Thats my friend! He’s really like that all the time and is genuinely compassionate and wholesome in every aspect of his life.

He volunteers on a local community radio show each week called The Pedestrian Show where he advocates for better biking infrastructure in the city. He’s like actually involved in city council meetings and breaks down the proposed development plans on the radio in simple terms so people can understand what’s happening in the city without reading 50 pages of legalese.

Also, he’s really good at ping pong haha.

That makes sense haha. Same on the too lazy to check. I could have checked rather than commenting in the first place lol

I love China IL, but had no idea Hulk Hogan was in it. I guess he must have been the dean?

From reading about PieFed’s moderation tools linked elsewhere in this thread, seems like the solution to that is already built in more explicitly for them.

Idk I think we should normalize being mean to cops.* Maybe if they were berated everywhere they went instead feared, fewer people would want to be cops.

* this is obviously bad advice for many people in many situations. Cops can and will ruin or end your life with little or no provocation.

You don’t have to be nice to cops. And they can’t legally arrest you just for being mean.

Fucking pigs just got mad he wasn’t nice to them.

What a joke lol

They both got silver if I’m not mistaken

You’re completely discounting the struggles of the many people that have fought their entire lives against persecution and for self determination. There is a long and storied history of this in the US south and it continues today. Just because the job isn’t done yet doesn’t mean nobody’s working to stop fascism.

By having a minority vote them in. Voter turnout is notoriously low in many southern states, especially the reliably red ones.

I will condemn any bigot, fascist, reactionary, colonizer, and religious or ethno-nationalist.

Believe it or not though, those people are a loud minority in many parts of the south. When you generalize people based on what region they’re from, good people get caught in the crossfire.

Yes genocide is clearly the answer. /s

As long as the “they” you refer to is “the… people that elect [backwards governments]” as you put it - I’m in total agreement.

The majority of southerners didn’t elect anyone though. Its specifically lumping the people most harmed by those backwards people in with them that I don’t want to happen. That distinction may seem obvious enough to you to not be worth mentioning, but I promise it isn’t obvious to everyone.

No victim complex. I hadn’t seen anything here that I found distasteful. I don’t have a problem with the OP either. I said what I meant and nothing more. “I sure hope this thread doesn’t devolve…” doesn’t mean that it has or even that I expect it to. I have seen it before in this community however. Some people build up this idea in their head of the southern states being filled with hateful fascists, and they’re right to a degree. Its also filled with pockets of disenfranchised and oppressed people. Maybe I’m an optimist or idealist, but that’s the view I like to hold. I just like to try pushing the conversation away from attacking southern/rural people who are wholely harmed by the policies of a loud minority of bigots.

Nice to see some nuance. This is how you criticize the establishment powers in an area plagued by fascism.

I’ll be the first to criticize the government and policies that have dominated the southern states for centuries. However many many people in the south don’t support those governments and are harmed by those policies. Please do call out the problems - attack those in power and send a message that their conduct is unacceptable. I only ask that you don’t generalize the people stuck in the region by economic conditions and a culture that’s hostile to them.

Sure hope this thread doesn’t devolve into hating on people who live in rural areas or the US south generally.

Fuck yea we do. I never said that choosing left was the easy option. It is the necessary option though.

What if I told you the viable alternative wasn’t to look further right, but further left?