Exactly. A lot of getting good at something is practicing. No one wants to spend time doing something they suck at, especially in public, but rather than practice in private, we can try to trick ourselves into believing we are actually already talented, faking it to get the practice that is needed to build the skill.

This might also help with mild imposter syndrome.

Hard disagree. Their base will believe anything.

If we set up gas chambers in Florida some people would be insisting they were harmless showers while they were being forced into them.

Yep, there is no organization capable of staging armed opposition to the government. A series of mass shootings and maybe some explosives is all we are going to get.

Given the number of incidents, I wouldn’t be shocked if historians decide later we are already living through it. Political assasinations in Minnesota, the attempted murder of pelosi’s husband, attempted trump shooter, charkie Kirk, the car bomb in Memphis that didn’t go off a few years ago. The United Healthcare CEO hit. Attempted kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer.

There is plenty of violence to go around, but nothing that would rise to civil war.

I have imagined a scenario where a debt crisis degrades the capacity of the federal government and polarization leaves citizens and national guard more loyal to their state than the federal government, but we are a long way away from that.

The red states are net takers compared to federal. Taxes paid. In this hypothetical civil conflict all sides are materially worse off but the south would be worst by a margin. Material deprivation by the general populace can end a war, but it doesn’t always.

See Russia in Ukraine for an example.

Where the lines are matters, whether Ohio and Michigan are in the NEUS or the south makes a big difference in population and industry.

Texas would last long enough to be dangerous to it’s neighbors. I would not want to be in New Mexico if federal power breaks down.

In the American Civil War the North had the advantage in Navy, population, wealth, and industrial power.

Now those advantages in population and industrial capacity are flipped. In the scenario you project the south could devolve into infighting and hollow out, but a single charismatic figure could unite them, and that would pose a terrible threat to the NEUSA and the Cali Republic. Have you read Rurtledove’s American Front?

Well I also don’t believe in Carceral punishment so take that as you will.

Kim Jong Un’s brother was killed by squirt guns filled with poison.

The shooters thought they were pranking him. Some guy gave them plastic squirt guns and said “squirt that man we are gonna film it for the internet.”

The real assassin was never caught.

Lots of women have been scarred for life by a splash of strong acid, primarily in the Muslim world.

Squirting someone with a liquid is a terror attack.

Technically this was an acid attack.

Glad she is OK.

I read last month that Ireland has reconsidered the US as a safe country. They are more willing than most to buck the neolibreral dogma. But they are not better than most for conditions for refugees. The leftist cooks made a video about trans asylum seekers in Ireland.

They are not having a good time, and it’s not clear to me that they are definitely safer either.

If you have money, sure, but the interviewed woman left San Francisco, which is a place most people would move to, if they were trying to escape violence.

If you are not top 10% going to live in poverty in Europe probably seems more attractive than living in poverty in a blue state.

Did the judge empower local law enforcement to arrest and detain ICE agents?

This is assuming we ever had a functioning DOJ.

That’s a calculation each of us has to make personally. If you are white, a citizen, have people that rely on you, and are wealthy enough that they can fight a legal battle for you, maybe don’t resist and hope for the best. If you are none of those, and you think you might get sent to a concentration camp or Africa, maybe defend yourself as best you can.

Good luck to everyone.

Clearly the German Communists were to blame for the holocaust because they failed to stop Hitler and the Nazis.

That’s what you sound like.

They could withhold taxes on state employees. That would be easy. If they wanted to go full second civil war, They could pass laws making it illegal for companies to pay taxes to the federal government.

If they are smart, they will still hold the elections just refuse to seat reps from 5-6 blue states. That would keep them in power for another 2 years.

The UK and France combined would have a problem if there was a single carrier parked in the North Atlantic. They might have a chance if all the US Carriers and subs were 2000 miles away.

There is nothing anyone except the US can do about a US annexation of Greenland, short of Nuclear weapons.

Reporters are disporoportionaly from wealthy families. Poor people are less able to work unpaid internships for 3-4 years to get their foot in the door. They aren’t the wealthy members of their families but they usually from well off backgrounds.

There are exceptions but most of them have some class bias.

If the USA is the attacker, article 5 is meaningless. 80% of Nato that can reach Greenland is the American Military. The rest can’t sustain an operation for more than a couple weeks without US logistics.

If the US goes palpatine, the rest of Nato are sitting ducks. They would need years to gear up to sustain operations beyond their own borders.