it’s very common in colonial societies like most of the Americas. without this type of law there wouldn’t be any American citizens. even before the 14th amendment we had birth right citizenship by common law precedence

But they are mistaken. Europe is not giving in to that again.

how do you have so much faith? if you look at the Nazi elections it went something like

~2.5% ⇒ ~5% ⇒ 10% ⇒ 20% ⇒ 30something% ⇒ dictatorship

if you look at AfD it’s following s similar pattern and we’re currently at 20something%

Looking at past history, just one more successful election cycle and the far-right can consolidate and eliminate any democratic opposition

I would very much like to preserve the freedom that attracted you to this country in the first place

i would very much like to preserve the freedom as well. i’m not pro-fascism if that wasn’t clear

i was just saying that even if shit gets really bad here people may still come because everything else could be worse

i was born in a country with a military dictatorship who used to disappear people. just because the country is going to hell doesn’t mean you can’t carve out a meaningful life for yourself in the chaos. and living in a dystopian version of the US is probably still better than living in a dystopian version of a 3rd world country

then history has a very important lesson to teach you.

at no point in US history has the US been at war with a neighboring country over a trade war escalation and instituted a draft as a result of that war

any future war is going to be versus China and we’ve probably got at least a few years before that comes to fruition.

we’re in the years leading up to WW3. think of it like the early 1930s. if you look at history, everywhere sucked. i’d rather be in a 1st world country when the bombs go off rather than a 3rd world country where i’m liable to starve due to mass famines

Imagine there are still people who chose to go to USA voluntarily?

I’d rather live in neo-fascist USA than in a war zone where I’m liable to be sent to the frontlines and die bleeding out in a trench after a drone blows my leg off.

I’d rather live in neo-fascist USA than live in poverty in many parts of Latin America where I would make 10x higher salary for unskilled labor. I would also have a 10x lower chance of getting my throat slit walking down the street at night.

Sometimes I feel like I was the only one who remembered that this is what it was like the last time he was in office

I feel like it’s worse this time. Darker. We didn’t have the Ukraine or Israeli war. We didn’t have perverse AI videos like the Gaza video with a giant golden Trump statue.

2016 was the rise of Trump. Right now we are in the age of Trump. Trump is steadily increasing his power and I believe fairly soon he will be able to more or less unilaterally control the federal government as he continues his purges.

I mean, Bannon started this whole thing. He was pushed out of the inner circle but he was the one with the vision back in 2016.

Bannon is a visionary and he had the right idea. He just didn’t have the ability to execute. Trump took the ideas from Bannon and found new allies who have the ability to execute. Musk (and Thiel) were more than happy to jump on board

Edit: just in case it’s not clear I’m not endorsing his views. I am firmly anti-Nazi

immigration policies are federal regulations on the labor market. i say we open the borders

or is there some other narrative

I believe a couple different things

a) he’s intentionally weakening the US economy to both weaken establishment institutions and spread mass discontent. he wants people nice and angry and fearful for the future. so when he takes more extreme actions later on, it doesn’t seem as bad. also he’s probably preparing for some sort of riot movement that includes political violence in the next couple years. as the establishment gets weaker, he’ll be in a better position to essentially ignore them. so for example Supreme Court says something unconstitutional? Maybe he just ignores it and enforces his will regardless

b) in the near future we may see a serious decoupling of the US economy from the world. maybe it’s due a planned war or some other circumstance and this is in preparation for that. tariffs tend to cut off the economy from the outside world. it’ll hurt less later on if we do some of it now

Kamala would have been at best delaying the inevitable. The DNC is not capable of meaningfully changing fast enough to react to the growing threat of fascism.

there has to be a real fear of losing something, otherwise there’s no pressure to change. they will never change voluntarily. and after they win/lose an election there is zero pressure to do anything

the best time to criticize is in the immediate lead up to an election

Yes, for most of my life I thought we would never get rid of the illegals for precisely this reason. They are so integrated into our economy that eliminating them would cause a huge fallout. Almost 15 million people here. And they’re dramatically over-represented in specific industries.

So for example, you mentioned food. Agriculture, especially in the SW, runs on illegal labor. Construction all over the country runs on illegal labor. The people washing dishes at restaurants, the people cleaning up offices at night, the people working at landscaping companies, etc.

All of those industries are about to experience a severe supply shock of labor. This is going to mean increased prices for food, for landscaping, for construction, etc. Not only that, the services are going to be increasingly harder to staff. It’s really hard to find an American willing to relocate to rural areas to dig holes. It’s hard to find ones that are willing to pick fruit, etc.

