Darned right I'm an "enlightened centrist" in terms of left wing infighting

 So, a community I have been a part of the past few years has undergone a lot of drama in the past few months. Essentially, it's bifurcated between liberals and leftists. Leftists control the community moderation, and in time for election season made a rule against voter shaming. Now, I HATE voter shaming with a passion, so I considered this a good move. However, a few months later, the mods have kinda...gone mad with power. They did ban me a few weeks ago, but then I got unbanned. I documented that a few weeks back. 

But...the issue has gotten so bad that the liberals banned created their own subreddit version of the sub. And here I am, on both subs, and I really don't feel at home in either one any more. The leftist sub is just a circlejerk about how Biden is bad because of gaza and how they're not gonna vote for him, and discussion has gotten toxic because of overmoderation. After my first ban, I'm kind of scared to give my opinion on things. So I started spending more time on the more liberal subreddit, and honestly, this sub is full of the most obnoxious voter shaming jerks who the other sub threw out because they're basically blue maga psychopaths who think shaming people is an effective tactic.

Heck, to be blunt, both of these groups are so bad that they deserve each other. The leftist faction is a huge reason I post so much stuff crapping on Gaza protesters. Because these guys are pro shaming too, and they are some of the most toxic and obnoxious jerks if you don't just make gaza your #1 issue and your entire worldview. heck, that ban that I got was because I said that I think gaza protesters deserved to be arrested for occupying buildings and breaking the law. These guys think that because they're "moral" and they have a point to make that they can just do whatever they want, law be darned, and that I was wrong for saying that, because if I side with the cops, than I'm not a true leftist or something. Well, I'm not, I'm a social libertarian, or, put more simply, a socdem, and I am in between the liberal and leftist factions. Anyway, i got unbanned so I do post there, but I do use a lot more discretion and the ban has had a chilling effect on my ability and willingness to express my true views. Good thing I have a blog. 

As far as the other side goes...yeah, these guys have the same obnoxious shaming mindset of the free palestine people, but it's over voter shaming, and they think that they can just fricking shame people and how dare the other group ban them for it. And honestly? My honest thoughts? YOU'RE BOTH WRONG AND ACTING LIKE MENTAL CHILDREN! 

To the free palestine folks, while I understand the disgust toward the gaza situation, I can't for the life of me imagine making my whole worldview based off of that one purity test. To sound like a blue no matter whoer for a minute, "there's too much at stake" this election. For the love of God, donald trump is an existential threat to democracy and that's no exaggeration, he literally tried to overthrow the 2020 election results and install himself for a second term illegitimately. Even if he doesn't turn us into a right wing dictatorship similar to russia, his winning still represents an electoral shift which will be detrimental to the left to achieve future goals. The democratic party will move right, and the republican party will dominate the narrative. Again. And every election will just be more voter shaming nonsense while the GOP keeps pulling the country further and further right. We are literally in a fight for the life of the left in this country, and you're blowing it. Over gaza, a foreign policy issue half a world away that has little to no strategic value to the left. Is it worth it? No. And your obnoxious self righteous behavior in screaming at people they're war criminals or, in the case of non public figures, simply immoral for not thinking like them, is turning people away. You act shocked when crowd boo you and cheer when you're arrested, when in reality, you're being ###holes and you deserve it. That's why people cheer when you're hauled off to jail. You F around, and you find out, and people love to see the finding out part.

As for the blue no matter whoers, you guys suck too. You wanna know how many people voter shaming works on? To my knowledge, 0. I wanna make clear, no one shamed me away from third party voting toward voting for Biden, I made the shift of my own accord by analyzing the facts and reading the room. But you wanna know what happens when you shame people? You make them double down in their current positions. And they won't listen to you. If you really see us in a dangerous situation, you would realize this and focus on what works. Your self righteousness shifts no one. It pisses people off and makes the situation worse.

Sadly, in both situations, me pointing this out is often very disliked by both sides. They always tell me that it's my problem for being offended by what they say, and it isn't them that's the problem, it's me for not reacting well to their shrill self righteous screeds. In the leftist sense it's a response to the gaza stuff, and them not understanding how anyone could react to the protests and WANT to see people arrested after making jerks of themselves. For the centrists, it's them not understanding that their shaming behavior is less than effective and counterproductive. I even had one have the gall to call me a "reactionary" for it. They seem to take the whole "reaction" aspect a bit too far as reactionary seems to imply:

(of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.

 According to google. I'm not that but I do admit I'm an ex right winger. And I grew up HATING the left for their shrill self righteous behavior. I shifted left during the Obama years when this behavior particularly common. Once again, I made this shift of my own accord. I analyzed the situation we found ourselves in and had a dramatic transformation in my ideology. However, my attitude toward this behavior never changed. And I feel like if these guys were around in 2012 acting like this, I likely wouldn't have shifted left as easily. I don't think I'm the only one like this. I described recently how the protesters in the 1960s lost the country for a generation over their behavior. I've learned from history, and honestly? Having traced the fall of the new deal coalition and the rise of Reagan, I think most people are "reactionary" not necessarily in their views, but in their reaction to this shrill and self righteous approach to left wing politics. Most people HATE this stuff. And it seems like any time I try to argue people out of doing it, they just won't admit that it actually is terrible and offputting. They'll just say that they're right and it's my problem. 

Well, no, it's OUR problem. it's the country's problem. I'm just one person, and yes, I am an enlightened centrist who craps on both sides of this. And I'm not sorry. because I'm right and you're not. Because I studied history and learned from it, and you're repeating the same nonsense mistakes of the past. Sorry, not sorry.

And to these two sides, you guys deserve each other. Because when you argue with each other, you guys are just doing the same fricking thing to each other. Shaming behavior isn't effective, is it? To leftists, look at the blue no matter who people. Do they change your minds? Neither do you change theirs on gaza. To the liberals, look at the gaza protest voters. Does their shaming behavior endear you to them or change your views? Congrats, that's what you look like to them.I can say this as an impartial observer and "enlightened centrist". because I am enlightened, I am centrist in the sense that I'm in the middle between the two of you, and I hate both of you equally at this point. Screw you both. have fun arguing with each other while I take shots from both sides of the debate.

ICC puts out arrest warrant for Bibi Netanyahu

 Source

 So it finally happened. The international criminal court has decided to put out an arrest warrant for Bibi Netanyahu for his war crimes in gaza. Do I support the move? Yes. Do I think it has any teeth? No. Without someone to actually go to israel and arrest him, nothing is gonna happen. So this is a virtue signal. Some have pointed out this will limit his travel out of the country because if he goes to a signatory nation of the ICC he will be arrested, but given Israel and the US are not participants in the ICC, don't expect anything to happen.

If you're wondering how the US is responding, Biden is basically calling it "outrageous." And you know what? I'm gonna come down against Biden here. No, it's justified. I've been following this for months. I've seen some pretty messed up stuff online about this, and yeah I believe Netanyahu is interested in the extermination of the Palestinian people. I've been calling this stuff out, and while if I HAD to choose a side in this conflict, I still would support Israel and understand where the US is coming from, from a geopolitical perspective, look, dude, Biden, you're wrong. Bibi is a war criminal, I think he SHOULD be arrested, and the government needs new leaders in its place who are more humanitarian. We shouldn't be enabling this stuff. 

This won't affect my vote for Biden, mind you, but that's my stance on this. I've kinda been drifting away from my support for Israel for months now in light of the war crimes, and feel justified in coming down against them. This doesnt mean palestine is better, if anything, they're worse, and their leaders are part of this arrest warrant too. So let's not say "hurr durr what about Hamas' leaders". Yeah no, we know. They're bad too. but good luck arresting them given Bibi is currently trying to burn the entire gaza strip to the ground to get at these guys in the first place.  

But yeah. I really do hope that Biden reconsiders his stance here. A lot of people in the US are pissed over this, and while I don't think the number of protest voters will be electorally significant over this issue, he should still distance himself from Israel for moral reasons, but yeah, also possibly political reasons too. This is a blight on his presidency, and one reason I slightly lowered his score in my purity test recently.

Discussing the house floor cat fight between MTG and AOC

 So...there was very recently a spat on the house floor that Marjorie Taylor Greene basically started that turned into a rather ugly cat fight between MTG, AOC, and the person MTG insulted. John Fetterman jumped in to interject that this is basically worse than the Jerry Springer Show. I'll touch on this comment in a bit, as this has gotten some controversy, but yeah, first, my actual analysis.

So, MTG made some off color "fake eyelash" insult toward Jasmine Crockett, an African American congresswoman. AOC then got super self righteous and insisted her words be stricken from the record, which under pressure, MTG agreed to, but then AOC insisted she apologize, which MTG refused to do and egged on AOC. This caused MTG to not want her words stricken, at which point Jasmine Crockett called her a "beach blonde bad built butch body", which I kind of found hilarious. 

Anyway, to me, this is like, peak Trevor's Axiom. MTG makes crappy comment, AOC gets super self righteous about it and herself gets criticism, and yeah people just lost their minds over this.

MTG is, like she normally is, responsible. MTG is just a total piece of crap to me. She is such a toxic person. I'm surprised she isn't censured more often, and given that she's basically been harassing AOC since she got into office in 2021, I'm surprised there arent restraining orders filed. 

