Yeah… Pretty much this, only worse.
Extra panel: Americans with all their guns not using them, yet acting as if shits serious.
Americans own guns because of a mixture of toxic masculinity and a former ‘frontier’ culture that was reliant on (and permissive of) hunting.
The idea that private gun ownership is going to overthrow an otherwise-functioning government is a delusion peddled by the gun industry.
If things come down to it, it’s not going to be whether or not Billy Bob and his friends have an AR-15 in their closets that’s going to decide how things go.
The idea isn’t to overthrow a government, although that would be nice.
If one man losing an election can protect so many, surely a more proactive approach would be the best move?
If one man losing an election can protect so many, surely a more proactive approach would be the best move?
Political violence rarely stabilizes anything, and dead politicians often become martyrs. If you’re advocating assassination, you might as well go the whole nine yards and advocate civil war because that’s where the dominos are gonna fall once political violence is normalized - or else fascism, if the public has no appetite for civil war.
You have no choice but to vote for the genocide enabler. It is the only way to save “democracy.” The type of democracy where you have to support the abhorrent to keep out the truly monstrous and if you say you won’t, a bunch of self important liberals will pretend it’s all your fault and not the parade of geriatric ghouls the party has been nominating
” The type of democracy where you have to support the abhorrent to keep out the truly monstrous and if you say you won’t, a bunch of self important liberals will pretend it’s all your fault and not the parade of geriatric ghouls the party has been nominating
Yes, isn’t it terrible when democracy doesn’t agree with you? The only TRULY democratic society is one where those pesky proles listen to those who know what’s good for them, right?
Lol what?
The only TRULY democratic society is one where those pesky proles listen to those who know what’s good for them, right?
Isn’t this literally the message of the meme?
Isn’t this literally the message of the meme?
No, and I don’t really know how you could come to that conclusion, since the meme doesn’t say anything about whether any given act or ideal is ‘true democracy’.
Democracy doesn’t work particularly well when the voters are uneducated or otherwise missinformed. That when the country starts doing things that are against its and its own citizens interest. Corruption, legal or otherwise, also contribute to making it disfunctional.
Democracy doesn’t work particularly well when the voters are uneducated or otherwise missinformed
This argument is the justification for the Electoral College.
Not to sound like a Twitter wokescold or whatever, but Shaun does this all the time. A cishet white guy from England who won’t be affected in any way by the outcome of the U.S. election, yet constantly tweets and retweets about how the Democrats and Republicans are totally equally bad and voting makes no difference.
But when we look at what Republicans are doing and saying like…
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Trump saying he’ll be a “dictator for one day”
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His lawyers arguing that a president killing an opponent should be considered an official act protected by law
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The potential Republican vice-candidate bragging about shooting a puppy and other farm animals
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Reports that DeSantis enjoyed torturing people at Guantanamo
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Multiple Republican politicians and pundits calling for the eradication of trans people
I think this take doesn’t hold up. It’s no coincidence that many of the people with this mentality are also the ones who’ll be minimally affected by a Republican presidency, if at all.
Skull boy
I’m voting for the lesser of the two evils, which is Blue, in yet another fucked up election. Read your damn history, the US politicians, Blue and Red, always give Israel a blank check for weapons to continue the family blood feud over lots of dried up rocks. Do your civil duty and vote.
If everyone who says that gets more active at the local level, we have four years to make the choices different next time around.
People generally don’t like actually participating in democracy. And fuck, who can blame them? The essential feature of changing policy in a democratic polity is the hard, arduous, thankless fucking task of fighting an apathetic or actively hostile majority. You don’t get to be a hero. You don’t get recognition. You may not even see any change at all from your own, personal efforts, sometimes not even locally. Success is measured on the scale of decades. It’s fucking miserable. There’s no sudden wave of support to ride to victory, there’s no cheering crowds showing your opposition how utterly defeated and isolated they are, like you once were; there’s no moment of vindication. It’s nothing but struggle, toil, and tedium.
Yet, that is how societies change.
The essential feature of changing policy in a democratic polity is the hard, arduous, thankless fucking task of fighting an apathetic or actively hostile majority.
The TikTok ban flew through. The '08 bank bailouts passed practically overnight. War bills for rammed through in a matter of months. Weapons deals are routine and tax cuts happen under every presidency.