Not to mention the effect that 15 million less consumers eating at local restaurants, buying products from Amazon, paying rent, will have.

And the worst part of it, the part that scares me, is that I’m certain Trump and his allies know this. They are entirely aware of the potential consequences of what they are doing. It does not take an economic savant to understand this and certainly Trump has some very smart advisors around him. So they are aware and they are doing it anyway.

What does that imply? That means they are willing to nuke our economy for this (throw in tariffs too while we’re at it). And when I say nuke I mean nuke- there’s no going back after this. We’re causing permanent long-term structural damage. Why would he be willing to do this?

I fear because there’s a lot worse on the horizon. Global war will overshadow the economic fallout from these decisions and will be pointed to as the cause of the near-future economic woes. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here, but this is not a good omen. It’s sort of like suicidal people giving away all their money before they off themselves. It’s a red flag.

I think we’re fucked with a capital F

but as long as he’s hurting non-whites they will sit around giving each other rage handies and praising him

What I find fascinating is the right-wing illegal immigration latinos who support Trump. Up until now they’ve been saying “He’s not going to deport us, he’s deporting the criminals”. I just read a news article about half of the people they’ve arrested so far did not have any criminal records.

White House press secretary goes live the other day and says “We’re going to deport all of them. They’re all criminals as far as I’m concerned”

I think people have this instinctual burning desire to feel part of an “in-group” and to hate against an “out-group”. It’s such a strong burning desire that people will jump through so many mental hoops even when they are in the “out-group”.

Note that being illegal is not a crime. It’s like when you get a parking ticket. It’s against the law but it isn’t a criminal violation. But of course the administration doesn’t care and neither does the army of rabid Americans cheering on the destruction of the country.

62% of the country supports deporting all illegals. Something that would be unbelievable a decade or two ago is now true for most Americans.

A strong majority of the country supports putting millions of people in camps and keeping them there for years. Of course GOP is more fervently against it- the same GOP that idolizes Reagan who gave blanket citizenship to millions of illegals.

I used to regularly visit a kava bar that happened to become a hang out spot for cops and military people. Honestly they didn’t seem that bad. One guy would come in every day for a kratom we’d take shells together. He played Slay the Spire on his switch, would ask for tips cause he kinda sucked.

Really they take easily impressionable young men and through the system mold them into something toxic. We become the roles we play. Shakespeare or something

people with significant money in art assets have it documented and insured. if he had 30 pieces just by warhols and additional, we’re likely talking millions of dollars of assets.

nobody leaves millions of dollars lying around without some sort of insurance

to be honest, this is a great opportunity for him to cash out of all his expensive art in one fell swoop. i would be elated if I were him

Corporations only have one goal. To make as much money as possible.

There is nothing else. There is no moral obligation. There is no social contract. There is nothing but making as much profit as possible at all costs.

This is why capitalist democracy will always devolve. If I’m a large corporation that is powerful enough for meaningful political influence- I will always try to manipulate the system into a) eroding the free market so I have less competition and b) influencing the government to enact policies that subsidizes my operations. Eventually you end up with a system like 1930s Germany or modern China- where the state picks and chooses some favored corporations and allow them to dominate the market in exchange for cooperation and subservience. Like Volkswagen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H06734,_Grundsteinlegung_für_Werk_des_KdF-Wagens.jpg

So when a company says something about how much they love X or Y or Z and inclusion and diversity and whatever other buzz word of the month- they are saying it in order to maximize profits and they will stop saying it the moment the calculus changes.

$$$ insurance payout

it’s a foot in the door for online surveillance. has little to do with porn

I appreciate the personal anecdote. I believe in cases like the one you detailed, assisted suicide is not only morally justified but I think perhaps even obligatory. It does sound horrific and I can only imagine how horrific it feels to be that person going through that period of time.

When I say duty to live, I’m more speaking to those who are not terminally ill. Another user brought up a good point where what we need to do is look at the death % rates and see how they shifted. For example, if 20% of people now die from assisted suicide, do 20% less people die from cancer and other similar diseases? Then assisted suicide is for all intents and purposes relegated to terminally ill patients.

If the number, however, is let’s say 15% less people die from cancer, that would imply 5% more people are dying because of assisted suicide than would have otherwise died. This is the part I’m scared of.

Again, I appreciate your comment. It must have been a profound thing to witness. For good and for bad.