I haven’t been able to muster this kind of optimism in over a decade. The fact that you can is genuinely amazing to me

Yes they absolutely do. Maybe you don’t but that’s not the same thing as nobody, is it?

I know the UN didn’t exist back when Germany hosted the Olympics in Berlin. That isn’t the point of what I said. Then again, you’re clearly not the type of person that can think critically about the things that they read given your response here.

You seriously read phrases like “develop friendly relations among nations” “take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace” “encourag[e] respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion” and came away thinking that representing everyone in the world has nothing to do with this organization? That’s absolutely asinine.

Sure, but a lot of people use “the UN” as a sort of shorthand for “all the countries of the world”. Representing the whole world is, after all, one of the stated primary goals of the organization.

It doesn’t matter what he does, it matters what people believe he does. To his base Trump is MAGA. Without him I don’t think they have anywhere near the cohesive movement that they do currently.

Every day they delay is one more chance for Trump to stroke out and die before he can go full genocidal dictator. Considering his age and those health rumors I’d say that’s a win.

Are you suggesting that most people would rather scan 400+ pages of a physical book than deal with ebook DRM? Because that sounds like the worst, most tedious option to me. I’m confident most would never consider scanning a viable option.

That’s a very succinct way to put it. I like it.

That’s true but as the saying goes “cut off the head of the snake and the body dies”. Eventually followers have no one left to follow whereas the other group has no real leaders. Once enough realize it’s a numbers game the outcome is easy enough to predict. The situation just needs to be viewed in a slightly different way than most people are conditioned to view it in.

That may be a big perspective shift but most of the constraints to our perceived available responses come from the desire to continue living within the confines of a social contract that is rapidly deteriorating. Most people haven’t begun to feel that directly yet but once they do the situation could change very quickly.

They’re creating a system in which millions have to die for them to win and dozens have to die for us to win. I know which odds I’m taking in that bet.

There are existing systems in our government, and almost every form of government I am familiar with, for every concept you listed. They may not function in exactly the same way you are suggesting they could, but those suggestions are not immune to subversion or misuse either. The overall point you are making is that we could structure our government in such a way that corruption is impossible. I do not believe that is true. I believe it is a universal truth that people are susceptible to corruption and it is a universal truth that people are involved in government. Therefore, all governments are susceptible to corruption.

You are welcome to disagree with me on this if you like but if you do there is no point in continuing this discussion because I am completely confident that there is nothing you could say to change my mind about either of the premises of the argument that I laid out. That is not usually a statement I am willing to make but in this case I think it is perfectly reasonable to take such a position. You cannot legislate away human nature. You can only attempt to contain it. However, that containment will only function to the degree to which society, and it’s elected representatives, are willing to enforce such containment mechanisms.

All of that stuff already exists in one form or another. Democrats just softballed their turn with power and Republicans are refusing to acknowledge their role in checking the authority of the executive branch. There is no system of government that can survive when those charged with enforcing the rules abdicate their responsibility.

There is no such thing as impenetrable safeguards. We have safeguards now but half of the government refuses to enforce the rules. We could do better but there’s no getting around that level of coordinated treason. The only thing that has ever worked consistently is the fear of retribution from the people. We need to make them afraid of what will happen to them if they fuck us over. I’ll leave the specifics of that suggestion to your imagination but suffice it say that they aren’t afraid of us voting them out of office.

Biden had his chance to enforce the law and he didn’t do anything to the people that mattered. It’s too late for all that now. This doesn’t get fixed at the ballot box.

You may not like the specific wording but you still know what’s being discussed. Some people, kids included, are weird looking and off putting. The opposite of that can be called many things and you know what most people mean by when they say it.

Well there’s plenty more out there to be found if you’re looking for a new hobby

We can set our own precedents just like we had to with company towns in the 1800s. I heard about a man named Luigi who supposedly created a similar precedent in the modern era.

I do wish we could stop confusing tolerance with active support though. I don’t need to be on your team to tolerate you or your lifestyle. In fact, we don’t even need to acknowledge each other’s existence to be tolerant of one another. We just need to let each other exist unimpeded.

Yeah if reading something is too high of a bar for the average person to clear then I will happily admit that my expectations of humanity are too high.

Oh fuck that, quit letting idiots off the hook for being idiots. There was, and still is, an absurd amount of information readily available about how shitty Trump is. If the people you’re talking about cared at all they could have found it easily, but they didn’t. That’s not anyone else’s fault but theirs.