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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • oxjox@lemmy.mltoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDo you like America? Why or why not?
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    2 days ago

    The country was founded in large part as a nation for those escaping oppression and persecution for their beliefs. It was designed to provide everyone certain freedoms the founders claimed to be inalienable.

    While this is still an immensely powerful idea, it can not function without guidelines and government involvement.

    Two hundred fifty years ago, it made sense for sparsely populated states to operate mostly independent of the federal government. In time, land became more dense and borders dividing populations and cultures and commerce blurred. Now, the entire world is instantly connected.

    Somehow, generation after generation, it was not self-evident that all people should be treated equally. The police force and prison system still largely resemble what they were initially intended to do - serve the wealthy and enslave people for profit.

    The United States affords everyone the same freedoms and opportunities by way of doing nothing at all. Everyone has the opportunity to work hard and make a fair living for themselves. But some people win the genetic lottery and inherit extra opportunities and extra freedoms.

    We all have the freedom to be complete idiots and that’s considered a win.

    Our constitution needs to be re-written. In my opinion, it needs to be explicit about what all the citizens of the United States should be afforded: education, health care, clean air and water, shelter, the right to not be lied to by the people who draft and pass legislation impacting our lives, the right to a source of information that’s not subject to special interests.

    No. I can’t say I like it. I don’t like how our government is intent on making our lives worse by their inaction. They take more and more of our money while we get less and less in benefits.

    We have no leadership. We have influencers and celebrities. Some people complain about globalism because they know we can’t compete on a global scale. People are prejudice of foreigners who take their jobs because they’re complacent with doing as little as possible. Our most successful form of entertainment is ragebait. Who’s helping us progress as a country? Who’s helping to make us smarter and healthier and happier? Who exactly is promoting general welfare and domestic tranquility?

    It’s the land of the me and home of maybe. And our constitution supports your freedom to be this way. Some people love that and claim the freedom to do nothing is what makes America great.

    A great America, to me, is one built for everyone to prosper, that promotes self-worth and civil respect, that strictly enforces the idea that my freedoms can not be infringed upon by you freedoms or beliefs. A great America is one that doesn’t have elections where you have to vote for the person you dislike the least. Politics should be positively engaging. We should give a damn about our leaders and they should have to deal with consequences of their actions, like anyone else.

    Though it’s not perfect, the one thing I really love about America is our immigration policy. It’s the best place on the planet for people to escape for a better life. Our country is built by and thrives because of immigrants. It’s the one thing that has held true for hundreds of years. How we treat immigrants is a sin. How our government fails to properly fund our immigration system is appalling. I believe most people are in support of legal immigration yet they fail to support proper funding of our immigration department. It wreaks of racism and bigotry.

    America is, by design, the land of the self-righteous. The only people in favor of that are the self-righteous.





  • Because we know how well things have turned out when courts, such as the Supreme Court, rules on things it believes are “ambiguous”.

    Supreme Court Jan. 6 ruling https://archive.is/3YrYN

    The obstruction of an official proceeding statute makes it a felony crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison to “obstruct, influence or impede any official proceeding.”

    But the law, first passed in the wake of the 2001 Enron scandal, is vague about what constitutes an official proceeding and what conduct would constitute an illegal effort to obstruct one.

    the law, as originally conceived in 2002, was intended to criminalize the type of evidence destruction and witness tampering that stymied Congressional investigators during the Enron collapse. It was not meant, they argue, to apply to any form disruptive conduct that interferes with any act of Congress.

    But federal prosecutors and lower courts have ruled that the statute’s language is vague enough to encompass the type of disruption that brought the Congressional certification of the 2020 electoral vote to a halt during the Jan. 6 riot.

    the court concluded the obstruction charge was only intended to apply in limited circumstances involving tampering with physical evidence. It doesn’t apply to the type of behavior that disrupted Congress’ certification of the 2020 vote, the majority ruled.



  • I fully agree with you but can also point to all of Biden’s accomplishments and say, well, he’s done very well, surprisingly well, thus far. I would much rather say, it’s exciting to have fresh young blood in the White House that best represents the vast diversity of this country and the hope for its future. Being able to easily defend Biden’s presidency isn’t enough, if I’m being honest. But also, I mean do we really have to go over everything that DT fucked?

    Worst election ever.

    The problem is we’re not given an opportunity to vote for who we want to be president. We vote against who we don’t want.

    RANKED. CHOICE. VOTING.


  • And yet a senile knocking on death’s door old man is still the objectively better option than Donald Trump. I just can’t understand how people have forgotten who this guy is and what he did to screw every American for his own ego and interests.

