C and P from a couple of sources..

Why did Democrats say that the US can't afford a $12B wall to defend our own border before giving $300B to Ukraine to defend the Ukraine-Russia border?
We don’t say we can’t afford it, we say it’s a waste of money. There’s a difference. The wall doesn’t do what the Republicans think it does.

This is a classic example of being trapped in a narrative. We tell stories to understand the world, then we mistake those stories for the world. Republicans hear “i*****l i*******t” and a story pops into their head of a Mexican creeping across the border in the dead of night. That happens every now and then, but it isn’t common. Most i*****l i*******ts drive through a checkpoint or fly in to the US, get their passports stamped, then never leave when their visa expires.

Walls won’t stop that.

But Republican’s can’t tell the difference between the story in their head—the Mexican sneaking across the border—and the reality of what happens. So they are literally, not metaphorically but literally, incapable of understanding the argument that walls don’t work. They cannot cognitively process it. They cannot jump outside the story in their head long enough to grasp it.

Ukraine is another example. Republicans talk about “the US spending money to support Ukraine,” and they imagine, I don’t know, a C-130 loaded with pallets of $100 bills.

That’s not what’s happening.

We’re sending them old military equipment that was, in most cases, slated to be destroyed and replaced anyway. The “dollar value” is the cost of replacing it…which we were going to do anyway.

But again, those words mean nothing. They’re just gibberish, because in order to understand the argument, you have to let go of the story in oyur head about pallets of cash, and Republicans can’t do that.

I’m not just busting on Republicans. We all, to some extent, see the world through narratives. But in those particular examples, the Republican narrative is firmly entrenched and Republicans seem cognitively incapable of seeing the world any other way.

Occasionally, when the subject of Democracy comes up on OPP and its l*****t proponents use it as a political cudgel against their opponents, someone chimes in with the standard “we’re a republic, not a democracy!” talking point, as if out of moral obligation to remind everyone, at any opportunity, of this very crucial and overridingly important distinction.

Granted, it is technically true.

Here’s a decent primer, via Merriam-Webster (emphasis added):

It’s true that there is nuance and difference between these words, according to their historical use and etymology: democracy comes from the Greek roots meaning “rule by the people,” and the most basic understanding of the word’s original meaning refers to the direct democracy of ancient Greece.

Republic comes from the Latin roots meaning “public good” or “public affair,” used in ancient Rome to mean simply “state” or “country” with reference to the representative democracy of the Roman Republic. The elected representatives in Congress are a contemporary example of this kind of government.

Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system, democracy is frequently used when the emphasis is on the system itself. We could say that democracy is to republic as monarchy is to kingdom…

These terms are not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, a document that nevertheless expresses clearly that governments should be established “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This reads like a definition of both democracy and republic. In Article IV Section V of the Constitution, the term republican is used as an adjective: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.

American republicanism is a form of a democratic system in which the population (in theory; whether this is true in practice is very much up for dispute) exercises popular control over government via the representative system set up in the Constitution.

It’s sort of analogous to the “h**e speech” vs “free speech” debate; not all free speech is h**e speech, but all h**e speech (to the extent that term means anything) is free speech.

The problem with the “not a democracy, a republic” talking point is that it’s total midwit, pseudointellectual peacocking to try to score debate points without actually explaining anything of substance. One, upon reading or hearing the comment, is meant to marvel at the enlightened, brave and stunning commenter’s nuanced understanding of the intricacies of American governance.

In almost all contexts, the distinction between a representative democracy in the mold of the American republic and a pure democracy is totally irrelevant to wh**ever point is trying to be made.

At any rate, not that this will discourage anyone from doing it, whenever someone trots out the old war horse “muh republic” talking point, it doesn’t impress me. On the contrary, it exposes their pettiness.

But people are free to do wh**ever they like, of course, because I believe that your replies and free speech, no matter how silly and irrelevant they are.

Sick Pedo Abused Almost 200 Kids, Meets Gruesome Fate

This disturbed p*******e was convicted of sexually abusing at least 191 children and kept a “Pedopoints” scorecard of his young victims. Luckily, this criminal met a gruesome fate in prison after inmates learned of his heinous crimes.

