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How did you know at the time?

This is not a gotcha question. My experience as a USAmerican civilian was that most people believed that Iraq had them and no civilians had good justification one way or another.

I missed most of the Iraq war due to being a baby, but every time I read about it I start wondering why we aren’t all talking about it all of the time

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The USA invaded Iraq because it had WMDs and had shown a past willingness to use them (against the Kurds). Also, because the locals want/will want freedom and democracy and it would be racist to suggest otherwise, so the local population will side with the US in the war and see Bush as a hero the same way people in Eastern Europe saw Reagan as a hero.

These reasons were 80-90% incorrect, but my best guess is the leadership actually believed it.

I missed most of the Iraq war due to being a baby, but every time I read about it I start wondering why we aren’t all talking about it all of the time

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I know this highjacks the thread, but this comes up all the time (by which I mean the 2-3 times a month I see child mortality cited) and frustrates me a lot.

Official child mortality in the USA is less than 1%, but the abortion ratio, abortions/(abortions+live births), is over 20%. The official definition for child mortality should be getting some pushback, but I never see it. Are we better than 1800 here? Yes (by straight statistics, so ignoring intent in the comparison). Are we better than 1900? Maybe, possibly not.

To un-highjack a little, I've never seen the "wolf-ideology" you refer to, miti, (is it something BAP-adjacent?), but I find it notable that we have a current, mainstream ideology that is moving us towards the same place, but comes from a very different type of thinking.

I mean, maybe the Democrats have a 2026, followed by a 2028, that make the '06/'08 and '74/'76 one-two punches look like child's play. Maybe they slip on their own drool and fall down the stairs, metaphorically speaking, as is their wont. Maybe the prolapsed-anus-in-chief and breeding-fetish-Wormtongue really do successfully ban opposition parties and suspend elections by then. None of those results would change the fact that America isn't a country anymore, it's two countries who share the same land and who fucking hate and want to destroy each other even at the expense of themselves. Every day it doesn't rise to the Serb-Bosnian or Hutu-Tutsi kind of hatred is a minor miracle at this point.

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How is a trade deficit not something that costs "us" money? I mean, a trade deficit does mean that Americans, on balance, pay money.

Don't get me wrong. I have a trade deficit as an individual with multiple stores and restaurants. That's okay. There's plenty of things that cost money, but are worth it.

Also, I'd rather decide what's worth it for myself than have it decided for a collective "us" that don't let me use a collective bank account (not that I'd let them use my money either).

But that doesn't seem like your objection.

we are going to have to start considering the possibility that trump is driven, at least partially, by a belief that a trade deficit is a type of budget deficit, because they both have the word 'deficit' in them

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So what about repealing the Pendleton Act instead?

"Donald Trump is a disaster" and "the US state apparatus has been unreformable since the Pendleton Act of 1883" are two statements that can both be true at the same time.

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This

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AU where technology exists to control the weather, but it's so expensive that only governments can afford it. It's only somewhat reliable - weather-controlling is an expertise, but not an exact science. So there's an order of magnitude or two fewer weather disasters, but when they happen, there's now someone to blame.

Also, there's lots of fights over what the weather should be and conspiracy theories about which events the weather experts are doing on purpose.

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@samueldays Side point, but: most protests don't fit your 2 categories. I think most protests are for the leverage miti talks about and are organized (or encouraged to grow if they organize spontaneously) by those with some power to put pressure on others with power.

In an objective sense the situation in the UK seems to be that the people are taxed to import inbred welfare consumers who's contribution to society is raping British children and when the people even just complain about it they are jailed.

My question is how long the government thinks this situation is tenable. If they take political remedies like elections off the table, do they seriously think they are gonna make it? The smart thing for them to do would be to bow out and try and find somewhere they could live in exile while they still can.

I'm surprised that there isn't already mass violence.

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It seems like my very amateur eyes that the best hope of removing the Thing is to have the judgment calls made by political appointees, rather than to try the futile project of defining the Thing.

And that Trump is working on it from that angle.

Just saying. I don't think this is particularly insightful to come up with, but it is so far outside of bureaucratic norms that I think some are missing it.

