2711
2712

I’ll never not be surprised at the ability of people to dehumanize others. Want to prevent people from illegally crossing the border? Okay, whatever. But at the end of the day, these are just people like anyone else, trying to better their lives. Why the fuck would you want to line them up and shoot them for that?

Fuck, these people are sick. And Trump is leading the march.

2713

You demonize another group to coalesce your own. Some people (Trumpistas) take rule by fear, and we’re seeing the end result of that. To them, those people are scum. Why? Because someone else told them that. You and I can see a man, a woman, a family, kids, trying to find a better life or trying to evade a horrible one. These crazed fools see nothing but evil crossing the border. If we have 4 more years of Trump I would not doubt there will be shots fired at the border in some way. Heaven help us if that starts to take place.

You know I hate to say it and reference it yet again in another Trumpish thread, but this administration helps me fathom how Nazi Germany came to be. Its hard to read a history book and understand, “how could sane people kill so many others?” And now, now I understand. Evil leaders, using their dominance to further evil.

2714

Yes, this exactly. I’ve made this same observation to my friends multiple times that now (sadly) I’m actually able to understand what happened. I never could grasp that before, how was it that Germans went insane and holocaust happened? How could people just sit there, watch their government be usurped by a man like that, and do such awful things?

I get it at all now, I’m watching it play out in real time. And I’m also understanding all the times people said “Not all Germans were Nazis or supported the Nazis”. Again, I’m watching it all play out. They even use some of the same rhetoric.

My biggest worry and fear is I’m seeing the cancer grow when the economy is doing extremely well. What happens if there’s another 9/11 (something I worried about before Trump anyway) or a Great Recession / Depression 2.0?

2715

I am under those same fears, Kevin. And I think all of this relies upon our leadership. Never in any election that I’ve voted in have I felt this more important than right now in this next presidential election.

2716

I’ve always hated the use of the term illegal aliens, or worse, illegals, because I’ve always seen it for what it is, dehumanization. People can commit illegal acts but people themselves cannot be illegal. Trump, of course, started dialing up the rhetoric from the moment he stepped off the escalator. Murderers and rapists, thugs, and, eventually, vermin. By the time you get to the leader of the country openly referring to another group of people as vermin, yeah, you’re in Nazi territory.

2717

Climate change :( Mass migration on a scale difficult to comprehend at a time when economies are started to feel the effects world wide. I don’t see a scenario where the Weatern democracies resist the pull of authoritarianism.

2718

Genuinely the only way to save America, really, is to let the South finally secede.

Once they’re gone the political deadlock the South holds America in can be overcome. Even though there are a lot of conservative voters now across the country they don’t have the absolutism and reactionary bent that is given them by the solid south’s never-ending parade of conservative backwardness.

I mean it’s probably easier for that to happen than defeat a Republican party entrenched in business interests, full of propagandist media and news, funded and supported by foreign powers.

That’s the only deal they couldn’t refuse.

2719

You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that they’d almost immediately start a war with the north.

2720

Really? That would surprise me. What would they gain?

They’re desperate to make A Handmaid’s Tale in real life; they want to live in bible stories and antebellum mansions. Why would they want to impose that on the rest of the country? The reason they invaded the North in the Civil War was because Lee thought they couldn’t win a battle of attrition. If secession was agreed upon, what would they gain?

OTOH, I think it’s highly likely the new South would invite Russia or China to plant bases on their territory to pwn the libs.

2721

An enemy. Someone to blame the failure of their economic policies on. Conquest to support their failed policies.

That’s the whole basis of that ideology… imposing it on others who don’t agree. To force them to live “the correct way”. The same as other authoritarian ideologies.

Eh, this wouldn’t be like the South. The South actually DID just want to leave, so they could keep owning slaves. But I think at this point, with modern information technology, you’d start seeing major problems in the southern states, and they would need some scapegoat to blame those problem on.

2722

And we know the end game of letting them hang themselves, right?

ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant

That’s kind of the whole point. There’s won’t be a second reconstruction.

2723

Do you really want to create a failed state on your southern border… That has at least half of the US military?

2724

Wait, are the South the baddies now?

* Notices he lives in the South *

Oh shi…

nuke-4

2725

It’ll be like evacuating the embassy in Saigon. We’ll send the helicopters and get you out. If not… find a boat?

2726

I’m afraid it might be more like the intro to Uncommon Valor.

2727

You kidding me? If I’m getting out I’m going all out. Canada or bust, baby. Land of the legal weed and public health care.

I’m gonna practice now. “That Bieber sure is cool, eh? Welp, I’d better use the washroom and put on my toque before heading out to pick up a two-four of Molson and some Timbits.”

2728

Is that bacon I smell?

2729

You have it down except the Bieber part, we gave him to you guys.

2730

We only accept if you also give us Geddy Lee.