This is definitely his getting-blown-by-an-ostrich face.

If I saw serious attempts anywhere from right-wingers to advocate for their views as an actual political philosophy I’d be more concerned by this. But we need spaces where people actually discuss how to build a better society, and simply because of that concern these spaces lean left. It’s rare to find right-wingers who are even seriously interested in that question, except as a pretext to vent their unexamined prejudices and personality issues.

If, on internet forums, you push for everyone to have equal say even when their views are not well considered, everyone’s energy gets used up arguing with the most offensive right-wing posters. I think it’s a good thing to have spaces where that isn’t how it goes. As for centrists, I think there’s a place for engaging with them because there’s more of a chance that they just haven’t examined their views but can be brought to. But I’m not going to miss them if they’re so put off by a left-leaning space that they won’t participate, and I don’t think every left space needs to spend its time arguing with liberals.

Frankly, my view of the right wing these days is that there’s no particular need to treat a mishmash of selfishness, greed, lust for power, deceit, gullibility, ignorance, insecurity and hatred as if it’s a political philosophy at all. Left versus right isn’t a helpful picture. Serious vs unserious would be a better one. If someone has serious arguments for a right-wing position made in good faith, then they’re not just wasting people’s time. But that’s not usually what you see, and I suspect it’s because there’s a lack of serious arguments to be made for it.

I don’t miss the right-wing voices. For the most part they just dominate, disrupt and obstruct serious discussion. That said, it’s important we don’t forget how unrepresentative our online discussions are of society as a whole, and how little impact merely talking about them here has.

Yep. Hexcells Infinite hasn’t overtaxed my RTX 3080 yet. That may have been a slight waste of money.

You just prefix “turbo” to whatever it would have been without.

“I’ve talked to so many governors and congresspeople and senators and never once did they say Canada is the problem,” Ford told CNN. He emphasized that a bilateral deal between Canada and the U.S. would be a better solution than imposing tariffs on Canadian goods.

I’m no fan of Doug Ford, but he’s right here. I guess Trump’s plan is to drive Canada into the ground economically through tariffs then invade or otherwise annex Canada when it’s too poor and desperate to resist. But why? It would be more profitable to both the USA and Canada simply not to do any of this. There are only two explanations I can think of:

1. Belligerence is the only thing Trump understands, even when it works to his own disadvantage, because actual diplomacy is too complicated for him and soft power contains the word “soft”, and/or
2. Trump isn’t working for the interests of the USA, but rather for those who want to see NATO and other Western alliances destroyed.

I don’t think Canadians would have a problem with taking on Minnesota.

They just keep voting for him, or not voting against him. Get it together Ontario!

Is Fetterman still left-leaning? I heard he had gone Trumpy.

Maybe what I’m doing right now? I mean, it could be.

Up you go, and soon it will.

The difference between taxes and fees is really just that the first is cheaper and goes to people who aren’t incentivized to pocket the money while providing the worst service they can get away with. If you push a libertarian to explain their story in detail, there always comes a point where they introduce government and taxes but try to call it something else.

They don’t have any idea how cost-effective taxes are, compared to paying private companies individually for every single shared resource. It’s the same for healthcare, education, etc.: to pay the government for a decent nonprofit service is always better value.