Fernandez’s former boyfriend.

This is an unfortunate fact (that he’s gay) that the Right will focus on to further confirm their delusion that non-hetero people are likely to be pedophiles.

Older people (omitting any triggering mention of boomers) can often struggle to keep their opinions and thinking relevant as they can become less receptive to new information.

It’s got nothing to do with age or receptivity to new information. Vaccines aren’t new. This isn’t an instance of an old person not understanding something that came about “past their time.” Furthermore, there are plenty of younger people who are on the anti-vax bandwagon, so I’m not sure what your obsession with age is.

I don’t think I’ve misunderstood you at all; I just think your opinion is wrong, bigoted, and ignorant.

The epitome of a lazy, entitled boomer.

Right, because that kind of intellectual arrogance is definitely a generational trait that us Millennials and Zoomers don’t ever need to worry about.

So much generational bullshit that people buy into these days. What garbage.

This isn’t a gun control issue.

People always frown and say I’m being cynical or pessimistic whenever I tell them I’m a misanthrope. They assume I’m bitter and I irrationally hate my fellow human. Couldn’t be further from the truth. I actually like most people I meet. I just have a very low opinion of us as a species. If you look at the track record, I’m many of the most important aspects, it’s really abysmal. We have undoubtedly accomplished many great things, but we’ve also committed uncountable horrors—and both patterns will continue—but I’m not impressed in the final analysis. In fact, I’m pretty disgusted.

Anyone interested should briefly study individual psychology vs. group psychology. Specifically, why individuals are often better problem solvers than groups. There are reasons groups tend to make worse decisions overall than individuals. In a nutshell, it’s because the loudest voices prevail in groups, not the most intelligent, educated, insightful, etc. On a grand scale, that translates to those who want power the most are the ones who wind up in the positions that wield it. And this isn’t due to any social system or set of laws or constitution; it’s due to simple human psychology.

The cruelty is the point. The evidence is clear.

I actually disagree that the cruelty is intentional. I think conservatives have proven pretty clearly at this point that they devote a considerable amount of mental effort to believing their views are correct, no matter what the data show. I think they genuinely think transsexuality is a farce, just like they believe homosexuality is a mental illness, and that they’re protecting children from bad influences by preventing them from transitioning. The problem is willful ignorance and lack of appreciation for critical thinking.

There’s a difference between protest and harassment. I strongly believe the right to express all opinions–even stupid, bigoted ones–should be protected, but that doesn’t mean you get to harass other people and try to intimidate them into submission.

Wow, communism is fucking awesome. /s

Time for nationwide strike in the restaurant/food delivery industry imo.

That will never happen, because the truth is that these folks do make more from tips than they would from any sort of overall wage increase. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, tip-receiving workers tend to favor the tipping system in my experience.

Lemmy overall is just different shades of red. Picking your instance just allows you to select pink vs. crimson.

Don’t use California as a metric for American homelessness. California has made itself a veritable Mecca for homeless people by passing laws that allow them to set up camp virtually anywhere. Those laws, combined with its naturally temperate climate have resulted in 30% of America’s homeless population living in California. No other state in the U.S. has such a hard-on for homeless people and we have much more sensible laws that reflect that.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Lemmy is rife with these trolls. And I’m not just talking about the tankies.

I will never understand people who advocate for communism as opposed to democratic socialism. Every major country that has ever gone down the communist road has ended up a dictatorship. That’s not a bug of communism, it’s a feature. I get the criticism of capitalism, I really do, but we can enact socialist laws that rein in the excesses and extremes of capitalism without sacrificing our democracies for one-party governments.

“From the river to the sea” is a phrase used by Hamas and other anti-Israel groups in the region to talk about wiping Israel out. I don’t think Tlaib was actually calling for the destruction of Israel, but her choice of phrase was absolutely moronic, and I don’t believe she ever apologized for it. That’s what I meant about her comments not being as bad as these, but still bad.

Lemmings are rightly furious about these comments, but I don’t recall you all being upset about Tlaib’s tone-deaf implication that Israel should be wiped from the map.

I’m not pretending Tlaib’s comments are as bad as these, because they’re not, but I am absolutely for censuring Tlaib over them. They were totally out of line, no matter what she meant.

10 years for ending someone else’s life? I’m glad we have longer sentences for that here in the U.S. Don’t get me wrong–I’m all for prison reform and introducing rehabilitative elements to reduce recidivism, but Europeans seem to have more concern for criminals than they do for the victims of crime.

Oh, please, that’s got to be the biggest false equivalence I’ve heard in a while now. Every single communist nation has rapidly become a dictatorship, because that’s literally what’s supposed to happen in the transition phase. That’s totally different from real democracies being eroded by far-right extremists—and plenty of the world’s democracies are still fighting those extremists and their democracies are still alive. Stop hand-waiving away these stark differences with bullshit generalizations like that.

I believe I already explained that. Give me an example of a country going communist and not becoming a dictatorship.

My politics are better because they don’t result in that.

I’m not. I know what communism is and why it sucks ass. Tankies are another breed altogether.

Agreed. I’m a liberal and I wouldn’t consider myself a “moderate liberal” in every respect either (I support universal healthcare and think public universities should be free), but lefties who think communism is actually a good idea mystify me. Every single country that’s gone down that road has devolved into a dictatorship, and that’s by design, not merely a flaw in execution. Communists are as bad as fascists; they both aim for authoritarian rule.

Can anyone direct me to an article that summarizes the relevant history in West Africa (in an unbiased fashion) and how it relates to the present coup in Niger? I don’t feel like I have enough knowledge of the region to make an informed judgment about which side to support (if any) in this conflict.