abraxas @ abraxas @lemmy.ml

Posts

1

Comments

387

Joined

2 yr. ago

It took my pacifistic ass years to see the truth of that.

When you take down a regime that bases itself on such anti-social behavior as chattel slavery, you really need to end it as completely as a termite infestation. Just one of them able to come into power again is all it takes to roll everything back.

Every single person involved should have faced federal prosecution, permanently lost their right to vote, and the states on a probationary "no vote" federal oversight where the government re-educated the idea of black property out of their fool heads before the they could be treated as states again.

Perhaps not just "let". Look up the lady that's been helping him. Her house recently burned down. I didn't dig deep enough to know if anyone has tried to tie it to this particular town, but I'm gonna let them be guilty until proven innocent in this particular case.

Your understanding of US law is slightly off.

Unlike many countries, the burden of proof for defamation is on the accuser. You must prove at some bar (based on factors like celebrity status) that the other party spoke false information, and then in most cases you must also prove ill intent. You can't usually win a defamation suit against anti-vaxers (for example) because they genuinely believe they're saving people by spreading the misinformation they think is true.

We're a VERY tough country for that kind of suit, and the First Amendment is cited as the reason.

This has the same problem as the southern white NRA attitude.

There aren't enough untrained civilians to enact a violent rebellion without the support of our military. They don't have to beat us to win, only stop us from beating them, and the law will take over from there. Unlike in Vietnam, the war of attrition would be against whoever rebelled. Nobody wants to be in a long and protracted war against the US, and if the rebellious behavior doesn't break down, the perpetrators will stop being seen as heroes and start being seen as criminals.

We saw it firsthand recently with CHOP/CHAZ. Ultimately, a vast majority of onlookers (including some members of CHAZ) were done with it all by the end.

This small town in this snippet is not going to fix its problems by a bunch of people robbing tanks from the Federal Government.

They would arrest and convict the majority, and move on. With state support, 275 people is just not enough. A few surrounding communities? Their police forces would join in.

The small-town South Sucks if your skin isn't white.

Sorta.

From the article, they're such a "good ol boy" community that the people in power just kinda picked the mayor, who served until he was ready to retire and pick another. He was the first person in town, basically ever, to properly fill out electoral paperwork. So they had a mayor picked out (not him) and they basically just pretended he didn't do it the right way because it isn't THERE way.

Until I say the next thing and just looking at that, you could kinda see the back-and-forth about how the town's so messed up his situation was like a loophole, and no doubt if it were a white person winning the mayorship on those terms people might have taken issue and justified a repeat election....

But his reason for running for mayor puts the whole thing into much clearer contrast. When he was a volunteer firefighter, they'd take away the keys when he tried to respond to fires at black folk's houses, and when he made it he'd be the ONLY firefighter there. They wanted to let those residences burn because of the color of the residents' skin. As one of the town's medics, he was specifically locked out of the station for racist reasons and it led to a patient dying.

It's THAT good-ol-boy a community, and it's such an overwhelmingly black-majority town (like 80%) that going all democratic just won't work for them. So fuck em. If they win their defense on claims of qualified immunity of an office they don't actually hold, immo go down there and declare myself governor.

EDIT: Yet on reading more carefully, it's complicated. The "lame duck" city council voted on a re-election where he did not get the paperwork, and elected themselves back into office, all before he and the new council were sworn in. They may have managed to push the whole thing into a legal grey area in their favor depending on what the local and state laws are. But the problem is that quite literally everyone is telling him "you're not the mayor" when he tries to execute ANY mayoral duties. The bank is refusing him financial access. The staff at public buildings is refusing him physical access.

It's interesting because he's tried to bring in several lawfirms, and they have mostly just taken his money and failed him. This is, at local scale, to too unlike the federal Constitutional crisis we almost had on 1/6/21. What do you do when a town says you're not its mayor and the laws are unclear?

