No, that’s misinformation. Conservatism is and always has been about preserving and defending social hierarchy. It is only “we should do what they did on the past” by coincidence because what they did in the past was monarchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CI2vk3ugk

Is that French for “listen here you little shit?”

It’s stalking, not merely “public”. “Public” does not imply a panopticon!

The other problem, of course, is that we’ve spent a century and a bit messing with the forests, which used to have regular burns that acted as fire breaks for the next year’s burns. Ground cover grew back thick and green in the ashes, and trees dispersed their seeds.

Now however, we’ve stopped that cycle, leading to overpopulation of insects, buildup of deadwood, and no natural fire breaks, meaning humans have to artificially do all the work that used to happen naturally… right when everything is heating up and weather systems are shifting.

As I understand it, at least some of the fires that had been happening previously were controlled burns by Native Americans First Nations people (sorry, USian talking about Canada), not “naturally” occurring ones.

https://parks.canada.ca/nature/science/conservation/feu-fire/autochtones-indigenous

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-shape-our-land.htm

That’s some highfalutin’ verbiage just to complain about punctuation.

I only keep saying it because it keeps being true.

On the one hand, yes, fully enforcing these things would be gross overpolicing.

On the other hand, the selective enforcement is, by design, a way to manufacture an excuse to harass and persecute minorities/undesirables.

The correct solution is to relax or abolish the laws themselves until they diminish to the point that fully enforcing them is reasonable.

Iran used to respect things like freedom of navigation and territorial waters, but then Trump went and attacked them anyway. If rules aren’t going to be respected by their enemies, they have nothing to lose by exerting their power.

That’s why Trump’s attack was so incredibly fucking stupid.

That’s true, dinosaurs don’t have buttholes.

I mean, “bunker” gets the idea across, but it’s kinda underselling it. Ellison and Zuckerberg own nearly the entire island of Kauai, HI between them – the whole island is the bunker, with a 72-mile-wide moat between it and most of Hawaii’s population.

Either that or they were subconsciously erring on the side of not seeming alarmist.

They are doing something about it: they’re building bunkers, killbots, and a totalitarian panopticon.

The question is, what are we doing to defend ourselves?

No they don’t. Lots of (D)s, and even the occasional (I) like Bernie Sanders, are less authoritarian than pretty much every single (R) is these days.

If they want less authoritarianism, yes!

Or better yet, somebody who calls themselves “socialist” or “progressive,” because at least they tend to be decent on civil rights, if not necessarily stuff like economic policy. It’s ridiculous, but Bernie Sanders is one of the most actually-libertarian people in Congress.

If some of the “progressives” could give up on some of their overly-bureaucratic ideas with excessive means-testing (like welfare instead of UBI, “affordable” [i.e. “subsidized”] housing instead of zoning reform to reduce costs, etc.) they’d be perfect actual-libertarian candidates.

I’ve been saying it’s imminent for a while now, because I’ve been seeing studies about this come out for years and it seems like every one revises the estimate to be earlier.

Or better yet, skip threatening and act against them.

I don’t think it’s complete, though; some you just have to discover for yourself (or guess from familiarity with Markdown on other platforms).

Strikethrough is double-tilde double-squiggly.

They’ll get there. They hate the idea of individual people being able to make things for themselves or having any other escape from consumer serfdom.

It’s not even just surveillance! It is destruction of property rights generally, including the right to repair and the ability for individuals to own their means of production.