Discussing conservative attitudes on "the economy"

 So I hear it again. The economy is SOOOO bad. Biden is doing such a bad job, he's ruining us. And then when you ask them what Biden did to ruin the economy, they can't name anything, or they go "everything" or they claim him spending as he did caused inflation in the best case scenario. But generally, we get nothing.

The fact is, these guys just complain when the economy is controlled by democrats, and cheer when it's controlled by republicans. Never mind that consequentially, the differences between the two and the general health of the economy arent much different. In traditional terms, like unemployment rates, GDP growth, inflation, etc., the economy tends to grow and work well under republican and democratic policies alike, and not much really changes on a macro level between them. The real differences come from policies that come when downturns happen. Republicans generally are bigger on trickle down, wanting to impose austerity on people, which is harmful by the way, in order to give more money to so called "job creators" and create more jobs. Whereas democrats want to spend more money, even deficit spending, in order to stabilize peoples' lives and encourage growth. It's quite clear my own approach toward economics is more aligned with the democrats and keynesianism, rather than the republicans. Republican policies harm people and generally only help those at the top, whereas democratic policies tend to help people all over the spectrum. Both represent different ways to recover economies, and democrats generally have a more evidence based policy than republicans, who operate off of trickle down theory, which has long been debunked. 

Yet whenever democrats are in charge, republicans love to act like the economy was so bad, and when a republican gets on they about face and suddenly it's great. Like when Obama oversaw the great recession recovery, republicans complained democratic policies were holding people back and that if republicans were in charge we'd have SO MANY JOBS. They kept this narrative up through 2016, and then suddenly in January 2017, all hail trump, the guy who created so many jobs we don't know what to do with them. Did anything really change? No. 

Same thing with COVID, when the republicans were in charge they blamed democrats locking everything down on, but then when democrats took over, they started blaming them for inflation when everything opened up. You can't win with these guys. They'll just attack the democrats on everything.

And yes, I know I complain about the economy too. But keep in mind what my view is. My idea is that the economy AS IT EXISTS is screwed. The policies that affect the macro scale dont matter much, and the discussion over which side creates more jobs is misplaced. Because jobs arent the answer. Jobs and a belief system that has built up a cult like devotion for them are the problem. We need MORE economic intervention to make the economy truly just for most americans and to give people real prosperity and real choice within our economy. As it is, the difference between republicans and democrats really is window dressing. And yes, democrats are better than republicans in line with my ideology, but that's because i believe in interventionism to improve markets beyond what so called laissez faire "free markets" can do.

This is why I backed Sanders in 2016. The recession and learning about larger macro economic trends have caused me to lose faith in the traditional idea of the american economy, and I believe we need to do better. We can't afford to just screw around the edges, we need massive changes like we have not seen since the days of FDR. Ideas like UBI, universal healthcare, free college, a housing program, etc. As I said, sanders was never perfect, but he at least offered a reasonable amount of change and was thinking about these things. my ideas align more with Yang and his human centered capitalism.

But yeah. When I hear conservatives go on about the economy being bad, I have to wonder what they want. Most of the stuff they're arguing about doesnt change the macro situation either way. Republicans, democrats, it doesn't matter. Larger macroeconomic trends are just a boom bust cycle. And if anything, in recent decades, the busts tend to happen under republicans, and booms happen under the democrats. Not saying that this is because democrats are better on the economy. A lot of it is just luck, and these cycles happening to align roughly with presidential election cycles (i mean, imagine the average cycle lasting 8 years...with your average president serving 8 years, then account for some variation in the cycles, for example, there were 9 years between the 1992 and 2001 busts, and 7 between the 2001 and 2008 ones). 

Again, when you vote based on economics, it's best to think in terms of who benefits from the exact policies being implemented. The right tends to support policies that primarily help the rich, and the left tends to support policies aimed at the rest of the income distribution, although they quite frankly don't do enough to actually fix the problems, simply slightly alleviate them relative to the republican position. We actually need to do far more than we do if we want to actually see an economy work for everyone.

Discussing SCOTUS shooting down student debt forgiveness

 In a move that surprises no one, SCOTUS shot down Biden's student debt forgiveness on the grounds that he was not given authorization from congress. It should be noted that this is not a blanket shooting down of all student debt forgiveness attempts, but just trying to do it via the heroes act. We can't have any nice things, can we?

Anyway, given it's one of my top priorities, I wanted to make note of it. I don't have a ton to say about this. I knew it was coming. The right loves to concern troll over constitutionality and executive overreach when democrats are in power, but when republicans are in power suddenly they go full on fascist. How hypocritical of them. This is one of those cases. They made a big deal over some technicality, took it to the courts, and the courts sided with them because trump shifted the balance right. 

Ah well, try again another way, I say.

A review of the infamous logitech controller

 So...yeah. That titanic sub? Those guys are dead. Crunch. I kinda figured that's what happened when it was first reported. I mean, you go 2.5 miles down and the pressure there is INSANE. Pick up a jug of liquid, and just feel the weight of it. Now imagine TWO MILES of that just pressing on your body. Now, there are subs built to withstand that kind of pressure, but that sub...wasn't one of them.

Heck, Kyle Kulinski did a good video on this sub and how rickity it was, and yeah, it was a disaster waiting to happen. It was cleared for depths of like 1000m, they took it to **4**000m. The thing used parts from outdoor world. The thing that controlled it was a $30 logitech controller....and wait...that controller looks familiar to me. That looks like...my controller. Wait, that's my controller. Holy crap, that's literally my controller. 

Okay, it isn't EXACTLY mine. I have the logitech F310, and they used the F710, but they're ALMOST the same thing. They have the same button layout, presumably similar build quality. They just happen to have the wireless version with a rumble option. And theirs is silver and mine's black. Otherwise, literally the same thing.

And I seriously have to ask: WHY WOULD YOU EVER USE THIS FOR A SUBMARINE?! Like, if you're going to the literal bottom of the ocean, you want state of the art equipment. But nothing about this sub was state of the art. It was something that NEVER should have been taken to this depth. Even if it worked. And the amount of corners cut was just...astounding.

**I** cut corners with buying this thing. This is a cheapo controller. The model I got I bought for $13 on amazon on sale. I wanted a cheap controller I could use with my PC for games that dont work well with keyboard and mouse, and not wanting to invest $60 in an actual xbox branded controller, I bought the cheapo version. I literally bought the cheapest controller I could get that doesn't outright suck. And I have used it a little bit. And let me tell you. It feels cheap. It feels plasticky, the triggers on it feel cheap and are rather awkwardly positioned. Even if I was a hardcore controller oriented gamer, I would not regularly use this. But being a PC gamer and 99% of PC games being better on keyboard and mouse, I don't really NEED a really good controller. But if I wouldn't trust this thing for say, esports, why should you trust it with a submarine going to the bottom of the atlantic? Even worse, they used the wireless one, which despite the name having a higher number (indicating a more premium model) and higher price tag, I'm actually kinda sorta convinced after reading reviews that this is WORSE than mine. Because the wireless component seems flat out unreliable and apparently disconnects regularly. Which is a huge reason i hate wireless peripherals myself. I prefer something wired that is physically connected because then i dont gotta worry about things like batteries, the thing disconnecting, etc. These guys bought a freaking $30 controller to go to the bottom of the north atlantic with and the thing doesn't even reliably stay connected to gaming PCs.

Again, if you wouldnt use it for say esports level gaming, why would you use it for this?!

All in all, it does it job though. At least in my case. I mean, for casual gaming on a PC if you just need a controller here and there, yeah, it's passable. I can't say I love this controller. But I dont really want to invest big money into a controller that I would "love", especially when I only use this thing like twice a year. If it were a daily driver of mine, I would probably want something more robust. And if you're going to the bottom of the ocean to see the titanic, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET SOMETHING ACTUALLY MEANT FOR THAT. DO NOT put your life in the hands of a cheapo product like this.

I give this controller a 6/10. It's not great, even for the standard of gaming, but it's passable. DO NOT use it to go visit the titanic with. 

Of course anyone should know that by now. The results speak for themselves. The thing crunched like a tin can because...by the standards of the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, it IS a tin can. 

If you're going to visit the titanic for real, do it professionally. Use equipment actually rated for that so you don't die.

A brief discussion of the methodology behind my political forecasts

 So, I thought I had an article about this, but I guess I don't. I had a friend who sometimes reads my blog ask me about this, and wanted to share some articles on it, but I never had any articles actually outlining how exactly I do my forecasts, so I figured I would give a basic rundown.

Basically, my forecasts are deduced by polling averages. I look up the polling average on realclearpolitics.com, and sort by the polls I'm interested in. Sometimes if RCP does a bad job I'll use 538's data, which uses much of the same data set, but I typically try to stick to RCP for consistency if possible unless they drop the ball. 

From there, I assume a margin of error of 4% and calculate the probabilities on a one tailed statistical bell curve. Why do I use 4% as my margin of error? Well, ideally political polls aim for 3%, but a lot of polls in practice never meet such a tight standard. 3% MOE means a sample size of about 1000, while many polls are closer to the ~500 range. More people polled is more representative of the population and generally speaking error goes down with the sample size. Generally speaking, on a statistical bell curve, roughly 96% of all results will occur within two standard deviations of polling average (standard deviation is interchangeable with margin of error here). With a MOE of 3%, that means 96% of results are within 6 points, whereas with an MOE of 4, which is a bit more lenient and in line with most polling (which ranges between 3-5, with 4 being a nice estimate of an average), 96% of results will occur within 8 points of the polling average. 

