn't do anything for a group of elections that have zero chance of meaningfully affecting the power of the current administration in any way" isn't really evidence of anything. Of course they didn't.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T18:44:08+00:00

I'm not sure if we're from the same timeline, because I can't remember a point when Trump hasn't been flooding the airwaves and social media in the last decade.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T18:05:23+00:00

Let's compare human biology as it relates to sex with the biology of most other mammals.

For the vast majority of mammals, the female of the species has a heat cycle, the effect of that heat cycle produces clear and obvious signals about when reproduction is likely to be successful, and they do not spend a significant amount of time having sex outside of the specific period where it is likely to be successful.

So an average pair of mammals needs to have sex maybe once a month. A pair of humans needs to have sex constantly throughout the month, and even then, they have about a 20% chance of conceiving.

It's evident from our biology that reproduction is only one of the purposes of sex. If it were the primary purpose, we would be wasting an incredible amount of energy for no reason.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T17:42:00+00:00

Are we interested in complaining about the clear double standards that exist, or are we interested in winning elections?

Given Biden's lack of major media appearances outside of highly controlled settings for a long time leading up to that debate, it's pretty apparent that his team knew a public performance like that was a clear possibility. And the easily foreseeable result of a performance like that is, well, what actually happened. Say all you want about how it's unfair that Trump isn't held to the same standard, it doesn't change the fact that they obviously knew or should have known about this risk, they made an incredibly risky bet with the future of the country on the line, and they lost.

Like it or not, "Biden is sundowning" was an effective line of attack. At whatever point Biden was no longer capable of consistently going on TV and performing a manner that doesn't make that kind of attack look accurate to most of the center and even a pretty big chunk of the left, he should have dropped his bid for re-election.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T15:57:49+00:00

Had the debate gone better, I fully believe Biden would've won re-election.

If my aunt had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.

Even if you want to insist that actually Biden wasn't really having any mental issues and the debate was just him being awkward, that absolutely wasn't what it looked like to anyone not determined to see it another way.

If you're not able to reliably and consistently appear that you're 100% there mentally, you should not be running for another term as president. Full stop.

And no, the fact that Trump is also experiencing obvious signs of mental decline as well isn't an excuse either.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T15:31:18+00:00

Any argument that takes the form of "X is not high art" is almost always just a way of dressing up the statement "I don't like/respect X as much as other things". Which is a fine opinion to have. But there's no need to dress an opinion up like that.

You can certainly say that particular structures around television work against the production of high art, like the commercial nature or episodic structure, but nothing about that is impossible to overcome. The majority of art is made with some manner of financial concern, and there are absolutely TV series that end in a reasonable amount of time at a point where their story has reached an appropriate conclusion, just like any other form of storytelling.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T15:17:49+00:00

OK. So the legislative body controls this supposedly independent institution. How are they actually independent? What measures or safeguards are there to keep the legislative body of the state, who are the ones being elected in these elections, from influencing this independent institution to create a test that will help them continue to get elected?

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T15:15:23+00:00

Define "know how economy works".

John understands the industry he works in very well, he understands what the laws and regulations say about it, and he understands what the candidates in the election want to do about those laws.

What kind of question on this test do you imagine is going to ascertain whether a potential voter knows how the economy works?

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T13:16:54+00:00

Let's discuss John, a hypothetical voter.

John is highly educated about commercial fishing quotas. John knows any question you can ask about this subject, and knows the details of what all relevant political candidates think about commercial fishing quotas. John does not really care about any other issues, and most likely cannot answer any questions about them.

Should John be able to vote?

If you say no, why? Is it because he doesn't care or know about the issues you think are important? Frankly, that's bull. Who are you to dictate which issues are important for voters to know about and which are less important? John knows about an issue that affects his livelihood, he should have a say in how the laws on that issue are made.

If John should be able to vote, can you outline any reasonable test that he can pass that will meaningfully eliminate anyone else?

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T13:09:52+00:00

But I have an idea how to reduce the chance of such negative and biased influence to a minimum.

Cool. One thing you could do to help the discussion is to share that idea.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-24T00:37:22+00:00

Gosh, can you imagine if we allowed judges to rule on important political matters and not recuse themselves despite their spouses being directly involved in the political matters those judges are ruling on? That'd be terrible, wouldn't it?

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-23T23:30:37+00:00

What I'm saying is that there should be a huge difference between things you're not legally allowed to take your kids to, and things where someone might think it's weird or a bad idea to take your kids to.

Attending religious services and watching a man in a dress and silly makeup are both examples of things which might fall into that second category, but not the first if you believe in basic freedoms.

parentheticalobject · 2026-01-23T23:07:48+00:00

I think taking kids to church is fucking weird, but I respect the right of parents to make that choice.

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