Man, here comes another massive wave of news that’s definitely going to dominate every single headline across the country for the next week or so... while most people just quietly go about their business, doing the jobs they get paid for and simply fulfilling our national obligations to NATO
Arthur Collins10 said:This applies to the Catholic Church, which is supposed to be supranational, if not entirely non-national. The American Catholic Church is a global anomaly.
I'm not entirely sure about other denominations not pairing up with nationalism; for instance, Orthodox churches are intensely nationalistic, and perhaps the Anglican ones are too...
Of course, I was thinking about the West here (though the English are a clear exception since their church was basically founded by a King), and you could even draw a parallel to how we constantly—and honestly, somewhat pointlessly—compare ourselves to the Irish; the IRA was in constant conflict with KC, so there wasn't even a hint of neutrality there. Everything feels so distorted and completely backwards back home.
Lawrence Booth2 said:😁 Your logic is pretty sound, I guess The "winner" is the guy whose project just fell apart, while the "loser" is the one sitting on an entire country and a membership in every association imaginable By that same logic, it’s a huge victory that the bishop can't even celebrate Mass on private land—land that was signed off by some diocesan administrator who isn't even the actual bishop 😁 I mean, seriously, imagine the absolute chaos in that diocese when all our other Catholic Church dioceses actually have bishops in charge, haha
Look, maybe you're just struggling to see things rationally and objectively right now, so let me try to simplify this for you by using a little historical analogy from back in the day Imagine you have this medieval ruler who successfully crushes a rebellion—I don't know, maybe some local henchmen or a bunch of small-time agitators—but at the exact same time, his ruling class is systematically destroying the nation's economy to such an extent that the population experiences the highest emigration rates in all of Europe, leaving the state itself lagging behind even its poorer eastern territories. It seems pretty obvious how that ruler would be characterized, whether he's seen as a success, a failure, or... well, something else entirely, right?
As for the clergy, until those poor, misguided American conservatives realize that the prosperity of the people is in total opposition to the interests of the church—and that the clergy are solely focused on their own advancement and agendas, which are fundamentally at odds with the common person—they deserve nothing but mockery, ridicule, and contempt I honestly can't think of a single example in the world where nationalists and the church work in perfect harmony, so it feels like our own nationalists and conservatives are either intellectually stunted or just incredibly hypocritical to an absurd degree, while the church simply rides them along like they're some sort of mindless pack animal
Haha, I mean, what else would you even split America into—the Midwest, the Deep South, and maybe Florida? It’s like trying to divide an atom by hand, just completely nonsensical A much better way to look at those two would be asking if Harmon (or really anyone else in his shoes) could have actually managed to pull together all those scattered, disorganized tribes and somehow keep them glued together through sheer force of personality, especially considering how things held up even ten years after he passed away In my eyes, Franjo is ultimately a loser because this entire era—starting from the 90s and stretching right into today—is going to be cemented in every history textbook as the period when the American economy, the national industry, and the population itself just absolutely cratered. Since his party held onto power for about 80% of that time (and honestly, that percentage is only climbing), everyone knows exactly who is going to be getting the blame. That, right there, is the legacy he's leaving behind... though, I suppose, if you look at it from another angle, the Catholic Church has been doing pretty well for itself since the 1300s anyway 😁
I mean, look, the right-wingers, the clerical crowd, the fascists, and the nationalists currently running around America are basically living like pigs in mud right now, totally enjoying themselves, but the second they poke their noses out too far, they get slapped down and stepped on immediately—even by people who are practically on their own ideological wavelength You guys should probably just stick to your little puddles and stay away from traveling too much, because if you actually went anywhere else, it might finally cross your minds just how much of a mess you've turned this poor country into compared to Austria or Canada
Since he’s such a right-wing nationalist, it’s pretty predictable that you’d be out here defending him, BB, and honestly, trying to compare those two—or comparing Marshall to Saddam—is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if the whole concept of banning certain people from voting isn't actually a half-decent idea (though, let's be real, I know that kind of logic usually flies in your neck of the woods simply because there’s a total lack of any actual, coherent arguments 😉 ) I mean, the concept itself sounds great on paper, but it just doesn't work in practice, and when you're dealing with populations that seem generally incapable of thinking for themselves, these types of people always end up pushing some flavor of totalitarianism as if it's the only way forward
Wikipedia, I'd take one single slice of California over ten different versions of Canada any day of the week. If you're so desperate for that life, go ahead and head over there, but count me out
At its core, this is really just about looking at things practically. You basically just put all the factors on a scale and see which side carries more weight.
