experbia

but was anyone EVER rooting for homelander?

early on in the show's life, absolutely yes, i saw plenty of people doing just that

described as plainly as possible, net neutrality is the requirement that an ISP (like Comcast, CenturyLink, Starlink, etc) treat all traffic equally as it flows through its network on behalf of its customers. Without net neutrality, companies can do some nasty things, like if a big media company existed that was also an ISP (like Comcast...) they could do things like intentionally delay or otherwise mishandle traffic for competing streaming services while prioritizing their own.

net neutrality is good for Netflix because they have lots of bandwidth intensive content but they are not an ISP.

the ferengi would be so proud of our civilization

yes, they believe it's one of the "in plain sight" pieces of evidence - that when you're born, you have to have a berth (maritime) certificate that makes you like, property of the state or something because you're recorded as "docking" with the country (which is actually a corporation that wants to own you and use your cache of money they hide from you that you receive at birth), and "they" get away with the ruse because us normal rubes just never think to ask if they said "berth" (maritime) or "birth" (reproduction). not even joking lmao

it is a funny pun, too, but they really think birth certificates are, in fact, secretly "berth" certificates for them in maritime trade law, which they believe is the only real law, in which we are all like.. sovereign vessels that have been duped into signing away our independence.

just my 2c...

conservatives require hierarchy to exist. they believe it always did, does, and always will exists - that achieving any kind of equality on a large scale is a pipe dream and unnatural and impossible or even evil to strive for, because it necessitates "knocking them down" to do it. so, their focus is to ensure that they are not currently on the bottom of this hierarchy (fortunately, there's always someone to put beneath them) and to ensure that the bottom does not "rise past them" to leave them at the bottom (as anything promising equality may do). they rally around loud personalities that project power and control (even if it's not true) because just as there must be those beneath them, there must be those above them as well - they pick superiors that are the most personally relatable to them (in an arbitrary, per-person manner) so they can feel they are higher in the hierarchy than they are. after all, if you're just like this person who is obviously high on the ladder of society, you must be pretty well-off too, right? is this why the people they pick tend to be bigoted, unintelligent, and cruel? maybe.

the reason it's always someone else's problem is that the problem (in their mind) is that the people beneath them (their "lessers") are acting as though they're on a level of the social hierarchy that they don't belong. therefore, all social problems clearly have an obvious clause: "if only everyone else would just know their place under us, we wouldn't be having these conflicts." - it can't be them that's the problem, because that would imply there's some kind of issue that may suggest they're not as high up on the social ladder as they thought. gay/trans/brown/etc people want to be recognized as equals? it dilutes their position on the ladder. they would claw past others in this imaginary hierarchy by any means necessary, so of course they assume the "others" will too. no, it's an attack on them, they have to strike back!

gay nightclub shootings and anti-lgbt violence? "maybe they shouldn't have called attention to themselves as they tried to push us down the social hierarchy" someone (anyone) threatens violence upon them? "intolerable. inexcusable. they need to learn their place beneath us"

why do so many of them hate being called cis? because being labelled cis puts them at the same level as a trans person, who they believe is automatically beneath them by virtue of not being exactly like them. it is an attack on them, because they are not considered the normal, the default, as they believe they are. an identifier implies that differentiation between the conservative and the trans person is required, which implies it's not clear to everyone that they are inherently superior to the trans person. you may as well call them "poor powerless worthless scum who deserves to be exploited and abused" in their eyes.

it's maddeningly difficult to convince a hierarchy-addict that it's a delusion.

it makes being a politician for them pretty easy, too. just be relatable to the average self-absorbed person, and claim to do what's needed to put the inferior scum back below your voters where they belong so they can rise up to be superior once more. no surprise this interlaces very well with fascist and racial supremacist ideologies.

N

me too! look at us, we're fucking fabulous. LinkedIn should fear us.

my theory is that nobody was even really there, no shooter, no cops, no trump, no supporters. a party city caught fire the next town over and it was just an extremely coincidental arrangement of bits of glitter in a really specific kind of dust storm that happened to highly resemble a trump rally, and some photographers showed up to document it. they snapped some pics and now don't have the heart to tell everyone the winds died down shortly thereafter and they were standing in a glittery yet empty field.

hey, yeah, this is kind of fun

not only physical access, but the authority to get any information necessary from the manufacturers of every component in the device. there is no question to them how any component operates, from silicon to software.

