I am having this conversation with my wife. I’m 16 years into a military career (so 4 years from retirement), and she was talking about moving to Canada. So for a thought exercise, I looked it up, and with my skill set it would be pretty doable.

But I reminded her that we aren’t the ones in danger. A cis-het white family of natively-born Americans in the military with the economic stability to fly to Canada on a moments notice for an abortion (she was worried about our daughter) is not in particular danger. But us leaving means we can’t fight against this, and makes it worse for those who can’t just leave.

We’ll see how it is in 2029 when I’m due to retire, if the country can pull its head out of its ass or if Project 2025 goes full swing followed by no legitimate election. But for now, we’ll stay and push back.

Unless he was diagnosed as a pathological liar, they should not. Not that he isn’t, because he is, but as a news organization they should only provide the facts, quotes, and unbiased contextual information. That is what we should expect from the news. It should not be “left-leaning” or “right-leaning,” because they shouldn’t tell us what we should think about what they are reporting.

They should report that some of his former (and possibly current, if it’s accurate) aids and expected cabinet members wrote, participated, or supported Project 2025. They should report what Trump’s response was when asked about it, as well as including the factual context of how many people directly surrounding him that were openly involved (to give the lie to him “not knowing”).

We need news to stop giving opinion. Period. They should strive to be as unbiased as possible, including reporting on events based on newsworthy-ness, not trying to be “fair” to the candidates by reporting on both in an equally negative way regardless of the severity of their respective news (e.g. Obama’s tan suit vs. Trump’s children in cages.)

I’m an American, and I had to ask my wife what that was the first time I saw it. And then I needed an explanation on why that was a problem, because I had thought the point of text messages was that you could read it and get back at your convenience, as opposed to a phone call you have to respond to in the moment.

Apparently I’m old.

Yes, where they argue over which convoluted plan that ultimately benefits insurance companies is “better” and which is “totally communism.”

Excluding the obvious choice of everybody gets Healthcare at no higher average cost to the individuals.

Perfect, except there wouldn’t be anyone on the lower track. But definitely gets the point across.

I was going to make this, but put Palestine before the fork. And then put the person away from the lever refusing to participate when pulling the lever would move it to a track with nobody on it. Or pulling a different lever that does nothing (labeled Jill Stein).

Palestine is and will continue to get run over regardless who wins the presidency, so they aren’t exactly relevant to the choice. It’s not a real trolley problem because it’s not a trade for different people. It’s just “let the trolley run over Ukrainians, lgbtq+ people, minorities, and immigrants” or… don’t. And then refusing to touch the lever because it somehow makes you “love genocide” to have anything to do with the trolley, even if to mitigate the damage.

But if you wanted to do something about it: these weapons come from this country and they have to get there in trucks traveling on roads to ports that load them on ships.

We are discussing voting, though. That’s a bit tangential, because you can vote or not vote and still commit acts of… resistance…

And it’s not like there’s not a value to making genocide come with electoral consequences…

If you otherwise would have voted Dem against the Republicans, who are as bad or worse when it comes to the specific issue you’re punishing the Dems for, you are hurting one group committing genocide by helping one who commits and wants to commit even more genocide.

All under the mistaken belief that by refusing to vote for the group you would otherwise vote for, you will get them to move Left. But if the Dems lose to the VERY right wing party, if the voting shows that Americans favor more right-leaning policies, they would move to gain the votes of the people who actually voted.

The reality is, refusing to vote is still a choice. As long as you are an adult who can legally vote in the US election, you are partly responsible for the results of the election. You don’t get to wash your hands of it. Choosing to abstain because you don’t want to partipate out of moral self-righteousness is saying your soapbox is more important than the lives affected by your choices, from the Palestinians to the Ukrainians, immigrants to LGBTQ. Nobody is more important than your ability to say “I didn’t vote for a party that commit genocide.”

So what are the other choices?

Wasn’t the US Constitution’s 4th amendment the basis for Roe vs Wade? It would be fitting for the Florida 4th amendment to enshrine abortion access in their state.

Oh, we have the military superpower. We’re constantly putting it on display. We’re basically a giant weapons and war factory. When we go down, it won’t come from the outside (except in the form of cyber attacks and misinformation campaigns).

Though I could see it in a few decades. Russia was a powerful body full of rot. We’re a powerful body with an infection. If the authoritarians win, they’ll replace competent people in key positions with unqualified party-loyal yes men, and that will start the rot.