Now, in practice, we don't need to worry about a two tailed test, it only matters if results fall outside of those two standard deviations one way. If a candidate who is already winning overperforms by more than 8 points, they still win, even if the result is atypical. So in reality, we only have a 2% chance of the wrong outcome here.

From there, I look at the polling average, see how much a candidate is leading, and then convert their lead into a Z score (generally speaking the number of standard deviations away from 0%) and get a probability of winning or losing from that. 

Generally speaking, a 0% leads means a Z score of 0, which means the outcome is 50/50.

A 1% lead means a Z score of 0.25, which means the outcome is 60/40 roughly. I consider anything less than this to be a very close race that could go either way. Things come down to a coin flip more or less with these and we really don't know what direction they're going until the results come in.

A 4% lead means a Z score of 1, which means the outcome is about 84/16. Generally speaking, results ranging from 0.25-1 Z score are in play, but leaning in favor of the person in the lead. Still, there can be anything from a 16% (roughly 1 in 6) to a 40% (roughly 2 in 5) chance of the result flipping, and we have seen quite a few of these. Pennsylvania was in this category in 2016. Clinton was 1.9% ahead, meaning a Z score of 0.48, which translated to around a 68% chance of Clinton winning, or roughly 2 in 3. But....the other result came in. It happens. Michigan was another one, with a 3.4% lead, which translated to a 0.85 Z score, with translated to an 80% chance (4 out of 5) that clinton would win. The other result came in, it happens.  In 2020, Florida was a lot like this. Biden had a 2.8% lead, leading to a 0.7 Z score, which led to a 76% chance (3 out of 4) that Biden would win. Trump flipped it, although other states like Arizona and Nevada went for Biden. 

An 8% lead means a Z score of 2, which means the outcome is about 98/2. Generally speaking, results ranging from a 1-2 Z score are technically in play, but the probability is rather low. It can still happen. They range from about 16% (1 in 6) to around 2.3% (1 in 40). In political science, anything greater than a 95% confidence level in a two tailed bell curve (or 97.5% in a one tailed curve) is considered statistically significant. In a social science context this means that the result is so unlikely to have occurred by chance that it's not considered. It CAN still happen, but for the sake of my political forecasts, it's only going to happen once in every 40 elections, or once every 160 years in terms of presidential cycles. So once or twice in American history. I generally exclude states with more than an 8 point lead in either candidate's direction unless there's another reason to cover it.

Now, in practice, I notice that political cycles happen in waves. In other words, when one result is off, the rest of them are likely off too. If trump overperforms in one place, he's going to likely overperform in places with similar polling numbers. 

For example, in 2016, there were 5 states that were within one point, including New Hampshire, which was the deciding state in my model, where whoever won that, assuming my model was followed exactly, would win the presidency. Clinton had a 56% chance of winning it, so I gave her a 56% chance of winning the presidency, much lower than most other people. I ended up flipping all of the other ones to trump as the exit polls came in on election day. I figured it would come down to those five states, and Trump did win 4 of the 5, but New Hampshire went in favor of Clinton. But then a few OTHER states which had lower probabilities of flipping went for Trump. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin all flipped. PA and MI were both in the "60-84%" zone, so not impossible to flip, but it happened. And that cost Hillary the election itself given tight margins. But then Wisconsin also flipped and that had a 95% chance of going Clinton. That was A LOT less likely, but given the similarities between the three states electorally, it did make sense that if one flipped the others were at risk of flipping. In general, PA, WI, and MI all followed the same red shift Ohio took that year, going from the bellweather state in the 2000s, to being more reliably red in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Even Minnesota, which is more reliable for democrats, followed the same trend. So something was up with the rust belt in general in 2016, and in 2020 similar trends followed. I personally think it's the crappy post industrial economy combined with social conservatism in terms of immigration and the like. 

But yeah. Trump overperformed here. The rust belt swung harder for him than it should have otherwise, it should have been a moment for the democrats to look in the mirror and reflect on what they were doing wrong. In my opinion they haven't done a good job in getting to the root causes and correcting for those, so expect that region to be politically volatile election wise for the forseeable future. It's always been kind of swingy, but in a way that was generally favorable toward democrats. Now it's more in play, and at risk of going to the republicans. 

Contrast this with 2020. Here, Biden was in a MUCH better position than CLinton was in 2016. Pennsylvania was the deciding state in my model, and it was up 4.8% for biden, which translates to a 1.2 Z score, which translates to an 89% chance of a win. So for 2020, I estimated an 89% chance here. 

But then as the results came in on election day, things started looking dicey. I had three states in the swing category, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia, and two of them went for trump that night. I had 5 in the semi flippable category between 1-4% and Florida also went for Trump pretty early. The others were on the table and took days to figure out. Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, which was a semi firm blue state this time around, were all so close that it took a while for them to be figured out. In the end, they did stand for Biden, and Biden won the election, but there was a moment where the country was collectively staring into the abyss wondering "did we really just elect this psychopath again?" 

And the results in the rust belt did follow 2016. Results in the south and southwest like Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada did hold firm for biden, performing roughly where they were expected to, but in the rust belt it was a different story. Pennsylvania only narrowly went for Biden, as did states like Michigan and Wisconsin, which were also A LOT closer than they should have been. Seriously, I had them up by over 8, but kept including them because of their status as flippers that defied the odds in 2016. And those states ALMOST flipped again. The rust belt, at least the more blue leaning parts of it, did end up turning out for the democrats, but those polling leads were misleading. Those 5-9 point leads very quickly turned into something like a 1% lead in practice, so the numbers were off up there just as in 2016, it just so happened that the democrats had such a nominal lead that Trump couldnt' overcome the sheer statistic advantage that the democrats had even with him overperforming. 

So, again. In 2024, keep an eye on the rust belt. Pay particular attention to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 2020 showed for me that 2016 was NOT a fluke and those areas are extremely volatile poll wise and could flip hard for the GOP if the democrats aren't careful. Honestly, I think this could be avoided if the democrats had a more progressive economic platform and toned down the identity politics somewhat, but democrats don't seem to care. They seem more interested in capitalizing on trying to turn Georgia, Arizona, and even states like Texas and North Carolina blue. Admittedly they are making inroads in Georgia and Arizona, but Texas and North Carolina seem to be remaining reliably red for the GOP, with states like Florida and Ohio, which were once the swingiest of the swing states becoming more reliably red as well. 

I don't know how 2024 is going to turn out. it's still early. I will admit the polls are abysmal for democrats right now, but they were for the mid terms and the democrats outperformed their 2020 numbers in the 2022 mid terms so who knows. There's so many factors going every which way that who knows what will actually happen. I'll start following that more closely next year. 

But yeah, this should give you at least a basic idea of how I do election forecasts. I don't know whether the person that I made this for will be able to use it for their own interests, but it is nice to discuss methodologies.

Discussing my relationship to SJWs over the years and why I'm so hostile to them now

 So, I might overexplain on this blog sometimes, but for those who may be new, maybe come here from a Rammstein community or something, and who wonder, given my spiels, "gee, am I even left wing at all?", I figured that I would give my opinion on SJWs and how my opinion of them as shifted over the years. I'll be focusing primarily on my experience with them as a liberal, or someone on the left, but I will start all the way from the beginning.

2004

So, I started really getting into politics in 2004, when I was in high school. At this point, I WAS a fundamentalist conservative, and I listened to people like Rush Limbaugh. And I largely refered to these people in a derogatory way like "feminazis." Ironically, I did read "Understanding the Times" back then, but since it was the old version, it didn't include postmodernism, so that whole worldview was left out of it. But yeah. I figured these activists were around every corner, they were problematic, blah blah blah. What I didn't understand though was at the time, I was mostly approaching the issue from the perspective of a strawman, and that these people actually barely existed back then. 

2008-2010

As you guys know, I moderated a lot of my conservative tendencies from 2006-2008ish and became more of a Ron paul type libertarian. I still found liberal culture on the subject obnoxious, but I did become more open to left wing positions like gay rights during that time period. I still found the SJW types obnoxious, and the 2008 democratic primary, as an outsider, felt like a crapshow to me between the Obama supporters calling the Clinton supporters racist and the Clinton supporters calling the Obama supporters sexist, and them both calling everyone else both, but again, I was still conservative enough that I didn't care much at all. 

Anyway, in the latter years of my college career I did take some higher level sociology courses that did make me a bit more sympathetic to these issues. I learned about stuff like racism, sexism, and privilege from a more objective standpoint, and while I couldn't say I particularly agreed with the perspectives completely, I did gain respect for them and realized that systemic perspectives are real and valid. I still didn't like the idea of affirmative action, racial quotas, and stuff like that, but I did kind of move toward at least sympathizing with where they were coming from with that stuff. 

And here's what a lot of leftists REALLY need to understand. I can UNDERSTAND your theories, and STILL disagree with you. And here's why. Even if this stuff is factually valid, as I said, these worldviews are lenses through which we see the world. And there are many of these lenses. Critical theories are merely one subset of all tools in our intellectual toolboxes, and sometimes they are not the best or more compelling theories. I feel like a lot of leftists get so wrapped up in their worldviews that they become their entire world. They just see that one lens as objective reality, and everything else as flat out wrong. Which is why politics is so polarized on these issues where a lot of people adopt these worldviews with this creepy religious fervor, and other people deny their validity altogether. And here I am in the middle these days being like "meh, they're valid, but i prefer not to approach the world in that way." Which explains my modern perspective.

