Are you suggesting there should be a statute of limitations for statutory rape/abuse of a minor, esp from a person in a position of authority and a religious/community leader. Would you want someone with that kind of power/influence to have no kind of public accountability? Should people like that be able to just wait out the clock and get away with it? I’m not sure I’d want to have to wonder if my community leader got away with something like this due to a technicality [or because they were able to successfully intimate, bribe, or otherwise dissuade a victim from going public]. I’d want to know that the proper checks and balances are in place to keep the public safe from someone who would take advantage of a child in this way. And I’d wonder and be concerned about anyone who doesn’t want that.

How is that not a start? In a world where we are fighting just to agree that a problem exists, acknowledging the problem is a step in the right direction. Is it worth celebrating? No. But saying it’s not even a start is intellectually dishonest. [To say nothing of invoking the harm caused by a mob, incited by grifters, and assigning the responsibility to an individual]

And who said anything about being sympathetic? Do you have to sympathize with a person to not go out of your way to be shitty to them? [If so, that might be something you want to interrogate in yourself]

And again, I’m not saying your anger, frustration, and/or indignation is unwarranted. But none who breathe are wholly innocent. I don’t know anything about you, but I think it is a safe assumption that, if you live in a western country, your family history does not go back more than 4-5 generations wherever you’re living. You likely live on colonized land. [And if not that, then some other industrialized atrocity you are complicit in?] What work have you done to fix that harm? What sympathy should be granted to you, should you ever be called to account? I’m not suggesting you need to do anything other than have some restraint and decency. Is that such a radical or outrageous thing?

Honestly, for the person I responded to, doing literally nothing would have been better. I’m not suggesting we give people cookies for changing their minds [or whatever]. I’m just saying that being unconstructively critical is actively pushing against the kind of change and progress I would assume someone taking the position they are taking would want. Unless that’s not the objective and they are in fact trying to maintain the divide. That is possible. But assuming everyone is a bot or astroturfer is no way to live. Not hitting Post is always an option.

I think community organizing is the key. Whether it is direct participation, or supporting local/independent initiatives, or trying to influence the established parties in your area. The bad actors thrive on division, misinformation, inaction, and apathy. And the common refrain is that people don’t have the resources, time or bandwidth to educate themselves or to contribute. More people need to see the redistribution of wealth upwards as a form of control. Measures that erode workers rights, equality, etc. further disempowers anyone not in the upper echelons [even those in the upper class but not in the ruling class]. We need to be willing to make sacrifices/concessions if it will benefit those with fewer advantages than ourselves specifically because they make up the foundations that allow us to exist as high up the chain as we currently are [even if that doesn’t feel very high]

Given what they said regarding disagreeing with Trump’s current actions, why did you feel like your response was the best way to engage?
After the repeated examples over the last decade, I think everyone in the world should have learned by now that shame, aggression, and shade dripping with schadenfreude doesn’t change opinions or actions.
If you are truly concerned about making things worse for others, you might want to examine the way you interact with other human beings. Because the short term dopamine isn’t worth contributing to the division that’s been made worse by targeted, algorithmic influence.
We are all being fed a curated version of reality designed to appeal to our biases and stoke fear and outrage. I think we need to learn to show some grace to people who we don’t fully agree with, who are trying to reach across the divide, and who might be coming to terms with the ways in which they may have been misled or caught up in an enticing movement.
And I’m not saying this is easy. It certainly isn’t satisfying. I love barbed and bitter witicisms. Being shitty to someone who I feel deserves it scratches this itch in my brain that I am neither proud of, nor can deny. But it’s also the definition of being selfish, since it helps no one. So idk, you do you I guess?

In this economy?

Someone should tell him that the best way to get back at Elon would be to start taxing billionaires.