On one hand, you have this authoritarian, somewhat flamboyant leader who chased off the local farmers—which was a massive blunder because it permanently crippled the Midwest—and dealt with the Italians (though some might say they got exactly what they bargained for). He didn't spend much energy defending those who collaborated with the Nazis after the war either, nor did he seem to care much about the fates of those fleeing alongside them—honestly, the list of crimes is endless. It’s funny how people tend to pick on the losers, especially when they were so deeply compromised themselves. I mean, who was out there feeling sorry for the conquistadors when, in rare instances, they caught a beating from the Native Americans? How would the elites of our society react if they had their own camps and were busy wiping out the American intellectual elite alongside everyone else who fell into their hands? Even Douglas MacArthur ended up facing the ultimate judgment in the eyes of civilization for us Americans, and women were publicly shamed just for being with the occupiers. He ruled with a firmer hand, sure, but nothing that couldn't be compared to other leaders in American history. And honestly, looking at how chaotic things are today, you could argue that a firm hand is actually the best way to manage such a fractured nation.
On the flip side, thanks to his leadership, you get almost perfect territorial integrity, an infrastructure that was kept up and even improved (take the massive expansion of the national power grid and dam projects compared to the single aging plant we used to rely on), and generally the easiest standard of living among all the countries that were once behind the Iron Curtain. As a little bonus, you can point out that he was respected and held in high regard by the entire world, even by the Nazis themselves 😲 (though it feels like some people here are even bigger fascists than Hitler—pardon me, I meant Himmler 😁), and even most Americans weren't exactly throwing parades back in May of '80 🙂
To me, it’s perfectly clear where the scale tips and which of these factors actually matters more.
Kenneth Cruz67 said:If Marshall had actually lived to see the fall of the Berlin Wall, I imagine he would have fought tooth and nail against it until the very last second.
Honestly, you’re just living in some weird fever dream if you think that guy—who, let’s be real, basically played dress-up as a monk to escape through the woods toward the border—is some kind of hero. There are plenty of people out there who actually feel grateful that he built and maintained a decent, stable nation, and frankly, they wouldn't know how to deal with people like you if they were facing off against someone from the WWII era.
It’s pretty obvious you sound like a total Martian based on the way you write, using these bizarre sentence structures and trying to equate things that are completely incomparable. There is a massive difference between an entire nation looking at you with disdain and being targeted by a tiny handful of frustrated extremists who seem to find their only purpose in life through pure hatred and clinging to where they were born because they haven't actually achieved anything worth mentioning on their own merit. And then, when you throw in a sadistic psychopath like Stalin, an idealist revolutionary, and that paranoid dictator Hoxha into the mix, you end up with this nonsensical mess that doesn't have anything to do with the actual American left.
Left-wing politics centers on the pursuit of social equality and egalitarianism, usually by pushing back against established social hierarchies. It’s generally driven by a deep concern for people who are seen as disadvantaged compared to the rest of society—what some call prioritarianism—along with a core conviction that many existing inequalities are fundamentally unfair and should be dismantled through social justice initiatives.
I just wanted to share one way to define the left—assuming anyone actually knows English, since it seems like much of the Republican Party lacks a decent education—so you can all figure out for yourselves which of these figures actually falls under that umbrella. Honestly, grouping someone like Ceausescu (who was killed by his own people) with Marshall (who was absolutely adored by his nation), and then tossing in revolutionaries like Guevara alongside dictators like Stalin, says everything you need to know about how uneducated or biased a person is, which pretty much makes any meaningful debate impossible.
