These dolts are going to crash the birth rate even harder. No one wants to bring children into a technofascist shithole of a country. The birth rate is going to plummet to that of South Korea.

I’m talking specifically about the left side of the aisle. And there were two sides to blame. The centrist Dems and the myopic Palestine folks were playing chicken with each other, seeing who would blink first. Neither blinked, and they rammed head first into each other. If a game of chicken results in a collision, both sides are to blame.

You do understand that it is possible for both parties in a conflict to be equally at fault, do you not? The Palestine supporters had a very good point - the Dems were fucking stupid for supporting Israel the way they did. And the Dems had a very good point - myopic Palestine supporters were fucking stupid for focusing on that as the only issue that matters. They both had a point, and they were both fucking stupid.

You have two guilty parties on the left side of the aisle:

1. Centrist Democrats, who ignored the pleadings of their own base and chose facilitating genocide over winning an election.
2. Myopic Palestine supporters who decided Palestine was the only issue that matters.

Get your head out of your ass. It is possible for both parties to be at fault. They were both playing chicken, and if either had blinked, the outcome may have been different. If two drivers are playing chicken, driving towards each other at high speed, and they end up colliding? You don’t try to argue who was to blame. You say, “you’re both fucking stupid” and divide the legal liability equally.

OK, I just looked up the top speed and divided by the distance, but there may be logistics issues that make that impossible. But really, 2 weeks or an afternoon? It makes little difference.

Why not? Denying 41 million a right to vote is a minor crime compared to forcefully conquering a peaceful neighbor that had been your closest neighbor. You’re talking about a conflict that would easily kill 10% of the Canadian population, and likely level every major Canadian city, by the time the resistance efforts were finally stomped out.

He’s saying they would make a 51st state eventually. The US’s client state, Israel, denies the right to vote to nearly half of the population of the areas it controls. And we’re their greatest ally. Why can’t we deny the right to vote to 10% of the people in the territory we control? (Canada’s population would represent about 10% of the combined US-Canadian territory’s population.) Hell, we already disenfranchise millions due to felonies. And we disenfranchise millions through voter purges. And it was only in the 1960s that we stopped outright legally disenfranchising people due to skin color. You’re seriously trying to argue that a fascist government would have moral qualms about disenfranchising large numbers of people!

The US could quite easily even go far as to say, “all Canadian citizens in the occupied territories are resident aliens and will not have the right to citizenship. Their kids will have citizenship, but no one who has ever held Canadian citizenship will get US voting rights.” Every Canadian currently alive simply never gets to vote.

This is entirely possible. A right wing authoritarian government is not stupid. They’re not going to immediately grant voting rights to people that will immediately vote them out of office. The only way they would do that is if they were confident that elections were so utterly corrupted that giving Canadian’s American citizenship wouldn’t change the outcome.

That’s a nice and noble idealism, but what evidence do you have for it? Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, and look how that turned out for them. There is a reason Zelensky has been pushing so hard for NATO membership. It’s easy to idealistically reject nuclear weapons when you’re a nation that is comfortably protected by the nuclear umbrella of a friendly allied superpower. It’s easy to tut-tut, scoff, and say “bombs do not protect from bombs.” But I have yet to see a nuclear-armed nation ever face an existential threat of invasion from a hostile outside power. Despite how much you might claim they are useless, nuclear-armed countries sure do tend not to get invaded. Notice how Trump routinely talks about invading Iran, but no one talks about toppling the North Korean regime anymore? Or why haven’t the Western powers come riding to Ukraine’s aid like they did Poland in World War Two? Despite your idealism, as a practical matter, it is not possible to invade and annex a nation that has a nuclear arsenal.

Nuclear weapons, despite how distasteful they are, are the international relations equivalent of “high fences make good neighbors.” Canada has been protected by a nuclear arsenal for generations. But they’ve had the luxury until now of pretending they aren’t.

Canada needs the bomb.

Unfortunately, this is not about what Canada wants. This is about what Canada needs. I do not want Canada to have to build a nuclear arsenal either. Realize, I am advocating for the construction of nuclear weapons that will be pointed at my own head. THAT is fucked up. I do not make this recommendation lightly.

