I learned early on as a child that you might as well participate in the fucking around because you’re just gonna get lumped in with the rest of them when the finding out happens.
Oh really .
I feel like I didn’t fuck around enough to help…
If Nato fails and Russia attacks, I’m not going to fight. All those xenophobic extremists nationalists in my country that fell for the Russian propaganda can clean up their own mess they caused.
If Nato fails and Russia attacks
That already happened back in 2022 (arguably all the way back to '08). NATO didn’t do shit because it’s just the US military wearing a dozen different European baseball caps. And after the US finished scrubbing out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, it didn’t have the logistics to launch another Asiatic land war (while keeping China at gunpoint in the Pacific and Iran in check in the Middle East).
American slippage is already apparent across Latin America, Africa, and the South Pacific. Things are only going to get worse for DC going forward.
You would have to be suicidal to stick your neck into that mess, at this stage of the game.
Ha ha
Too bad
It’s been chosen to fuck around and find out on behalf of our entire society
The innocent, the guilty, doesn’t matter. We’re all going to find out.
I hope everyone involved in bringing this down on us is happy with themselves. I’m sure most of them will be fine, of course.
Sometimes we all just have to find out, if there’s to be any chance of getting them to stop fucking around. 😐
Also there’s no opting out if you didn’t fucking vote. You can’t be complicit in opting out.
With the electoral college and FPTP, even opting in is of dubious benefit.
You should still do it obviously, but it is a rigged system.
Unfortunately the world often does the fucking around part for you, and you’re stuck finding out with them. Sincerely a Remainer being forced to find out on Brexit.
Boy, what a reversal we have now. Around when Brexit finally happened, the US kicked Trump out of office. It felt like we were going in the right direction and the UK wasn’t. Now the UK has put Labour back in power while we’re going all-in on fascism. Fuck. We should have just stuck with the monarchy.
Don’t worry - I’m sure in a few years time when our next election comes up, our population will have forgotten about the previous decade of getting fucked by the Tories, and immediately put them, Reform-UK, or some other alt-right party into power for round 2 just like you guys
Probably. The apple doesn’t seem to have fallen far from the tree.
Instructions unclear, now the US is installing a new monarchy
No, not like that!
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Realistically how likely is secession? Pretty unlikely, right? What’s the process like?
There is also “constitutional convention” path to “a better union” (revoking current government). Secession when threatened by TX gets an ok vibe, but the “right wing states rights” gang sees invading California as completely hinged response, if they suggest it.
Come and take it, flyovers! War is a drone-making contest now.
And Trump will be Commander-in-Chief of the US Military.
Fun fact: Hitler’s involvement in the war was a huge factor in their defeat. He bought his own bullshit.
I’m aware. Not everything is a direct comparison. They’re two different people, and the people Trump has surrounded himself with have the benefit of a recent example to learn from.
I can’t say I’d be surprised if they end up making the same exact mistakes… But I don’t think we should assume it
Pretty unlikely, right?
Very. The last time, warfare was far less asymmetric than it is now. Millions of people would need to be well past the point of “dying for their values and ideals” before that would get traction politically.
What’s the process like?
There literally isn’t one, or at least, not an official one; we’re not the EU. One spot on a map says “no” and the bigger spot on the map around it says “LOL… oh wait you’re serious?” Then they fight.
Also, the optics are very different for a state like California or any other economic powerhouse in the union. These places make up a huge chunk of the country’s GDP, so losing them would cost a massive chunk of the tax base. Plus, that would reduce the overall coastline of the remainder. Combined these outcomes are strategically “very bad”, further motivating the use of force to counter it.
Secession is a very complex subject. Besides the issues you mentioned there are tons of consequences of using force. The Civil War was over 160 years ago and we still have lingering grudges. How would our wealthy feel about the impacts of another one on their investments? Or on US bond values and the value of the dollar itself? I feel like analyzing the possibilities is far beyond my Econ 101 knowledge, but it seems like resolving a secession issue with negotiation would be vastly preferable to all parties involved than any armed conflict. I think it would come down to how the most influential people thought any outcome would affect them.
I agree, and can sympathize: I lack the education to see around all those corners. That said, I think that’s all plausible were it to happen.