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Do you need to be an -ian? Like, if you like the teachings of Ghandi, or Socrates, or Marcus Aurelius, you don’t have to call yourself a Ghandian, or a Socratian, or an Aurelian. You just agree with their teachings.

I feel like you’re just making a dig on Christians, and it’s not like a lot of them don’t deserve it, but what you’re talking about isn’t a religion. You don’t need an -ian to like a philosophy.

Flying a confederate flag in Pennsylvania is about the most ridiculous thing I can think of off-hand. In the south, they’re all about “it’s not about racism, it’s about heritage!” People flying it in the north are, like, “Nope, racism! I don’t have any heritage with this, except its heritage of racism!”

There are people undecided on whether they will be voters. Plenty of people who would vote Republican who could not bring themselves to vote Democrat even against fascism, or a candidate with dementia, or a felon, might be convinced to just stay home. And plenty left-leaning types who can’t be assed to go to a ballot box might find the motivation when they have someone that actually seems presidential, who they might want to have as a president (when apparently the threat of fascism wasn’t enough of a motivation).

You don’t need landlords for non-ownership and temporary housing solutions to exist.

For example…

I’m going to let you in on some insight from a 40-something millenial:

I feel like being a adult is just lying about how much you have your shit together to people who also lie about having their shit together.

It starts off that way a bit, and you’re expected to at least put forward the impression you have your shit together before you do. But then the pretending gets easier and easier until you realize you’re just paying your bills, getting your laundry done, and doing what you need to do while feeling like you’re failing at the new, added responsibility in your life (like big career changes, kids, projects taken on, kids, taking care of family or friends, more kids). But that’s with anything new you take on. If you aren’t struggling at least a little, you’re not growing.

After we got out of college, we are just going to sit in front of a computer like the generations before us for the rest of our life, with the only difference of be paided less then them.

If you choose that. I can’t speak to the pay, because y’all are getting fucked… so far. I’ll speak more on that in a second, but I was the store manager of a restaurant for a few years before moving to New York from Seattle on a whim, worked customer service at a phone center for a cable company, and then joined the Coast Guard in my mid-to-late 20s, and drove boats until going into aviation and flying in helicopters, living in various places throughout the country, saving a few lives, flying in really cool places, and when I retire I can go do something else. People who stay in a job behind a desk their whole work life either love that job or are complacent in it. You are absolutely not chained to it.

And as for the shitty pay and everything, what I have seen of the Gen Z folks that have come through the Coast Guard is that they advocate for themselves and get things that we millenials are embarrassed to hear requested, much less think to ask for ourselves. And look to all the labor movements going on to push back at those pay drops. Keep the momentum, keep up the fight, don’t get complacent like my generation or Gen X.

not one of us could have imagined the entire generation having a mid-life crisis at the age of 18.

That’s not a mid-life crisis, that’s just the normal fear of entering the world for real, and it’s been that way for a long, long time. The crises come when you start feeling how little time you have (quarter-life realization you just don’t have enough lifespan to do everything you hope to do, mid-life realization of how little time you really have). Your thing is simply the fear of embarking into the unknown, and your doomscrolling has made your future look bleak. Put the phone down. Take opportunities when you can. Enjoy what you can out of life.

The whole thing is daunting, I totally get it. But going in with the approach you have is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I wish it were required that both parties agree to the lawsuit being dropped for it not to continue. I’d love to see this frivolous bullshit forced into a courtroom against the plaintiffs will by the defendants.

I disagree. If we sent 100 personnel with an air defense group to Ukraine, shit would get pretty real pretty fast. Sending people is a whole different commitment to sending weapons.

I had an old instructor who liked to say “when it comes to breakfast, what’s the difference between the chicken and the pig? The chicken made a contribution, the pig made a commitment.”

Sending our own troops stops being a contribution and starts being a commitment.

Perhaps, hold an opinion and then go on to Google to deny it… Sounds wrong…

No, that’s about right. If you have an opinion, you should be challenging it with additional information. The key is not tossing anything anything that doesn’t already agree with your opinion. Going in with the understanding that you are looking for information that proves you wrong is a good approach, though.

Oh, wow, I had always thought that shooting a horse with a broken leg was an act of brutal expedience, not mercy.