Yeah that’s some petty bullshit.

Side note but I really appreciate the mod log feature.

Hexbear falls under this umbrella, right?

I just happened to stumble upon the Lord of the Flies film on IFC one night at the perfect age of a kid. Was like, “oh wow cool bunch of kids trying to survive on an island this looks like a cool movie!” … an hour later and I grew up real fast.

Dad (a mountain Appalachian man who did own guns but always hated gun nut culture) always said it was better to use your brain than bullets. I wholly agree with your assessment that if we’re at the point where we need guns, then we’ve already lost.

LOL

I didn’t downvote you. I’ll have to delve into this as it seems interesting. Does this have any application to today, though?

Fair point, and to that I admittedly use this as an explanation for why Ukrainians can fight side-by-side with the likes of more right-wing extremist groups in their military (e.g., Azov). It would be little different if the United States was attacked and I and some dude from the Proud Boys / Oathkeepers / The Base / 3%ers was with me and we were fighting to protect our family.

In that respect, sure. I just couldn’t pursue it during domestic peacetime as a career given that and the volatility I mentioned.

You know, there’s an aspect to the bond, the camaraderie, the discipline, the fitness that I really appreciate about soldiering. Growing up with films like Band of Brothers practically on repeat, having read pretty close to every book that came out from those guys — well, I have admiration. But at the same time as I grew up and became more leftist I of course had many issues with the volatility of our leadership.

If I could’ve joined Norway, Canada, or German armed forces under the NATO banner, I may very well have done that. After seeing everything transpiring in Ukraine, I often wonder if I’d have the courage to do what those brave people are doing every day. In the right context, under purely defensive conditions, I’d like to think I would’ve thrived, but who knows…

But second to volatile leadership is quite honestly the type of people the military tends to attract. The desperate, the jar-head conservative types. If life is on the line, I’d rather not be in a foxhole with them if I’m honest.

But there’s a lot of talk that finally the culture may be shifting within the US Military — to attract smarter, better educated people. I know a lot of conservatives are retiring early and not joining up because they feel the “culture is changing,” which is a good sign to me.

He’s not wrong. Been saying this since week 1 of this new stage of the conflict. Others have been saying this for decades.

Wake me up when you have something substantive to say. Otherwise you’ve got nothing.

You know what’s so sad about something like this?

The conservative seeing this will opt to blame the individual. This conservative will most frequently espouse themselves to be a Christian nonetheless. “Jesus-like” in aspirations and idolatry.

And yet, they’ll have the knee-jerk reaction to this image that is saying, “Well they put themselves in that position.”

“It wasn’t the happenstance of birth locations,.”

“It wasn’t the culmination of external forces and externalities building to this moment.”

“It wasn’t the fact that their life was harder than my own.”

“Or perhaps my life was hard and I’m using the survivor-bias fallacy to justify kicking the ladder out from under me.”

The conservative believes there are lesser people who deserve what they get coming. It’s seemingly incomprehensible to them that we humans are quite literally of the same species, and that you must come to the conclusion one of two possibilities: Either (1) We are all a blank slate from the start and thus products of our environment. Nurture comprising the vast majority of what influences us. Which means those left out on the streets; those who take drugs in an ideal state of mind don’t want to be there, but are already too far broken from past experiences to reconcile their immediate choices (and need saved; protected; rehabilitated by the same outside forces that put them there in the fist place). Or (2) It is genetic, which means there is a predisposition incompatible with the inherently-flawed system we’ve built for ourselves. They’re a circle in a square system, and it’s thus just the same not their choice. And so again, the system should adapt and accommodate them just the same to promote a healthier society overall.

THAT would be more Jesus-like. Not the lazy cop-out that casts them off as degenerates. Such people lack empathy and cannot comprehend the bigger picture.

Nothing antisemitic about that. Wouldn’t matter what race, religion, ethnicity the apartheid occupiers were.

Well if that isn’t the most outlandish illogical leap I’ve seen in a while…

So childish…

At this point Don’t Look Up is a documentary. I honestly cannot imagine what it’s like to he a climate scientist who actively studies this, only to have some fox news watching crazy uncle parroting cherry-picked data, thinking they somehow know better than global scientific consensus. I imagine some at this point may be going, “fuck it. Let it burn.” And honestly, I can’t blame them.