Its really unlikely mostly because we’d have to go authoritarian as fuck to get the maga traitors out before they could seriously damage us from within
The Sierra Nevada make a great natural barrier on one side, then the big ass desert to the south, so getting large amounts of anything in once we cut ourselves off would actually be harder than youd think
If we successfully negotiated with Mexico, Canada, or someone to back our asses up we might be able to manage it just off the idea that bombing us to oblivion is a really bad idea for your supply of quite a few crops & your major entertainment for the country as well as the busy ass ports on our shores, and that’s before you consider how much the rest of the world would find such a move incredibly distasteful from a “holy shit what did you just do” aspect
All in all if ANY state can successfully pull it off, it’s California, but it’s not going to happen
I live in a rural part of a deep blue Northeast state and have been thinking about this a lot. Most of my surrounding area is predictably liberal college towns but the town next door to me is very MAGA and I have to drive through it to get to the highway. Honestly, I want to know what it takes to get those people to leave so that we can secure and expand a safe haven here…
States can not secede from the Union. That was Lincoln’s rational for reforming the Union. Since states didn’t have the right to leave, they had never left to begin with.
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/secessiontableofcontents.htm
And before anyone brings it up, Texas cannot secede.
“Can’t?” States are not supposed to secede. People aren’t supposed to commit crimes either, but they do. Some even get away with it.
As we learned from the American Civil War, the southern states were incapable of seceding. However this isn’t the question at hand. The above user asked this:
What’s the process like?
There is no such process.
The outcome of a war 160 years ago has utterly no relation to how a decision to secede would play out today. I use the word “process” in place of “whatever sequence of actions” might occur if states were to assert their intent to separate from the country. “Secession” might not even be an appropriate term - a resolution could be introduced, through all the correct and proper channels, for the United States to dissolve in an organized fashion, as the Soviet Union did in 1991. There’s really no point saying any political proposal “can’t” happen.
My point is the North employed violence in the form of a successful military campaign to maintain the Union. Where the North failed was following up with a re-education campaign to squash southern propaganda, such as the myth of the Lost Cause.
There is no such process.
There is, it worked once and failed once in our history
Step 1: Declare independence from the other government
Step 2: don’t lose the war
Step 2 is the hard part, admittedly
I think California would need to change a few gun laws before trying to go to war against the ret of the US.
Tell me you don’t live here (or know someone who does) without directly saying it
I’ve seen mounted MGs in the mountains, my guy, you don’t know what’s actually here and in the hands of some CRAZY leftists. I know 2 different people who have offered me very illegal arms should shit ever hit the fan, one of them owns a functional truck they just need to slide a tripod into the back into some homemade brackets and they can have a mounted MG truck in like 10m
Fuck, I’ve seen an actual RPG get shot (that was wild)
The only thing that prevented the south from seceding was Lincoln’s re-election. Literally.
Also, the North’s industrialization which allowed the North to outman, outgun, and outrailroad the South.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/industry-and-economy-during-the-civil-war.htm
And if Lincoln’s opponent (McClellan) had won in 1864, he would have allowed the South to secede anyway…
They can’t do it legally without changing the law. Of course, the only laws that will matter soon are those that the GOP supports.
It’s not like the DON’T WALK sign at the crosswalk. If a state presented Congress with a demand to secede they would have to address it. Simply telling the state it was illegal wouldn’t be enough. The state could take whatever next step they want, the federal government would have to respond, and whatever was going to happen would happen. There’s no point speculating about the results, but if a state got to the point of actually starting this sequence rolling, it wouldn’t just stop with “sorry no you can’t it’s illegal.”
A jaywalker doesn’t petition the town council to cross the street illegally. They jaywalk. A state seceding could involve as little as a governor declaring their state left the Union. At that point the ball would be in the Federal Government’s court to set the record straight, to clarify that the state in fact did not secede.
The conversation wouldn’t end there. The state would retort to the effect that, “Oh yes we did,” and the central theme of the discussion would quickly shift away from proper use of the term “secede” and whether a jaywalker analogy works to what everybody is actually going to do about it.
They could divide the state into as many as 5 states just to fuck with the liberal cities and the Senate though.
The only reason I see that as unlikely to happen is that all 5 would want to remain as the remaining state of Texas
They can be North Texas, West Texas, Central Texas, East Texas, and South Texas.
Texas, More Texas, Still Texas, Great Texas, Greater Texas, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Texas
I like this option. I don’t think it’s a good option exactly, but I like it.
I’ve thought for a long time that the US will end up as a collection of smaller countries. Not looking forward to the transition period.
The very sad news is that the most likely owners of those smaller countries will be corporations ala banana republics.
That would be nothing new. After Bonespurs pretty much disemboweled the Republican Party we really had an opportunity to get a solid progressive wave going. The trick is people have to show up.
