As an individual with a sub-$400,000 per year salary, I completely support Joe Biden’s recently revised taxation plan.
NOT.
ONE.
PENNY.
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I’m surprised to be the only one excited about Biden’s plan to cut nearly everyone’s taxes to zero. I’m also completely shocked that vast swaths of the media aren’t covering this transformational policy position. He couldn’t have been any clearer about it.
I’ve been daydreaming about what I’m going to do with all of that extra money. I’m torn between boat upgrades, a week of unbridled debauchery or donating to the Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good.
NOT A SINGLE PENNY!!!
Biden/Harris 2024!!!
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According to Biden, if you make under $400,000 a year, the only tax bill you are excluded from is $0.01. Over or under is fair game if we take the statement literally.
Eh, if this is what biden gets ripped on for, I’m ok with it haha. I cant remember, is he about on the level of GW with speaking flubs and bloopers?
GWB had a few memorable ones but nothing remotely on the magnitude and frequency of Biden. Fool me once, won’t get fooled again. Mission Accomplished. A few others probably But GWB was a functioning, healthy adult still in his prime, despite what flaws he had. Biden has no business in politics in his condition. This strikes me as a form of elder abuse. I couldn’t imagine one of my loved ones being carted around to do a job they are barely aware that they are doing. I don’t want my loved ones being played like a puppet in their twilight years.
This is, of course, great for Democrats, because no matter what he says or how clearly he says it his supporters can simply declare that he meant something different. For instance, I’d really like to know what he means when he keeps saying he’s going to “be in trouble”. With who? He’s the president. It doesn’t sound like a ha-ha joke to me, it sounds like a worried old man who is not looking forward to whatever is about to follow.
As bizarre as it is to simply watch the man speak, that doesn’t really form the basis of my criticism. My greatest criticism of Biden and Harris is brazen lying about racism to push the demonstrably false narrative of rampant white supremacy across all of our institutions and culture. The bold-faced lie that GA voting changes are the New Jim Crow is also very concerning to me to hear from the President. The open manipulation of the Chauvin jury in the most high-profile case of my lifetime strikes me as brazen disregard for our justice system. The advocating for a demonstrably un-just verdict and the grotesque use of the word “justice” to describe the verdict should concern anyone who values the basic notion of justice. The hero worship and secular canonization of dead criminals isn’t moving us ahead, either.
Equally concerning are the Democrats’ private sector allies continuing their despicable campaign of media censorship on behalf of the Democrats. This rejection of core American values and embrace of Orwellian word-smithing where every word is calculated to deceive (see linked article below) is straight out of any totalitarian land of lies and shit policy. Take your pick of any from history.
The Democrats are pushing the Big Lie and Americans are eating it up in astounding numbers. If you ever wonder how a population of first-world citizens are made to follow disastrous policies based on lies and then turn against one another, look no further than those who drive those lies home at every level they can. This new religion of wokeness and critical race theory nonsense is pure cultural and social poison being aggressively advanced by this administration
I can go on and on (and I have), but I will say that I’m glad he isn’t tweeting mean things at 3am.
Here is some fake news, just like you will read from other lying activists who work in the propaganda industry posing as journalists. Every word is meant to mislead you. It isn’t even difficult to see how dishonest it is. They either do not care or think you’re too stupid to notice.
Edit. This is FAR from my only criticism of this administration, but much of the rest (like anti-police rhetoric and policy, federalizing and weakening the voting system and even border policy) is a direct outgrowth of the Big Lie being advanced by Democrats and their propagandists among the giants of new and traditional forms of media.
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So am I! 
I didn’t really feel like a racist or sexist before but, with President Biden obviously in command, I super duper don’t feel like either!
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It’s more than just Biden/Haris. There is a huge demographic of kids my age pushing this agenda. A demographic of which has never been around the demographic/areas of which they speak of, nor have they read literature pertaining to actual modern era prevalence of racism in developed, secular countries… And most haven’t actually experienced racism.
I’ve experienced anti semitism a few times, but I would say the issue is systemic or widespread here or in the USA.
It seems the race card is pulled for many issues of which objectively have nothing to do with racism. Quick example would be the India travel ban. Australia pushed through some blatantly batshit legislature dictating Australians who come back from India face a jail term of 5 years (have gone back on this now).
Media started parroting racism “iF tHiS wAs ThE uK, tHinGs wOuLd be DiFfErEnt”. Here’s the thing… India is a third world country receiving around 400k cases per day. It isn’t far fetched to think contact tracing technology isn’t up to the standards of a developed nation like Taiwan or Japan. The ban had nothing to do with race, but it seems as if everything is spun to someone include race and thus polarise various issues that don’t need to be polarised
Of course there is. Racism is taught in schools once again, this time with the sinister twist of taking advantage of good-natured people’s desire to do good by calling it “anti-racism”.
