Too bad Isreal doesn’t care, and will almost certainly indiscriminately bomb them anyways.

Multiple employees beat up a gay man after he had some PDA with his partner. No matter how you look at it the optics are horrible. Short of Mr. Dingus having a weapon or shouting slurs or something like that: there’s no justification for the employees to beat and attack him.

I feel like you’re jumping through several hoops to put the blame back on the person who was beaten by multiple people.

And then one of the men, pretty forcefully, like, pushed me out of the way on my shoulder,” Dingus said. “And then, you know, next thing I know, that kind of just, I think, sparked the rest of them. … They all just kind of started attacking me at that point, dragging me back through the floor and continuously punching me in my head.”

They essentially gang assaulted Mr. Dingus, and you believe it’s only because of some PDA? I highly doubt it, and believe fully that this is a case of homophobia. And almost certainly a hate crime too.

You’re such a fascist defending loser.

Fuck off fascist

The little fascist went to a counter protest with a rifle as an agitator. He was looking for a reason to use that gun, and definitely manufactured the exact thing he was looking for. Don’t be such an utter dipshit.

It’s not Occams Razor to point out the US’ complete bias towards Israel? It’s not Occams Razor to assume employers consistently act in bad faith in the US? I believe him when he says he was forced out, it wasn’t too long ago that a nurse was fired because she called out Palestinian genocide.You sound incredibly naive.

Did you also even read the article? There are literal emails referencing/heavily hinting at the removal of any reference to Palestinian mother’s starving. Something he was willing to do, but ultimately his whole slideshow was canceled. And right before the end of the conference he was at: he forced to resign. Yet you’d say it’s just a coincidence.

Well you’re making a whole lot of assumptions yourself. And mine are based on Occams Razor and the US governments consistent actions to stifle free speech that is critical of Israel. The US government has a vested interest in stopping people from revealing the horrors of Israel’s Genocide.

And that “contract ending” (firing) came about because of his views on Israel’s Genocide. Him being a government contractor is besides the point since there was almost certainly governmental pressure to remove him. Whether it was hard or soft pressure.

Late last week, Smith said he got a call from the company that contracted his position with USAID. He was told he could either resign or be terminated over “personality differences.”

Forcing someone to either resign or be fired is pretty much firing them.

I definitely can’t argue with the world’s constant decline towards fascism and authoritarianism. Though that doesn’t discount the authoritarian tendencies that existed in the Soviet Union that stop it from qualifying as a true democracy.

Additional context located under Leading Role of Communist Party. I would argue that one party/the federal government having full constitutional control over who’s on the ballet leans more Authoritarian than Democratic.

There is no justification for the shooting. Failure to follow orders and shouting obscenities, even while carrying a weapon, doesn’t justify murder by police. This is another case of their blatant incompetence/malice when dealing with any tense situation.

In a just society, a cops job would be able to de-escalate and resolve the problem as cleanly as possible and with as little use of violence as possible. We don’t live in a just society though, so the cops just shot him and lied saying he aimed a gun at them to justify their murder. Meanwhile, white mass shooters are taken alive and given Burger King for their effort if they hurt the right people.

YouTube and Instagram have features that are in direct competition with TikTok. YouTube has even been more aggressive in promoting themselves as the TikTok alternative. On top of that the US government has an incentive to keep them (Google and Meta) happy; since the US routinely spies on its own (and other countries) citizens through these companies.

I’d love to see any evidence of TikTok acting on behalf of any country (especially China) as a hostile actor, or even any evidence of legitimate election interference. If anything banning TikTok is a significantly more hostile response from the US since it silences another forum for free speech.

Social media is a cancer, but this ban is such obvious propaganda. The only reason TikTok was banned because the US government doesn’t have free reign to spy on its users like it does with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

If the US government truly cared about social media and it’s affects they would be regulating all of it. Instead they’re trying to ban TikTok while screaming their heads off about China every chance they get. And that’s before mentioning the extremely shady way they passed this; attaching it as a rider through a government ‘aid’ bill.

Its because the company literally paid shills to stump for them in person, call Congress, etc.

The way it was presented was that they paid average users to call Congress which is disingenuous. I’ll admit I was wrong when I came to the influencers being paid for in person events, but that’s only a smaller group of people and events. The vast majority were not paid and did so of their own volition.

Edit: Didn’t realize OP and the replier were different people. That’s also on me.

literally paid shills

No *one outside of some influencers were paid lmao. People contacted Congress but they weren’t paid, and a quick Google search brought up zero result of people being paid *outside of the influencers. So I’d love to see where you’re sourcing this from.

Edit: Correction - about 30 influencers were paid to visit events for Tik Tok. I’ll rescind saying that literally no one was paid: that’s point is wrong. My main point was that average users weren’t paid to call into Congress. And the vast majority that called in or have talked out against the ban did so of their own volition rather than being paid as implied by OP’s comment

The replacement drugs only work with someone inside the system. There are a lot of people outside of or at odds with the system because of how it levies criminality against addicts. And again: criminality that is automatically assumed acts as a positive feedback loop leading to addicts committing legitimate crime.

I’m not familiar with Finnish prisons. I’ve been told that they’re better than US prisons and I definitely believe that much. But still, someone with an issue of addiction shouldn’t be going to prison at all in the first place. That was the main point I was trying to make there.

And I’m not advocating for anything like free drugs. What I’m advocating for is a more psychological approach to handing addiction. Addiction itself is a psychological disease, and it needs to be treated like that. Not like it’s some sort of moral failure: like the system insists upon.

I do not think we will find consensus on this, so this is where I’ll take my leave.

Except it literally is life or death in the case of withdrawal. Those who are addicted things like like heroin, or even have a severe enough addiction to alcohol can die once they’re in a certain part of the withdrawal process.

And just because prison was the rock bottom that some addicts needed to reform doesn’t mean it’s the best option. Honestly prison is one of the worst possible options because it leads to a positive feedback loop of criminality. Addicts are automatically labeled as criminals on arrest and then have to fight against that stigma for the rest of their life. So of course they’d do things like turn back to crime, because their options are automatically limited on arrest.

I won’t sit here and act like I have all of the solutions. I don’t have all of the solutions and I’m just some guy. But so long as addiction is seen as a criminal offense we will fail addicts every single time. We need the large scale social programs Finland has currently along with a strong re-evaluation of how to handle drug related crimes.

Drugs in general are still illegal to possess and use under Finnish law. You need to decriminalize drug use before you can actually tackle it since it’s a health/psychology issue when it comes to the individual.

It’s hard to seek out proper help when you’re worried that you’ll be arrested/fined just for being an addict.