Worth stressing that at every juncture over last 20 years the America “alarmists” have been right. Downplaying the enormity of what’s happening, or reassuring us that it’s not that bad, is the same as surrender.

— Edward Luce (@EdwardGLuce) June 24, 2022

Exactly. “Could never happen” keeps happening. Even now, people are saying that the reversal of contraception access and gay marriage “could never happen,” when they are almost guaranteed at this point.

Idiots. Fucking idiots.

the modern version of finding an intact Roman tomb or something: delightful https://t.co/mqcgl9OT9W

— Faine Greenwood (@faineg) June 28, 2022

It’s like time-traveling to 1994!

I don’t care what anyone thinks about Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “The Body” episode is such a great bit of TV, and Sarah Michelle Gellar was at her very best in it.

If it’s not the tightest 44 minutes of TV ever made, it’s damn close. Does so much with so little.

Trying to figure out why those who believe that Russia is the Most Glorious Country in the History of Ever and is totally justified in crushing Ukraine (home of Nazis) and the “Covid will end civilization” clowns are the same clowns.

How are those views concordant? What kind of sense does that make?

My view of the morality of sex is that sex is *inherently* good. For most people, sex creates bonds of love and affection (the actual biology of this is partially understood). More love makes the world a better place. Hence, sex is good and people should have more sex.

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) June 26, 2022

The PMC libs are all aghast in incomprehension, but Noah is correct. A major mistake made — and why contraception will likely be lost by many women — is hardly anyone ever made the argument for contraception from the perspective of sexual pleasure. This, in fact, was staunchly opposed by many “liberals.”

Magisterial thread how people who consider themselves decent and humane nonetheless rationalize support for facially atrocious policies https://t.co/JXL20ZiVgv

— Nils Gilman (@nils_gilman) June 27, 2022

It is a good thread. My grandmother was like this. She was less racist than most around me in the rural South, which isn’t saying a whole hell of a lot. But she believed and said things like, “Surely a black person who doesn’t ‘act black’ wouldn’t have any problems.”

Yeah, you can see how racist that is, in 900 different ways. But the “Shirley Exception” is very prominent in a lot of people’s minds, especially those who lean reactionary fascist.

I’m not going to attempt to draw the borders here, and as of even a few weeks ago I didn’t believe this, but I think it’d be better now to divide the US up into three countries, with some caveats:

First country: Jesusland, encompassing most of the South, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota and the like.

Second Country: Cascadia, which would be California, Oregon, and western Washington.

Third Country: North States; New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and the like.

None of these ideas are new, of course. The problem is letting Jesusland have nukes, primarily. That would be bad. Very bad, and hard to see how to avoid it.

Assuming the nuclear weapons problem could be solved, there should be a heavily-enforced five year period where anyone from any of the three new countries could freely migrate to any of the others, and be provided a stipend and some form of decent housing until they get settled. Without this my idea should be off the table.

Of course, Jesusland probably would not and could not provide this, but at least the North States and Cascadia could offer this for those fleeing Jesusland.

America would fight another huge civil war before this would ever happen, but that still doesn’t mean it should not.