Sure, bud.

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I wasn’t using Thiel as an example–at least not on purpose. Take any obvious idea and marry it to a technological revolution, and you’ll have a bunch of rich people who got rich mostly by pure luck. Musk is a piece of shit, but the case for Tesla taking off was actually proven by GM’s EV1 ~3 years prior. The main reason it didn’t take off? Well it was twofold: first, GM was reluctant to commit to EVs because marketing them would make their conventional fuel vehicles look environmentally destructive, and second, the battery technology the EV1 used was nickle metal hydride. Tesla succeeded because it coincided with the proliferation of lithium ion batteries, and in that particular case, I don’t think anything unethical happened. If Musk had stopped here we probably wouldn’t think of him as an evil piece of shit.

Bad faith is discouraging strategic voting in an election year. I see you.

Agreed. And the facts are that DOGE would not have been appointed to dismantled USAID or the Department of Education had Kamala Harris won the presidency.

Not a single one of those things was “because the electorate gave Republicans power.”

ROFLMFAO. Not a single one? Sure, bud.

So a lottery winner is guilty of crimes? There are ways to “win the lottery” inside capitalism without breaking any rules. Sure, the amassing of wealth is in itself unethical in a country where many kids can’t eat nutritious meals, but you don’t necessarily have to be a backstabbing thief to become rich. You can just luck out and have an idea like online banking take off at the same time the technology becomes mature enough for something like online banking to be feasible.

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Sure, bud.

You’re being obtuse or stupid on purpose. Not worth my time.

And what about the war in Afghanistan?

The electorate gave Republicans power.

What about the Patriot Act?

The electorate gave Republicans power.

What about the total removal of our civil liberties with complete bipartisan consensus?

You’ll have to be more specific.

What about the fact that Barack Obama maintained that the US has the right to attack any country on earth if it thinks it’s harboring terrorists?

Seems reasonable provided those terrorists are actively targeting the US or its allies. It’s also the kind of thing you must say as POTUS even if you have no intention of utilizing the option.

What about Guantanamo Bay and the policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial?

The electorate gave Republicans power.

What about ICE?

The electorate gave Republicans power.

When I was growing up in the 90’s, the military budget was still inflated, but nowhere near what it is now.

The electorate gave Republicans power.

The country was at peace (relatively).

The electorate gave Republicans power.

There were no masked men raiding workplaces and dragging immigrants away to camps.

The electorate gave Republicans power.

The idea that the government could see your data was a paranoid conspiracy theory instead of an accepted fact of life.

Technology advanced, and the electorate gave Republicans power.

Due process was far from perfect, but couldn’t just be ignored by the government using the word “terrorist.”

The electorate gave Republicans power.

I don’t know how old you are,

Approaching 40 faster than I’d like.

so maybe you’re too young to remember a time when rights existed, but you can’t convince me we haven’t regressed because I was there and I watched it happen,

The electorate gave Republicans power.

and it was absolutely a bipartisan effort.

It was 90% Republicans, whom you wish to empower, and 10% Democrats, who did all those good things I mentioned earlier, but you don’t want to reward them for doing the right thing 90% of the time even though the alternative is a party that does evil 100% of the time.

Maybe if you go all the way back to 60 years or more, you can find some progress.

I can find progress in the last 20 years. Gay rights, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, reforms in the healthcare industry, … why am I bothering?

Over the last 30 years, what I’ve actually experienced and seen firsthand, things have absolutely regressed,

The electorate gave Republicans power.

and they continue getting worse no matter who’s in charge.

Things were getting better under Clinton, Obama, and Biden, especially during their brief periods where Democrats had control of both chambers of Congress alongside the White House. Unfortunately, for much of the last 40 years, the electorate gave Republicans power.

I would encourage you to actually read Dr. King, btw.

I have. Have you? Let me quote Dr. King for you:

The Negro has been betrayed by both the Democratic and Republican Party. The Democrats have betrayed us by capitulating to the whims and caprices of the southern dixiecrats. The Republicans have betrayed us by capitulating to the blatent hypocrisy of conservative right wing northerners. This coalition of southern dixiecrats and right wing northern Republicans defeats every move toward liberal legislation in Congress. So we confront the problem of choosing the lesser of two evils. At this point I might say however, that I feel that the Negro must remain an independent voter, not becoming unduly tied to either party. He should seek to vote for the party which is more concerned with the welfare of all the people.

Dr. King understood strategic voting for the lesser of two evils and espoused its virtues. Perhaps you should read Dr. King more rigorously and actually learn form it.

He understood the fact that none of us are free until all of us are free, a fact you seem to be struggling with.

He understood electoral realities. A fact you seem to be struggling with.

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Inheritance is only one way the ultra-wealthy gained their status. There’s also exploitation, luck, predatory business practices, corruption, …

Some gained wealth legitimately, but they usually fall under the luck category and should have been taxed at a higher rate for decades.

I believe Be Quiet! also sells such fans. I’ve been a fan of their stuff for a while, mostly because it’s black (matching my color scheme) and secondly because it’s cheaper.

Quiet fan.

It sure seems like over the last 60+ years, things have progressed, albeit slowly, with Democrats in charge, and regressed when Republicans were in charge. You can draw a line from abolition to women’s suffrage to civil rights to gay marriage that all lines up with Democrats. The long arc of history Dr. King spoke about seemed to bend in the right direction under Democrats. Yet here you are denying history. Odd.

(By odd I mean delusional.)

Yep. You did. You personally. Elections have consequences. If you had any courage at all, you would acknowledge that your choice resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Elections have consequences.