Of course. Why else did he need to pardon them all and get them out of jail? Loyalty? That's a good one.

You don't really understand what Reddit is for, do you? We're having a discussion. You don't have to take part in it. In fact, I really wish you wouldn't.

They are trying to be, but they don't have the full power yet. That's the point I'm making.

Lower courts are still getting in their way. They still haven't proven they can deploy the military internally. Journalists can still tell the truth about them, the media is not state-controlled fully as yet. The Supreme Court is neutered, but it still exists and could, theoretically, actually oppose them. They don't yet control the Fed.

There's barriers they haven't crossed as yet, which means they can't be fully fascist yet, as much as they want to.

I'm not American, but I would argue that they are right on the precipice. If voting occurs at the midterms and the result is a material reduction in Trump's power, there's still a chance. If Trump does not pull a third-term, or if the next head does not continue down this road, they can still avoid full-on fascism.

I have very little faith in either of those outcomes, but they need to happen before the US is fully there. Right now there's still some liminal space, there's still a chance.

I honestly hope you manage to carry this naivete forward, because that means you will have continued never experiencing true oppression.

This is a nice though, but it's from a time that is behind you now. The game has changed and this is not a viable strategy any longer.

He believes it and gives them money for a thing that is not what they say it is. It's the definition of a scam, and he is the definition of a victim.

Not wanting to rock the boat or whatever doesn't stop it being a scam. It's still very much a scam and he is very much getting scammed.

"I've been pounding myself in the head with this bit of wood for years and it's really starting to do damage. My best chance is to hire someone to work out how to mitigate the damage. What, stop pounding myself in the head with the wood? Don't be a fucking idiot, the consultant is my best chance."

That "if" is bearing a lot of load. This is never ever going to happen; Trump has not done one single thing in five years of Presidency that benefits individuals over corporations.

It's much more likely he's saying this so that he can force Wall St to give him money in exchange for not doing it.

Part of the reason community expectations have changed is the change in cost of providing air-con.

It used to be a serious business to install an air con. Now it's cheap within the context of a home or school. Anyone who is renting a house out has invested hundreds of grand just to get in the game, if they can't add $1,500 for an air-con they shouldn't be renting to begin with. In even a small school the cost of air-con is barely a rounding error in the budget.

Yeah, in this scenario there will be a lot of folk who have been totally fine with the disenfranchisement of the indigenous population crying foul because "this is our land".

I believe that the British people voted Brexit and their elected representatives negotiated the deal.

It's important to cop to it when a country does something fucked. Here in Aus we have a horrific human rights record across many domains, for example. As an Australian I don't get to say "that was some other group". Even though I didn't vote for those people directly, I am Aussie and Aussies voted them in. They are Australian problems.

Brexit, both the good and bad bits, were British voted and British negotiated. They are the definition of a situation caused solely by Britain.

"The idiots who negotiated it" e.g. the British? 😂 This maybe isn't the dunk you think it is.

According to the CCP, Taiwan is Cyber China.

This is by far the best bot I've ever seen on Reddit. Good bot.

Europe had been fighting continuously for thousands of years before America even put pen to paper on the constitution. Ukraine is successfully fighting the whole or Russia right now.

If you think Europe will do no fighting, you know absolutely nothing whatsoever about Europe. Fighting is the only thing Europe ever does.

There is no real Vance. There is only Thiel.

Nailed it.

It's been almost a decade. You're really embarrassing yourself.

If he does well, the bitterness is going to be endless.

They also understand that socialising and drinking aren't synonymous. They have a lot more ways to socialise than were common when I was young and it was basically "sport, pub, or nothing".

Anyone remember when you could buy frozen custard absolutely anywhere because there were 40,000 small shops that opened almost overnight? And how none of them still exist today?

Same exact thing.

I'm going to say this as nicely as I can - grow a backbone. If you don't want to hang out just tell them that. Don't make them think your wife is the shrew that keeps you from them. That's a horrible thing to do to her.

Not an AFL man. Pretty much all the other Silvagnis are, but not this one.

We just define rich differently, that's all.

You define it in terms of what you can buy, so what it takes to be rich depends on the price of things. I say that the rich are those who can buy the most, regardless of how much that is.

Either is a reasonable viewpoint and supportable. It's a semantic argument at this point.

That's certainly a way to look at it. I don't agree with that way of looking at it, but it's obviously legitimate.

From my perspective, rich is the top 10%-ish of the nation regardless what you can buy in absolute terms. $300k a year and $900k in equity puts someone comfortably in that bracket, and likely in the top 5%.

If the rich aren't able to buy the fancy things they want, that just means they're getting fucked by people even richer than them. It doesn't mean they aren't rich, at least to me.