If Ben & Jerry’s made a boot leather flavor of ice cream, it would share a target demographic with the people selling Gadsden flags.

I appreciate the write-up, thank you! I feel like a lot of this is semantic differences. I’ve always thought of socialism as any public funds used specifically to help citizens (e.g. social security, medicare, unemployment, UBI, etc) and Communism to be the public owning and running the means of production, and distributing goods thereof, and the stateless, classless, moneyless society to be the ideal utopia it aspired to (similar to Star Trek). From your comment, I see that what I call Communism, you call Socialism (which explains a lot of confusion from discussions in the past with self-described Communists I’ve known), and the nameless Star Trek post-scarcity system you would call Communism.

Do you think it is possible to slow-roll the transition peacefully, though? If, for example, instead of the government bailing out industries, they bought out industries on the cheap, slowly growing and monopolizing like Google or Amazon have? Or do you think the rich would simply block that from happening?

So I will admit that I am ignorant of a method of attaining Communism that isn’t at the end of a rifle, and thus authoritarian by nature (and fully accept that, to a degree, Capitalism is also at the end of a gun, but typically less overt, or often directed without instead of within). The only nations I’ve seen flying the red flag have appeared highly authoritarian (and I’m not going to get drawn into a “USSR and PRC aren’t/weren’t authoritarian, and DPRK is actually a utopia!” discussion, so if that’s the direction this is going, let me know and I’ll politely see my way out).

I’ve seen in the lower comments that Socialism would be used as a gateway to Communism, but I am unclear about the transition from “everybody’s basic needs are met via taxation and distribution” to “personal property is abolished” (as I understand Communism to mean, please correct me if I’m wrong). Plenty of European countries have had (for the west), strong seemingly socialist systems, but they don’t seem to be deliberately angling toward Communism, for example.

So I’m curious what this peaceful Capitalist to Communist timeline would look like.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to become a politician.

I thought they accidentally got rid of Black Friday with their anti-DEI measures?

Wow, people are really pulling the last bit out of context and assuming the worst implications. His “stand by you” and “knocking on doors” thing is him acknowledging his white male privilege to feel safe doing things like going door to door in most neighborhoods, and being happy to extend that safety to others by standing beside them while they do it.

I get the concern about having a Nazi tattoo for over a decade, and concern that everything he is doing is performative based on his past. But what he said was pretty unequivically that he will support LGBTQ+ people, including in action. Whether anyone believes him or not is up to them. But what he said was not mealy-mouthed, it was direct.

The second one sort of depends on the player. I’ve had a few players that have made absolutely ridiculous characters but played them very well and it was a good experience.

You mean like the Legend of Poop McDinglefart?

I’m not pleased they’re being deployed, but these guys aren’t choosing to go to these places. They signed up for national defense (and not the kind that blows up schools in a desert on the other side of the world) and often helping with major disasters.

The Texas National Guard absolutely did not sign up for policing cities in Illinois or Oregon, and I’d bet vast majority are not pleased to be there.

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That would be an amazing MtG Enchantment Aura card:

Mobile Orphanage

During combat phase, enchanted creature may choose to attack any creature, player, or planeswalker.

Anytime enchanted creature destroys another creature, create a 1/1 copy of that creature.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take real good care of them.”

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I’m pretty burnt out on bubbles. The message is… not exactly something I agree with, but is an interesting take I find worth consideration (good to challenge your biases, right?).

But the memes are such low-quality it’s like I’m viewing “The Right Can’t Meme” but from the Tankie side. They aren’t funny. They aren’t thought-provoking. They’re just cringe-inducing. And I’m not really into that vicarious embarassment type of comedy.

I think Jon would have the intelligence and humility to have very qualified, intelligent people to advise and challenge him.

My only concern for him is he would take it very seriously, and not be able to let anything go. He would burn himself out hard in 4 years.

Guys, this is nonsense ragebait. Move on.

a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out,

And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn’t moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially “downsizing” to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?

Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young’uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren’t in a position to buy a house and wouldn’t want to.

This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.” Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.

First, that doesn’t solve the problem because then somebody else has two units in one building.

Second, downsize… from a four bed to a three bed? Not sure what sense that makes. Our needs won’t have changed dramatically.

Another piece that I didn’t mention is that I’m in the military, in a place with 3-year tours (so fairly temporary), and the young single people who arrive usually don’t wany anything too permanent, and are not in a position to buy. But I do know what their allowance for housing it, so I would be able to charge less than their allowance for housing, meaning they would get money out of the deal (and stuff is expensive here, so I’m not sure how they live anyway), and I get a respectful, reliable tenant (and we could offer home-cooked meals to whoever stays).

I know it’s a unique circumstance, and an exception hardly disproves the rule, but I don’t think “there’s no such thing as a good landlord” is a true blanket statement.

there is no such thing as a good landlord.

Okay, I’ll bite. I just bought a 4-bed/3-bath (actually 4 bathrooms, but bathroom math made it “3-bath”) because we are a family of four in an expensive tourist spot and wanted a guest bedroom for family and visitors. It just so happened one bed and a 3/4 bathroom is in an attached 1-bedroom apartment with its own kitchen and living room.

So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately. So the choice is be a landlord, or don’t offer housing (I suppose I could make it an AirBnB and make even more money, but this area is already fucked for housing for that reason).

So if there is no such thing as a good landlord, what would you recommend in a situation like this? Let someone live there for free? Then they’d be costing me money. Don’t rent it out? AirBnB?

Still better than not voting to not go off the cliff.