What danger? He's going to get high again and eat it. And it's going to be fucking delicious.

I’m not even going to argue science with you at this point because you are so far off of what even nonvegans who care about the environment usually agree on and you clearly have an issue believing or understanding research.

Just from how you worded this, I think that's probably smart.

Your trolly problem point is a nothing sandwich

I see. I'm sorry you feel that way about ethics.

Vegans get a win win in that refusal to eat animal products results in overall harm reduction in our real world

And I bet you can formally prove that in some ethical framework instead of make the claim despite me having knowledge it's false

So it doesn’t matter whether or not they are rights-based or utilitarian vegans.

Nothing matters but you winning against the non-believers?

You can deny evidence and think what you want but now you are really just arguing for your sake instead of being honest with yourself.

Reptent, sinner, and turn to our lord and savior Bob. You know he's the true god. You've always known. Just be "honest with yourself" and stop denying the evidence of his coming......... Do you not see how utterly mindlessly inane that sounds? You're now trying to convince me that NOT ONLY is everything I know to be true a lie, but that deep down inside I KNOW that everything I know to be true is a lie.

A this point, you might as well try to make me an antivaxer or flat-earther. But I guess using common sense is out the window because, as you admit, I already have enough knowledge not to be convinced by rhetoric.

If you are so into philosophy you would probably know your anecdote about your wife means nothing to me.

No. I knew that from the point where you got offended by being called smug, and then started replying with things like.... Well, this smug insulting hateful post of yours I just replied to.

I'm gonna hit that little "Block" button now, quite comfortable in the fact that I have succeeded in my goal of showing how wrong veganism is.

No I heard your sentence and called it stupid and I still can’t believe you are going with it because it is laughable

Wait. I thought you said you weren't smug?

Go on, explain how you are nicer to animals more than vegans are to you

Already did. And I didn't say "vegans are to me" I said "vegans are to non-vegans".

You are still alive so we haven’t eaten you yet… Do you kill and eat people you care about?

Is that the only moral in your world? DO what thou wilt as long as you don't eat animals? My usual critique is that vegans have this over-simplified 2d understanding of ethics and the environment. So it kinda fits.

You said you are taking ‘abuse’ from vegans in the same comment you said you see nothing wrong with killing and eating someone

Is animal personhood a requirement for someone to be said to have empathy towards animals? Or are you just getting a little bit unhinged with cannibalism talk? You are allowed to walk away you know.

I can’t take your victim point seriously when you refuse to acknowledge the feelings of your victims

As far as I can tell, you don't seem to be taking anything non-vegan seriously. You've kinda proven the entire discussion and we can both move on.

As your your gay friends thing, its a false equivalence despite what the words are. Gay people don’t have victims. Nonvegans do

Funny thing, that's what they'd say. Bodies are temples, Jesus' consent, yada yada yada.

I’m defining “bad thing” as an action that harms others

Bit of a simplified definition, if I do say myself. As a utilitarian, I'd like to point out the spiderweb in any ethical decision as everything can harm others in some way.

Being gay is also not a choice and is nothing like being nonvegan. You aren’t a fucking minority for being nonvegan. What a dumbass insulting argument.

Your only options are that I turn vegan or I'm inferior to you. You REALLY don't like educated interlocutors, do you?

junk science and fabricated propaganda… how?

Different discussion, and feel free to read my MANY other comments on this thread if you're interested in my take on that. I said that's how we see the vegan side. If you want to cover whether that opinion is accurate, my answer here is going to be RTFM in the other comments, sorry.

Besides the scientific consensus on the benefits of plant based diets on the environment, veganism is an ethical stance to stop unnecessary harm towards sentient beings

That "scientific consensus" has tons of asterisks. The consensus is that reducing global meat intake would have an environmental impact in a vacuum. And I agree with that. And as long as it's not too many people "doing their part" by going vegan, go ahead. And as long as you don't think that's the ONLY thing you should be doing.

