NeuroTypical

As far as the actual topic goes: The person who picked the spot for my ward building (then a tiny branch) was a German immigrant who had been in the hitler youth. He remembered watching the Americans cross the bridge into his town. My father was a WWII vet, who also remembered crossing that bridge into that town. They didn't meet until years later in Salt Lake. I grew up on stories from about how happy the German people were after hitler died and the war ended. My dad personally witnessed how happy they were - moreso than the allied forces in some cases. Can you imagine trying to be LDS in a nation run by nazis? They tell me that culturally it reached a point where a third of the country was deemed the enemy, a third of the country tried to eliminate the enemy, and a third sat back and did nothing. That was how everyone knew that things had gone too far, but by then it was too late to do anything about it internally. So there you are, a Mormon. Must not become the first third, or the second third, but you also are commanded to do good and can't be the third part either. Just keep your head down and survive. For poking your head up will get it removed from your body.

I still think there are things we might be able to learn from Māori style of issue discussion. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Lm6yYy/ (I’m only about half joking. Hakas never turn violent. Ppl seem to get along fine with their opponents afterwords.)

The B.H Roberts foundation is a pretty interesting bunch of folks. In a lot of ways, it's the younger generation LDS folks, to whom the us GenXers have passed the apologetic torch. Here's another one of their publications from their more culturally-focused online apologetic outreach-to-the-younguns project, Mormonr: I'm glad to see the next generation rocking their testimonies in culturally mainstream ways.

Businesses with a social media presence can be wise to ban political speech. If you're not specifically targeting a certain demographic of customer via their politics, the only result will be ticking off a segment of your customer base. Now in the military friendly happily red county where I live, there are absolutely businesses that virtue signal this or that set of politics. A local car wash has "freedom" in it's name, lots of American flags, and it's own radio station playing traditional Christmas music and various patriotic stuff. There's a windshield replacement place I hear on the radio that advertises how gun friendly they are and talk smack about woke. Thirdhour used to not permit talk of politics. The folks at mormondialogue continue to ban it. Yeah, anger isn't the only threshold someone can cross before discussing issues becomes a waste of time. I'd add fear to the list. Actually, it seems like fear and anger often o hand in hand in talking religion and politics.

It's a video of a woman doing a standard kettlebell exercise where you lay on the floor, hold up the kettlebell with one hand, and then stand up while holding it aloft. Except she's not holding a kettlebell, she's holding another woman. (By the way, this is an amazing exercise, and one way to measure your individual fitness level. I found it a good idea to start just holding my empty hand up in the air, and once I could do a set, then I grabbed a weight.)

Just for the record, the woman who stood me on my head in a beginners BJJ class looked an awful lot like this lady: https://www.facebook.com/JungleLevelFitness/videos/1786202725453265

Whether it was or not, every time I've shown it to the peanut gallery, they respond with a bunch of personal attacks regarding the physical appearance of the women, how undesirable they are as mates, how hard they are to look at, etc. As the peanut gallery discusses 4B, it's generating the same sort of comments. Except it's about how undesirable/ugly/useless/etc formerly sexually promiscuous women are. Same sort of self-righteous moral judgment, just pointed in the other direction by the other side. I think folks on this board were discussing someone's comment of "her body my choice", and the defense was along these lines? I might be getting it wrong, I wasn't really paying attention to that part of the discussion.

So, you're not an addict until your addiction starts causing obvious problems that are noticed by others? But before then, you're not an addict, just a user?

It happens. It would be nice if folks' responses to these women would be nicer than the responses generated by the peanut gallery when someone posts this picture:

Exactly my point on stuff like social media. My phone tells me I only do 5 hrs a day online. It's not a problem, it's not something I "have to do". Just a harmless way to pass time. Nothing wrong with it, and it's something I can give up any time I want. I'm obviously only a user, not an addict. See, my wise person would point to folks who say stuff like that, and say "that's an addict". Addicts are masters of lies. Most of 'em believe their own lies.

I believe this was my first attempt at making a political meme. Several months before Trump's first impeachment.

I asked my streetwise master-level expert in such things, if there was a difference between addict and user. They replied "If someone is trying to debate the difference with you, they're an addict."

Who? Who?

We talked about it. The call for unity absolutely was focused on the saints uniting as one, with one theology, one set of values. But there was also talk (both in the lesson, and the discussion) about the things humans can and should unite on, and how that doesn't require agreement on things like religion or politics. You couldn't swing a dead cat in October's General Conference without hitting a speaker talking about love and setting aside divisiveness and getting along and finding ways to respect people.

lol I actually said "I now speak fluent woke" in Sunday's Elders Quorum. The lesson was on how to be united and cast aside division. Both in the church, and with humanity in general. I briefly relayed my joining a diversity allies networking group, just so I could find the most different people I could possibly find, and see if I could love them the way Christ commanded me. I was reinforcing Elder Bednar's point that getting to know people helps you love them. I don't know what a sock puppet is, or how it differs from a dogwhistle, but I really did find the experience analogous to having to learning a new language so you can talk to people. (And when I shared similar thoughts with the diversity ally people, I also phrased it in terms of "learning woke", and we all chuckled.)

I had to look that up, but dang it's funny.

