Independence Day

@Reject i get that, but does the country really feel celebratory ?

@BabyLonia That I’m not sure of. I would guess many of them don’t due to how negative I’ve seen everyone being about our country’s current state of affairs. They’ll probably do their best to celebrate anyways because some people need that, especially now.

@Reject Enabling/ignoring fascism and being actively a fascist(ic) militant are two sides of the same coin, simply because they ultimately lead to the same result: a fascist(ic) regime gets installed. It's been exactly the same for us here in the 1920s. Think of like witnessing to a crime and pretending you're not seeing anything and actually committing the crime, both actions lead to the same fate for the poor victim. You'd think people would learn from history, especially the nation that mostly helped us getting rid of Mussolini, but nope..

Last time I checked, 46.86% of the popular vote in 2020 went to Trump and 32.1% of the voting eligible population didn't vote at all. Maybe most Americans are against this now, but evidently most Americans, precisely, 65.68% if my calculi are correct, i.e. `100 - (biden's popular vote) * (VEP turnout)`, didn't care much about it when they had the opportunity to vote against it. Or maybe they didn't see the red flags at the time, in such case we'll find out by looking at the result of the upcoming midterms.

@Elessar I have noticed most Americans stopped caring about politics because they’re just tired of being lied to constantly. Every politician talks about everything they’re going to do so they can win people over and then none of it gets done. It’s exhausting to always fight pointlessly, so the spirit of democracy has died and less people are voting.

@Reject Yeah, and wonder which party benefits from this kind of defeatist attitude. As I said, if one thinks that a party actively acting towards abolishing democracy and personal freedoms is just as bad as the alternative, merely for the fact they don't like how politics worked since the dawn of times (i.e. exaggerating with electoral promises), they might as well just vote republican.

@Elessar No vote is a republican vote? Sure. I can see that, but no matter the political leaning, they need to keep both parties around because they feed off each other to make this corrupt system possible. They would never want to topple the other, just keep them in second place. So even if more and more things turn red due to less votes, blue will have always have a place.

@Reject For the record, I'm not accusing you, I actually agree with the fact that the turnout is what it is because of that attitude. It's just a bitter observation of reality. Most people who vote today have no idea nor memory of how bad it is living under a regime, and just take democracy for granted (sorta like: «in case things go downhill I'll vote differently next time», ignoring that there couldn't be a next time) so they think they might as well not care. Others instead think nobody will come after them and they'll be spared the worst of living under a regime if they're complicit appeasing the oppressors (like, «well, I'm not a fertile girl, so it's not that abortions impact me directly; I'm more at risk of being shot if I'll protest against wannabe-Gilead»), as if the oppressors actually care about them and won't turn on them or exploit them beyond their threshold of tolerance later on.

@Elessar Those in power are more interested in keeping the balance in their favor then they are of winning. So I don’t ever see things becoming a regime of total oppression. They’re not stupid. They’ve seen how that doesn’t work in the past. The more intelligent goal is to convince people they have many rights and privileges with their respective party. So that they can live in fear of the other side and make enemies out of each other rather than the government. This makes them so much easier to control and exploit without it being obvious who the troublemakers really are. They have cover and plenty of shade with these parties intact.

@Reject Those in power right now might be, but those who want to install a regime won't give less than a f*ck about preserving the current status quo the moment it'll no longer benefit them. That's the point. As I said, this belief that "things will eventually even out towards remaining forever stuck with the present situation" (and the situation has changed dramatically already) is the fallacy that, evidently, people will acknowledge only the day Republicans will lock themselves in power for decades, Putin oligarchy style. The same fallacy that Italians in 1922 didn't see. Those who are insisting that Republicans will never go that far are those who until literally a few weeks ago said the S.C. would've never overturned Roe.

@Elessar Of course any idea is a fallacy the moment it’s proven wrong, but right now these parties benefit everyone in power quite nicely and any time one side got out of hand, measures were taken to balance it out again because it works so well. I imagine there’s always going to be idiots who are tempted to take too much power and like the idea of regime because they don’t understand the consequences of one, but those people aren’t making the decisions because those extremists were and still are jokes. Those are the people being taken advantage of. Not the ones taking advantage.

@Reject Erm no, if a party successfully manages to lock itself in there's nothing they would benefit from the status quo that would force them not to. If it wasn't like this there wouldn't be a single authoritarian regime in the world, and instead in reality there are quite many of them.

@Elessar “Ifs” are a great way to scare people, but not a great way to understand what’s actually going on. Do you know why so many regimes have existed in human history? Because people like power, but in every case that reality is exposed in one, so they became the enemy of the people and it either collapsed or struggles until it does. There’s no such thing as a successful regime. It’s not self sustaining. So all you have to do is promise that they can have power they’ll keep without those problems and then you have our status quo. That’s why we’ve avoided one this long and why I see us continuing to do so. If I’m proven wrong and a party locks itself in, then feel free to let me know how right you were, but also watch it crumple because it will. There’s no true threat from people so power hungry they’ve forgotten how to hide it.

@Reject Is it even a matter of "ifs" at this point? The Republican controlled S.C. is already in motion, and one coup was already attempted. And do we want to realistically think that those who were immolating themselves to a pandemic virus to get the votes of the contrarians (or just go against the mainstream opinion), those who are accelerating climate change fully conscious that it won't spare them, even remotely care that somewhere in 30 years from now their regime is bound to fail, not to attempt to install one if they had a chance? They care about the present, not the future, it's evident even to someone like me observing the developments one ocean shore away.