And no, veganism is not "an ethical stance to stop unnecessary harm towards sentient beings", it's just not eating animal products. And here's how I can show that. If someone handed you a shotgun and said "this deer has to die; feel free to eat it. If you don't kill it, 5 more animals will starve to death" what would you do? Trolley problem. If your stance is actually stopping unnecessary harm, you kill the deer and you feast. You kill the deer because it saves lives, and you feast because at least the death served a purpose directly.

If you don't do those things, you're not doing what you can to "stop unnecessary harm towards sentient beings". But if you DO do those things, you're not a vegan. Words have meanings, and vegan doesn't mean "stop unnecessary harm", it means "won't eat animal products at all costs".

The only science we need is to prove that plant based diets do that, and they do

I disagree. I think too much veganism, especially preachy veganism, costs more lives and causes more suffering. I see what overpopulation does every day, and I've seen many times how many animals die on a farm.

Also I’m definitely not pushing people away from veganism, I’ve been at this for a long time and the truth is you weren’t going to change your mind

No, I wasn't going to change my mind because I'm educated on this matter and have been dealing with smug vegans for a decade now. Unlike a lot of dupes you might talk to, I have a background in philosophy and ethics, as well as at least some knowledge about agriculture and how farming actually works. But my wife toyed with veganism until she got annoyed by someone not very much unlike you. It led her to stop. She un-quit red meat, which was a huge win to me.

But think about this. Anyone on the fence who reads this comment chain is going to see the preachy vegans overreaching with what arguments they have and come to the not-quite-true conclusion that NONE of what you're saying is accurate. Which is funny because we SHOULD still be trying to improve our overall relationship with food.

I’m just providing opposition to your points for everyone who reads this thread

Actually, quite the opposite. This all started because you insisted vegans aren't smug. Readers can come to their own conclusions. At this point, I'm convinced any non-vegan reader will agree that you came across similar to a JW.

I didnt call your ethical framework insane, I’m talking about your statement saying you have more empathy for animals than vegans have for you, which is beyond ridiculous to say

Have you ever heard of the personal incredulity fallacy?

You literally strawmanned my argument

Did I? What exactly do you think my ethical framework is if it's not either ignorance or lack of empathy... when you directly accused me of having less empathy for animals?

It’s a logical question that you just didnt answer.

Where do you ever ask me a question that I didn't answer?

Taking ‘abuse’ from vegans… maybe we are just convinced its morally okay, or does being a victim not feel good to you?

Rephrase please, so I don't get you even more on the defensive by answering the wrong question. Because this one came across as a softball one that you would not like the answer to.

As for the last thing you said, I have literally no idea what you are talking about.

I have sat through a "discussion" where several of my gay friends were told "we want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people". I have a friend who was kicked out of his home at 15 to almost that exact phrasing. Preachy Vegans come across EXACTLY like that to everyone else in the world. When I look a preachy vegan in the eyes, I see that bigoted Catholic dad who kicks his kid to the curb.

Do you have kids? What would you do if one of them came out non-vegan to you? What if they decided their calling was ranching? I've got a cousin who got a degree in dairy farming and he LOVES it.

How many people do you estimate could be fed with grass-fed cows?

Why are we going back to "grass-fed"? Do you have plans for that inedible plant waste that currently only ends up in animals or landfills?

What about the usage of water?

What about it? I'm not sure you understand how water works in agriculture/horticulture. Are you looking at "water footprint"? That's its own complicated topic with as many landmines. I'd like to point out that cows are basically as efficient as nuts (or any real vegetable protein), and even the waterfootprint site just suggests having a mix of chicken and beef.

From your unkind reply to me elsewhere... If you had to pick between the environment and fewer animal deaths, which would you choose? I like to talk cows with vegans because a mixed diet with beef as the only meat clearly consists of fewer animal deaths than a vegan diet. 700,000 calories a death is pretty hard to beat. Environmentally speaking (and water), the best way to get protein is from animals that have to die and locally sourced chicken. Chicken are pretty death inefficient though, aren't they?

