So are PowerBall and Mega Millions now rigged to make sure that the jackpot always hits $1B before a winner is drawn?

I’m just going off your first sentence: “Legislating how people use their bodies is wholly wrong.”

Now you’re talking about medical conditions, which means it’s not wholly wrong, it’s conditionally wrong.

So you would repeal laws that prevent 12 year Olds from getting tattoos?

Aren’t those policies pretty normal at comedy clubs?

I used to go to a comedy club in a small city in the Midwest that didn’t allow phones and kicked out hecklers, and when I lived in Arizona the Tempe Improv had the same rules.

Comedians don’t want their material recorded unless it’s for their own use/gain, which makes sense since it’s a TON of work to come up with all of that material.

Yeah, I’d love it if the government would do it, but I just don’t see how that would happen since people have voted this country so far to the right that AOC seems like a radical.

I’ve had the idea for a few years now that Delta or a conglomeration of airlines should invest in passenger rail from these small regional airports to the big hubs.

Phoenix has Sky Harbor in the city proper, and then Mesa Gateway only about 20 miles east. If they could just hook the light rail between the two, you could eliminate the need to fly in and out of the small airport.

In Michigan there are DTW, and then small airports in Lansing, Flint, and Grand Rapids. If Delta built rail along or above the freeways that connect those cities to Romulus (where DTW is), they could probably get rid of their service to those airports entirely.

vBulletin was a great platform for the old Straight Dope Message Boards.

I miss that place.

Gotta keep momentum going here in Michigan while the GOP is down. We’ve been doing some GREAT things so far, and I hope we can push further left.

Our governor is pretty great, but she is the daughter of the former CEO of Blue Cross of Michigan, so we’ll never get universal healthcare here under her watch.

What are the steps to a revolution without a civil war?

And wow, you looked at all, what, 25 Lemmy posts I have? Wow. Genius fucking detective here.

I don’t support fascism, you stupid fuck, but because I ALSO don’t support just murdering all the Republicans in the country, somehow that means I’m for the status quo.

I have zero to apologize for. You’re a dumb fucking teenager who thinks that we should have a revolution that somehow doesn’t devolve into a civil war, as if you can just say some magic words and red states, which have been a problem for this country since its foundation with all of the shitty compromises that had to be made to even FORM the United States, are somehow going to say “Oh, shit, this kid on the internet is right! Let’s accept what the left wants now!”

We agree that American conservatives are shitty humans who SHOULDN’T have power, but one of us doesn’t want millions of people to die to take power from them.

If I could wave a magic wand and take all military assets out of Confederate states while also getting every non-fascist out and to the better part of the US, then expel those shithole states, I would. But there’s no magic. There’s no way forward without war until at least until the geriatrics in charge die of old age. Unfortunately, the right has also weaponized new media, so GenX and a lot of my fellow elder Millennials have fallen for their shit, but fortunately it’s far fucking fewer than the Boomers and the self-glossed Greatest Generation.

I’m not willing to start killing Republicans, but it sure as fuck sounds like you are. About as far as I’d recommend is to slap anyone at your middle school who listens to Andrew Tate or Joe Rohan.

Why would we allow ANY foreign government to own land here? Kick the Saudis out of Arizona, too.

The use of drones in this war is fascinating from afar.

From an American perspective, I keep seeing calls from extremists for a new civil war, and it terrifies me because weaponry like this means shit will go poorly for civilians VERY quickly, even without going nuclear. I imagine that all these kids and young adults who think that playing CoD prepared them for actual war will be in for a big, brief surprise when a drone just deletes them while being operated by some guy in, like, Nevada.

Man, reading comprehension is NOT your strong suit, is it?

I’m this thread, I was responding to another leftist calling for, as he put it, “R E V O L U T I O N”.

Of course I’m also against shitty neo-Confederates ALSO calling for a civil war, but you already knew that, didn’t you, you condescending little sealioning fuckhead? Instead, you need to turn this into yet more whatabiutism.

I don’t want a new civil war. It’s that easy. If one starts, I simply don’t see a way that it doesn’t turn devastating and nuclear. Calling for a revolution is dumb: our military will likely split, and then two sides of the same super powerful weaponry are fighting in my homeland. No thanks!

That’s what I’m worried about and why I reject these calls from super-leftists for a new civil war. Do you want NYC, LA, SF, Detroit, Phoenix, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Seattle, and Portland nuked? Because that’s what happens when the hillbillies in Iowa and the Dakotas get their hands on the nukes that are stored there.

We’ve built the most powerful military the world has ever seen, along with the most powerful single weapon, and guys like the one I initially responded to just want to go ahead and shatter that with a civil war where the neo-Confederates WILL use that against Blue cities.

Yeah, it’s a good cross section, but that still means there are a LOT of neo-Confederates in the military. A new civil war would be devastating.

I agree that most of the military would favor the Union again, but there’s a significant enough amount of neo-Confederates that it would cause BIG problems.

Yeah, we screwed up Latin America terribly and are dealing with the consequences now.

Still: I’d take it over the other superpowers.

And again, what do you do about the consequences of those actions?

Revolution? Do you know where B-2 bombers are based? How about B-52s? Where are most of our young troops sent to train? All three: The South.

You want revolution, but have no plan for it.

Yeah, but I’d generally take our shittiness over Saudi or Russian shittiness. As a note, my family escaped Russia when the Bolsheviks took over, so I’m HIGHLY biased there.

China… I’m not sure about. I studied Chinese history in college, but that was 20 years ago so I kind of stopped paying deep attention around the time of Hu Jintao. Xi seems much more forceful and willing to expand China’s power via dominance and enslavement.

There are no GOOD superpowers, but I think the US is the least bad.

What are we supposed to do? Seriously.

Congress is a logjam in both chambers.

The military would split if you tried to force red states to stop being shitty.

Most of our top weapons are in those red states.

So what’s the solution that doesn’t lead to half the country dead?

Plus, on the world stage, a “United” United States protects countries like Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, etc. What happens when we’re gone? China becomes dominant and just starts enslaving people in the lands it takes? The Saudis take over parts of the world and bring their shittiness with them? Russia fucks up more of Eastern Europe?

So what’s the answer here to some really complex questions?

In 2022, they were my then-12-year-old child’s favorite band, so I took the kiddo to see the band in Milwaukee. Holy shit, they put on a FANTASTIC concert.