domain:alexepstein.substack.com
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2m ago
That was in no way a joke. He was already facing down a prosecution for not employing enough illegal immigrants for a job that has requirements which can only be met by legitimate citizens, his compensation payout being declared too high, etc. The lawfare was already happening, and I think there's a very good chance he would have been extradited abroad and prosecuted for misinformation/hate speech if Trump didn't win.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
9m ago
The bigger issue is that the barrier to entry is so low publishing online now that theonion.com doesn't hold much value.
So why did the Babylon Bee manage to overtake them in terms of relevancy?
Silverdawn
It's a DOGE eat DOJ world.
13m ago
You really just have to put your foot down and tell these people (the men, in this case) that they're not welcome. And when they inevitably respond with accusations that you're being sexist, transphobic, and exclusionary, you say: "yes I am sexist, yes I am transphobic, yes I am exclusionary, yes yes yes, it's all true; now please, the door is that way, if you don't mind."
On social media, you get banned at this point. If the moderators controlling the forum in question don't bend the knee, they get removed.
IRL, these conversations don't really happen. Presumably there are a lot of legal things happening behind the curtains but you only find out when you're already being sued.
And frankly, 'trans' advocates were never interested in having a real conversation in the first place. They only act like they want to talk because they think that will get them the most influence. They don't actually believe there's anything to discuss, they already know they're right.
anti_dan
15m ago
I think the suspect counties still generated about the same number they always do. Slightly less probably than 2020 because that was the easiest its ever been, but sometimes 100k doesn't cut it. See, e.g. the 1980 and 1984 IL presidential elections.
jkf
15m ago
Yes, and those options are equally available to good and bad people alike -- indeed I suspect that Bad People are usually a little better at them.
DradisPing
18m ago
I wonder if its decline is related to it becoming just another mouthpiece for the democrat agenda, or if I'm totally off track.
The bigger issue is that the barrier to entry is so low publishing online now that theonion.com doesn't hold much value.
The pay for writers isn't that great either afaik.
So a talented funny person is better off doing their own thing. YouTube used to be easy to monetize. I think it's more streaming and podcasts now.
HalloweenSnarry
27m ago
To add onto the other replies, pronouns on the modern Internet contain much more information than the literal direct conveyance of gender identification. It's a potent nugget of information if you're willing to read between the lines...or letters, in this case.
cartman
37m ago
Right, but these 'malicious actors' could be anyone, even the parents themselves. I don't think parents should have a special right to make these decisions for their children if their interests are not aligned with their child's. I can't remember the exact details, but there was a news story a year or two ago about a couple whose child died because they refused to get a basic medical treatment for religious reasons.
In such a case, do you think the parents have the moral right to refuse treatment for the child? (I believe in the case I'm thinking of the child was a newborn, so the question of consent was obvious).
If you answer negatively to the above (as I do) then we switch from having a discussion about what is absolutely allowed or not allowed to one in which we must judge the pros and cons of taking away agency from parents depending on what the issue is.
I largely agree with you that children can be convinced of anything depending on the right context, but here is my main contention with your points: The key difference between a groomer targeting a child and a doctor performing a surgery is their interests; the latter is doing so based on what they believe to be in the best interests of the child based on medical/scientific literature, the former is doing so for personal reasons.
Malicious actors can convince children of things, but that does not mean any expert telling any child about a solution to their medical issues is grooming them. You might want a parent to sign off on antibiotics, but I hardly believe that if a doctor came up to a severely sick child and recommended they start antibiotics, you would label them as a groomer.
jake
40m ago
The justification for this ruling was that unstable people listened to Jones, right? So Jones is culpable. I don't even agree with prosecution under "incitement of imminent lawless action," it goes against our entire philosophy of law. If a person who would not otherwise commit a crime, would do so if told by the right person, they can't be held accountable. If for no other reason than the continued function of civilization, we are required to hold all adults as solely responsible for their actions.
To maintain civilization we must also be free to challenge all "established" narratives, at any time, for any reason. The United States owes its continued existence to its foundational documents assuming the worst. 1A assumes that unchecked, the government will lie, so people must have legal protection for calling out those lies. 2A even more so, which accounts for the possibility and need for violent revolution. i.e.; "1, so you can shed light on their tyranny, 2, so you can kill them if all else fails." It assumes bad actors will appear and so enshrines the ability to fight them, while holding the spirit of the whole, the whole of the people in good faith in vesting the power to fight them with the people.
It's also why, and you can call it wasted rebelliousness, I consider this as absolute moral mandate to call Sandy Hook a hoax. The government conspired to destroy a man for questioning it, downthread there's debate about "He would have had to pay less if he'd done it/well actually he might be sued for more if he'd done it," yeah but not much more, and that's the point. His punishment for questioning appears to be in the realm of the monetary punishment for having committed it. It's a hoax. The system is a hoax, that it's unquestionable is a hoax, everything about it could be true, and it's still a hoax.
Gun control is never happening. So the masses laugh as in this ruling the families make the short lives and most violent deaths of their children part of nothing greater than a soon-forgotten joke. It's disgusting.
