I’m not a lawyer either, but I’m pretty sure “I thought they were investigating me” is not a valid defense for obstructing justice.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend anyone do this. It’s not like you are going to exhaust the FBI of resources, and every question you answer, truthfully or otherwise, makes you more vulnerable to prosecution and/or harassment.

If you are going to watch a game, Fifa would rather you pirate their game than someone else’s. It’s still free advertising when you discuss the game with friends or online.

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The levels of disinformation coming out of Russia and China are very different than in the west. In the west, governments tend to try and justify their atrocities, not hide the fact that they ever happened. Even when Western governments do try to deny that something happened, it never seems to work very well. Either journalists get a hold of it, or an opposing faction takes control and releases the information.

Americans who are ignorant of American atrocities have actively chosen ignorance. That’s not true in China or Russia, and it’s definitely not true in North Korea. There is certainly a movement to try and make America that way though.

Read more theory!

I just tell them that the only reason they aren’t raging capitalists is that they haven’t read enough Milton Friedman or Adam Smith. Read more theory! Not that way! (No, I’m not a believer in the Chicago School of economics.)

I love her contention that 107 days wasn’t enough. She was winning the election by a wide margin at 30 days, then pissed it away more and more every day thereafter. The last thing she needed was more days.

There are still a lot of people who think there have to be good guys and bad guys, so the Democratic establishment has to be the good guys. It’s a stubborn delusion, especially when people are so poorly informed by the media.

I guess they finally edited all the Israel stuff out. That, or it will say she was strong armed into backing Biden’s strategy. Fuck her.

They figure the victims will be too depressed to do anything about it.

If Tucker runs for the Republican nomination he’ll get it. He’d also probably beat any candidate the Democratic establishment would pick to run against him. If the Republicans want to lock him up as a terrorist, I’m not sure I would exactly disagree.

Means testing is how you create programs that are doomed to fail from the start. Wealthy and middle class voters always start to resent the poors getting “free stuff” so programs get cut back until they buckle, and then they get eliminated. There is a reason the Republicans have been able to destroy Obamacare, but not Medicare or SS.

Means testing also rarely saves the government money. All the extra bureaucracy for tracking eligibility usually costs more than it saves. It’s better to provide for everyone then make it up with progressive taxation.

Liberalism isn’t on the left right spectrum at all. It has some leftist principles, but it has capitalist principles. Also, the Democratic leadership and at least 3/4 of national Democrats aren’t even liberal. No liberal could stomach the Democratic primary circus, or sign off on mass surveillance or genocide. The Democratic establishment is neoliberal, which is to say that they are anarcho-capitalist with a liberal facade.

None of this describes AOC, but it’s true that AOC has been partially assimilated to establishment politics and is way too interested in having a comfortable relationship with the establishment Democrats.

Yeah, but he knows Democrats will never dare to cut a dime of military spending.

The golden dome is supposed to be a missile “shield” that will protect the entire contiguous US from ballistic missiles. (The name is based on the Israeli iron dome). I promise you that a $1.2 trillion budget is just the start, and it will never work.

Veni, Vidi, Versace

Also, at the societal level, the high lethality of the virus makes it far less likely to be able to spread broadly.

Establishment Democrats said Platner was unelectable, but he just curb stomped their chosen alternative, and every poll says he will do even better in the general - better also than Janet Mills would have by a wide margin. It’s almost like Schumer is full of shit.

It’s not exactly wrong though. The consolidation of suppliers increases the influence and leverage of suppliers. More companies does not necessarily equate to more spending, though in this environment more spending seems inevitable in either case.

I’m sorry, but you prove you have no idea about anarchism.

I’m quite familiar actually. This is exactly what a Marxist, or a libertarian, or a capitalist, or a young earth creationist does when they can’t make arguments and just want to rely on some great collection of work that they promise has all the answers. It’s quite an annoying way to try and make a point.

But anarchists don’t deny that fact. Quite the opposite: they aim for social structures where people with these talents can’t accumulate structural hierarchies and monopolize decision making power.

But people naturally fall into those patterns, unless some higher authority prevents it. See again, HOAs.

People are drawn to fascism, because they have a nationalistic worldview, where their nation is constructed for their benefit and their natiod is superior to other nations.

Nationalism (or other identitarianism) is what differentiates fascism from other authoritarianisms, but authoritarianism is at the root. Psychologically, people prone to fascism are people who fear chaos and want to believe that there is a “strong man” in charge and a well defined enemy to fight.

What exactly do you mean by these words? … liberalism guarantees the power of the powerful by guaranteeing private property and the continued accumulation of wealth.

Liberalism does protect private property rights, but also individual rights, liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. All the aspects you skipped are checks on authority. Liberalism also doesn’t “guarantee” private property. Property rights are not absolute in liberal democracy and can be curtailed when necessary to uphold broader individual freedoms or to promote equality and social welfare. I think you are confusing liberalism with neoliberalism, which I would informally define as free market Darwinism with a thin veneer of liberal formalities.

Please define what you mean with “authoritarianism”, because we definitely don’t agree on terms here.

I was playing a bit loose with the term to make a point. The reality is that most people don’t want anarchy, which implies that moving to anarchy would have to be forced on them, at least until they got used to it.

But aren’t [HOAs] more or less only liked by people who want to maintain/improve their property value and universally hated? Or at least universally hated if they’re not democratically managed?

Lets just say they are a great argument for anarchy. Democratically managed or not, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Every resident seems to find themselves in the minority on some issue, which turns into power trips and often lawsuits. Yet, HOAs are popping up everywhere for some reason.

Liberalism doesn’t have a problem with people starving because they don’t have any bread.

And anarchism does? Sure, it sounds great that people would just rely on each-other for locally sourced food, but liberalism does nothing to prevent that from happening either. None of the anarchist arguments I have ever seen answer this without just blaming it on the current global system. I’m also pretty certain that the human population has grown well beyond the point where we can farm enough food for everyone without industrial efficiencies, and regulation of externalities like runoff and water use. Watch what’s about to happen to farm capacity globally because a few mines in a strait on the other side of the planet.

You can always chose to subjugate yourself. But if you want to enact nonconsensual subjugation on others, they have the right to self-defence.

The word “subjugate” is way over the top. Anarchist or not, every community is going to have some rules that everyone must adhere to. We are all subject to each-other in all sorts of ways, and it’s rarely a cut and dry case of “your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” Humans aren’t built to live in isolation, and communities don’t operate without rules. You are going to accuse me of not understanding that anarchists have ideas to address this, but the problem is that I do understand that. I also understand that your “subjugation” framing works just as well for them.