Fortunately we’re not fully there yet. Still several steps away.

Been hearing that line for a long time. No point in it.

The US Constitution gives the Executive official responsibility for the enforcement of all federal law.

Bout time.

Well, a lot of them were purged over the past few years. Fascists doing their thing you know. Things change though, that is one certainty. Not very predictably either.

Also note, I didn’t exactly say it would be easy. Simply possible. Where, say, an amendment that made voting mandatory would be actually fully impossible.

It’ll definitely take some time, effort and big time coalition building. I doubt this specific one would be as impossible as it might seem though, due to the specifics.

Small govt types could be convinced to support something limiting executive power. That’s all the libertarians and some conservatives. In a bloc with liberals and progressives, it could reach 2/3rds support with the populace. Barely. Then 2/3rds the states would have to ratify.

The fact that it would be for limiting the power of govt, is critical though. Fascists don’t want small govt and just lie about it, but many people actually do. That becomes a middle position liberals can work with in a case like this, since we support separation of powers.

It’s also related to sex being a “special” or “sacred” act. If it was just something that could be potentially dangerous by resulting in STDs or unwanted pregnancy, like say, driving your car can be potentially dangerous by resulting in accidents and death, then no stigma would exist. But people give it this special character beyond any other human activities, and put it on a pedestal essentially.

Without that pedestal, a delivery driver delivering to someone they don’t like, for the money, is just … their job. Sex being a job is just … a job a person can have. Why make it special?

People basically want to put the pussy on a pedestal, and you don’t really need to be doing that. It doesn’t actually make any sense, it’s just tradition for some folks. Who then want other people to follow their tradition too.

It’s a battle that’s been going for centuries, bigger than any one of us. Taking it personally only has drawbacks, it’s not required for motivation. Breathing exercises can help.

Ah. Well, if all official duties of the Executive are immune to all laws lower than the Constitution itself, which itself bars him from very little and gives the Executive responsibility for enforcement of all laws, I guess a Constitutional Amendment is ultimately required then.

Authoritarians are irritating.

I know someone up there in years that enjoyed the Far Cry series. Didn’t really expect that. shrug

More generally I think it’ll commonly be something that relates to their interests when they were younger. Someone that retired 20 years ago from aerospace engineering might actually really enjoy Kerbal Space Program or even Outer Wilds, a former industrial foreman might like Factorio, for a retired military historian, bring on that Total War.

I can see games like Big Game Hunter and Truck Simulator being more broadly popular with certain segments. Some sports games maybe, like a tennis game or some golf thing maybe, I don’t know much about those. A simpler, realism-leaning racing game maybe. Flight simulator works great here.

The main thing is I’d avoid games with lots of layers of game design and abstraction. It should do what it says on the tin, and there shouldn’t be many steps or abstract mechanics between them and getting into the meat of the game and the core gameplay loop.

Minimal menus is probably a good idea. Like, a Paradox Interactive game would probably be a poor choice, just because they have so much you need to learn to become a proficient player. Fine text can be hard to read too, so menus and tooltips and complex status interfaces are usually gonna be pretty meh for most people. Can’t play Starcraft if you have to squint and lean in every time you want to know how many minerals you have.

Want that learning curve to just get into the initial gameplay to be pretty gentle overall. The experience should be fairly intuitive to real life, and real life doesn’t have that many menus and buttons. Usually, depending on their former career I guess.

Kudos for doing this btw.

(oh, and sorry I couldn’t answer your core question)

I wanted to disagree with this, but I actually think you make a rather compelling argument.

A politician loyal to his own laws and courts, sure, I absolutely trust them more. They’re aren’t all, though. Ultimately a terrorist and a politician with no regard for their own law are very similar. Power-mad. A terrorist can even become a politician, it happens sometimes.

Yes, hamas is not good people, I do not trust them. I don’t trust politicians either though, especially the more extreme ones.

That’s why I say what sort of people the Israelis are remains to be seen. We don’t know yet. We won’t know until this is all over and we see what has become of those Gazans that are innocent. Will they be alive or dead? That will be telling.

I’m sorry for upsetting you, but don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not arguing to let Gazans “do whatever they want”, I have not said that or anything similar. If you remember, I said earlier that terrorists need to be dealt with, right?

It’s those innocents, those that are not part of hamas, that’s the sticking point. For whatever good or bad reasons they cannot leave, the fact is that today, they 100% cannot leave. So, they should not be callously butchered and/or starved simply because of what their fathers and neighbors have done.

Not hamas, Gazans that have no hamas affiliation. Could they enter Egypt? Could they enter Israel? Are there any other neighboring countries? Could they get on a boat, or a plane?

While yes, some always stay behind, a great many flee. Most do not stick around. Mariupol was encircled quickly, look at the towns in Eastern Ukraine where they had a lot of warning before the enemy arrived. Jews usually fled, that’s why Israel was founded in the first place, right? A place to flee to.

At any rate, in Gaza, almost nobody has fled. Some should flee, right? But they actually cannot. Physically cannot, prevented by other people.

There’s immigrants moving all over the world, right? Going to Europe, America, etc. Why are Gazans still there, where there’s not enough food, fresh water, there’s only tents to live in, and a war rages around them? Millions of them. Don’t the mothers want their babies to live? Why don’t they flee like everyone else in the same sort of situation?

It’s not hard to answer, just look it up when you get around to it.

I’d say, but I’m trying to wind down the conversation.

You should actually look into why they’re all still there then, even though self-preservation says that’s a terrible idea.

Probably not that many, actually, most of the Russian casualties are uniformed soldiers. All the Russians would need to do to stop the death would be withdraw anyway. Can the Gazans withdraw anywhere, or no?

Israel isn’t fighting just the bad neighbor though, they’re using that bad neighbor as an excuse to kill many good neighbors too. All Palestinians are not all bad, some are innocent.

They actually weren’t given it by Britain after WW2 either, that’s not even close. Fresh Jewish settlement in the area began somewhere around the 1900s-1920s, and they actually purchased the land with gathered funds for the purpose. Life between the Jewish settlers and the Palestinians was initially peaceful. I’ll warn you, I’m a history guy, I love this stuff.

History is an ugly thing, certainly, the important thing is that we do better, and learn from the errors. This is how we can avoid living in such miserable times as our ancestors were often forced to, so often making foolish choices and burning their own countries to the ground out of hubris, like Germany or Japan in WW2 did.

The first Arab-Israeli War was a little more complicated than that. Jewish militias were actually conquering land at that point in something called Plan Dalet, it was something of a civil war in the broader region between the Jewish and Palestinian factions. After the Israeli declaration of independence, yes, a large coalition of countries did try to eject them. It was won by the Israelis though, and they were rewarded for that with gains. These wars do not give excuse to kill the descendents of those people, though, right? Each person should be judged for what they do, not their fathers, or their neighbors.

Don’t think the Israelis are innocent angels that never conquered or committed atrocities in their early history either. It was a very ugly time with both sides being pretty horrendous at different points. Modern Israel has taken steps at different points to be better than that though, returning to the peaceful ways of the original settlers under people like Rabin, before Netanyahu took over. They can do that again, it is not too late.

Oh, I see. I don’t know about genocide back then, it was really just various wars after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Some atrocities, but nothing into the thousands.

No, if your “enough” is just taking living space over the bones and ashes of others, you are commiting evil. There are other ways.