Still, AOC's reaction, given my trevor's axiom comment, DID go a bit above and beyond. I would be more likely just to let it go and expect it to her, but AOC was like HOLD UP, WE AINT MOVING ON UNTIL SHE APOLOGIZES AND HER WORDS ARE STRIKEN FROM THE RECORD. And idk, it just seemed a bit self righteous to me. And yeah, given the "oh girl baby girl" thing, it really did come off as like a cat fight, like you'd expect to see on...Jerry Springer. I'm not saying that AOC was in the wrong. As I'm trying to point out more recently, with things like this and the gaza protests, you can be morally in the right and still come off like a self righteous jerk. And AOC's behavior did cross that line for me. Sorry, not sorry. 

As for Ms. Crockett's response, now, THAT is more like how I'd handle it. Fighting fire with fire, not getting self righteous, but hurling insults back and then moving on. Of course, the point was to force them to basically strike BOTH of their words as both of their conduct was unbefitting of the office, but I found Jasmine's approach more in line with how I thought it should be handled. Self righteousness tends to turn me off, fighting fire with fire is where it's at.

And then I see people online like "gee was Jasmine Crockett wrong to call MTG a "beach blonde bad built butch body?"

No, given the circumstances and provocation from MTG it was totally warranted. And this is something I feel like a lot of people have lost in recent years, the ability to conduct a proper flame war without overreacting to things. We get more hyper fixated on the act of insulting, where we try to censor and shut down discussion, when the proper response is to just hurl an insult back and move on. Remember the old phrase "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me?" Yeah. We need to go back to that.

Either way, MTG was the aggressor to the whole thing so Crockett firing back with an insult of her own was perfectly justified. I call that self defense. 

Ideally, I'd prefer we NOT hurl insults at all obviously. It is beneath of the office. But yeah, that's MTG for you. She's beneath the office herself, and I'm tired of pretending she isn't. I'd call her America's trashiest congressperson, but sadly she has competition from Lauren Boebert for that title.

Also, while we're on the topic of MTG's physical appearance, I just wanna remind everyone that she looks like a literal neanderthal. You're welcome.

Discussing right wing nationalism

 So, this is a topic that has come up for me a few times recently. The first time was when I saw Vivek Ramaswamy interview Ann Coulter. That was wild. I won't link it because of how outright racist it is, but yeah, TLDR, Ann Coulter is a literal white nationalist who wouldn't vote for Vivek because he's Indian-American, and argued that we need a 6th+ generation WASP president to "truly soak up what America is." And I just thought that was a wild take, because it's like WTF. it's one thing to be conservative in the sense of "yeah, I like this as they are, i want things to stay the same", or even to have a bit of this weird American civil religion thing going, but to be like "I need my president to be a 7th generation white guy" is...again, that's insane.

I mean, with me, I don't care what race you are. My favorite politician is a second generation Taiwanese immigrant. My second is a second generation Jew whose parents escaped the holocaust. Yes, we're talking Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders here. I really don't see any correlation between how long your family is here and how good they are as politicians, or even how conservative they are. I'm...idk how many generations here. At minimum 4th generation, probably longer. My grandparents were born here. My great grandparents, they probably were too. I suspect based on having some native american blood (that 2% virtually every american has these days) and some PA dutch influences that parts of my family have been here for literal centuries. The more recent ones were probably Irish coming over during the potato famine. So that's like 170 years ago. My family knows what it is to be American. I mean, I had a great grandfather who worked on the Panama Canal, a grandfather who was in WWII in Iwo Jima, my dad was in Vietnam on riverboats. I think I know what "being American" is, yet here I am being progressive AF while Vivek agrees with Ann Coulter on virtually everything and she would still hesitate to vote for him. To me, that's just racist. 

Heck, I'd even vote for certain first generation immigrants. if Cenk Uygur was successful in being able to run, I'd vote for him. He's a naturalized citizen from Turkey. I'd definitely vote for him over Coulter or Ramaswamy. It's about ideas and ideology. And on the republican side, well, let's just say I'd be able to tolerate Arnold Schwarzenegger over virtually every republican candidate running now. He's a naturalized citizen from Austria. I mean, why do people care so much about where you're from and race so much?

I mean, to me, culture doesn't matter a ton, because let's face it, as this hyper rational autistic secular free thinker, I don't value keeping things the way they are. Any appreciation I have for American culture in particular comes from what it actually contributes logically to the discussion. I believe we do a lot right, and a lot of our norms come from a good place of trial and error and correcting past mistakes from past regimes like 1700s England. But at the same time, not everything is great. Just ask me what I think about our work ethic and hyper individualism on economic issues. But that's the thing. I'm capable of entertaining an idea and then either accepting or rejecting it on the merits, i don't like the idea of keeping things the same just because.

As for assimilation, since this is another topic that's been coming up in some recent discussions, I don't understand why these right wing nationalists are so obsessed with people conforming to their culture. I mean, i get it, they're authoritarians, they like to tell people what to do and think conformity to their idea of society is the ideal, but I've seen people defending AFD's immigration plan, which had straight up nazi crap in it like deporting citizens not deemed to be "german" enough. "Well ackshully they offered them monetary incentives to leave the country and renounce their citizenship". That only makes it marginally better. Like, wtf? Yes it's a bit less coercive, but it's still the same thing. Also what qualifies as not properly naturalized? Being the wrong skin color? Looking up the german requirements, most of my own concerns would be met by ANY german citizen, as the most important things for me would be speaking English (in the US, it would be german in germany), and not being a radical extremist. I mean, what more do you need? Follow the law, speak the language, don't be an illiberal extremist who threatens the state you're trying to join, live there for a certain reasonable period of time. Pretty simple, don't you think? I mean, that's basically MY minimum requirements. I'm not picky. 

But, these rightoid types, they're really big on not just being for that stuff you need something else. You need certain ancestry (so they're essentially racist), you should be sufficiently "into" the local culture (which often means being into it to this weird, creepy, religious degree), and maybe, just maybe, you should be like a 6th generation person who has lived there or something. 

Idk, to me, that's psychotic.

Then again, I realize many of these guys are bordering on nazism, if they're not outright nazis. They are essentially, quite literally, white nationalists by definition. They're white, they're nationalists, they seem to think being white is part of their nationalism, so if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and goes quack quack it's probably a duck. 

Of course one of them fired back at me that I probably think the pledge of allegiance is creepy and jingoistic too.

Well...akshully, yes, it is. Remember the outrage we got when Colin Kapernick kneeled during the national anthem? Yeah, they got so triggered black football man wouldn't show the proper reverence toward their national symbols, even though he learned to do that from a vet who complained of him doing nothing. 

And as far as the pledge, yes, teaching it to kids in school every morning is, in retrospect, very creepy and jingoistic.

Comparing my 2016 views to my current ones

 So, back when I first started this blog, I gave an overall summary of my views. And while this isn't the first article I've done on this, I do want to analyze this original article and see how I've changed over time. So this is gonna be me reacting to my second article ever on this blog where I outlined all of this out.

Since I'm going to be discussing primarily politics on this blog, I figured I would discuss my political views. I did this at great length in my original blog, but I'll provide a more condensed summary here to avoid having to port a lot of that stuff over later.

You know I've actually been going through my old stuff for another project. I kinda wish I had all of those articles. While I may not have seen all of them as important at the time, I maybe could have used some of them for it.

Long story short, the terms that would best describe me are "liberal", "progressive", "social democrat", and "left libertarian." There isn't really a single label that really encapsulates my views, but I'm trying to point out where I stand. On the political compass test, I generally score in the ballpark of -5, -5, which puts me in the bottom left, where I am left wing on economic issues and libertarian on social issues. I don't tend to take my views to extremes though. 

Yeah this is one way where I've evolved. I now consider myself a "social libertarian" which is basically all of those labels combined. Each individual label is inaccurate, and I kind of struggled to define myself over the years.

I am a liberal, but I don't get along with other liberals as they're too moderate.

I consider myself a progressive but the term has some negative connotations that make it mean different things. In a sense the SJWs kinda coopted it for their own ideological purposes.

I'm a social democrat but I also tend to take things in a libertarian direction. Like, I'm a libertarian social democrat who leans into UBI. Also, my views might be closer to a social liberal than a social democrat as social democracy seems to lean more into socialism. 

And for left libertarian, well, don't you dare call yourself a left anything or some "leftist" will be are "well are you REALLY left?" like they fricking own the term.

So yeah, social libertarian works. It also is closer to other ideological roots not covered here like indepentarian, based on widerquist's philosophy, or a "real libertarian" based on van parijs. While there are various kinds of social libertarianism, including some I don't really like, like, for example, georgism is considered a form of social libertarianism, largely the term applies to me. Andrew Yang's philosophy has been thrown into this category as "yangism" and my views strongly resonate with that. Kyle Kulinski's ideology also tends to be associated with the term, and more aligned with the "libertarian social democrat" label. His views are a little different than mine, but we're on the right track, with my views being a mix of both Yangism and "libertarian social democracy."

So yeah, good news, in the past 8 years, I finally figured out what to call myself! Yay!

Social issues

I am very liberal/libertarian on social issues. I'm pro choice, I'm pro gay marriage, sympathetic to LGBT+ issues. I'm for social equality for people of all races and genders. I support ending the war on drugs, the prison industrial complex,our massive spying programs, although I'm not an extremist. I might want to get rid of the war on drugs, and I might support legalizing marijuana, but I don't support a full scale legalization of all drugs; I just think we should focus on rehabilitation and save criminal penalties for the dealers. I also might support some spying programs, but they should only be done insofar as our constitution's original approach toward privacy and search and seizure allow. Essentially, with a warrant and probable cause. On some issues, I'm a little more moderate. I have mixed views on immigration, and support both more border security and a path toward citizenship for those already here. Same with gun control. I support fixing loopholes while also supporting some level of second amendment rights.

