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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Ideologically speaking, dozens of studies and surveys have shown that Americans are actually not very ideologically separate

    Maybe Americans are generally ideologically homogeneous, but there’s enough variability within that shared ideology for there to be significant disagreements between the various ideological subgroups. Even if Americans broadly agree on the matter of individual rights, liberties, and freedoms, they may not necessarily agree on which rights should be prioritized or for whom.

    But maybe the problem is in the shared ideology itself. A country that is adamant that people should have the right to be ignorant and misinformed, shouldn’t be surprised when large numbers of people are ignorant and misinformed.




  • Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has urged her Democratic colleagues to stop attacking the “oligarchy” on Thursday, arguing that the word did not resonate with most Americans

    Everyone believes that their politics are the politics of MOST Americans, but reality is more complicated than that. I’m not sure that anyone can say what most of the roughly 260 million voting age Americans think, about much of anything, really. Yes, polling can give us some insights, but polls are inherently flawed.

    The fact is, the American people are complex. They believe many things, and some of the things they believe contradict other things they believe; and just because an American thinks a certain way today, that doesn’t mean they’ll think that way tomorrow. Plus, we just have such a large and diverse populace, spread out across fifty states. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to point to any one American and say, “that person represents most Americans.”

    If I had to guess, I’d say that most Americans don’t give a rats ass about oligarchy or kings. If they could live their lives the way they wanted under an oligarchy or a king, they’d be fine with it. Kings, oligarchs, emperors, despots, who gives a shit, as long as the price of eggs doesn’t go up too much. I think what matters to most Americans isn’t semantic, philosophical or ideological, but material. I think most Americans would be perfectly content to live under a king, if under that king they were able to live a decent, middle class life.

    But, that’s just my guess. Again, it’s hard for anyone to say what most Americans want or think or believe.



  • Firefighters, EMTs, and police are all first responders, and so it’s necessary for them all to have at least emergency medical training. Yet, they are distinct agencies, because each job requires unique skills and training. I think police, and for that matter all first responders, should have mental health emergency training, just as they have medical emergency training, but I also think it would be useful for there to be a distinct agency that specializes in mental health emergency response, just as there are agencies that specialize in fire emergency and medical emergency response. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the police to fill this role, just as I think it would be unreasonable to expect the police to fight fires or provide all of the services of an EMT.