This country is an aircraft carrier, not a canoe, and the only way it drastically changes direction in a short time is if someone starts blowing holes in the bottom of it.

A perfect illustration. Politics is slow. It may seem like things are moving quickly in this administration, but the groundwork to get to this point took generations of propaganda and power concentration. Even if by some miracle, a leftist third party won the White House, they wouldn’t have the foundation necessary to actually do anything. The push to the left is going to be a slow process, and the first several election cycles are going to look a lot like milquetoast liberalism.

It’s almost as if corrupt sociopaths are drawn to positions of authority regardless of stated values, and a vanguard party is no exception. Church, State, HOA, offer a crumb of power and bastards will say anything they can to snatch it up. The value of an organizational system has very little to do with its aspirations, and everything to do with the obstacles it erects to obstruct corruption. Build a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the proletariat will be abandoned by the dictatorship.

It is not, it has a tower agitator and works great.

Maytag has one good model too.

Very poetic, but most of these guys are numbnuts. Yes, smoke and mirrors is the intent, but I sincerely believe that the majority of the people you can get into this movement are straight buffoons. Nepo babies playing geopolitik. Obviously there are influences behind the scenes, but these idiots are just too chaotic to stick to the evil plan. I played a low INT goblin fighter based on that premise once, super fun to play, not so much for the rest of the party if they were actually trying to do something.

Extreme strictness is a form of abuse. These symptoms are particular, though not individually exclusive, to strictness. As long as you “behave” you avoid the material effects of the abuse. Other forms of abuse typically have fewer “rules” that can be used as safeguards.

You asked friends, neighbors, coworkers, other parishioners, what they thought, because that shit better last!

You can still do this, I use the Internet tho. There are still brands here and there for each appliance that put the work in on some models, but you have to find them and you’ll pay more. But that $1000 washing machine will easily outlast three $400 machines.

Can we try not to criticize him for this? Let’s just let it happen. The enemy of my enemy certainly isn’t my friend, but they’re useful.

Yeah shrooms are way more likely to give you the ability to think through legitimate problems than generate spontaneous bad ideas. Still though, give it some thought when you come down.

I don’t think I could drink that just by looking at it, I’d probably need to involve my mouth somehow.

I think putting myself down does help me. I was raised by a narcissist intent on making me their reflection. I put myself down to counteract 18 years of narcissistic conditioning. Granted, if you weren’t raised to be a narcissist you probably shouldn’t do it. I’m an edge case.

I get the actual issue, but that title sounds hilariously boomer.

Thanks, I curated my vibe to repel basic-ass bitches.

Also the real big ones frequently take the back door. Training can rearrange the corridor.

Yes. I’m sick and tired of silent boycotts. Unless you’re boycotting because of something major currently in the news, you have to tell the company you’re boycotting why you’re doing it or it doesn’t work.

My baseline circadian rhythm doesn’t let me get sleepy until the sun starts coming up. In a bygone era, I would’ve been the guy tending the fire and watching over the camp until the early birds got up. In the modern era, night shift jobs are generally terrible. I strategically drink to fall asleep at a somewhat reasonable hour, so I can participate in modern society.

But I’ll grant there may be a purely semantic argument that the system itself is immune to corruption, in the same way that a starving person doesn’t have to worry about food poisoning.

Yeah that’s what I was alluding to, hence “technically”. You’re correct that power is inevitable, and your system not prescribing power only limits its ability to moderate that emergent power.

Guess that kind of depends on whether you’re going for “sublime serene harmony” or “the unfathomable might of God”. I think the church kinda nailed it on both fronts, choirs for the first and pipe organs for the second.

This scene from Mr. Nobody is a great example of the first, which seems a bit more what you’re going for.

Been-a-while On-the-pot

Two points:

“I have to go to a place” actually has its own semantic implications. It’s a modern construction, deliberately vague to imply intentional mystery or semi-sincere shame.

“How flies the time” ironically makes the speaker sound more well-versed in English, like a stuffy old professor.