@Elessar The people you’re talking about are very real, those who only care about the present and work solely for it, but you don’t understand that their power is limited because if you can’t plan for the future, then you can’t bring it to be. Anyone who is able to intelligently acquire power with consideration for the future will always be ahead of those who cannot. There’s so many heads in government bodies that a full party takeover would have to pass through and that’s just not happening because those heads didn’t get there with any personal bias to a party. That’s the peoples game, not the governments. They’re loyal only to power. Not a party.

@Reject Assuming that those heads aren't involved/corrupt enough to let it happen. The S.C. is one of those "arbiters" that should prevent a takeover from happening, and it's clearly going in the opposite direction already.

@Elessar That’s indeed what the Supreme Court was meant to be. There’s much speculation on why they chose the Republican side of an issue that most Americans don’t support. I personally believe the decision for states to possibly outlaw abortion wasn’t made for the republicans, but for economical reasons. The virus and great resignation. These left great negative impacts on the stability of society and measures must be taken to restore it. This labor shortage must be remedied somehow. More babies means replacing those lost to the virus. More babies means more expenses. Inflation too. All these will make more Americans work again. That’s the real goal. These parties are a fantastic way to distract people from that. They’re working as well as ever. Eventually another choice will be made to rectify this once everyone is back to working and all the republicans will scream about liberal agenda again and the cycle will continue as it always has. You utilize these parties to occupy people driving them in whatever way keeps things copacetic, and once it tilts too far, you lift the other side.

@Reject Economically it makes no sense at all, because 1) if that was the concern they wouldn't, for two years in a row, immolate their own voter base to the virus' meatgrinder just "to own the libs", while also spinning over and over the mutations roulette and extending the pandemic unnecessarily and 2) if you have a shortage of workforce, in 2022, your best bet is in opening up the market to foreign, already educated/experienced workers (e.g. by offering better salaries than Mexican, Canadese and/or E.U. companies, which for the U.S. honestly wasn't that hard and was already happening in many key sectors) and fill the vacant positions asap. Rather than, instead, waiting for children that will be born next year to be old enough to start working (16-18 years at best, unless the S.C. aims to repeal also child labor laws, and that would still be at the very least another 6-10 years at minimum), while also igniting massive social unrest and risking having more and more people leave the U.S. for places where they would honestly live a better life and at the very least not be forced to grow children against their will.

By the law of parsimony, repealing Roe was merely an act of testing waters and seeing how much they can do without having repercussions, and by the admission of the republican nominated judges themselves, is just the opening act of a series of historical overturns that will have a great probably of ending with the scenario discussed before.

@Elessar You’re speaking way too much sense in a world of greed. They want an orderly society, but only as far as it needs to be to keep making them money. Not anymore than that. Which is why there’s all the problems we have now. The solutions are obvious, you can talk until you’re blue in the face about them, but those solutions take away from them and give to us. They’ll never do that in any way they don’t have to. This is part of why raising salaries is a last resort. It would take power away from government or other wealthy big names. It’s a long play to use abortion for this, but they have nothing but time for plans like that since those fill their pockets the most. It’s true that many Americans are unhappy and they’re pushing it, but they haven’t broken it just yet. If it gets any worse, it’s not going to be because of republicans trying to takeover, it’s going to be because they’re used for profit until they’re not making it anymore. Then it be the liberals turn.

@Reject I may agree with the wages part, but not with the "it’s not going to be because of republicans trying to takeover" part; the ship for that sailed on Jan 6th and was torpedoed with the overturn of Roe.

@Elessar Well if republicans ever do takeover then that will mean shortsighted greed overtook intelligent greed which certainly isn’t impossible, but just unlikely in a country that built it’s entire system of profit off two opposing parties and not only one because they foresaw the issues with having just one. It’s been our way of life for hundreds of years. I would believe it’s going to take more than a handful of red events over a few years to topple our entire built upon and proven culture. The way I see it, all this is just more noise to scare people because it’s easier to sell you something when you’re afraid.

@Reject I'd say a coup and having a majority on the court that has already taken political decisions and announced more political decisions qualified as more than "a few red events, meant for scaremongering". The point where people were scared is long behind, you're thinking of 2016 maybe; people are being stripped rights as we speak, by a minority that is holding hostage a nation through an institution that is otherwise meant to be an arbiter, and that has already attempted a coup.

If you wait for them to successfully take control before even merely quitting the "both parties bad" mentality and voting them out you'll never get rid of them before two decades or more, as history teaches.

@Elessar I hear you, but I guess I’m more on the side of people who are indifferent about it because everyone has been screaming about the end of the world since the world began. What I mean by that is every year there’s always something people are losing their minds about politically and it’s always the worst it’s ever been. Nothing you’re saying sounds any different from what I’ve been hearing for the past ten years when I started paying attention to politics. It’s just happening in a different way.

Maybe you’re right. The dastardly red will take over. Maybe this is the boy who cried wolf. Maybe all the sheep will be slaughtered. Then a few decades will pass. Where we have less rights and many more are sacrificed. Seeing that chaos, power will shift and everyone will start up again about how we should’ve kept the chaos. The thing is. People will always exist in a natural state of disorder with these parties. That’s the point. If one side needs some time to reign then let them have it. Where there’s war there’s money. I’ll be watching who’s benefitting from this to understand what’s going on. I’m not interested in all the people crying from it.