The corrupt legislation doesn’t need to walk this arduous road. And corporate lobbyists regularly tout their jetset cocaine and hooker lifestyle.
This is the real face of American democracy. Not an army of petitioners fighting bad weather and apathetic crowds to scrap out civil rights from a clumsy bureaucracy. It’s dudes in $10k suits wooing senators in wine caves and beach resorts. And those same senators denouncing their constituents as greedy, lazy, ignorant slobs when a protest over the latest turd of a legislative package comes through.
Success is measured on the scale of decades. It’s fucking miserable. There’s no sudden wave of support to ride to victory, there’s no cheering crowds showing your opposition how utterly defeated and isolated they are, like you once were; there’s no moment of vindication. It’s nothing but struggle, toil, and tedium.
Yet, that is how societies change.
Interesting.
Is this how the United States was created?
I thought that the Fourth of July was celebrating some other type of event
The US has a representative democracy. We elect people by voting so that those people can represent our beliefs in the action of government without us being there to make sure our voice is heard and considered.
While I agree that everyone should be more involved in civics, especially at a local level, it’s not really efficient for a society to implement a vanilla democracy. There are lots of other jobs like generating food/removing waste, generating energy/removing pollution, constructing/maintaining housing, transporting people including democratic representatives to and fro based on their obligations and desires, entertaining people so they can offset the pain in their lives and continue on with the struggle that is life, defend citizens from others or ourselves, etc.
Having a group of people act out government on our behalf is a good thing because we can specialize in other things to allow them to do so.
This all being said, there has been a disconnect with our representatives and with reality in general, so there is a giant need to reconnect with civic life in the US at all ages and at all levels for that matter.
Yeah, but that requires doing more than just doom posting, and we can’t have that now can we? /s
So many of the things people bitch about could be lessened (not necessarily resolved, but ffs, perfect is the enemy of good) by getting involved locally and trying to make things better for themselves and their neighbors. Fuck, even working on 3rd party support locally while stemming the bleeding nationally until there’s real ground level support would be better, but I guess we gotta tilt at windmills nationally and ignore the local level to get shut done…
always give Israel a blank check for weapons
This is not necessarily true right now. Biden has put conditions on arms use, he has been slow walking arms shipments and now has placed a pause on them, however Israel needs to be supported to avoid major wars breaking out in the Mideast. Unfortunately Biden cannot control Netanyahu any more than he can control the orange mobster - both are dangerously deranged.
however Israel needs to be supported to avoid major wars breaking out in the Mideast.
I don’t think this is true, except insofar as “Waving a stick at Iran every now and again” is concerned. And honestly, we do that bare minimum of discouraging aggression for a lot of countries, not all of whom we would consider allies or countries we support.
I think @rayyy is right, unfortunately. If the West severs ties with Israel overnight (and suddenly stopping arms shipments would essentially be the same thing as severing ties), it’ll just create a power vacuum where Russia or China will cosy up to Israel instead. Israel has a lot of influence in the region - partially because it’s been propped up by US support, of course - and other countries would absolutely try to prop up Israel and capitalise on their influence in the US’ place if they had the opportunity. Which would perhaps slow down the genocide for a little while, but it would inevitably pick back up, but this time without the US/West having any influence at all.
Not to mention the fact that the US losing its influence over Israel would almost certainly destabilise the region. Iran would be emboldened, as you alluded to. Hamas would be emboldened, and while I take the side of the Palestinian people in this whole ordeal, I don’t think Hamas being emboldened would be a good idea - it would likely lead to further conflict and even worse suffering for the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey would all likely try to expand their influences, too.
Biden is trying to slowly reel Israel in while still maintaining US influence there. Partially because the US just wants to keep its power, of course, but also because it’s perhaps the best way to have some control over the genocide and over the region rather than just being an observer. I don’t like all the blood on our collective hands but I think that, at this point, the genocide would continue without us.
I absolutely think the fact that Israel has been put in the position it’s in represents decades of shortsightedness and foreign policy failure, though. Israel should never have been in the position to do this.
I don’t think this is true, except insofar as “Waving a stick at Iran every now and again” is concerned.
You’re almost in danger of deviating from neoliberal orthodoxy here.