 Literally 100% of this applies to me 8 years later. Or at least 99%. I'd say on drugs, yeah....for decriminalization but not sure full legalization. I'm basically all the right things, but as you can tell, I clearly don't take it to "woke" degrees. There's a liberal version of simply being egalitarian, and then leftists wanna basically go into the whole power structure thing and blah blah blah. Never been big on that.

I thought I'd consider myself more moderate on guns than 2016, but I guess pre...2019ish or so my views were a bit less clear as I always kinda believed in the second amendment but also believed in limitations on it. i guess now my views make more sense. 

On immigration, my views still stand. We've discussed that more recently. I also am fine with biden's compromises even if it doesnt have a path to citizenship. I mean, the whole issue is low priority to me so it's like...whatever.

Economic issues

Economics is my main focus this election cycle. I believe that while capitalism is a good system on the whole, in the sense that it provides a lot of stuff, it is very deeply flawed and requires significant overhaul to fix. I largely support Bernie's platform. Higher minimum wage, universal healthcare, free education, etc. However, I do go farther in some ways. I believe we should implement a universal basic income to ensure every citizen has the ability to live without work. I see this as the only way to solve poverty, since jobs will never produce a good living for all, and I also believe forcing people to work is more or less de facto slavery and that it's unneeded in modern times and actually harmful. I'll port some articles from my old blog on this later.

 As you guys can tell, I still agree with this, if anything I've evolved this stuff policy wise since then. 

Generally speaking, I believe the economy is made for humans, not humans for the economy, and that we need to stop treating people as means and treat them as ends. Our economic system, while very functional, fails on many levels to do this and reduces human beings to mere tools for wealth accumulation. I believe this alienates us from our lives, and that the structure of the system ultimately benefits a few at the expense of the majority. My views are ultimately a mixture of pro capitalist views combined with some anti capitalist ones. I believe it's important to understand both sides of the story and use them accordingly. Meanwhile, our current system and mainstream ideology, even on the left, only tells one side of the story.

 You know, when I say I was a human centered capitalist before yang came up with the idea, this is precisely what I mean. You see my original two premises these. That the economy is made for humans, not humans for the economy. The second one is a little less clear but still here. That work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Human beings are the ends. We treat humans as "workers" and valorize the act of work, when in reality work is just something we do to fulfill our needs. Fulfilling our needs is the important part, not work itself. And yes, basically, our failure to realize that causes us to be mere tools of wealth accumulation, and this fixation on work alienates us from our lives. This is different than marx's alienation. Marx's alienation is based on the structure of capitalism alienating people from their work....as if there's a proper relationship between humans and work. But for me, work is an inherent evil or negative, so to me there is no proper relationship. Eliminating work, or at least forced labor, is a core goal of my ideological system. 

Still, despite that, I am somewhat pro capitalism. I've debated it over the years, even have been open to mild socialism before, but I just keep going back to capitalism for practical reasons, and because I don't believe the inherent structure of capitalism is bad as long as workers have an ability to say no. 

As such, I'm significantly to the left of the current democratic party to an extent, but I would still say I'm largely to the right of socialism and communism. I believe capitalism is a necessary system to have at this point of time, and that we need to keep it. However, I am deeply critical of it and also believe that we need to enact some very serious reforms to make it work for the benefit of all. My ideal system is capitalistic, but also has a lot of safety nets, unionization, and even workplace democracy. Over the longer term, I would also like to see automation replace jobs, so that we can finally live in a post work world where we're free to do whatever we want to do. I don't see work as a good thing. I see it as a necessary evil and believe we romanticize it too much. I think people should have the option to seek it, but I disagree with our current system of forcing it on everyone under the threat of poverty if they refuse.

 Yep. I already covered this, and I spent a lot of effort explaining how to get there, by what mechanisms, etc. So I've basically expanded on this core ideology while remaining the same. 

Foreign policy

I would consider myself a pragmatic non interventionist/pacifist. I am largely anti war, and I dont believe in involving ourselves in every conflict around the globe. Having grown up and seen the consequences of our interventionist foreign policy in the war on terror, I think that intervening too much militarily does more good than bad. Still, at the same time, the US is essentially to world security, and our presence in a lot of places like Europe and eastern Asia largely keeps the peace, and that if we weren't there, some rival powers like Russia, China, DPRK, etc. would step up and control the world. So I do have a streak of realpolitik in my foreign policy, and do believe some of our actions are done for the sake of national security, and that we have to do them to keep us safe. However, I also think we should be mindful of the consequences of our actions and only intervene when absolutely necessary.

 And we can clearly see how this balance works out in practice. I mean, back when this was written, it was 2016. Since the late 2000s, the zeitgeist at the time foreign policy wise largely focused on our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And over time, I became more and more anti interventionism, believing our intervention was a net negative. I largely supported Obama's foreign policy, believing it had the right balance between strength and peace. 

However, since then, we've gotten out of Afghanistan, closed that chapter in America's history, and during the Biden administration, the big foreign policy challenges are ultimately about containing Russia and China. And this is where that more realpolitik streak comes out. I'm for sending arms to Ukraine, while not fighting ourselves. I'm for aiding Taiwan. And while I'm mixed on Israel, let's make no mistake of my position. My problem isnt sending them arms to defend themselves. I see Israel as a core geopolitical security partner in the middle east. I just believe that they are currently acting unethically and that their behavior in their war with gaza is a bit too barbaric and bloodthirsty for my tastes. So keep in mind, I have a balanced, nuanced position there. I'm nominally pro Israel, I just don't like their behavior. but that doesn't automatically make me pro palestine.

But yes, my core foreign policy stance is literally identically here.

The political system

I believe in democracy. I think if we don't have a democratic system, the alternatives are oligarchy, a dictatorship, or anarchy. None of these options are preferable. Generally speaking, while people may be correct in criticizing many as being unable to make good decisions due to ignorance, if we don't allow everyone to have a say, we then have to worry about who does. And often time, this devolves into a group of people with an investment in the status quo imposing it on others regardless of their thoughts and interests. This leads to authoritarianism and a general lack of freedom. As such, I believe our system should be as democratic as possible, that representatives should be directly accountable to the people, and that money should be taken out of politics. I have an article in mind that discusses my ideas of how to fix America's political system that I will port over once my old blog is up.

Generally speaking though, I'm very anti authoritarian and am very critical of those with power. I believe power is necessary, but it needs to be treated like fire, with lots of respect and reverence to avoid burning oneself. Since power is necessary, we need lots of checks and balances to keep it in line, and we need the people to have input into who our leaders are. Leaders exist for OUR sake, not for their own. They are servants of the people. They are accountable to us.

 Yes, my core philosophy is the same here. What has changed is, again, the times. In 2016, for me, this meant standing up to a hostile democratic party who took voters for granted and thought it could bully people into voting for it. I fully recognize the democrats have not changed in this regard. I just feel like Donald Trump is an even bigger and more immediate threat. At this point, we risk turning out two party state into a one party one like, say, Russia. So yeah. It's just a matter that in 2024, things are moving in the wrong direction, and I feel like I must shift to counter new threats.

Conclusion

You can probably get a good idea of where I am at politically from this post. All in all, I'm liberal, progressive, maybe even a social democrat or left libertarian. I generally align pretty well with Bernie Sanders, although on a few things I may be more extreme and tend to have my own left wing philosophy that may differ from him and the democratic party line. So I guess the best say to approach me is as, say, a left wing independent. I'm liberal on social issues, left wing on economics, a pragmatic noninterventionist on foreign policy, and am fairly skeptical of authority and support a political system accountable to the people. 

 Yes, again, my views are mostly the same, I just now have names for them and have made my stances a bit more nuanced.

But yeah. I sometimes look at how things have shifted since 2016 and wondered if I have changed, but looking at it now, no, I realize I am what I always have been. My views are nearly identical, and while they have grown a bit more mature since then, the same ideological basis exists.

That's the power of having a coherent worldview. I see the world a certain way and i interpret events within it for better or for worse. My core ethical and belief systems don't change much. I'm literally the same guy I was 8 years ago. I just have more mature and nuanced takes while having an identical political belief system.

Summary of the last article

 So my apologies, I'm half asleep tonight and realize my previous article is a meandering mess. I want to spend this article summarizing my main takeaways from it.

1) The free palestine crowd is a laughably small minority who are likely (but not definitely) electorally irrelevant

2) most are leftists who likely never would've voted democrat anyway

3) Voter shaming is ineffective and just alienates people

4) The main cause of malaise about Biden is inflation

5) Liberals wishing to convince people to vote for Biden should probably ignore the free palestine leftists and focus on winning back normies on economic arguments, explaining the real causes of inflation and how Biden is not responsible for it.

And yeah, that's my advice on that. Too much effort is focused on voter shaming leftists when this isnt even effective. Just ignore them and let them scream into the void on gaza. Too much effort for too little return. Appeal to other voters instead. 

Should we even bother with the free palestine crowd electorally?

 So, Biden bros...can be annoying. A lot of them LOVE to pontificate the virtues of lesser evil voting to third party voters. And it's obnoxious, annoying, and ineffective. Because as someone who voted third party in 2016 and 2020, if you dont support the democrats, someone telling you about lesser evil voting and their theory of "harm reduction" is not likely going to do much. If anything, it just creates confrontation, which just leads to backlash. It's ineffective. Yes yes, I, a third party voter in previous elections, are very familiar with your theories of harm reduction. I didn't care. You can't make me change my mind, only I can, by reading the room and updating my theories on the world accordingly.

