Yes.

Social media is a tool, as others have mentioned, but when you get down to brass tacks, everything is either a tool, food, or art.

It’s a tool very few are responsible enough to use properly, and that causes great harm when misused.

Letting the oligarch class take control over social media was like giving an angry toddler a handgun, except the toddler can be bribed to give up the gun with candy and the oligarchs never will.

In the end, I don’t feel it’s worth the trouble of keeping around.

Quick! Someone remind them to have a warrior mentality!

I wouldn’t mind hearing about him falling down a flight of stairs, being bitten by a rabid bat, or getting lockjaw.

It’s an easy way to drum up support from people who have never or rarely traveled, are already conservative, and have bought into the culture war that has been created to justify MAGA doing MAGA shit.

Yeah, there are people who will repeat the same talking points you’ve listed and even defend them with a surprising amount of anger, but they’re mostly ignorant, predjudiced dipshits confirming their biases and parroting what they’ve heard. If you’re a popular Republican and you blamed their problems on sunspots, they’d hate sunspots just as bad as they hate California.

It’s not that they hate blue states because they went there and had a bad time or because of some kind of personal history. They hate blue states because that’s what they think people in red states are supposed to do. If it someday goes out of style, they’ll quit talking about it.

Common folk, salt of the earth, you know… morons.

Does your partner make you happy?

That’s all that really matters. Define it in whatever way you’re comfortable with. Or don’t define it. You don’t owe the world an explanation.

If you’re worried about someone else questioning your relationship, you can always just reply: “I’m with [my partner] because I love them.”

Anyone who can’t accept that isn’t worth engaging in conversation on the subject anyway.

Even for him.

I like him. I don’t always agree with him, but I think he’s one of the few that really gives a shit and actually walks what he talks and I deeply respect that. I value the perspective that comes with age too. But it’s time for age limits, man. It’s past time.

Imagine picking a lawyer based on them backing the same insane insane conspiracy theories you do rather than their legal acumen and ability to get you out of trouble…

Honestly, I respect that stance more than I respect the folks with a dozen half-assed definitions and assorted conditions on what people should or should not own.

I disagree with it, but I respect it.

Lol

At what point in this conversation have I ever pissed and moaned about the M-16 being a classic American rifle or complained about magazine capacity? At what point did I ever deny or disparage the effectiveness of the 90’s Federal ban?

And you’ll get that court about the time you get rid of Citizen’s United. But why not at least encourage lawmakers to get rid of the low hanging fruit that gives them an easy excuse to strike new gun laws down and force the lobbyists to spend more of that money to defeat it?

Or you can blame people for pointing out obvious flaws in these policies and accuse those people of arguing for standpoints they’ve never held…

Take whatever approach you think is most effective.

I don’t care what you call it. The semantics don’t matter to me. We can do it in any terms you like.

But if you ban gun A because it’s weapon of war, but allow gun B to be sold because it’s a hunting tool, when both are semi-automaitc guns shooting the same bullet out of clips, then your ban accomplished nothing of substance and won’t be around long.

But all that matters is people don’t have that one specific kind of gun, right?

I’m not even arguing the usefulness of bans here, just that the people trying to enact them write them in a way that undermines their purpose and leads to a defeat in the courts. You want to ban assault rifles? Write better legislation.

As a thought experiment, if someone attacks me with lethal intent, and I grab what is by your definition an assault weapon and not a self defense tool, does that make my defense of self and family invalid? Do I now somehow become the aggressor in this scenario because I am weilding a weapon of war? Is it only ethical for me to defend myself with a pistol? Am I bound by eithics to ensure I don’t have an advantage in effective range over my attacker?

The Remington Model 700 was introduced in the 1960’s and adapted to become a sniper rifle by the US military in the late 1980’s. Many of the modifications made to the design for military use are the same that competitive sport shooters would make to improve long range accuracy. It was a hunting tool first, but became a highly effective weapon of war used with the intent to kill. Would it be prudent to ban this firearm as well, or does the 700 get a pass based on the origin of it’s design?

I ask, not because I cradle my rifle at night praying for a break in or because I’m not concerned about gun violence, but because campaigns to ban assault rifles so often focus on the origin of these designs rather than on the technical details and civilian uses of the firearm in question. This becomes important when, as is all but inevitable, that ban winds up in court. As gets mentioned so often the only fundamental difference between an AR-15 and any number of small caliber hunting rifles (which can often be found chambered in 5.56/.223 just like an AR-15) is that the AR-15 has a pistol grip. It’s an uneven application of the legal process even before you consider 2A rights.

Struggle Meals was exactly this.

this is an aircraft older than the typical US senator

Let’s not get too hasty, the B-52H variant was first produced in 1961, making it 65 years old. A 65 year old incumbent senator still has three, maybe four good decades left in office…

I hear you, it’s an alien mindset.

Terrifying to think that our economy and government are rules by the pathology of people like this.

If it hasn’t been made clear that you can essentially buy an election by now…

Not that his voters don’t bear some of the blame, but money helped put him in power and helped keep him there because he was profitable.

These days everything is about money, except money, which is about power.

What damn good is power if you spend your golden years grinding yourself into an undead shell?

I mean, yeah, I get that this is pathological on some level. But I’ll never understand why you wouldn’t have an exit strategy that allows you to enjoy the fruits of destroying a nation for at least a few years.

You know what I want to do when I’m 84? Nap. Look at pictures of my grandkids and shit. Not be in any form of legislature.

But, because this fucking ghoul can’t understand the appeal of properly enjoying the last years of your life, the rest of us will probably have to work ourselves to death so that he can die while still being in control of the country and make a bunch of other sociopathic asshats money.

Fuck you, Mitch. I hope it’s painful and slow.

As much as I want to say this isn’t true, I really can’t.

I can see it, I think if you filled the undercard with some of the more obnoxious MAGA influencers and manosphere dorks you’d have a bankable concept here.

I’m listening…