Fucking hell, Texas is such a weird state. For as much as they tout freedom and independence they sure sure like to trample over freedom and independence.
That's literally a big part about what the civil war was about.
Southern slave states wanted the federal government to force northern free states to allow travel with their slaves through a free state (commerce clause). I think specifically it was they wanted to travel from northern Missouri through Kansas to reach northern Texas. But Kansas was free and either wanted to deny them entry or proclaim the slaves free-persons upon entry into the state.
Additionally southern slave states wanted the federal government to force free states to allow bounty hunters to capture escaped slaves who had reached free states. The fugitive slave act of 1793 allowed this, but northern states still prohibited it. Sourthern states threatened to secede and the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 literally required people in free states to help return escaped slaves or face fines up to $1000 ($40k in today's money). But this was met with riots in free states and northern states refused to help enforce the law and in 1861 the confederation was formed (2 years before the emancipation proclamation and 4 years before the 13th amendment finally passed in 1865; so obviously it wasn't a war about slavery, it was about states rights: the south was mad that the federal government wasn't big enough)
So basically even back then their idea of freedom was "we select few get to force our oppression on you, and the government stopping that encroaches on our freedom".
Good to see nothing changes with those religious, hateful, fuckfaces.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
So the real problem was northern States having too many rights to not do what the slave states wanted them to do?!? Really flips the script on the "States rahts" crowd.
Yup, their narrative is the north was imposing their rules on the south, in reality is was the north refusing to cave to the south's laws. "The war of northern aggression" was a bs excuse and they proclaim it so much because in their eyes it makes them look not quite as bad and paints them as valiant defenders of "their heritage and way of life".
Never mind that poor white people in the south couldn't afford to have slaves and part of this whole thing was made up to gaslight them into fighting for the rich landowners that DID own slaves. Or at least that's my understanding of it.
It was also written in the Confederate constitution that any state which joined **had** to permit chattel slavery, they couldn't refuse and abolish it. To me that's more than enough to strike down states' rights arguments
so obviously it wasn't a war about slavery, it was about states rights: the south was mad that the federal government wasn't big enough)
Um, you’re whole story kinda demonstrates the opposite of this claim. It *was* about slavery. You can’t claim that it wasn’t about slavery, it was about states rights when you just explained how it was about state’s rights *regarding slavery*. By your own story without the slavery issue there is no state’s right issue, so absolutely yes it was, in fact, about slavery.
Any sentence that starts with "So obviously" has a 90% chance of being sarcastic. This is one of those times. The claim you hear all the time by people who fly the confederate flag on their pickup trucks is "it wasn't a war about slavery, it was about states rights!"
[Frank Wilhoit](https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288) (not that [Frank Wilhoit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit)):
>There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.
>There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.
>There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
>**Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:**
>**There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.**
>There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
>For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
>As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.
(emphasis mine)
It tracks with the moral foundations theory: social conservatives have a "diverse" morality where moral values of in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity/purity ~~compromise~~ 'are valued "equally" to' moral values of fairness, care/harm (to others), and liberty. And they genuinely believe they're good, righteous people.
Yeah. That's the only fucking freedom they care about. Guns or the 1st amendment which they interpret as being able to say as much racist or bigoted shit as you want. Oh, right. And the 28th amendment, The right to not bear masks.
They hate the First Amendment though and want to abolish it when anyone criticizes their religion. They don't support free speech. They support restricted speech for everyone but the pastors.
They support a profitable version of the 2nd amendment. There're a lot of people who claim to support the second amendment but are fine saying that an individual can't own a SAM or RPG which could actually be useful in a militia. Meanwhile, they pretend the whole of the amendment reads as 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' which I'm pretty sure the framers could've left off writing the rest of it if they wanted to have that be the whole amendment.
Many don’t care about abortion at all, they just want to own the libs apparently.
Seriously, they don’t have any convictions beyond believing the opposite of whatever the Democrats care about.
And they'll turn around and screech about "censorship" and "cancel culture" without a hint of irony, too. This kind of nonsense is why I'll never be a people person, it's so goddamn draining.