2012

2012 was the year I became a liberal. As you guys know, after the tea party took over congress, I had some serious falling outs with the GOP throughout 2011, and by 2012, I was questioning everything, not just conservatism, but also Christianity. And ultimately, I became an atheist and a liberal, which is what this blog is named after. I did that...in 2012. I literally left plato's cave and came to see the world in a totally different light, and now I spread the word from there.

That said, let's systemize my own perspective with understanding the times again. You have christianity, a religious worldview, islam, another religious worldview, and also four more liberal worldviews, secular humanism, cosmic humanism, marxism leninism, and postmodernism. The worldview that really appealed to me most of those was secular humanism. I became a more traditional liberal with more traditional progressives and liberal values. I was a modernist, not a postmodernist. I believed in objective reality and argued for what i believed in. I wasn't big on the whole subjective stuff as much. For me, the purpose of morality and institutions is to better the human condition. Postmodernists have some good points sometimes, but again, I didn't EMPHASIZE that stuff. I can value the stuff intellectually, just as i also valued socialism, without actually drinking the kool aid on that stuff. 

And as far as postmodernism goes, again, I understood it, I kind of sympathized with it, but as a white male secular humanist, it didn't click with me as a MAJOR aspect of my worldview. Still, coming over to the left, I had respect for it, and those causes, and believed in working with those people toward mutually beneficial causes. Because again, privilege is real, there are issues there, and I do understand that people who value that stuff are an important part of the liberal coalition. Just as conservatives had a lot of different sub groups like libertarians, fiscal conservatives, trumper types, religious fundamentalists, etc, the left had these people. And I wasn't particularly huge on their politics, but again, it came with the turf so I was willing to accept it.

Still, given my newfound position in the secular community, I did notice there were some rifts there. Not long before I joined up, we had elevatorgate, which I largely avoided, but I largely didn't sympathize with the perspective, as an autistic guy who thinks navigating dating is a minefield enough and doesn't need to be called "creepy" just for showing interest. If anything I kind of agreed with Dawkins takes on the subject. 

...I guess that really is kind of a prelude to how I would feel about Rammstein a decade later. 

And then we had atheism+, which was this attempt to mix atheism with social justice advocacy, and kinda went over like a lead balloon in the community. Not because atheists aren't progressive, but because most atheists were...educated white males and that stuff doesn't really go over big with us. We weren't against a lot of the causes mostly, we just weren't super passionate or zealous about these kinds of issues. 

And that's the thing. When I came over to the left, even among the left, social justice advocates were fringe. They meant well, they wanted to make the world a better place, and I do think that the rest of society has some things to learn from their perspective on things, but they were just a little too zealous, and a little too pushy, and a little too abrasive. I understand why they had a bad rap, both as an ex conservative and (in retrospect) a relatively moderate social liberal. 

I mean, when I came over to liberalism, I came into it with a knowledge of all of the downsides of it, and that is reflected in my own ideology. My own ideology formed both out of a rejection of conservatism, an embrace of liberalism, but also knowledge of all of the weaknesses and flaws of liberalism, with my emerging ideology being an attempt to correct for those and improve liberalism as a whole. And one of the shifts I made was to just quietly downplay the social justice stuff. Because it was abrasive, it was obnoxious, it got a bad rap, and it lost the left supporters. 

Again, I understood it, but I didn't embrace it because even among the left those guys were kind of creating some uncomfortable rifts and drama and I just tried to downplay and stay away from that.

2014

In 2014, the crap really hit the fan on the internet with the gamergate scandal. I mean you can read the details of the scandal in the above link (and it is relatively biased IMO), but I'm going to be honest. I was too busy focusing on developing my human centered capitalist ideology around that time to care. I mean, here's the thing. I generally like to avoid a lot of cultural drama involving the SJWs, but if you want to know my actual opinion on gamer gate, I'll say this. BOTH SIDES WERE WRONG.

I'm sorry gamers, but we do have a bit of a misogyny issue in our communities. Gaming is predominantly male, and any time a girl is in our presence, the combination of poor social skills and sexual desire leads to constant harassment of women. I understand the perspective of a lot of guys, in some ways even in my 30s I AM that socially inept gamer guy, but...yeah. There are issues there.

Now, the "gamers" will say it was about ethics in journalism, and some woman sleeping for good ratings, and that is an issue, but then the guys would be like harassing and doxxing the poor girl, and honestly, why is this such a big issue anyway? Like, call out the crap and move on. I don't understand why this issue blew up like it did.

And then you had the SJWs....I'm sorry, but they ARE annoying. SJWs have this tendency to just militantly interject themselves into our fandoms in order to try to force us to change, and honestly, not everything has to, or is going to conform to your stuff. The whole zoe quinn issue seemed like a pretext for SJWs to declare war on gamers and gaming culture in general and to try to reform it to meet their standards, which is where you're going to get people to unceremoniously tell you to screw off. And to some extent, the SJWs deserve it. Just like with rammstein now and how they're trying to create a "metoo" movement in the music industry and want to basically cancel Rammstein, they tried to do it about a decade ago with gaming. And that stuff just pisses everyone off and created a divide in the gaming community that has lasted for years, where every time a game looks a little too inclusive (like overwatch) or you have "women in games", some people are going to lose their crap about it. 

And honestly, both sides are wrong. The SJWs are wrong for trying to shove their values down everyone's throat, and the gamers are wrong for being too shrill in complaining about it. And honestly, for the most part, I just didn't care. Yes, the new ghostbusters had women, yes, it was horrendously bad, but why put so much energy out on this? Arent there more important issues to focus on? I felt like there were far more important things to talk about and focus on. But then with the next wave of this culture war, I guess I would be dragged into it too...

2015-2016

So what happened in 2015-2016? We all know. The 2016 presidential election. And what happened in the 2016 presidential election? Trump got elected. Okay, but other than that, what about within the democrats in particular? 

....

Bingo.

Now, imagine being me. I came over in 2012 as a secular humanist looking to take on fundamentalist christianity. And then I shifted to economic issues believing that we needed a whole new economic philosophy and for the left to retake the overton window so that we could actually fix our economic issues.

Who would I support in 2016? It seemed obvious bernie was the best option. The dude wasnt perfect, he didn't support UBI but he supported literally everything else I supported that I had been working on. He would be a nice figure to shift the overton window so that we could all have semblance of a decent future.But the democratic party had other plans.

As we know, the Hillbots were obnoxious in 2015-2016. They had no good arguments for their candidate, her policies sucked and flew in the face of what I came to believe, but I was told I better just accept her or else. And what was their primary weapon in beating us down? IDENTITY POLITICS.

These guys created this "bernie bro" narrative. That everyone who liked bernie was an educated college aged male who was racist and sexist, and then she leaned heavily into that. She pandered to african americans shamelessly, despite being very moderate, and for some reason, it worked. And she also called us sexist constantly. We hated women, we didn't understand black people, blah blah blah, and she managed to outflank us with the identity vote where bernie only got around 45% of votes. Not a bad showing, but it was quite clear he was hamstrung, and identity politics was the weapon.

And if you go back and read my analysis of the 2016 democratic convention, you'll see I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of talk about all of these different identity groups, but I felt completely unrepresented. Even worse, I felt MARGINALIZED, by virtue of being a secular white male with left wing economic ideas. And I was so pissed at the democratic party for how they treated me that I voted jill stein in a swing state, and then trump won. Way to go dems, way to go.

Ya know, at this point in time, I was blindsided by this. I really did think that despite how weird and extreme they were, ultimately SJWs were still allies and we needed to see eye to eye with each other. I was willing to accept whatever identity nonsense they would push, if they supported my ideas too. but they wouldnt support my ideas at all. They expected me to just bend over and accept their stuff, but then they would just bully me out of trying to stand by mine. And I wouldn't accept it. And that was the first rift i REALLY had with these guys. Before that, they were just the weirdo extremists I tried to ignore, but also tried to be nice to, and now they decided to take shots at me. Hooh boy. Yeah. That really damaged my relationship with them.

2017-2018

Things didn't improve after Trump was elected either. If anything they got louder, more shrill. They started showing their really illiberal qualities in the interlude years between the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. They would talk about beating up "fascists", and you dont just do that to people. Even nazis in normal peace time. But, they just wanted to suppress those they didnt agree with and terrorize them for daring to have different views. Now, I dont agree with nazis at all. That should be obvious, but like everyone else, they have rights under the law and should be treated with respect until they cross a line to do something illegal. If they wanna do their own intimidation or terrorism crap, THEN you go after them. Ideally with institutional means. But you don't just...silence people you disagree with or physically assault them, that's insane. And it kinda represented a red line for me as being "illiberal."

And then you had the cancel culture nonsense too. The whole "it's okay to just sick a mob on someone and ruin their life for saying bad things, because free speech has consequences". If free speech has "consequences", then maybe it's not really free speech. Just my opinion. But yeah, these guys got weirdly extreme with Trump in office, becoming as extreme as the orange crapstain's supporters.And I didn't like it. These guys were like a cult. 

Still, I did try to at least sympathize with them somewhat, as allies of the left. You scratch my back, i scratch yours. Basically, you support my UBI and M4A crap, and I'll look the other way with your weirdo social justice crap. But again, you can't negotiate with these guys. They want it all their way and won't give you anything in return. 

