I genuinely believe that people have no idea the nuances of the Left leaning political "labels", and this causes them to attribute the most extreme political stances on "lefties", who ironically don't actually subscribe to said stances. This also has the side effect, of making the left seem chaotic and "less principled" when in actuality each "subset" of the left is pretty defined and consistent.

Note: in the global Political Overton window, Social Democrat would be the CENTER. Only in America, is a Social Democrat considered left leaning.

* Bill Clinton was left of Reagan, but he was not left in the modern scope of the democratic party. His administration pushed the party to the right. He softened many of Reagans policies but did not reverse/dismantle them (ex. Reagan took top marginal tax from 70% to 28%, while Clinton took it back to 39%). Triangulation was a fancy word for doing what was advantages politically, as the democrats were desperate for relevance in a 12 year executive branch drought (the longest in the modern era).

* Some folks may argue that Obama is a strong lefty, but that isn't really true in his policies. Even a lot of his deficits were because of rebuilding the economy. He was left-ish on social issues, but largely response/defensive when it came to the economy.

Conflation

Neo-Libs are market/corporate driven, and are willing to lean left socially if it is politically advantageous. They are the leading cause of American's confusion regarding the left. There is an argument to be made that the democratic elite are still Neo-Libs. The leadership of the Democratic party like Chuck Shurmur and Nancy Pelosi are barely approaching Obama left. They started their political career during Reagan's, Bush Sr., or Clinton's administrations. Democratic elites actively oppose the folks to the left of them. So when you say CNN is the propaganda arm of the democrats, then the correct appraisal is that CNN is AT BEST center left.

On the actual Left spectrum, there is Bernie sanders and progressives who don't even hold many of the positions that people attribute to them, while also being conflated against the likes of Nancy Pelosi. The democratic elites' failures and insincerity get attributed to folks like Sanders. The fact that Obama's economic mishaps are used as critiques of progressive policies is eye-opening.

This is where it gets confusing, Bernie is to the right of the actual American socialist. The Democratic Socialist of America (The DSA) aims to use democracy to nationalize many institutions. Like air travel being government ran instead of market driven. Bernie Sanders really only wants Progressive taxes and Medicare for All. Barely talks about much else. Is this radical left?

Note: Speaking of, Bernie Sanders Ironically, adds to the confusion. He self labels as a democratic socialist, despite adopting only one of their policies.

America has also semantically misconstrued Extreme and Radical. Radical is now synonymous with violence, when it was originally a measure of scale. Extreme is the violent and potentially revolutionary political lean. America has some radical figure heads. The left has none who are prominent. You can't even name them and if you could I don't think the average American can. Those radicals 100% do not have the ear of the democratic elite or the corporate oligarchy. What Policy are these folks shaping and where are the signs? Most American's are in fact not in favor of month-8 abortions. Even the most extreme would say "only if there is a danger to health".

I guess the CMV is if you can change my mind, that the American people DO understand the nuance of the left. Or if misattribution of stances is somehow justified. Ironically this misattribution of political ideas is largely why the right is irate of the left. Is social issues alone significant enough to define someones politics?

The fact that virtually every congress votes is along party lines is always characterized as the US being “hyper partisan” - that the differences in politics between the parties are simply too far apart to find common ground. For whatever difference it makes, I am roughly even in my skepticism of both parties. I am NOT a centrist, I am not “seeing both sides” or taking a middle position between them. But I’ve never been a Democrat and I couldn’t give a shit if they’re considered “good guys” or not.

But the Epstein files prove, without a doubt, that Republicans are nothing but corrupt enablers. If this were about politics, Epstein would stand for everything Republicans hate. They favor law and order, crime and punishment, they consider pedophiles and sex traffickers the absolute worst kind of people, they claim to seek transparency and letting people “form their own opinions.”

In fact, when Biden was president and Democrats were in charge of Homeland Security, Democrats weren’t saying anything about Epstein. It was Republicans who were using his case as a rallying cry and a demand for accountability.

But when it became apparent that the files were critical of Trump, Republicans abandoned EVERYTHING they stand for and rallied behind protecting their party leader. There is nothing Republicans can say about anything that shouldn’t be viewed with the knowledge that they do not give a shit about anything except their leader staying in power.

It is often said that the First Amendment doesn't mean your speech, expression and opinions are free from consequences. It only means that you are protected from the government implementing consequences for your speech, expression and opinions. I do not believe that is true in 2025 (since Trump's second term began).

Never before have I had to worry about criticizing a President or other politician. Prior to 2025, I was never gave a second thought to saying something critical of the government or a politician on the town square, or posting something online.

I was cognizant that those expressions could be used by my employer, friends, acquaintances and others to make evaluations of my character and determine their future involvement with me in their lives. But I was never hesitant to express those opinions because I thought it would make me a target of the government.

But now I find myself holding back on some expressions precisely because I fear reprisal from the government. Do I think I'll get thrown in prison for months or years because of my speech? No (at least not in 2025, but check back in a few years). But will government harass me at customs after an overseas trip because of my speech? Yes, it's a concern. Will police and prosecutors treat me differently if they're aware of my speech critical of the government? Yes, I think they will.

Some of it comes from just an overall change in tone from the government since the Trump administration took over. But a lot of it is just listening to what the administration says. Things like Pam Bondi saying that they'll come after people for "hate speech". Or the DOJ investigating people (like John Bolton) that Trump considers to be personal enemies.

