Recent Comments

1. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   Sanders doesn’t wiggle out of his taxes. That’s what Trump does. And different people on the left have different levels of what they ask for. In the end it’s the AMERICAN PEOPLE who take things farther than the politicians originally intended, and so the politicians go for it because they want to keep on getting votes. Every new freedom you named happened by popular demand. (Interestingly, neither legalizing marijuana nor gay marriage raised your taxes, despite your protests to the contrary.) It’s called Democracy. I have to break it to you: this is not Russia.

2. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   For some reason Gocomics won’t let me answer your other thread there, just here. You said that we need to put ending the war first before saving the planet, with the sensible reasoning that a nuclear war could destroy the planet a whole lot faster than anything else.

   But what if you can kill two birds with one stone? Depriving Russia of their income from dirty energy is proving to be the fastest way to end this war. They can’t afford to upgrade their equipment! They’re already using dangerously outdated arms and ammunition. They’re running out and this war should end by summer. Judging by the woeful state of the arsenal they’ve brought to bear so far, their nukes probably can’t even launch, and might no longer even be able to blow up.

   (Fun fact: Most of those “billions” in military loans to Ukraine were already spent years ago, on arms and ammunition slated for destruction in a couple years anyway, because missiles and such only have a shelf life of about a decade and a half before they become unstable, at risk of either not firing at all or blowing up in the barrel of your launcher. Basically, it’s cheaper to send it all to Ukraine and let them destroy it for us than to detonate under strict safety protocols at home. The only new things we’ve sent them were some experimental drones, which they have kindly field-tested for us, saving us money on that, too. And now they’ve reverse-engineered them and are manufacturing their own. Remember, before splitting off, Ukraine used to be the chief manufacturers of Soviet Union armament.)

3. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   Or rather, MOST modern Democrats are politically where Richard Nixon used to be. There’s a few exceptions, of course, already mentioned. Gocomics cut me off and limited my word count.

4. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   Indeed. Before inclining the search engine to prioritize science-based answers on science questions, the algorithms would prioritize by popularity, which skewed results towards conspiracy theories.

5. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   A Marxist wants there to be no such thing as private property. There isn’t a single successful Marxist politician in the entire USA, because it takes a whole lot of money to run for office and nobody rich is going to make campaign contributions to somebody who wants to make money irrelevant.

   The closest you’ll get is Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders—and that’s not even a regular socialist. A regular Socialist wants to put everything in the hands of the government, but a Democratic Socialist wants people themselves to vote for which things they want to own collectively via their government—basically it means taking control of your own taxes and voting on what you want your money spent on.

   Bernie Sanders is fine with private property! He owns a nice home plus a vacation cabin (the “3d house” that he allegedly owns is just a boathouse, which is nothing more than an aquatic garage.) He thinks that you have the right to property, too. But he wants to raise his own taxes, on people in his high-end income range, to help give poorer people the bootstraps they need to pull themselves up by, so that they can also own property, by socializing certain bootstraps like education and medical care.

   Now that’s a far cry from Marxism! In addition to banning private property, Marxism also has the fatal flaw of depending, in practical terms, on transitioning through autocracy to force people to share, when autocrats never willingly surrender power once they have it. This is why the “Democratic” part of “Democratic Socialism” matters so much. No autocrat required! Nobody forces anybody to share, they just trust in persuasion and people realizing their own self-interest in making common cause with others. You can do that with free people.

   BUT MOST DEMOCRATS AREN’T EVEN DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS! The rest of the world sees American Democrats as moderate right-wing, and Republicans as far right-wing. Modern Democrats are about where Nixon was on the spectrum.

6. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   It’s not enough to listen to sound bytes about climate change. You have to look into the science behind it. Then you can understand why global warming can sometimes paradoxically cause regional cooling. I mean you understand that your refrigerator generates heat, right? Understanding the details about climate change isn’t beyond your understanding either.

   People on the left don’t excuse the flaws of our own politicians. We can be more brutal on them than the right! A common left-wing joke is that when Berkeley leftists hold a firing squad, they stand in a circle. Why do you think there’s so much criticism of Biden for being a weak centrist milquetoast? What about all of the Democrats who refused to vote in 2016 because they saw Hilary Clinton as Republican Lite? How about the way Obama got excoriated in his first couple years for “bringing a tennis racket to a knife fight” and being too polite to crack down on the Republican bullies? We absolutely roast our leaders!

   I’ll address your “Marxist agenda” allegations in the next post.

7. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   Please question these people who tell you you can’t trust any source that disagrees with them, no matter how carefully researched. In fact, they seem to regard being a disciplined researcher as evidence of being “woke”, whatever that is.

   I know, it can be scary to feel unheard, small and helpless in the face of so many powers in the world treating you like an object to exploit. It makes it seem plausible that there’s this enormous conspiracy going on, just out of sight, corrupting most leaders, most governments, most leaders, most scientists, most doctors, most professors, most experts of any kind.

   But it’s impossible for that many evil people to work together harmoniously towards a common goal. The very essence of evil is that it’s antisocial—it can’t do “cooperative” for very long. Conspiracies do exist, but the more evil it is, the fewer people can work together on it, the sooner it falls apart.

8. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   Oh dear. Those look like chocolate cookies! Not something you want to put in a dog’s reach. I’m also wondering why 19 year old Luann is putting out cookies for Santa Claus.

9. almost 2 years ago on Luann

   She is lucky to have you in her life!

10. almost 2 years ago on Luann

    Not surprising. She sounds like a generous-hearted woman. I just thought that if she could think of it as a present to you, it’s make her happy and you happy and someone else happy.