Frankly it’s in Xi’s best benefit to not invade Taiwan, because it would cause a collapse of the One China policy. China benefits considerably from the current policy that’s ambiguous on recognizing Taiwan. The moment they invade though, that goes away, and it becomes inevitable that Taiwan gains international recognition as independent – presuming the US helps repel an invasion.

If there’s anything we’ve learned though from the last few years, it’s that seemingly intelligent world leaders can make idiotic decisions that go against their best interest – namely Putin and Ukraine. Xi strikes me as the type of person to keep yesmen like Putin, and that means he could make just as foolish a mistake.

You haven’t posted any articles about Israel’s genocide either. Should I presume you tacitly approve of what Israel is doing?

Articles like this are important, because they illustrate an awful human behavior we need to condemn. Jewish people are completely separate from Israel, and antisemitism is completely separate from criticism of Israel. By conflating the two, you push Netanyahu’s agenda. He’d love nothing more than to say Israel is the same as Jewish people and any act or criticism is antisemitic.

Should there have been no criticism or discussion of the US internment of Japanese during WW2? Should there have been no coverage of abuse and harassment against Muslims after 9/11? What about the spate of anti Asian violence during Covid?

Fuck that. Collective punishment is wrong. It’s difficult to change the policies and actions of a different country, but it’s easier to call out reactive domestic shitheads and policies and demand change there. Human history is full of collateral/collective punishment like this when a shitty group of people do something awful – and it falls on good, intelligent people to recognize that it’s evil of the shitty group and of the reactionaries, and to call out both.

Don’t assume everyone here is an idiot. We’re capable of recognizing this event as awful while simultaneously criticizing Israel. And we can condemn this act without becoming sympathetic to Israel.

There is a terrible trend of people blaming Jewish people overall for what Israel is doing – and ironically, some of Israel’s sharpest critics are Jewish.

Some people are incapable of realizing that Jewish people are not the same as Israel, and in doing so, they play right into Netanyahu’s hand. Antisemitism is completely separate from criticism of Israel, but Netanyahu would love for people to believe it’s one and the same.

People who want revenge against Jews in the West for what Israel’s doing are no different than those who interned the Japanese in WW2 or demonized all Muslims after 9/11. It’s collective punishment and it’s wrong.

said it reaffirmed American support for the Tibetan right to self-determination

This is a subtle stab at China. The CCP loves talking about sovereignty and self determination as a defense for their actions, but it’s also projection for their actions in Tibet and the South China Sea.

I don’t understand his angle here. He clearly has some sort of agenda, but I haven’t figured it out. Maybe he’s betting that this will turn some Democrats and moderates against Biden? But that requires believing that Netanyahu is telling the truth, which I don’t think a lot of Israel supporters necessarily do.

Either way, this is weird. Maybe he’s talking about the bombs that weren’t sent for Rafah? But getting pissed about one halted shipment out of everything they’ve been given is just fucking hilarious.

My guess – he’s aware his support is dwindling, and he’s trying to salvage it by blaming everyone else. Or, he’s daring the US to stop all shipments, but that would probably destroy his remaining support too.

Yeah he was absolutely tortured to death. Fucking disgusting.

I think they use passive headlines over concern about being sued for libel, but I agree. They really need to call the bluff, because if a party sues for libel, that party has to prove it’s a willful lie. And that would be a very interesting discovery process.

I think there’s something to be said for medium sized companies. I work for one that’s trying to grow and become much larger, but it’s decidedly not big. Our execs though actually seem like pretty cool people, and the CEO seems to be a legitimately good person. He’s generally been open and honest, and he’s told stories that make me think he does actually value employees as people.

He was talking about gay rights and the value of diversity during our weekly company forum the other day, and I asked him about our company’s support for DEI given the political pressure from conservatives to abandon it. He said he didn’t give a damn about them, and doing the right thing was more important. I don’t agree with everything he’s done – we’ve had layoffs, and morale isn’t great, and we’re totally broke – but I respect that he actually seems to mean what he says. And even when we had layoffs, executives and management weren’t safe either.

I think a lot of what it comes down to is the genuineness of leadership and how closely tied they are to rank and file employees. That’s easier at small and medium companies. Large companies also tend to attract greedy robber barons.