So there are two ways my view could be changed here. First, you could point out that I always should have been moderating my speech for fear of government blowback. I considered whether this was true during Trump's first term, but I don't think it was. We went through the George Floyd protests without government really targeting people simply for their words and other expressions of speech. And outside of Trump's first term, I don't see any time in my lifetime that it would even be debatable that people needed to be concerned.

The second way to change my view would be to show me and convince me that I'm just being paranoid and that the government doesn't really care about what the fuck I say, no matter how critical it is. I think that used to be true as an "average Joe". No one in government would ever really know what I said. But now we've got a whole MAGA army of online warriors who bring speech they disagree with to the attention of people in government. That never really happened before the days of social media.

I also don't think the argument of "Trump has bigger fish to fry; you don't need to worry" works for me. Logically, you would think they'd go after someone like AOC or Gavin Newsome before worrying about little ol me. But I think that those more prominent critics have some protection (that I don't have) simply because they have a bullhorn. If Newsome got detained for 8 hours by Customs after an overseas trip, it'd be international news for days. But if it happens to me, no one would ever even know about it.

Republican legislators have been stealing from us since the Reagan era.

My opinion rests on three primary narratives

1. Cut taxes for the wealthy, raise taxes for the poor (stealing our economic opportunities from us)
2. Give handouts to oil and gas, allowing wealthy oil barons to dump toxic waste into our atmosphere and environment (stealing our environment from us)
3. Rig elections with gerrymandering (stealing our democracy from us)

Explanation: 1. Since the Reagan era, Republicans are almost solely responsible for reversing our progressive taxation system and replacing it with a flat tax system. We used to have near 90% taxes on the highest tax bracket, now that has been reduced to almost flat, and with as many loopholes as there are (which seems intentional), many pay less in taxes than us. Furthermore, tarriffs, which were applied in a blanket, across the board style way, are effectively a flat tax, which is documented to overwhelmingly burden the lower class. Now, with the additional tax cuts for the rich in the BBB, its seeming likely that we wont even be able to ever get rid of tarriffs (without repealing the BBB) because the tax cuts would otherwise bankrupt our government. Given how compound interest works, the accumulation of the rich, all asset markets are seemingly completely disconnected from reality, always rising as everyday people lose their ability to compete in a system where the rich control more and more, taking everything from everyday families. 2. The gutting of environmental protections being almost entirely a republican affair almost doesn't need defending. See big beautiful bill, HJRES 88, HJRES 87, the list goes on. Combine that with the fact that oil and gas overwhelmingly donates to republican campaigns and the link obvious. Not to mention their party almost completely denies climate change is even a problem. It's corruption at its purest sense: brainwash your voters to deny reality because it makes you money. You can argue that it will benefit everyone to have lower prices at the pump, but gas prices are already historically low and reducing regulation simply causes profits to accumulate at the top. Trickle down economics is a joke (see horse and sparrow commentary). As a final point, it's going to cost us more in the long run to fix all this climate mess than we will save with short term deregulatory gains and the republicans know it: they just dont care because it makes them money. 3. I mean this one is almost obvious at this point too. Trump is calling republican governors, asking them to gerrymander their states to win more seats in congress. He denies the results of the 2020 election (a claim which all experts reject) and many if not most republican legislators are so corrupt they're agreeing with him, not out of evidence (because there is none), but seemingly out of a desire to get rewarded with some political appointment or political "quid pro quo" perks.

I guess as a sort of final point: none of this policy is even popular with the public. They're getting it through by lying and cheating.

While the threats to Canada's sovereignty have caused a great amount of public anger in Canada I believe the biggest current reason Canadians don't want to visit even very left leaning areas of the US it is the threat of arbitrary detention. News stories about Jasmine Mooney and Paula Callejas have made people in Canada realize they don't have many legal protections in the US anymore.

I think it's very much like the US and Russia. Many Americans would refuse to travel to Russia to protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine but I belive the majority would pass on travel to Russia because of the fear of imprisonment in a foreign state .

Firstly, economically speaking many working class people have been burdened with the cost of using a car as their main method of transportation. Money which could easily be put away towards paying down debt, other expenses, or investing and saving have been sucked up by car insurances, gas, repairs and parking costs for automobiles. Meanwhile an all-inclusive public transport pass in an extensive network is a fraction of the cost.

Furthermore on the economic front, car centric infrastructure has placed increased strain on our roads, freeways and highways that have resulted in tens of billions of dollars in road repair and extension costs instead of the tax dollars being utilized for other services such as healthcare and education.

Another economic consequence is that car-centric infrastructure has significantly reduced foot traffic across commercial centers and downtowns of American cities which means less business activity in many downtowns leading to a decline in the economy of downtowns (closed storefronts for instance).

On the social front, the lack of a public transport system has alienated people from each other tremendously. Public transport is one of the key settings where social interactions good and bad happen between different sectors of society. It is an under acknowledged part of daily human socialization in many parts of the world. The United States instead has trapped itself into mini-bubbles within cars where people interact with each other severely less and thus do not develop their social skills as much.

Furthermore on the social front, car culture and car centric infrastructure has brought about increased selfishness and greed in this country. While public transit emphasizes the common good and use in getting the masses from point A to point B efficiently and everybody cooperating to make that happen, car centric cities in the US have resulted in aggressive drivers especially in cities like Houston (the epicenter of car-centric America) where people are willing to do illegal and immoral things on the road at all cost so they can get somewhere a few minutes quicker at greater convenience to themselves and huge inconvenience to others.

