“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Or, pithier:
The rules for sheep don’t apply to lions.
There were no primaries in 2024…
That’s the fucking point.
Don’t tell me I can fight the billionaire masters of the Democratic Party in the primaries when those billionaire masters canceled the primaries just last year.
We need a new progressive movement, not just to outcompete the failed Democrats, but to move this country away from a broken system of electoral politics that lets us “choose” between two oligarchs from the Epstein caste and calls it democracy. We don’t need progressives banging their heads against a billionaire funded wall and lending credibility to a rigged primary process through their participation.
And before that, Obama, Kerry, and if I remember right even fucking Gore were all accused of being the most radical left Presidential candidates in American history.
Funny how the Democratic Party keeps running more and more progressive candidates - both the Republicans and Democrats say they’re doing it, so it must be true - and yet the Democratic Party keeps moving more and more to the right.
Remember Democrats, if he’s the Democrat option come election time it’s TOO LATE TO bitch!!
And that’s why I’m not a Democrat.
Jesus Christ, if you think Presidential primaries matter, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you. If the Democratic primaries weren’t rigged to hell and back Bernie would have finished his second term last January. And if Democrats had been allowed to have a primary in 2024 Newsom would probably be president now.
If you want us to believe that your primaries are an opportunity for actual choice, maybe you shouldn’t have appointed a 2024 Presidential candidate who never, in her entire life, won a single fucking primary.
Exactly true, but it’s more than that.
One of the more positive aspects of post-WWII, United Nations-facilitated geopolitics was the belief that the world ought to care about human rights. That when a country was horribly mistreating its own people the world had a right and a duty to intervene.
Fascists and racists and ethno-nationalists really don’t like that idea.
So you have ultra-nationalist right-wing movements all over Europe, who would happily murder each other for speaking the wrong language or being the wrong shade of white, working together with each other and Russia and the US against the EU and the UN, because anyone telling them “you can’t murder people you don’t want in your country” is their common enemy.
To be fair, it’s strongly suspected that Trump had extensive ties to the New York Mafia.
I mean, Jesus Christ, he was a real estate developer in New York in the '70s and '80s. There’s no possible way he wasn’t in bed with the mob.
Say what you will about Trump, he’s probably closer to gangster than like 99% of us.
But people already have a public place to appeal. This sub, the sub you linked, pretty much any other instance that has a meta discussion community. But posting here, or there, isn’t an actual appeal process - it’s just publicly complaining about administrators.
And that was the answer to OP’s question: that there’s no single fediverse-wide place to appeal a ban, you have to follow instance specific appeal procedures, if they exist, and/or contact the instance’s administrators directly.
Which is a good thing, because it helps keep the verse decentralized.
I think, if there was a single location where the fediverse started telling people “if you get banned, post here to appeal”, users would expect some sort of formal response to their post, and get upset when people tell them posting there doesn’t actually do anything. Which would be bad. And if that location could do anything to encourage administrators to reverse ban decisions, via peer pressure or otherwise, that would also be bad, because it would compromise the independence of instances. That is to say, a fediverse wide appeal community would be at best useless and at worst harmful to the fediverse.
So I think the only appropriate response to “I was banned, what can I do” is “that’s between you and the people who banned you”.
I think any sort of fediverse-wide appeal community, or process, would risk compromising the whole point of the fediverse, ie, decentralization. The fact that admins have the final say on their own instances is part of what keeps the largest instances from controlling smaller ones and keeps the fediverse free of centralized control.
I mean, can you imagine a coalition of the largest instances coming together and telling a small instance “the appeal community agreed this user was banned unfairly, unban them or we’ll all defederate you”? Because I can imagine that sequence of events, if an appeal community got any kind of formal backing from the big instances, and that would pretty much end decentralization.
One of the freedoms the American military purportedly protects is the freedom to talk shit about the American military.
At least the newly unemployed soldiers will have a nice well-paying paramilitary to join, so they can keep supporting their wives and their wives’ boyfriends.
Not just in the United States. The Lancet estimates just cancelling USAID will kill 14 million people between now and 2030. 14 million avoidable deaths because the world’s richest man thought feeding the poor was a waste.
