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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 8h

this is antivaxx-level conspiracy theory stuff and not nearly enough people treat it that way

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 9h

play it again, Sam

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 9h

big fan of the Warren YIMBY arc, mostly because it will make a lot of very obnoxious people very angry

Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · 11h

America is not building enough housing and Americans are facing sky-high housing costs as a result.

Today, the Senate took a historic step to change that.

The ROAD to Housing Act will help communities – urban, suburban, and rural – build more housing and bring down costs.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 9h

I think that if you actually affirmatively believe anything outside the green you should probably stop, and if you pretend to believe anything outside the green as a bit you should DEFINITELY stop

Waffle 🧇 @wafflecut.bsky.social · 11h

I’m a big fan of this conspiracy chart with the antisemitic point of no return

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 9h

during a *baseball* game! famously Christmas-y sport, baseball

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 9h

fuck you very much to Home Depot for running a Christmas commercial on the ninth of goddamn October

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

I do, and if it wasn't clear that by "violence" I was including Normal Politics Stuff, that's on me for not communicating clearly.

PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

I guess I did say "woman" when the word Bernie used was "mother." I regret the error.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

As a matter of fact, it is.

The CNN Democratic debate transcript, annotated

We're annotating the transcript.

www.washingtonpost.com

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

(I'm not saying those are necessarily the literal actual choices, but I think you get the point)

PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

If a magic lever has two settings:

(1) "five million Americans pay 3x healthcare costs from 2026-29, USAID restored in 2029"

(2) "American healthcare costs stay the same, USAID restored in 2031"

both of those settings arguably entail violence of one type or another. We still have to pick one.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

I'm not suggesting we resort to the ammo box (yet)! All of this is a debate about how aggressive to be in wielding the power inherent in the ballot box. But that sort of power can and does result in death.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

I don't, either. The "it" in "who don't deserve it" is "being on the receiving end of political violence," which, with the possible exception of state punishment for a genuine crime (which I would consider political violence), I don't think *anyone* deserves.

PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

There are some political tendencies so abhorrent that, when and where they obtain power, they must be opposed, with violence if necessary, even in the knowledge that the application of that violence will have collateral damage.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

Now see, *that* to me is the killer argument against the accelerationist position—it may not work! And if it doesn't work, it will probably massively backfire!

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

I understand, and in fact I agree!

On the other hand, I think that "we must prevent a political tendency we deplore from causing harm to people who don't deserve it and aren't currently being harmed by it" is, taken to its extreme, the logic of a Copperhead.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

I have to be honest: that doesn't strike me as logic to be rejected out of hand.

I think the unspoken point of that argument is that, unless Trumpism is fully eradicated, it will continue to occasionally take power, in which case far greater harms will be done *in aggregate, in the long run*.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

That's fair, and those people should be ashamed of themselves.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

To be clear, human beings *are not* fungible and it fucking sucks that American politics is an IRL trolley problem right now! But Republicans are in control, so it is.

PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 12h

Democratic members of Congress are not the deranged neighbor with a gun! That's Republicans!

What Democrats are right now is something like hostage negotiators, or field officers in an active theater of war. The enemy has a power to do violence that likely cannot be stopped but might be redirected.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 13h

That argument is by no means a slam-dunk, there are definitely valid counters to it, but we're in a situation that we cannot get out of without massive human suffering. This is not revenge, it's triage.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 13h

I think it is bad and wrong to be gleeful at the prospect of doing harm to faceless normie Trump voters just for shits and grins. The better argument is that harm now, to certain people, could prevent greater harm, to a larger group of people, in the long run.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 13h

The bad representatives who want to do atrocity currently outnumber the good representatives, is the thing.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 14h

I don't think these attitudes are in tension. In war, you must make your enemy suffer, or else there is no incentive for them to sue for peace.

And even after a war is over, there must be a price for having started it. Reconstruction failed because the North was too eager to let bygones be bygones.

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PMC Vanguardist @tylerboschert.bsky.social · 14h

I dislike comparisons to 1933 Germany. We are not 1933 Germany. We are 1862 America, belatedly realizing that half of our countrymen are in open rebellion against us. We must act accordingly.

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