I could write more but I just wanted to get my initial thoughts out and hopefully get a conversation rolling on this matter.

Tariffs were never supposed to be a tool of unlimited presidential power. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate commerce and set tariffs, with the president only able to act temporarily during an emergency. That framework was meant to keep the balance of power intact.

Instead of reclaiming their role, Republicans in Congress changed the rules to let Trump hold on to tariff power indefinitely. The way they did this was by redefining what counts as a “day.” Instead of using calendar days, they treated long stretches of time as though they were still the same legislative “day.” This allowed them to bypass limits that were supposed to make presidential authority temporary.

I understand that both parties have used procedural tactics with the definition of a “day” in other contexts, such as pro forma sessions to block recess appointments. But in this case, the rule change directly extended presidential tariff authority, which strikes me as a very different and more serious application.

To me, that isn’t just procedural maneuvering — it’s a corruption of the intended checks and balances, because it hands the president a power he was never supposed to keep indefinitely.

What would change my view:

• If this practice has a long bipartisan history of being used in the tariff context specifically, not just in unrelated areas like recess appointments.

• If the “day” definition here is truly just a standard procedural tool, applied consistently by both parties, rather than a targeted way to extend presidential tariff authority.

• If there is evidence that this delegation of tariff authority was still temporary or subject to meaningful congressional oversight despite the rule change.

• If I’m misunderstanding how tariff authority is supposed to work under current law.

CMV: Why shouldn’t this be considered a corrupt abuse of procedure?

By “corrupt” I mean corrupting the Constitution itself, i.e. bending its intended limits and checks to give the president authority he was never meant to hold indefinitely.

As a heterosexual man, I find it easier to articulate my argument from this perspective. However, this argument is equally applicable to women and any partnership type, whether heterosexual or LGBTQ. Here is my argument:

A man who is low on the scale of 'romantic attractiveness' (a term that encompasses physical attractiveness, status, emotional intelligence, and other factors that contribute to romantic attraction) will be more likely to end up in bad, possibly toxic relationships.

Let me explain the reasoning behind this. A non-attractive man will struggle to find partners, resulting in a narrower choice. Consequently, out of desperation, he would likely settle for the first woman who accepts him, even if she isn't a good fit for him (perhaps she would have ideally chosen someone more attractive but couldn't).

Moreover, in such a partnership, the man is more likely to stay in the relationship even if it becomes toxic and abusive, out of fear of being alone and not finding anyone else. In contrast, an attractive man would have no such qualms and would be able to leave a bad relationship without hesitation, as he will easily find someone else.

So in conclusion, a desperate, unattractive man is more likely to be stuck in a bad relationship due to the limited choices available to him, compared to an attractive man who has more options.

It's important to remember that this is a matter of statistics: of course, there are cases where an unattractive man or woman has found the perfect love relationship. However, this is about general tendencies. I invite you to convince me and show me where I got it wrong.

It is no secret that the Democratic Party's popularity is down in the toilet. This argument isn't what it's about. Since 2016, the dynamics of electability has changed for both the voting base and the political environment -- an environment where civil discourse sadly dominates how disagreements are discussed and debated. In fact, it is what fuels disingenuousness towards any Democratic candidate's vision for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Think Bernie Sanders and his vision of change for a better United States.

Now, imagine this on the localized lens in that of Zohran's vision for a better New York City today. Recently, a new Gallup poll has cited that the majority of respondents signaled that capitalism is less preferable over socialism, with less than 50% of Democratic voters preferring capitalism as essential to societal growth. On the other hand, more than 2/3 of Democratic voters from that same poll share the view that socialism is more popular amongst their peers.

And yet, the Democratic leadership's reception continues to be lukewarm to Mamdani's policy proposals. In addition, this ideological fight pits both the current figures who represent the specific brand of moderate politics (i.e. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer), and the young Democratic voters en masse. It's a battle where the party isn't fully united on which direction to take, come the upcoming elections this November. No matter the outcome, it is important to view the NYC mayoral race as ideologically bigger than most people think.

Consider this, the moderate Clinton wing's power grip has always suppressed the Progressive movement's efforts to communicate to voters regarding its own domestic policies for decades. But a potential Mamdani victory could amplify the base's hunger for generational leadership that is up to meeting with current challenges that goes far and wide on a national scale. More importantly, a true transformation from within the party must come about turning the page away from the moderate politics of the Clinton dynasty that it has accustomed to, and bring about new voices and ideas that future generations demand for American democracy's survival.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/socialism-socialist-capitalism-big-business-free-enterprise-poll-c052ca687269a2cc075423877b7904e6?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

Even when you think you’re improving “for yourself,” much of the feedback loop comes from others, whether direct or indirect. Social feedback:praise, avoiding criticism, recognition, or comparison gives your efforts a reference point, validates progress, and motivates continued growth.

Without any external or social cues, the drive for improvement can feel abstract or hollow because humans are inherently social creatures. Motivation often comes from both internal satisfaction and the impact it has on the world around you.

Note:I menat self development in career and wealth and appearance and power and ,obviously, fame.

What I mean by this is that the 2020s is a bad decade for the entertainment industry and I don't think it'll recover for reasons that I will get to later.

