Considering a LOT of conservative women change their name when getting married

So do a lot of liberal women. Liberal women probably are more likely to keep their maiden name, but I’m sure most liberal women observe the custom of taking their husband’s name.

The point of this is to prevent WOMEN from voting, broadly. Regardless of party affiliation. Many women who are registered Republican and have conservative husbands secretly vote for the Democrats, at least some of the time. I personally know a few right-leaning women who hate Trump, even though their husbands continue to support him.

The goal shouldn’t be a “multipolar” world, the goal should be international democracy and the rule of law. Yes, laws require enforcement and that means some kind of state, with a monopoly on the legal use of violence, must exist. These ding dongs want the US to continue to fill that role. But there are a couple problems with how the US has played the role of global rule enforcer: one, the US is unelected and unaccountable. For a state to govern legitimately, it must have the consent of the governed. Outside of NATO, and perhaps a few other countries, no consent was given, or for that matter even sought. Two, The US seeks to protect its own interests, and that of our allies, not to enforce laws for all countries equally and objectively. Does that sound like the rule of law or a corrupt cop?

I love the smell of napalm in the morning

Capitalists don’t care about democracy. Some may tolerate some forms of national democracy, but only conditionally. Many capitalists are avidly opposed to all forms of democracy. All capitalists are opposed to democracy in the work place, that’s for sure.

Defenders of capitalism swear up and down that democracy and capitalism are not incompatible, but they clearly are. You might be able to get capitalists to, again, tolerate some form of probably very limited democracy, but only conditionally, and that means only temporarily. The death of democracy under capitalism isn’t a matter of if but when.

The decline in manufacturing, however, is less a story about policy blunders than one about the long progress of the US economy, which has to a large extent graduated out of producing stuff like phones and cars and into the delivery of services, like finance and healthcare – a process similar to that followed by other countries that moved up the ladder of success.

I think this way of thinking is massively flawed. I really hate this idea that economic “progress” must necessarily mean making and building fewer things, and instead “delivering services.”

One, “delivering services” often means charging rents, meaning you’re moving from an economy that creates real value to an economy that extracts rents. A rents and service fee economy isn’t really an economy, it’s just a machine that creates inflation.

Two, no matter how far your economy moves up the “ladder of success,” people are always going to need material goods. Houses can’t be built of financial services and food can’t be grown on spreadsheets. We need real stuff to have a real economy. So what this means is that the “graduated” economies must become net importers of real, physical stuff, and/or net importers of poor people to do the work here that can’t be as easily moved to another country. We must therefore become dependent on other nations to make the stuff we need. How can a nation maintain its independence if it is completely dependent on other nations for all of its vital products? That’s not an independent nation, that’s a vassal state.

Three, all of this assumes that there will always be countries in the world who never “graduate” to our economic level, otherwise who would make everything? But isn’t the idea for every country to strive to reach our level of “success?” If so, who will make all the stuff when most of the world’s population is rich, working white collar jobs? Martians? And doesn’t this create an incentive for us to try and keep at least some countries poor so they can supply us with the cheap goods and migrant labor we need?

Real economies make things and create real value, they don’t just move money around and charge rents. People don’t just stop needing material goods once they get rich enough, and someone has to make and build that stuff, it might as well be us. Otherwise, if we come to rely on other people to make our stuff, we lose our independence and our ability to be self sufficient. That’s not the road to “economic success,” that’s the road to economic ruin.

Everyone in here saying, “why don’t you stand up to him, Dems?”

Guys, the Democrats don’t do that. I don’t think they even know how to do that. The whole concept is so alien to them you might as well be asking them to surf the rings of Saturn. No, no, the Democrats don’t stand up to rich and powerful people, they gargle their balls. They can get those things so deep in their donor holes that they can tickle the scrot with their uvulas.

If you’re looking for the Dems to stand up to Trump, you’re barking up the wrong tree, friends.

The national guard is a reservist group for the Federal military. There’s way too much Federal involvement. No, new, independent state militias would need to be formed.

The colonial empires of Europe didn’t just convert to democratic nations, they were destroyed, through revolutions and wars, including two devastating world wars. And from the rubble of the old European empires, nations were formed, many of which are democracies, though of varying quality. The US is a legacy of those European colonial empires. So, for the US to follow the same path, the US empire must be destroyed (although hopefully in a more peaceful, less harmful manner), so that new democratic nations can be formed in its place.