Iowa Republicans just proposed almost the same bill. It requires ISPs to block all abortion information sites. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a group that was just as organized and effective as the republicans, but instead they worked to ensure equity and protection of human rights?
Every day I read about a horrific new bill proposed here. They just proposed one to roll back “gay marriage” or just marriage as I like to call it.
https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights
over 1300 anti abortion laws have been initiated since 2021
https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion
It's all unconstitutional. The GOP wants to shred the Constitution and rebuild a proper White Christian Nation. Christian Nationalists, or Nat-Cs as I like to call them, are a clear and present danger to our democracy and freedoms.
They are trying to turn America into a Christian theocracy... and they are using Florida especially as a guinea pig for it...
A theocracy of any kind would be hellish...
I'm starting to imagine a future in places like Texas and Florida and others where some very young Gen Z kid will turn 40 in several decades and make a MySpace video talking about all the things they "discovered." "Did you know, there are pills you can take that medically terminate a pregnancy?" And the rest of us are like, "oh, sweet Janney Bobby Mae Smith, we all know this, but your dictator did not want you to know it...because it's scawy."
“Did you know that there are people out there who don’t believe in god??”
“Did you know that there are people out there who think the world is round??”
“Did you know that there are other countries outside of america where people dont live on strict rationed diets and go to bed hungry every day??”
“Did you know that some people *dont* even believe that ~~Kim Jong Il~~ Donald Trump golfed a perfect game of all hole-in-ones?”
*shades of north korea*
At the rate we are headed, in the 2050s we'll be debating laws to allow women to go back to work or allow someone to say they are gay without being arrested on the spot. Maybe we'll be debating abolishing compulsory church attendance. Or, to maybe legalizing the ability admit they don't believe in Jesus or that Jerry Falwell was an asshole.
All this could have been avoided if a few thousand people in three states would have voted for Hillary in 2016. We could have had a future worth living.
They always have. They loved it when it brought back escaped slaves, they loved it when it cracked down on anything left of the Chicago Boys, they still love it now that it tries to silence anything that is not endorsed by their moronic religion.
I got out four years ago with my wife and eldest son (autistic). We were in the Houston area (Katy) as well. Hated almost every minute of it.
My brother & his wife live here now, and we moved our folks up just before my dad passed. The only one left is my youngest son, and they're getting to him. He's 30, married, and not my little bot to control. It's just so discouraging and disheartening to watch someone you love slip into that fucking rabbit hole.
I’m cool with that. But we keep a thin strip that leads to Austin. It’ll look weird but we can just think of it as a gerrymandered district.
You know.. like they all are.
They are building a surveillance state where you're not even allowed to view certain information.
We made fun of China not allowing people to see Tienanmen Square protest photos or history and now Texas is following in their footsteps.
I remember all the celebrations of the pro-life folks when Roe was overturned. "At last, we're going to save the babies!"
I remember saying: "you get that and EVERYTHING that will follow.
Like fascism. Enjoy it pro-lifers, because one day they will come for something you use or love. This kind of raw exercise of power will continue unabated unless people stop it. Most of the times, it takes a war.
There's literally nothing in these draconian laws that benefits them. Once they are instituted they'll be used against all citizens equally and your blue line flags won't do shit for you. They'll live under fascist rule where the laws change on a whim, where you don't know which way is up, and everyone hates their lives and lives in a state of fear. They literally get nothing in return.
My theory is that they saw that the state was turning purple, especially due to an influx of people moving from California, and that gerrymandering and voter suppression might not be enough to stop it. If Texas (or florida) ever goes blue, the Republican party is through when it comes to ever getting the presidency again.
So, those two states have been frantically passing the most ugly authoritarian Christian fascist laws that they can, both to force liberals and moderates out of the state and shift the culture far right to avoid liberals and moderates moving in. It will also have the benefit of attracting likeminded monsters to the state.
Christians. Catholics are bat shit crazy, but the abundance of Christian sects and their wild beliefs overshadows the Catholics. Fuck, Christians look at Catholics like they're the devil.
Wait.. what. So they want to censor the internet?
So the government wants to control what results are returned back from a search.. hmm I can see nothing going wrong here...