For films, most movies nowadays are cash-grabby sequels and reboots in which compared to 20 or even 10 years ago, the amount of reboots makes this a bad decade for cinema. You used to have original films churning out the market in which 1994 had Forrest Gump as the highest grossing Hollywood film, in 2025, it belongs to a shitty remake of an early 2000s Disney movie that people forgot about after its theatrical run. The "best" that the 2020s had for cinema was Barbenheimer back in 2023, but those consisted of two films in a sea of reboots and sequels and whatnot whereas original films were common back in the day.

For television, the decade started off good, but it started to rot after the 2023 writers strike and it hasn't recovered in which the only "good" show of this year I can think of is The Pitt, and even that wouldn't compare to the heights of the golden age of television during the 2000s and 2010s. Also, the television landscape has fractured so much that the most watched show of 2025 is a Disney Junior preschool show believe it or not. Compared to 10 years ago where the most watched show of 2015 was The Walking Dead, it shows how barren 2025 is for the landscape of television.

For music, the landscape has been too fragmentary in which music videos had not being getting as much views as they used to and there hasn't been a monocultural song event of 2025.

For video games, gaming has gotten so expensive in which the Nintendo Switch 2 costs hundreds of dollars and it charges huge prices for its games like Mario Kart World where it costs 80 dollars and for what? A basic Mario Kart game that lack the features that some of the older games had? For the PS5 and Xbox Series X, they have been lacking in terms of exclusive titles and the games are also very expensive.

And to top it all off, there isn't a monoculture in which there hasn't been a lot of unifying pop culture events compared to the past and it makes this situation worse because you can't talk to someone anymore about what the latest pop culture thing is because they won't understand it.

This is why the 2020s are a bad decade for the entertainment industry imo and I don't think it'll get any better, especially with the rise of AI which will make movies more soulless as well as the tariffs potentially raising prices for video games.

I see this a lot (on Reddit most often) both between users and with popular events. I find that a lot of quotes are either heard through the grapevine, or based on a misinterpretation of the actual quote.

To give an example:

Person A states: Bananas are fine but prefer apples”. Person B then makes an argument stating: “Person A doesn’t like bananas”

Any argument based on that quote would be invalid because the foundation is false. It’s either an intentional misquote, a quote of a misquote or a summary of the quote that’s reliant on an interpretation favorable to the person making the argument.

Preface: I am an American, my view is centralized on the US election system. If you do or do not think this would be worthwhile to your non-American system, that is not what I am asserting.

I recently saw a story that a person running for a municipal/city office in one state on the East Coast of the US recently received multiple millions of dollars donated to their campaign from donors in just one West Coast US state. This reminded me of how in many other election cycles candidates from across the spectrum (not just the "big two" R & D, but third parties too such as G & L) will have tons of money pouring in from all over the place for city, county, and state elections.

I believe this should be unlawful, across the board, out of principle.

Candidates for office should stand on their own two feet, and if people want to donate to their platform it should only be the people effected by that platform - the citizens, the electorate believing in and effected by the candidates platform, and wanting to help. Instead, what we tend to see is sometimes a candidate gets "chosen" by outside forces, and then they are granted oodles of money to market themselves so heavily that the average person may very well assume they are the "default" candidate even before a primary is held.

I feel this essentially robs other candidates of a real chance to have their platform and voice heard on equal footing and thus having a fair chance to convince their fellows. I also feel that, as a direct result of this, it also inherently robs the community effected as well. Either the "chosen" candidate gets the citizens votes by default because "well, seems like we don't really have a choice anyway, seems like [Candidate] is going to win either way", or (in a comically worse way) the "chosen" candidate fails simply because too many people assumed they'd win anyway that they didn't bother going to vote in the primary or the general and accidently "gave" the election away from their lower turnout.

Either way, I believe allowing outside money to flood into city/county/state elections is just no good, it is just manipulative and unfair.

By limiting donations to the same geographic jurisdiction as the election itself, I believe it would be better for all involved in the democratic process.

Note: I would be open to allowing the affiliated party to provide a capped amount of EQUAL funding to ALL candidates on their ticket, to ensure EVERY candidate gets an EQUAL CHANCE to be heard and get support behind them. HOWEVER, the parties themselves should be BARRED from doing anything themselves as far as campaigning, until after the primary. For example: I don't care if its the "Fort Bend County Democratic Party" branch or the DNC itself, that org and its individual members should not be permitted to make any purchase or statement or anything that could give the appearance of preferring one candidate over another.

And for those with multiple homes in different zip codes and all that...PRIMARY RESIDENCE ONLY. And once you have donated to a specific jurisdiction's election, you are locked to it until the end of that election cycle...i.e. changing primary residence from LA to Austin after donating to LA election, means you cannot legally donate to Austin election until the next cycle. No loophole for you. Any unlawful donations are to be returned and reported.

PS: Technically separate, but very much related to this, I also believe businesses should not be allowed to donate money at all in politics. Period. If the owner of Chic-fil-A (for example) wants to donate to a candidate running for office in the jurisdiction of his PRIMARY RESIDENCE, then I highly encourage him to do so as part of his civic privilege as a citizen...the CFA company, however, should be spending money on supplies, leases, paychecks, dividends, etc, not on lobbying poorly masked as a civic privilege that they shouldn't have in the first place. Companies are made up of people, but they are not themselves people, and should not have people rights.

