TechyDad @ TechyDad @lemmy.world

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Exactly. There was a time (before Trump) where I thought that the GOP could shake off the crazy and return to being a sane(ish) political party. Maybe not right on most issues, but at least supportive of democracy.

That time has long since passed. Their last opportunity was after January 6th. The Republicans could have located their spines, said "this is not okay," and could have tossed Trump from the party along with anyone who excused his insurrection attempt. Instead, they acted like they might do this for a couple of weeks before hugging Trump even closer.

They've embraced the crazy instead of tossing it aside and now they are stuck with it. May the entire party sink into obscurity known only by history students and really old folks who tell their grandkids about when a major political party tried to overthrow the elections. (And may those grandkids not believe us old folks because democracy is so strong that such a thing is unthinkable.)

The problem with taking an even-handed position is that you get attacked by both sides. I've said that both the Israelis and Palestinians deserve the right to live in peace. The entire situation in the Middle East is a Gordian Knot of generational trauma, bloodshed begetting bloodshed, wrongdoings on both sides, and foreign entities egging it on for their own aims. Besides a generic "get rid of Hamas and Netenyahu," I don't have any solutions.

However, saying even that can get you attacked. On one side, I'll be told "the Palestinians are animals and the Israelis need to just wipe them out." On the other side, I'll be told "the Israelis are colonizers and the entire country of Israel should be given to the Palestinians with all Jews kicked out." Both sides will criticize me for not being entirely on their side and for calling out their hatred.

About the only thing that both sides agree on is that my even-handed approach in recognizing the complexity of the situation is wrong and that it's a simple Good Versus Evil situation. In the past, I've tried arguing with people, but it just gets tiring and they don't change their minds.

Quite honestly, I go back and forth on whether a Trump second term would result in a dictatorship. Don't get me wrong, he would do immense damage to our democracy and should be kept as far away from power as possible. (Preferably in a prison cell.)

Trump's first term, though, showed that Trump was often too incompetent to fulfill what he wanted to do. Not only that, but he was prone to get distracted by shiny things. He's going to go after the "deep state" and kick out anyone who doesn't support him? Well, first he needs to hold a press conference with a hurricane map that he marked up with a sharpie.

All this being said, the best case scenario for a Trump second term is that democracy is seriously wounded. We could emerge from it still with our voting rights intact, but with our entire democracy vulnerable to the next guy who can con a group of people into thinking that he's protecting them from The Other by removing everyone's rights.

Driving does require licensing, though. You need to register with the state to say that you can drive. This license can be revoked if you don't drive safely. If you drive without a valid license, you can get in a lot of legal hot water.

Vaccination might be compared to driving without a license. Let's say you let one person drive without a license because they promised to drive safely. They might be fine and not cause any accidents. This is analogous to a small number of anti-vaxxers not getting sick/spreading illness because they are still covered by herd immunity.

However, as more people are allowed to drive without a license, more accidents would happen. This would be especially true if we allowed people exceptions to things like speed limits and driving on the sidewalk because their "sincerely held religious beliefs" state that they are allowed to do this. At that point, we'd have a lot of accidents and a lot of people being hurt.

There are a lot of regulations around driving (licensing, road rules, yearly car inspections) that are onerous in an effort to keep driving as safe as possible. Getting rid of those regulations "for personal freedom" would cause many, many deaths. Allowing people to just refuse vaccinations for any reason would also cause many, many deaths.

I support the general principle that a person should not be compelled to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of others.

If vaccinations only protected the person being vaccinated and didn't protect anyone else, I'd say "let people decide whether or not to be vaccinated."! It would still be the better idea to vaccinate, but I'd be fine (in that theoretical world) with them choosing not to vaccinate.

However, I also believe that your right to swing your fist ends at my face. People don't have the right to do things that actively hurt others. Not getting vaccinated means that you can transmit highly infectious and deadly diseases. Deciding not to vaccinate could mean that a person is deciding that other people will die.

