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Brisketexan

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Everything posted by Brisketexan

  1. I mean…this. “There’s a guy over there who literally ends the life of your loved ones. You can’t make a dent in his power. You can’t get to his money. You have no available peaceful means of changing his conduct or getting justice. What are you, typical human being, going to do about it?” Every sane person understands that the answer to that question is “violence.” Thousands of years of history, literature, movies, you name it, tell us that obvious answer. Which is why a healthy, functioning society keeps an enforceable social contract that uses the mechanism of “peaceful mechanisms of change and peacefully enforced consequences of anti-social conduct” to keep society from descending into “just kill the fuckers.” I am truly gobsmacked that there is anyone in this country who is surprised by this turn of events. Particularly when countless voices have warned against this path on the basis that it makes such outcomes natural and inevitable.
  2. If you didn’t expect that outcome-a natural and predictable outcome that happens repeatedly throughout history when people are flatly denied any redress for their legitimate, life-and-death grievances-then you are dumber than a bag of hammers. Set up a system that literally kills people. Then tell, and show, those people “there’s nothing you can do about it.” Then…watch them do something about it. Every. Fucking. Time. If you didn’t see this coming, you are among the stupidest people this planet has ever seen. This isn’t about condoning the status quo, or condoning violence in response to it. It’s about looking at the chess board that currently exists, and realizing that if you set it up this way, violence is inevitable.
  3. You could have just said “Stoops” and we’d have understood.
  4. Read my post. The question is the words that are followed by a question mark- hell, its in all caps—you fucking troll.
  5. And here, I’ll even give you a stock answer you can cut and paste: “This is absolutely expected. It’s why society shouldn’t shred the social contract. After all, if you took away the peaceful legal enforceability of ordinary contracts, deals would be enforced by violence and the threat of violence, the way they are in places without the rule of law. The social contract is no different; if you place yourself above peaceful enforceability, you have foolishly opted into enforceability by violence.” See. It’s that easy. I think that this is a horrible, regrettable outcome. Where we differ is our read on who opted INTO this system. UHC opted into it. UHC set these rules, and steadfastly refused to budge on them. So….the rest of us were dragged into that system, which was not of our choosing. The answer is “when you opt for a system with no recourse but violence, you have no standing to complain when people take you up on it.”
  6. Condone? Wouldn’t necessarily go that far. Conclude that it is an entirely expected, natural, and 100% certain outcome given the path that society has decided to follow? Yep. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? You refuse to answer my question. And we all know why.
  7. When you point out something that the oligarchs who exploit and literally kill thousands upon thousands will listen and respond to OTHER than violence, you’ll see vastly different responses around here. We’ll wait. I’m sure you have the right suggestion, one where we’ll just slap our foreheads and go “gee, I can’t BELIEVE nobody has thought of that before!” I suspect everyone here would be much happier with a story of “CEO confronted by upset policyholders, realizes the inhumanity of current policies, implements positive changes,” but we also all know that story will happen well after the story of “leprechaun riding a unicorn gallops through Candyland to deliver world peace.” We have built an oligarchy that 1) successfully resists any and all efforts at even incremental improvement and humanity (see the steps the oligarchy is taking to now fully control the information ecosystem and control all messaging and suppress dissent, cough, Elon), and 2) actually kills a boatload of people. My question for you, realizing those things are hard truths, is WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? Seriously. Implement a for-profit system that rewards a small group of people with MASSIVE wealth in exchange for them literally condemning hundreds of thousands of people to death, and squash any effort to change that…and you expected…what else?
  8. I KNOW you ain’t shittin’ on Terry’s. Just no.
  9. Gee. “We need intelligence operatives who can operate in, be trusted by, and blend in with certain communities, especially south Asian Muslims, disaffected black communities domestically, and the like. So clearly, what we need to do that is more upper crust pasty white dudes who went to Oxford. They’ll blend right in!” FFS, the US military and intelligence communities have actively recruited and paid bonuses to people who speak Arabic, Dari, Farsi, etc. for decades, who are almost always going to be people who grew up in such communities. Elon is so fucking focused on everything being lily-white. As an apartheid-era South African would of course be.
  10. Oh, Syria is a tribal mess. Kurds, Alawites, and everything in between. Religious sect is just a layer on top of those.
  11. Iran and Shiite groups are taking a beating these days. Are the Houthis their last outpost of “fucking with others?”
  12. The point of warning here, which many in the “privileged classes” have raised the alarm on, is something so long known JFK commented “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” That’s it. Fuck people over long enough, and they’ll break and fight back the only way they can. So, maybe…don’t fuck people over cruelly and relentlessly. Just a thought.
  13. Anyone else having issues with the video feed on Spectrum? It’s stuttered and frozen a few times. And oh fuck me.
  14. This. It’s exhausting. They’ve created a world where human life has minimal value…just the few bucks that can be saved, a fraction of which goes into his pocket as a financial reward for denying that person the care they need. When you make life so cheap…don’t be surprised if there’s a run on that cheap commodity. Again…this is our point/concern, dude. It’s really stupid and shortsighted to create that system, but here we are.
  15. I disagree. It is a system that gives a man a $10 million reward for denying people lifesaving medical care. As a UHC official just said, the model for their success is denying people care. When you set up that system…you’re going to get meh and cheers when one of its generals gets killed.
  16. You’re not wrong. I’m among them (both the well off and the lawyer class). It’s why a shitload of us have consistently and loudly called for and supported reform and massive social shifts. As have quite a few members of the billionaire class. We see that we have done well, and could continue to do well, in a society with a functioning social contract. AND, we see that we all do well when everyone does well, or at least well enough (nobody is naive enough to pretend that we can have a system where nobody is poor and nobody is rich). Some of the people ringing the alarm bells the loudest are indeed the people who may well find themselves in the crosshairs if it all goes to shit. Our thoughts as we see this happening are “no shit, we told you this would happen, what did you expect?” That’s not a happy thought. We don’t want this outcome. We’d much prefer a society where people didn’t feel like murdering CEO’s is a good thing, and a world where a CEO doesn’t make $10 million for shit like that. Maybe have a conscience, and be happy with the fabulous compensation of $1 million, or even less. Are we cheering the development of “society has reached this point?” Hell no. Are we nodding along as we watch, with a “no shit, we told you so?” 100%
  17. The maddening thing is that I really like the Jason’s muffuletta and cup of gumbo combo. But is that available on the catering order? Nope. Sorry, best we can do is a tray of utterly mid ham and turkey sandwiches and shit. We can’t possibly provide you with our best, most popular menu items.
  18. Fuck that shit. He’s fucking wrong. Indulge. Exploit the rigged portions of the system to enrich you and yours. Pursue prosperity and pleasure. Be selfish. The opportunity to do so will never be greater than it is in this era. You’re cheating yourself if you don’t. Souls are WAY overrated. What does decency or integrity get anyone? It gets you run over and steamrolled. Fuck that shit. Don’t be a sucker.
  19. Y'all probably need to be nicer to our next Senior Deputy of the Department of Homeland Security or whatnot. Guy has "incoming administration official" written all over him.
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