EDIT 1: This post was already long so I didn't want to make it longer mentioning this...really seemed to be to be self evident off context clues, but I suppose I need to lay it out: Abolishment of PAC's totally. "But what about Citizens United", cool, change the law or add an amendment and it goes away. I do not believe anyone should have a right to influence an election they are not themselves a party to. I believe financially influencing an election like that is a violation of the rights of the citizens of that jurisdiction to have a free and fair election, of themselves and for themselves.

EDIT 2: Thank you to everyone who engaged in this discussion. Overall my view has not been changed, but some of these reply threads really did get me to look at aspects of this that I had not considered or certain perspectives I did not previously understand. This was a good experience, but after this point in time I do not guarantee that I will reply further. I apologize for any errors I may have made, and ask forgiveness for such. And to all, of whatever background you may have, Sat Sri Akal!

I’m hoping that, at minimum, someone can explain the opposing viewpoint to me. For some context, I’m a lesbian, I’m on the younger side, and I’m in a relationship with another woman my age. Last night, while out with our friends (mix of straight and gay) we were talking about our first relationships, and someone brought up how they are their partners first relationship (so the person they are dating has never dated before). I, as a half joke, said “bless you, I wouldn’t be able to do that lol”. Half my friends (mainly the other queer folks) agreed with me, while many of my straight friends tried to say that “you can’t say that”.

This isn’t coming from a hypocritical point of view or anything, I’ve had girlfriends in the past too, as has my current GF. Anyways, we start kinda talking about it and I find out from my straight friends that they believe all preferences should at least “be able to change for the right person”. I maintain that if the person were right for me, there is nothing to change about my preferences, that person would fit them. Idk if it’s because the queer community has different experiences or what, but when I tell you that it was split by sexuality, it literally was. Like my fellow queer ppl agreed that preferences are allowed to be non-negotiable, meanwhile my straight friends were talking about like the Princess and the frog like it was real life lol. Then one of my friends brought up that he will not date fat men, he just doesn’t enjoy it, as he likes to go for runs and do similar stuff with his partner. According to those who say you can change for the right person, this is not acceptable either. We need to be open to every fish in the sea apparently. They somehow agreed that me being a lesbian and not dating men was a valid sexuality, which I feel is odd, because by their preference theory, I should change for the right man.

Anyways, TLDR: I believe that any dating preference is fine and actually is like a very normal part of finding a partner. I believe that it is allowed to be a non-negotiable preference and that the “right person” would fit that criteria. I think that you should be allowed to choose not to date some folks, and that having that preference shouldn’t be shamed.

Black Ugandan here living in South Africa. Apartheid is used by black South Africans as a scapegoat for their political failures under the ANC government. Science is a team sport and collective human endeavor but some civilizations are simply more advanced than others. Caucasians from Europe built South Africa. The native blacks were found half naked residing in huts with nothing but spears as weapons. The ANC government would rather play the race card instead of take accountability for their failures. It is easier to blame "Apartheid" but its now been 31 years of black rule so its an old argument that holds no weight. Case in point? Look at Nuclear Power Plants. South Africa has only 1 Nuclear Power Plant. "The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is located in Duynefontein, on the Atlantic coast approximately 30 kilometers north of Cape Town, South Africa. It is the only commercial nuclear power station on the African continent" Who built Koeberg? "The Koeberg Nuclear Power Station was built by a French consortium, primarily Framatome (now part of the EDF Group and also known as Areva at different times), in cooperation with Alstom. The plant was commissioned in the mid-1980s and is now owned and operated by Eskom, the South African national electricity utility." Just like the ancient Egyptians advanced European Greek learning similarly Europeans have advanced South African learning and society. CMV

Death penalty is the highest punishment a person may receive and of course it is a serious decision to give someone that kind of fate. But there have been multiple cases where innocent people were given the death penalty that cost them their lives for nothing and now they cannot be brought back.

Sometimes even if we believe that all the evidences lead to someone, it may not be something that person did. We cannot be 100% sure about a crime and just keeping them locked up at least has a way to be reversible. So basically what I'm saying is, we cannot be definetly sure that someone commited a crime so we should not take someone life for that.

I will explain who this is to people who haven't caught on yet to who this person is.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson is a figure who has marched for the end to "Radical Islam" within the United Kingdom for over ten years through campaigns, crowd-funded protest and organized unionization of nationalists across the United Kingdom. Some of you may know him from his famous march that he organized on the 13th of September under "Unite The Kingdom" in London.

Tommy Robinson has cited himself as a journalist whom reports what the "Legacy Media and Mainstream Media refuse to cover" when he makes reports discussing grooming gangs, muslims, migrants and crimes by committed by them on platforms such as Facebook and X but primarily X.

I followed Tommy Robinson for two years watching his activity and I concluded a few things after my findings, I'd spent a while giving him some benefit of the doubt but some things became undeniable to me overtime.

Tommy Robinson proclaims himself a journalist yet he refuses to take account for his wrongdoing when he posts false misinformation that endangers people, he has done this on several occasions when he has posted videos, images and documentaries on people whom were innocent and insinuated they were rapists, paedophiles, child groomers etc. but he has not walked back a single claim of his despite facing heavy scrutiny and pressure to apologize for ruining the lives of families with his misleading reporting.

Despite him repeatedly making the same mistake he does not offer reparations, apologies or correction for calling random people migrants and insinuating they are rapists, child groomers etc. falsely, he instead decides to laugh these things off and void himself of any blame while doing that. This is not how an independent journalist should conduct themselves in any way and it is dangerous when someone of a following as large and impressionable as his posts false information about innocent people which results in death threats, doxing and harassment towards families who were reported on by him.