RFK is on track to do a lot of damage, but he has some stiff competition.
I think that was also why Qanon got so much play in the right-wing media ecosystem - getting conservatives comfortable with authoritarian big government conservatism.
Trump is going to declare martial law and have liberals killed or sent to camps? Qanon influencers have been telling conservatives that was the plan since 2017. And about 25% of the United States either believed it or thought “yeah, it’s crazy, but wouldn’t it be cool if it was real?”
There are more comments in this thread alone than this MAGA site will probably ever host. (Trolls and spammers motivated by this thread don’t count 😆 )
And honestly? The biggest takeaway from these comments is how many users don’t understand the difference between a protocol and a platform.
…it’s a joke.
It’s literally a joke.
No rational person would believe they’re calling themselves terrorists literally.
The message here is “liberals will think the worst of us no matter what we do, so why not just call ourselves terrorists, lol”. And by taking it seriously you prove them right.
And after the barrage of cringe tone deaf “humor” about a fucking political assassination I think my side doesn’t have room to criticize other people’s jokes.
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An attempt at censorship failed because the censors didn’t understand the system they were trying to censor. I think that’s both funny and satisfying.
The Trump administration is going mask off in so many ways that have nothing to do with racism. Though that too.
This is connected to all the formal groveling sessions where Trump’s minions or big tech CEOs take turns thanking Trump for existing and for being the incredible awesome masculine big-handed alpha male America needs. And this is banana republic dictator shit, sure. But it’s also how billionaires act towards their employees and subordinates.
All of them.
What Donald Trump is doing in public is no different from what Zuck and Musk and Bezos and all their ilk do in private with their lower caste servants and sycophants.
Demand flattery, hold court and let their courtiers line up to praise them, because they don’t understand the difference between flattery and respect. Reward obedience and punish disobedience, because they don’t know the difference between obedience and loyalty. And wield your power blatantly and without subtlety, suck up to your superiors and bully your inferiors into obedience, because they don’t know the difference between strength and authority.
Trump does this shit in public because he doesn’t believe Americans care about equality anymore. He thinks Americans want to be led by a powerful alpha male leader who demands public displays of submission and gets them. He thinks America doesn’t want a President, first among equals, but a King, who stands above his subjects. And, unfortunately, I don’t think he’s wrong.
And the King is pleased - pleased - when their subordinates come to literal physical blows over access to the King. Because such men confuse aggression with strength, just as they confuse flattery with respect.
Two of Trump’s courtiers were so desperate for his approval that they almost came to blows over it. These are two men so manly that they are willing to physically fight other men who disrespect them - which makes them two alpha males, as conservative minds see it - and these two alpha males respect Trump so much that they’re willing to physically fight for Trump’s attention.
In the mind of Trump and those like him, this is one of the greatest compliments he can receive.
* If you wanted to summarise this letter on a t-shirt, it would be “People > Protocols > Platforms”. *
Can I get this under Calvin pissing on a Disney logo?
Seriously, this is now my favorite summary of the fediverse.
You’re absolutely right. Trump demands the spotlight at all times.
But also, I think your comment is an example of what Trump’s enemies still do not understand about him.
To Donald Trump, no publicity is bad publicity.
Even if it’s “bad publicity”.
If the media is talking about Trump’s mistakes, then Trump’s minions will be all over the news defending Trump and arguing with the people attacking Trump. Trump’s supporters will believe the people defending him, Trump’s opponents will keep being his opponents, and moderates will dismiss the whole argument as just another political he said she said.
And Trump will be the center of the news cycle for yet another day, and become even stronger in his position as the leader of the Republican Party and the biggest celebrity in America.
Jesus fucking Christ, we had four years of the Biden administration trying to get Trump on anything they could, four years of daily headlines about Trump being accused of crimes, or being arraigned for crimes, or being arrested for crimes, and Trump went into the 2024 election more popular than he was in 2020.
If you talk about Trump, he wins.
The only way to beat Trump, as hard as it is, is to fucking ignore him and talk about what the American people actually need instead.