Apart from valid medical reasons (e.g. autoimmune disorders or allergic reactions to vaccine components), people shouldn't be able to opt out. In a society, we often curb the individual liberties to protect people. I'm not free to decide to drive drunk and it's not because I could hurt myself by doing so. If I drove drunk, I could hurt other people and so it's illegal.

Civil suits could be the answer, except it's nearly impossible to prove that Timmy got measles when he passed by Jane in aisle B31 of Target. The level of contact tracing that would be required to absolutely prove this would be orders of magnitude more invasive than vaccines.

We shouldn't allow "personal freedom" to skip vaccinations with the trade-off being other people's lives.

When fewer people vote, Republicans tend to win. They've even outright admitted this at times. This is why so many Republicans are in favor of enacting rules that limit voter participation. If the Republicans can prevent enough people from exercising their right to vote, then they might win. If too many legal voters cast their ballots, the Democrats will win - and that can't be allowed!

To this day, Trump claims that he actually won in New York and California, among other safe blue states. Fit the record, the last time NY went red was 1984 and the last time California went red was 1988.

Trump's convinced that there was "voter fraud" that turned those states blue, when they've been blue for over 30 years. He thinks that, if you removed all the "voter fraud," he really won in every state.

My guess is that he thinks voting for a Democrat is voter fraud and wants his violent mobs to make sure no "voter fraud" takes place. If he's elected President, I fear that we'll still have elections, but in the way Russia holds elections. "Do you want to vote for Trump or do you want to be sent to prison?"

I'd say that my wife is boycotting Hobby Lobby despite crocheting a ton, but that would imply that she's shopped there in the past. Still, we'll occasionally pass by one and laugh about how we'd never go in there.

I use a taxi analogy often when it comes to issues like this. You're on 8th Street and want to get to 1st Street. There are two taxis in front of you a Blue Taxi and a Red Taxi. The Blue Taxi will take you to 4th Street. The Red Taxi will take you to 21st Street before beating you up and leaving you for dead in the gutter.

Which taxi do you take?

Note: "Neither" isn't an option because if you don't choose, then some random people choose for you and shove you in the taxi.

Yes, neither taxi takes you to your destination, but the Blue taxi is a lot easier to recover from and reach your destination than the Red taxi.

Would it be better if you had a taxi that took you to your exact destination? Definitely, but this is where realism meets idealism. In the real world, you rarely have perfect options. You often need to decide which option is closest to perfect for you. In this case, the Democrats/Blue taxi are flawed but are worlds better than the Republicans/Red taxi.

I don't see Biden doing this. It has nothing but downsides for him to get involved in this matter.

If he does this and Trump (against all odds) abides by the agreement, then Biden just added legitimacy to the whole "this is a political hit job to get Trump out of the election" theory. It's a garbage theory which shouldn't be given any legitimacy, but this would push that forward on the right. Meanwhile, people on the left would be furious that Trump avoided punishment.

If Biden does this and Trump reneges on the deal, then you get the "legitimization" of the political hit job theory except without Trump dropping out. Meanwhile, the left would be angry that Biden gave Trump a get out of jail free card.

And this doesn't even get into the fact that Biden couldn't make the Georgia criminal case or the New York civil fraud case go away. He could call the prosecutors and ask them nicely to drop the cases, but they would be under no pressure to listen to him.

Biden's best bet is to just let the criminal justice system play out without sticking a single finger on the scales. Exactly like he's currently done.

Not a customs officer, but over a decade back I had job duties that involved posting photos of babies online. The parents would give their consent, maternity would snap the photos, and I'd put them on the website (complete with the option to order prints).

One of the babies was named "Secret Angel." First name Secret, middle name Angel. That girl would likely be in her teens or early twenties by now. I still sometimes wonder if Secret had any trouble with her name given how much kids can bully other kids for the slightest thing.

The article also shows the kissing scene in question. It's possibly the tamest kissing scene possible. If seeing this sends a person into a debilitating porn addiction, then the problem rests with them and not with the book.

Of course, given that she works for a "competitor" of Scholastic, I highly doubt her story is true. The author and Scholastic should sue her for defamation.