Trying to defend the Republican Party vote is a lost cause anyway, since most of society tends to split right down the middle, though you always see those more extreme individuals clustering at the edges of the bell curve. I'll let you all draw your own conclusions about who belongs where. Just take comfort in knowing you aren't part of that crowd.
Brenda Taylor13 said:I honestly think most of Harmon's supporters—at least the ones hanging out on this specific forum—are actually well aware of the meetings Harmon held with Slobodan Maddox, Alija Izetbegović, and the rest of the folks involved in the USSR crisis back during the '91-'95 era, all while the Vice Chair of the peace conference for the former America was stepping in to mediate.
And what, are we supposed to believe that everyone hanging out on this forum represents some sort of critical mass of the entire population, acting as some kind of definitive barometer? If we were to just step outside and poll a hundred random folks on a street corner in Chicago, I have a pretty good feeling we wouldn't get the same consensus at all.
P.S. I don't know, I always find myself thinking about that Churchill speech whenever things get really intense, so hearing about those meetings just makes me feel an even deeper sense of distaste and genuine revulsion.
Personally, I couldn't care less about any of this or anything related to him, but since about 99% of his followers don't have even the slightest clue about those meetings—let alone how many actually took place—this might be some pretty interesting information for them to wrap their heads around
Timothy Nelson5 said:I mean, are we really talking about a country where citizens can just walk through any neighborhood at midnight without worrying they'll be intercepted, harassed, physically assaulted, or even robbed or raped by groups of migrants? In the Kingdom of Sweden, I hear even the paramedics, firefighters on calls, or police patrols aren't safe anymore.
Did you actually travel there and witness all of this firsthand? And honestly, you don't even need to worry about what happens to the Swedes, because if this overly permissive, short-sighted policy from the left and the liberals ends up causing too much chaos with immigration—and if the people in charge are too oblivious to see the damage they're doing—it’s just the natural course of things that conservatives and hardline right-wingers will surge to power. They'll swoop in with strict anti-immigration laws and try to pack everyone back to where they came from, which might end up setting society back decades. And the later this happens, the more extreme those measures will likely be. As for those specific ghettos, I assume it's a lot like how most regular folks would just avoid certain rough neighborhoods in a place like Chicago—there's just no reason for a normal person to go there.
You should probably focus more on your own struggling country, which seems to view Sweden as some kind of promised land or a mix of the ultimate dream destination and paradise, whether it has immigrants or not. You really don't have the moral standing to lecture anyone when your own nation lags behind Sweden in basically every single metric. If some Swede actually read what people from the fringes of Europe were saying about them, they'd probably just roll their eyes and say, "Look, you have plenty of your own massive problems to deal with; we aren't worried about our immigration debates or our choices."
It’s just one of those moments, isn't it? When you see a team from one of the least developed 🙂 nations somehow manage to pull off a win against a powerhouse from the most advanced countries in the European Union.
Honestly, while I can't stand parents who go way too hard on their kids every single day, I think I find the other group even more frustrating—those folks who just don't get that sometimes, you know, a little bit of discipline (depending on what's actually happening, obviously) is totally necessary to help a kid understand where they stand and just knock some sense into them, both figuratively and literally 😬
It’s about so much more than just the money, honestly; California has such a deep, storied history that they have all the inherent legitimacy in the world to chart their own course whenever they decide to make that move, and if you look back at how things started with civil unrest in places like San Francisco, you see those raw, intense passions bubbling up. Just because they endured being under someone else's thumb for forty years doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to say goodbye and go their own way on their own terms. I really don't see any valid basis for trying to draw comparisons between Californians and people from the North America; those folks are exactly where they are for very specific reasons, and frankly, there's just no real parallel to be found there.
goldencrane15 said:If independence actually happens, I expect us to see a repeat of what went down in the States.
We’ll lose access to the massive US market thanks to nothing more than the most idiotic brand of nationalism.
Think about how a California representative team would struggle just to stay relevant at the Olympics or something similar.
