• 0 Posts
  • 63 Comments
Joined 9 months ago
cake
Cake day: September 27th, 2023

help-circle


  • No, I think I’m far enough on the left to be aware of capitalist propaganda. In all fairness to you, my statement did not treat the subject with the appropriate nuance the subject should require.

    The DDR was socialist. However, it was state socialism, which in my opinion is not ideal and not something we should strive to replicate. Yes, the means of production were “owned by the people,” but the state tasks itself with protecting the people. And therein lies the problem with state socialism - the state is easily commandeered by a corrupt minority who then uses the governmental apparatus to run an authoritarian regime. Precisely what happened in the DDR and the USSR.

    We should be able to recognize the imperfections in prior socialist attempts, without immediately calling it “capitalist NGO propaganda.”





  • To be fair to people with legitimate celiac disease - many factories process multiple products and don’t have to disinfect and sterilize their equipment between products. They may run wheat one day and rice the next. If they don’t treat the equipment with a disinfectant certified to eliminate proteins, the rice may pick up gluten from the equipment.

    If they state they are gluten free, it (should) mean that they are taking necessary steps to isolate or clean their lines.


  • Are you glad because I’m not very inventive, or because my description demonstrates I’m disturbed?

    And I have so many additional questions.

    1. Do they feed this secretion to the live young?
    2. If yes, wouldn’t that technically make them mammals?
    3. Is the milk harvested before or after live birth?
    4. If before, where is egg/larva sack, anatomically?
    5. If in abdomen, how separate are these organs - in other words, are we talking like milk sack, reproductive sack - stick the needle filter too far one way and you’ve missed the milk and got larvae - or is it like a liquefied mess in there, and that’s why they need the filter?

    I can go on, but man this is weird…










  • I’m not saying they have any chance - just making the point that “legal” and “illegal” are arbitrary and determined by whoever is the dominant power. Texas seceding is “illegal” only so long as the US remains powerful. If by some unholy miracle, Texas were to win independence from the US, they would probably write their own laws to say rejoining the US is illegal.

    Another pair of cases to make my point - the Holocaust was “legal” to the Nazis. After they were defeated, the UN made genocide “illegal.” But how many genocides have occurred around the world since 1949?

    Laws are only as good as they are enforceable, which is exactly what you underscore by citing the strength of the US military. Is it “legal” to make drone strikes or drop a nuke on Texas? 🤷



  • This is a fantastic write-up.

    I got downvoted elsewhere for saying this, but let me ask - if they just …went rogue and reeeeeeally started stirring shit up - like setting blockades on highways, rail stations, and ports, stopped exports - like really tried to cause the US economic trouble - attacking federal buildings etc.

    What’s any legal precedent matter? Aside from justification for getting totally railed by the US military.


  • The thing about law though, is that it’s just a framework of written social contracts between rational parties agreeing to abide by the terms and consequences.

    Reality is a bit different.

    Texas could halt physical transport of goods/services. Refuse to buy US imports. Stop collecting tax revenue. Gun down federal employees that don’t swear Texan allegiance.

    It doesn’t really matter what legal papers say, when it comes to actions.

    Sure - there may be consequences for such “illegal” state actions, and the documented illegality would be articulated as official justification after administering such consequences.

    But that also only matters if Texas is defeated … in the unlikely event they “win,” - they’d write their own narrative with legal justification.