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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • So… I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think this is quite right. Intent does matter in a criminal act, yes. This is called mens rea. It is the intent and knowledge to commit a criminal act, rather than just the action itself. For example, causing the death of another intentionally (without reasonable cause like self defense) is murder. Killing them unintentionally is only a crime if you were criminally negligent (which also includes knowledge and intent) and said negligence caused the death.

    However, motivation is not the same as intent and a potentially unethical or political motivation to perform an otherwise legal action does not make the act illegal. Especially in the execution of the law. If your political rival commits a crime, even though you may care more about their political challenge then actual justice in that case, you still can and should execute the law exactly as you would for anyone else. The alternative would be to allow personal bias against the criminal to make them immune to the law, which can clearly not be the solution. So long as due process is followed, the law is impartial, and the trial is fair, it doesn’t matter what the motivation of the prosecution was. They are still subject to the law like anyone else.

    I just had this same argument with my Father-In-Law a couple weeks ago about the Trump convictions. He said it was all politically motivated, so it was wrong. I said, maybe it was politically motivated, I don’t know. I can’t read the minds of dozens of people that I’ve never met before. But it doesn’t matter if it was or not, because Trump still committed the crimes, as was demonstrated before a jury, and he was given a fair trial like any other person was and found guilty by a jury his lawyers helped to select. What anyone’s hopes or reasons were are their own and completely inconsequential.




  • I don’t know about your specific university, but you should also compare how much their tuition and fees have increased in that 20 years and before. Average rise in tuition and fees across the board in just the last 20 years has been 179%. Adjusted for inflation, the average annual tuition and fees at public universities have nearly quadrupled since 1969, from $2440 to $9349. They’ve also more than tripled at private universities in that same time frame, from $10,636 to $32,769. Again, that’s adjusted for inflation. Has educating people really become 3 or 4 times more costly in the last 55 years, or have they realized they can charge more, make more pointless cosmetic improvements to campuses to entice students, and line the pockets their boards of trustees and presidents, some of whom make multi-million dollar salaries?

    Your second paragraph is good advice though. I tell people the same thing.



  • First, an educated populous brings the entire economy up. It creates new markets, new fields and industries, and more opportunities for everyone. It also takes a large chuck of the workforce into offices, labs, and around the world instead of competing with you for your machining job at the factory, which would devalue your role and result in lowering your wage, if you got the job at all.

    Second, the only reason for the massive amounts of student debt is due to universities massively inflating the cost of an education to milk the government of their federal student loans. This doesn’t address that directly, but it applies pressure on the government to reign in these bloated tuition and book costs that universities are pushing.

    Third, if we’re so afraid Joe the Plumber and the rest of the Working Class might have to help his fellow man with 3 cents of his annual tax rate, then increase the tax on the wealthy controlling class to cover it instead. The same tax bill will mean waaaaay less to them.

    Edit: for clarification, that was a rebuttal to Graham’s comment, not yours, OP


  • I heard him defend it in an interview once. This is legit what he said: “Under Pressure goes ‘Buh duh duh duh duhduh duh dum. Buh duh duh duh duh duhduh duh dum.’ But Ice Ice baby goes ‘Buh duh duh duh duhduh duh dum. Buh duh duh duh duh duhduh duh dum tss.’” That’s a whole new work of art, guys! Like if I copied the Mona Lisa, but gave her like a strand of hair hanging down over her eyes. Artistically and legally distinct!


  • Most haven’t. Many have. Most of those that have just cherry pick the parts they care about.

    The remainder that have read and understood it just compartmentalize the cognitive dissonance. They ignore that the being they profess their undying love for was an unemployed, unmarried vagrant that wandered around with his buddies, that spread philosophy and free food and medical care to strangers, that spoke out many times against the rich, the performatively religious, bigots, opportunists, violence, and retribution, that encouraged one to live a minimalist life, to humble yourself before your sick, poor, and foreign brother, to wash the feet of sinners, and that was an activist whose chosen forms of protest included flipping tables and chasing money changers from a temple with a whip. But no, I’m sure he wanted you to make sure gay people don’t get married, or whatever.










  • The idea of “the power of prayer” is stupid on the face of it. First, you’re presupposing a omnipotent diety that can and does directly effect the universe, changing the outcomes of events based on it’s desires, whims, plans, whatever. And you think THAT diety is taking requests? When “God answered my prayers”, you think that had you not requested it, it wouldn’t have happened. You think that God answers to your puny human concerns? That shit is arrogant as hell.

    But furthermore, it also flies in the face of two other common beliefs about God, at least in Christianity. “God gave man Free Will” and “It’s All Part of God’s Plan™” (don’t get me started on how those are already two mutually exclusive ideas and hundreds of millions of believers just ignore that cognitive dissonance). Many of the things that one prays for, like “getting that job”, “winning that award”, “ending the war”, etc. directly involve altering the decisions and actions of others, which means that God would be stripping them of free will. Also, the most classic call to prayer is to heal the sick, or preserve one’s life. But surely if God has a plan for everyone’s life, at minimum everyone’s birth and death must also be planned. How can he answer your prayer to save your life if it’s his plan for you to die, yet still have an plan he’s always been following? The irony is that people like to pull the “all part of God’s plan” platitude particularly when someone has died before their time.

    The one that really makes me annoyed, or even angry, is when something terrible happens, people are hurt or killed, and someone who was supposed to or had almost been there says something like “God was watching out for me”. It’s so self-centered and arrogant to attribute your simple dumb luck to God’s will in that situation. Because, not only does it assume you are God’s most special little guy that he’s constantly paying attention to and protecting, but also that God willfully condemned those others who did fall to this terrible fate that he supposedly saved you from. It’s all arrogance. I can’t stand it.



  • Yea, the solicitation for tips when all you did was prepare the food (the bare minimum) while I served myself or just got carryout, that is ridiculous. The only times I have tipped for carryout was during covid because, frankly, just being open was above and beyond service at the time, and I wanted to show extra support to struggling businesses I cared about. Otherwise, tips are the compensation for either the convenience of being served by someone else, the inconvenience to the business of an unusual order (like a huge order, allergy care, etc), or if you are just doing more than I could reasonably expect for regular service (like being open during covid shut downs).