I don’t want to be the “Um, ackshually” guy, because I could see how the events in Andor can draw parallels to modern day events going on, but that’s more a byproduct of history endlessly repeating itself than any kind or profound political statement being made by the showrunners.

Case in point, the Ghorman Massacre was part of legends continuity long before the current snafu between Israel and Palastine became a politically charged topic and was loosely based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India.

It is very telling that people are seeing something like Star Wars, which is well known for boiling down everything into binary good-versus-evil themes, and self-identifying with the bad guys because it resembles something their government has done recently.

If the Ayatollah can’t have it, no one can!

There’s nothing left to be proud of. Just vague platitudes about freedom and performative military worship that have been socially beaten into people since 2001. I have no faith remaining in my fellow countrymen. I am unable to clearly see a future for myself living here as I am now. What is left to be patriotic about?

All the true patriots are dead. They were buried long ago. Modern patriotism is a marketing gimmick. I refuse to be a party to it.

I feel so bad for this man, because even if he’s acquitted of all the charges, the insane right wingers will never let him have peace. They’ll hound him and his family forever.

Heck, even if he is guilty and the jury determines as such, it’s still not an excuse to torture him to death either.

Anybody who has ever been unfortunate enough to have to apply for any of these healthcare or food stipend programs would know that it’s not as easy as the government makes it seem. In fact, the amount of bureaucracy, means testing, and highly restrictive income limitations means that most people don’t qualify period and people who do qualify have to spend an inordinate amount of time waiting to hear back from the government to know if they have been accepted or not, all the while hoping and praying they don’t get sick and can manage their money long enough to continue feeding themselves.

Case in point, my fiance is out of work right now and actively seeking work. She applied for both MediCAL and SNAP and was denied for MediCAL because she had earned too much already that year to qualify and the SNAP benefits totaled out to $20/month in food stamps, based on historical income, which is insufficient even for the most frugal of individuals to make work. This is for someone currently earning $0/month and being almost entirely supported by me.

After a certain point, it becomes a massive drain on your time and resources that could be spent looking for a job, so you stop bothering with the system altogether because who wants to spend hours doing paperwork and submitting claims just to get enough spare change to buy a bulk bag of rice to feed yourself a struggle meal?

I don’t want to hear shit about “handouts” from anybody. My fiance paid her taxes faithfully for years without ever having to rely on the program, so where are her benefits? She has undoubtedly paid more into the system than she will ever extract.

“I don’t use social media and never have.”

So what are they going to do if someone fires back with this? Deny their visa because they didn’t agree to be spied on by a few of the worst companies on planet fucking earth? Is the government going to be able to somehow make me prove that I don’t have social media?

We have the stupidest people in charge right now.

Change the constitution then. It’s crystal clear. We don’t live in a vibe democracy. You don’t jut get to pick and choose what laws you get to follow if you want to be a nation of laws at all.

The thing about ending birthright citizenship is that it would just create a stateless individual. Where would they even deport children of undocumented immigrants to? Are they going to make an El Salvadorian gulag for them too?

The former SCOTUS ruling on the 14th amendment was really clear - if you are born here, you are a citizen regardless of your parent’s legal immigration status. I don’t understand why the SCOTUS is even bothering to hear this case when even a constitutional literalist would have difficulty trying to weasel-word their way into a ruling that supports the Republican position on this one.

I can thing of few things more cruel than a state that looks at a literal child who was born here, lived here all their lives, speaks the language, attends school, has friends and family and a support structure and would otherwise be indistinguishable from any other American child born to American-born parents, and deport them to a country they’ve never set foot in for no real discernible reason other than they are anti-immigrant racists.

I still can’t get over that the dude’s name is actually Burger, and Burger isn’t being used as a mild slur to mean “American” like I’m typically used to seeing in these sort of greentext posts.

Real life is too wacky.

That’s still the purpose of the second amendment, for people to own guns to defend themselves and others against tyranny

It isn’t, and has never been. The language of the constitution is plain as day:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

The mythos of the 2nd amendment being this poison pill for a tyrannical state government is only so pervasive because institutions like the NRA perpetuated it for decades in service of arms manufacturers and their bottom line. No sane government anywhere in the world would bake such a clause into their constitution, it’s antithetical to government itself.

The 2nd amendment is absolutely an artifact of a bygone era of American history where, as a fledgling nation, we did not have a powerful standing army to rely on for defense against foreign adversaries. A people’s militia was the final defense against such a threat.