2019-2020

As we went into the 2020 election cycle, it was the same crap. It got really freaking crazy here. I had lost friends in 2017-2018 over some of this social justice nonsense, and as things picked up in 2019, it didn't improve. Some defriended me because they thought Yang was promoting white supremacist talking points because he talked about problems white people had with drugs and economic destitution. It didn't get much better when I supported Bernie either. While in 2016 he was accused of not being social justicey enough, he dialed it up massively in 2020, and he was STILL attacked for his positions on things. It goes to show it wasn't about the position, it was just rhetoric to bully people into supporting centrist candidates. But for some reason it keeps working. And that just led to a lot of condescension about how I just "don't get" black people. And it just alienated me more and more. Because I'm apathetic on race issues. And then BLM happened, and most people were initially supportive but then they went full on stupid going after cops in my local area who *checks notes* shot POC running at them with knives and crap. I'm sorry, but if you charge a police officer with a weapon, don't be surprised if you die. Whatever goodwill these guys had was lost. And ultimately in 2020, they used the social justice stuff and privilege shaming to once again try to bully us into voting blue. Once a friend of a friend said something about how we just gotta take one for the team because we're white and we gotta check our privilege and vote for our POC brothers and sisters, and I just kinda realized at that moment that yeah, I was done. Screw these guys. I'm NOT giving up my concerns on the altar of white male liberal guilt. I'm just not. 

2021-2022

As you guys know, I really sat back and really rethought a lot of political alliances in the years following the 2020 election. And I kind of really focused on what I AM for, and what I'm NOT for, and during this time, I became a lot more openly hostile toward a lot of left wing groups I previously held back on. With SJWs, I started realizing, yeah, these guys are just nutcases you can't negotiate with and you just gotta tell them to take a hike. They're crazy. It's like a goldwater moment with the religious fundamentalists and how it's like "i hope we dont get taken over by these people because tha'ts bad news and they won't compromise." And they are. They're a threat to free speech, they're a threat to civil society. They're explicitly ILLIBERAL. They want their "social justice" and they wont take no for an answer. They will tar and feather anyone who doesn't get their way. And given how they just kept getting in my face with their obnoxious "you don't get black people' stuff and stuff like that it's just like, yeah screw it, these guys are too hostile.

To be fair they arent the only left wing faction I've distance myself from. I've also been more vocal in going after progressives and socialists who crap on things i support because they dont fit their increasingly insane purity tests, and my relationship with the centrists is as sour as ever (although possibly improving a little when they dont piss me off as Biden ain't BAD). So yeah, I'm just politically homeless on the left. I'm left of the liberals, Im right of the leftists, and culturally, I'm a centrist libertarian who leans left nominally but given existing battle lines I really am more centrist. 

2023

And now these guys are trying their cancel culture crap on Rammstein. Don't get me wrong, I was actually really sympathetic to the original accuser at first. I mean, I even itneracted with them briefly the night of the concert on reddit and told them to go to police immediately. They didn't. And now they're waging a stupid social media crusade while her story falls apart. And now the SJWs are in a tizzy and literally wanna cancel rammstein over extremely dubious accusations. It's bullcrap. Well, I'm gonna support the band, innocent until proven guilty. if there's anything i learned over the years, it's that you cant give these guys an inch. They'll take a mile. And then they won't stop. They're crazed ideologues and you can't reason with them or compromise with them. And just like with everything else, they poison everything they touch.

So...what am I? Left? Center? Right?

Well, I'd call myself on the left nominally. I definitely lean left, even socially. Im just not crazy about it. I'm center left. Even though i have personal spirituality now (that happened in 2019, ironically around the time rammstein's untitled album came out...) i still support secular politics and ethics mostly. My own spiritual views dont belong in government unless they can be justified via secular logic and reasoning. I still support all of the left wing positions I always have. Pro choice, pro gay marriage, pro trans, pro do what you want, really. Im a bit more moderate on issues of social justice, immigration, guns, etc., but I find that to just be reasonable. Leftist extremists get weird on those issues. I'm more traditional lib left rather than orange libleft.

On feminism I've been figuring out where i stand on that and while i dont like to call myself a feminist due to how loaded it is, my views are akin to liberal feminism, which focuses on equal rights under the law and the liberation and empowerment of women. When I see these weirdo radfems calling rammstein sexist and arguing women in their 20s can't consent to sex with a rock star due to vague "power imbalances" (seriously? most women in row 0 have more freedom than most workers under capitalism), these guys seem weird. Like they're the same feminists as the weirdo anti porn ones who think sexual objectification of women is evil and must be stopped at all cost. Which is hilarious because i know a lot of women in the rammstein community and most of them are THIRSTY AF for till. 

Honestly, I think it's really important to note that liberals and leftists arent the same thing. Leftists are often...illiberal. They dont care about institutions or the rule of law or democracy. They just want their goals at all costs and risk destroying the foundation of free society in the process. And even if I have a lot of issues with a lot of liberals, especially on economics, on social issues im WAY closer to a liberal than a leftist. Liberals often end up opposing conservatives AND leftists because both end up having reactionary tendencies, which is what's happening now. First we had the religious right, and now the alt right, and we now also have to deal with this weirdo social justice left. And I oppose all of these factions to support roughly the same brand of secular liberalism/libertarianism that I have since 2012. 

Economically, yes, I am further left. As I said, left of liberal, right of leftist is a good descriptor. I'm a human centered capitalist, which is more progressive than most liberals, but somewhat less extreme than leftists. I kinda occupy the same economic space as FDR and the social democrats, except that I tend to forgo awkward old solutions that are less than ideal and obsession with jobs for UBI and my anti work stuff. As I like to say, I'm both radical and moderate at the same time and it's hard to nail me down where i end up pissing off everyone. 

But yeah. I just wanted to explain exactly where I stand on this stuff. First i hated SJWs as a conservative, then I came to understand and sympathize, but never really go hard into that stuff. I largely ignored them, then they repeatedly pissed me off to the point they alienated me and i lack sympathy mostly, and now I just do my own traditional liberal/libertarian thing of opposing reactionary elements on both the right AND the left. 

As I like to say, I didn't really get that much more moderate than I have been since 2012, I'm mostly just realizing i was never as crazy left as the current left is socially, and I've recognized my obvious boundaries on that.

Addressing the "reality" that people have always worked and therefore doing away with work isn't "reality"

 So, I ended up getting in an argument with some conservative dude trying to pull gotchas on me with my anti work ideology, and because I was kind of distracted by IRL crap going on at the time, he pushed me into a corner by arguing that work is reality and pushing me to name a time when humans never worked, which I can't do, because humans have always worked in some capacity. I would like to address this concern more deeply, but it does require a bit of explaining on my part, and I figure it would be good to make an article about this.

First of all, once again, be skeptical of what people call "reality"

I wrote an article about this previously, but always be skeptical when people try to promote their views as "reality." As demonstrated above a lot of neoliberal and centrist hacks like to do this, but the right loves to do this on economics too. To them, capitalism and its history is "reality". Now, we should know better than to accept this at this point, given we discussed things like "the prehistory of private property" and "prehistorical myths of modern political philosophy" by Karl Widerquist and Grant McCall. I won't go into all of the details of that again, but he did a good job slaying a lot of sacred cows surrounding capitalism, and pointing out that things like Lockean property rights aren't really objective realities, but subjective systems we created. Karl Widerquist actually did a good job outlining the general history of work, which I'll regurgitate briefly now.

First of all, we lived in stateless societies. In stateless societies, we worked. Yes. But generally speaking we weren't coerced by any social systems or anything. We just worked to meet our basic needs and that was it. We put in about 40 hours doing ALL we needed to do, and that was that. We hunted, we gathered, we took care of each other, everything. 

Then societies formed. As people settled down, started acquiring something akin to "property" and we started moving to larger and larger communities with more centralized control, things started going in a bad direction. We got these chiefdoms in which societies would come to be run by autocratic rulers. And these rulers would expand their reach further and further, forcing more people under their rule, and ultimately squeezing out free areas where people ran out of places to run. These autocratic rulers, these chiefs, would often force people to work, and they would be the ultimate say in who got what, and they would basically get most of the rewards, obviously. This led to the monarchies of old. Where we got this idea that the rulers were put there by divine right and all land and property ultimately belonged to them. THis wasnt just a European thing, Widerquist and McCall pointed out that kings in pacific islands had similar systems, but in Europe we had the monarchies. And most people worked as serfs to nobles, who owned the land and were friends of the king. The king was the ultimate owner of all of the land. And we had this hierarchical system where all worked for the king. 

Then we started shifting to capitalism and classical democracies around 1800ish with the American and French revolutions. And we started developing capitalism then. And this is where I'll combine some Max Weber here, since Weber's views are valid on the subject. We always had elements of capitalism and markets throughout civilized history. BUT...we didn't really develop this weird ideological obsession with the idea until 1800s. So we developed capitalism. We shifted from a view of the world based around monarchies and divine right, to one developed around property and "natural" rights. And the property rights theorists love to just act like that crap is "reality", but it's not, that stuff developed in the 1700s and really came to fruition during the 1800s in institutional form. 

