They set us back at least 100 years

Thrown in an unhealthy amount of "Not our fault!" and it's like a never ending repeat of what Adam, Eve, and the Serpent said just moments before God had enough, gave them (and us) the punishments, and kicked them out of Eden. The fact the US still exists in the literal meaning of the word is a miracle considering what people have done in the past few or more decades.

Its only because we send billions in aid money to 3rd world countries. If it wasn't for that, God would have wiped us out decades ago.

Actually, we don't automatically assume you're a conspiracy theorist. We just have to wait 7 seconds and y'all prove it.

COVID came from a lab. That's a conspiracy theory. Pres. Biden's cognitive decline is a conspiracy theory. The government is not censoring Twitter and other social media. Come on!

Well, in your case, it took 1 day.

damn

The Left is against change and progress. Spend more money on welfare programs and less on Elon Musk's daydreams of a better world. They want more corruption of the status quo.

Elon Musk wants us to get to Mars. I thoroughly approve of that and wish him every success in the Mars stuff because I for one wish we'd hurry tf up and build a base there already. We need to get to other planets ASAP. Not safe for our species to be stuck on a single world. We should be there already. And also move to electric cars.

Whether you believe in anthropogenic climate change or not, fossil fuels won't last forever anyway (and plus it's subject to geopolitical instability, as we saw with Ukraine when Europe realized it maybe shouldn't have been *quite* so dependent on Russian gas... ). They say that renewables are unreliable. Cf the latest blackout in Europe (whatever the cause was). But it's not like relying on fossil fuels isn't without its issues either.

Even if we discover more reserves and we've got another few hundred years of them, the fact is that once they're gone, they're gone. Unless we wanna wait a few hundreds of millions of years for dead sea creatures to turn to oil or whatever. Might as well try and find an alternative now. (Fusion power can't come soon enough, if we ever work out how to do it.)

He also fired thousands of hardworking and highly intelligent people who'd spent years working on their careers and becoming experts in their field. Who are now adding to unemployment figures and costing the country more.

Not sure he quite knows what the answer is. At least he doesn't have to worry about his overdraft.

Yeah that's totally what Leftists are, against change and progress. So sad they keep holding Conservatives back from ushering in that new Jetsons tomorrow.

Cut the space program and spend the money on people who need it here on earth. You hear it every time.

It's been (officially) cut, they handed it over to Elon and Bezos.
The military is the biggest unnecessary US expenditure for century now.

"The Left is against change and progress." You actually typed that with a straight face?

I've said this before, and I'm gonna say it again- if I had been born back then I would have voted for the Republican party. Because they were the progressives for their time. They even wanted universal healthcare. They didn't want to restrict immigration. They wanted to raise taxes for civil projects. They wanted to pay people a living wage.

Does any of that sound like the Republican party of today?

No you wouldn't have. No democrat, voter or elected official, supported the absolution of slavery.

Yes, I would have. I am a progressive. I vote for progressive candidates. I would have voted Republican.

Actually they did, the Northern faction cleaving off from Southern Democrats, fielding their own separate candidate in the election of 1860.

But you already know this, and have seen this map how many times already?

Thou shalt nots:
Bear false witness
&
Fabricate

Because God watchethes

Well I gave it a few googles, and I must say that I've found that none of the policies youve stated were held by Republicans of the time.

They did not want free healthcare of any kind outside of the military.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/frederick-law-olmsteds-war-on-disease-and-disunity?

They did not want fewer restrictions on immigration, (not Illegal immigration, mind you) but more immigrants that still abided by those restrictions.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/10/lincoln-harold-holzer-immigration-brought-forth-on-this-continent?

And they only increased taxes to support the war effort, and then even making the most taxed pay only 5%.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/say-happy-birthday-to-the-first-income-tax?

No, in fact they all sound like bad ideas.

And that's how you know they weren't conservative.

You are misinformed about the Republican Party. Free Soil folks who joined the Republican Party wanted the West to be all white. It's more complicated than that. The Republican Party was a reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. They wanted to stop the expansion of slavery. Please read a book. I can't explain all this in this format.

Yes, I understand all of those things. I have read those books. I'm going to repeat the phrase so you can have a clear look at it. The Republican Party was the progressive party of their time.

There is a romantic view of the Republican party at that time. Often, they're painted with this idea that they wanted to end slavery because it is inherently wrong. Some did, certainly. Many others didn't want it to spread to the western territories & states because it created unfair competition.