i was considering how to more fully reply to all this but it just seems more and more like you're either intentionally being disingenuous or are maybe too oblivious to see that being put in the crosshair of 150+ million people's violent, purity-obsessed, hate-driven political ideology is itself a mortal threat. i'm suspecting the prior given how clearly you muddy the analogy to insinuate that i somehow think it's reasonable to shoot a schoolyard bully dead for pushing me on the playground, as though any sane human wouldn't think that an overreaction.

but sure, a public plan to eliminate the political voice of any "woke enemies" (that's anyone LGBT or non-servile women btw) by replacing public servants with staunch ideologically-aligned republican loyalists and leave us with no options to resist except violence definitely deserves no second thought. definitely should not be considered a threat, sure, ok.

a non-violent system of addressing political differences only works if everyone's voice can be reasonably heard. the system is barely doing that now, and will shortly be stifling a lot more voices that aren't ideologically aligned with nationalistic christian conservatism the moment they get the power to do so. if they're shutting down the system that prevents violence, the result should seem obvious. violence is happening now because people are trying to use the system, and it's failing, and it's getting further disassembled and stacked against them right now. that alone is directly threatening - but the fact that they couple this with loud fear-mongering intended to stoke people into a fearful, hateful panic over the particular group of people (who are also simultaneously getting silenced) should worry you even more, because this circumstance is actually threatening.

there was anti-asian violence (and worse) during ww2 when the rhetoric was "dirty japanese people are going to kill you and your family". there was anti-muslim violence after 9/11 when the rhetoric was "dirty brown people are coming to kill you because they hate america". there was anti-asian violence (again) during covid when the rhetoric was "dirty asian people are intentionally bringing the wuhan virus over to kill you and your family".

now the rhetoric is "lgbt people are coming to shoot your schools up and rape your kids" - and wow i sure wonder what will happen next. those gays better not feel threatened or it'll ruin my peaceful sunday, right? with the planned republican loyalist capture of government and the justice system, i also sure wonder what will happen the first time some poor gay guy is stupid enough to defend himself from an "in person" (seemingly this matters to you) attack by hitting back at the american pure-blood super-straight patriot actively assaulting him. will the (gay-hating christian republican) system work to exonerate him (a disgusting gay man who probably rapes kids according to our news and politicians) before a (gay-hating christian republican) judge and a jury of his (gay-hating christian republican) peers? lol hmmmm no you're right there's no threat at all.

Do you perhaps think an eye for an eye is a good concept to live by?

no, but nothing is so black and white. do you perhaps think that bullies should always be acquiesced to? that defending yourself from attackers is inherently and unilaterally immoral?

i'm trying to mind my own business and live my own life peacefully. they're the ones constantly (publicly) cheering for me and my kind to be dragged out of our homes and shot for virtue of being born either non-white or non-straight (depending on flavor of republican, maybe both).

the reason violence is no longer acceptable as a mechanism for political change is that we built a system to address grievances without it: our representative democracy. we rose above the need by using the law to ensure everyone can be heard. Indeed the very system republicans are attempting to dismantle and replace with autocracy; they've already thoroughly corrupted the highest courts in our country to do so. they intend to continue to close all reasonable avenues of political resolution specifically for the purpose of being able to call any resistance to their rule "terrorism", as you just have. this itself is an act of political violence.

if I corner you in an alley with a gun so you have nowhere to run and tell you to give me your wallet, but I haven't shot at you or even aimed it at you yet, does this make me non-violent? is it acceptable? would you fight back, or capitulate? how about if I then tell you to leave but not your partner? would you fight back then, or just leave them to whatever fate might befall them? be careful with your answer: if you say anything other than "I'd leave them with you and continue about my day like normal", you will be seen as a dangerous criminal. the police won't help you, they don't help your kind, and you probably brought it upon yourself in their eyes.

i wouldn't know, according to them and their folks, my friends and family and I are not people, so I guess my definition of that must differ. moreover, I don't dispense sympathy for people who would cheer and support the news that me and mine have been hunted down and shot in the street. I don't sympathize with the aggressors. I've just been trying to mind my own business and live my life as best I can, but these people (in sudden newfound need of sympathy and feelings of safety, lmao) have been talking for years of purges of non-Whites and gays, and civil wars, and rounding up the undesirables (that's me, apparently, by virtue of birth) to clean up the country. might as well be asking me to sympathize with a school shooter over his hearing damage from not wearing earplugs while he mowed down a classroom.