And during this time, we had major movements around the world that systematically forced people into working in a modern capitalist system. We had the enclosure movement in Europe where public land and commons were privatized, forcing people into cities where they had no choice but to work, and the colonial movement in which the Europeans essentially colonized the whole world and forced capitalism on everyone. There was actually a lot of debate in the 1850s and the like in America about the value of chattel slavery as opposed to wage slavery and which one was worse. I'm sure we can all agree chattel slavery is worse, but it is interesting that most of those slaves went back to working for their former owners after due to lack of "opportunity." In Europe, there was a lot of widespread condemnation of capitalism, such as through the works of Karl Marx, and even a lot of fictional works like a Christmas carol. Early on it seemed obvious that this system was constructed, so many leftists wanted to just have a revolution and change it. Just as revolutions overthrew monarchies, they wanted revolutions to overthrow capitalism. Now, we've seen these kinds of revolution in the 20th century, and marxism was tried, and I don't approve of the results, mind you, but regardless of my feelings toward socialism, i do find value in their critiques of capitalism. 

Going back to the protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism, I found much of that book enlightening on this subject too. It seemed that early on, as capitalism created technology and labor saving devices that allowed people to work less, when people actually used it to work less, the capitalists freaked out and tried to shift the incentive system to force people to work more. Rather than using technological gains and economic growth to work less, they forced us all on a treadmill to work just as much as before, while the numbers on the chart go up and up and up. 

Which is where we start getting into the actual work question

Yes. Throughout history, we have always worked. HOWEVER, for most of history, we worked to meet out basic needs. But what capitalism has done, is solve the material conditions that would force us to work through economic growth, only to force people to work through social structures that systemically deny people those needs to force their productivity from us.

So capitalism solved the work problem on one hand, but then created a new one on the other hand. Pre 1800, literal scarcity caused people to work. Post 1800, we had growth, but the system imposed artificial scarcity on people to keep people working. And now we have a system that no matter how rich society gets, people still work the same hours. We have GDP going up and up and up, with it something like $76,000 a year per person at the time of me writing this, but...we still work the same hours that we did in 1938. Back in 1938, the 40 hour work week was seen as progressive. It was long fought for by the labor movement, and the logic was 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 hours for everyone else. Of course in practice, we get literally 8 hours on the clock at work, a significant part of our off time dedicated to work like commuting and breaks, and even more time working for ourselves to meet our needs like grocery shopping, housework, etc. Where is life? Where do we fit life? Well, we don't, unless we forgo sleep, which many choose to do because our society keeps people so busy.

GDP per capita in 1950, based on previous estimates I've done, shows that back then, accounting for inflation, GDP per capita was around $24k a year. Now its 3x that. But we work the same hours. John Meynard Keynes wrote in 1930, that in 100 years, that would be 2030 or 7 years from now, that we would be able to work 15 hour weeks. We've accomplished the growth to be able to do that. BUT...we're still working 40 hour weeks? Why? Because our society has this ideal that everyone has to work, and 40 hours is the proper amount of hours to meet our needs. And due to the profit seeking mechanations of capitalism, and how wealth is extracted from people, people work their lives away, only to be paid the bare minimum, with most of the wealth going to the top. So at the end of the day, we work and work and work, and we're kept on this treadmill of never ending growth, while our lives seem to not get any better.

And this guy on reddit loves to act like that's okay because we always worked and that's "reality." No, it's not reality. In the past we worked because we had to. States formed and basically oppressed people with unfair property systems and monopolies on violence and forced them to work. These states eventually replaced monarchies with democracies and capitalism,a nd capitalism is based on natural rights theory and the sacredness of private property. But private property is a social construct. And so are the institutions that force us to work. And in the modern day I would say that work IS a choice. It's NOT a "reality" simply foisted on us. We could use the growth and technological gains from capitalism to actively shrink the work week. I've proposed that before on this blog. We could use UBI to allow people to CHOOSE to work less. But instead, our institutions keep us locked in the same patterns as before, and people act like it's natural. At one point, yes, it was natural. At this point, no it's not, it's a completely societal choice that we can change.

I don't agree with socialists on much. Socialists are work obsessed just as capitalists are, quite frankly. And honestly, most versions of their ideas are highly destructive in practice. Market socialism is the best of these, but i see it as indistinguishable from social democracy with unions and blah blah blah. Quite frankly, the debate we should be having isn't between capitalism vs socialism. it should be work/growth vs working less/not as much growth. I'm not ANTI growth btw. Growth is what makes the fact that we can choose to work less at all possible. But, given it IS a choice, I would suggest we take it. 

As such, no, work is not an inevitable reality under capitalism. Just under laissez faire capitalism with unrestrained property rights. if we adopted a form of human centered capitalism with a second bill of rights like I laid out the other week, with an emphasis on policies like UBI, universal healthcare, and reducing the work week, yes, we could work less. And if my projections are correct, we could still live in an advanced country as well. The exact tradeoffs depend on how much we choose to work less. The less we work, the less stuff to go around, and the more we work, the more stuff, so it ultimately depends where on that scale we're comfortable with. We've set the 40 hour work week around 85 years ago, and haven't moved it since. We should move toward less work. We're 6x as productive per person as we were in 1938. And I expect GDP per capita to quadruple in the next 100 years if we work at the same pace. But what if we chose for it to only triple? Or double? Or remain stagnant? We could convert all of that productivity into working less. 

Ultimately, "reality" is not fixed. We choose, collectively, the reality we live in. If we wanted to change our society tomorrow, we could. I'm not saying all changes are positive. Just ask people fleeing from marxist countries how well that sort of change worked. BUT....if we simply reform capitalism much like we have, but this time move in a direction of guaranteed basic needs, freedom to work or not to work, and working less overall, I dont see how that would go wrong if we implemented it right. Capitalists love to act like their ideological ideas are all of reality. They're not. They're an ideologically laden idea of it. They love to act like their ideas are inevitable and anyone who opposes them are stupid. Not really. We can choose to live in whatever system we want. The fact that we have one so work centric is a choice, and it's a choice i think we should change.

Discussing free speech, censorship, and the value of subversive humor

 *sigh*, I've been trying to keep Rammstein stuff out of here, but this is getting political again, and given I can no longer express my views properly on reddit, I figure I'd do so on here.

So...what's this about? Well, as we know, Rammstein's lead singer Till Lindemann has come under fire for alleged sexual misconduct against women who attended his concerts. The woman who started this whole crapstorm accused Rammstein of drugging her, and trying to pressure her to have sex with Till, but because she refused, Till accepted it. But there's still questions about drugging and Lindemann's conduct toward women. 

However, while other women have come forward, and are largely respected, the original accuser has come under fire as time has gone on and her claims have gotten more scrutinized. Further interviews and evidence came out from others contradicting her narrative, and it seemed more and more likely she was not drugged, she just got very drunk. However, refusing to change her mind and admit that gee, maybe she jumped the gun, she doubled down, decided to make herself a victim again, and started doing unhinged videos on her instagram about how tequila doesn't foam but it did at the concert and therefore there were date rape drugs in it. This was immediately debunked, as Lindemann who poured the shots mixed tequila with prosecco, a bubbly wine, which gave the drunk a foamy appearance. As she has dug herself further and further into a hole of disrepute, posting more and more unhinged stuff, her "it doesn't foam" video became a bit of an internet meme within the rammstein community, leading to tons of funny nicknames such as "the connossieur of foamy drinks", "the queen of foam", "the foamy one", and my personal favorite, "our lady of vilnius, the patron saint of foam." This has led to a lot of discussion on the topic at hand to devolve into crapposting about foam memes, to hilarious effect. As a purveyor of foam memes, imagine my reaction when the mods start coming in and telling us we can't do that any more because we have to take the issue more seriously and not insult the accuser because her story MIGHT be true. Now, I don't disagree fully with this mod. Some of the treatment the original accuser was getting did go a little too far, but the fact that she became the butt of our jokes was her own doing. She literally destroyed her own credibility to a point that these memes organically rose from discussions at hand. And while you could argue they were annoying and slightly disruptive, given they only occurred during slow news days on the subject mostly, they largely did not interfere with discussion. But no, apparently foam memes need to stop, because this is a serious topic and we can't insult the original accuser, blah blah blah.

Honestly, it gets ridiculous. I know there was a lot of public pressure from the other side to crack down on these memes, but honestly, I really don't think that the mods should have given in, and here's why. (Actually there's a lot of reasons). First of all, foam memes are funny. They help us make the best of this crappy accusation where our favorite musician has been metooed by the social justice mob. These memes made fun of an accuser who made blatantly false accusations, and who most reasonable people know her accusations aren't true at least to some degree. The person in question clearly is just milking the situation out for attention, and has destroyed their credibility to the point of parody. 

Second of all, there is value in this subversive humor. As I keep saying, I come from a long line of rather offensive political traditions that make use of this kind of satire. I started out being a rush limbaugh listener who wanted to own the libs. They I became a new atheist who wanted to own the conservatives. And now I gotta deal with SJWs who are quite frankly, illiberal, authoritarian, and are radical zealots who want to force their ideology on everyone, and censor anyone who doesnt agree with them. These guys are just like the fundie christians of old who basically didn't respect civil, secular society and wanted to push their opinions on everyone. They don't believe in rights and the rule of law. They're the kind of people who think 'free speech doesnt mean freedom from consequences" and its perfectly acceptable to ruin someone's life or "cancel" them because they didn't toe the line. 

Social justice ideology IS a religion. It might not have a god per se, but it does have this set of beliefs and moral values, and is the same threat to civilized western society as religious extremists are. Because their psychology is the same. And at this point, the only real answer to dealing with these people is to say NO. To tell them, when they scream offense,to deal with it. Don't give into them, not even an inch, because if you give an inch, they'll take a mile, and they'll keep pushing their ideas to terrifying extremes. 