I have something approaching fleeting hope with this announcement. I mean, the response to your criticism is pretty easy. "Musk and I met, he's taking Interior/Ag/Commerce/Health/Housing/Transportation, and I'm taking DOE and the rest." But my promise remains. If DOGE just turns into another stupid bloated bureaucracy with functionaries wielding unelected and unlegislated power, I will join you in the glorious revolution. Anyway, fleeting hope is enough to change my avatar.

Well, there's hardly any long-term follow up after you get sprung from jail. You might have some parole conditions requiring you to take periodic drug tests, but it's not like the Sherriff is going to keep records on that sort of thing. He brags about his jail in 2 ways: 1 - Same or lower inmate deaths than last year. 2 - Everyone who shows up addicted, leaves his jail healthier than when they got here. Largely due to 3 good meals a day, or having someone actually hand you your prescription so you actually take it.

I've never been "that uncle". But I have always been the "Where's daddy? He's online yelling politics with people. But it's Christmas!" guy. If we all valued civility and love and rational conversation the same, we could talk politics all we wanted. But add some emotions - especially fear and ignorance - and can take an otherwise boring thanksgiving dinner and make it something everyone will remember for a decade. Two decades, if the cops get called.

Good points about nobody wanting to foot the bill for this. However, if I could inject a little "how humans act" into the equation: You know who needs mass roundups of addicted people? Blue cities with lax drug laws or lax enforcement or safe needle zones and all that. You know who doesn't need mass roundups of addicted people? Places with strong drug laws and strong enforcement. You get what you pay for. The more you pay for services for drug users, the more drug users you'll have. Especially if painful accountability is not part of the equation. This notion is not really applicable to the "affluent using drug scene", because everyone has jobs and wealth and families and lawyers and insurance and safety net. There are no masses to round up from those demographics. But holy crap is it applicable to the homeless/illegal/mentally ill/desperate drug scene. Folks sleeping on the streets just understand you don't go to Colorado Springs because they'll run you through the system. Best to stay in Denver or Arvada where they actually give you stuff and you don't even need ID. Winter coming? Time to head south to Phoenix, or somewhere like Miami if you can make it. On a related note, everyone should go tour their local jail. City or county. It can be incredibly eye opening. My sheriff is one of the staunchest deep red conservatives out there. But he also knows reality. He tells us his jail is the largest provider of mental health and chemical addiction services in the county. He's not happy about that, and he tries to get everyone else not happy about it too, so maybe something can change.

lol if the Squirrel story hadn't won it for Trump, this one would have. Fun thing: We're buddies with some farmers who are plugged into the Costco food waste deal. They get pallets and pallets of stuff Costco can't sell any more. Frozen fish that isn't frozen enough any more. Hundreds of pounds of chicken breasts, all sorts of expensive cuts of steak, organic ground turkey. No longer able to be sold to humans, but my wife hauls back enough to keep our growing puppy in imported Australian lamb shanks. At least a pound of prime meat every day for doggo. Dang dog eats better than we do.

Oh, I'm complaining big time. Politically, I'm at my least happy when one party has both houses of congress and the presidency. When that happens, our federal government turns into a burst dam of poorly-thought-out legislation and money spending. I would absolutely have preferred if one of the houses stayed a nice solid blue. The first great political commandment is thou shalt get elected. Now the 2nd great political commandment will rule the day - thou shalt remain elected. FedGov is about to go on a 4 year expensive, deficit enlarging, debt deepening vote buying binge. I mean yes, it'll be nice if they can destroy the dept of education and just fork all that $$ directly to the states. It would be nicer if the whole thing ended up costing less $$ than what we have now. But we're all wearing red glasses and drunk on our own zealous correctitude, and nobody is going to bother even asking for a price tag. Who's gonna be the voice of financial discipline in the room? The Democrats and their compliant media? Count the news stories with me. The headlines won't read "Republican price tag is too high". It'll be stuff like "trans-unaliving free-speech-hating fascists push forward legislation that will force millions back into the closet". I mean, am I wrong?

I wish. Your point is totally valid. But yeah, having a majority in the house, even if in name only, means stuff besides just voting on bills.

Yes. You you can't force an addict to get clean. They have to get there on their own. Common story, that is so common, I cannot bring myself to brush it aside: "The best thing my family ever did was call the cops and get me locked up". Rehab is hardly perfect, and yes indeed, addicts are responsible for their own choices. That said, it's entirely possible to weaken or lose your ability to act through drugs or alcohol. About the time you spin out of control and become a burden/threat to society, that's a perfect time for society to try to force a solution on you. @Phoenix_person, if we ever end up living in the same neighborhood, and you notice that I'm losing or have lost my job, my car, my family, my house, and my health with some addiction, please, if you love anything about human potential, please call the cops on me and get me locked up and forced into rehab. Even if they have to taze me and drag me kicking and screaming against my will. Especially if it has to go down like that.

Back on topic, here’s a fun 6 part police encounter of Trump and Harris supporters going at it. The Harris supporter, a 76 yr old white retired teacher, gets arrested for specifically targeting and assaulting two back women who are Trump supporters. She justifies her actions because Trump is racist and they needed to "get it". https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8LD2Va1/