If you drive the same roads every day, you can start to pick up on the pattern and timings. It’s when it turns yellow in those times you feel almost too close to stop comfortably but too far to feel you’ll make it that people will “squeeze the lemon” and accelerate through that yellow light, not that I recommend it.

Also glad I don’t have to drive anymore.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t resist.

I’m saying right now it’s neither wise nor warranted, as messed up as it may sound.

When Trump actually orders them to do something unconstitutional, they can refuse it. When he refuses to step down from the end of his term as president and order them to crush the states that don’t ratify his third term, they can remove his ass.

But the things you want them to do right now, while I don’t inherently disagree with, just sound impulsive and foolish.

Are you saying the National Guard should fight ICE right now?

Or are you saying the National Guard soldiers should frag their officers?

Or just the soldiers here and there resist how they can and go to jail for refusing to pick up trash? This one leaves you with a National Guard completely not on your side instead of at least half on your side when you might need it most.

Look man, you don’t know the military well, so it’s easy to criticize the actions of people whose position you never have to imagine yourself in, but it’s like open-and-shut, you go to jail and fail to change anything if you’re not careful.

If they resist, they have to be smart and do it as a collective.

And jesus christ, these guys aren’t being told to attack civilians and kidnap children like ICE is doing, so forgive them a little if they’re having a hard time between deciding if they want to risk being marked a felon by the federal government for life or instead pick up trash while carrying a gun so Trump can scare people a bit because he knows he can’t legally use them for any more than that.

They don’t just mean ‘who’ individually. They’re in that group chat together because they don’t know who or how many of them feel similarly enough that they can reasonably challenge their command.

Right now, the orders are deliberately vague enough, technically legal, and not blatantly unethical so that they can’t refuse it. They can’t disobey orders to guard federal property and go pick up trash from the streets because that’s not something you’ll likely win against in a UCMJ case, even if you know the real purpose of the orders is for Trump to make a show of force.

Also, a lot is up to their officers, who are obligated to disobey illegal and unethical orders. They have to set the climate for the soldiers. It’s really hard for soldiers to speak up if they don’t feel like their leaders have their back.

The name’s Bond, J

As border tensions intensified, the sight of soldiers and journalists carrying heavy field gear underscored the harsh terrain and long deployments at the frontier. For those in such unpredictable conditions, reliable equipment becomes essential.

Like the 5.11 Tactical Backpack, Rush 72 2.0, designed for military and field operations with multiple compartments for carrying essentials.

The sudden shift to advertising gear in the middle of article caught me off guard, lmao

Everything he touches turns to 💩

I know. But unfortunately, the president is also the commander in chief of the executive branch, so he has the power to approve their operations.

From what I understand, the military will suggest potential courses of action, but not all of them are good, which is where the president is supposed to use his wise judgment, if only he had it.

I don’t think he’s right. Personally, his comments rub me the wrong way. They remind me of the annoying, confidently incorrect comments I’ve see on Reddit so many times.

Granted, I’m also fairly biased because I used to be in the army, and don’t appreciate the kind of assumptions/generalizations people make about people in the US military. I bash the military all the time personally in my private life, but it’s different when I see people who clearly don’t know shit do it.

I respect you for admitting there are things you might not know though.

I feel like many of the commenters below are missing the point, or didn’t even read the article. It’s not about incompetence by the SEALs (they weren’t), it’s Trump’s incompetence. He basically ignored the restrictions his predecessors had put in place because they knew that using special operations for extremely high-risk operations (because they’re likely to fail or be disastrous in the first place) was not something to be done lightly, but Trump, being Trump, just approved crazy operations without any clear thought.

In that scenario, I agree the pragmatic choice is to save the majority.

But many situations tend to be complex and aren’t as clear as a trolley problem, so I want to avoid falling into the trap of seeing a false dilemma when there’s possibly more than two options.

Those are already arguments for why NASA and space programs shouldn’t exist in the first place.

I remember watching something about the space race, and there was a clip of public opinion during the time of the first mission to the moon, where a man complained that the money should’ve been used to improve the lives of poor Americans instead.

Regardless, for the scenario in The Martian, if money is already being spent and going to continue being spent on space missions in the future, I think you can rationalize it as using money for another or next space mission. They would still gain knowledge from what they had to do to pull off that rescue, so it’s not a complete waste of funds for a mission either.

On the morality point, I’d argue that we should spend the money to rescue any person if we have the money/means, and it can feasibly happen without excessive risk to other lives, otherwise we’re assigning monetary value to human lives. That includes both people in imminent danger, requiring expensive emergency services, and people suffering slower, persistent risks like hunger that require sustained support.

Mark Waters says sales at his Odessa, Texas, tools business, which he describes as a “Home Depot for the oilfields,” are down about 10 percent. He does not regret voting for Trump, saying he is willing to take a personal hit to support the president’s agenda. But he said it is ironic that over the decades he has made a lot more money when the party he despises is in power. “The oil business has thrived under Democratic leadership despite them being true haters of all things fossil,” Waters said. “For whatever reason, I made millions of dollars under Clinton. Then I made even more under Obama and Biden. I have never had a solid explanation.” His business outlook for the coming months under Trump? “Hopefully it won’t be catastrophic,” Waters said.

Almost some self-awareness there. Almost.

I disagree. Apple might not be perfect, but it is better than Google when it comes to ads and tracking. I know my data is encrypted, both on the device and in my cloud. And in the App Store, it tells me exactly what data is being collected by the apps I choose to install.

At least the names of all the bases named after Confederates were changed a few years ago. West Point also renamed things that were named after Lee (which only existed because for the sake of Reconciliation after the war).

Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

I’ve heard stuff like that too. To be fair, if the United States were to resolutely defend Taiwan, China might not touch it, though there would still be a possibility, but at the least the US and Taiwan would likely win that war since they just need to keep Taiwan independent, not invade China.

How dare you use logic on my computer logic-related shower thought.

But yeah, I get what you mean. I had that thought at some point after posting. This is why I should probably just keep it in this silly thread and not write any philosophy essays soon.

You’re… you’re right.

It’s like, all part of some yin-yang thing.