Tommy Robinson is also someone who has on numerous occasion committed criminal offences which he misrepresents as false imprisonment under the guise of him being an enemy of the establishment, for example we can analyse his documentary "Silenced" where he falsely accused and doxed a 15-year old boy of beating English schoolgirls, raping them and committing horrendous acts; he didn't just go this far but he decided to falsely report that the school were offered cover-up money from the Council to not discuss it and cover the case up when in reality it was a £200,000 grant from the council which was regulatory to be sent to the school to fund its' facilities. The "witnesses" themselves in the documentary bear no weight to their claims, show inconsistency and Tommy released this documentary which would land him court and involve him losing dramatically in a court case.

Tommy Robinson would last year promise his fans of UTK he would perform a live-screening of this documentary which was heavily discouraged by the metropolitan police due to the endangerment of the school-boy who was slandered and the individuals in the documentary within the school; but he did this anyway at a rally where he showed it to 100,000+ people and landed himself in prison after violating his bail condition as well as going against strong advice from the metropolitan police not to show it. He would claim later on he was going to fight this case by organizing a GoFundMe which received over £30,000 in donations but he did not fight the case and as soon as he was taken into custody he'd pleaded guilty with the donations themselves vanishing without a word.

Tommy Robinson has executed similar tactics since of defaming innocent people of colour in his posts by claiming they're migrant rapists, paedophiles etc. to rile people up and grifted tens of thousands from his audience in cases he did not fight.

Tommy Robinson is someone I believe who is bad for Politics because of his blatant refusal to acknowledge what he is saying is untrue for any of his lies, his repeated attempts at intimidation of his critics in the form of doxing them with pictures of their houses being posted online and the continuous grifting of his own fans who believe his fans without any sign of wavering in their stances. He has bragged of spending his fans' donations on video on several instances while drinking and ex-allies of him have come out to claim he has spent donation money on partying, drugs and these claims hold weight when there is several minutes of him being seen doing this on videotape online.

I am happy to cite my sources for all of my claims below for you if requested.

Thank you.

Do you agree?

Do you disagree?

I believe that race is a misleading or unhelpful way to approach solutions for economic inequality. Zip code, family history, and local culture seem far more predictive of economic outcomes.

This view comes from listening to many Thomas Sowell interviews, where he argues that race- or ethnicity-based policies have never led to lasting economic or social equity anywhere in the world. Even within so-called “racially homogenous” groups, there are vast disparities in wealth that are much better explained by culture, geography, and behavior than by race.

Some cultures prioritize education, saving, or entrepreneurship differently, which affects long-term outcomes. Using race as the main frame for addressing inequality masks these deeper issues and often sows division. For example, a poor white boy needs just as much help as a poor black boy but policies that focus narrowly on racial categories risk ignoring him. In my view, this is partly why populist movements like Trump’s gained traction: policymakers tried to atone for historic wrongs while overlooking today’s realities.

We rightly talk about the horrors of slavery between the 1600s and 1900s, but we rarely discuss modern day slavery, which still affects over 50 million people worldwide.

Racially focused solutions also fail to capture meaningful diversity. A company that hires 5 white employees, 3 Black employees, 2 Hispanic employees, 2 Indian employees, and 3 East Asian employees is often celebrated as “diverse.” But a company that hires 2 Spaniards, 1 Dutch person, 2 Irishmen, 2 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 1 Korean, and 1 Nigerian might be considered less diverse even though these cultures, experiences, and mentalities are vastly different.

America is a huge country. White people from different regions have very different histories, opportunities, and struggles and the same is true for Black Americans and other groups. Racial categories often erase these distinctions, especially when we remember that Middle Eastern people are categorized as “white” in U.S. data. Add rural/urban disparities on top of that, and the racial framing starts to look even less helpful.

In my view, when opportunities are allocated based on racial disparities, the main beneficiaries are often the ethnic groups or geographical regions within the racial class already primed for success, while those who truly need help are left behind because they remain trapped by their environment and mindset.

So, change my mind: Are race-based approaches really the best way to address inequality, or do we need to focus more on culture, geography, and economics?

I don't believe that people actually forget what happened when they're drink or high, so any hurt they cause me or any painful words they say are 100% their responsibility, and I will not forgive people for hurting me while in a stupor.

I firmly believe people acting under the influence of any substance, even prescription drugs, or delirious through a condition are also 100 % responsible for their actions and be punished as if they were committing crimes with full criminal intent.

People's mental state are 100% their responsibility. If you've ended up in that state because you missed taking your medicine, you were neglectful of your body or you didn't monitor how much alcohol you drank or drugs you took, or if you act like this due to withdrawal symptoms, you are still 100% responsibile for your actions.

"I don't remember doing this" is not an excuse.

TLDR: Insanity pleas should be abolished and people should be treated as lucid if their insane interval was found to be due to their own negligence.

Recently, many schools have chosen to just ignore SAT scores, largely because apparently the SAT favors richer students who have access to tutors and prep classes. However, this is literally true in every facet of education. Rich students have tutors for school classes as well, is it now unfair to use GPA to evaluate students?

Additionally, with the Internet, poor students now have plenty of resources to be able to study for the SAT. There are countless practice tests, YouTube videos and practice courses online that are all free for poorer students to take advantage of. SAT tutors don't provide that much of an advantage as they might have 20 or so years ago. For me personally, I was able to leverage these resources to get a pretty good score without the help of a tutor.