However, all that being said, I agree with your sentiment that leftists should be arming themselves. Just because the 2nd amendment has almost completely lost it’s original intent or meaning, doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of the fact that it exists with tons of legal precedent to strap up in preparation for what might come next. Things are unlikely to get better from here, and if things get worse you will be glad you have a firearm for protection.

I’m fresh out of compassion. They all deserve this.

That’s $1,500 with a coupon and the highest tier healthcare coverage that very few people outside of tech workers actually get. You don’t want to know what the out-of-pocket cost for something like this would be.

Former non-water drinker here.

I was addicted to caffeinated/carbonated sodas. I never had any problems drinking almost exclusively diet coke for a long time. My caffeine consumption was well over the FDA recommendation for maximum daily intake.

I would still drink water, especially when doing sports or exercise, but it wasn’t my go-to for hydrating myself throughout the day.

Several times in my life, I quit drinking them, but I would always circle back around to it because I missed the taste more than anything, and I had never noticed any kind of significant health benefit to stopping.

Recently some months ago, I was having some pretty severe bladder issues. Sudden onset urge to urinate. Like going from 0-100 in a racecar, the rapid urgency was the main issue. One minute I was fine and if you asked if I needed to use the bathroom I’d say “Nah”, and then 5 minutes later I’m literally dancing my way to the nearest toilet to just barely make it in time, like literally almost peeing my pants it was that bad.

Went to the doctor about this, obviously, and that was when he told me that the extreme caffeine intake is causing irritation in my bladder and diagnosed me with Overactive Bladder Syndrome. I was instructed to completely cut out caffeine from my regular drinking habits, no tea or sodas, but I could have a cup of coffee in the morning to get me going, although initially I would want to quit cold turkey to purge my system of caffeine and let my bladder settle down. So water it was. Within about a month, I started to feel more regular again and I didn’t need to rush to pee as often and when I did I could hold it for longer periods of time.

Now I pretty much drink only water all the time. I take a big 54oz jug with me to work and refill it towards the end of the work day. I’ll have a cup of coffee now and then in the mornings on weekdays, but I try not to make a habit of it, and I’ll have a sip of a soda at the movies or something, but I don’t even miss the taste of cola anymore. Occasionally I will buy the flavored waters at the grocery store just to get the carbonated experience, but I can’t drink those all the time. Water is great, it just takes forever to get your brain used to the idea that not everything you put in your body needs to have flavor. It’s super refreshing to get the filtered water pitcher right from the fridge, maybe pour it over a glass of ice, and drink it straight that way.

In short, chugging sodas never used to bother me at all, but I guess as I’m getting older my body is just not having that shit anymore. Just like how I can’t eat straight junk food and not gain any weight like when I was a teenager, my metabolism has finally caught up with me on my soda/caffeine addiction and I had to cut that out too. I realize that I am better off now for it and I’m going to try and keep up the good habit I’ve started to form and keep drinking water.

Thx brah

Thank fucking christ. Now hopefully the AI bubble will burst along with it and I don’t have to listen to techbros drone on about how it’s going to replace everything which is definitely something you do not want to happen in a world where we sell our ability to work in exchange for money, goods and services.

Cancelling a pre-loaded pride event because you’re scared of right wing nutcases being mean to your playerbase is the very definition of letting the terrorists win.

Not all the protestors are involved in criminal activity. The news is constantly reporting that 95% of the crowd is peacefully exercising their right to protest, but a small minority of people use the situation to their advantage and cause chaos. The media then reports on these (accurate) instances of violence and then right wing talking heads run away with that and paint the picture that everyone is looting and rioting and attacking cops.

It’s also a known tactic to have provocateurs incite a riot so that the people in power can use it as an excuse to crack down on an otherwise legitimate protest.

You can withhold paying your federal taxes from your paycheck. Most people don’t because they don’t want to get stuck with a big tax bill in April with no way to pay it if they spent that money or lost it on a bad investment. if enough people all did that at once, regardless of state, it could put a big financial burden on Trump. The government heavily relies on this steady source of income, and unless you make a lot of money, you are probably getting a federal return every year, which means you gave the U.S. Government an interest free loan of sorts.

Can ChatGPT actually play chess now? Last I checked, it couldn’t remember more than 5 moves of history so it wouldn’t be able to see the true board state and would make illegal moves, take it’s own pieces, materialize pieces out of thin air, etc.