You know, I've been reading over my blog going back to 2016 lately for another project, and I'm remarkably stable in my views. A lot of my takes from 2016 still hold up today. Some havent aged well, like ones downplaying trump as a threat, or those cringey takes discussing the russian propaganda going around at the time, I'm still fundamentally the same guy now as I was then. I could go back and read my original ideological posts on my blog and they're near 100% accurate of my views today. And any shifts in politics have been more about me adapting to the modern environment than a genuine shift in views. 

Why am I voting for Biden this time but i voted for Stein and Hawkins in previous elections? Context, mostly. I admit I have gotten a bit more mature as I've added onto my 2016 era views, and I have a bit more nuance today, but yeah, my views are mostly, by all accounts, the same. And what makes me support Biden this time, but not back in 2016 comes down to a few things. First, Trump is, genuinely, more of a threat. Second, he has gotten more fascistic and authoritarian. Third, Biden has done decently. And fourth, in 2016 we were still dealing with lingering effects of the great recession and that led to a national environment where I think people were in the mood for an economic shift to the left. In 2024, we're dealing with lingering effects of the inflation that's ravaged the country since 2021 when we reopened from COVID. Back then, we could argue a left populist was exactly what the country needed to fix it. in 2024, the left needs to hold on for dear life and defend their current position, not pressure Biden to the left in ways he cant deliver on and even if he did, he would be hated on by the rest of the country on it. We CANNOT move left as long as inflation remains the #1 issue in Americans' minds. That's the economic reality, and we need to ride this out and just avoid losing to the republicans. 

A lot of people dont wanna hear that. For them, nothing Biden does is ever good enough. Don't get me wrong, i get it, given my agenda, I also want to move hard left. BUT, I also understand that 1) Biden isnt that guy, 2) he's done a lot more than I thought he would, 3) the big obstacle right now is congress, not the president, and 4) the country already hates him for "doing too much" because again, fricking inflation. Did I mention it's the kryptonite of progressive policy? Seriously, we can't even doing anything in our current state. Our policies arent what the country wants or needs right now, as much as I want them in the long term. These times are abnormal. Seriously, we are in very strange, not normal circumstances that only occur once in a blue moon, and we gotta understand that even if our policies are what we need 90% of the time, this is in that other 10% where things don't apply. As such, even I have to shift to support Biden.

But...some people haven't gotten the memo. And much like the hippies of 1968, they're spitting in the face of one of the most progressive presidents we've had, and are going bugnuts over gaza, claiming it's "their one red line" and blah blah blah. And more centristy, blue no matter who libs, think they can reach these people by voter shaming them. And I gotta tell you, no, you can't. Because as a former third party voter, these guys won't listen. Leftists who are anti democratic party will reflexively just ignore everything you say. I would know, I was one of these guys. Even worse, unlike me, who is just a relatively keynesian progressive liberal economically, most of those guys are marxists. I've been kinda realizing it more than more as time goes on, but most of the bernie or bust crowd is batcrap insane. They're literal red flag waving marxists. They fundamentally dont believe in electoralism and if they participate at all, it's to go third party. The number of these guys who ever could be reached by liberals and be convinced to vote for biden are already going to do so, like me. Because I'm actually a liberal who did that stuff to pressure the dems to do better and reach their full potential. But a lot of leftists just hate the democratic party reflexively and will continue to double down and vote green out of spite.

I really don't know how many of these guys are reachable. A lot of dems who voter shame have this idea that these guys are potential democratic voters and if only they didnt vote for greens, they'd vote democrat. But, again, having done this in previous elections, I myself am not sure my vote was really up for grabs by the dems. I mean it was, contingent on them meeting certain policy goals of mine, but barring that, I wasn't moving. And with these guys this time, their goalposts moving has gotten so ridiculous i honestly think dems reaching out to them is like lucy with the football. You just cant reach these guys. They just live in a different ideological world than the rest of us, and I doubt that they ever seriously considered a biden vote. Many of them seemed to be looking for an excuse to defect from the dems and it just so happened that gaza was the issue that motivated them.

Also, did we mention how these voters are actually a really tiny part of the electorate who barely shows up in polls? Like really, im starting to think that these guys are just this really tiny vocal minority who lives in their own little world. So why do liberals care so much what they do? let them not vote for biden and scream into the void. Sure it would be nice if they did, but honestly, dems arent owed votes and these guys are too far gone for the dems to even listen to. 

Right now, we gotta play defensively. Most people probably are gonna back Biden. I admit his polling deficiencies are from his own base being demotivated, but what are they mostly demotivated about? Inflation and of course, voting for an 82 year old who looks like he's gonna fall asleep at any moment. Of course, we already covered that replacing biden makes dems poll worse.

Dems are just in a really bad position this election. This is what happens when inflation happens. Inflation is our kryptonite. Think of this in terms of keynesian economics. The solution when unemployment is high and inflation is low, more stimulus, more spending. Progressive policies help here. The solution when we got full employment and inflation is high, well historically the solution is normally more austerity, raising fed interest rates and cracking down on worker bargaining power. Although this isnt even a normal inflationary spell. it's not wages driving it. it's basically corporate greed. Of course, many people dont know that so are just blaming biden's spending on everything. 

And yeah, what more can we do? We got a gridlocked congress, Biden basically being a lame duck similar to obama (although he's admittedly learned from Biden's mistake and is doing what he can). He's being attacked from all sides. The national environment favors conservatives. And yeah, any level of conventional knowledge of politics is gonna tell you that we gotta lay low here. Biden's screwed, we can't do anything. All we can do is defend him the best we can, and while yes, the gaza people are annoying, they're mostly a tiny minority who may very well be electorally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Polling wise, these guys are background noise at best. Could they throw it to Trump? In theory, yes, but that implies that they were ever on the table for biden in the first place, and im not sure they were. And likewise, im not sure that, if biden loses, we can point to these guys and be like "yeah if only we won them over, things would be different." Again, like bill clinton said that one time, "it's the economy, stupid." It always was. It was in 2016, which is why i still stand my my analysis of then, but economic conditions are different now, and it's very clear inflation is what's screwing us. 

If you're on the left, I'm gonna ask you to vote Biden. We need to beat trump. We need to keep power. This isnt a year to be pushing a progressive wish list on presidential candidates, especially an unrealistic one. We can pick up this debate in a future election cycle, but for now, we gotta stand by our guy. That's how I see it. As for how to get more people to vote for Biden, I don't know. Feel free to share my articles but I doubt they'll win anyone over. That's the thing. Most debates dont win people over. People on the internet have their minds made up 99% of the time. 

Anyway if I were gonna debate, id rather focus on trying to win people over who blame biden for inflation by educating them, than by winning over the gaza people. Seems more productive, there's a lot more of them, and i actually feel like my arguments are sound, the problem is most people dont understand policy enough to realize that. And I know that sounds elitist AF and is itself not convincing, but ya know, whatever. I'm a political science grad, and I'm a blunt motherfricker who is gonna point out ignorance. So yeah, whatever.

But yeah that's where I'd focus my effort if you wanna get the word out. Ignore the free palestine whackos, focus on normies who are upset over inflation. There's a lot more of them and hopefully some of them can be convinced more easily.

Reality check: almost no one gives a crap about Gaza

 So, leftists are fricking deranged over this Gaza thing. Normally I'm pretty sympathetic to third party voters, but this time these guys just...seem in their own little world. They are going all single issue over Gaza, they are screaming that Biden has to "earn their vote" over it, and they're acting like, if Biden loses the election, it's because they didn't go out of the way to pander to them on this issue.

Now, I wanna make this clear, no democrats are not entitled to your vote. They do have to earn it. However, I seriously have to question the wisdom of lefties this election cycle who think that they can just pressure Biden into caring about their pet issue, and act like if Biden loses, it's gonna be because of Gaza.

Now, to be fair, in the grand scheme of things, given this election could, like 2000 and 2016, be decided by a few thousand, or even a few hundred votes in a handful of swing states, ANYTHING can matter in theory. The reason I push the economic argument in 2016 is because I think both Bernie and Trump represented a massive dissatisfaction with the status quo and both pandered to economic populism. I don't act like the issue was say, specifically UBI. Quite frankly, fewer people in 2016 cared about UBI in particular than Gaza this election, but they felt some economic pain, and they wanted SOME policies to relieve it, or at least just a dude PROMISING to make it better. I think back then, we had an electorate knowing there was a problem and looking for solutions. I had my own solutions, but they weren't everyone's solutions, and I understand that. Some wanted to just bring the factory jobs back like Trump promised. The smarter ones generally went with Bernie and his progressive policies. And even I voted for Bernie, even if he didnt represent me perfectly, because again, expecting a UBI centric candidate in 2016 would've been peak delusion. We're lucky we got yang in 2020. I totally didn't expect that, and he really did make me realize that maybe my views werent so unique after all, but yeah, even then, look at how well he did vs even Bernie, who himself lost. 

But I digress. The point is, on Israel, no one cares. Well, almost no one. I mean, the segment of voters who care are about as consequential as the yang gang's voter base. And that's not an exaggeration. If you look up gallup's most important issues poll, you'll find that foreign policy issues are 3% of the electorate. Now, that doesnt even assume gaza in particular. Some of these guys might care about Ukraine, or they might care about Taiwan, but let's say the Gaza people are maybe 1-2% of the population. That's accurate.

