It is such a weird thing that americans call this topic "political". It is only political in the same way as care packets are. I mean, if some person here posts "hey I was starving, thank you all for supporting disaster relief help to my country", is that political too? Because some people oppose any form of helping other nations? No it is not. It is only made political by the bitter, greedy folks who take offense in the most basic humane virtues, like compassion, love and fairness. If not for those haters everybody would just happily go about their lifes.
I think branding it as political is part of psyop to make people forget that this is about people's basic human rights. Not about some tax bullshit. In the same way they try to brand empathy and compassion a literal "sin".
Dede, I don't know you enough to be able to say if you are bullshitting here. After all I learned from this thread you sort of try to run a cult. So the selflessness act seems fake. But oh well.
Let me explain a thing that isn't that obvious:
For real friendship you NEED to keep things symmetrically. Irl and everywhere. "Just giving" is not how it works. This will drive people away who want symmetrical friendships in the same way as "just taking" would. Because it is an unhealthy relationship dynamic where one person emotionally extorts the other by creating a debt and overwhelms the other with it. Taking away their freedom to influence the pacing of the relationship. They might not want to self-sacrifice in the same way or not be able to allocate so many resources to you, and feel perpetually bad and guilty for that. Which will incentivize them to end the friendship cause they don't want to feel this way. This self sacrificing behavior will only attract freeloaders who don't care about recriprocal relationships.
Yes in movies and books and whatever this is the "selfless" behaviour that is shown to lead to strong friendships and the person being universally loved. But it doesn't work that way. You need to give people space to reciprocate in a fair, balanced friendship.
I have enough close friends and those friendships last since decades in many cases. I don't need to remind my friends to give back or whatever. My duty as a friend is to watch myself and my own behavior. That means I make sure I reciprocate but also keep an eye on the right measure in order to not create an imbalance that would make them feel bad or me feel resentful.
So just drop the "look at me martyring myself" stuff. As an act it will not work on most people the way you hope, because most people are aware how healthy relationship dynamics look. If you really think this is how friendship works, drop it so you can form healthy relationships instead.
No prayers, not a believer, but thoughts go to his kids and family.
Edit: To stop people from assuming: I do not share any of kirk's beliefs. But this is not about politics. This is about violence not being acceptable and about remembering the people who hurt from this horrible deed beyond words.
I still refuse to deign that pearl clutching hysteria with the term "political". Just because politicians pander to nosy people who can't mind their own business and are obsessed with other people's sex life and private parts (under the guise of religion) doesn't mean it is political. A disgrace is what it is.
I remember when Ukraine was attacked and people literally hiding from bombs and murdering, graping and plundering russian soldiers IN THAT MOMENT were told to stfu about "politics" in other games. Cause it would "ruin the mood". People nowadays just use the term "politics" to silence others who fight for their literal survival. And I'm not having that.
Context matters. If people from a culturally christian background mock christianity in a lighthearted way, that is one thing. Mocking a religion or culture you have no ties to is different. You'll also struggle to make "in- jokes" that are appropriately chummy.
But I guess if you manage to avoid those issues, making fun of whatever is ok.
I am not a muslim but my muslim friends enjoyed my "Ramadone" pun. Cause it was not hateful and in good spirit.
You ARE aware that this is actually worse? Btw wearing boots and licking them is not mutually exclusive. They crave power, but to legitimize their own power demands they have to unconditionally support their their authoritarian leaders. That is how authoritarianism works. It's a power ponzi scheme. It's all about kicking down.
Only that I never did that. And you completely fabricated it. Again. Because you are a liar.
I sometimes say "this is better here" but that does not mean it is perfect here. Also I do not claim my country would be superior to other european nations (they all are better than the USA. Even UK is.) AND most importantly, unlike you, I do not claim my country should be allowed to invade others.
Btw how do you imbecile claim i'd be a nationalist while at the same time you claim I'd basically be a race traitor because I don't oppose immigration?
Nationalism is a difficult word. Some may argue that e.g. Canada has a strong nationalism, because they have a strong national identity.