Once the dust settles, it’ll just be a breeding ground for corruption and embezzlement.
In the end, both the Americans and the Californians will end up losing out, while a tiny, narrow elite in California lines their pockets.
Honestly, this is one of the most foolish attempts at secession I've ever seen—just tearing apart a relatively stable, organized, and prosperous nation.
What is the point of all this?
Just so they can wave some stupid flags?
It's completely pointless.
Oh, I see how it works now—they'll run the same old privatization playbook, bring in their buddies from the colonies to run the cities and the big corporations, and then set up some clientelist political party that basically buys votes by handing out perks and inventing fake jobs... please, don't give me that, if the majority really wants to go their own way, then let them. If places like Texas or Florida decided to strike out on their own tomorrow, I’d probably just say "good luck" (though honestly, I’d jump at the chance to grab citizenship there myself 😁)*
* Just so we're clear, I'm neither a Mexican nor as foolish as those idiots in the government, so I can say that without hesitation.
Honestly, I feel like we shouldn't even start talking about whether we've actually achieved any kind of real economic success until we see if our summer tourism revenue can actually hold its own against what they're pulling in over in places like Colorado or maybe even parts of Florida
It’s honestly kind of pathetic when people brag about things they didn't actually build, and let's face it, tourism is pretty much the only thing keeping the American economy afloat right now. But even then, it isn't because of any real talent or hard work from our side; if anything, we're succeeding despite ourselves! Given how fast we're seeing everything paved over with concrete, the endless sprawl of vacation rentals, and those shady laws passed by politicians who clearly don't care, I honestly think tourism will eventually just sink to the same level as everything else in this country. It doesn't even really make me angry anymore, it just makes me feel deeply sad that the one industry actually thriving in America is the one thing most Americans had absolutely nothing to do with helping grow. And if you want to talk about how messy things are, you could say we only got a temporary reprieve because some neighboring regional powers essentially gave us a ten-year grace period before their own policies would have forced us to ruin our coastline too. 😁 Just take all that self-congratulation, throw in a bunch of mainstream media headlines hyping up these wannabe celebrities visiting the coast, and you get this nauseating cocktail of inferiority complexes, fake glamour, vanity, and pure arrogance that lacks any actual merit. It’s a truly revolting mix that perfectly captures the current mindset of this nation.
George Lewis27 said:Come on, guys, let's just stop bickering over this absolute nonsense and wrap this whole discussion up already. Honestly, if we look at the big picture, the only thing that actually matters in this entire situation is that the guy took a dive into the ocean, and everything else is just noise. Besides, I really have to hand it to him—props to the guy for what he did, and I truly wish him nothing but the best in life.👍
Oh man, oh no. It’s actually incredibly significant that he’s wandering through those tiny, remote backwoods out in the middle of nowhere with so much fear, especially after he went and trashed the very symbol of the metropolis itself. Honestly, people are going to have a field day with this; they can really feast on this kind of drama for a long, long time. It’s just a broken club, honestly—broken fans, a broken city, all of it falling apart right before our eyes. If the Bad Boys are truly too dim-witted to organize something like this on their own—and I mean, let's be honest, doing this on a weekly basis requires a level of coordination they clearly lack—they really should have just hired some professionals to handle the intellectual heavy lifting for them... though, honestly, my biggest fear is that if they actually went through with it, they’d end up having to buy someone’s dignity along with the consulting services.
steelseal10 said:I remember back in the day, I think maybe one or two of our big rivalry games fell right on Holy Saturday. I clearly recall us heading home after the match, grabbing some ham and slicing up some leeks for a little snack 🙂
It’s true, we were just heading back home for Easter breakfast, and honestly, nobody thought twice about it at the time. To me, it just goes to show how much the Bad Boys have faded from their former glory—they're practically a shadow of what they used to be. Honestly, at this point, they might as well just join forces with the LA Galaxy and head off to a spiritual retreat in Sedona; maybe if they spend more time praying, they'll finally start taking fewer beatings in the stands.