I think my old man had much the same, or at least somewhat similar thoughts, when he came home from Vietnam. He was a UH1 door-gunner/crew-chief with the 4th ID in the Central Highlands, survived being shot down, was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, a purple heart, a fistful of air medals and came home with a giant chip on his shoulder.

In the first movie he is searching for The Ark of the Covenant, but otherwise you are correct.

There’s a relevant and oft’ cited Churchill quote to the effect that while democracy isn’t great, it’s better than any other governing system we know of.

In other words, leave us not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

As for why democracy is the best system, it’s simple; in theory democracy gives everyone a stake in governance. While it rarely if ever works out that way, Churchill was correct that it’s better than any other system we know of.

I’m not attacking you personally. Personally, I wish you nothing but the best.

What I’m attacking is the phony mythology that has thousands of fatbodies imagining that being heavily armed is somehow a valid and necessary counter to the possibility of government overreach.

It’s an objectively absurd and laughable proposition.

My dad served with the 4th ID in Vietnam, my grandfather fought from Guadalcanal to Okinawa where his war ended, and then he went on to fight in Korea and survived the clusterfuck that was the Chosin Reservoir.

My point is only that such men still exist in the US armed forces, and there is no universe in which “Fatbody Joe McGee” and his airsoft buddies stand a chance against them, no matter how heavily armed they think they are.

What’s funny is you getting defensive about it. Sounds like you might have a fitness issue yourself.

I’m not saying that you necessarily are a “disgusting fatbody,” (to quote Gny. Sgt. Hartman,) but if you were, that’s exactly how you would react to the fact that every competent military on the planet demands high levels of physical fitness of their combat troops.

It’s just a fact, my dude; you don’t last long in real combat if you’re heaving and gassed within the first 15 minutes.

That’s only one relatively minor factor among many. Anyone who points to it without also mentioning the much more significant impacts of things like global supply chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine is either ignorant, or is trying to spin a particular narrative while being intellectually dishonest about their priors.

Especially since those guys are pretty much all lard-asses. There’s a reason why every competent military on the planet emphasizes physical fitness before anything else; it’s because real combat --as opposed to playing paintball with your fatbody friends-- is one of the most physically and psychologically punishing activities known to man.

This is a phony bullshit talking point. The possibility of a cooling climate was briefly raised and entertained in mainstream media for about a year in the 1970s. It was never even remotely a scientific consensus view. Contrast that with human caused warming which has been settled science for decades. There is no comparison. As I said, it’s a bullshit talking point.

I am a union member so this isn’t a thing that happens. If management does something unacceptable, we do a strike authorization vote which, if passed by the membership, starts a clock ticking down to strike time and management knows that they are on notice and need to start negotiations.

All of which is just to say that unions are good for workers, regardless of what kind of bullshit you may have been led to believe.

On the flipside, it’s also true that if we all simply give up and don’t have kids because the future looks so bleak, by definition we are admitting to a kind of psychic defeatism and epistemic hopelessness. Having kids is one of the best ways for regular people to have any hope of influencing the future.

“the US is a Republic not a democracy…”

Thanks for telling us that you don’t know WTF you’re talking about.

This idea of yours, that republics and democracies are somehow mutually exclusive concepts is a deeply stupid category error that has zero basis in political science (to say nothing of practical reality) and almost always is the redoubt of those who wish to justify the dysfunction of the current status quo.

“the US is a Republic not a democracy…”

Thanks for telling us that you don’t know WTF you’re talking about.

This idea of yours, that republics and democracies are somehow mutually exclusive concepts is a deeply stupid category error that has zero basis in political science (to say nothing of practical reality) and almost always is the redoubt of those who wish to justify the dysfunction of the current status quo.

And your point is? Are you arguing that alarmism isn’t called for? That everything is fine and we shouldn’t try to mitigate emissions?

Or are you simply arguing that most weather forecasters know very little about climate change so… I guess I don’t know what?

Again, what’s your point? Are you just flexing or do you actually have something useful to contribute to the conversation?