Now, that COULD flip the election. Sure. Again, narrow margins, every vote counts in the swing states. BUT, let's look at where MOST voters' heads are at. 

36% of voters care about the economy. Economic issues are always near the top, for better or for worse. As of now, 17% care about the economy in general, and 13% care about inflation. Beyond that, it drops fast. 3% for the budget deficit (so just as many conservative debt hawks out there as gaza voters right now), 2% for unemployment/jobs. That's SUPER low, but a symbol of the times. This is why I keep saying, yep, batten down the hatches, lefties. Things aren't going our way on economics right now. Our economics thrive during periods of recession and high unemployment. They DON'T do well and are a target of criticism in times of high inflation. Because government money, especially not paid for by taxes, and a lot of stimulus programs aren't paid for by taxes, are inflationary. Anything that helps the working class is inflationary btw. Simply having money is inflationary to SOME degree. It's just a matter of how much is too much, and we clearly have too much. This is why I'm perfectly fine with just backing off this election cycle, keeping my mouth shut, and waiting for "worse" economic times to push my ideas again. We're at the wrong part of an economic cycle to push for UBI and stuff, because the problem isnt necessarily people having money, but in the eyes of economists, people having too much of it (although I'd argue in reality businesses are just being greedy and seeing what they can get away with). 

On non economic issues, 27% of people care about immigration. This is why Biden tried to push an immigration bill that gave the conservatives most of what they wanted. It didn't pass, because those same republicans wanted to screw Biden and they wanted Trump to do it. So basically just fighting over who gets credit for fixing the problem and refusing to cede ground to a democrat. 

18% say government/poor leadership. This is vague, but it's safe to say a lot of people aren't happy with Biden. Many think he's too old, they don't think he's the right guy for the job, etc. And beyond that, we get stuff like poverty at 4%, elections/electoral reform at 3% (possibly the never trumpers), 3% for foreign policy (the gaza nuts go in this category), and yeah. Those are the issues people care about. 

If Biden loses, it's very obvious that gaza would NOT be a primary cause. leftists are more like an annoying mosquito here when Biden is in a room trying to wrestle a literal elephant. Is it annoying? yes. Will it try to bite biden? Yes. But if Biden loses, clearly the cause isnt the mosquito, it's the elephant in the room. What's the elephant in the room? Inflation, immigration, and questions of his ability to lead. No one (okay, almost no one, 3% tops) gives a crap about gaza. Okay? Can we stop making this the center of the universe? if Biden loses, here's what the dems are gonna take away from this. Biden went too far left on economics. He tried to push too many progressive things, he spent too much money, and we need to do less of that in future elections. Is this the right message to glean? No, probably not. It's just a product of the times, honestly. But will the left have an argument? If they dont back him? No. Because the dems are more likely to write off economic left wing ideas as not vote getters and leftists as unreliable.

As such, guys, you gaza nuts, you're shooting us in the foot, you're screwing us all over. Your little protest will not only be unheard, but the dems will take it as an excuse to never do anything progressive again. And we'll be screwed for a generation. 

That's where you guys are bringing us with your gaza crap. You bring electoral doom to our door. And over what? A foreign policy conflict on the other side of the planet?

If I was a voter shaming motherfricker, I'd be saying F you guys, but I won't go that far. But I am kinda thinking it at this point. 

I just wish you guys would get out of this delusional worldview that everything in the world has to revolve around gaza. No one cares. Really, no one actually cares. You're a tiny minority of Americans, you're barely statistically significant, and you're just making things harder for the rest of us. 

EDIT: Looked down a bit more and 2% seem to be influenced by "war in the middle east." I'm guessing that's gaza, but yeah. Still, drop in the bucket compared to the big three issues. And how many of these guys are gonna protest Biden over this? Probably not most of them. But yeah, relatively small faction vs inflation, immigration, and just general concerns over Biden's leadership abilities. 

Also, I looked at more polls. 

Young Americans are mostly concerned with inflation too. It's not gaza, they care about most, it's literally the cost of living.

Even on foreign policy specifically, Israel/Gaza is only the 15th most important issue among voters. So yeah, these guys are a lot less consequential than even the above would indicate.

And going back to the state of the union, most people are concerned with things like the economy, terrorism, money in politics, and healthcare. 

So yeah the genocide joe crowd is a laughably small, vocal minority.

(Rammstein/Shelby Lynn Update) Nature is finally healing...

 So, we're now about a week short of the one year anniversary of "the incident." You know, the one where Till Lindemann of Rammstein got sexual assault allegations against him that put a storm cloud over last year's Rammstein tour. Accusations swirled around the band for months, only for things to start to lighten up after the tour, with there being no evidence that Till did anything illegal or shady. So he's basically been legally innocent since around last September or so. 

Last week, they finally started their 2024 tour. Things are more upbeat, the accusations seem to be a thing of the past, "Pussy" is back on the playlist in all of its NSFW glory (that seemed to get removed for cancel culture type reasons), and things seem back to normal. 

But then today, the lawyers representing Till and Rammstein released a new report stating that it was likely that Shelby's (the accuser's) erratic behavior and strange symptoms were likely due to her mixing alcohol with THC, ie, the chemical found in weed that makes people high. 

In effect, she kind of kept this hidden. I know she took a drug test and some have claimed that in the picture she tested positive for something that wasn't date rape drugs, but no one knew what it was, and apparently it was that. And apparently mixing alcohol with weed can make the effects of both worse. Weed basically suppresses the part of your brain that recognizes it's drunk so you drink more, and alcohol intensifies THC's effects. In the hotel that night, she likely had what was known as a "green out", which is basically a weed induced blackout. 

That would explain why she reacted so badly to the drinks she had, while others who drank from the same bottles did not experience her symptoms at all. For a while, people were wondering if maybe her depression medication, lexapro, was responsible. Apparently taking lexapro does intensify the effects of alcohol too, but at the same time it's possible she also skipped some doses so she could drink, and people wondered if she was experiencing withdrawal symptoms. 

We don't know. All we know is there's absolutely no evidence that anyone did anything to her, and whatever her condition was, she was responsible for it herself. There's no reason to assume that she was ever drugged, and there's no evidence that till did anything to her. 

I'm kind of glad this came out now, given the kick off of this new year's tour, because it seems to really just, put that final nail in the coffin where we can move on for good and forget this nightmare ever happened. 

And after this, I never want to be asked why I don't just automatically "believe all women" ever again. While I get the sentiment behind the idea, in reality, it should be innocent until proven guilty, and sometimes accusers are just wrong, either because they're explicitly lying for attention, or because they brought whatever conditions they were in on themselves, and it's not actually "victim blaming" to say that. Sorry, not sorry. Let this serve as a cautionary tale against the idea.

In defense of "Bidenomics"

 So, I've been thinking lately and I've kind of realized that one of the reasons I feel so defensive of Biden this election cycle is because I recognize that if he goes down, so does support for my ideal economic system and way of doing things. 

After all, Americans' often cite inflation as their #1 issue, and having talked to a lot of people, a big thing that people are blaming the inflation on is too much pandemic money. It's those darned $1400 checks, or extended unemployment money making it where we injected tons of cash into the economy causing tons of inflation, or that it made people lazy where they don't want to work any more. A lot of this is pure nonsense. The real causes were a combination of supply chain issues post COVID as well as corporate greed, but I also realize this. The right is trying really hard to sabotage the idea that giving money to people is a good thing, and my whole economic ideology is based around giving money to people. They also like to blame inflation on workers being lazy because of the money while I want to make work more voluntary so that we don't have to work as hard in the future. As such, I kind of realize that if Biden's relatively mild and milquetoast actions are blamed for inflation, and the republicans are able to spin this narrative that everything related to current problem is Biden's fault, that Trump's economic ideas are the bees knees, and that Biden's ideas should never be repeated again, then that means that my own ideas are dead in the water. As such, I feel a need to discuss the inflation issues, and the similarities between my ideas and Biden's, as well as ideas we practiced during COVID in general. 

The real cause of inflation

To me, I would say the real cause of inflation is the economic shocks caused by 2020 and 2021. The economy is normally a fine tuned machine. We use the federal reserve as a pacemaker to target the proper amount of jobs that exist in the economy, in order to balance between inflation and unemployment. If unemployment gets too low, excessive worker bargaining power might drive up the price of labor, and this drives up the cost of everything. In order to control the inflation rate, we sometimes try to induce more unemployment, such as what we did in 1982 to get stagflation under control. There are situations where high unemployment and inflation can exist simultaneously, such as stagflation, which was caused by an oil crisis in the 1970s, but generally, the inverse relation between unemployment and inflation is known as the phillips curve, and it was the basis of the Keynesian economic ideology practiced during the new deal, and to a lesser extent, it's still practiced today via how the federal reserve targets the interest rates. Dean Baker, the author of "The End of Loser Liberalism" often talks about how we need to have a slightly less inflation conscious monetary policy in order to improve worker bargaining power. I agree, of course, although my own policies are a lot more pandemic era-like than his. We'll get to that a bit later.

