Breathe

@Yali What situation? Being in court? If he had any doubts about moving forward with his plan he could have stopped long before making a ghost gun and inscribing shit on bullets. He had plenty of time to think about his actions leading up to the execution. So, you are probably right about him not feeling much remorse.

Crack is a powerful psychedelic (Not a serious remark)

He may not be cracking a smile all the time so you can't jump to conclusions about how he feels based on a single photo. We can deconstruct the situation, though. Luigi suffered a lot due to the shitty health care that he received so he feels like justice has been served to some degree. A lot of people support what he did, so I imagine that he feels some level of validation. I believe that in his mind he made an example out of the victim and sent a message to the world. I would imagine that he is at least a little bit afraid of the consequences he is about to face. I do not know how he feels about the victim's family.

I'm afraid that's where the US is headed

Maybe watch a documentary about crackheads and decided if it's worth trying after that

I thought I'd start a thread about authoritarianism and share some resources that were helpful to me. I think it's important to understand, first that this is in fact an authoritarian coup, but also how to spot it and where this is all headed. There are plenty of people, including news anchors, who are not aware of what's happening. I find this baffling. Some people don't think authoritarianism is a problem if the professed policies fit their world view. What they don't understand is that authoritarians do not care about citizens at all and that they will be betrayed. If I can, I'd like to raise some awareness. I will share some resources that I think people should know about. Feel free to post others, I'm curious what you all come up with. https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny https://jason-stanley.com/book/how-fascism-works/ https://protectdemocracy.org/work/the-authoritarian-playbook/ https://trumptyrannytracker.substack.com/

One example of testing the waters would be ICE. They are deploying violent servants to do their dirty work. That is already accepted to a degree. Then, they deployed the national guard and border patrol. So here they are pushing boundaries a little more. Now he's talking about training the military in democratic cities. Again, a little more. If successful, men in uniform on the streets will be normalized. That's when the game is over.

What I described is straight out of the proverbial authoritarian playbook. You may want to check out books "On Tyranny" and "How Fascism Works." They cite Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Putin. Anyways, the books are a good place to start. Definitely a "must reads" for American citizens right now. What is happening is rather predictable because each move is copied from other regimes

@Ulax What I should add is that authoritarians don't stop at non-citizens. They start with visitors and immigrants to normalize discrimination, hatred, privacy violations, and violence. Once that's accepted they target dissenting citizens. The early phase is just to see what citizens and the legal system will tolerate. They keep pushing boundaries until they have full control.

I wouldn't frame it as something you choose. Values are revealed through life experience. They fit like a glove. Based on what you wrote, it's clear that yours were in fact revealed through experience so you are on target. Also, values change and become more clear over time so don't fret over accuracy right away. But, what is clear in your writing is that you value growth, health, integration. Values simply dictate how you spend your time and make choices. If it helps, I value kindness, truth, growth, creativity, wisdom, solitude, connection, and freedom. Something like that.

I think it has been the modern day cigarette for sometime. Imagine giving every single person a device that dispensed cigarettes all day long. That's what social media is today and everyone is hooked.

What do you have against hotdogs and hamburgers?

I'm literally listening to a podcast right now about how Russia's endgame is Europe:

It's not a bad idea until they discover your involvement with a non-christian, left leaning politics forum that discusses illegal drugs

We live in a surveillance state. It's already here, but will become even more prevalent as AI progresses.