They know they'll never get Biden removed. Even the craziest Republican in the House realizes that the impeachment would die in the Senate. This is purely being done for three reasons.

First, it's payback. Trump was impeached twice so they think they are "owed" at least one impeachment. This is especially true, they feel, because Trump wants to see Biden impeached and they must follow Trump or else.

Secondly, it's an attempt to make impeachment meaningless. If they impeach Biden over nothing, they can claim that impeachment is a purely political process and Trump's two impeachments mean nothing.

Finally, it's a way for them to "prove" that Biden is corrupt. After all, he was impeached, so this means that he's done illegal stuff. Note: This conflicts with the second reason, but they don't care. They'll argue that Biden's impeachment means he's corrupt, while also arguing that Trump's impeachment proves that impeachment has no meaning.

Removal isn't the goal. They're just looking to score political points. The smarter Republicans realize that this could cause a massive backlash (ala Clinton post-impeachment), but the smarter Republicans aren't the ones with their hands on the wheel.

The reason they're giving: Something something Hunter Biden. (Despite having zero proof of anything improper.)

The real reason they're doing this: Trump was impeached twice and wants payback. The Republicans will fall over themselves to impeach Biden even if they have to say that his crime was blinking improperly.

If I steal $20 from a friend, buy lottery tickets with the cash, win $1,000, and then give them back $30, does that erase the fact that I stole $20 from them? Of course not. Just because you return the money you stole with some extra doesn't mean that you didn't commit a crime in obtaining that money.

In Trump's case, the banks might have made money, but he still got the number using fraudulent means. Whether or not the banks profited is immaterial. He committed fraud when he told the banks that his properties were worth more than they actually were. That's when the crime occurred. Any "but later they got their money back plus more" doesn't exonerate him from the crime.

So her "logic" (and I'm stretching that word to the breaking point) is that God said he wouldn't destroy the world again with a global flood. Let's say we accept that as fact: God will not destroy the world via a global flood.

The problem is that God isn't destroying the world, man is. And man isn't destroying the world via a giant flood. He's destroying it by changing the global climate to the point that he can't keep up. (To be technical, man is destroying his ability to survive in the world, not the world itself. The Earth would be here even if we decided to burn more fossil fuels.)

So even if we accept Genesis 8 as a valid "argument" (more word stretching), it doesn't apply. Now, if scientists start saying that a deity plans on instituting a global flood via 40 days and nights of rain, then I'll accept Genesis 8 as a counter-argument.

There are other areas. I live in a very blue area in the capital district, well north of New Palz. Pretty much any of the cities in New York will be blue, while the rural areas are deep red.

I live in Upstate NY and you're absolutely right. I'm in a very blue area, but I could drive a half hour away and see Trump flags alongside Confederate flags. (I'm close enough to Stefanik's district to get her horrible political ads on my TV.)

A map of New York would actually look red, not blue, because of the vast rural areas. Luckily, land doesn't vote so the huge red areas with few people are outvoted by the small blue areas with a lot of people.

I love using that story to counter the "modern books are smut, have kids read the Bible" folks. Either that or the story of Dinah.

To those who don't know it. Dinah was raped. Her rapist decided he wanted to marry her and, being such a "nice guy," asked her brothers for permission. They agreed, but only if he and all men in the town were circumcised. The guy agreed and, being the prince, ordered all men to get circumcised. When all the men were "indisposed," the brothers came in, killed all the men, took the women and children as slaves, and took all their possessions.

Their father, Jacob, was angry with how they acted because they "caused trouble" and it could result in other tribes attacking them. Apparently, he was fine with his daughter being raped because the story just moves on to other things.

So this is just a normal everyday kid's story with rape, theft, and murder! Perfectly acceptable for any child to read because at least two guys didn't kiss!!!

What about holding hands? Does that lead to porn addictions also?

Oh, and the Frog Prince involved kissing a frog. Some frogs produce hallucinogenic substances so kissing them can get you high. Therefore, reading that book leads to drug addictions! It's a two-fer!