Anyway, in 2020, when the pandemic hit, we shut down much of the economy. We made the workers necessary for the functioning of the economy keep working, we laid off those who were "nonessential", and we made as much stuff remote as humanly possible to minimize human physical contact that would spread COVID. This caused the unemployment rate to skyrocket to 14% and GDP to crater by around a third (nonessential workers made up about a third of the economy). The conservatives, by the way, protested these actions. They literally were talking about sacrificing grandma for the sake of the economy in a sick sociopathic display of profits over people. I'll get into their motivations more later, and where they were coming from, and where they're coming from now, but long story short, they basically saw this shift away from work as a fundamental threat to their ideology so they worked to sabotage all progress on the left. 

Anyway, a year later, under president Biden, the economy reopened. And suddenly everyone wanted to hire at once. And everyone wanted to spend money at once. And there was too much demand, following too few goods. You could claim it was stimulus, but honestly, the ones who needed $1400 checks and pandemic era unemployment the most were probably not the ones spending in my opinion. The primary people spending were middle class households who had simply saved money through covid and wanted to go back to normal right away all at once. Everyone wanted to go on vacation. Everyone wanted to go out to denny's after church on sunday. Everyone wanted to catch up on the world that had shut down a year ago. A lot of people didn't enjoy being cooped up in their house doing nothing, so there was a massive surge of demand. There was a massive surge of businesses looking to hire workers, and the economy came back too strong. We just didn't have enough workers to fill the positions, and suddenly we started blaming everyone on pandemic money and lazy people not wanting to work. In reality, as I see it, it's not lazy people not wanting to work that's the problem here. It's the fact that there were too many jobs for the amount of demand that existed. If the economy opened slowly over the course of a year, perhaps the inflationary spike wouldn't have happened, but what happens when you stretch and the snap a rubber band over and over again? Well, eventually it breaks, and in a sense, that's what happened here. The economy is normally this fine tuned machine, and suddenly after reopening, all of the variables were out of whack. Shocking the economy is one of the worst things you can do to it. While changing things slowly, over time, can produce good results, suddenly closing the economy all at once caused an apocalyptic recession, and then reopening it all at once caused a surge of demand and inflation. It took years to get back to normal, and corporations decided to exploit that by, quite frankly, price gouging. Yes, corporations decided to hike things just to exploit the situation and make it worse are the huge reason why things got worse. The money didn't go to workers and wages as much, it mostly went to corporate profits. Conservatives will argue that if we had no pandemic era stimulus that this wouldn't have happened, but I think this is just fundamentally wrong. While obviously, people having money is going to contribute a little to inflation, and I would argue, to some degree, some inflation is a sign of a healthy middle class that can afford to spend money on goods and services, $1400 isn't even enough to cover one month's rent, and pandemic era unemployment went to those who were unemployed and needed the money to live. It also only lasted 6 months, so people were running out not long after COVID ended. Clearly stimulus money is a drop in the bucket here. The problem with the economy is much more fundamental and comes from all of the variables that are normally tuned to specific economic conditions being thrown out of whack by shutting the entire economy down and turning it on again. And the solution to that inflation is difficult to implement. Some want to use the federal reserve to ramp up interest rates to contract the number of jobs available. This would impose "worker discipline" on people, ie, throw people out of work, and then make them more willing to accept low wages and poor working conditions. Biden has resisted doing this, knowing that it would cause a lot of pain to people, with unclear benefits. While it might eventually force businesses to stop price gouging as much, it would do so by severely limited how much money people had, because they couldn't find work. So Biden has been just, kind of waiting out the inflation, hoping it passes and doesn't threaten his reelection. 

Why it matters to in particular

As a Yang styled human centered capitalist with an anti work streak to my politics, a lot of my ideas have parallels with the current situation. I also want to separate workers into essential and nonessential categories, and shift toward a world where people work less. I too want to give people money for doing nothing but sitting on their butts. The difference is I would not force people to quit their jobs due to a global pandemic, nor would I condition the money specifically to being unemployed (basic income would be given to everyone whether they work or not). From there, i would let people choose. Work, don't work, work part time, do what you want. In a sense, I kinda LIKED the pandemic. I don't like normal economic life under capitalism. I'm sorry, I don't. The simple life of the government giving me money and me not having to work appeals to me, and it always has. I've known, even before COVID, that we could shift the economy in such a way, and if anything, I saw COVID as a trial run for my ideas in a sense. Obviously, it's not a 1:1. I would expect the number of people who stop working being far smaller than existed under covid, as most would still prefer to work in some capacity. I would expect the inflationary effects to be less. I would expect, assuming we phase in ideas over time, virtually no shocks that mess up the economy. I mean, to me, the ideas I believe in are sound. We can give people a UBI, make work more voluntary, and allow people to choose to live as they want to live, with far fewer problems than existed under COVID. it's just a matter of implementing the ideas PROPERLY.

I also like things that happened during COVID like remote work. I think that it makes peoples' lives easier and more pleasant. I don't value the office. I dont value bosses watching over their workers like hawks to make sure they're not "time thieves". I don't value dress codes and office culture and commutes. I value the end result of productivity. That is all. The easier way of doing things, the better. But, many wanted to keep things the same. They didn't want change, and it's about control. 

Some people don't want a new world without work

The fact is, since 2020, the right has been waging a culture war against pandemic era policy, and obviously, Bidenomics. Conservatives have a simple economic perspective. They want a small government economy with low taxes, no wealth redistribution, and everyone works and pulls their own weight. Work ethic is very important to the right, and they quite frankly saw pandemic era policy as a threat to their value system.

Think about it. Overnight, we just stopped forcing people to work. We just started giving people checks for doing nothing. We encouraged them to sit on the couch and watch Netflix for the good of the country. We encouraged them to work remotely and stop going to the office. Maybe that hobbled out of bed at 7:59 AM in their PJs, turned on their PC, and clocked in at 8. Maybe they got their work done by noon and spent the rest of the day off. Maybe they worked in their PJs all day instead of a suit. Maybe people would eventually grow accustomed to such a lifestyle and not want to go back to normal. 

The right realized this was a threat to their value system and way of life, so they fought like hell to go back to normal at all costs. To reopen the economy, to not shut anyone down, and if people died, they died. I'm serious, GOP officials argued that sacrificing the elderly and sick for the good of the economy was a sacrifice they were willing to make. For them, this is ideological and cultural. They fear this new world where we move away from everyone working all the time, so they actively attempted to sabotage it, and after the economy reopened, they quickly sought to go back to normal as quickly as possible.

But it didn't stop there, as inflation surged, the attacks started. It's all the government money. Those darned $1400 checks, pandemic unemployment. No one wants to work any more. I know such and such who knows such and such and he said he didn't wanna work because of Biden's pandemic era unemployment, blah blah blah, it just continues nonstop. And as inflation continues to rage, they're droning on and on about how if Trump were still in office this wouldn't have happened (it would have), and that this is all Biden's fault and blah blah blah.

And sadly...people believe them. Presidents often get blamed for economic conditions regardless of whether it's their fault or not, and they're really hammering Biden on this, blaming inflation on pandemic era policies and Biden's stimulus. And I kind of realize if the GOP gets away with this smear, it's game over. Any progressive economic policies that Biden tried to implement, or anything that remotely resembles a UBI will be dead in the water. The GOP will just go "remember the Biden years? Do you want to try that again?" and people will believe them. I know this because we've seen this before. This is what they did to Carter. They treated Reaganomics like it was the end all be all of all good economics while everything Carter did was horrible. Reaganomics and modern conservative ideology is actually a repudiation of the remnants of new deal ideology that existed at the time. And it took 40 years of conservative rule for us to even get back to discussing this stuff.

This is why I'm being defensive of Biden and the democrats in 2024, I fully recognize that under the current circumstances, if Biden loses, the argument won't be that Biden wasn't progressive enough and he needed to do more to win back voters. The argument will be that Biden did TOO MUCH, and that we need to go back to Trump and his MAGA approach. Seriously a lot of voters act like Trump was some sort of economic genius and that his policies are exactly what we need. And if we throw Biden to the wolves this election cycle, the left might not come back from this for decades. The democrats will be forced to move to the right to appeal to those suburbanite voters fleeing the GOP, while the populists stay with Trump, and that's our economics for the next 30-40 years. There will be no left wing movement. The democrats will stay hard neoliberal and third way, and the republicans will be more reaganomics with a populist twist. And that's ignoring the threat Donald Trump presents to democracy itself.

Vote like your life depends on it

 I know it's tempting to vote third party. I know that Kyle Kulinski recently endorsed Jill Stein over the weekend. And I know it's tempting to wanna vote for someone like Stein. The greens might not be amazing on UBI, but they nominally support it in their platform. Idk how serious they are about it, but they do support it. They also support medicare for all, free college, and a lot of other amazing policies that I either partially or full throatedly support. But....again, if we don't back our guy in the democrats (Biden), the fear I have is that given the greater opposition from Biden comes from the right, and it's mostly over inflation, and a lot of people are being driven to trump over inflation, the narrative will just end up in such a way that Biden gets "jimmy cartered". He gets blamed for everything that went wrong in the recovery from COVID, and then we can't have nice things electorally, like, ever. 

So...yeah. for the love of god, vote for Biden. I gotta defend Biden. As I see it, the success of my ideas and ideology is tied to Biden whether I like it or not. Because if the country won't tolerate Biden, how will they ever tolerate my ideas? And yeah. That's yet another reason why I have to endorse Biden. I'm playing defensive this time, guys. I feel like I gotta save Biden's legacy here. Because if his legacy is that of Jimmy Carter's, say goodbye to any nice things in our lifetime.

