Yep

Countries have no right to exist. They exist because they can. An apartheid ethnostate certainly has no right to exist or right to our support. If Israel has a right to exist, what about Palestine?

That’s sure not what she’s running on.

There is no candidate who can win this race that won’t keep writing blank checks for Israel. If anything, Netanyahu wants Trump to win. He is enraged by even the minimal pushback he gets from the Biden administration.

I’m amazed that anyone is still buying the “moderate voters” bullshit. Just try to picture an actual human being who’s politics have left them scratching their heads between Harris and Trump. “If only Harris would do a little more for corporations. Oh well, I guess I’ll stick with the racist orange insurrectionist.”

It’s not about moderate voters. If anything it’s about the median voter, but that’s a very different animal. The median voter in this country is wacky as fuck with political opinions that are all over the place. The one thing they almost all have in common is that they hate establishment politicians from both parties. Harris is trying to get their votes by being even more establishment, and it’s going to be a disaster.

The one hope we have is the end of RvW. If that’s woken up enough women voters, then we still can win. Republicans may have screwed themselves so badly that even establishment Democrats can beat them. Let’s hope.

Do you think Harris is running a flawless campaign?

If Kamala loses it will be her fault. The fact that we’ll all suffer for it is beside the point. You might think it’s irrelevant, but establishment Dems lose over and over again by ignoring what the left tells them, then they turn around and blame the left. Continuing to indulge their delusions just leads to more losses.

This really isn’t about Trump anymore. The Republican party has been transformed, and every single Republican candidate for the foreseeable future is going to be just as much a threat to democracy as Trump, if not more so.

The Greens hurt Democrats far less than the libertarians hurt Republicans, and neither is going anywhere. Democrats need to focus on being better candidates, not finding someone else to blame.

But there is such a thing as a non-corporate Democrat. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. There are also some wealthy Democratic donors that are less than 100% shitbags, resulting in some legitimate progressive policy.

I’m not being smart or funny, but apparently I’m getting under your skin.

Say what you will about socialist beliefs, they are absolutely more nuanced, historically rooted, and varied than what you call libertarian. You also don’t see super wealthy corporate oligarchs as thought leaders on the left. Your Ayn Rand inspired cult was entirely assembled by oligarch sponsored anarcho-capitalist think tanks.

I haven’t argued for socialism of any kind here, and I won’t. You have probably heard most of the reasons why your opinions on socialism are nonsense, and you have probably not really heard any of them. I’m not wasting my time on that.

You guys all spout the same platitudes constantly and ignore every reality based argument. It’s not exactly opaque (or interesting).

Arrogance is the only language that ever penetrates with people who think in platitudes. It’s not my general attitude, it’s a tool that sometimes wakes up zombies. American libertarians are always surprised to find someone more arrogant then themselves.

What you believe to be a political philosophy is nothing but empty rhetoric assembled by powerful elitists for the express purpose of consolidating and extending their power. It’s intended from the outset to neuter actual libertarian movements. Wake the fuck up zombie.

Excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on libertarianism:

In the mid-19th century,[10] libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists.

And

In the mid-20th century, American right-libertarian[35] proponents of anarcho-capitalism and minarchism co-opted[13] the term libertarian to advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources.[36] The latter is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States.

Don’t feel too bad. Having no fucking idea what you are talking about just makes you a typical American style libertarian.

As for centralizing power, corporate personhood and broad deregulation are about the most radical systems for centralizing power that have ever existed. You are still ignoring the entire history of conflict between unions and corporations. Unions had their day using the “libertarian” model and all that came from it was disaster. It wasn’t until the labor movement gained political power and had pro-union regulations put in place that unions had any real ability to negotiate with corporate power. But that’s all reality so it’s irrelevant I guess.

Libertarianism is properly a socialist philosophy, but it’s been coopted by the far right in America who then started exporting their bullshit to the rest of the world. It’s entirely possible for two people to call themselves “libertarian” and have next to nothing in common in their understanding of what that means.

Most libertarian support of unions in America is a bad joke. It’s meaningless feel-good rhetoric that completely ignores the entire history of unions in America. Corporations have a million ways to crush unions and union organizers. Without government regulations requiring corporations to engage with unions, unions are next to impossible in reality. But that’s just fine with the kind of people attracted to the Libertarian party, because they don’t live in reality.

Lemmy’s origins are as an alternative platform for Russian shills and sympathizers to spread misinformation, and the founders / developers are deeply stuck in that bubble. Sometimes being smart makes people more prone to conspiracy thinking instead of less.

I know plenty of people with technical smarts and high IQs who regularly fall for disinformation scams. Lots of smart people are as prone to believing what they want to believe as complete idiots.

People with strong intuition often make it through life without ever seriously developing critical thinking skills because they simply don’t need them.

That’s an accurate summation for my understanding as well. Things that the judge should look at when considering a minimum sentence are defendant cooperation, displays of genuine remourse, and indications that the defendant is unlikely to continue breaking the law. If the judge can find any of that, it’s beyond me how.

None of his current convictions are expected to come with a custodial sentence

Strict adherence to sentencing guidelines actually would see him jailed on his current convictions. If he isn’t given some kind of imprisonment it will be because the judge was afraid of the aftermath.

I’m not so sure he’s much of a security risk, unless he is still in possession of sensitive documents. I sincerely doubt he is capable of remembering anything in the way of valuable secrets. Anyways, even if he did, any adversary would be daft to trust he remembered correctly.

the meme that you should vote third party or stay home because the Democrat isn’t liberal enough for them.

You understand Russia well enough, but if you think the left is upset at a Democrat for not being liberal enough, you really don’t understand left politics. Liberalism is fundamentally a conservative ideology. It was liberals that made the Democrats into weak and ineffective corporate bureaucrats, thus setting the stage for the latest rise of fascism. (That’s how fascism always takes root BTW.)

You are also buying into the establishment bullshit argument that the left doesn’t show up for elections. Left leaning voters are the most reliable voting demographic in the country, in spite of the Democratic establishment blaming them for all their failures.

If just half the energy wasted lecturing the left were put to good use, we wouldn’t have Trump in the first place.

Everything but Biden.