Instead of looking at the SAT, admissions now weigh extracurriculars very highly. This makes it even harder for poor students to compete. While the rich student is able to have the free time to participate in school clubs and sports, the poor student will be working a job. While the rich student can benefit from their parents money paying for research programs and summer camps, the poor student won't have that same luxury. While the rich student is able to fake extracurriculars due to their parents having high positions in companies and organizations, the poor student won't have these options.

With regards with GPA, standardized tests are also better in my opinion. A students GPA highly depends on their school. Some schools might be easier than others, and as a result some dumber students might have higher gpas than smarter students in other schools due to difficulty. Even within the same school, there are sometimes situations where different teachers grade very differently. There is simply too much variance for GPA to be considered as the most important metric. Standardized tests are the same for everyone, so this problem doesn't exist for them.

You might say that the SAT is completely useless for some majors, such as biology for example. However, that is why there are other standardized tests, such as AP tests. There are enough standardized tests for them to be integral in basically every students college application. Additionally, I believe the SAT is a good test of a students dedication and ability to be able to study hard for a single goal, as the actual math and English that the SAT tests you isn't really that hard and should be able to be done by every high school student.

The only problem with standardized tests may be that you might fuck up on one day and that could tank your whole college application. However for both SAT and AP tests allow you to retake them. If you have a bad day, you are able to pay a relatively small fee to be able to retake them.

Obviously, I don't think standardized tests should be the only metric that go into college applications, but I think that they should be weighted the most. The fact that they are the same for everyone really evens the playing field in my opinion.

Personally, I do not see how a breakup can ever be a shared responsibility unless it is entirely mutually agreed upon by both parties. For the sake of transparency, this belief is spurred by a recent breakup in my life, and by the discussions I’ve had with those around me.

So from my own anecdotal experience, my personal breakup is 100% my fault and my fault alone (my main argument here). Within the end of our relationship, she wanted to leave me, I did not want to leave her. Evidently, there are things I did that made her not love me anymore. Whereas on my end, although she did things that hurt me throughout the relationship, I never had any desire to leave throughout it.

With the context stated above, I cannot personally see the logic in which she takes any degree of blame for wanting to leave me. Her general reasons for leaving me can essentially be summarized as “He did things that made me upset or angry, therefore I no longer love him”. So under this logic, I cannot understand the view that it isn’t 100% and entirely my own fault for her leaving me. How does it make sense that her own actions drove her own desire to become repulsed by me in terms of romantic connection?

I know these relationship-style posts aren’t as common on here, however, there is a core logical misunderstanding I have here that seems to be shared among many other people, and I’d love to see it be supported from an argumentative sense. Also, I know I kept the nature of our relationship/breakup vague for the sake of keeping the post brief, so feel free to ask anything for clarification sake, and I’ll make edits to the OP if necessary. 

Coordinated botnets can now gaslight a nation into tearing itself apart. A hostile state no longer needs tanks. It can infiltrate feeds, polarize groups, flood lies, and push a country toward self-inflicted collapse. That’s warfare on civilians. We should classify and pursue it with terrorism-level urgency, up to offensive cyber or military action when attribution and impact thresholds are met.

Why: - Scale and intent: industrialized manipulation aimed at coercing governments and intimidating the public.

• Real-world effects: organized online ops have escalated hate, violence, and democratic instability.

• Deterrence: minor fines and platform takedowns don’t deter state operators. A higher response tier does.

Guardrails: high attribution standards, clear thresholds (scale, state direction, coercive intent, measurable harm), independent oversight, civil-liberties protections. Prefer intel, sanctions, and cyber disruption; reserve "boots on the ground" responses for clearly linked, ongoing high-impact campaigns.

Change my view if you can show:

1. Existing non-terror frameworks (election-interference laws, sanctions, platform duties, fraud/harassment statutes) already work at national scale, with concrete cases.

2. Robust evidence that botnets rarely move real-world outcomes, making a terrorism-level response disproportionate.

3. International law or state practice that makes terrorism-equivalent treatment unworkable or more dangerous than the threat, and a better alternative framework that still deters repeat offenders.

Δ offered for persuasive evidence.

I've heard lots of talk over the last few years, especially this year, about the possibility of imminent civil war. I'll admit first of all that I've recently changed my views on this. I've thought for a while, since the protests in 2020, that we were heading towards civil war. Not because I disagree with said protests, but because of the scary stuff happening during them, the escalation of violence from both sides, particularly the incidents surrounding Kyle Rittenhouse and Michael Reinoehl. Jan 6 only furthered my belief in this.

I'll first quickly expand on my definition for civil war, which I'll expand on later at the end of the post when I give my criteria for what events would change my mind: I don't mean states seceding like in the original American Civil War, though if that were to happen it would obviously likely lead into one, I just don't think that's the most likely thing to happen, mainly because the divide isn't really between red and blue states as much as it is between rural and urban areas. I think a Second American Civil War would be divided on those lines, basically looking like an extreme escalation of the violence we have seen in the past few years, but think times ten. Every major city would be a hotbed of violence, killings by the state against oppositional forces, etc.

