I already do. I fly an American flag and have a black power fist sign hanging in my window. I also have a don’t tread on me flag on the wall in my office. I took the latter down because I didn’t want to mislead people into thinking I have opinions I don’t, but maybe I will put it back up.

Same!

Wholeheartedly agree!

I have had some time to think about it, and I should have included the word systemic instead of serious. I still stand by my overall point with regard to what the idiom actually means. I don’t believe that its a good thing to misrepresent something just to prove a point.

I kind of think this is also a bit misleading. Isn’t the point of the phrase that you should remove the bad apple lest it affect the rest. As in, “If you leave the bad apple in the barrel it will spoil the bunch. So remove it before it does.” I don’t quite think that its really being misappropriated.

From your link a translated original proverb:

“Well better is a rotten apple out of the store

Than that it rot all the remnant."

So, by that logic, if you get those bad apples put before they spoil the bunch then they were “just bad apples”.

To be clear I’m not saying the phrase isn’t being used to minimize serious issues. But the point of the phrase wasn’t that one bad apple means the entire bunch is already rotten, but that you need to remove the bad elements before the rot spreads.

I paid a little bit and met my wife on one. No idea why anyone has a problem with paying for something they use. Two children later, I would say a lifetime the woman of my dreams made the few months that I paid for the tinder subscription was worth it. There were useful features then that came with it. No idea about it now.

It wasn’t AOC’s appearance that was attacked. AOC just jumped to her (Jasmine Crockett’s) defense after MTG attacked Crockett. Crockett, then, fired back at Greene.

52 months is 4 1/4 years.

I agree that by and large most patent law is rigged in favor of corporations. All I’m saying is that things are always more complex than simple black and white. I chose a simple response because I believe that you have already made up your mind and it would be a very difficult and nigh impossible conversation. I do like the energy that you put into looking out for people though and that should be commended.

You don’t know as much as you think you do.

Real men smell like ass.

Does going on the internet to insult people make you feel better? Maybe if you didn’t try to separate people out into camps and assign negative or positive qualities to those groups based on nothing more than your own ideological bent, but instead had a little chat with people like they were people you would be a little happier. Like, you know, on the inside.

Regardless, I’d like to see the “real data” that says that the assertions of the person to whom you are responding were incorrect. That would be an interesting read.

I appreciate your and and your opinion. I feel that it is important that I stress that anything that I type is not meant as an attack and is merely discussion. I love discussion it brings me a greater understanding everytime I am invited to participate. To the point, what you said in your post is something that I find to be untrue and is the point of what I am trying to say.

Firstly, no matter where you go people vote you off the island if you disagree with group think. I have seen it happen a number of times. There are specific issues that will get you ousted much more quickly to be true, but those issues aren’t necessarily core tenets of whatever the group philosophy is.

Secondly, as long as I have been alive I have found people who due to groupthink will always take the group’s ideas as a point of fact, creating the situations I am talking about. I am trying to say that the way that we do politics, separating things into large groups creates more harm than good.

I am not left because my ideas are left wing. I am left wing because you tell me I’m left wing. Then I identify as such, then connect with like minded people. Then group think takes hold and an equilibrium is reached wherein each idea is given a value.

Those in the group that disagree on principle risk being removed from the group or having to stay silent while often harmful ideas are espoused. Because at least our group isn’t that other one.

This last point is the danger, because, suppose it is true that the group we are discussing is truly better than their opponents. That doesn’t then give them immunity from making incorrect choices and espousing dangerous and harmful ideas and tactics. Those arguing for and enacting those can just say, “At least we aren’t those guys. They are evil!!” And then commit atrocities in the name of goodness. Because, “Hey, at least we aren’t those people.”

It really is a bit more nuanced than that.

Classifications like those just feel kind of arbitrary. Like I get associating with like minded people, but my point was that trying to classify everything in these neat little bottles don’t work. You can make enemies if you don’t check all the opinion boxes no matter where you turn.

For example, I would agree with your military assessment as being left, except that military is never something that should be utilized domestically, unless as a very last resort facing an armed rebellion. Otherwise, its for defense and on the rare occasion offense, but should remain strong, very strong. I would much more readily agree with my conservative acquaintances on this issue and have in the number of conversations I have had as an older fellow.

And I’m not an economist nor a lawyer so any thing that I could really offer as far as corporate regulation would be very general things like, “monopolies bad”. So it would be difficult for me to really collate some kind of list of laws I think we should have, which speaks to the point that most people aren’t experts and just pretend to know the inner workings of systems they have no training in.

I would agree that I fall left of center, but only because it averages out that way. I have some very “conservative” opinions that are dwarfed by the “progressive” opinions that I have. Like, you cant take a bunch of opinions someone has and go, “You are just like those guys!” That will inevitably be proven wrong.

Regardless, I appreciate your response.

What if I want no taxes for the lower class lower taxes for the middle class and small business but much higher taxes on the upper class and large corporations, a very strong military, less but stronger corporate regulation with more teeth, to fund public works and social services with the taxes we bring in, a free and equal society with no hierarchical systems or bigotry, freedom of speech and strong privacy laws with certain restrictions on speech (calls to violence, etc…), very strong unions, a near complete elimination of wall street, and a fair justice system that doesn’t target minorities as prey? Also, guns are fine for self defense in my opinion. Which side do I fall on?

Edit: So if you will read my posts below I talk about how going against groupthink just makes you enemies of the group. Then the group started down voting me down below. I’m really not worried about fake internet points. I just want to make sure that everyone that downvoted me is well aware that my point is well and truly proven. A difference of opinion is not welcome. Even, and especially, if that opinion is, “Stop letting the group think for you. Examine each issue as a separate issue and make fair and reasoned decisions.”

Oh, just the five minute one.

Yes, we are.

That’s interesting. I wouldn’t have thought that.

None of these things exist so real life evolutionary biology doesn’t really have a place in this discussion, lol. Although you are correct.

Besides, since they are fictional you could just come up with some reason. Dolphins for instance have no legs, but still have the vestiges of them in the form of very small unconnected bones where their legs would be. They also have a dorsal fin on their backside and tiny little arms. So it stands to reason that, conceivably, wings could have evolved separately in a similar (note ‘a similar’ not ‘the same’) way to a dolphin’s dorsal fin.

You could jump from this concept (marrying real world evolutionary biology and fiction) and explain orc, trolls, etc… as ape descended life much the same as humans. Maybe merfolk evolved in the same way animals in the cetacea infraorder evolved from otter-like creatures. Maybe they have small unconnected bones for legs in much the same way that dolphins do.

There is a story in this, I can feel it.