Right? It’s inspiring, really! It makes me want to see what kind of dumb things like this I can come up with.

Lol…Took me until the end to realize it’s all the same dude.

I get most of my news from Allsides, bud.

Don’t be sorry… And yes, I did.

Who is the US killing now?

What would you like to know?

You can move to a different school system. It’s not terribly hard. And if you don’t like the approved curriculum, you join the school board, and you work to change it. Otherwise, yes…we require our kids to go to school.

We’re going to agree to disagree on this one.

Except…I can choose the school my kids go to and participate in deciding what they learn.

That’s… Not accurate from my perspective.

I mean… It’s probably the “involuntary” portion of their reeducation that folk take exception to. Maybe let’s not forget that…

I definitely expected the tire to blow.

First…I love this discussion. Thank you for it. It’s what made me love Reddit in the early years, and why I’m so enamored with Lemmy. Secondly…You make an excellent point; one I can’t refute. I don’t know how we move towards a solution without having a way to succinctly describe an ideologic structure. I just hate how partisan the world becomes, and how much the media plays off of it to help the fuckers in charge sell ads, or maintain power, wherever you live and whatever ism you subscribe to. Maybe all I’m doing is just missing the point and muddying the waters…

You are 100% correct in your assertion, my anti Mario sex toy friend, and I love your passion. I worry that the minute you call someone’s intelligence into question, they’ll take a defensive posture and stop thinking critically. Critical thinking is what we need more than anything else in this world right now. That’s what’s in short supply. It’s why the news is constantly being flooded with new things, and why there are so few media outlets that don’t have a slant. If I can get you outraged at team blue, or team red, or team US, or team THEM, your anger overrides your reason and you stop thinking about who benefits from the distraction provided by us arguing over whatever this new bullshit thing is we’re arguing over. Hopefully that last statement makes sense.

Oh! I see. No…I’m only saying the minute you start talking any “-isms”, you trigger feelings of tribalism that exist in all of humanity. We want to be on the “good team”. No one wants to be on the bad team, and that feeling is what the Uber wealthy uses to keep us busy. Debating all of the “-isms” is the problem. Let’s figure out how to take care of the masses so basic human needs are met, allowing humanity to prosper, and figure out what the hell to call it later. Otherwise, we just quibble over semantics and nothing gets done.

Help me understand how I’m close in what I’m saying, my friend. It feels like we’re saying exactly the same thing.

Exactly! This is exactly what I’m saying. The 1% is still the 1% calling the shots… No matter where they are or what you want to call the type of government they influence.

Look… It’s all tribalism, in the end. We can argue semantics, but doing so it’s exactly their point. It keeps us busy with pedantry, while they continue to enjoy their wealth from on high. I am not educated enough to debate the pros and cons of each group, but I am intelligent enough to smell an attempt to distract me from the point. To know there’s some sleight of hand fuckery happening right in front of my face.

The 1% exist in every form of government, my friend. Billionaire capitalists == Russian Oligarchs. The name changes based on the audience, but the idea is money influences politics. The folk with the most money to do so are the 1% who actually rule, not the interchangeable talking heads who take their money to live a comfortable life acting as the mouthpiece (or scapegoat) for that group.

It’s simple… If you convince the communists that the capitalists are trying to destroy them, (and vice versa), they fight each other, distracting them from the real enemy: the 1% with enough money to directly influence the folk that make the rules that keep them in the 1% club. We’re fighting culture wars so we won’t fight class wars, my friend.