The major political parties may have only changed names once, but the most common stance in modern political science is that we are in the 6th political party alignment in US history.

• Centralization 1796-1824
• Jacksonians 1828-1852
• Republicans 1856-1892
• Progressives 1898-1928
• New Dealers 1932-1972
• Neoliberalism 1980-Present

I think United Healthcare is a glaring omission from this design.

Should replace cardinal healthcare (market cap $30b) with UHC (market cap $450b) imo

It looks inhospitable because of the water apartheid.

Israel and its settlers take the lions share of water resources, leaving Palestinians with barely enough to survive.

Water is so scarce and precious that nearly every Palestinian home has a rooftop water tank. Water for aesthetic things like plants or lawns is a luxury.

Parched: Israel’s policy of water deprivation in the West Bank

We bombed them back to the stone age, then we cut them off from the rest of the world.

And now we point and laugh at them for being backwards, without any sense of history or responsibility.

I’m not sure the best place to post this, but I would like to say I do regret this comment.

My honest intention was to make a provocative post that would generate a discussion on ethics and morality in the age of Luigi and Elon. My intention was to lay out a hypothetical scenario “if anyone wants to become a hero…” but with sober hindsight I now see how my words could be misconstrued into a call for violence, and that is deeply regrettable.

I was recently prescribed a new muscle relaxant for my rheumatoid arthritis, and I mixed it with a couple alcoholic drinks for the first time. The result was not some drastic change, but I did become unfiltered, sloppy, and inaccurate with my words, and I will not be making this mistake again.

In the future, I do intend to continue making provocative comments, but I am committing myself to no longer discussing violence in this context.

I base it on the fact that the child in question is what, 4 years old? You know how often a 4 year old sleeps? There’s naptime, and very early bedtime…

Is your argument honestly that the human shield is wrapped around his head literally every moment he is in public? You know how absurd that sounds, right?

The only thing it takes to disprove your hypothesis is a quick Google search showing dozens of recent pictures of his head without a human shield attached.

This conversation is getting very silly.

I have no idea how often the human shield is wrapped around his head, but I would imagine any shooter who does their homework would be able to find many hours in the day when the child is not physically attached to him.

The obvious difference between this and the IDF is that, in this case, we have an actual human shield. Anyone who is paying attention knows that the IDF “human shield” justification is just a lie to cover for their atrocities.

I think an ethical shooter would take every reasonable precaution to avoid hitting the human shield.

But in the vanishingly small hypothetical where it could not be avoided, then I would still consider the shooter a hero, yes.

I appreacite your concern, but is there something substantial to fear?

I have not crossed the line into credible death threats; this is first amendment protected speech. If I get a visit from the secret service I will consider it a win for having wasted their time.

And if Trump starts rounding up “online leftists agitators” or “antifa” or whatever to put in his concentration camps, I’ll probably already be in the camps for a different reason.

I fail to see any ethical difference between murdering children under conditions of “warfare” and murdering children via assassination. Both are equally horrific.

I consider the Soviets and Americans who defeated the Nazis to be heroes, and they murdered a whole heap of children.

Only Sith deal in absolutes.

Nothing WTF about it, the trolley problem math is overwhelming. If you can kill one person to save a million, it is immoral to abstain.

If you won’t kill the king because his child prince is an innocent, then you will be a peasant forever.

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Yes the British film Battle for Haditha received funding from the DoD’s Entertainment Media Office. It is difficult to find any military film that has not been funded in part by this propagada office.

I do have one fact incorrect though, they did not receive millions. It appears they received much less, although I couldnt find an exact number.

But here you are ignoring the thrust of my argument, that the insidious free market propaganda by the US is much more effective than the heavy handed authoritarian propaganda by China. Yes, you can go get an advanced degree and learn about Haditha freely, but that knowledge is effectively prevented from reaching the broader public.

Both US and China actively deny and suppress information. The Chinese method is more authoritarian, the US method is more effective.

I argue this point on another comment in this thread.

Well I thought we were discussing education, but as far as information supression is concerned, I think both countries are heavily supresssing information, but the US method is simply much more effective.

Take for example an event similar in scale to the Tiananmen massacre, the Haditha massacre. The US military actively suppressed all info after it happened, classifying everything related to the killings. The only information from the state dept about this incident were leaks to the press downplaying the severity of the incident. Later, the DoD spends millions funding a Hollywood film to whitewash the incident, focusing on the perspective of the poor sad soldiers who did the massacre.

The result, I would argue, is that the Haditha massacre has been whitewashed, justified, and erased from history much more effectively than the Tiananmen massacre.

So you were left ignorant of the other half of the atrocities I mentioned, just like we suspect Chinese citizens are ignorant of Tiananmen?

I went to high school in North Dakota btw.

I think there are many events in American history that could be analogous to Tiananmen.

Were you ever educated on the 1985 MOVE bombing? The destruction of black wall street? The house un-american activities committee? The battle of Blair Mountain?

Were you ever taught about any of the coups we did to overthrow democratic governments in latin america? The death squads we trained? The authoritarians and fascists we put into power, and the oppression and death they caused?

Or, in general, the 70-or-so countries we invaded since WWII? I think most Americans can only name Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

And that’s just the stuff I can name off the top of my head, I’m sure there are countless American atrocities that I am unaware of.

Personally, the American education system taught me none of that. Many of these subjects are not discussed in broad American culture.

Unfortunately history shows that heroin and memes are not enough to stop fascists when they take power.