What stupid thing did the GOP say or do this time? Episode 3!

[Pocket]

How long does it take for a trademark to expire if you just sit on it and don't use it? This will be a short-lived victory unless the public has a very short memory.

Or I guess the church could just start selling their own bootleg-but-technically-legal Proud Boys merch, pretend it still represents the hate group, hope people don't find out about the ruling, and pour all the funds into fighting actual hate groups. I dunno, would you consider that an ethical thing to do? The equivalent of selling swastika hats and sending the proceeds to the ADL?

 

[wonko the sane?]

I think the best thing they could do is completely co-opt the name for a charity. Lease it to a non profit for gay people: make sure every hat, badge and t-shirt has "Proud boys" in the rainbow on it for the rest of time.

 

[Pocket]

The problem is that the phrase is tainted by association. It'd be like, again, trying to reclaim the swastika in parts of the world where it doesn't already have a long history as a neutral or positive symbol.

 

[KidTDragon]

What if they sold t-shirts that say "F*** the Proud Boys™"? That would keep the trademark in use without looking like they're trying to rehab the name.

 

[Rhinox]

The latest in 'this is the dumbest thing i've ever heard'

 

[Ungnome]

Yea. Complete lack of critical thinking on that one.

 

[Rhinox]

The joys of having libertarian friends. I'm very happy for them, that their lives have been so without any bumps that they haven't needed anything from the government.

 

[NovaSaber]

Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers proposes bill to ban all pornography: What to know about SB593

A bill proposed by Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, seeks to raise punishment for child pornography but also aims to ban pornography altogether.

www.oklahoman.com

In January, Deevers introduced a slate of eight bills aimed at “restoring moral sanity in Oklahoma,” according to a press release. The slate includes bills that would prohibit drag performances for children, self-managed medication abortions, and no-fault divorce, among others.

The second portion of the bill, if passed, would prohibit pornography in general. This marks the second attempt by the senator to outlaw pornography throughout the state.

The measure would broaden language in Oklahoma law to make it illegal to possess, purchase or distribute "unlawful pornography," which is defined as any depiction, image, or film that shows sexual conduct, intercourse or lewd exhibition of genitals for sexual stimulation of the viewer.

If passed, anyone convicted of buying, procuring, viewing, trafficking or possessing unlawful pornography will be guilty of a felony and punishable by imprisonment of no more than 10 years and a fine of no more than $100,000.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Wow... imagine hating an entire industry. I guess he kept getting confused for a porn star, what with that name and all.

 

[KidTDragon]

He'd better hope no one gets access to his hard drive. Men who try to ban pornography always have gay and/or kiddie porn on their PCs.

 

[Rhinox]

He'd better hope no one gets access to his hard drive. Men who try to ban pornography always have gay and/or kiddie porn on their PCs.

True that. There's always a skeleton in that closet and it's always a felony.

 

[Axaday]

I have lately been interacting with a lot of the unsolicited memes on Facebook that are not shared by my friends. They just bait me and I eat their bait and try to make the best of it.

So, Welfare. People are still against it. Because, you know, if you don't have enough money you should work harder, get another job, or get a better job.

And I just feel like schools could be taking care of this. The current unemployment rate is 4%, considered by economists to be the normal unemployment rate for a healthy economy. There are some people needing jobs and looking for them and there are some openings waiting for the right candidate and some people are getting hurt, but in general the system is working. We have around the amount of jobs that we have people. It's not REALLY a zero sum game, but to an individual person it is a zero sum game. If the guy you are telling to get a better job gets a better job, someone else isn't going to get that job. They're going to take his old job. If the guy you are talking to works twice as hard, someone else may get laid off. If the guy you are talking to gets a second job, someone else isn't going to get one. And individual can get themselves off welfare, "ideally", by following your advice. But it won't change how many people there are, how many jobs there are, what the jobs are, and how much they pay. Somebody is going to make that wage. And if we had enough teenagers to fill all the positions that don't make a living wage (ha!), there'd be a lot of adults with no wage at all. If the only solution to not needing assistance is to get a different job, then whoever works THIS job is always going to need assistance. Couldn't we cover this in a class?

 

[Rhinox]

I think that goes to the real heart of the problem with America. Despite all evidence to the contrary, we see wealth as a sign that someone is better than others. Whether favored by God, or just a good person whose been blessed, or they worked hard and magically made it happen for them, a wealthy person is inherently better than a poor person.

Being poor, being on welfare, it's a sign that someone isn't a good person. That they're being punished or that they've made bad choices. Being poor is a personal failing, being wealthy is a sign of divine favor.
That's why everyone thinks they're just one lotto ticket away from the big time. Because they know they're good people, they deserve it, they've done all the right things. It's only a matter of time till God smiles on them.
We look down on those taking the handout because they did something wrong or are just bad people. Nevermind that we are all in that same damn boat for no good reason other than random chance.

 

[Pale Rider]

Yeah, you can blame Calvinism and the Protestant work ethic for a lot of this. Calvinists pushed the idea that being rich meant God liked you and being poor meant you'd screwed up somehow. Even after people stopped thinking about it in religious terms, that mindset stuck around.

Then the Protestant work ethic came in and made it worse, convincing everyone that hard work alone makes you successful, ignoring stuff like generational poverty, bad luck or a system rigged in favor of the already wealthy. If rich people are seen as "good" and poor people as "failures," it’s no wonder so many folks think they’re just one lucky break away from the wealth they deserve.

Now we're stuck in a country where billionaires get treated like gods, and struggling people get blamed for their own hardship. It’s not logic, it's old religious baggage that refuses to die.

 

[Axaday]

I asked a Facebook friend to tell me what the billions are that his meme said Musk has already saved us. One of his friends posted a list of items that went up on Musk or Trump's X account and it is a long list of very woke things with price tags that are difficult for me to believe, but I couldn't find a fact check on any of it yet. The big deal is that it still just sums up to $202 million and that's a lot of money. I would like to have it. But you divide that by the population of our country and I can only buy a tomato or an onion.

 

[Pale Rider]

Show me the meme. I'll look for it.

 

[Axaday]

 

[Ungnome]

Looks like the are leaving out a LOT of information on what those groups that received money do and BOY can you see an anti-lgbt+ bias and covid conspiracy garbage in said list. It's also lacking the time frame of said payments. Were these one time payments or was it spread out over multiple years? There's no transparency here, just spin. They aren't even naming the organizations that the money was given to(outside of EcoHealth Alliance), just supposedly what activities they were supporting.

 

[Axaday]

And the price tags are incredibly high for the description while also totalling way too low to actually be a victory lap.

 

[Axaday]

A friend of mine said these puns are not very good, but I think he is sell Musk short. I think he knows a surprising number of Nazi officers for someone who doesn't know what a Nazi salute looks like.