These guys expect everyone to just believe the original accuser out of the principle to "believe all women", and think the idea of people making light of the situation in the case of an obvious false accusation by someone who is coming off more and more like a full on attention seeking mental case means that you're a "misogynist", an "incel", or a "rape apologist." None of those are my words, that's how they describe people who think similarly to me. They just expect us all to submit to their morality, and want to impose "consequences" on those who don't. And it's sad to see people caving to these guys.

I've been watching a youtuber named colonel kurtz who discusses this situation and she thinks similarly to me. She's followed other sex scandals in the celebrity gossip space like johnny depp and marilyn manson, and while I cant say anything about those cases, I do recall the accuser who accused depp got sued for defamation and lost. But according to her, the same thing that happened when those guys is now happening to till from rammstein. They want to ruin this dude's life, without any trial, and it's often not even about his actions and questions of inocence and guilt, it extends to his art. They dont like that his art features subversive themes, because, guess what, rammstein tends to push boundaries there too. They're largely a left wing band, and tend to mostly trigger rightoids with songs about gay sex, abortion, transgenderism, and just lots and lots of the "s word" in general, but in recent years we've been dealing with these radical feminists who suddenly hate this stuff too, because they think it's sexist and objectifies women. And to them I say, deal with it.Again, not an inch, and that includes rammstein no longer playing "pussy" in concerts because people think its offensive or in poor taste. If that's their attitude, that's on THEM. We shouldnt have to change for them.

Heck, subversive humor has a lot of value in society. Because if there's anything i learned from my days as a secular humanist, it's that nothing is sacred, and that nothing should be out of the realm of discussion. People like to treat things as too serious to discuss. Religious people do this with blasphemy, and tell people who engage in it, like r/atheism, that they're hateful and bad for making fun of their religion traditions. Meanwhile im over here like "lol zombie jesus day, gottem". I mean, this form of humor has multiple purposes. First, it's funny. Second, it knocks "sacred" stuff off of its pedestal, and they dont like that, and third of all, it often offers valid criticism. When i saw offensive r/atheism memes a decade ago, i kinda realized gee maybe they have a point and this stuff IS kinda stupid and irrational. It allowed me to see the world in a way that i had not considered before, and it did help me work through some stuff at the time. 

And it's the same thing with this social justice stuff and foam memes. Sexual assault accusers do not deserve to be put on pedestals where we're told we MUST believe them and cant question them. Especially when their story is false. And the memes exploit those falsehoods by making her story look dumb. Because maybe it IS dumb, and maybe she's wrong, or a liar, or both. And maybe we should be free to question these things. Maybe we shouldnt be forced to mindlessly accept doctrines people wanna force on us. And maybe, we should show the SJWs the door when they come into our communities and start trying to police us. Because again, if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile, and suddenly your free speech is GONE. I've seen it happen in too many places on reddit. That whole site is infested with the SJW mind virus, and they're systematically making it difficult for dissent to exist, and driving dissenters off of the platform altogether. And that's wrong, given when I joined reddit, it was a bastion of free speech and internet openness. 

Im not saying we should take things to extremes, mind you. I know some people back in the day cried when they removed LITERAL HATE SUBS full of extremely vile behavior, but there's a balance between that, and systematically making any offense against social justice ideology a bannable offense. And that's what im talking about here. People started pushing back against this accuser's story as it started to fall apart, and nope, can't do that. This is a serious issue guys, and you can't just make fun of an accuser who is very obviously full of BS.

And I want to emphasize, this person is very obviously full of BS. Again, multiple people have contradicted her story, the drug test doesnt support her story, and the most obvious explanation for her situation that day was SHE DRANK TOO MUCH ALCOHOL. 

I'm sorry, but when you get in front of a camera, pour straight tequila in a glass, yell IT DOESNT FOAM, and then have your narrative contadicted 5 minutes after posting it, you suddenly become the equivalent of the "jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams" guy. That's literally what you sound like to me at this point. It's not like im making fun of legit accusers. Many others have since also made accusations against till from rammstein, and while i can't say i necessarily believe their stories, i AM a lot more respectful. It's only the person who regularly puts their foot in their mouth that i start mocking when they start screaming about foamy tequila being laced with GHB. Ever hear of a tequila slammer? Yeah, that's what you had. And it foams. And you are quite frankly a nutcase.

Heck, I'll go further, this person makes me ANGRY. Because SHE is the one making a mockery of sexual assault victims. She's the one crying wolf. She's the one making a fool out of herself in pursuing this social media crusade for so long, and you know what? Every time she opens her mouth, she destroys the credibility of other victims trying to come forward. Rather than platforming them and giving them a voice, she's making sure no one takes them seriously, because her being a drama queen is ruining it for everyone else.

If you really stand for sexual assault victims, you should disown this person. Because people who cry wolf like this are people who cry fire in a movie theater. It isn't funny, and it makes actual people dealing with actual fires struggle that much more to be taken seriously. And that's a crime. 

If anyone violates my idea of freedom of speech, its people like her, because she's taking this so far that it's going into outright defamation territory. Seriously, she called till a pedo for hitting on her, when she's...24. Wtf. And she keeps accusing him of drugging her even though it's obvious that she didn't. Even I would say "yeah, it's okay if you sue this person for defamation." And that's also why im perfectly okay with making fun of her. 

So yeah, SJWs, get off your high horse. I understand where you're coming from with the believe all women sentiments, but you go about it the wrong way, and you make a mockery out of your ideas sometimes.

And yeah, that's my opinion on this.

Cornell West running for president

 Another story I've been kind of ignoring is Cornell West running for president. He's running as part of the peoples' party, which I had positive opinions in 2020, but have since become more "meh" on between fine tuning my ideology and various controversies that seemed to impact it. If I recall, Scott Santens seemed to participate in that convention online, but the party doesn't seem to endorse basic income. If anything they seemed to go in the Bernie direction of having everything but a UBI. 

The peoples' party website only lists 6 positions, and they're short enough for me to react to in their entirety:

Create True Democracy

Clean out government corruption and create a true democracy. Get money out of politics and ban corporate lobbying. Enact term limits in Congress and switch to hand-counted paper ballots.

 

 I mean, cool, but I think Yang's forward party has interesting proposals like ranked choice voting, independent redistricting, and open primaries as well. Heck Yang's 2020 platform had a lot of good ideas too. Don't get me wrong, I like the money out of politics thing, but people seem almost too narrow minded on that when Yang seemed to have a much more robust anti corruption platform in practice. Democracy dollars, forbidding people from becoming lobbyists, and that sort of thing would do wonders for the country. 

Revitalize Our Economy

Guarantee quality education, housing, paid leave, and a living wage to all. Curb inflation, support unions, and expand Social Security.

 Not a lot of details but it covers a lot of my priorities like education, housing, and expanding rights to workers all in two sentences.

Medicare for All

Create a national single-payer health care system. Lower drug prices and abolish medical debt.

 Yeah that's based.

End the Wars

Bring our troops home and invest those trillions of war dollars into American communities.

 I mean i like this on paper, but normally when people suggest this they also wanna stop supporting ukraine and cut the military budget by 50%+ which is dangerous.

Expand Civil Liberties

Guarantee equal rights to all Americans. Restore free speech, protect choice, end the drug war, and abolish mass incarceration.

 All nice priorities.

Protect the Environment

Clean up pollution in our food, water and air. Tackle climate change and shift to regenerative agriculture.

 On climate plans I normally like more details with this. Heck, West's issue is he just announces stances with no intentions to give details. At least Williamson, whatever criticisms I have, has decently robust plans. 

Would I support him in the general?

Eh...given I really dont want trump OR desantis in charge, i really dont plan on protest voting the dems this time. Both of them just represent too much of a threat to our institutions to allow anywhere near the white house, so I will be doing the whole "strategic voting" thing no matter how much I hate it and have to hold my nose for it. 

I also don't think Biden has done a bad job, although I can't really praise him either. He's just...a big pile of "meh." 

I could potentially protest vote if the democrats piss me off again like HRC did in 2016, but I find biden's style of governing slightly less abrasive. 

Also, lets be honest, bog standard progressives impress me less this time since I've more thoroughly researched the differences between my ideology and theirs, and i realize there are a lot of significant differences there, just as there are with the democrats. So I'm just less enthusiastic about these "leftist" candidates stuck on the same old platform. I'd still support them over Biden, but I ain't really particularly motivated to go out of my way to support them, even given democratic party screwery. Because let's face it, without UBI, I wouldnt really be satisfied anyway. Even though I would like to see medicare for all, student debt forgiveness, and stronger worker protections. 

I just dont see this as getting there though. Again, right now, the real world power struggle between the democrats and republicans seems more important than me than litigating doctrinal differences between centrists, progressives, and myself.

You do you if you disagree. Don't think I'm telling you how YOU should vote, but I am explaining my own behavior. I just ain't really feeling this guy. Especially give how limited and detail free his platform is.

He's better than RFK at least. In theory I'd agree with him more than Biden. But let's face it, Williamson is my preferred candidate this time around, full stop.

Trump getting indicted (again)

 So this one is a bit of a blurb. But to go in the other direction with criminal justice, Trump is being indicted again, this time for his withholding of classified documents after he left office. He had these things everywhere, in his bathroom, on a stage in his residence. And unlike Till Lindemann, there's PLENTY of evidence that he committed crimes. Heck the dude was asked nicely for documents back many times and he just intentionally obstructed the process, which is why he was raided last year. 