The difference between "good" nationalism and "bad" nationalism is how you see your country in relation to others. While Canada is very proud of their culture, they do not see all other nations either as either enemies or prey, like the USA does atm. Evil nationalism is when you think your country has the right to take everything and hurt everybody else because it is superior to others. Evil nationalism has a focus on ethnic and cultural purity. Good nationalism embraces everybody who is willing to participate and grow the good in the country. Good nationalism sees other countries as partners and allies.
Btw church bells are annoying af. Loud music is annoying af. Jehovas Witnesses at 6am on sunday are annoying af. I do not think anyone blasts prayers at 5am outside of countries where this is actually normal btw., that's just far-right fear-mongering.
Intricate, YOU are amongst the most despicable people on the planet atm. That is the point.
You and your whole red-hatted "banality of evil" reenactment club.
The world sees you. And we all think this is really, really bad. You claim the whole world is indoctrinated against you. Have I ever told you the german joke about the man who's driving on the Autobahn and when he hears the radio warn about s wrongway driver in his area, he says "one? Hundreds!"
Oh sure they are there too. Sure the bad guys attend too.
But the conspiracy theories here are not about them. I don't see the conspiracy nuts decry the "freedom city" guys or Elon Musk who openly wants a technocracy.
They spread bullshit claims about "you'll own nothing and be happy". The bad guys don't want us to "own nothing". They want us to consume as much as possible. The bad guys don't care about legalizing insects as a protein source. The bad guys will strip mine the world for each easy dollar they can get.
I try to keep in touch with friends more these days and I try to find time again to work creatively. Also to reach out to find new friends in similar life situations. Most of my friends don't have kids and while I love them, I do need exchange with people who have kids too.
It is such a big part of life atm and people who have no kids really can't understand it.
I do count as a leftist, right? Where am I more extreme than a guy who literally spread Hitler style antisemite conspiracy theories about a great exchange funded by the jews?
You do know the gif is fake, yes? Guy never said that. Nothing even close. It comes from an opinion piece about a future society that uses share culture, from a danish politician.
If you have to make shit up to have a point, you have no point.
We have insects in our food since ages. Red dye was made from lice. Shellac used in food since ages is bug secretion.
Allowing people to sell insect based food in the EU (2 billion people in other places have them as their primary protein source traditionally) if course with labels is not an issue nor very outlandish. Definitely less disgusting than how gelantine is made.
Give them some more time to spin it. They'll say the baby came barrelling right at them and that this was a perfect storm that the baby itself created. Oh and the agents in question had a very traumatic experience where they were dragged 600 feet (wait, 500. No, 200. Uhm, 5?) by a baby just a few months before. So they were traumatized and cannot be hold responsible for their incompetence.
No thank you, we prefer to not conform to an incel loser who thinks a woman being more educated and successful than him means she's in need of "fixing". Or that her personal choices about her appearance have any meaning beyond her personal taste.
Funny how you "natural women" guys run with the maga crowd where all women have to look like the bride of chucky after multiple plastic surgeries.
Stephen is gay so that's not it. He posted shit about his disdain for women in general before though. He just hates women and thinks their only use is when they are ****d and murdered by brown people so he can post about it.
It does when it is the type that is about purity, ethnicity, religion, race and the superiority/dominance of one's own nation that would justify (violently) taking over other nations/territories to further own interests, viewing others as inferior/enemies.
And this is the kind of nationalism we talk about here. This one always ends in blood.
As a german I can tell you that you are being too naive in that regard. We've been there and done that. And it really is evil and extremely dangerous. I would hope you refrain from calling our past endeavours "foolish and misguided". They were anything but harmless. So please don't try to paint nationalism as such.
Uk had to have a campaign to rally people to pick fruits and vegetables. How can you say there was no shortage of workers?
Your farmer buddies would call bullshit on you if they could read your drivel here.
Many dairy farms in Britain are also involved in some form of crop production, although they are primarily classified as grassland-based pastoral farms. The integration of crop farming is usually to support the dairy herd rather than for cash-crop sales.
They might have crops but not so many so that they'd require large work-forces of seasonal workers, moron.
Yes, the UK experienced a severe shortage of seasonal workers following Brexit. This was primarily caused by the end of freedom of movement, which had previously allowed EU nationals to work freely in British agriculture. In the first half of 2022 alone, an estimated £60 million worth of food was wasted on farms because there were not enough pickers to harvest it.
But yes. You know better because you drove a milk truck. Complete moron.