Rescoring the big 5 presidential candidates

 So, I kinda fleshed out my scoring metric a little bit when analyzing the candidates of a certain congressional race, with me adding a more solid scoring rubric. As such, I want to rescore the candidates. This won't be a massive overhaul, but I do want to give a rough indication of where the candidates are given these updated standards.

TLDR: Scorecard

 Joe Biden- 64/100

Jill Stein- 52/100 55/100

Cornel West- 52/100

RFK Jr.- 31/100

Donald Trump- 8/100

As such, I am endorsing Joe Biden. For leftists unhappy with Biden, I consider Stein and West to be roughly equal candidates worth considering. RFK I would only consider as an alternative to Trump, if Trump is your forte, and for the love of God, don't vote for Donald Trump himself. 

But yeah, to go into the metric and methology:

Metric and Methodology

So, basically, this is metric #1 again. 100 point metric total, divided over various priorities. To analyze in detail.

UBI support- 10 points

UBI is my top issue. I consider myself a Yang style human centered capitalist, with social libertarian leanings. To me, UBI not only ends poverty, it’s about freedom, including the freedom as the power to say no. As such, I make UBI a top issue that I’m willing to purity test specifically on. Scoring will go as follows:

7-10 points- support for UBI as well as a detailed workable plan to get there.

4-6 points- stated support of UBI with no real plan to get there. NIT support may also fall here, or in the above category based on the plan.

1-3 points- support for some mild UBI like policy, such as Biden’s child tax credit or Kamala Harris’s LIFT act

0 points- you’re anti UBI or anything that remotely looks like it.

Medicare for all support- 10 points

Medicare for all is my second most important issue. We need some form of universal healthcare to solve the problems with it, and it should ultimately complement UBI.

9-10 points- support for medicare for all with a detailed plan to get there

4-8 points- support for a public option, pending details, possibly stated support for M4A without a plan

1-3 points- support for some around the edges health reform

0 points- No support for health reform or a regression such as repealing the ACA.

Economic policy- 10 points

This is just a broad category for various other economic policies I support such as a $15 minimum wage, free college, student debt forgiveness, union support, a climate plan, etc.

8-10 points- a progressive and/or leftist economic platform with strong improvements to general quality of life

4-7 points- a more milquetoast, flawed approach to economics.

0-3 points- Doesn’t even meet the basics, or economically regressive.

Social policy- 10 points

Here I focus on other domestic issues like social issues. Given I am progressive on some issues and moderate on others, it’s hard to get a perfect score but generally…

8-10 points- strong agreement on most social issues

4-7 points- moderate agreement with some significant differences

0-3- bruh are you a rightoid?

Foreign policy- 10 points

Unpopular opinion among progressives, but this was a metric designed for presidents. And I would want someone in office who has the chops to do what would need to be done on foreign policy issues. Neocons do bad on my metric, but so do leftists, as they often are too principled to do the job effectively, and this is something that requires making hard decisions. Above all though, I just ask that whatever you do ensures domestic and international stability, and the most important thing is to not F up.

8-10 points- A clear display of skill in achieving the right balance I talked about above. Tough when they need to be, humanitarian where they can, generally gets the balance right.

4-7 points- Doesn’t get the balance right but does an okay job.

0-3 points- this guy’s policies would destroy this country

Ideology/worldview- 20 points

This is where I get into the nitty gritty of how much I agree with candidates. Here I’m not necessarily focused on policy as much, although policy does go into it, I wanna get a handle on your worldview, how you think ideologically. As I said, I consider myself a Yang styled human centered capitalist, but I’m also quite progressive, basically, what I’m looking for here is “Bernie and Yang have a baby.” Of course I will focus on domestic and foreign policy issues too.

17-20- Generally very high agreement

13-16- Moderately high agreement, but some divergence

8-12- Moderate agreement at best

4-8- An extremely flawed candidate I don’t really like at all

0-4 basically a republican

Commitment to progressive goals/policy platform- 10 points

Anyone can get up on stage and say they support idea, but I wanna know, are you committed? Can I trust you to get the job done? Or are you gonna get in office, table the ideas I care about, and never do anything to achieve them? I want candidates who are committed to their goals, and, well, my goals. It’s not enough just to have a stated position, I gotta know you’re gonna actually go for it.

8-10- points- high levels of trust

4-7- points- moderate levels of trust

0-3- low levels of trust

Experience/competence- 10 points

I want to know the candidate is actually qualified for the job. I want someone who is gonna get into office and know what they’re doing. To know policy, to have experience in other positions.

8-10 points- high levels of competence/experience

4-7 points- moderate levels

0-3 points- fell asleep during schoolhouse rock

Running as a Democrat- 10 points

Basically don't be a spoiler, don't enable Donald Trump. You're either a 0 or 10 here, although exceptions can be made for special cases. 

Total- 100 points

And yeah, that's my metric. Now to analyze candidates. I will just take previous analyses I've done, and adjust scores accordingly.

Donald Trump

Original analysis

Basic income support- 1/10

Medicare for all support- 0/10

Economic issues- 2/10

Social issues- 0/10

Foreign policy- 1/10

Ideology/worldview- 2/20

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 0/10

Experience- 3/10

Running as a democrat- 0/10

Total- 8/100

So yeah, I was a bit harsher this time. My previous commentary still stands but I kinda feel like I got even less in common with him than i did. Still a few broken clock moments, but that's all. 

Joe Biden

Original Analysis

Basic Income Support- 2/10

Medicare for all support- 2/10

Economic policies- 7/10

Social policy- 9/10

Foreign policy- 9/10

Worldview/ideology- 10/20

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 5/10

Experience/competence- 10/10

Running as a democrat- 10/10

Total- 64/100

I had to be a bit harsher on him due to things like him not being THAT progressive on economics (but still the max score for the milquetoast category), and I took another point off because I don't like how he's still enabling Israel at this point as much, but still, I can't complain other than that. Still roughly the same score.

RFK Jr.

Original Analysis (Stein and West included as well)

Basic Income Support- 2/10

Medicare for all support- 3/10

Economic policies- 5/10

Social policies- 6/10

Foreign policy- 0/10

Worldview/ideology- 7/20

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 5/10

Experience/competence- 3/10

Running as a democrat- 0/10

Total- 31/100

Yeah I was a bit harsher this time. Brain worms had something to do with it, and I also just look at the guy again and I think even less of him now. I don't see why progressives like him. Dude isn't progressive. Dude is a centrist with populist vibes. 

Jill Stein

Basic Income support- 5/10

Medicare for all support- 10/10

Economic policies- 10/10

Social policies- 8/10

Foreign policy- 0/10

Ideology/worldview- 13/20

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 3/10 6/10

Experience/competence- 3/10

Running as a democrat- 0/10

Total- 52/100 55/100

I mean, i do tend to gravitate toward leftists on domestic policy somewhat over someone like, say, Biden. But, I also view them as worse on foreign policy and on competence. Stein herself struggled most because of the dedication to progressive values thing. The low score is because of that Cornel West interview that gave me the impression maybe the greens really are kinda being funded by Russia. So...yeah. No hard proof, but yeah it does lower her score compared to what it would be otherwise. 

 EDIT: I have found no evidence of stein being funded by russia. However, they do give her free media coverage and she might not want to compromise that relationship. Still, I do think that I went overkill and will be raising her rating up to a 6 on that particular metric as a compromise between my original position and what I'd give her if this wasnt a potential issue.

Otherwise I did gain some appreciation for her relative to my previous analysis. And yes, I included her 2016 UBI position here for anyone wondering about that. 

Cornel West

Basic income support- 3/10

Medicare for all support- 10/10

Economic policies- 10/10

Social policies- 7/10

Foreign policy- 0/10

Ideology/Worldview- 12/20

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 9/10

Experience/competence- 1/10

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 0/10

Total- 52/100

What do you know? The same score as Stein (before I changed it). There are some differences, West's more extreme positions make him seem cringey, but I trust him LESS on UBI. Greens have a position in their platform of being nominally for it, and I believe Stein when she is nominally for it. West, he just had commissions. At the same time, West is largely unimpeachable in terms of character and I trust him over stein in some ways. Either way, both are solid candidates and I gotta shift on something. Rather than being pro West over Stein, I'll just endorse them equally behind Biden.

I AM still going Biden though. If we weren't facing the existential threats to the left and democracy that we are, it is more debatable. Taking away Biden's 10 point democratic advantage, he scores about equal with these guys, being better on experience and foreign policy, but worse on economics. You can debate things either way, but this time, I AM supporting the democrat, so Biden it is. I have little against Stein or West though, relative to Biden. They're roughly equally caliber candidates with different inherent flaws. 

Anyway, I'll include a quick scorecard at the top of this analysis. for a TLDR.

The need for a new left and how my views scratch the itch most Americans don't know they have yet

 So, yeah. I've been saying it for a while. We need a new left, with a new new deal in America. BUT...it can't be like the old left. The old left made so many missteps it's ridiculous. So, we need a new approach to the left and this is why my ideology, I think, offers something new the old left doesn't.

Appealing to peoples' self interests

Too much of the current left's political trajectory seems to be about shaming people for not caring enough about X cause. I don't believe in shaming people. I believe in giving the people what they want. And what people want is better lives for themselves. I support the concept of enlightened self interest, the idea that through collectivism and limited collective action, we can advance individual causes. UBI helps up to 80% of people. Medicare for all does too. Free college would be a boon to millions and be a public good for all. I support the social justice stuff...without supporting the social justice stuff, simply be asking people to mind their own business and let others be free to live their lives as they want. I want the left to be the party of helping the people, helping the little guy. Doing what needs to be done. Sure, I'll tax you more, but you'll get more investment for your taxes, and you'll see how this benefits you in practice. Your living standard, should improve, simply by letting me do what I wanna do. if it doesn't, well what can I say you're probably part of the relatively well off minority who will be a net payer for those proposals. Can't blame 20% of the country for hating me, but to be frank, you're outnumbered, and that's the point. 