It took Lincoln 3 years and being in the middle of the Civil War to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. They founded the colony of Liberia to have a place to send all these suddenly free Black people because no one wanted them in their neighborhood.

I encourage you to attack the romanticized idea of the Republican party and it's origin with actual facts. That's great.

But it doesn't change that they were the progressive party of their time.

Republicans weren't progressive, they saw slavery is a moral wrong. Lincoln not only was a segregationist, he wanted to boot them of the US all together, and tried.

It's like people who are against hunting because they find it to be cruel. Last thing they want is for deer to enter their yards and start munching away on their prized azaleas.

That actually literally happened in Westchester around the late 80s. Despite being mainly suburban, it's still relatively densely populated. So hunting season is more limited and confined to bow and arrow as opposed to rifle.

There was this woman whose name I forget that was THE big activist seeking to ban hunting in the area. But there was a lot of new houses built then, and so deer, squeezed for space, started increasingly venturing into people's yards. Including hers. They started eating her flowers.

She actually ended up switching from being the biggest anti-hunting activist in Westchester to being the biggest proponent of expanding the hunting season time-wise and to include guns as well. Because they ate her flowers.

🤣

Never mess with the azaleas. That's enough to turn anyone.

It's an unspoken rule

They were not progressive by today's standards, yes. But, as I said, they were the progressive party in their time.

Don't drag half-assed history into a conversation. You can't compare the Republicans of the 1970s, let alone the 1860s. In 2016, the Republican Party completely changed. The Tea Party destroyed the Reagan-Goldwater conservative movement. Pres. Trump made the Republican Party into a populist party.

Their main concern was preventing slavery expanding into the Western territories.

Craig provided a reason why above.
I did a little looking into that now. Slavery was viewed as unfair competition for smaller farmers. Working for free obviously costs less than paid labor. They also lacked the capital to buy larger farms, perpetuating their impoverished status. Plus there the stigma of being looked at a little more than a slave, performing same tasks for little money.

In addition to Republican Party was pro-business as well as pro-big/centralized government.

Freeing the slaves after the war was more about breaking the South economically, thus hindering the ability for it to seek Independence again. To this day it is still very much tethered to the north for its economics survival.

Moda, I'm proud of you. It pays to do research. Sad but true, no one fought for the welfare of the slaves. Slavery issue had more to do with political and economic power. All of the US operated under a racial cast system until maybe 1980 or so.

I had figured at least some had sympathized with them as human beings and truly wanted equality, but the more I look into it, the more that generally seems to not be the case.

There was also the Lily-White Movement Republican faction that began in Texas in the 1880s and spread throughout the south from there, and the only thing they where for was getting more votes.

Lemme repeat the phrase for you. They were the progressive party for their time.

You can attack the romanticized idea of the Republicans at that time, sure. Lincoln didn't free the slaves with his first acts as President. It took him 3 years and being in the middle of the Civil War to do it.

They weren't pure noble angels. They were people who, as you have noted, worked to stop the expansion of slavery. They were abolitionists. A progressive concept in a time when slavery was a dominant economic model.

And it's not like they were all "hey, let's live as brothers with these newly freed men & women." No. They founded the country of Libera so they could have a place to send all the black people.

Attack the romantic view with legitimate history. They were people, who did things for different reasons. But that doesn't change that being the anti-slavery party made them the progressive party of their time.

You may repeat it as many times as it pleases you.

It still doesn't change the fact that preventing the expansion of slavery into the Western Territories while preserving it in the South is restriction, not abolition, and that was still go over the Republican Party, as well as other liberation parties that went nowhere.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a farce. It was not enforceable, and it's highly doubtful that Lincoln was the only one on planet Earth not aware of this. Further, it exempted the Border States as well as any Confederate territory captured by the Union during the war, allowing them to maintain slavery.

Basically it was Lincoln shaking his man-sized nuts in their faces and also offering escaped slaves a reason to join the Union Army.

He had no intention of freeing the slaves after the war was over, and finally only came around to doing so in order to cripple the Southern economy and keep it dependent on the North, effectively curtailing its ability to attempt to secede again as it couldn't stand on its own.

The Great Society did not work. It is time to drop socialism and move forward into the future. Social engineering is not real engineering. It's about controlling people.

Oh it’s not just about the Republican Party.

