While it's understandable that intelligent people eventually come to the conclusion of figuring out how they can change themselves, we need to stop absolving the destructionists of responsibility. The political machine that made a public health emergency into a political issue did much more damage to our country than the vaccines being practically, but temporarily, mandatory.
It's not temporary though. The Covid vaccine push has caused an entire generation to now doubt simple life-saving vaccines. They erased a century of goodwill.
It really didn’t. It caused a subset of people already predisposed to such things to become harder stance on it and it expanded that insanity by making it a political talking point; but it is *not* a whole generation, it’s likely 30% of one country; and, over time, hopefully less.
A century of goodwill? It's not like US vacvine skeptics are a new thing. Ol' ben franklin was a vaccine skeptic until his son died to smallpox.
The new thing is the right has recently embraced antivaxxers as part of the coaltion.
Giving it a mainstream platform for a few political points was a deal with the devil, and they deserve to be condemed for that.
The only thing most people know or remember about the covid vaccines are that they're the reason the lockdowns ended and things got back to normal. The only people still mad about it are the types who were easily manipulated to be mad about it from the start.
I'm getting tired of these comments that normalize being in the middle of the slippery slope as if it is merely the same as being at the top of the slippery slope was. They may not have been "good" times, but they were certainly better times when government agencies at least aimed to carry out their roles in good faith rather than minmaxing the rules to cause the most damage to enemies of the Party. Applying judgement while exercising delegated authority is exactly why these agencies were given wide leeway in the first place. And while we can say this was naive, it is even more naive to normalize the current behavior.
Laws are supposed to be crafted to be as applied by anyone, anywhere and at any time. This is why lawyers and politicians are supposed to have foresight and be prudent.
You look at prior events and see them as justified due to the people involved and situations.
If the US government can, for example investigate Richard Spencer or some other extremist figure based on a web post, then they can do the same for someone else on the other end of the spectrum.
But even more terrifying is that they can do the same for someone not in the extremes.
When my friends on the left held power and used it to quash the speech of my friends on the right, I spoke up.
When my friends on the right are doing the same, I also speak up.
The sad irony is that those not in power protest only when it is not their side.
> Laws are supposed to be crafted to be as applied by anyone, anywhere and at any time. This is why lawyers and politicians are supposed to have foresight and be prudent.
Except this is both impossible and a bad idea, which is why we have judges, juries, elections, and every other part of the system intended to constrain the blind application of the law.
Most people are in a bubble and are unaware of what their tribe is doing.
I may be wrong but I think there have been Republicans who have resigned for extra-marital sex.
While we are screaming about the current POTS and his relation with Jeffery, we gave Bill Clinton a platform to speak during the 2024 Convention. When I bring that up, I get told "It's important that we beat Trump."
The Epstein was arrested in 2019, the files have been in the hands of both Democrats and Republicans. Neither group really looks like they want to prosecute anyone further; only use accusations that their opponents are in there to galvanize their base.
I did not realize that we invited "nobodies" to speak at the convention; I can tell how shunned he was based on the Wikipedia page:
>Third night (Wednesday, August 21: A Fight for Our Freedoms)
>The third night was emceed by actress Mindy Kaling, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Sheila E and Maren Morris. Vice presidential nominee Minnesota Governor Tim Walz delivered his acceptance speech. Pete Buttigieg also spoke.
>It was confirmed that Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to speak. The evening was headlined by Walz and Clinton.
Headline - verb - to be engaged as a leading performer in (as in show or performance)
>Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president.
-Also Wikipedia
Yes, at this moment the current POTUS is more relevant. At the time however, both Trump and Clinton were both "Some nobody with secret service protection" with the only difference between them being one was running for his second term and the other was not.
>Democrats seem to want the files about him to be released.
Everyone wants the files released and those responsible prosecuted...until they are the ones with the files. Then there are all sorts of hints and allegations that their opposition is featured heavily but no charges brought.
It's really sick, there are real people with lives who have been ruined. Committed suicide because of what happened to them and yet all those with the power to act just talk, be it democrats or republicans.
while former US President is about as far from a nobody as it is humanly possible the commenter’s points are all valid. while the current President is most definitely one of the most dispicable human beings than ever roam this planet the whole epstein business is far above any US politics. and Americans generally do not give a hoot about this (see election in 2025) - especially when victims are women and children.
> If the US government can, for example investigate Richard Spencer or some other extremist figure based on a web post, then they can do the same for someone else on the other end of the spectrum.
> But even more terrifying is that they can do the same for someone not in the extremes.
This isn't a valid principle. It suggests that we should oppose laws against murder, because if the government can imprison a murderer, it can imprison someone who saved a life. Even more terrifying is that it can imprison someone who saved a dog's life or didn't save or kill any lives.
You have said very little that addresses anything I said, except to appeal to some vague sense of "both sidesism" which is so far away from our current predicament that the only applications I see are (1) to say "I told you so", which isn't productive and widely misses the mark with me (2) normalize the current situation and/or absolve blame by shifting it onto the other side.