Brainwashing is the term we ought to begin using. I find my conversations with woke critical race theorists to be remarkably similar to my conversations with my Christian fundamentalist cousins.
No matter what the topic may be, they’ll steer the conversation back to their cultish beliefs that make them feel superior to others, leaving no room for good-faith disagreement. Asking them to explain what informs these beliefs will not lead you to any set of coherent facts, guiding principles or anything besides their holy scriptures. Fundamentalists have their choice Bible verses, woke critical race theorists have their media narratives. Both are human-produced fictional stories.
That’s not a knock on religion as a whole, but the similarities are remarkable.
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To go against the status quo in group settings is social suicide. Thus when topics come up relating to systemic racism and systemic misogyny I keep my mouth shut. Particularly pertaining to the latter as I’ll instantaneously be perceived as an evil, hateful individual donning a ku klux klan robe.
To the latter, wage gaps are somewhat of an issue, as is domestic violence; but political campaigns going off in Aus now would have you think Australia is Saudi Arabia 2.0 in terms of womens rights. Men and women have biological differentiations of which put us apart from one another. There are disadvantages and advantages to being of either gender mediated through traditional gender constructs. I’m going to say something very controversial that is based in anecdote, this is not fact so I could be wrong.
In Australia men can get kicked out of a club for the slightest mishap, even having visible tattoos is grounds for theoretically getting kicked out in QLD. I’ve noted deviant behaviour from young women tends to be overlooked or ignored. Women can get blind drunk, behave aggressively (I actually had to deal with this the other night, was with a female friend who drank way too much and started behaving like an absolute jackass) and… nothing… zilch, no disciplinary action when she should have been chucked out and put into a cab with a friend to get home safe fifteen minutes into the night. I’ve seen this time and time and time again, I’ve almost been denied entry when I haven’t had a single drink under the pretence of excessive intoxication. I’m all for gender equality, but these campaigns almost don’t quite seem to be aiming for equality. It’s a hard swing in the pendulum from one wrong to another wrong.
I was also skeptical the other night when everyone was talking about how someone’s drink was spiked with drugs, but the individual in the ambulance blew 0.35 and I saw the person at hand was pounding shot after shot like no tomorrow at the bar. Like literally one after the other. No… you drank too much and acquired alcohol poisoning, don’t politicise this issue. Drink spiking is a very, very, very, very serous issue. To deflect over the significance to avoid admitting responsibly for shooting like fourteen shots back to back to me showcases an inability to comprehend your own bad decisions. I know this probably sounds like some wack incel shit, but I am frustrated with what I’m seeing. Perhaps I’m in the wrong here?
one of the criticisms I have about the left (here in Aus) is the recognition of minorities, indigenous persecution… but Jewish people? Nah, they’re exempt, as a matter of fact they’re persecuting Palestinians and committing “ethnic cleansing”.
I’ve had debates with people about this, and I’ve had people of Palestinian persuasion tell me “Hitler had the right idea with you guys”… comments like that… I don’t believe systemic anti-Semitism to be present within Australia society by any means. But if we are to pull the race card and talk about systemic racism it makes sense to include Jewish people as throughout history we have been extensively oppressed with numerous vested attempts at extermination.
I don’t understand why anyone would want Isreal off the map within the Middle East, theoretically speaking it’s the only country in the Middle East that upholds women’s rights, freedom of religion, LGBT rights and more. The policies instilled through the Palestinian authority don’t align with ANY progressive values. Hell, Hamas is a fucking terrorist organisation… But free Palestine and get rid of Isreal right? Palestine could be far more developed if politicians within the Palestinian authority didn’t designate a significant portion of donations to line their own pockets, didn’t have a martyr fund to reward families of suicide bombers amongst other things.
You bring up a lot of good points but this is particularly interesting and troubling to me.
There can be immense social pressure to go along with the wokeness in my 40+ age group, or at least to never speak up about it. I’ve experienced it very strongly in my own family, where our resident woke cultist has no tolerance for anyone who doesn’t parrot the same nonsense she does. Silence is violence and all of that poison. I feel bad for my nieces who get dragged to every woke event they can make time for in the greater Boston area.
I’m pretty confident they’ll rebel by becoming conservatives, joining the military or becoming police officers, but there’s always the chance they will blossom into another woke cultist with the deeply-held perverse notion that racism is best fought with more racism. The other perverse notion is that going along with the dominant sociocultural trends backed by their favorite pea-brained actors and musicians is somehow edgy and #resistance.