The problem with “they’re just incompetent”, is that it let’s malicious people feign stupidity. And if it is a combination, it doesn’t matter which aspects are one or the other. They are dangerous all the same and shouldn’t be allowed to continue hurting people. But a combination of apathy, indoctrination, and infiltration means they’ll likely never see any real consequences. Or if they do, they were likely expendable and their excision doesn’t accomplish anything. People need to, at a minimum, vote. And preferably get more involved. Organize. Start local.

More of them, but no plan or resources towards maintaining them

I think provisional measures (“bandaid” solutions) should always come with an “until ____ is passed”. Because yes, it shouldn’t be how we have to do things. But while there isn’t the political will to do/get the thing that would actually help the situation, something needs to be done to mitigate the harm that already exists. For example, I don’t want to have to drink water from a dirty stream. That shouldn’t be the standard. But if I find myself in a situation where it’s that or to die of dehydration… restricting/denying the Band-Aid is essentially condemning them to the original harm

Fuck Trump. But also, I think with divisions the way they are, we have to be careful how we engage with our criticisms. And my problem with calling Trump “white trash” is layered. First, white trash has classically been used to denigrate lower class white folks. There’s more to unpack there than I want to tackle, but to oversimplify, I feel like it is unnecessarily classist and brings in race at the same time. I’m sure there are plenty of people who you could call white trash that aren’t racist, traitorous, scam artists. Also, I would consider Trump either not lower class, or a class traitor. And on top of that, it kind of seems like the least concerning thing about him. Him being cringe or gross or just generally repugnant is so 2016. We’re now in the midst of several global catastrophes that this animated blob of greed and hatred will almost certainly pour rocketfuel on.

“It sets a shitty precedence…” is a gross minimalization to attach to effectively making the US be a dictatorship. And saying you’re ok with a dictatorship because you happen to agree with the dictator is the kind of sentiment that cannot be left unchallenged/unexamined

So while I’m undecided on landlords, I think your logic is flawed. Are you saying that criticising the concept of owning land and charging people for housing is the same as being born into a socially constructed group or the same as choosing or being born into a organization structured around shared beliefs? Because I’m not sure they’re quite the same thing.

It’s almost like it is in the best interests of one of the political parties to have a less informed populace and that party tends to limit or dismantle that educational infrastructure

You’ve misapplied progressive language in such a way as to make me suspect this comment is an example of astroturfing. I almost hope that is the case, because the alternative is that you have allowed ignorance and implicit bias to lead you down a path of self justified racism/bigotry. As the dominant culture, it is not our place to decide to exclude groups of people based on a preconception. Every culture has blindspots. But none of them are absolutes. You tolerate the culture, and try to discourage behavior that is detrimental to the whole. Otherwise we’d ban most religions. Even western ones.

I think Bev Keane was based off this woman

Do you think the West is that far off?

From everything I’ve read/heard about this, it does sound like a bit of a nothing burger. Overblown for political ends. But I think saying “coworker” is a bit intellectually dishonest. A big part of the allegation is that they were involved, and then she hires him. Concerns of abuse of power, misuse of funds, and conflicts of interest. The judge’s ruling seems fair. To opponents, dismissing it in this way has the appearance of strawmanning. If you already have a strong argument, you only hurt your position long run

What if… she made those comments knowing her son was going to be arrested, so she could say to her base that it was a set up/retaliation for what she had said? (Too conspiratorial? )

I think that way of thinking is why it is so difficult to deal with colonialism. We can commit atrocities, and as long at the people who committed them have died of old age, their descendants are free and clear. I don’t really know where ixstand on this. But I can’t not acknowledge that I have benefited from the misery of others. Whether it is slave wage labor, the crimes against indigenous peoples, patriarchy, or these proxy wars around the world. I think that pushing back against these injustices when seeing the harm it is causes makes obvious sense. But I think it also makes sense to do it selfishly. These people are making us culpable. Doesn’t matter if it was someone we voted for who made these decisions, or even if it’s someone we didn’t vote for. These decisions are being made in our names and with our money. Idk man. Shit’s complicated