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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈

@thirdthoughts.bsky.social

620 followers 140 following 3.2K posts

Ex-academic political scientist/theorist. Queer, nerd, agen/enby. 🏳️‍⚧️ rights are human rights. Nuance > Hot Takes. Newsletter: thirdthoughtsmedia.substack.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThirdThoughtsYT

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 27d

New from Me: Our Republic is in danger, and the danger will not disappear unless we revitalize and renew its fundamental institutions. But what can be done? We need to move beyond most common solutions and really address executive overreach and Congressional dysfunction!

Renewing the Republic

Confronting an Unbalanced Separation of Powers

open.substack.com

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 1h

"What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality—as if an instinct in such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for granted in our time."

- Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 3h

Ah, a season of class I see.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 3h

Is this S3? I couldn't get into S2 because the animation quality drop-off was pretty bad...

Reposted by Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈

Don't Fret. It Adores You @seed-corn-thoughts.bsky.social · 5h

I think the point of the government is to make people's lives better and not worse and this actually has a moral dimension that supersedes political expediency. Horrible things will happen under this admin no matter what anyone does, people don't need to be scared about them turning off the stove.

elias isquith @eliasisquith.blog · 7h

i don’t think we “have” to immiserate people. but the idea that voters must be protected from the consequences of their actions is not only incredibly, decadently precious but also fundamentally antidemocratic.

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 3h

With apologies to Gates McFadden...

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 4h

👻 👻👻👻👻🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 5h

OK but what about Monster (the anime)?

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 9h

As a teacher deeply annoyed with reading comprehension, I approve this compromise.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 10h

How does that work? Hammer the same niche repeatedly + live in the right region?

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 12h

True enough, and a good reminder of moral nuance.

Practically, I am still left wondering why authoritarian dipshits seem so much more likely to negotiate with other authoritarian dispshits. Perhaps its a matter of the limited scope and mutual understanding of betrayal.

Rabbi Emily Cohen @thatrabbicohen.bsky.social · 12h

FWIW it is both possible and appropriate to be grateful for the possible freeing of the hostages and withdrawal from Gaza without praising Trump, Bibi or Hamas, none of whom cares about anything but keeping power.

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 13h

I dunno. I think, ultimately, this is a kind of "intelligent myopia" that is collapsing a whole bunch of different axes within the modern conservative space and throws out entire intellectual traditions in the service of narrowly explaining why Straussians aren't authoritarians.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 13h

Maybe? Makes some sense in a Machiavelli-Tocqueville-Madison-Burke institutionalist tradition. But it also runs the risk of making even Locke and Rousseau into conservatives.

I think this frame, if it works at all, only works in a post-Weber world? And if it does, even *I* might be a conservative.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 13h

In other "sad Bob Ross" news: the Bob Ross foundation is auctioning off a bunch of his paintings because of PBS funding cuts.

On the one hand, really sad it's needed. On the other, well, I'm glad they are helping.

lorem ipsum 🇧🇷🇺🇸 @whiskeynachos.bsky.social · 2d

UGH. This crap is all over TikTok now.

AI video claiming to show Bob Ross being questioned by an officer for painting the side of a boxcar.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 13h

Leftists not undermine their allies challenge: impossible

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 13h

An alternative theory of Noah's flood...

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Life

www.smbc-comics.com

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 14h

Juzam Djinn album when?

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 2d

Entire month of song titles just taken from Magic: the Gathering sets.

the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 2d

I understand that they gave somebody 150 million to be the new boss of CBS. I just want to say, if these people are ever looking to do more novel things with their money, for 150 million dollars I will write an album every day for a year. I'll do it, too. try me

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 14h

Wow, way to make me even sadder. Imagine US politics if MLK Jr. had lived.

rob mahurin @robtasm.bsky.social · 2d

It has been pointed out to me that Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters were all the same age. Born 1929, would turn 96 this year.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 14h

Yep. I have a cousin who was one of the twins in Mengele's camps. Not sure if she's passed - distant relation I don't keep track of - but she lived at least until Obama.

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 2d

another strange thing is to consider how long people *could* have lived. Anne Frank was three years younger than Queen Elizabeth II!

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 14h

Another reason the Vatican is pissed. Bonus points probably for angering a lot of Menonites and Quakers who work in relief work.

Crabby Phatty with Cheese @crabby-phatty.bsky.social · 1d

One of the major cuts to global health and food funds was Catholic Relief Serve. CRS is one of the best sources of humanitarian outreach in the world, plus Marco Rubio is supposed to be Catholic. The math ain't mathin' - Rubio and Vance are Catholic only in name.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 14h

Wow. I knew Starmer was bad, and I wonder about the poll, but that's ridiculous.

Are the UK Greens still militantly demilitarization? I assume so, but would hope Russia changed *something* there.

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 15h

The vagueness of "hierarchy" is doing a lot of work here. Is Locke a conservative of the first type and Hobbes one of the second? It feels a little odd for a typeology to put those on the same side.

Also not sure how this classifies, say, Cato Institute types if we restrict to more modern.

Reposted by Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈

Shammai @shammaiintl.bsky.social · 16h

Yeah, that's fair.

Your Result:
Lulav
You might be prickly and a bit stubborn, but you're the backbone of your group.

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 1d

I do not care about whoever was criticizing. But I am reblogging because this is an awesome vest.

Spider. @vaspider.gay · 1d

Ah, yes, one of the keenest modern satirists, someone whose books are so thickly packed with hidden references that some take years to find, an embarrassment to read.

Anyway, here's my Feet of Clay vest. I'm 48.

A butch in a blue baseball cap and a denim vest taking a picture of the back of his vest over their shoulder. It has a golem on it with "Emet" or "truth" on its chest in Hebrew and the sentence "words in the heart cannot be taken" in Yiddish embroidered on it.

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Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 1d

Forgot alt-text, but the relevant feature of the image shows that ACA marketplace signups have grown by over 150% between 2020-2025, across a swath of countries that were all swing states that broke for Trump in 2024, or were Trump bastions in the deep south.

Third Thoughts 🏳️‍🌈 @thirdthoughts.bsky.social · 1d

The relevant image:

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