Investigative agencies are going to be able to investigate people. So supposing that the "US government can ... investigate Richard Spencer ... based on a web post" isn't a compelling argument unless your goal is to completely reject the concept of government. This can certainly be a consistent position (I've held it in the past), but it's not a common one.
At which point it comes down to accountability for how delegated powers are used - both in individual cases, and to stop patterns of abuse. For example I've long argued we need to neuter the concept of sovereign immunity, and start routinely compensating people who are harmed by the government but never convicted of breaking the law - one should indeed be able to "beat the ride". So I'm not waking up to this in 2025 clutching my pearls gasping "I can't believe the government can just do this". I've been following how the government operates unaccountably for quite some time, and I'm pointing out that the current regime is still a marked escalation.
This isn't to say I am pushing lame answers like "just vote Democrat" (I don't consider myself a Democrat). And I do agree that meaningful reform needs to be in general terms (eg aforementioned sovereign immunity example). But I also think that dismissing our current situation as some mere extension of what has been happening for a while is a terrible way of framing things.
I am saying "No. Full stop." to the idea that we ever had a time when the government was attempting to carry out their roles in good faith.
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law" - Óscar Benavides, former president of Peru.
This can only be true if the law is broad and relies on "good faith". This is why laws and court ruling are often narrowly tailored, to prevent a precedent being set that will open the door for future abuse down the road.
>Investigative agencies are going to be able to investigate people. So supposing that the "US government can ... investigate Richard Spencer ... based on a web post" isn't a compelling argument unless your goal is to completely reject the concept of government. As has been often said, you can get a grand jury to indite a ham sandwich.
I suppose I could have fleshed out this argument a little further, a distillation of my point would be that "investigations" are carried out with little or flimsy evidence as a pretext to go on fishing expeditions to find something, anything to actually charge the person with.
>we need to neuter the concept of sovereign immunity
I wish we could get the government to hold themselves accountable, however they would need to pass a law to override the concept and they do not seem to be in any hurry to do so.
I am not attempting to say I told you so to you, nor normalize the situation. I disagree with your assessment that there ever was a "better time" and invite not only you but everyone to stand against bad laws and practices no matter the letter after the name.
And I'm getting tired of these comments that normalize the awfulness of the past. We can be pragmatic in recognizing that "our guys" also did bad things. Less bad than awful is still bad. If we choose not to recognize our own foibles then we just fall down our old patterns of "it's someone else's problem".
Because otherwise, better than what we have now is an abysmal target and we should aim for better.
> We can be pragmatic in recognizing that "our guys" also did bad things
What do you mean "our guys" ? I don't have guys. I consider myself a libertarian, was both sidesing up until June of 2020, and had never voted for a major party in a national election until 2020 when I voted for Biden - which I view as me getting older and more conservative - aka valuing our societal institutions and values after seeing how much Trump openly trashed them instead of showing an ounce of leadership during Covid.
Even with this perspective, I still think it is foolish to write off the current administration as if it's just another iteration of back and forth corruption rather than a shameless wholesale kicking over of the apple cart.
It's worth pointing out that "criminals" are generally "people at the margins"... If for no other reason than to point out that pithy comments like this are often so vague as to be worthless, or even counter-productive!
It's also a good thing that antisocial behavior is often isolated to "the margins", so your statement can even be considered a good thing, by the same metric!
> So we agree, including that there is a difference.
No, that's a distinction without a difference. I mean, it doesn't matter in the slightest if at some point in time certain powers weren't abused, if they're being abused now the situation cannot be tolerated.
Arguing about how it's possible not to abuse the system is a waste of time at best and a diversion at worst.
I'm not arguing that it's possible to not abuse the system. I've recognized abuses for quite some time, regardless of which political team has been in power. The point is that we need to avoid normalizing our current situation by pointing to previous abuses.
The point is that money is still just an abstraction. When you take a step back and analyze things in terms of goods and services being the value, you end up with the same types of questions as when analyzing social security in terms of money.
The ever-advancing big tech dystopia where individuals are pervasively tracked, quantified, and siloed. A destroyed economy squashing mobility, making the basic necessities uncertain, and future wealth questionable. Terrorist gangs abducting people in their homes based on what AI says, and executing people in the streets for protesting about it. All things that make for warm fuzzy feelings about bringing children into this world!
As a parent, I will say that the reelection of destructionists has basically guaranteed that my son's life will be markedly worse than my own. This was our chance to pull up out of the death spiral, but instead we chose full speed ahead, downward. The only sane way to analyze the fascist movement is as the death throes of our society, rather than latching on to any of their conflicting purportedly-constructive plans they chum out to fool the gullible.
Exactly. And now that labor's bargaining power has been thoroughly smashed for good, the problem they've perpetuated and grown serves as a convenient excuse for the need for lawless terror gangs and concentration camps to keep disempowered and desperate people in their place.
I'm frankly amazed at how people can look at the capital strike orchestrated with the AI narrative, protests being attacked by the aforementioned jackboots, the big tech authoritarians taking the gloves off, and a corrupt pay-to-play administration looting our country, and then conclude that any of this will somehow lead to everyday citizens being more enfranchised.