What does The Future look like for you? I'm genuinely curious. I also don't want to live in some Soviet-style "Communist" hellscape. I also don't want to live under the current form of capitalism we have. Sure, it's an upgrade from some Bolshevik nightmare. Still not exactly what I would call "successful" when I have to step over rough sleepers on the way to work and people are going to food banks in some of the wealthiest economies on the planet, and committed couples working full-time professional jobs with just 2 kids can barely afford to pay the bills, let alone afford child care or a mortgage. I think we can do a bit better than that. Am I a utopian idealist or being unreasonably unrealistic?

I want something a bit better. Start with basic human rights for all. Everyone who is not able-bodied/minded enough to work full time despite being willing and able to to gets some extra support. Everyone who *is* able-bodied/minded and willing to work gets to earn a dignified salary doing a non-exploitative job that doesn't humiliate them, destroy their physical or mental health, or make them work over 60 hours a week on zero-hours minimum-wage temp contracts that they can lose at a moment's notice, and that affords them their basic needs.

(Ie rent liveable accommodation (no cockroaches, rats, freezing to death in winter or gunshots outside); buy food that isn't instant noodles or bars of candy plus some clothes and toiletries and medication; have a coffee and a beer with friends every now and then and some semblance of a life. I'm not talking flat-screen TVs and Lamborghinis for all here. No one needs that and I don't think the planet has enough resources anyway to give that kind of luxury to 9 billion people.

I just want everyone to be able to live a reasonably "comfortable" and stress-free life without taking anxiety meds every month when the rent is due or resort to living on junk food to make ends meet. (Sugar is cheap.)

(Universal health care as a bonus (which we already have in loads of countries outside the US, btw, and it's as normal as having water come out of your tap/faucet, although even that is slowly being eroded in places (dentistry used to be free and noq isn't in some places, for example)).

UBI as an extra bonus. But I don't see that happening any time soon. Maybe once we finally crack fusion power and unlimited clean, reliable energy. So basically it's always only 20 years away... )

See you all in 500 years for the utopian house party.

Leftard haha. Might start using that. 🥳 What's a rightwhinger called then? A rightard? 🤔 (Sounds a bit like retard lol.) "Oh man, that's so rightarded!"

Also, no colour TV in 2025? What happened?

Careful, unless you're MAGA, those words are all TOS violations, and you will get a timer.

What's that? Trump Obsession Syndrome? Is a "timer" like going to the Naughty Corner in pre-school? (At least tell me you get to wear a funky little pointy dunce hat like in the good ol' days.) 🤔

Break the house rules, and we get to save on the time we spend applying ample amounts of aloe to our blistering bruises by getting quickie sabbaticals - first 2 hours off, then 6, then 8, then 24, then 48.

But it depends on which 'side' you're on.
I reckon they have greater expectations for a certain more civil contingency and thus are harsher on them while taking it easier on those who 'don't know better' due to the limitations generated by reactive amygdala-centered brain processes.

Ooh a free vacay. Nice. I love a good holiday.

I don't know which "side" I'm on though. 🤔 Do I have to pick, and are there only 2 or are we talking about a few more options? What about a myriagon? That has 10,000 sides.

What if I want to be outside in the countryside at the seaside? I like the seaside. Great place to get fresh with people and chill when I'm feeling a bit salty and want to dry my tears.

Should I say I'm on the flipside, or am I allowed to be lazy and just say I'm on my backside? That's one of my favourite political positions. You meet all the best fellow assholes and buttheads in that club, along with a few lazy bums who don't join in discussions much.

You don't have to know which 'side' you're on. There are only two allowed, and one will be assigned to you depending on whether or not you wear the Mark of the Fleece. If you don't properly adulate il Douche, then your GPS will be set to Siberia for you.

Luckily I do adulate Agent Orange. I make him into memes. That's the best form of flattery. 😍

Is it a golden fleece they get to wear? If so, I may be interested. Always fancied magic powers.

He's an inspiration to us all.

Not exactly a golden fleece, more like the bark of the beast. It's very noisy and has a bad habit of keeping up the neighbors.

Do I have to make dog memes now?

Possibly

PS Are we assigned Left or Right at birth and can never change, or are we allowed to identify as a different one later on? 🤔

I'm from the Bronx, NYC. According to our colleagues here, everyone here is automatically registered as a Democrat upon birth, has rainbow colored hair, a torched Tesla Truck parked in the driveway (a neat trick since we supposedly all reside in slum buildings), and engages in wild sexual group activities out on the streets with even people outside of our racial category, which, quite frankly, sounds pretty damn awesome.