Appealing to individualism and liberty

Americans love their individualism, and they love their liberty. I don't wanna tell people what to do, or control their lives. I admit, I do kind of infringe on property rights, but I do so in the realm of enlightened self interest, I basically want to take away a tiny bit of liberty, to give people more liberty. I want people to be able to do what they want, live as they want, and stay out of each others' way. They currently cannot do that. I want to enable them to do that through my policies. Not only do I take the liberty of the right, I expand it. 

Government doesn't work, so let's make something that does

One of the failures of the previous generation of left is the bureaucracy. It's the fact that we need to means test everything, and control everything, and use government to dominate peoples' lives. While some americans to get off on telling others what to do, I want to oppose that, and call that out as it is. Another huge problem is that most government agencies are bureaucratic, and stuff is complex. I want things to be simple. I want it to be as simple as you pay X%, and get X money back. I want the process to be automated. I want the system to be fair, simple, and transparent. I want people to understand how it works and what they get out of it. This reduces resentment. It removes the "I dont get anything but X person gets something i dont think they should have" and weird accusations of cheating the system. Cant cheat a system that's so simple a third grader should get it. Because let's face it, being a bit real and elitist, that's where a lot of America is at. Dumb it down so no one can say it's broken and doesn't work. 

Being the sane adults in the room

Look, I hate culture wars. Well, some culture wars. Correct, I hate DUMB culture wars. The previous culture war was religious fundamentalism vs secularism, and the left was winning it because the left looked like the sane adults in the room. The right was screaming about hurricanes being a sign of god's wrath over gay marriage, and they just wanted to control everyone, and the left started looking sane and chill as a result. Maybe new atheists are somewhat annoying, but they also had valid points about wanting governance based on facts and leaving people alone unless they're hurting others. 

The new culture war is about woke and anti woke, and both sides are quite frankly idiots. We need to restore the sane, liberal middle. The ones who are like, you woke people mean well, but you're psychos/idiots, while also kinda taking the piss out of the right, who have been gaining appeal since they now come off as the more sane alternative to the pink haired college students showing self righteous statements and pushing pronouns on people. 

Again, I think America is mostly libertarian. Most people wanna mind their own business. They wanna live their lives and not infringe on anyone else. Rather, we get vocal minorities of factions that wanna impose their will on people, whether it be the religious right, or the woke left. We need to oppose both of these factions, and vigorously, if we want to solve problems. That doesnt mean I dont lean left for the most part. i think that this stance requires a center left stance on social issues. But it also requires a certain level of tact and not "poking the beehive" as I call it. The left just has a habit of pissing people off and alienating people and it needs to stop.

Breaking the socialism obsession and offering a new utopianism

 Ok, real talk lefties? Socialism is a politically toxic term in the US. Leaning into it is a mistake. Will Americans possibly go for large scale social programs that benefit them? Sure. But they won't go for literal socialism. What human centered capitalism offers is a new way forward, built around 20th century Keynesian utopianism, ie, a world with less work, and avoids the pitfalls of the failures of past ideologies. It distances itself from past failures, and embraces something new. And that's what we really need, a new ethos. A new way forward, something that works with the 21st century. This is supposed to be the century of flying cars and 15 hour work weeks. Not sure about the flying cars, but I'd love to see the reduced work weeks, and less focus on work. And it's all totally doable, if only we make the ideological changes to make it happen.

Conclusion

These are at least some of the top reasons why I think my ideology offers something the current left doesn't. Essentially, I want a new version of the left that doesn't ask for people to sacrifice themselves on the altar of altruism and caring, that helps people directly, that simplifies existing services, and that speaks to peoples' individualism and liberty. I want a form of social democracy that embraces 20th century Keynesian utopianism, leading to a work without work. Honestly, the left's current ways of doing things just aren't popular. The socialism obsession is harmful, a lot of public service proposals don't stick, the job retraining ideas are politically correct, but don't resonate. And honestly, we need a more libertarian left that knows when to mind its own business. 

We need to counter the excesses of the current left, whether it be their fixation of superficial altruism and virtue signalling, the social justice fixation, the socialism fixation, and the obsession with the same old ideas that lead to the same old results. The left needs a renovation, and this is what I think my ideas offer that.

Why asking people to give up meat is a terrible idea

 So, this is a continuation of "stuff I don't want to say on leftist subreddits but I feel free to say here".

This discussion was about why more people on the left aren't vegans or vegetarians. This was my answer:

I love my meat, I cant give it up. However, unlike a certain sellout "progressive" representing my state currently, I am all for a future of lab grown meat.

Either way, i find shaming people for individual habits to be counterproductive, people arent just gonna give up their meat, focus on the biggest polluters, and find alternative solutions that dont inconvenience people and force them to change their lives. We got all kinds of alternative solutions these days to consider, I suggest weaning ourselves off of the current farming industrial complex and the concentration camps we call farms to more humane and environmentally friendly alternatives.

Still we need to make them more affordable and mainstream. Right now a lot of them are expensive. No one is gonna wanna spend bougie prices for bougie vegan food, we need to get past the whole upper class "whole foods" vibes the alternatives have and make manufacturing cheaper so we can make them more mainstream. It's gonna take years but hopefully we'll get there in the next decade or so.

 

 So for reference, the sell out was John Fetterman. He recently came out against lab grown meat. At best, it was an effort to save the jobs of pennsylvanian farmers (because we all know the end all be all to everything is "jerbs") and at worst it was an effort to take money from certain farming interests. Yeah I'm kinda turning on fetterman. it seems like more and more the dude is just for sale on everything, and he's just pushing more and more cringe takes. 

But, I do wanna focus on this in particular. First, let's get the obvious out of the way. No one likes vegans and vegetarians. Why? because they're pushy and preachy. It's the same phenomenon behind the gaza people. Pushy and preachy. Wanna lose the public, be an obnoxious self righteous jerk who lectures people for just living their lives and not giving a crap about some cause. But again, you can't force people to care. How many times do I have to say this?

And on climate change, same thing. We just went through a time period where people wouldnt even sit in the couch, wear face masks, or get a vaccine, to stop a deadly pandemic. Americans are selfish. You ask Americans to give up something, to abandon some aspect of their lifestyle, and you'll lose them. This happened with Carter. he leveled with the American people, told them to wear sweaters, and they rewarded him for it by kicking him to the curb and electing Reagan. 

And sadly, Biden had to pull back on a lot of his post pandemic stuff because he was gonna face electoral annhilation if he didn't. And some are still litigating this stuff. Who? Well, the people voting for Wormy McWormface, that's who. They're still stuck in 2021 on this stuff. But I digress.

This is the reality of climate change, and this is something leftists don't like to hear. You can't make people give up their lifestyles for the cause. They will fight you every step of the way. A lot of leftists have this idealized vision of walkabout cities and public infrastructure, but cool, how do we get there, and who wants to give up their cars? In America, only poor people and New Yorkers take public transportion. Most wanna drive. Cars are the most convenient mode of transport. people love their cars. You gotta work around that, because we already got half the country pushing the idea that climate change is a communist hoax. Leftists need to stop exploiting the crisis to push their agenda because many would rather the planet burn than they give up their cars. What do we have to so instead? Invest in electric vehicles. We should start seeing market penetration where they become cheap and doable enough by 2035ish hopefully. We gotta replace one substitute with another.

And it's the same with meat. I like a good burger. I don't wanna give that up. And most Americans would HATE the left forever if they actually tried to ban meat. Like really, most Americans LOVE their meat. I see pages on facebook feeding me memes about triggering vegans. And as we know there's maddox's old "for every animal you don't eat, I'm going to eat three". Americans love their meat, probably even more than they love their cars. You ain't doing away with that.

The solution IS lab grown meat. Getting away from factory farming, which is, basically, concentration camps for animals, let's face it, and replacing one alternative for another. Doing a switcheroo from old methods to new ones, through science. We have to overcome our problems through technology. Asking people to do without is political suicide. Idk what the left is thinking with their weird self righteous stances and asking people to self sacrifice. It's like they dont understand the things that pissed off the country last time where nixon and reagan looked like the alternatives to go with. 

Seriously, this is one of my takes I don't wanna mention on that sub, but uh....yeah. The left needs to really learn from its past mistakes. Stop leaning into cringey policies that expect people to care about stuff they don't care about, and self sacrifice. That's just a way to lose the country as a whole. Again, learn from your mistakes, leftists, or risk repeating them.

Seriously though, I literally studied the fall of the new deal coalition and the rise of reagan enough where I'm very opinionated on this. The gaza crap being like the vietnam crap, not a good look, drives people right. Asking people to self sacrifice for a greater cause, individualist america will say F your cause and vote for the person who enables them to continue the status quo. 

I agree with the left that things like cars, and meat consumption, are issues, but they're issues we need to solve through technological breakthroughs that allow us to continue our current standard of living without self sacrifice. Americans are selfish, for better or for worse. They don't wanna hear that we need to give up something for the greater good. And talk like that will make you unelectable. Sometimes it frustrates me too, like with COVID. But other times, like with meat consumption, im right there with them. Find. Other. Solutions.