I say: freaking good. The dude has committed so much crap with January 6th and all I don't care if they nail him for tax fraud at this point. Heck he might still face insurrection charges. Again, if we really wanna nail someone for crimes, and they commit so many of them, then they're gonna be nailed for SOMETHING eventually. But yeah. We would be in jail for far less if it was us. 

As for how this will impact 2024, idk, he's the republican frontrunner by a massive margin atm, and could still theoretically run from jail (Eugene Debs did it). I don't know if his support would change, although it would impact his ability to campaign at least.

As for Trump in jail and being president? Idk I could see him theoretically being under house arrest but I don't know how that would be any different than being surrounded by secret service 24/7 anyway. We'll have to see how this turns out. 

If Trump is knocked out, I'm guessing DeSantis would be the nominee instead, and he's scarier than trump in some respects. More ideologically extreme, and less of a bull in the china shop meaning he might be more effective at maintaining public opinion and getting things done to advance his ideology. What he's done to florida is outright scary. Seriously, screw that guy. I'd almost rather have Trump again than him. I really don't know who is worse.

The importance of rule of law

 So...this has really been bothering me, about the Lindemann thing. The fact that these SJWs seem to not respect the idea of rule of law, and seem to support mob justice. They base their opinions on their critical theories, which talk about power imbalances, blah blah blah, but as I said, those theories, while valid, are a double edged sword. They have a place in discussion, but if you focus SOLELY on them, you start seeing them in everything to the point the ideology becomes a self parody, and you kind of lose sight of other aspects of reality. Social justice ideology is a lens, but it's only a lens, not the most important lens, or the only lens. It gives you one view of the world out of a possibility of many, but it lacks on so many other things.

In sociology, critical theories are subsets of conflict theories, which focus mostly on power imbalances. But, functionalism focuses on WHY things are the way they are and what positive social functions they serve, and that's what I'm going to focus on here.

It is true that rape is an extremely underpunished crime, and that there isn't much evidence in most scenarios, and that in the court of law, rape cases don't hold up and many criminals walk free. But when we consider things like criminal justice systems, we need to focus on two kinds of errors here. Sure, we should consider the possibility that standards of evidence are too strict where we can't lock up actual criminals for actual crimes, but we should also consider what would happen if we made the standards laxer. We could, instead of letting guilty people go free, be locking up tons of innocent people. Any criminal justice system is going to have these kinds of errors both ways. We can totally live in a world in which some people who are guilty walk free, and some who are innocent get locked up. But if we had to choose one, which one is preferable?

Our society is built around the idea that it is better to let guilty people go free, than to lock up innocent people. Our society was the first modern democracy, here in the US, and most of the rest of the "free world" have constitutions that are based on ours, or other ones like ours. I don't think the US constitution is perfect, mind you, it is an over 200 year old document full of flaws and compromises and has many institutions that havent aged well, but the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", and the ample rights granted to citizens and suspected criminals one of its hallmark contributions to modern society.

We used to have societies where people were locked up on mere suspicions for crimes. Where we wouldn't give people fair trials. Where we shot first and asked questions later. Where we tortured people for craps and giggles. And...those societies aren't very preferable to live in since they run the risk of an unchecked authoritarian just locking up whomever they wanted and abusing them and violating their established rights as human beings. We decided, no, human beings are entitled to a certain amount of dignity, and certain freedoms, and and certain rights, and that these are good, because the consequences of having such things are good.

It is generally speaking much better to presume innocent until proven guilty, and have standards of evidence as high as "reasonable doubt" in order to prove someone of a crime. It's better for there to be rules and procedures to be followed and that things that break those rules and procedures are inadmissible in court. It's better that we ensure our justice system makes a lot of errors in assuming that guilty people are innocent, than the other way around.

And that's what scares me about SJWs, cancel culture, and this mob justice crap. They literally have the same mindsets as the crazy whacko Trumpers and their fascism at times. Wanting to lock people up for crimes regardless of their guilt (remember their calls to lock up Hillary?), wanting to ruin peoples' life based on mere allegations, rather than waiting for evidence to come in to prove wrongdoing was done.

Everyone deserves a presumption of innocence. it is on the justice system to prove people guilty. And yes, on subjects of rape and sexual assault, maybe our justice system is a bit anemic. But what's the alternative? Throwing people in jail based on no evidence? Mindlessly believing whatever rumors anyone creates? I stand by the idea that allegations require proof, and to quote Christopher Hitchens, I believe that which is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

I also support the institutions doing their job rather than people. These people think they're vigilantes. One of them even compared themselves to Batman. You're not batman. You'll NEVER be batman (r/unexpectedsaoabridged). Seriously vigilante justice, the idea of an angry mob trying to go after someone who has not had their day in court is a dangerous precedent to set. Our entire society was designed to try to avoid the flaws associated with the alternatives to the rule of law, and here these SJWs just don't care and wanna more or less lynch Till because of allegations that are so weak the Lithuanian police aren't even going to pursue them further. 

It scares me that people just dont leave things that are obviously criminal matters to the authorities intended to handle criminals. Then again they dont trust the authorities to get the results they want. Because they're ideological extremists who are narrow minded and focused on spreading their ideology rather than establishing some sense of true justice.

I know it sucks, if someone who is guilty ends up not getting prosecuted. The good news is most offenders are repeat offenders, so if they don't get nailed this time and they're guilty of that kind of behavior, they'll likely get nailed eventually. If Till really does regularly sexually assault people at his concerts and afterparties, something is bound to happen eventually unless he completely changes his behavior. At which point I'd be fine with mere deterrence. The purpose of the justice system shouldnt be first and foremost to punish criminals, but to deter and rehabilitate them. If this experience causes till be to more cautious about his sexuality in the future then that's a positive thing for me.

In defense of Rammstein/Lindemann's art

 So...I'm just going to throw this part out there. As far as the actual accusations against Till Lindemann goes, whatever happens, happens. This is a matter to be settled in a court of law, not the court of public opinion, and let those who can litigate it in a sterile, objective environment do their thing. 

But, as I've said previously, it seems like a lot of the SJW types are targetting Till Lindemann's ART. And that doesn't rub me the wrong way. A lot of times I try to stay neutral on these matters because quite frankly, it's a massive distraction from more important issues, but Rammstein is an important subject for me. It's an obsessive interest of mine, and has been for years, and I'm a pretty die hard fan of the band and Till Lindemann in general. 

And even though I feel like my left wing credentials are coming under assault by basically sounding like an alt righter in defending lindemann, I think it's pretty obvious that I am not. And to explain exactly what I mean, I'm going to dust off my 2021 social justice political compass that I discussed in this article. I am very much part of the "free thinking" "fact don't care about your feelings" part of the left. I hate all would be moralizers who try to censor art or push their political narratives in other peoples' art, trying to decide for others what it and isn't acceptable. 

Rammstein has always been a band that pushes boundaries. Since its inception, its art has been extreme and controversial. Back in the 90s, they were part of this "family values" tour where they sang a song called "buck dich" (bend over) on stage that involved till pulling a dildo out of his pants and spraying the crowd with it. Of course the fundie christian right moralizers will be like WHY I NEVER, and they EVEN GOT ARRESTED HERE IN THE US ONCE for this act. Since then, they've just engaged in more and more controversy, writing songs about rape, cannibalism, real world screwed up events, and stuff like that. 

Honestly, when I was in college, I took an art class, and something I noticed when I came into that class was I was very rigid due to my christian morality at the time. I wouldnt explore a lot of extreme topics, but between that class, and really watching rammstein and internalizing what they were doing, I realized that hey, maybe art is just art, maybe it shouldnt be taken so seriously, and maybe people should have fun with it.

And as I left Christianity, I doubled down on this, realizing how restrictive my morality was, and as I joined the new atheist community, I took offensiveness to the next level. If people wanna draw muhammad let them draw muhammad. if they wanna refer to easter as zombie jesus day, let them. Have fun with this stuff, you only live once (or do you?). 

And with Rammstein, same thing. I mean, I'm not above sending right wingers rammstein videos about abortion or homosexuality to troll them if push comes to shove on those subjects. Because screw their feelings. They wanna be authoritarians to tell people how to live their lives? I don't take too kindly to that crap and that's my way of telling them off. 

You see, this might come as a surprise to the cancel culture whackos, but Rammstein is a left wing band. They explore all kinds of topics with sexuality, and are quite libertarian. They also have a very anti fascist bend looking at songs like Links, Deutschland, and Angst, despite being accused of being nazis constantly by ignorant people. Heck, links is literally dunking on these people. "Oh here's this ahrd core militaristic sounding "nazi" song about how left wing we are". Yeah, they do stuff like that, and I love it. They have a way of pushing their own brand of music and basically leaning into the whole screw your feelings thing, preferring to be subversive and to hit the beehive rather than to avoid hurting peoples' feelings. 

