I listen to a podcast by a licensed therapist (Dr Laura Anderson, Sunday School Dropouts) who specializes in helping people recover from religious trauma, and honestly, she does argue that high control religion works a lot like the dynamics of abusive personal relationships. She also notes that when people are used to being shamed/coerced/guilted/etc for religious reasons, they’re more likely to accept abusive behaviors in personal relationships as well–it’s already normal stuff. And most of the arguments I’ve heard in favor of preserving child marriages comes from religious folks asking “what happens when a 15 year old gets pregnant, the baby needs both a father and a mother!” Instead of wanting to use investigation or nuance, child marriages are a quick fix to always complicated situations.

I’ve heard people argue for (age)x.5+7=not creepy. Seems moderately reasonable.

I wonder if all the schools and hospitals and government buildings having to close and/or evacuate due to bomb threats will be enough for the burden of proof. It’s not directly threatening language, but it certainly was a tangible, disruptive result.

You mean that they aren’t just cursed for having made a deal with demons? /s

Though that is a shitty thing that I heard on American (religious) TV 20 years ago. Poison to understanding & compassion.

My local favorite is apple slices+bacon, it’s the best.

I mean, that didn’t stop kids from going to fight in Iraq.

No, but I’ve watched Disneys Descendants. A bunch of villain’s kids get to go to school after being cut off from society all their lives due to their parents choices. The kids come in to school dedicated to evil, but the more they learn & get to know people, the more they all decide to be good people.

I have no idea how that relates to anything in the real world in the past however many years.

When I went to price it out at the store, the line for a dumb phone was going to cost $30/mo more than a smart phone. It was dumb.

Why choose? Use electricity and destroy living creatures: https://time.com/6982015/bitcoin-mining-texas-health/

It’s not just nerds with a spare laptop mining anymore. This money wants returns in ‘not being regulated.’

There have been a lot of good books in the last few years about how Christian came to be so culturally interchangable with Republican. One I read and got a lot out of was “Jesus & John Wayne”, and the author does a good job tracking the rightward shift from a lot of different organizations and how they were able to permeate through multiple denominations. Just sharing in case anyone wants to go look at some of these connections themselves.

Another method: tax is often about 8%, so double that as a baseline and adjust from there.

I mean, there are folks trying, but I don’t really like what they’re trying for.

I think you’re totally right about the permanent underclass thing. And it has been for a long time. This week I was looking into the history of education migrants’ kids in the US. Our current stance of educating kids came from Texas passing a law in the 70s to strip state funding for schools which chose to enroll the children of undocumented people. (Another case of Texas using its state power to bully people; it’s always fucking Texas). That law was challenged and in 1982 the Supreme Court ruled against it; Judge Brennan wrote an opinion specifically citing the creation of a permanent underclass of illiterate people not fit to contribute to any country. He called it “bad public policy.” It was crazy to see like, reasonable ideas about society come through in a supreme court ruling, that’s a long time past.

I think it could be viable to lock up/fine into oblivion employers hiring migrant labor specifically to be abusive/cheap. But of course a lot of monied interests would be against it. America always seems terrified about scaring corporations off. And it’s so much easier to blame individuals and have them internalize the pain than to deal with the systems which set the situations.

But I also don’t want to lock up the person employing another one out of goodness. Hiring 1-2 people shouldn’t be the thing to punish.I want the people and the industries who make a habit of using and abusing undocumented labor to deal with a rule like this. Agriculture and meat processing, especially.

At least some Safeways do this for anyone without direct deposit.

Yeah, there’s a gulf of difference between wanting a problem to disappear vs relishing the incredibly detailed idea of pain and suffering of another human being. One’s like putting down a rabid dog, the other is just pain for pains sake.

I hear your point, and you’re not wrong that certain birthers just won’t listen. Obama had neither of the people involved in this birth, his parents, around to speak about the conditions of his birth. Harris, though, will have people able to say, “No, I was there, I remember how it happened” in her corner.

I got the $5 meal deal the other night. Dr Pepper for my drink was an upcharge. I’m not sure what drink is supposed to come with it then.

I’ve found periodically cleaning mine with rubbing alcohol and a qtip vastly improves charging, fit, and sound. Still thinking about upgrading sometime soon tho.

They weren’t wanting to talk about project 2025. Now there’s a different conversation to have, kind of.