Sorry to inform you, but you aren’t resisting anything. You’re going right along with the most powerful people in the world today who will gladly use your good intentions and shallow thinking to advance their interests.
I often feel like I’m the new punk. I’m a straight conservative male with no tattoos who dresses normally. That’s right, I don’t care what society thinks about me! I prefer to stand out from the crowd.
My experience with reading journalism is much like the constant face palming, profanity inducing advice we see on squats and strength workouts in the wider media. How Dave Tate doesn’t spontaneously combust from the idiocy is more than I can say, considering I’m in the same boat (but not as strong as he was). And yet most of that utter shite is produced by people who are simply ignorant and don’t even know the basics, without realizing they don’t know the basics. In other words they’re not malicious.
Likewise I am of the opinion that most journalism takes these buzzwords at face value, having never actually done critical thinking on what they really mean. It’s why people like Z and others get driven up a wall along with me. Don’t get me wrong, I do agree that there is a left leaning current in the media but it’s hard for me to say the majority is malicious when it’s obvious how utterly ignorant many of them are of the terms they use.
So I don’t have a freaking clue who these writers are in the article, but are you sure they’re actually activists instead of just stupid?
Edit to say - I am definitely aware one of the reasons Z gets driven up a wall is that BLM activists and messaging are definitely propaganda. I agree. I was thinking about broader journalism
It is almost certainly a mixture of both. The fact that these media networks are all rowing in the same direction tells me that the leaders are most definitely in cahoots with the Democrats. This is beyond obvious at this point. CNN leadership is on tape admitting to being propagandists. Big shocker, I know.
I think many of the activists in the propaganda industry posing as journalists believe their own nonsense. Why wouldn’t they? Everyone else does, and doesn’t it feel so good to put yourself right up there with MLK and brave civil rights leaders who risked everything to right a wrong?
Of course, to voice a woke opinion today is to risk nothing except from alienating conservatives who will continue to be polite and do business with you while spineless Republican politicians do nothing to stop the rising tide of destructive policy and poisonous rhetoric.
It’s not brave. It is not helpful. Being a modern “anti-racist” is an inherently masturbatory endeavor to combat straw men and imaginary white supremacists while ignoring the obvious short-term and less obvious long-term consequences of advancing these types of policies.
I can’t see this happening to me. I’m not purely left or right, fairly split down the middle but perhaps lean SLIGHTLY more progressive. I don’t condone the more dubious aspects of modern era progressive ideology, though I have plenty of complaints pertaining to both sides.
Some of the polarised issues we speak of aren’t colloquially associated with left wing mentalities worldwide. Within classical/moderate progressivism outside of the USA defunding the police and other similarly (in my opinion) dysfunctional or nonsensical ideologies are nowhere to be found.
Depending on how far the status quo shifts will depend as to whether I end up conservative. Perhaps my vested set of beliefs will be considered “conservative” twenty years from now. That is if my views on various subjects stay the same over the next twenty years.
I would never join the police force in Australia as I have no interest in enforcing quite a few the laws Australian parliament wants enforced. I don’t want to go around handing out massive fines to people who don’t wear bike helmets and whatnot
Give it time lad.
I was having doubts about the motives, methods and measurable outcomes of the left by my mid-20’s, then the realization really hit me after a couple years of Obama. I started questioning narratives, paying attention to facts, asking basic questions like who/what/where/why and eventually finding a writer named Thomas Sowell along with other conservatives voices who appealed to my intellect instead of my emotions.
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We will see. I was actually more conservative back when I first joined this forum years ago comparative to where I am now. My stances on various issues such as drug law reform, organised religion, traditional attire, climate change and to an extent animal rights and the likes have shifted more towards “progressive” mentalities, albeit my vested beliefs as to why certain policies ought to be out in place differ at times from many current era progressives.
Similarly my stances on “woke” politics and taxation have shifted towards conservative narratives.
I used to believe the schtick about tattoos being immoral as I was raised modern orthodox and was taught to believe this. Now I have tattoos, multiple of them… Some big ones… To tell me I’d become more conservative than what I was when frequenting Hebrew school and the likes is statistically very, very unlikely.
But I agree, my change in mentality pertaining to various topics started when I began to constantly question why things are the way they are. Just because a set of vested beleifs are normalised or engrained within society doesn’t inherently mean those set of beleifs are correct or just.
Those are all basically wedge issues. I’m a pro freedom conservative, which includes tolerance for lifestyles and worldviews that aren’t mine. Christian fundamentalists are increasingly less influential when it comes to weaving their theology into government policy, which was one of my main concerns with the Republicans of the 90’s and early 00’s.
Plus the fucking Patriot Act, which Democrats all voted for and did nothing about.
