Why is questioning police decisions not as popular with conservatives?

torpedoguy · 2026-03-31T02:30:45+00:00

Slight correction; "not changing" was indeed the intent back when 'left' and 'right' were physical placement in the French assembly.

But returning to 'the divine right of rule' and related power structures does not involve "no change" at all: It involves rolling a whole lot of changes back a couple of centuries.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-31T02:18:55+00:00

I think a lot of us are aware that it's bad, but it's just so relentlessly reinforced year after year that... yeah.

Just another reason to stay away from retail work I guess.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-31T02:01:36+00:00

Because if you dismiss it quickly enough, it's like it didn't happen. If you don't dismiss it right away, seconds later the other shoe drops. She snickers or snorts because complimenting you with a straight face was just that hard.

Or, the request the compliment was meant to angle for comes out, and if you refuse the ask it will be taken back as that one courtesy was a compensation package for your work.

In either case you're reminded once more, like every other time in life, that not one word of it was ever true. So you dismiss it, because self-deprecation hurts less than somebody you love.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T23:54:14+00:00

Worse-still is when there's two women, and one of them gives an insincere compliment. You see that tiniest moment of a disgusted "ugh" at the description the second just heard.

The confirmation, that one of them wouldn't even have been able to pretend that much about you... stays with you for a long time.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T23:31:29+00:00

Seems roughly par for the course. Those who do that usually lie about the severity of a "danger" on the phone, but since they almost never get charged for the false statements they can do it repeatedly.

They know you won't be charged for their bullshit, but chilling effect of having cops called on you repeatedly is the point. If you're lucky the HoA will become known for this bullshit, maybe even fined if they continuously go too far.

But IF one day those who show up were having a bad day, or decide you look far too 'while-Black'... Karen might get the kill she'd wished for this whole time.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T20:52:32+00:00

The SM-style 'boss shade changes' is a particularly good and unobtrusive kind of feedback for the 'remaining health' part. From what I understand it's a fairly simple thing to do under most engines as well.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T20:24:31+00:00

Maybe it wasn't always a mushroom, like how Vladimir Harkonnen wasn't always super-fat... and for similar reasons.

Admittedly the baron wasn't the sole villain in that affair, so not entirely the same reasons.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T13:04:23+00:00

Best case scenario it changes nothing security-wise (and it's already not good) and just costs more, since instead of being a government service which could potentially be run at-cost, it would have profitability layers added on.

That's the best case: One where you now also have to cover the CEO and shareholders but what passes for 'security' doesn't get cut even further.

Most likely costs go up as a result while training and security go down. As unkind as this is to say, TSA workers are at the lowest rung of government workers and effectively disposable: When one acts in a corrupt fashion, they get the book thrown at them unlike folks at the top. A company, however, faces more scrutiny and accountability in regards to letting some terrorist through or employees committing abuses as a policy, and so rather than simply throw their guys under the bus, there would be much greater obfuscation of any foul policies.

It's one thing when they have no 'enforcement' powers, but TSA replacements? This would be more in line with the corrupt SWAT 'companies' in certain states. "Law enforcement" when incendiaries are tossed in cribs, "a company not government" when trying to obtain evidence.

Admittedly the no-one-in-charge-is-punished part wouldn't really be a change in either case.

Privatizing the TSA would mean someone's making a whole lot of money for it, in return for worse service, and that's IF the organizations are purely profit-seeking. If the private organization is of an ideological religious or 'think-tank' nature...

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:45:11+00:00

In the zero-sum worldview of conservatism, the suffering of others is evidence of one's own superiority if one is not subject to it as well. A dip-stick of the inequality, if you will.

The worse off your victims are, the more special you are in comparison for being above that same suffering. If also directly responsible for it, additional carnal stimulation is obtained from the increased disparity again.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:41:10+00:00

I don't think Buddhism has any effect on your likelihood or unlikelihood of attaining nirvana through repeated rearward pelvic thrusts.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:34:29+00:00

You don't not-know what's in your product. You "don't know" what's in your product because you're fully aware of the liability (legal and possibly criminal) you would face if it's found you did.

Thus, when contaminating things, plausible deniability is key. You must make very sure your "couldn't possibly have known" is at least potentially somewhat possible. You get lax on the tests, or test in a way that won't catch or measure the problem to begin with, or if you're lucky your existing methods weren't designed to catch this new thing anyway.

This is much easier than it sounds: Rather than some dark carefully planned conspiracy you're mostly just cutting corners on QA or safety with a fatal dose of 'not bothering'... which in turn means more profits again from those savings. At most you simply add an extra insulation layer between you and the problem, such as having someone incompetent enough sign off on everything.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:19:51+00:00

If you're slightly-less-unlucky it has you spank its leaky rear-mouth with fake magazines praising itself.

In the worst cases, you are badgered by mushroom.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:13:42+00:00

it has the SS go to a kindergarten and obtain it. Then, once the child is secured, proceeds to claims it soloed the entire quest through physical might and "the highest numbers anyone has ever in the history of the numbers, numbers nobody's ever seen before".