Reality check. 90% of the Canadian population lives within 150 miles of the US border. An M1 Abrams tank can drive that distance in an afternoon. The Canadian military is woefully unprepared to resist such an advance. The Canadian military is not designed to resist the might of the US. It’s designed to provide some valuable but niche roles as part of the NATO alliance. And this is not some failure to plan on the part of my Canadian brothers. Frankly, Canada was never going to be able to develop such a capability. Canada has approximately 12% of the population of the US, and a vast territory to defend. Even if Canada become as militaristic as North Korea, Canada simply does not have the resources to develop the capability to militarily resist the US using conventional arms.

Do you think an alliance will save you? NATO membership means nothing in this context. When an outside country invades a NATO member, they can activate Article 5. However, nothing happens automatically. The NATO members then must convene to formulate a response, and any single member can veto the resolution. Greece and Turkey, both NATO members, have fought several armed conflicts while both being NATO members. NATO will not be coming to save you.

The Commonwealth? Could you dust that thing off and appeal to King Charles for aid? I’m sure he’ll send his dearest sympathies, but the redcoats will not be coming to save you this time. Compare the stats of the US Navy to the Royal Navy and let me know how that would go. I’m sure the Royal Navy’s 160 aircraft will be a formidable match for the US Navy’s 2600. We could also look at other military branches. But the disparities would be similar, and the forces of King Charles would have no way to get to Canadian soil. I’m sorry to say, but 1812 was a very long time ago. The forces of King Charles would struggle to resist, with conventional arms, a US invasion of the UK mainland. Realistically, if the UK wanted to offer any meaningful assistance to Canada, it would have to come in the form of thermonuclear weaponry.

What about the EU? Could Canada join the EU? Would that save you? First, it takes years to join the EU. But even if you could waive a magic wand and join tomorrow? The EU does have the population and economy to potentially stand up to the US. But they don’t have the defense sector necessary. There is no vast EU expeditionary army that is going to sail across the Atlantic and go to-to-toe against the US Army and Marines. There is no formidable EU Navy that’s going to serve as a credible threat to the Americans. In time, the EU could build that capability. But we’re talking, extremely optimistically, a decade to spin up that magnitude of a military industrial complex. US army soldiers will be fishing on the northern coast of Nunavut before the EU parliament even passes the budget appropriations.

Could Canadian irregulars resist the advance? Canada is not some war-torn country in the Middle East that has had insurgent fighting going on for decades. There isn’t some vast network of Canadian insurgent groups with the skills and resources to build improvised explosives and knowledgeable of insurgent tactics. There aren’t thousands of guerilla fighters that might credibly slow down a US invasion. How many suicide bombings has Canada had in the last year? Canada is not Iraq or Syria. I have no doubt that a fierce resistance movement would eventually develop after a US invasion. But irregulars would not be able to actually prevent such an invasion.

If Canada wants to actually deter a US invasion, they need to consider a domestic nuclear arsenal now. They should have considered it the moment Trump started talking about annexation. Canada should negotiate with Britain or France to have British or French weapons stationed on Canadian soil. And that would provide a meaningful deterrent while Canada develops their own arsenal.

Now, the French or UK arsenals cannot come close to matching that of the US. Combined they have 500 warheads, while the US has 5,000. But nuclear weapons are the great equalizer of international politics. Even 50 nuclear warheads on Canadian soil would successfully deter any potential US invasion. It would mean that whatever the US might hope to gain from invading Canada would be dwarfed by what the US would lose in the conflict.

Sorry for the long response. But TLDR, Canada is hopelessly outmatched against the US in conventional military forces, and there is no realistic way its allies will be able to defend it using conventional weapons. A nuclear arsenal is the only way for Canada to ensure its survival as a nation against a US gone mad. And I write this as an American.

You’re assuming Canadians will be immediately granted American citizenship and representation. Most likely, Canada would become a US territory like Guam or Puerto Rico, and kept that way for at least a generation.

That’s not enough. They should immediately negotiate an agreement with Britain and France to have British and French nuclear weapons stationed on Canadian soil. Have them there long enough until Canada can acquire their own domestic arsenal.