The real kicker is the role of government and whether or not you believe that there should be guiding principles that remain static over time, or not. Many believe in the ability of government to produce all kinds of outcomes, from eliminating poverty up to an including enabling individuals to have a productive and fulfilling life.
As I’ve grown older I realized that the left has achieved most of the progressive policy goals that were important to me. Tolerance for gay lifestyles, tolerance for non-Christians and (at least in the USA) better policies that address the environment and surrounding issues in practical ways are all mainstream discussion points among conservatives. I think liberals and liberal ways of thinking play an important role in society, especially outside the halls of government, but they completely fail to translate their good intentions and even good ideas into good policy.
That’s why we just have to say “whoops, we meant well” when we learn that a .17 GPA puts you into the top half of the class in jurisdictions that have had nothing but Democrats enacting Democrat policy priorities for both local governance and school policy for generations.
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Perhaps this is the way it is in the United states.
If we refer to Australia, a country extensively behind on climate policy the MODERATE conservative government here has more/less denied the existence of climate change up until mid 2020. Even now they still won’t commit to any target initiatives, nor will they push for significant funding into combatting wildfires/climate change.
Our conservative government also repeatedly blocked attempts for the ACT to legalise gay marriage and only three years ago did they agree to enact legalisation through referendum as it was obvious public opinion wasn’t on their side. Our conservative government isn’t pro freedom either, neither is our (main) progressive party but our right wing govt takes the cake with the sniffer dogs in public, strip searching kids, covid travel bans and extreme penalties (five year jail sentence for going to NZ, leaving NZ, coming back and quarantining in NZ then coming back here) and whatnot.
Interestingly both sides are relatively pro choice when it comes to abortion.
You might be interested to know during state elections I usually vote my first preference for the liberal democrats. They’re a pro freedom centre right party catering towards libertarianism. They aren’t perfect, but many of their policies go against the grain of the nanny state bullshit currently swallowing up Australia.
As I’ve specified, left/right wing entail different ideologies and policies depending on the country. Our main right wing party is heavily rooted in authoritative policies that don’t uphold or respect civil liberties. Our left wing party is marginally better, but both main parties are terrible in that they push a motto of societal infantilism. Our left wing party has also started pushing the free Palestine narrative which I find unfortunate.
Each to their own, but unless the extremist roots of the Palestinian authority can be quashed I’d never be comfortable with them ruling the entire area that makes up Israel. It’s abundantly apparent at this point they’d either try to exterminate or push out all the Jewish people living over there. I’m not exaggerating either, “extermination of the Jewish people” is in Hamas’s charter.
I speak up if I feel as if those I am speaking with can engage in constructive debate as opposed to kids resorting to ad hominem attacks. Though when I hear a kid say something like “I’m a communist” which I have heard (lol) I keep my mouth shut, it’s not worth going down that rabbit hole
Much of the vested ideologies stem from being uninformed or perhaps indoctrinated.
Very few kids I know over here support antifa or BLM for that matter. The institutionalised racism argument has some merit over here as there is a legitimate disparity pertaining to how our government/society still treats Asian immigrants and indigenous Australians. But the problem we have is far, far more severe/“in your face” and obvious than anything current era America has.
We’ve made tremendous strides, though the racial slurs and stereotyping plenty of Aussies commonly use to describe immigrants is a little bit alarming. It’s a difficult scenario as a cohort of immigrants do seem to be causing issues. We have a lebanese/Sudanese youth gang problem that my state government refuses to act on because it is “not woke” to do so, this isn’t helping matters. A couple of my brother’s friends were mugged by some of these youths while driving about a month back, the one kid reached through the window and started punching the driver in the face repeatedly.
There was a quota in NSW the other year on how many indigenous kids to search (a quota that was very high despite the population making up a minority of NSW citizens and contributing considerably less to youth violence comparative to other demographics)
When I lived in the ghetto, I went to the post office one day. There was a long line, everyone in line except for me, was black. Everyone working there was black. They had one window open and you could see, and hear,a bunch of employees in back. An elderly women asked to talk to whoever was in charge. A black woman came out and asked her what was wrong. The elderly woman asked why they only had one window open even though there were a bunch of people in back. The post office manager, or whatever they’re called, just walked away from the woman. The elderly woman said, and I quote, “I can remember when they wouldn’t even allow your black ass back there and now that you’re in charge this is how you treat people.”
The point being, there are people who experienced real systemic racism and these young people are not among them.
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The thing is. These off the cuff comments by bad apples like the elderly lady you describe are now considered to be akin to systemic racism.
Comments like this are problematic and upsetting… But it in no way, shape or form encapsulates the mentality of the average American.
A systemically racist society voted in Obama? Yeah… Naa
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