That Which Does Not Want To Be Named

There is a Thing of many names and none, which used to be called D&I, standing for "Diversity and Inclusion", later DEI with the addition of "Equity", later DEIA with the addition of "Accessibility", sometimes also "Office of Multicultural Affairs", and more names too, including sometimes "affirmative action", and called "tokenism" and "quota hiring" by its enemies too.

Trump has ordered an end to the Thing. One of the reactions by Thingists has been to generate more new names to hide behind, and then say they're not doing the literal name Trump tried to ban. This reaction was probably anticipated, as Trump's executive order included the following instruction:

and an assessment of whether these positions, committees, programs, services, activities, budgets, and expenditures have been misleadingly relabeled in an attempt to preserve their pre-November 4, 2024 function;

Another reaction by Thingists has been malicious compliance by equivocating between the Thing's name of quote "Diversity, equity and inclusion" unquote, and any activity which could be described as diverse, equitable or inclusive. Then they pretend that Trump's order bans the second and is overbroad or illegal.

Paul Krugman says:

About the broad attack on the civil service: The Trump administration has ordered an immediate end to all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the federal government. That’s pretty shocking, especially because it’s open-ended. What counts as D.E.I.? Is it forbidden even to mention anything involving race, gender or socioeconomic status? Probably. Public health agencies, even more than the rest of the government, are in the firing line. You can’t talk seriously about health policy without taking race and gender into account; yet according to the New York Times, one contractor collecting demographic data for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already been told to stop work, and the results of an already completed survey won’t be released.

What counts? I wish the Thingists had been honest about that, instead of playing name-games. But they dragged everyone into their stupid games and now everyone wins stupid prizes. Trump is working to remove the Thing, which has superglued itself to institutions to make it hard to remove, and when it's pulled off then those institutions are going to get some metaphorical torn skin as acceptable collateral damage. Public health agencies are in the firing line because Thingists used public health agencies as a hostage, deliberately conflating public health in general (goes back millennia) with That Which Does Not Want To Be Named (summoned sometime last century).

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Several years ago, my car was hit while parked. There were no witnesses who could identify who had hit the car. I didn't know the details of my policy well enough to know whether insurance would pay to fix the car, although I was 80% sure that it wasn't covered.

When I called the insurance company, the person who answered my call didn't know either, or at least it wasn't part of his/her job to know, and the only process to determine what my policy covered was what I believe qualified as "filing a claim" (answering a bunch of questions on the phone and having someone who doesn't interact with customers decide whether insurance should pay). It wasn't covered.

When I hear about a 30% denial rate, I am convinced something similar is going on, where the only way the company officially responds in any way is if you file a claim.

I don't think this is what most people think of when they hear about claims being denied.

at a very abstract level I am mad that Americans have piss poor comprehension of what "insurance" means, which appears to have contributed to a murder, and to a lot of bloodthirsty ignorant cheering for a murder.

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Perhaps if you had an actual mass-murder button, you would read the directions more carefully

Imagine, if you will, a distant planet. A trillion light-years away, populated by some sapient alien species numbering in the billions, with lives that hold meaning to them. A place so far away that if we wanted to travel there, we would not reach before their own sun swallows them.

Now, imagine that by some physically impossible means you are granted power of life and death over this planet. A genie wish or a magic button offering some small benefit to you, doesn't really matter what, that would have as a cost killing every last person on that planet. You know this cost, but you will never experience any consequence for it save for your conscience; it cannot possibly have any material effect on you whether those people live or die. So the question:

No nuance or see results options on this one. If you don't want to vote, check back when the poll ends. If you find my options insufficient or inadequate, feel free to tell me why in a reblog.

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Am I getting a good grade in tumblr mutual?

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Similarly, Republicans should have moderated by moving left on issues where my views are to the left of their current platform, but now that they got elected to office anyway, they should burn some of that political capital moving right on issues where my views are to the right of their current platform.

Democrats should moderate by moving right on issues where my views are to the right of their current platform, and then once they are in office they should burn some of that political capital moving left on issues where my views are to the left of their current platform.

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Mine is a book

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It's awkward. It's inefficient. It's slightly unoptimized. It's weird.

It's Tumblr.

There's something charming about it all.