Wow. Bronx. You equals gangsta.

One paradox I don't understand though: you're a leftie libtard but you have a Tesla?

Even tho Musk is BFFs with Trump?

(Or at least he was, cos I heard recently him and Chump have fallen out a bit oops. Chump even stopped tweeting about him. Oh well.)

No comment. I once got 48 for using slang from my own town. "Mocking Ebonics" was the charge.

Nothing for the fella pretending that he was from here also referring to such lingo. Guy actually claimed that Brooklyn was chock full of trailer parks. If you can afford property in Brooklyn, you can afford something slightly more than putting a trailer park on it.

It's like going to some fancy schmancy way too expensive French restaurant and ordering McDonald's instead of a boiled quail egg with a sprig of asparagus with a half teaspoon of mustard & white wine reduction sauce for a little color.

Tbf I have shaved purpled hair and a tattoo on my forearm that says "Lenin Forever".

I also get triggered by everything. Stop breathing. That triggers me.

I feel your pain.

I am what you crazies call "MAGA" and I have had comments and memes deleted and unfeatured for the very thing you think only the left on here get in trouble for. It isn't just a right vs left problem on this site; it's a universal problem. You can't call names and you can't go after anyone in the trans community. I know this first hand.

As for the "crazies" part, I fully accept that moniker lol. But I'm a freelance crazy and don't draw a salary; I'm not aligned with the official Crazy Movement. (I annoy them too much as well.) A vigilante crazy, if you like. I'm available for hire btw. Let me know who you want me to troll and I'll see what I can do.

Good to know the Naughty Corner is a diverse place. Everyone's welcome to get a timeout haha. 🥳

Being MAGA is one thing. You're perfectly entitled to that. There'd be nothing to debate otherwise and we wouldn't have half the memes we do. And a world without memes would be a sad world indeed. We all need each other to make the world go round lol.

But why do you want to call people names and go after trans people? 😅 (Shouldn't be stalking anyone tbf, trans or not.) And are we talking proper name-calling or just saying they're a dumbass or silly billy or sth? Is there a handy list of acceptable insults lol?

"But why do you want to call people names and go after trans people? 😅 (Shouldn't be stalking anyone tbf, trans or not."

What you people call "attacking" and "going after" is disagreeing with that lunacy. Adults can do whatever they want, but when it affects others, that's where I have a problem. I follow basic biology and I don't put my feelings above reality. Men cannot become women and women cannot become men. And when you start going after children, that is abuse and I don't condone child abuse.

Okay gotcha. Good to know it sounds like you're not just calling trans people rude names. Disagreeing with something is different. But it's such a thorny and complex topic and here isn't the ideal format to go into it in depth tbf. (Eg biology isn't *quite* as black and white as it first appears. There are intersex people born naturally with both male and female sex organs, for example, and plenty of conditions where people have different sets of chromosomes to the XX = female and XY = male that we were taught in high school, so in those cases even terms like "men" and "women" are not quite as clear cut. Obviously those are not the same thing as the trans debate (and it's also a minority of people, granted, although I don't think that should make any difference to anyone's rights), but just to point out life is a bit nuanced.)

I'm not qualified enough to speak on this tbh since I'm not part of any of those groups of people nor am I a doctor, geneticist or with lived experience of any of the things said groups experience. I'm not inside their bodies. And I'm not particularly here to change your or anyone's mind anyway. That's notoriously hard to do. Like you trying to swing me to be a Trump supporter (you never know lol, but I can't see it happening just yet – would need quite a lot of convincing). But we can still engage and I think that's worth sth.

FWIW, when you say "you people", I'm not sure I fit into that category. I have my own opinions on a lot of things. It's true I might share a lot with the stereotype of the people I assume you're referencing (the leftie libtards lol) but not all of them, and certainly not the more extreme fringe elements. (Dw btw: I troll them too lol and get into trouble there as well.)

I may also share some opinions with you and disagree on those things with the other "group". I mean, they haven't even invited me to their WhatsApp group yet or drinks down the Leftie Clubhouse lol. (Rude or what?)

Generalizations are often helpful up to a point because there definitely are some common trends (humans are herd animals, after all, so we like to form into groups), but it's important to bear in mind we're all also individuals at the end of the day and we don't always fit into neat little camps of "us" and "them" or something. At least, I try to be like that. (Maybe I'm just as predictable as anyone else tbf and I just fancy myself as a freethinker when really I'm a walking stereotype too lol. #edgy Who knows... )