It's right up there. If it hadn't been a cause worth dying for, slavery could not have served as a propaganda tool for Southern leaders.

By the way, there's probably nobody here who disagrees with the argument that Southerners in the Civil War fought for upholding slavery. The only one who tried to argue otherwise was you when you brought up state rights, an old and already exposed lie of the far-right which served the purpose of plausible deniability. That's why it was striking that you let it slip that Southerners viewed slavery as a good moral cause to go to war, because that's the thing you wanted to avoid saying all along.

This is all so incredibly transparent, suddenly the man being accused of being a pedo along with Epstein is now interested in sending his team to meet with Maxwell who wants a pardon or commuted sentence, instead of just releasing the files like they promised they would and would have surely exonerated him, but after weeks of refusal can you now even trust what files they do release? Especially alongside this obvious attempt to get Maxwell to lie for Trump. Hopefully that monster dies before she ever leaves prison.

No need for bringing up Nazis, you could as easily bring up Commies lol. China's one party system is authoritarian but at least gets things done. (Actually their are 8 non communist parties under the CPC but they can't challenge the official party)

But indeed, every 'democracy' is slowly turning into a fascist oligarchy. The erosion of the middle class is universal under all our western democracies, and all the fascist/populist parties do is take advantage of that to blame immigrants for rise of living costs. Which are really just middle class wages being stagnant since the 1980s.

You have the left trying to 'fix' this with social security, which is ludicrous when you think about it. The middle class should not need social security, social security is meant for the poor and those that can't work. But we're steering the entire middle class into the 'poor' while having to raise taxes / go into debt to be able to provide social security for the entire middle class. 

The right tries to 'fix' this with tax cuts and deregulation, which have shown to only increase inequality, further driving the need for social assistance for the middle class. Meanwhile the rich get richer and gain more and more power over our democracies. 

Late stage capitalism is where we are. And as long as politics run on scandals, not much will change. Are Democrats really that different from Republicans, both are struggling to make ends meet. However the entranced media keeps everyone pitted against each other and oblivious to the bigger picture while the 1% is laughing all the way to the bank.

Certainly an odd turn of events. But it's evil people capitalising on evil, I don't believe any of it is being reported for journalistic integrity. Elon knew all along that DJT was in the files, but he only had a problem with it after his fallout with Trump.

Tbf a lot of people are making calculations now, calculations that do not factor in justice for the victims.

Where were you again to call for the release in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, or 2024? 

Or is this just because your team suddenly found this politically expedient?

I also don't think we're beyond the point of recovery, but the key element we're missing is objective virtue.  At the risk of momentarily going off-topic for illustration, just look at the dating scene these days; I really feel sorry for Gen Z given all the confusion, misplaced expectations and toxicity that was built into that system.  There used to be rules around appropriate behavior, communication, etc which we intentionally threw out the window because it was deemed "old fashioned". 

Men are now starting to realize this, mainly because the system is so plainly rigged against them at the present moment, and this has fed the MAGA movement.  Yet, political or social solutions aren't going to start the 180 we need to do here.  Rediscovering why we held views in past generations on purity, monogamy, honesty, fidelity, loyalty, humility and a slew of other virtues, both in dating and in politics, is the only stepping stone I believe we can get to in order to pull ourselves back from the brink.

Otherwise, as you (and Ben Franklin again) suggested: a society without any morals will naturally appeal for tighter and tighter oversight and controls to stop bad things from happening in everyone's lives.

The Republican party is divided over Trump's policies, plenty articles about a split in the GOP. Same for the Democrats.

Just some recent examples
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/shutdown-showdown-leaves-democrats-deeply-divided-politics-desk-rcna196545
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/us/politics/republican-divide-spending-debt.html

All that tells me is that the 2 party system isn't working anymore (if it ever really did). Republicans and Democrats have only entranced themselves more and more as polar opposites (while they're both being ruled by the billionaire class) but as an outsider most of it feels for show. Where the Republicans use immigration as a scare tactic, Democrats use abortion and trans rights. Both are good issues, however the real problems go unaddressed. Both are distracting from the destruction of the working/middle class which has been going on since the 1980s.   

It doesn't feel like Americans have a real choice in politics, both options are bad. Both parties need to be split and start listening to their actual bases. (And held to account for their party promises) 

Now it does seem Republicans fall in line more when it comes to voting while Democrats are more divided in votes but otherwise Republicans seem to be divided all the same. 


And now I find it the utmost hypocrisy how both sides are all over the Epstein files for child rape while both continue to support the killing of 17,000 children (so far) and maiming another 30,000+ while deliberately starving the rest (about 80 so far died of starvation). 

Yes, the Epstein files need to be released, heck they might even shed some light on the Gaza genocide support / unwillingness to do something. (Some rumors about Mossad involvement with Epstein which all seem to link back to Tucker Carlson) However the urgency is over 2 million people getting deliberately starved to test how far international law can be pushed.