    This debate (which I didn’t watch) was a spectacle. We all know both of these farts are not fair presidential candidates for Americans. It’s disgusting and gut wrenching.

    If you’re undecided, all you need to do is bypass your social media feed and biased news sources and search for Trump presidential accomplishments | Biden presidential accomplishment. You can also check Politifact to observe their lies (here’s the result from the debate) and presidential promises kept and broken - Trump | Biden.

    The problem is the vast majority of people don’t care or aren’t aware of actual policy and legislation that happens in DC. They go by a vibe. And they go by who’s the best orator (see: Obama). And, yeah, Biden did not pass the vibe check last night. But he’s still that guy you work with whom you hate to be around because he’s awkward and smells bad but he’s not firable because he’s a decent keeps-to-himself dude and gets shit done better than most and your company is better with him than without him.






  • Absolutely. Apple, Amazon, Google, Vudu, Movies Anywhere (off the top of my head).

    What I recently learned is that some physical discs will come with download codes that can be used, once, on any of these services. I was gifted the Alien box set which was nice but I don’t have a Blu-ray player. The code allowed me to add the films to my iTunes account.

    Now, how long I can watch those movies until a license runs out is another question. I’ve yet to find a way to download a movie to disc for backup. Because, technically, you don’t buy a movie, you buy the license to watch it. This is even the case for physical discs.



  • My initial reason for not having kids was financial. I think a lot of people have learned it may be better to have children later in life when you can properly care for them. I know many people who’ve had their first child in their late-30s and early-40s. My aunt had her first child in her fifties. That’s not something that was common before modern medicine.

    I have always had the idea that I would have a kid if and when I met the right person to share parenting with. That hasn’t happened so I’ve had to put some thought into my priorities. It’s not fair to have a child just because it’s what society says you should do or just because you want someone to take care of you when you’re old. It’s so much more than that and I think people should be more mindful of the responsibilities and long term repercussions.


  • I offered two reasons I personally may regret not having children. I could list several others such as the pure joy of watching them grow into adults and mimic you and your partner. If you want to say that’s selfish, to bring another human into the word to experience a universe of emotion you’d otherwise never experience, I understand that perspective. No argument.

    But then I offered that choosing to prioritize your own life is in and of itself a selfish act. It’s more explicitly about you than it is about another person.

    Would you disagree that going out to eat by yourself is more of a selfish act than inviting a friend to eat out with you? Sharing an experience is less selfish, no?



  • I’m not sure you’re going to get an objective answer to this as no one has lived a life of either having kids or not having kids, hungrythirstyhorny.

    I will say that, as a single male in his mid forties who has observed a good amount of life; first, the thought of not having people to rely on in you’re old age is a little worrisome; and two, not having had someone to pass my knowledge and skills down to is a little sad. However, I really enjoy the freedom and opportunities my life (and bank account) affords me.

    There is always a cost to freedom. Or, as Jonis Joplin put it - freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. Choosing to not have children is a selfish act. Whether “selfish” is a bad thing or not is subjective.

    I would offer that anyone who’s going through life without children, find some altruistic outlet to participate in. You can otherwise find yourself wondering what your legacy may be or what the point of your life has been - aka a mid-life crisis.


  • What people often leave out of this is that it only applied to broadcast publicly available television. It did not pertain to subscription cable tv which is why it was deemed unfair to local stations leading to its demise.

    Considering this and other “public” versus “paid” examples in commerce and welfare, it says a lot about our culture. We care more about our freedom to spend money than we care about the general welfare of the population. We Americans want the freedom to be “bad” people (for lack of a better term) while rejecting a government that would promote our wellness and prosperity.

    This is because our federal guidelines (aka The Constitution) merely outline the root level philosophies and leaves the majority of government responsibilities to the states. And in a time when borders are nearly meaningless in an always instantly connected world, beginning with nationally distributed cable television channels, a lot of people are ignorant to their own state’s legislation and power of their local representatives and own voices.

    This country has changed a lot in 250 years. The old rules and guidelines are failing us. The death of the Fairness Doctrine wasn’t unfair, so to speak, but there’s a desperate need for new legislation that does the same on a national level. That’s never going to happen because the federal government can’t limit the “free speech” of entities people have to pay for to gain access to.

    I would guess that anything that requires an account to gain access to it, even just an email log in or ISP / cellular subscription, skirts around the same rules that apply to free over the air television. To reiterate, we want the freedom to pay to be lied to. And our Constitution grants us that right.