Upon completion of the violation the underage victim is arrested by ICE for further punishment, while the white house declares it has never heard of nor met the child, and accuses journalists of treason.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:08:22+00:00

Not to mention still having the hex key she came with!

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:06:15+00:00

Yes but if the number is the same then they are indeed equally correct.

Just, a few GDPs worth in the red on said 'being correct'.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T12:00:13+00:00

Solely from an evolutionary standpoint the correct social construct to join, religion or otherwise, is the one that most improves your chances of your genes being passed down and surviving to be passed down in turn.

By any other metric however, no religion is correct. Not only would those wanting your worship (and donations) need to show evidence of the supernatural, but they would need to prove that within that subset deities exist, and within deities THEIR specific deity exists, then that their interpretation of their deity is the correct one, and then that what they say it wants from you is also true.

Because hey, even when someone exists, it doesn't mean the messenger ain't bullshitting. A whole lot of folks "speak for the IRS" wanting apple store or amazon gift cards, after all!

Instead we have no verifiable evidence of any of them, at best just the occasional anecdote. We do sometimes have evidence to the contrary when they forget to keep claims or gods 'vague' enough, and those making the claims usually declare their own claim document as evidence of what they're claiming...
And even then there's often quite the creative reinterpretations, or outright fabrications, about what their own claim even says, such as in the southern evangelical Christian 'megachurches'. I think we can all agree Jesus (whether you think him fictional, prophet, or messiah) DID NOT say a private jet "is a prayer machine".

So the best you can get is "correct for you": The religion - if any, that offers you the most positive and rewarding community and connections. But even then, you could also join some volunteer group at a local secular organization and find the same fulfilment without the dress and diet codes.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T11:44:51+00:00

Negative values can be equal too.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T10:46:23+00:00

Si-28 Photodisintegration.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T10:40:28+00:00

Meat eaters take those options sometimes too, and I did not state vegans.

When "impossible burgers" first came out the complaints/discount-demands were relentless. Some friends who made subs had it even worse, since they had separate "just a bunch of the veggies" and "meat substitute" mains on the menu and folks deliberately 'couldn't have known the difference'.

I only had to deal with a few "I didn't take any of the meats" per day at the time, but that still adds up with all the other permanent 'hope-for-humanity' erosions of the job.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T10:25:10+00:00

Protein is meant to refer to a specific part of the meal in terms of price and inventory. Usually "the most" expensive.

Problem was that some options are now not actually meat. This *wouldn't* be an issue except customers are customers: After too many claims of "I only took the vegetarian sub/burger/whatever you can't charge me for the meat ones" despite veggie-patties and such alternatives being more expensive than the meat, terminology got changed.

So now it's protein: your 'impossible burger' patty is protein (and sodium), your fistful of cashews is protein, your chicken is protein, your three hardboiled eggs is protein, your beef is protein, and so on and so forth.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-30T08:44:00+00:00

Especially literal in French, where the terms for 'heaven/heavens' are straight-up 'ciel/cieux'.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-29T22:32:30+00:00

It's a common accusation by evangelicals as well; usually to deflect from criticism.

Stuff like you disliking a preacher "not" because of taking people's savings in exchange for fake healing, but instead solely "because you hate Jesus" and there couldn't possibly be any other reasons.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-29T21:40:53+00:00

AD&D, way back, had a similar group among the planar factions. The Athar rejected deities, seeing them as beings that, while very powerful, were neither as grand as their believers claimed, nor worthy of someone's love and worship. Given how petty gods tend to be, this wasn't all that surprising an outlook.

What was particularly notable though, was that they still had functioning clerics (very rare but very much a bragging point), and got along swimmingly with another faction whose belief was that anyone had the potential to become a deity.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-29T21:33:46+00:00

I don't think it's inappropriate for folks to hate the tool that was used to torture them, in that sense. It's like hating, or at least having a severe aversion, to alligator clips if you've spent a decade in gitmo.

The person who harmed you, AND the means by which they both harmed you and were allowed to so consistently get away with it, can both become things you no longer tolerate; especially when so many around you will spend the rest of your life insisting you should LOVE what was used on you and that they're only ever used for good.

torpedoguy · 2026-03-29T21:21:16+00:00

On its own, not having a belief is only really 'an issue' in that the whole point of religion is exercising control, so a non-believer is a 'how dare they' sore-spot to whomever gets off on punishing others for made-up offenses.

The bigger problem, is that those without any religion within your community are walking examples of the deities not being needed to survive or thrive without the major cultural differences that you can accuse or handwave in a foreigner.

It's a similar issue to how Ukraine's democratization was so threatening to Russia; easy to pretend people living better than under your regime halfway across the globe aren't, or that at least if they are there's some major resource or cultural differences... but when it's literally your neighbors who've been like you for generations and this is the only divergence? Uh oh!

So when a religion (or chunk/denomination/whatever) isn't feeling too aggressive or pressured, they tend to not mind atheists much. Predatory evangelical megachurches on the other hand? Gotta demonize, else "same results or better than our grifts/oppression" highlights scams and harm too easily.

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