Canada needs the bomb. It sounds insane, but I am not joking. That is the obvious lesson of the Ukraine war. Canada is already an advanced near-nuclear state. They could have a domestic arsenal within a year or two if they wanted. And borrowing a few nukes from London or Paris in the meantime would provide cover to allow that.

And I say this as an American. I know Canadians may be loathe at the idea of a Canadian nuclear arsenal. But be realistic. It is the only way for Canada to ever be able to credibly deter a direct threat from the US. We can no longer be trusted.

Canada needs the bomb.

First put on the silliest outfit you can think of.

Who gives a fuck? Stop trying to sew division and relitigate an election that ended three months ago. Fuck the politics of division. The left needs unity now. Fuck the dividers.

The corporate media is trying to divide the left. Don’t let them. Fuck this relitigation of the election. There’s blame on both sides, but it’s water under the bridge at this point. Fuck fascists and their tactics of division.

The election was three months ago. These constant attempts to relitigate it are just an attempt by the right to divide the left.

The truth is there is blame on both sides. Those who stayed home hold some responsibility, and the Biden admin is also to blame for shunning their own base.

But now we have bigger fish to fry. There’s a constitutional crisis on, and a united front is needed against the right. Fuck the dividers. When someone tries to divide the left, call them out on it or downvote them to hell. They’re either a conservative or a Russian troll.

Let’s be honest. This is treason. This is a capital offense. He’s never getting deported. The only scenarios for Musk are “he gets away with it completely” or “he gets the Mussolini treatment.”

This is a PSA to American users. Log onto SSA.gov and download a full record of your social security contribution history. If you have or have ever had a student loan, log on to studentaid.gov. You can export a full record of any loans you’ve ever taken out, your balance over time, and any forgiveness you’ve received. Do this for any interactions you’ve had with the federal government. Make sure you have copies of your old tax returns as well. The federal government can no longer be considered a reliable steward of official records.

Your student loan balance is unlikely to go “poof,” but any forgiveness you received or past payments just might.

Two words: partial credit.

They absolutely will. Companies hire programmers because they specifically need people who can code. Why would I hire someone to throw prompts into ChatGPT? I can do that myself. In the time it take me to write to an employee instructing them on the code I want them to create with ChatGPT, I could just throw a prompt into ChatGPT myself.

I mean, people say the same thing about pro-Palestine posters. Logically, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Like anything, it’s probably a mix. There were plenty of actual Americans on the pro-Gaza side, and there were probably some Russian trolls as well. Now, there are some actual Americans trying to vent about the election. But it would also be naive to think a fair number of them aren’t Russian trolls. It’s not like the utility of manipulating an adversary nation’s political discourse ends after an election.

Since there’s no practical benefit to relitigating this old fight, however, it makes sense to just dismiss anyone bringing it up as a Russian bot. There’s nothing to be gained by reopening this old wound among the left, but there is plenty to lose.

Wow, you actually did.

There are two major problems with focusing only on wealth or income inequality. First, you need to have a degree of racial consciousness in addition to class consciousness if you want any hope of addressing wealth and income inequality. If you don’t, it’s far, far too easy for those opposed to economic inequality to use racial divisions to tank efforts at economic reform. That’s ultimately what killed the New Deal and the Great Society. We had enough class consciousness to get major economic reforms passed. But then the opponents of economic reform used racial divisions to grind these reforms to a halt. See “welfare queen.” If you can convince the poorest white man he is being held down by a black man, it is trivial for the rich to rob him blind.

Second, often times wealth and race are inseparable. Wealth and income are correlated with race. Imagine tomorrow you waived a magic wand and completely reset the national wealth. You literally take every single asset in the country and divide ownership equally among all citizens. Come back 20 years later, and you would still observe massive disparities in wealth and income due to systematic racism.

The real point of DEI is to make it so meritocracy is more than just a slogan. You design hiring and promotion procedures so as to remove bias of as many forms as possible. The problem is that even if people aren’t overtly or intentionally racist, they will inevitably hire and promote people with subconscious biases. A company full of white men will inevitably just end up hiring and promoting people most like themselves, unless active measures are made to remove bias from the hiring process.

Economic justice is impossible without racial justice.