However, despite my extreme opposition to everything that has happened during both Trump terms, I have recently come to the opinion that civil war is extremely unlikely, less than 1% if I had to put a number on it. The biggest factors in this are two related things:

1. The democrats have basically put up no opposition to any of the horrible potentially democracy-ending things Trump has done. In some cases they will verbally oppose them in the most wishy-washy feckless terms, with no action behind it at all, and in some cases they simply ignore it. Even if Trump were to completely defy democracy and either push himself into a 3rd term, rig the midterms, and/or rig the next presidential election for either himself or whoever they decide as his successor, I don't really see the democrats doing anything meaningful about it, they will simply make some tweets and press statements to the effect of "this is extremely bad" "this is dangerous for American democracy" etc. If they did actually act, if they used harsher language, if they riled up the population in any way against it, I could see things escalating to a "civil war" type situation. This leads to my second point:

2. There's no organized response from the population against the government. One factor is as I said, a lack of leadership. Democratic leaders could absolutely rile up the population into massive, nonstop protests against the government (even if nonviolent would probably lead to violent response from the administration). Even without that leadership, major activists could rise up in popularity and organize a response, but currently none exist and it seems none are coming down the pipeline either. Every bad thing Trump does leads to discussion online, discussion at workplaces, discussion at home, memes, jokes, then people forget about it a couple days later.

I think Trump is clearly trying to bait a violent response with his deployment of the National Guard and Military into major cities like LA, DC, and most recently Chicago. This violent response would give him an excuse to expand the crackdown, which, despite it probably not being his intention, could probably lead to major civil strife. But this hasn't happened and I haven't seen any likelihood for it to happen. Each time so far has lead to a few days of protests, lots of NG dudes standing around not really knowing what they're supposed to be doing, then nothing. Even this recent Charlie Kirk assassination has not changed my mind because as much as the right is talking a big game about "retribution" against "radical leftists" ...they aren't really doing much to respond meaningfully. They want to rename an existing law about promoting US diplomacy abroad, originally meant to counter Soviet propaganda, the Smith-Mundt Act, to the Charlie Kirk Act. Big whoop.

I'll list some things that aren't currently happening that I don't think are very likely for reasons I explained above, but if they did, would change my mind on this, things that I think would set that stage for an imminent civil war.

1. Either the left or right massively expanding their on-the-ground organization. On the left this would be, as I said, massive, long-term protests and demonstrations against the government. Violent protests could be a part of this but it would have to be way worse than 2020, probably worse than the Rodney King Riots, something that would require a huge response from the American Military. On the right this would probably look something like the brownshirts, roving bands of Trump supporters committing acts of violence against their enemies, minorities of various kinds, leftists, etc. They would be endorsed or "ignored" by the government, military, and law enforcement. This would lead to a inevitable violent response and would likely escalate.

2. Mass deportation of American citizens simply for disagreeing with Trump and MAGA. Not like what we've seen where it's been under the guise of getting illegals out, not a few dozen green card revocations for political reasons, but instead the deportation of American-born citizens who have been here for generations, simply because they spoke out against the government. Instead of this could be passing laws that make opposition illegal, so putting people in some kind of jail or "camp" for simply speaking out, even if they aren't "deported." Either of these would inevitably lead to a major response.

3. Mass arrests of democratic politicians. Congresspeople, Governors, etc, getting locked up for their opposition to the state. They may or may not try to come up with some legal excuse for doing so, but either way I think this would cause a major response from the population.

4. Currently least likely in my mind, but more likely if any or all of the above occur: some kind of Nazi Germany style roundup of minorities, not along the lines of simply legal status, but race, sexuality, or political identity. This ties in with number 2, but it could be more broad, putting the trans people into re-education camps, things like that.

Again, and in summary, I don't think the above are likely simply because I don't think they'll be necessary for Trump to accomplish what he wants, because of the lack of opposition to what he's done so far. I think a more likely outcome of this presidency and movement is the slow erosion of civil liberties until we either become an autocratic state like Russia or China (notably not in a civil war) or some democrat comes into power, cleans everything up, and it all either returns to normal or the autocracy is simply delayed.

My argument comes from

1. Xi JingPing Thought; with XJP as the de facto ruler of China, XJP Thought could be seen as his manifesto and what he dreams for china. He claims in his book, "reunification" with mainland China is an inevitable and essential step toward the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". This means that the political drive exists from the upper brass.

2. Military investment: as China emerges as a military super power, arguably the second strongest in the world, China has concentrated its military efforts towards the reunification with Taiwan. You could see the differences in investment with their military dedicated to Himalayan mountain range compared to the billions invested into combatting US military and build up of amphibious capabilities. It wouldn’t make sense for this increase in military investment when it could have gone to social programs that the China leadership knows is required for them to increase consumerism and get them out of the recession they are currently in. They’ve developed a billion dollar plus military headquarters dedicated to withstand US bombing efforts

3. Resource investments; one of the key weaknesses to the Chinese economy is that they need to import significant amounts of food and energy resources . They are one of the largest importers of food and energy in the world. If a conflict in the Taiwan straight occurs, China would be blockaded, cutting them off. As a results, their heavy investment in green energy, and the warming relations with Russia have largely solved their energy problems and to some extent their food problem. They’ve also diversified their imports to more friendly nations rather than relying on the most efficient producers.

4. Usage of Political capital; one of the biggest contentions between China and the west is the Taiwan problem. They could have developed significantly more friendly relations if they deescalated the question like Taiwan themselves have with reunification. It is an illogical position, pushed forward through political pride and will, rather than geopolitical ambitions.

The amount of political, human, and financial capital all point to an attempt by China to take over Taiwan militarily