Do you not have otters?

Money is power. Just because that shower have the sense to sit outside of the spotlight of political scrutiny does not mean that they are apolitical nor does it make the influence they cast not strongly American in flavour.

And America too.

Hey hey hey!

Don’t be dragging granola into this fuckwit-ocracy. It’s a perfectly reasonable low effort breakfast for those of us that are unable to cook for ourselves because we can’t find our arses with both hands for the first hour of semi-consciousness in the morning.

To acquire one unpaired valence electron.

I don’t call for an end to America over its hundreds of years of killings, murder, rape, slavery, genocide, ecocide, innumerable hypocrisies, and corrupting hegemony. I don’t come on here and sweatily proclaim that all I hope for is the fall of the American ascendency. I don’t because I recognise that America like Catholics or Muslims is a vast mix of people with a wide range of lived experiences and view points. And that not all of their history is terrible. Some of it is actually commendable. And the actions of the leaders often do not line up with the majority of their people.

Yes, true, Catholic church is outdated and reactionary with way more than it’s fair share bad actors but there are also hundreds of millions of Catholics, and people with Catholic backgrounds but no longer practicing, out there that are a wide mix of human beings that deserve a basic amount of respect.

You can, for clarity, include within the parameters of basic respect, to not have to endure your overgeneralising hostile invective.

I’m sorry but you come off as just another nutty reactionary to me.

Have a good day.

It’s perfectly legitimate to have issues with any organised religion but damning everyone brought up in their traditions is myopic.

I was brought up a catholic in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Similar prejudice was routinely trotted out to justify treating us as second class citizens. So surprise, surprise even now as an atheist, I find it a bit triggering, as anyone mght imagine, to hear someone singling out my persecuted community in such a toxic mischaracterisation. I didn’t ask to be catholic but I was brought up in a community of caring and open minded people. Sure there were arseholes but guess what every community has them.

There are some Catholics that are reactionary morons but the majority are not. Describing religions by the worst people in them doesn’t really come across as tolerant. Which ironically is what you’re accusing them of.

It’s a drawer that he’s pulled the keyboard into to free up desk space for highlighting text on the printouts.

More worryingly, the space between the bottom of the drawer and the top of the chair would make a XKCD character wince.

Literal Roman DVD goddess.

And I appreciate your civil attempts at clarifying your stance too. To the degree that I think we’re both talking past each other.

On my part, even as an outsider to US politics, I have been getting more and more frustrated with a lot of the bullying rhetoric I see on this platform directed towards potential voters that are very concerned about the US’s current complicity in the ongoing genocide. I see them getting talked down to with utter contempt. Being berated by people who insouciantly weigh a potential loss of comforts at home against the real and current killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and the forced famine of hundreds of thousands.

Now is the only time that they can apply pressure on Biden. Now that he actually needs something from them. But (like MLK’s white moderates) people here are telling them that “now is not the time” and a whole spectrum of worse accusations too. But if the civil rights movement hadn’t agitated and pressed for change decades would have passed before the moderates would have opened their eyes and acted beyond the pale.

Personally, I agree ostensibly with your calculus (though not with your particular framing of it but it is still a very, very tight call) but if I was a US voter I would be vocally holding my vote hostage until the last moment to make sure that my discontent was given the greatest chance of not being ignored.

More importantly (and central to this whole discussion) i still believe that people have a right to respectful discourse if they can’t morally make it over the sizable hurdles.

Which brings me round back to you. You’ve been very patient and civil throughout this discourse even though we have different perspectives. So my ‘beef’ ain’t wit you my friend. Though I do wonder what is your line in the ground that if both of the two main candidates were guilty of something that you’d drop the lesser of two evils calculus and vote for a third party. For me both are terrible choices but the potential for long term democratic, human rights, and environmental protection regression under Trump cannot be underestimated

It is ‘rational’ attitudes such as this that MLK bemoaned in his Birmingham jail letters. Order above justice. An order in which the boot is not on your neck. So you minimize its dehumanizing brutality in relation to the maintenance of the day-to-day comforts you enjoy.

Hypothetically: if Biden was sending weapons and financial support to Russia in support of their war efforts but mildly denouncing Putin when pressed; and Trump was pledging full throated support of Putin and offering to nuke Kyiv; would you still feel so enthusiastic about voting for Biden or for your moral calculus? Might you lament the electoral system that has put this decision before you. Might you protest this mockery of democratic choice. Even if you internally still cede to moral calculus, might you continue to make your displeasure known and apply whatever pressure was within your purview as a voter to make. Might you be offended by people demanding you not only vote for Biden regardless your rightful concerns about Putin and the sovereignity of Ukrainians but also try to insinuate that you are part of some foreign operation to undermine the election for voicing your concerns?

Voting for big genocide or voting for small genocide is irreconcilably voting for genocide for some people. It’s a morally cognizant choice for some to not want to put the endorsement of their vote on either.

Let me crystal clear. I do not think that your position or attitude are moderate either. Haranguing people to vote against their conscience is a bad look. Big genocide, small genocide, both are genocide. If that overloads some people’s ‘election calculus’ it’s a reasonable and engaged reaction. If anything talking down to them is more likely to turn them off voting at all.

Some of these are clearly wedge-driving divisive (sic) trolls posing as moderates. Especially those hectoring voters that vote with their conscience now that attitudes toward a current genocide is making it impossible to vote for either of the frontrunners.

It looks like the intent is to deter any of the neighbouring countries from interfering with Isreal’s ongoing genocide.

Would that it were.