That said, I'm actually a bit disappointed that Rammstein seems to be caving a bit to the cancel culture mob. Apparently they didn't play pussy, a staple of their recent concerts involving a giant metal penis cannon spraying the crowd, because given the recent allegations, it seems like in poor taste. I personally dont think they should have given that up just to appease the woke mob. These left wing authoritarians are just as much of a threat to freedom of speech and expression as the far right, and honestly, I think they should be unceremoniously shown the door in exactly the same way. While not all changes Rammstein seems to be making are bad (apparently they're doing a lot of reforms to his parties or cancelling them altogether, and Till no longer disappears under the stage during deutschland, where he would get frisky with women from the crowd), but yeah, when it comes to them censoring their art for the sake of the crowd, I tend to dislike them. Rammstein has this brand of subversiveness, doing their own thing, and not giving a crap what people think about them, and I don't think they should change that now. Make the material changes needed behind the scenes to avoid future accusations of sexual misconduct, but yeah, their music, their brand shouldnt change. Because if pussy is no longer acceptable to play live, what songs are next? A lot of rammstein's songs are sexually charged, and a lot of them cover touchy topics like rape, BDSM, and other extreme themes. A lot of those songs are arguably just as if not less acceptable to play. 

And then you have till's side gig, with songs and music videos portraying himself as a serial sexual abuser. Even at the time, a lot of the community, well familiar with rammstein and lindemann's stuff was going "wtf Till". But, it was assumed to be fictional, and people eventually came around to it, despite how extreme it was, and despite even people like me showing some level of discomfort with the subject matters. Still, should he be forced to censor himself? No. As long as it's all in good fun, who cares?

Now, being accused of assault does change those songs' meanings to some degree. It kind of blurs the distinction between fiction and reality to some extent, and to some extent those kinds of songs seem distasteful. Still, should the art stand? Yes. Because it's art. And art has a right to be subversive and offensive. 

To be fair, Till himself has been approaching it with the same subversive style he always does. I know he invited the press to one afterparty and told them to look around and "see that everyone is being drugged and raped", and in the most recent concert, he kind of made a drinking motion during one line of a song that was taken as a reference to the whole thing.

I know some people will see this as tasteless, but given my screw your feelings mindset, i find it hilarious. I mean, imagine if you're innocent and people make up crazy stories about you, and then you just start mocking them openly. I think that's fair game and an appropriate response to such allegations if you're innocent. I mean, people are peeing in your cornflakes, making up these elaborate horror stories of stuff done behind the scenes, and if you're the kind of subversive frontman who tends to lean into controversy rather than shy away from it, i think that's an appropriate response. I even think it's funny.

The only way such a thing would be in bad taste is if he's actually guilty. And that's for the courts to decide, not public opinion or the media. Like really, screw the pearl clutchers, if he has nothing to hide, then he is fully within his right to mock the accusations for what they are. Because they do sound like something he'd write about in a twisted poem of his, not something he'd do in real life. Sure if he's guilty then it would be horrifying, but if he's saying stuff like that, I'm assuming he isn't and he's just making light of them. 

Yeah, as you can tell, I'm very much within that free thinking left quadrant. I don't like how the SJWs are trying to come into our fandoms and make us conform to their little quasi religion, and I dont like them trying to change stuff that I like. I literally see them as no different than the fundamentalist christian right. And I'm just an unapologetic and willing to show them the door for trying to start crap or boss people around. 

So yeah, Rammstein, Till, assuming innocence, just keep being you. Don't let this crap get to you where it changes who you are. Just keep being the same cool people you've always been and screw the haters. I believe that the justice system will figure out the truth either way. If he's guilty, send him to prison for a private shooting of ach so gern 2, but if he's innocent, let the man do his art. His art is awesome. It's subversive, it pushes boundaries, and at the end of the day, it sounds freaking good, and looks even better in concert. 

So yeah, I love rammstein, I personally am leaning toward till being innocent, but that's for the courts to decide, and even if the worst happens, I'll still listen to them. It might change the meaning of some stuff, particularly his side gig stuff that is a bit more on the offensive side, and i might be less comfortable with it, but all in all, i do tend to separate the art from the artist, so yeah. Rammstein is an integral part of who I am today as a person, from my respect for subversive art to my laissez faire attitudes toward social issues and they even had a role in spiritual life. So I ain't even dropping them entirely. I stand with rammstein, innocent until proven guilty, and even if guilty the art is still awesome.

Dear SJWs: keep out of our fandoms

 A particularly annoying aspect of the culture war is the tendency for groups involved to start injecting themselves into the literal culture of the culture war. Not just culture in broader society, but media in general. I'm a libertarian, and being libertarian, I support freedom of speech, almost to a fault. I support freedom of speed firmly and unapologetically, and support the bare minimum intervention by regulatory authorities to dictate what is said to us. Authoritarians on the left and right LOVE to try to force peoples' speech to conform to their ideology. And yes, I am going to both sides this crap. The right is currently fighting a war on "wokeness" and trying to ban any discussion of critical theory in our education system and society at large, and that is wrong. But the SJWs also often love to inject themselves into speech and dictate that everything revolves around their theories too. And it's annoying. 

Yes yes, this has to do with Rammstein. Rammstein is the epitome of my ideas on free speech. They've always been a band that tends to be controversial. And they are so to many groups. Fundamentalist christians would have all kinds of things to say about the sexual nature of their songs, and how their music does not conform to christian doctrines. But SJWs as of late also have this problem with Rammstein, and seem to be trying to cancel the band, believing that Till Lindemann is a misogynist and that his music promotes "rape culture", whatever the frick that is (basically anything that goes against their ideas for how things should be). And it does seem like, with these new allegations against the band, that the SJW types have decided that Till Lindemann and Rammstein are the targets for the next front of the culture war and seem to be trying to "cancel" them.

And I'm just going to say it, anyone who thinks they can make me stop listening to Rammstein has another thing coming. I've been a fan of the band for almost 20 years, and as I said, their music has gotten me through some deep crap. I don't believe that they endorse the themes of the music they sing about, they just try to be edgy and sing about all kinds of dark crap. I've heard people compare till lindemann to a modern version of goethe. And yes, till sings about sex CONSTANTLY. As well as love, and heartbreak, and any theme related to sexuality imaginable. He also isn't afraid to cover really controversial topics, which is where he's getting in trouble as of late. People are comparing some of his newer works to the alleged behavior in the allegations, and moving past just criticizing him within the context of said allegations, but leveling criticism at his art. And in the process, many of these people want to cancel Rammstein and Till Lindemann in general, and to shame people into stop listening to and enjoying his stuff. Which is a major red line for me. If you know me in person, you'll know I'm basically literally obsessed with Rammstein. Like, being autistic they're a literal special interest for me. I listen to them hours a day at times, i watched their concerts, i have detailed opinions on all of their songs, and I'm very much enthusiastically into them. it's simply a part of my being, to the point that anyone who makes me choose between their friendship and me listening to the band is going to find themselves out on their butts and no longer my friend. No one tells me not to listen to them, no one. 

If you want to criticize him within the context of the allegations against him, go for it. I think that the allegations are seriously, and while I dont necessarily believe them between the original accuser destroying her own credibility as time goes on, and the media seemingly presenting other, newer accusations in a biased manner to generate controversy, but I think that they are worth discussing. Till is infamous for having wild sex parties and the like, and I think that the idea of something being systematically wrong at them, or till not necessarily acting properly at them is debatable. I've heard, prior to this year's accusations, mostly positive experiences and that the guy values consent and blah blah blah, but if that turns out to be untrue, well, then, throw the book at him. No one is above the law, not even my idols. 

But let's be straight here. This isn't for us peons to decide, with incomplete and biased information. This is force the courts to decide. But SJW types dont want to fight their battle in the courts, in the realms of needing to prove their accusations beyond a reasonable doubt. They want to fight their battles in the culture at large, on social media and regular media. They want to change minds, and influence hearts, and they want to make us believe hearsay and rumors, and when they doesn't work out for them, they want us to stop listening to their music because they don't like the themes in it. To which I tell them to kindly screw off. 

It's annoying. I'm starting to understand, as a gamer (yeah, im one of those too) why people were so hyped up over gamergate a decade ago. I mean, I'm not saying "gamers" were necessarily right on that one (it seemed like no one was right, honestly), and I'm not saying gaming doesn't have a very significant misogyny problem, but the SJWs just like to come in and tell us how we should act and how everything needs to revolve around them, and when they happens we should unceremoniously show them the door. 

And even worse with the rammstein fanbase. A lot of these SJWs are calling US misogynists and crap. And let's be honest, rammstein fans are some of the most chill people out there normally. We're quite progressive and socially libertarian. You kind of have to be open minded and not a prude to like Rammstein, to be perfectly honest. And we generally dont care what people do with their PPs. I cant speak for everyone here, but that's generally the impression I get. But then the weirdo SJWs are coming in and telling us we're misogynistic and need to be better allies and they're disappointed in us and how they can't listen to the band any more, and you know what I say? Leave. There's the door. 

The only controversy worth discussing in all honesty, as far as cancelling till lindemann and rammstein goes, are sexual assault allegations, and stuff like drink spiking. And if that stuff can't be substantiated, then the dude walks free. And even if he is proven guilty, i still aint gonna stop listening to his work. But beyond that, people are going beyond these allegations into attacking his work directly, and that's where I tend to have problems. My fandoms are not battlegrounds for your culture war nonsense. I'd much rather you get out and stop enjoying our crap, than remaining in our communities and telling us what we should enjoy, or how we should act, or blah blah blah. 

And even worse, for all the brigaders on reddit who come into our fandoms for the sole purpose of starting arguments and driving controversy, kindly screw off. You're not welcome in my humble opinion. Take your outrage over the situation back to your gossip subs and that crap. 

Yeah, I really ain't holding back. I'm getting sick and tired of this crap, and sick and tired of entertaining these whackos or giving them any breathing room. I'm just trying to unceremoniously show them the door.