@TetraspaceWest: The average voter doesn’t understand why criminals get trials. Giving innocent people trials, sure, then they get to prove their innocence. But criminals? That just sounds like an expensive process between them and their imprisonment, and gives them a chance to wriggle out of it. You can see the intuitive model of how criminal justice works in shows, where cops identify criminals, and then have to come up with a way to trick the legal system (which wants criminals to sometimes walk free) into imprisoning the criminal.
@beecycling@romancelandia.club: Corporations want you to think ‘red tape’ is a bunch of arbitrary rules to frustrate business. But most of it is regulations that protect people. That make water, food, drugs and buildings safe. That protect you in your workplace and your children in their school. That make sure your home is safe, your car is safe, the plane you take is safe. That’s why when you try to evacuate a burning building, there is a fire exit and it’s not locked.
@ColumbiaBDS: Breaking: Columbia University has just suspended, expelled, and revoked degrees from 22 students for protesting genocide in Palestine.
@BallouxFrancois: A university degree is a qualification, not a morality clause. A University revoking degrees for ‘wrong think’ makes a total mockery of its mission. This is also the most authoritarian ‘right-woke’ nonsense I’ve come across in a while.
“It’s entirely possible to provide food, clothing, shelter, housing, education and medical care for every human being on the planet without fighting a war or ripping anybody off or handing over control of yourself to someone else.”
“God, grant me the patience to work with the unjust systems I cannot change today; the courage to strategically enact progress when I know I can; and the wisdom to know that, despite structural oppression, I still can make a difference. Amen.”
FDR, 1938: " … the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
KenBob Creations: This pathetic moron [RFK Jr.] claims the 1918 flu pandemic was caused by flu vaccines. The first flu vaccine was introduced in the 1930s and they weren’t widely available until the 50s. This is the idiot the Orange Buffoon put in charge of HHS.
@qephatziel: “If you’re hiding a friend in your attic, and his mortal enemy comes to the door and asks if he’s there, the ‘question’ is a lie. They’re really asking ‘can I come in and kill your friend?’ ‘No’ is a completely truthful answer to that question. A lot of life works like this.”
Vomiting is the last true Zen state that a person can experience: a moment of complete worldly abandon and absolute, total thoughtless focus. Shitting is supposed to be that, too, but phones have ruined it. Nobody’s on their phone while they’re puking, and if they are, then God has truly lost.
prokopetz: In my less charitable moments, I can’t help but suspect that the real reason “inspirational” stories about “Disabled Folks Beating the Odds™” are so enormously popular is that they reassure us that “Disabled Folks [who don’t] Beat the Odds™” just aren’t trying hard enough.
I keep hearing people ask, “Is America ready for a woman president? Or a gay president?” Funny thing is, I never heard anyone ask if America was ready for an incompetent, vindictive, mentally unstable, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, traitorous egomaniac … and yet, here we are.
Yung Pueblo: It is normal to feel down, tired, and emotionally exhausted when you are going through a big transition. Especially when you have to let go of something good for the chance at something better. Great changes are not meant to be easy, they arise to inspire your growth.
Nemik, Andor: “So much going wrong, so much to say, and all of it happening so quickly. The pace of repression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine. It’s easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident.”
@katefeetie: Is the Left “obsessed” with gender, sexuality, race, etc., or are they just constantly having to defend people in marginalized groups against a Right wing that’s actually obsessed with gender, sexuality, race, etc.?
Dr. Audrey McMahon, MSF child and adolescent psychiatrist: “The children themselves have begun to question their belonging to humanity. We have to ask ourselves - is this the world we want children to grow in? Is that the world we want for them?”
Detective Tracer Bullet (Calvin): “I’ve got eight slugs in me. One’s lead, and the rest are bourbon.”
@chriswarcraft.bsky.social: First, they came for the Palestinian protestor. And I …
… said, “Hey, you Nazi fucks, you’re being Nazis, everyone else, we need to shut these motherfuckers down RIGHT now!"
Because I actually paid attention to the poem.
Terry Pratchett: But … history was full of the bones of good men who’d followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started, following bad orders.
Laura Jane Grace: Growing up, I never had a role model to show me that you can be trans and live a happy life. I hope that I can be that source of hope for someone out there who’s struggling.
“Bullies aren’t just teenagers in high school. They are also adults in offices with nice titles who thinks they have the right to break the spirits of others so they can feel better about their miserable lives.”