SlowBoy
47m ago
Your question is a non-sequitur: why do I have to prove anything more? There is clear irregularity in 2020, either give an innocuous explanation for the counting stopped over a water pipe, or concede.
There could be all sorts of trivial reasons why Harris would grow from Biden:
- They learned how to cheat better
- Population Growth
- Demographic Change
- Georgia flipping blue in 2020 excited more blue voters to vote in 2024
Comparing two different numbers from two different moments in time without any context is, pardon, complete apples to oranges.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
50m ago
Black Americans are like 30% at least bisexual imo and Latinos are just hiding it through machismo.
Pete would be down low enough for them
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1hr ago
At least some of the post-mortem analyses and interviews with swing voters I've seen make the case that Trump did this on trans issues specifically - there's a reason "Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you" was statistically and anecdotally their most effective advertisement.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1hr ago
If you wanted to astroturf, going for a neutral to semi hostile media network might convince a Trump voter or two.
This is straightforwardly true, but the problem is the dem candidates. Kamala Harris had no real policies or positions, and could only really exist in a controlled and managed media environment that was willing to give her campaign editorial control over the finished product. She had so much negative baggage that she just wouldn't be able to answer without offending some part of her coalition, and she was a charisma void that meant she couldn't find ways around that. If she was forced to expose her personality and thinking for a solid three hours with no assistance, she would have tanked the campaign harder than she actually did.
When your candidate is so unappealing that they cause voters to peel off whenever they talk in an uncontrolled environment (Kamala even had trouble in extremely friendly environments too), you can only make appearances on friendly media, in friendly spaces. The correct answer is to run a real candidate who is speaking to people's issues and has an actual competent understanding of the world and social context - but when you have to advocate for policies which actively harm your constituents and provide a return on investment for all the lobbyists and donors who financed your campaign, you can't run a genuine candidate, so you're stuck with the kinds of disingenuous empty suits that ran the republican party before Trump showed up and still run the democrat party.
faceh
1hr ago
I'm not certain if you're arguing that she was a critical part of creating the wealth and therefore deserves a large cut (i.e. he wouldn't have succeeded if he wasn't married to her) or if you're just saying that the law states she gets a chunk as long as they were married long enough.
The position "a woman can be married to you a long time and then leave and take a huge chunk of your wealth with her" isn't very encouraging, on its own.
urquan
1hr ago
meritocracy
Oh god, please don't bring up this word with OP, we're about to get a lecture about how meritocracy necessarily means open borders to high-talent immigrants, even if it means economic ruin for existing residents...
TIRM
1hr ago
schools are forcing uninterested, non-consenting children into transition
I certainly never claimed that, so I won't be championing it. You may not take my statements, make an exaggerated looney version of them and then foist that wild view onto me.
Whether these are valid medical treatments for minors or horrific butchery that we will look back on like elective lobotomies for strange children is the matter under dispute.
WhiningCoil
2hr ago
I actually don't! I think without a parent involved in the decisions, malicious actors could convince a child to get any surgery or take any drugs. And sometimes even then!
So no, I do not believe a child can consent to any of those things, which is why parents make those decisions for them.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
2hr ago
It ought to be. It's the only outlet for mythmaking that we're still allowed and the United States was explicitly founded on the free and liberal exercise of the natural right to make up ridiculous tall tales.
I say this without a hint of irony: Alex Jones is here being unjustly persecuted for his religious beliefs.
grognard
Intel Pentium III 450 / Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra / Corsair 128MB PC133 / ABIT BH6
2hr ago
I suppose it will be updated, it was sections for Jan 6 and Covid. 2024 tomfoolery as seen by the right focused on down ballot.
AppleyOrange
2hr ago
And if you believe that this event was used to squeeze a substantial sum of ballots into the count, how did Harris similarily squeeze a substantial sum of ballots into the count in 2024 without anyone noticing? She did better than Biden by 75k votes.
cartman
2hr ago
Can you elaborate on what you want me to respond to? Are you referring to singers who in the past were castrated for their singing voices? I don't think that was a morally good practice.
I obviously would agree that 'abduction of minors for sinister purposes' is bad, you literally put sinister in the description. I suspect we disagree on what sinister purposes refers to, so you need to describe something more specific if you want to prompt my thoughts to see our differences of opinion.
SlowBoy
2hr ago
Ballot counting stopped in Fulton County on election night 2020 because of claims of a burst pipe that later turned out to be false. But after poll watchers went home ballot counting continued and the next morning the largest pro-Biden ballot drop of the entire election was delivered.
SlowBoy
2hr ago
Ballot counting stopped in Fulton County on election night 2020 because of claims of a burst pipe that later turned out to be false. But after poll watchers went home ballot counting continued and the next morning the largest pro-Biden ballot drop of the entire election was delivered.
Yeah, I don’t know if it was a particular quirk of hers or just the writing style of the time. But they way she just summarizes conversations without putting any of the dialog feels weird.
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