MrVilliam

I was gonna say most of this. I would just add that now, when referring to a year between 2001 and 2009, I just say "oh [number]". So I'd say "Did Batman Begins come out in '05 or '06?"

Maybe it's a generational divide or something, but I would lose my fucking mind if my partner for life were braindead enough to support trump. Maybe Clinton v Dole was just a more reasonable thing to disagree with your spouse about (idk, I wasn't there, and I don't care enough to look into it, don't @ me), but a disagreement in 2024 fundamentally is about democracy v fascism, helping people v hurting people, and decency v shameless petulance. A politically split household in 2024 is not a team or a partnership in any meaningful way. Just fucking get a divorce already because you've clearly married the wrong person! There's absolutely no fucking way I could cohabitate with, let alone share a bed with somebody who wants women, children, immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and poor people to be punished in every aspect of life for not being financially comfortable, straight, white, cis men. Truly incomprehensible. "But taxes! But gas prices!" No. Just no. You're clearly not actually paying attention if you think that literally anything would be better for you under trump. There would be short term gains at the expense of long term collapse, just like what happened when you gave him the keys last time.

And I don't mean you specifically. Just the rhetorical "you" for anybody it would apply to.

Sharply agreed. My wife and I both work a lot and don't have kids or even any pets (yet) and it's insane to think that there was a time just a short while ago that one person with a high school diploma could work 40 hour weeks and it would cover a mortgage, two cars, multiple kids, and still have money for savings and modest vacations. DINK couples in their 30s like us are finally catching up to the average 20 somethings with a few kids of 40 years ago.

Shit has changed. And as a result, I think that pro-choice should mean much more than just access to contraception and abortion. Pro-choice should mean that it's possible to choose to have children too, as in childcare and diapers and everything shouldn't be so prohibitively expensive that only the top 10% earners should have the flexibility for a pregnancy to be a blessing and not a life-shattering burden. If conservatives want babies to be born, they're going about it all wrong.

I'm 99% sure that you're kidding, but a shitload of people actually think like that. Decades of copaganda in TV and movies weren't for nothing, and now social media is full of it. The 80s was saturated with loose cannon cops who get results and it convinced people that sometimes it's okay to violate rights. Now it's cops doing tiktok dances or flipping water bottles to convince people that hey, they're regular people just like me, and well, golly gee, I'm not a fascist so how can I possibly believe that they're fascists?

Have one involuntary interaction with a cop and your view will change. The cops primarily target brown and/or poor people, so it's no wonder that the vast majority of thin blue line dipshits are financially comfortable honkies who've never had the cops target them.

Sidenote: I've always chuckled at the people who have both a thin blue line bumper sticker and Gadsden flag bumper stick/license plate. Basically a billboard that says "tread on those ones, officers" but they're always the same people claiming "I don't have a racist bone in my body!" Okay, but only because bones can't be racist; it's your brain that's racist.

Courts have ruled that the police have absolutely no duty to protect and serve you. That shit is a slogan. The reality is that they exist to protect capital and serve capitalists. Cops are class traitors, punishing anybody who steals or threatens value of capital. Some cops do some good, but that isn't and never was the real intent.

This. You have rights, but the police will lie, cheat, and steal their way into getting whatever they want, especially when what they want is for you to waive your rights.

When stopped by the police (in America), you say "I invoke my fifth amendment right to not answer questions and I don't consent to any searches and seizures. Am I being detained or am I free to go?" That question starts a clock for what is a reasonable amount of time to detain you for their investigation because you've made it clear that you'd like to leave as soon as you're legally allowed to.

As for any kind of force, just stay silent and unthreatening. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, and anything you do can be used as rationalization for escalation, which they really seem to fucking love. Be polite when you do choose to speak. Obey lawful commands and let them arrest you if that's what they're gonna do. You don't fight armed thugs in the street, you fight them in court. File complaints and sue when they violate your rights and cause undue harm. Swinging at them or shouting in their face is how you get shot. Let their ego win the moment and then administratively destroy their career and life later on.

I'm also not a lawyer, but this is what any half decent lawyer would tell you to do. Just shut the fuck up (but invoke your right to shut the fuck up or your silence can actually be used against you) and be as passive as possible so your lawyer has a slam dunk case getting your charges dropped and/or suing the everloving fuck out of them, hopefully nullifying their qualified immunity in the process. Nothing you do or say to the police can help you, but it sure as shit will be used against you. Even things you think are innocuous can corroborate that you're who they're looking for, so just shut the fuck up.

The first interracial kiss on TV was between Kirk and Uhura in 1968. Star Trek is and always has been set in a time when humans have achieved a post-scarcity leftist utopian. Shit's been this way since way before your uncle started calling everything he doesn't like "woke" which was only like 4 years ago for the record.

Know what was really woke? Keeping watch for police brutality and unjust police tactics. For real. I'm quoting this article lol.

PSA: On PS5, after launching your game, hit the PS button. If there are activities, you can probably hit square to resume. This speeds through all the startup wankery and the main menu straight to loading your save. It rarely saves time, but it means you can launch your game and walk away to get a glass of water or whatever. I enjoy it.

His last words may have been something akin to "oh fuck, don't look! Nobody'd better mention this part in my biography!"

No, no, no; if you work really hard and really apply yourself, you too can become a titan of industry and make your billions of dollars. If you aren't at least a millionaire, it's because you are just too dumb and lazy to succeed. Go back to school, work longer hours, read more books, get better ideas. In the meantime, I'm hungry, flip my burger faster, and what do you mean you want more than $7.25/hour, it's not like this is a real job.

The biggest /s imaginable.

As a kid, I was in the room at one point while my mom was watching some TV show, maybe law and order or something similar. I heard somebody letting somebody else know (verbally) the details of some victim and described the cause of injury or death or whatever as "GSW". I asked my mom what GSW meant. She said "gun shot wound". I said that that couldn't possibly be right, and she was curious why. I said because "gun shot wound" is 3 syllables and "GSW" is 5; it's literally quicker to say the full thing.

So yeah, GSW is fucking stupid when said aloud, and even me as a dumbass child knew that.

It's fair to criticize Biden for not being better than he is but it's fucking braindead, bordering on parody to suggest that Biden isn't better than Trump. Only complete morons or people that aren't paying attention would suggest such a thing, so I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't aware of what Biden has gotten done in his first two years.

I can't stand that he's old, he fucked over rail workers, he's still supporting Israel in their genocidal quest, and he has increased funding for police, but it's hyperbolic af to say he's just as fascist as trump, the poster child of American fascism. Dude literally attempted to overthrow democracy to stay in power. "The boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power."