If there’s no point in voting, what’s the point in following the law at this point? That’s the only thing holding up this system of governance, the will of the people. Should the people feel the government has become tyrannical (aka consistently ignoring the direct democratic will of the people through their votes) then it is the duty of the people to alter or abolish it. The Declaration of Independence says as much.

Entirely fair, you’re right. It looks like Obama tried to move TARP funds to make it easier for small businesses and new programs to receive funding. I stand corrected on that point.

Accountability from parents being the elephant standing next to the mass surveillance elephant in the room.

I’m having no trouble on mine on CachyOS thankfully. Playin my games just fine. I’m sad I didn’t kick Microslop sooner, it’s been great honestly with all the tinkering and control I have. Not only did I get a performance lift, but my PC actually feels…like it’s mine I guess?

I get what you’re saying, but Americans, for whatever reason, paint Obama as the farthest left option when he was centrist at best.

The “they go low, we go high” mentality sounds nice but we’re seeing that directly play out where establishment Dems play by the rules and are too scared or too paid off to fight for the people while the Republicans break the rules all the time. And we choose to “move on” rather than hold them accountable. So, they learn that they can just fuck everyone over and no one will charge them with any crimes. Exactly what Obama campaigned on.

Not to mention that, rather than bail out the people who were suffering during 08, Bush bailed out the banks who caused the crisis. And what did the banks do with the money? Lay people off still and use that money to pay executive bonuses and for stock buybacks. Obama continued this oversight, and for what it’s worth he did attempt to send more funds to small businesses. But the fact still remains that the funds should’ve gone to the people affected and not the large banks that were deemed “too big to fail” similar to how AI is currently trying to position itself.

Also not to mention all the deportations and bombings across the world still. And the ACA being a right wing heritage foundation project that was adopted to provide more funding to private healthcare insurers. Which many just increased the prices of services to fleece taxpayers with so 🤷‍♂️

Obama is no comparison to Trump, of course, and I don’t hate Obama. But I also can’t forgive him for how ineffectual he actually was for the working class. We don’t need another “work across the aisle” “oh, let’s focus on the future, we don’t need to prosecute Trump or his administration” type candidate. We need one that will be an enemy of organized wealth and corporations so we can pull ourselves back out of authoritarian/billionaire control. The elite need to be held responsible. Otherwise, why would any citizen believe in the rule of law if it can be selectively applied?

I imagine many Virginians are feeling exactly that right now. They voted and approved a map and then their SC knocked it down because they felt like it. Meanwhile, the Republican maps are being forced through, held privately with no voter input, in some cases ongoing elections are even being halted with votes being thrown out to redistrict. All without any voter say to remove voter power. Why would anyone feel like their vote even matters anymore?

We need accountability. And I’m sorry, but a neoliberal Obama I don’t believe would hold any of them accountable.

SCOTUS told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.

It was its final, most essential command.

I wish we all had more time to be human.

Gaming, though im trying to get back into it. I used to be an ultimate raider in ffxiv. Some of my friends are starting back up so i might join them. Time has been harder to find as ive been slipping into work all the time more and more as more gets thrown at my plate.

I don’t disagree. I don’t care for the Iranian government and never proclaimed as such. Though, I think that’s also part of it as well as that we look at the Iranian government and conflate it with the people themselves. Under that understanding, even as we fight against our fascist regime in America, we, individually, are also responsible for the decisions our leaders make.

Which, at some level, is true. We could have used our 2nd amendment a while ago, for example, but we’re still here, just working and paying our taxes to bomb the world.

Also, I think that’s also exactly the point. We all have to be manually approved as a measure against bots. A federated, decentralized platform allows freedom of dissenting ideas to be discussed. Hence why I even asked the question as I was looking for some genuine thoughts around all that complexity (AI usage, good or bad, Iran, good or bad, working class message of peace from both, good or bad?) Though, seems like people are more focused on the Iranian government more so than the message being spoken or the method by which it was created. Broken clock and all that 😅. Both things can be true at the same time. But given the downvotes maybe I didn’t communicate that well.

If we can disagree with our government and want better, why can’t others? No matter where you are in the world, we are human beings. We should not let those in power define us.

Can someone tell me how republicans and conservatives are not terrorists?

Like, legitimately, how do they not cause massive amounts of harm and instill terror in large groups of people?

Gotta love how it takes this long, and only when people are individually and materially affected do they finally start go recognize all the failings we’ve been calling out since before the first term.

It really irks me how, like in MTG’s recent speech at the republican think tank about how she is breaking with MAGA, she names other “brave” folks who spoke out…like Carl Tucker and Candace Owens.

What about the entire left wing? The people that are, consistently, “correct too soon?”

I’d keep an eye out. They also “backed off” including AI in Notepad and “other places it didn’t make sense.”

Turns out that just meant removing the Copilot branding and calling the AI features “Writing Tools.”

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/04/26/microsoft-drops-copilot-branding-in-notepad-for-windows-11-for-everyone-but-its-really-just-a-rename/

Or are they just going to rename it “advanced features” like they did with notepad and others?

I fewl like it’s a national security risk to not have energy independence from fossil fuels as a consumable. My gas price says so. And the coming food and plastics shortages that are on the way as well.

If it gets us to kick fossil fuels, that’d be great imo. Remove the oil subsidies! Ya’ll wanted to cut government spending, right?

That’s one of the scary things about all this “age verification” bs. Not only is it just mass surveillance, but in “protecting minors” from “adult content” those of us who identify as LGBTQ are labelled as adult content just for existing by these fundamentalists. Entire swaths of people will be banned just for existing, especially once Palantir gets as much data as possible and flags IDs and faces as LGBTQ dissidents.

Not that they would ever get punished, but if they did, it should be based on a percentage of their net worth. None of this “oh, 200 billion annually? Please pay your $100 fine”