Sure, immigration reform could have achieved this twenty years ago. But powerful business interests didn't let it happen then, so it behooves you to start questioning why they are outright championing it now!
It's perversely hilarious to see people supporting fascism for its attacking other individuals, and then demonstrating zero awareness of how little regulation applies to capital crossing borders. It's a crab bucket, alright.
You know the revanchist militias who would openly hate everything about our country, while claiming to be "patriots" ? You know how they've been awfully quiet lately ? It's about putting them in charge, at least as far as the bottom-up.
The top-down is something like destroying the United States and subjugating what remains, with many foreign interests aligned here - Russia, China, Big Tech eager to create their surveillance society, religious fundamentalists who just want the world to burn so their ideologies might regain relevance, etc.
This revolves around a core idea of what used to be called conservatism - the belief that Western values and institutions have some inherent value worth promoting. Both at home in the terms of Constitutionally-limited government, the rule of law, etc. And internationally through diplomacy to do what we can to spread those values - in this case a few strongly worded letters would have been a step up.
And on both topics, it is the same group of anti-American traitors openly trashing our values, both domestically and internationally, while abusing the cloak of "conservatism" to obscure what they actually stand for. So no, there is really no conflict when criticizing both.
(you are of course free to prioritize other values like non-intervention and come to a different answer for yourself on this topic. the point is there is no conflict for the two positions you contrast. and this used to be a pretty popular stance, actually)
If parents (or anyone else) is unable to overcome their cognitive dissonance from drugs being called drugs, they really have no business making decisions about their use.
You clearly have no idea how people with ADHD / parents of ADHD kids feel like.
Just because you can "overcome your cognitive dissonance" doesn't mean that everybody has the same freedom/will/strength to do so.
Adding the weight of the "drugs" tag is not a way to help those who need medication to barely function like a normal person.
I don't have cognitive dissonance to overcome here as I'm not reflexively recoiling at the term "drugs". If someone is unable to acknowledge that drugs are drugs, how are they supposed to analyze the intended effects, possible side effects, the actual effects, etc? Or are we just supposed to blindly trust the overworked bureaucrat in the white coat?
And sure, I understand if someone needs to just trust a bureaucrat to bootstrap themselves to the point where they can make decisions. But your original comment was talking about parents making these decisions for kids, which is quite dodgy if they're in denial that these are mind altering substances.
Something can be mind altering without producing a recreational high for the user. Isn’t it strange that people don’t chime in on threads about anti depressants with “don’t you know you’re taking drugs?!?!”…
"Recreational high" has nothing to do with it. Medicare part D is literally referred to as "prescription drug plan".
If people have the same denial about anti-depressants, then my critique applies as well. But an allowance for the need to bootstrap would seem to apply more, plus the generally more complex mechanisms and nuanced effects making it harder to understand the effects for yourself.
You're completely missing the point, probably intentionally. Context exists. Everyone knows medicine in general is drugs, there are also recreational drugs/narcotics. It's usually very obvious which of these someone is referring to. They are separate categories of things with separate implications. You know this of course.
The comment I initially responded to was reacting to the usage of the word "drug". And yes while there is a distinction in categories with some distinct implications, there is also a lot of commonality between them. And the reaction I was responding to indicated a strong desire to reject those commonalities.
You are clearly and deliberately "arguing" aka. rage-baiting from an angle of bad faith.
You seem much more pre-occupied with vague conspiracy theories about how bureaucrats work to the detriment of society than an actual topical discussion about medication or the article linked here.
Drugs (as used by you and colloquially as something to get high and negatively connotated with health outcomes) and medications are not the same thing.
Yet you pretend they are, without taking into account the contrasting realities of how medication is vetted and approved.
Nobody is trusting a overworked bureaucrat, because that's not how this works.
People far more qualified than you can imagine using standardized processes and thousands of people vet medication before it becomes available to the public.
Ritalin hs been around for decades.
I am all for informing the public and empowering people to make autonomous decisions for their health.
I am against people playing moral superiority when actually all they're doing is spouting non-scientific conspiracy theories about some bad bureacurats following an evil plan drugging the populace.
I thought the idea that individuals should be advocating for themselves (and their families) in the modern medical establishment is just basic table stakes in 2026, not a "vague conspiracy theory."
I don't see how calling out someone's reaction to the word "drugs" is "an angle of bad faith". If someone has an emotional reaction to the reality that a doctor is proposing giving their kid mind-altering substances, that indicates they haven't gotten to the point where they're able to judge it rationally. The answer isn't to shy away from the reality!
So yes, unfortunately the first step to making an informed decision is getting past the fearmongering propaganda pumped out by all the anti-illegal-drugs campaigns. And yeah that sucks, but it's certainly nowhere near the biggest hurdle to self-actualization that our society perpetuates.
Is this question being asked in a way that we actually get to choose? Because the obvious choice is general purpose computing plus a free society. But rather it feels that what is being picked for us is copyright, and only copyright.
But really, even picking the freedom and liberty options, copyright could survive just fine as a thing that applies to corporations and other business entities. Individuals could then be left with a choice whether to support their creators or not, which would be a better bargain for many creators without the middlemen taking hefty cuts.
reply