Fascists love the notion of a natural order, because it gives them license to hold power over people "lower in the hierarchy." They'll use anything and everything to establish whatever "natural order" serves their purpose at any given moment, and IQ works quite nicely in a lot of situations.
You know how long Caesar was dictator for life before he was assassinated? Less than a year.
But the damage was done, and Rome had a civil war over whether it would go back to being a Republic like it had been or if it would have an autocratic ruler. Obviously, the latter won out.
Ah yes, Hanlon's razor. Genuinely a great one to keep in mind at all times, along with it's corollary Clarke's law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
But in this particular case I think we need the much less frequently cited version by Douglas Hubbard: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system."
I was thinking about this. How funny would it be if Trump just... Did nothing? Refused to sign legislation, made zero executive orders, just golfed for four years straight? It's not like he needs to keep people happy so they'll re elect him, he's no longer eligible to run.
The problem is that winning only postponed his problems for four years, and he certainly is already worried about when that time comes. He'll be looking for a solution, and for that he'll need the favor of people in power. So it's amusing to think he might just chill, but I really doubt he will :(
Completely disagree, a person doesn't have to understand what fascism is to be a fascist or indifferent to fascism, any more than they need to be an expert on dogs to not kick or oppose kicking one.
The problem is that any third party that manages to eventually displace a member of the duopoly immediately replaces that party in the new duopoly.
Because the duopoly is a result of First Past the Post (FPTP) voting. As long as we use FPTP the duopoly will persist, just with different parties filling the two roles.
Anything short of switching away from FPTP for some form of Rank Choice is going to be a band-aid, mere temporary relief, and not even a very good one.
I've never had a job where my wage kept up with inflation. My annual raise was always below inflation, and I felt lucky to get annual adjustments at all.
I suspect this is simply an artifact of math. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and as long as the average of the two looks good then the people in charge can nod their heads, say "good good," then go spend a week on their yacht.
Trickle down economics, as a theory, has been around well over 100 years, and it's never been believed in by everybody. Hell, a presidential candidate gave a speech against the idea in 1896
You're correct about misinformation having been around forever, but access to and ease to create misinformation is greater than ever before thanks to the Internet.
The author assumes the Court doesn't understand the consequences of what it's doing, but I really don't think that's a reasonable assumption. It's entirely possible they know exactly what they're doing.
Some progressives are Democrats, but not all Democrats are progressives. Most Democrats are not progressives, in fact. Things make a little more sense once you accept that.
Because there couldn't be any legitimate reason to do the things they're banning, like cloud seeding, crop dusting, air dropping seeds for reforesting, I dunno, literally releasing anything as you fly over even like CO2 exhaust as mentioned by the other commentor.
Literally all matter is a chemical, chemical compound, or substance. IMO this law is going to be struck down super fast just for being overly broad. Not that that would stop Republicans from passing it and spending millions of dollars in public money defending it in court.
You mean birth rates + immigration > people leaving the state? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you.
Seriously though, there does need to be an asterisk after "fleeing" that says "if they can afford it" which, let's be honest, excludes most people who want to leave the state.
My parents were just telling me about a friend of theirs who moved back to Ohio... fucking Ohio... after discovering that retirement in Florida was terrible.
Yeah it must be pretty bad if Ohio and Kansas are looking better.
I really admire your optimism.