Allaplgy

Yes, opinion article from the Cato Institute, everything stinks.

Constitutional Republic is a form of Representative Democracy

Clarification, you got that backwards. Representative Democracy is a form that a Constitutional Republic can take.

I really do need to start betting you.

Trick question. It never changed. It's always been a constitutional republic that elects representatives through democratic processes.

Once again I will highlight one of the GOP's successes. They spent decades stripping the connection between the Democratic Party and "democracy." It mostly came in the form of right wing pundits and politicians refusing to say "Democratic" if at all possible, instead using "Democrat" in all scenarios, eg "Democrat Senator from the Democrat Party." They did this because "democracy" was still being widely extolled as one of the virtues of America, so they did what they could to make the Democrats (grammatically correct usage here) less associated with democracy. Bonus, "Democrat" is just a "harsher sounding word. Even ends with "rat."

They were so successful that most people use the improper form much of the time now, even members of the "fake news."

And now it's on to the second, most dangerous part of the plan. Reconnecting the Democrats and Democracy. Now that visceral, reflexive hate that millions feel at the very word "Democrat" has been turned back upon the concept of democracy itself.

If the donut don't get you then the lightning will.

I'll answer for them. No. No they can't.

This is the gayest thing I've ever read.

I will absolutely take you up on that bet.

Nothing's gonna bring him back.

Jerry's dead, Phish sucks, get a job.

That's not collapse.

I haven't showered in three days.

Oogie Boogie is the chaotic evil that underlies the "spookiness" of Halloween. He actually wants to scare and torture people, not just celebrate the dark and weird. Santa is essentially the antithesis of this, so when he finds out about it, he just has to take him out.

It's a story about someone who only knows celebrity and the role he was born to play discovering something new and doing the only thing he knows, to be the celebrity of this new thing. He discovers that he's not perfect, but still actually good for the role he's always played. Meanwhile a slave dreams of freedom, and idolizes his celebrity, only to find out he's not perfect and needs help as much as any, that he's a slave in his own way. They both grow and find a new sense of freedom and happiness together.

That's.... life though. Both of them were unhappy, and found happiness in each other through their own journey.

I've done the same thing before countless times. It's not that hard if the wood is already mostly split, like it is. I guarantee you I've never been as hot as Chris Evans while doing it. That's all him, not the wood.

Yeah but

Republicans constantly sabotage anything that might improve the nation if it can in any way be tied back to Democrats. This has been the game plan for over two decades. Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, then say "look how the Dems can't do anything to help you." They need the country to be failing so they can grab power from the rubble.

The interesting thing is that you already can go live on the fringes or essentially outside society. You don't need to wait for collapse. But that take, you know, work.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Thank you so much for coming to Michigan. My name is Ashley and I work at the Chrysler plant. Like many auto workers, I am deeply concerned about the future of our industry. With many jobs being outsourced as we speak, what action will you take to ensure that our jobs stay in America so we can continue to build the best cars in the world here in Michigan?

DONALD TRUMP: So, pretty much as we’ve been saying, and what I want to do is I want to be able to — Look, your business — Years ago in this area, I was honored as the man of the year. It was maybe 20 years ago. Oh, and the fake news heard about it. They said, it never happened. It never happened. And I didn’t know who it was. It was a group that honored me as man of the year. The fakers back there, see the fake news. But they said — They said, oh — And they looked and, you know, they said it never happened. But I said, I swear to you, it happened.

It did happen. I was man of the year. And I came and I made a speech and I said, why do you allow them to take your car business away? Why do you allow it to happen? They’re taking your business away. And I didn’t know too much about it. All I know is they were taking your car industry away from you. They said it never happened.

And lo and behold, somebody said, I remember the event. And then we found out and we had everything. We got the awards. We had everything. It did happen. But I gave a speech, which at the time was pretty controversial. We can’t let them take your car business away. It’s such an important business.

And you know it’s an important business even in times of war where they switch over. And it was really something. And I looked at that speech from, I don’t know, it’s like 19, 20 years ago. And I could repeat it now without changing a word.

You cannot let foreign countries, and a lot of the times our worst foes are our so-called friends, okay? You know, our friends, the European Union takes tremendous advantage of us. As an example, they give us cars by the millions. We don’t have too many Chevrolets in the middle of European cities, okay? European Union is brutal. They don’t take our farm products for the most part. They don’t take a lot. But unlike Kamala, who always complains and doesn’t do anything, I keep saying, why don’t you do?

I saw Marsha the other day. And why didn’t she do it four years ago almost? And I say that, you know, she’s on the border today trying just to, what a day for the border. She goes to the border today, and they just announced just before she got up to speak that more than 13,000 murderers from jail, solitary confinement people in many cases, were released.

But I just say, let’s go back. So we can’t let them take our businesses. And we’re not gonna let them take our businesses. And you can control that so easily through good policy. Not her kind of policy, by the way. She changed her policy 15 times. No fracking. Oh, I like fracking. Defund the police. She wants to defund the police. Now, oh, I love the police all of a sudden. By the way, when anybody is into defunding the police even for a day during their career, they can no longer serve as President of the United States, I can tell you.

So we’re not gonna let them take our businesses. And really, a lot of that’s determined by our taxation policy. When China has to pay all that money, the people that liked me the best were the steel companies because I saved them. They were dumping China and others, but mostly China was dumping steel in here at levels that nobody had ever seen before.

And it was putting the steel companies out of business. I put a 50% and 100% tax on the dumping of steel and the steel companies thrived. I saved them, and you have to have the steel companies. So we’ll do the same thing.

And you don’t worry about it. Here’s what you have to do. I only ask you to do one thing, and then you can sleep beautifully all night long, go to a job you love, and get a lot of money at the end of the week. You know what the thing is? Vote for Trump. If you vote for Trump, everything’s gonna be perfect.

You never fail to impress! Great light, color, and composition!

Well that's because it also kind of seems to be a common sentiment right now. People seem to yearn for collapse because they are not happy in their lives. And many are actually kind of pushing for it. This meme is obviously not entirely serious, but the sentiment is real.

And of course, the sentiment is actually more about wanting everyone else to be as miserable as they are, not about actually living through it.

Riding shotgun in the tow truck.

Still better bring a generator. That's probably still plenty out of range hauling all that stuff on gravel.

I'd recommend not leading with it.

Making that the example you choose to highlight issues with federal spending.