Your point? The USA became the model for the western world in many respects after WW2, I would not be surprised if French billionaires make their money the same way American billionaires do.

People who make money by investing. In the USA, the top 1% earn their income through investments, usually the purchase and sale of stocks. These are not taxed the same as regular income because they made the argument that you can’t really tax unrealized gains on investments that are sold, and it takes a while for the gains to actually materialize. Also, they tend to store their money, their liquid assets, in countries with looser tax laws, called tax havens. Much of their net worths are tied up in investments. Businesses, homes, art, classic vehicles, precious metals futures, oil futures, boats, etc.

Assessing the value of all of that is a chore, and they also pay lobbyists to keep the IRS defanged so that they don’t have the resources needed to go after the 1%. And don’t get me started on how much more speculative the stock market has become. Investors buy stocks, not on the expected dividends they’ll receive as a share of the profits of the business, but on their ability to flip the stock and sell it at a higher price to another investor, who is only buying because they anticipate flipping the stock. It’s like if a whole neighborhood of single family homes gets bought up buy a few house flippers, who make renovations, then put the houses up for sale, and sell to new flippers, who are only buying so they can make further renovations, increasing the value of the property again to sell to yet another flipper, ad nauseam.

You were an experienced master or your craft at the age of 35

Yep. Gotta figure someone who’s 35 has been around the block, seen some things, knows some things, the office of POTUS doesn’t seem like one you should be able to run for right out of high school. Oh, but imagine if we could. I’m sure it would be hilarious to put a high school graduate in office. Especially a Gen Z kid lmao.

That is true, I hadn’t considered that. Project 2025 does indeed call for curtailing the sovereignty of the individual States. Perhaps not explicitly, but they will leverage the Supremacy Clause as well as the Commerce Clause to usurp the powers of States they don’t like.

Which wouldn’t be very “muh states rights” of them, but they don’t care.

But how does Federalism line up with fascism? What the other user is talking about in the original setup where if you don’t like the State you live in being stuck in the 1800’s, you can leave if you want, the Federal Government guarantees your safe passage to a State living in modern times.

You’re not wrong. The main issue is that the Democratic Party is more like 15-16 different smaller parties in a big trenchcoat. Some are in there by choice, others had to get in because they weren’t strong enough to stand on their own, and didn’t want to have their ideas not be heard by somebody.

So you’ve got all these different groups beset by a mountain of conflicting interests and decades of infighting, and you are a Democratic Party candidate for the House. Now, to win you need votes and funding. There’s a lot of things that you know your base cares passionately about that you know they have no hope of ever getting from Republicans, but unfortunately they are also things the big ticket donors despise. So, this begins the delicate dance of appealing to all the different groups AND to wealthy donors. Faced with that challenge, what should you do? Well, in practice what happens is your average Democrat tends to pivot away from policy and focus more on process. Y’know, uncontroversial things like bipartisanship, decorum, compromise. And while the lack of these things in DC is something everyone left of center is sick of, they’re not things Democrats can make happen all by themselves, and, moreover, none of them are results. They are means by which results are achieved. “A willingness to compromise” is not a position.

But see, most Democrats see that the fragile coalition that makes up the DNC rests upon their backs. Should the coalition survive, or should we let it die?

Personally, I think we should do away with it. Yes, we are the “Big Tent Party”, willing to welcome all who do not identify as “conservatives”, give them a home and a place for their ideas to grow and be heard. Once upon a time, I think the coalition served a genuine purpose. But now, we are a rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm. One day, someone will take command and right the vessel. On that day, some of the crew may disagree with the captain, and either mutiny or jump ship, and that’s on them if they do.

Well, if you want the history of the Heritage Foundation, look back to the 70’s. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell penned a memo to the US Chamber of Commerce titled “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System” in 1970, and in this memo, he detailed his concern that America’s best and brightest students were becoming anti-business because of our involvement in Vietnam. Powell’s agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think tanks. Three years later, the Heritage Foundation was founded.

Why do that when they can just declare us all in violation of some obscure law and make prisoners of us all? The 13th Amendment has a loophole that allows slavery as a punishment for a crime.

And once we’re dry, they’ll find someone else to fleece. Most likely when we ourselves can’t afford the stuff they’re forcing us to make. At that point the US will fully shift to an export economy based on slave labor that ships goods and products to nations with growing middle classes that can afford them, like China.

They’re using the same language as rapists, thieves, murderers, and cops.

If I hurt or kill you because you chose not to comply, its your fault, not mine. You forced my hand. You could have just let me have my way, but no, you had to resist.

It is illegal, you’re right, but they want to destroy the legal definitions of many things so that they can write new ones. So suddenly, teaching kids about how their bodies work becomes “grooming”. Being anything other than a straight white Christian male makes you a “sex offender”. Reading anything other than the Bible to kids is “indoctrination”, and so on.

They’ve spent many years and billions of dollars studying the power of language and ideas. They have framing the issues from their perspective down to an art form. If you control what words mean, you control debate and democracy.

Maybe I’m just seeing potential where there isn’t any, but I really think if the people of the Archive could find a way to get their stuff stored in TUL, or perhaps build a Library of their own, the publishers couldn’t go after them then, because to the outside observer, all they see is a buncha dudes playing Minecraft.

There’s a Minecraft server that has books and articles stored. it’s called The Uncensored Library, (visit.uncensoredlibrary.com), and they have various articles and books that are free to view. The Uncensored Library was created by Reporters Without Borders. If I were the people of the Internet Archive, I’d be talking to the folks in the RSF about porting some of their content to this virtual library.

Same with “War on Drugs” or “War on Terror”. I would like to congratulate both Drugs and Terror for their victories. I bet if they declared a War on Housing the homeless population in the US would plummet.

Elon Musk comes out onto a stage and announces that Tesla is entering the game console market when?

Looks like we need him again.

They live in a huge gated neighborhood a few miles outside of DC, I believe. Personally I’d stage a protest at the place they all send their kids to school, The Sidwell Friends School, I believe it’s called.

Mexico also banned slavery before the US did. That’s why Texas split from Mexico, became its own country, then asked the US for help, which the US granted. As their way of saying thanks, Texas applied for Statehood. Then when we started thinking that maybe owning people was wrong, Texas was all “Now, wait a minute! The whole reason we started hanging out with you guys in the first place was because you said owning people was cool!”

They want their perceived enemies to make the first move. They might be calling for violence, but many of them are cowards and also love to play victim and win the sympathy Olympics.

They might be talking about waste that radiology departments produce, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the waste generated by the energy sector.