What is with the thousands of hectare of forest that have been rode for pastures?

What about factory farms in third world countries with no safety controls? There's as much of a veg-packing industry as there is a meat-packing one. Are you going to stop eating vegetables because SOME FARM SOMEWHERE does something wrong? The meat I eat doesn't come from places where "thousands of hectares of forest have been rode for pasture".

What about the fact that, if everybody would switch to a meatless diet you would need much less farmland overall?

You seemed to have backed yourself into a corner with a non-argument argument. Is this from a position that land usage is unacceptable? Because the world is nowhere near overpopulated yet. Is this from an environmental standpoint? Then land use is the wrong figure. Are you really happy if we use less farmland but produce MORE net GHG? We need more farmland per calorie of crop if we don't have sufficient fertilization. But the fertilizers (synethic and manure) are the potential problem. To use less farmland overall, you need to produce more GHG overall. The balance for farmland is to have localized ecosystems of livestock fertilizing local plant farms which in turn use their waste to feed.

I'm gonna be crystal clear. I'm NOT saying beef is perfect. I prefer chicken and seafood from an environmental perspective. But I know a lot of vegans care more about "saving animal lives" than they do the environment. So I talk cow. I'll concede it straight - beef should NOT be foundational to your diet any more than veganism should be if your goal is a single sustainable diet for the entire world.

You do realise that meat-eaters eat animals that were killed for them to be eaten?

Yup. Animals that lived lives in the first place because they were going to be eaten. Why should anyone have an ethical problem with that? But honestly, I don't think it's just "were killed for them to be eaten" to you. I live in a deer population control zone. Hunters have a critical task of preventing deer overpopulation from devastating the area. Got any problems with the venison steak I had last week from deer that HAD to be killed?

Please explain to me how this is more empathetic than posting a meme that triggered some meat-eaters.

More empathetic? Because I'm not an anti-natalist. I know those animals would not have been born if not farmed. This is not a vacuum choice between "cows die" and "cows live". It never was, and it never will be. I know that most of them live better lives and die easier than their non-domesticated counterparts. Ever watch a cat play with a mouse, slowly torturing it to death? My local farm (plants) have animals that do exactly that every day with the goal of killing off pest animals so they won't destroy the harvest (a single pest animal like a squirrel can destroy 40 or 50 tomatoes in an hour).

Let's go another way. Statistically, odds are pretty good that my death will be 100x worse than how a farm animal dies. So no, me being ok that death exists in our world is NOT a lack of empathy. You don't get to make up my morals for me. The way I see it, giving farm animals a peaceful life is the height of empathy... so I look at you (your words) "triggering some meat-eaters" and note that statistically many of the people you go out of your way to "trigger" are going to end up dying long and painful battles with cancer. My view of empathy? Give them just a LITTLE bit more bloody peace while they're alive.

Here's my empathy. I fight for animal right laws. I strongly supported the free range chicken law that just passed in my state. I reject unethical and inhumane ways of treating and killing animals. But I'm not uneducated. I know how farming works. I know how the delicate relationship between agriculture and horticulture, while not perfect, leads to less death and less environmental impact than EITHER side of those alone.

Vegans are letting some crayola-colored dream be the enemy of good. And it's nothing more than flat-earther, tinfoil, antivax gibberish to me. And I don't care as long as they leave people alone.

Re-read your previous comment and try to consider why I might have taken it that way. Otherwise, have a great day.

JW's would say the exact same thing to vegans. YOU think the issue is real, but all the rest of us see is you throwing around junk science and fabricated propaganda. Ultimately, you think you can force your morals on us because you think you're better than us... and think we have no right to do the same to you. That's where the "smug" part comes in. You know we've thought about the ethics. You know we might even be more educated in right-and-wrong than you are. But you don't care what our conclusions were as long as they differ from yours. You're infallible on that topic, are you?