The horrific and shocking story of Richard Huckle, the man who was convicted of abusing nearly 200 children and keeping records of his sickening endeavors, has recently come to light. It is reported that 33-year-old Huckle was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate in a gruesome murder.

The details of this case are truly disturbing and have shocked the nation.

Over the course of nine years, UK citizen Huckle posed as an English teacher in poor communities in Malaysia and Cambodia. In reality, he was using his experience as a freelance photographer to gain access to hundreds of children – some as young as six months old – whom he g***med and abused for his own pleasure.



He even awarded himself “Pedopoints” based on the ferocity of his sexual assaults with some victims being infants. Disturbingly, he had recorded himself raping children amassing around 20,000 images which he sold and distributed online via a dark web website.

Thankfully, Australian police were able to track down their suspect before any more innocent lives were taken or ruined by this monster.

Hull Live reports that Huckle’s k**ler has been identified as 29-year-old Paul Fitzgerald from Northern Ireland who was also serving time at HMP Full Sutton prison for sex attacks on a female dog-walker, a 15-year-old girl, and an elderly woman. Even more alarming is that Fitzgerald kept a journal where bragged about loving to rape women claiming “even if I was going to reoffend they couldn’t stop me.”

It appears that it took another criminal just as depraved as him put an end to this sadistic p*******e’s reign once and for all.

https://thegoptimes.com/sick-pedo-abused-almost-200-kids-meets-gruesome-fate/

I am all into history and it's ramifications, but you cannot hold the current generation of Japanese responsible for what a previous generation did. If we stuck to that rationale Americans would still be fighting the British because of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. In some parts of the World they k**l one another because their ancestors were at war centuries ago.

Since WWII, Japan and the US have been allies. In WWII the US and Nationalist China were close allies. Now the US and C*******t China are bitter rivals. I also do not buy into this stuff about China with it's 3-5000 years of culture, wisdom, and history that somehow allows them to play the " long game " against the short sighted US and it's western friends.

For all practical purposes Chinese history began in 1949 when the C*******ts won their civil war. All Chinese history previous to that is irrelevant. Mao destroyed Chinese history and culture. He destroyed temples, art work, historical documents, and punished the scholars who kept thousands of years of Chinese culture alive. What survives of that culture, tradition, and art only survives in Taiwan where the Nationalists saved what they could when they fled China. Some other Chinese art and literature is also preserved in h**ed Japan, because Japan's earliest literary influences came from China. If not for what Taiwan and Japan have preserved, much of Chinese literature would be lost forever.

That is another reason for China to conquer Taiwan. The C*******ts after destroying ancient Chinese culture have lately decided it is valuable. The artifacts they could l**t from Taiwan have value. Having rediscovered Chinese history the C*******t Part selectively use it for propaganda. Stirring up Chinese nationalism is all about playing China as victim. They love to talk about the century of humiliation and show poorly made movies of WW II Japanese aggression against China.

Whenever the C*******t Party needs to deflect public anger away the poor results of their policies, they suddenly become great historians.

For good and bad Americans have historic amnesia. Our worst enemies in a short time become our best friends. We don't hold grudges. America is financially and militarily weakening. We need our allies like Japan to come to our aid. We are fortunate that both Japan and South Korea are somewhat wealthy friends. They both fear Chinese aggression.

China is also financially and militarily going downhill. Their big problem is that their ' friends ' like Russia and North Korea are economic basket cases.

"To be an anti-semite all you have to do is to make a criticism, no matter how small or how legitimate, of any Israeli policy. If your moral conscience is assaulted by, for example, Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in the open air concentration camp in which Israel keeps them pinned up, and you express your legitimate feelings against such inhumanity, you are an anti-semite. By definition, anyone with a moral conscience is an anti-semite.

This is something of which to be proud, so why does it ruin you?

Why did the US Congress censor the one member who spoke against, instead of in favor of, the massacre?

Why have the governments of France, Germany, and the UK banned as anti-semitic demonstrations against Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians and theft of their country?

Why did US law firms and corporations collect the names of university students who protested against the slaughter and blacklist them from employment simply because they have a moral conscience?

Now ask yourself, how did Z*****ts achieve such power over the entirely of the Western world as to place Israel and Jews off limits for criticism no matter their behavior?"

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/11/paul-craig-roberts/the-moral-conscience-of-the-western-world-has-been-silenced/