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Finding out is universal, fucking around is optional.
My only British friend is apolitical (and a bit of a dumbass, if I’m being honest). What’s brexit like for your average Brit? I can’t imagine having the right to just move (almost) anywhere in Europe and getting that ripped away from me, but I’ll admit, I don’t really know any of the other repercussions of leaving the EU.
To borrow @goatbeard@lemm.ee words, an economic disaster. The price of basically everything skyrocketed overnight, even basic essentials, which pushed swathes of people below the poverty line, and even today is putting increasing pressure in foodbanks. The effects of the Tories’ complete mismanagement of Brexit, the Covid19 pandemic, and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine only served to compound the damage.
This cumulative Brexit damage and mismanagement is what finally got the Tories kicked out (which they should’ve been years ago if you ask me) - and while the economic effects have slowed down somewhat recently, prices are still going up substantially, and I think we’re gonna be feeling it a while longer.
It annoys me to no end that we knew this would happen, economists literally predicted this economic shitshow during the referendum and +50% of our population decided to just put their fingers in the ears and shout racist rhetoric instead.
It totally ruined a lot of people’s lives. They had plans to go work somewhere in Europe maybe even live there. Now they can’t do that.
The whole point of the European Union was it was supposed to be a bit like the United States without having to actually form a single nation. All of the countries would effectively act like States in one nation - they even setup Interpol to act like state troopers. Imagine if you suddenly couldn’t move between states. Utterly stupid outcome, and 100% predicted.
Just like any government the EU council did do some brain dead things, but that wasn’t a good reason to leave.
Imagine if you suddenly couldn’t move between states.
This has already become reality for all the women I know that are pregnant or trying to become pregnant.
In what way?
Things can go wrong unexpectedly during pregnancy. For example I just hosted a party on the weekend after Halloween and one of my friends was totally fine and having a good time, then suddenly in the middle of the night after the party she woke up in excruciating pain and bleeding heavily so went to the ER. It turns out she had an ectopic pregnancy, and was able to get the treatment she needed and is still alive instead of bleeding to death in the parking lot of the hospital.
Ask the women that got arrested for miscarrying their own baby, or were allowed to die after 40 hours of a half-born miscarried fetus hanging from them because doctors were unwilling to do anything that might be construed as aiding and abetting abortion.
As an American, please don’t give anyone ideas. I really don’t want to need refugee status to go out west.
Fellow American, given the cost of living, I feel like I’d need refugee status to get out of the
methbeltred states
I can’t imagine giving that up. As an American I once wanted us to join the shengen as one of my long term political pipe dreams.
Yeah, back in my more politically hopeful/naive days, I dreamt of it, too. :(
Economic disaster mainly
Did you mean to reply to @Th4tGuyII@fedia.io? Tagging them so they see this too
You don’t have to be the one fucking around as long as there are others fucking around you.
Don’t you mean “fucking around around you.”? Unless… 😏
He he
I kinda want to fuck around, just not like this. Not like this!
🤔
Yep
Jon Baker
Jon Baker
Ban Joker
🤯🤯🤯
Me too thanks
Opt out of as much of their levers of power as you can. Deny them your eyes and your money. Use your eyes to look around you and see where you can push counter propaganda in your local community. Use your money to help the people you are in community with. The christo-fascists use money to “help” the homeless with soup kitchens that force people to renounce what they know to be true before being served. Mutual aid is not just about harm reduction, it’s about freeing minds. Serving someone food is an act of liberation. It’s an act of a true and powerful love that’s been written about by theorists and philosophers for millennia. It’s even at the core of who Jesus was at his core, it’s just the christo-fascists misinterpret which group of people in revelations they are
So I like where you’re going with this, and it’s the kind of thing that’s been bubbling in my brain for a bit now, but question: I’ve been to a few soup kitchens in different areas of my own country. Never once have I witnessed or heard of anyone having to renounce anything to get served. You show up, you get fed - there’s Jesus freaks in the wings who may use the opportunity to try and convert you, sure, but if you walk away from them it doesn’t mean they take your plate.
Do you have any specific examples you can point to where this isn’t the case? If nothing else, helps name and shame.
look for elca run soup kitchens, as well as anything run by a local community action center. avoid the salvation army and anything run by any church you already know to be trouble. if you do go, spread counter propaganda to their misinterpretations of the bible: come prepared
The fact you did nothing either way makes you complicit in the worst act