Yeah they’re pretty much the only group that seems to understand this. They have other struggles though with having greater appeal – mainly from what I can tell, there’s a lot of discord between different chapters.

That said, there actually is one socialist who did win a state legislature election, in Virginia. And they were able to get an insulin cap bill passed because they worked cooperatively with democrats.

This is the model that people need to follow if they want to move beyond Democrats and Republicans. This single socialist legislator in one state has done more than the entire green party combined.

That’s fair. The way I look at it is that executives curb what the employees actually believe and want to work on. I saw this at a petrochemical company that was part of a big oil company. Everyone was excited about sustainability projects and cutting emissions and renewable technology. The execs just didn’t give a shit and continued to push for oil and drilling. If workplaces were democracies, we’d see so much more wonderful things.

It takes a strong and wise person to admit they were wrong and change their mind for the better. I applaud you for that. Given how prevalent calling things gay was when I was a teenager, I think a lot of people changed their minds for the better when they realized their friends and family were gay. And then some realized they were also gay, funny enough.

I agree that we need more time before we institute any sort of policy or mandating, but I do think we should eventually do that.

It’s interesting, I think a lot of conservative beliefs come down to the idea that children cannot be autonomous people with their own beliefs. They don’t believe that a child can have an independent thought, and that whatever they say is indoctrination from parents or school. It says a lot about their worldview.

If someone fully believes in the independence of children to form their own thoughts and beliefs and opinions, I don’t see how they could support any sort of anti LGBT ban.

Third parties rarely run for Congress. This is actually how you can tell that the US has no serious third parties. None of them make Congress even a remote priority. If they somehow won the presidency, they wouldn’t be able to do anything because they have no Congressional support.

You’ve inadvertently highlighted why your only options are to vote Democrat or Republican. No other party is serious about trying to win. If they were, they’d be building up a local presence in all 50 states and winning local elections. Then they’d look at state legislatures and governors. Then Congress for the House and Senate, and then the presidency.

That’s a lot of work though, so they’d rather run presidential candidates and grift for donations. The argument typically goes that they’re trying to bring awareness to their party through the presidential election – but how exactly is that going for them? It’s readily apparent that strategy doesn’t work, and they’d be better off putting in the hard work to become actual political contenders.

If you don’t like how Congress represents you, support your desired representatives and senators in primaries, and then vote for the person you dislike least in the general election. Or, encourage a third party candidate to run who has statewide recognition and plenty of political experience.

Democrats and Republicans are the only options because all the other choices are batshit insane or just want to steal your donations.

One thing I quite like about Lemmy is that it’s very easy to recognize individual users and the type of comments they usually leave.

You don’t understand how the US government works. This comment makes that incredibly obvious.

The filibuster is in the Senate. Not the House. That should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to politics.

This isn’t a disease - many of the things you listed are psychological and the result of how family and friends treat that person.

The DSM entry on Gender Dysphoria disagrees.

That’s what I can’t fathom. This is such a big boost for children’s mental health. It heavily reduces their depression and suicide risk. They’re happier.

Maybe this is controversial, but if a parent isn’t willing to do that for their kid, I believe it’s neglect and endangerment. They aren’t fit to be a parent, and the state should intervene. We don’t let parents with batshit religious beliefs deny their children lifesaving treatment. We shouldn’t let parents deny their children treatment that would vastly improve their mental health and reduce their suicide risk.

We have been using puberty blockers for a long time. They were around when I was prepubescent. They’re established medicine, and doctors deem whatever the side effects are to be worth helping the children’s mental and physical health.

All medicine is like this. Very little medication has no side effects at all. Yet we give children medicine all the time. Because it does more good than harm.

Who decides if it does more good than harm? Medical professionals. Not laymen on the Internet.

In an ideal world, yes. But most people aren’t willing to lose their jobs and healthcare, potentially putting their family’s financial situation in dire straits, over protesting this.

Don’t blame the workers. Blame the executives.

If there is a legitimate reason for a draft, a draft may not be necessary anyway. Unless the enemy is offering a peaceful arrangement to everyone they meet, or there’s no way to get your family to safety, I think most people would willingly fight.

It would be disastrous for Republicans. Independents and moderates would be furious