Lewis2
6d ago
I don’t use Reddit, but I’ve been checking /r/politics periodically over the past 24 hours to see the reaction there. The reaction from the mods has been to delete every post about his death. Most of the comments I saw before the posts were deleted were either celebratory or smugly satisfied.
Lewis2
9d ago
Lewis2
15d ago
The Republican one seems to me to have the ring of truth to it, but this one:
The current Democratic president is Star Trek Jesus with sprinkles, the last one was a corrupt liar who wasted his vast potential, and the one before that was a Republican.
does not.
The Dems were fortunate to have two very popular, charismatic presidents in Clinton and Obama, but I don’t think anyone would use terms like “Star Trek Jesus” when talking about Biden or Carter. Likewise, I’ve never heard anyone say anything remotely bad about Carter as a person or call him a Republican in disguise. Before that you’ve got LBJ (a charming scoundrel, but no Republican), JFK (a different type of charming scoundrel, still deified by Democrats today), Truman (who’s too forgettable to engender any strong feelings one way or the other), and FDR (who is of course the OG Star Trek Jesus).
Lewis2
19d ago
Tax deductions for condoms I understand, but why the deductions for sex toys?
Lewis2
30d ago
But as far as these kids know, the person asking them to send nudes is roughly their age. They don’t know they’re talking to a 40-year-old. Plus, I would say that, in general, kids are desperate for the approval of the adults who are already in their lives, not of random adults whom they’ve never met.
Lewis2
1mo ago
I don’t want to publicly accuse anyone (especially since I didn’t make the connection myself), but isn’t Darwin still with us under another alt?
Lewis2
1mo ago
A school near me has one of the highest reading test pass rates of any school in the state. I recently got into an argument with a parent whose children attend the school. She is adamant that the scores are fake and that the school is just cheating—in precisely the same way that Mississippi is “cheating”—by holding back any students who don’t pass the test. Like you, I think that argument is insane, but I know a sizable minority of parents disagree with the school’s approach.
Lewis2
1mo ago
Not the greatest comment for two reasons. First, it’s too snarky by half. Second, my word, that’s a lot of unnecessary tracking info. In case you don’t know, you could have deleted everything after the first “&” and been fine.
Lewis2
1mo ago
People thought they defeated Political Correctness in the 90s too. Just give it a generation.
Lewis2
1mo ago
Faithful Executioner
That has been on my reading list for several years now, but I’ve never gotten around to picking it up. Would you still recommend it despite your somewhat tepid review?
Our sizable underclass of drug-addled, criminally-inclined, antisocial losers, many of whom come from broken homes and shitty communities. As Europe imports the third world, I expect it to struggle with many of the same issues.
Lewis2
1mo ago
hell-on-earth shelters
Are yours actually that bad, and not simply because the homeless people themselves are shitty? I ask because I’ve heard plenty of complaints about the ones in my area, but when I’ve asked what the specific problems are, they tend to boil down to
- They have strictly-enforced rules against bringing in drugs and alcohol.
- If residents behave erratically, they’re given drug tests and are expelled if they test positive.
- The residents are kicked out during the day (the place needs daily cleaning and the residents are supposed to be out working or looking for work).
- There aren’t enough beds.
And of course
- The shelters are all run by Christian organizations, and they strongly encourage (but don’t mandate) church attendance.
For most critics, this last-named is the greatest offense of them all. Of course, suggesting that the complainers considering funding a secular alternative just makes them irate.
Family stories? The school I attended had corporal punishment into the late 80s. The teachers who practiced it are still living, and the last cohort of students to experience it are only in their 40s.
ETA: I had those same teachers in later years. They found some creative alternatives to the paddle and the rod once those were banned. I think I might have preferred a quick paddling to the more protracted punishments they used instead.
Lewis2
1mo ago
Not a direct response to your question, but Leo created a bit of a stir in traditional Roman Catholic circles last week when he celebrated Mass ad orientem. Read into that what you will.
Lewis2
1mo ago
even a connection to wokeness-writ-large seems strained
No, I think it’s very easy to place the blame squarely on wokism, especially given this detail:
The museum to the accomplishments and hardships of my ancestors had been "renovated". It now celebrated the fictitious diversity my town has always had.
Museum curators are 94% Democratic, and the newer generation seems quite gung-ho on inserting racial diversity everywhere. The New York Tenement Museum made the news a few years ago when it altered its core principles to change its focus from the Italian and Jewish families who actually lived there to celebrate a black Black family who didn’t. The Art Institute of Chicago made headlines around the same time for firing its entire staff of unpaid, highly educated volunteer docents because they were too white and hiring (and paying) a younger, more diverse crowd in their place (something several other museums also did, but without the attendant fanfare). In the city closest to my own hometown, the history museum has started replacing its old displays on the history of the area. With the changes, a first time visitor could be forgiven for thinking that the area’s history went 1) Native Americans, 2) Genocide, 3) Civil Rights, and 4) Immigration (2000–present), without anything of note in between. It’s a deliberate assault on the heritage of the people who actually built the city and made the area what it is today, and it’s entirely due to the wokeness of the museum staff.
Lewis2
1mo ago
there are a million struggling restaurants who will gladly buy your stolen product from you, no questions asked.
That seems unlikely to me. Do you have any evidence to back that up, either anecdotal or published?
Lewis2
2mo ago
I’m curious what makes it so obvious. Is it just the greater fervency of the convert?
Lewis2
2mo ago
It’s performative in that the #killallmen posters probably haven’t killen any men, but the disgust/hatred each group has for its target demographic is probably quite similar.
Lewis2
2mo ago
@Clementine just described pretty much that exact view as Holocaust denial below, so yes, it’s controversial. Some people treat anything less than “the Nazis intentionally murdered six million Jews, mostly in gas chambers” as Holocaust denial. Some also get upset if you go further and mention any of the other victims of the Nazi concentration camps in the same breath as the Jews, claiming that that’s also Holocaust denial.
Lewis2
2mo ago
That depends a lot on the small town. I can only remember one set of divorced parents among my childhood classmates, and still today, the town is mostly populated with functional, intact families. Most people are either middle class or have the values and traits associated with the middle class.
A friend of mine teaches third grade in a different rural community. Most years, only one or two of her students have married parents. The bulk of the parents divorced when the kids were younger, though an increasing number never married at all. Drug and alcohol abuse is rampant, trailer trash behavior has long since spread outside the park, and the kids pretty much all suffer from emotional and behavioral issues, which then also negatively impacts their academic performance.
I don’t think I personally know anyone who went to jail on DV charges, real or fake. She could probably list two dozen off the top of her head.
Your view contrasts interestingly with the usual view (which I favor) that leftists see violence as a dial that can be turned up or down at will, while right wingers see it as a switch: either fully on or fully off.
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