every conservative political complaint comes back to "those people shouldn't count because they disagree with me"

wait. wait. you're telling me that the equality of citizens *works?*

Remember, Democrats have repeatedly advanced measures to ban partisan gerrymandering and Republicans have voted against them time after time.

This is the game Republicans wanted to play. OK, then.

Some people seem to think that the resolution to being oppressed is to get a turn being the oppressor, unfortunately

Looking forward to Kezia Dugdale and everyone else at @stonewalluk.bsky.social explaining to me how we are supposed to “debate” people like this.

Also, you know, they're the sort of people who actively devalue science but think sounding scientific conveys credibility to their random opinions.

I think they just want to make people reluctant to be seen objecting to it by using misleading terminology that makes it seem like people are defending exposed anuses if they try to express "low rise shorts aren't a big deal"

Another problem with this that's not as critical as the others but is very illustrative of the problem is the extremely unscientific-but-pretend-science-sounding-for-moral-panic-purposes term "anal cleft" for the part of the body technically known as the intergluteal cleft.

Remember when the GOP pretended to be against government officials being able to fuck with innocent people just to feel powerful?

So they're just straight up saying out loud that the law means whatever they want it to mean to get the outcome they want in any particular moment.

That the law is *designed* to operate that way.
Remember when the GOP pretended to be against corruption?

If people don't intend to weaponize a law they wouldn't write the law in such a way that a dispassionate legalistic enforcement of the letter of the law weaponizes it by default.

The peak of fear mongering. The author claims Ohio HB 249 will jail women for going braless in a T-shirt. HB 249 is about shielding kids from adult performances & imagery —not policing whether women wear bras, bikinis, or T-shirts. Twisting it into "women could be jailed for going braless" isn't just wrong —it's a deliberate misrepresentation. It's common sense to shield kids' innocence from adult performances & imaginary. Nothing but perversion - twisting a bill that aims to protect the innocence of children into something it's not. Do better.

Here's the thing:

If legislators didn't intend for HB 249 to be used against women wearing leggings and low-rise jeans, if they didn't mean for it to be used against trans people existing... THEY COULD FIX THE LANGUAGE.

They drafted it that way for a reason. It's naive to think they won't use it.

Now they mostly probably aren't aiming for shunning bare ankles right now, but "scandalous amount of skin" is a sliding scale and the more you ban the more is considered scandalous and that treadmill continues until people stop having moral panics about the mere existence of human bodies.

Do you know how a society gets to the point where uncovered ankles are considered scandalous?

Because they don't start out like that. That's not the default state of human civilization. It has to be made to be like that, on purpose. And this is how that's done.

Does it need to be said that this bill is a result of trans bathroom panic?

I can't help anyone who is so indoctrinated that they really think the world is shitty because it has to be that way. It so clearly doesn't. We're not even talking about political activity in the world. We're talking a basic foundation to be able to say, this shit's not right, it could be better.

The entire world is currently suffering because a bunch of far-too-rich kids and their sidekicks were convinced that being rich would make them cool instead of learning to accept that being an eccentric dork is awesome in its own way, and they're taking out their still-packed baggage on everyone.

Rapier users.

The currently escalating tech backlash must be put in the context of:

“people have been listening to the most insufferable techbros in the world gleefully threaten everyone else with mass unemployment for over 6 years, and they’re sick of their shit”

like i can understand the idea of including those for a cis audience to hammer home just how much we are harassed every day, but it's exhausting to watch for someone inundated by that shit constantly. this type of content just isn't for me and it's a shame because a lot of youtubers do this.

RFK Jr. just said that immigration is to blame for the outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S., not him.

Arranging fun stuff for other people's kids to enjoy rules, actually.

My nephew is into Ninja Turtles so I'm currently crafting him the largest possible playset that my local extended family can physically transport.

Nearly the size of that mythical GI Joe aircraft carrier one.

And not just the folks who have kids, either. Once you know enough neighbors to have a collective 4th of July event for the kids' enjoyment, you might as well invite everyone on the block. Now the college dude who plays guitar and the guy who doesn't want a family but loves making BBQ are involved.

The best paying job I ever had was also, not coincidentally, the one that had the most reasonable expectations on amount of work required. Literally less work than jobs that paid 25% less.

"The average annual salary for the top 1% in the United States is approximately $794,129, while the average for the bottom 90% is approximately $43,035, based on the most recent comprehensive wage data for 2023-2024. This means the top 1% earns over 18 times more annually than the bottom 90% of workers. "

Look, I'm not saying the rich don't work at all, I'm saying that they don't work 18x harder than the rest of us for it

The hard work isn't the determining factor of what made them rich BUT THEY THINK IT IS and THAT'S what's so goddamn obnoxious

It's way past time to learn that a truly staggering amount of social media sociology takes are just someone who refuses to pay a professional for the purpose taking out their pathologies on you instead but framed as advice

Oh, so a neighborhood just like the one I grew up in?

I genuinely can't find it weird or uncomfortable that an area might have houses, duplexes, and apartment buildings all mixed together instead of being a mind-numbing field of rank upon rank of cookie-cutter garages with houses hidden behind them

So hey that's eugenics

I was just thinking yesterday that people having kids who hang out with other people's kids is probably the most natural way that folks get outside and meet their neighbors and become a community.