Religion is a personal choice, but actions that harm others are not

You don't think what you're doing is harming people? Or is it that you don't care because your ethics are more valuable than others are? Proslytization hurts people. Which means preachy vegans hurt people.

You can call it preachy but that’s how things get better.

You're pushing people AWAY from veganism. I've been on a constant mission to improve my footprint, but every time I end up in an argument with a vegan I end up so exhausted by their zealous crap that I start questioning whether it's worth all the effort I put into MY part of the environment. It literally just makes me want to go out of my way and eat a steak, but that's not much better (but it is a little better) than what preachy vegans do.

That is the most insane sentence I’ve read. Vegans aren’t slaughtering and eating you

Do you actually think you'll change anyone's mind by calling their well-conceived ethical frameworks "insane"? THIS is why you get the reputation of being smug. My life's knowledge, my grasp of philosophy, it's all worthless shit to you because I am morally convinced that it's acceptable to kill and eat animals. It doesn't matter why I'm convinced that (and I've learned the hard way it's not worth anyone's time to discuss the reasoning or the why's). I am beneith you.

Calling vegans "smug" is nicer than calling them dehumanizing and ignorant.

What empathy do you have for animals you choose to exploit and kill for taste preference?

As I said in another comment, proselytizing zealous vegans like to strawman non-vegans as all sitting there with a piece of bloody steak on a fork saying "I know some poor cute fluffy animal died a painful death for this but I LOVE the taste of murder". That's not us. If you can't see that, perhaps the first step in your recovery is to actually start to.

Vegans want people to stop doing a bad thing, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people, but it does usually mean that we have to argue with them.

As do I, and I have taken a lot of abuse from vegans over the years standing up to those bad things.

And more... That is Word. For. Word. what that guy on the subway says about my gay friends divorcing each other. Word. For. Bloody. Word.

Vegans, even life long vegans, exist. We do not need meat

I know lifelong smokers. The human body is resilient. If your argument is that veganism is healthy, you need a lot more than "I'm vegan and I'm not dead".

I mentioned elsewhere about protein intakes. It's not a controversial take that protein is one of the most important things we need in a day, that protein is easiest to find in meat, and that our body isn't as good at digesting plant protein. For the rest, telling someone to go plant-based when you need a lot more than just a multivitamin to hit the Iron and B-12 content you need.

Whether or not veganism can be healthy (it might be), it is a known quantity that naive veganism is absolutely unhealthy. So my problem with "getting them vegan is easier than getting them to cut 10% meat" is that you're trying to create naive vegans. That means you're trying to create smokers.

Counterpoint. Nutritionists (many, not all) tend to agree that protein is under-represented in the average non-plant-based diet already, and the body processes plant protein at 50-67% effectiveness compared to a similar amount of animal protein. And people with particular common medical issues have nutritional need for higher protein amounts. My wife's nutritionist wants her at 100-120g protein per day, counting plant proteins at 50% (so 240g if plant). Her food intake is about 12-1500kcal.

I challenge you to find a healthy way to to hit 180-240g of protein at a reasonable calorie intake. The best I can find is about 20 to 1 (which would be 3600 calories of high-protein meals to hit 180g). Or she could eat one 600cal steak and then whatever else she plans on in the day.

More importantly, my doctor wants me around the same, if only 100g. But I don't want to eat 3000calories a day.

I find vegans tend to have less empathy for their fellow man than we meat-eaters have for animals. It comes across as smug (and let's be honest, it's less insulting to call them smug).

Funny thing is that many of us feel the same way about vegans. We just want them to change and stop getting in our face like street preachers with what we consider to be flawed logic and more flawed ethical philosophy.

And the only way to do that is to keep standing up to vegans the same way we do JWs. It sucks because it's exhausting and we just want to be left alone.