The US was always doomed to fail. You can’t make a nation out of an empire. You can’t build a democracy on top of slavery, colonialism and genocide.

I think there are some well meaning people trying very hard to make it work, and god bless them, but they’re certain to fail.

The only thing to do now is try and find a viable exit strategy. The US Federal government will soon be completely and permanently taken over by the terrorist organization that is the Republican party. It’s time for states to start forming their own, independent militias while the 2nd amendment at least still exists. We can hope that peaceful secession will be possible, but we certainly cannot plan on it.

The Republican party is a terrorist organization. They have to be stopped. We have to wrestle power away from them by any means necessary. If we do not succeed, if the Republicans are able to seize total, permanent control of the Federal government, secession will be our only other option.

Edit: it may be necessary for states to establish their own militaries, completely separate from the Federal government. It might be time for the 2nd amendment’s true purpose to be realized.

We can get those numbers up.

The thing is, most people don’t form identity around shared class interests. That’s what the Marxists realized in the 20th century when the international, proletarian revolution never fully materialized. Most people from identity around shared culture, shared language, shared traditions, beliefs, history, etc. It’s not that class antagonism doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter - it does - but it matters within a cultural/national context, and it’s only within that cultural/national context that class conflicts can be resolved.

Edit: I want to clarify what I mean when I say that “most people don’t form identity around shared class interests.” I mean class interests in the Marxian sense, ie, ownership of the means of production. In Marxian theory, a person is a member of the capitalist class if they own the means of production, and they are working class if they do not own the means of production. Most people do not form a class identity around ownership or non-ownership of the means of production, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t form a class identity. They do. But, that identity is formed around cultural markers that define their class, within their broader, national/ethnic culture. For instance, an ethnically White person in the US might identify as working or upper class based on their job, the neighborhood they live in, the car they drive, the clothes they wear, the schools they attended, etc. So, nations/ethnicities are defined by shared culture, language, history, beliefs, etc, but within that that there are also class distinctions, but they are also cultural.

It is here that people in the upper classes can use this to their advantage, by trying to stoke conflict between nations/ethnic groups, in an effort to deflect away from class conflicts. That is true, but that doesn’t mean that different nations of people aren’t actually distinct from one another, in the ways that I’ve already outlined (culture, language, traditions, etc).

This reality is especially confusing in the US, because the US is an empire masquerading as a nation. But empires are not nations. The US had been able to maintain the appearance of a nation for sometime through establishment of a violent, White hegemony. The national identity of the US was maintained through violent repression of all non-White ethnic groups. That White hegemony has been getting consistently weaker, however, since about the mid part of the 20th century, and with it the idea of a single, US national identity. And that is where we are today.

This US is just a bunch of different ethnic groups competing for ownership and control of the country’s cultural and political assets.

You know things are changing when the Wall Street Journal starts sounding Marxist.

Historic economic crises tend to do that.

Neoliberalism collapsed with the financial crisis. It was fully exposed as a failed ideology. But, nearly two decades later, there still isn’t a consensus on what should replace it. There are plenty of ideas, but no consensus. The division will continue until a consensus emerges.

Martinez campaigned on a platform focused on affordable insurance, stronger local infrastructure, and expanded access to health care, including mental health and substance-abuse services. She also focused on government transparency, support for public education, and advocacy for working families.

It’s almost like if you focus on the stuff that’s most important to the vast majority of voters, you’ll get more votes. Hmm…

I was in SF last year for a 9ers game (stayed in San Mateo, did a bunch of touristy stuff in SF and of course the actual game was in Santa Clara). Some homeless people digging through the trash in Portsmouth Square Park. I think someone tried to break into our Airbnb, too. But, I never really felt unsafe. It’s not really any worse than most any other big city in the US. Kinda run down, seems like it could use some TLC, but that’s true of most American cities. And of course everything is stupid expensive.

The worst part was the traffic, imo. We used Caltrain and I think Bart? Idk, it was confusing. And expensive. And slow. But we also did a fair amount of driving, and driving around SF is like my own personal hell. To be fair, though, I generally hate driving in any major US city. But I think SF is worse than most.

SF isn’t terrible, but it ain’t great, either.

I don’t claim to be the ultimate authority on what is or is not considered socialism.

They’re basically cult members. I feel bad for them.

I agree, socialism is a great idea.