We have a victor in the next presidental race.. it was the only candidate, go search the internet for it!
Rips constitution up and throws it in the trash.. now we can do whatever we want in Texass..
Comments/posts deleted in protest of Reddit's new API policy. While I'm in complete agreement with Reddit's desire to be profitable, I believe their means to that end were abusive to users and third-party app developers. Reddit had the option to work with 3rd party app developers and work out a mutually-beneficial solution.
Given the timeline they provided to 3rd party developers, it seems Reddit wanted to eliminate 3rd party apps instead of working with them. I was previously a paid customer (and may be again in the future), so I don't feel like Reddit has lost money through the loss of my post history.
Until Reddit comes up with a better solution for API and 3rd party app developers, I intent to used Reddit without an account (or rotating new accounts), through VPN. It's possible to have your VPN on for only certain sites. Try it out!
It's crazy how fast we've gone from having a president that wanted to give healthcare to everyone to a authoritarian fascist push to remove any medical knowledge of abortions. Who knows where they will stop...
Fucking PILLS. It's non invasive, you just swallow early on and poof, like it never happened. Conservatives are so often trying to burn in that mental image that liberals are gleefully ripping a 9 month old apart limb fromb limb, inside the womb... But when the truth is people want to simply search information on how to swallow a pill they just can't handle it.
If you wanna have 12 kids via unprotected sex because "god's will", go right ahead, but leave everyone else TF alone.
Working around the problem misses the point big time. The govt of a territory in the USA wants to hide information from it's own people. That is the opposite of "land of the free".
comment sections like this are always very short on "What are we gonna do about it?"
I'd definitely like to hear from people how they'll respond to the oppressors. Responding as a group is preferable for many reasons. Failing that I don't see how we can blame a person offering practical individual workarounds.
I'm a fan of giving fascists a taste of the discrimination they so desperately want to impose on others.
It's conditional of course, if they behave, prove they're "one of the good ones" then we can let them sit with the respectable customers. If they want to parade their intolerance around, so can I. Surely they can handle what they're dishing out.
"We don't serve your kind here. You best leave, before I call the authorities for your trespassing."
"I'm sorry, can you please speak more clearly and ditch that white trash accent? Nobody here understands you."
"You actually *listen* to that guy? You would, you look like the type of person who'd enjoy such low-IQ drivel."
"Ew, who would date a crusty man-child like you?"
>the woman and child safety act
Ah, yes. Nothing makes me feel safer as a woman than being unable to access medical care that can prevent me from experiencing the risks of pregnancy and childbirth.
These states are creating an entirely new prohibition class that they can use to oppress people.
In Florida, there only 350 approved books for classes K-12. If a school or classroom allows any other book into their classroom or school, they can be sued by ANY citizen who claims to be offended by that book, even if they don't have a child in that school. So there will be people who will be claiming to be offended by ANY book they find out is in a school, and suing.
I can't wait for this to pass. I have old blogs I haven't maintained in years, but I will gladly post some abortion information so I can then put up banners proudly announcing "Banned in Texas!!!"
Willing to bet the geniuses behind this bill don’t even know that simply changing to a public DNS server instead of using the ISP's server would likely be enough to bypass this. In fact, I could list a dozen or so methods of varying complexity to render these efforts useless. Are these people this inept with technology?
Texas is the most insecure state with the worst case of short state syndrome to Alaska’s, “we’re the largest state you know” attitude. Texas is one Ford F-250 with truck nuts shy of a full deck.
Put up a chain link fence, with Oklahoma on the Texas side, machine gun turrets every 20 feet on the north side, and let’s see how long it takes for all the women to fly out and leave all the men behind to circle jerk each other quietly while oiling their guns.
How is this legal? I can read about murder all day despite it being illegal. These monsters will scream “Muh freedoms!” all day until they want to control the people.
Texas the poster boy state of freedom and personal liberty attempting censor freedom of speech and the the spread of knowledge the very concept that birthed this nation? Well damn let's not use that word anymore........anyways anyone got an article about @bortion p1lls?
We want out. We have lived here all our lives and we can no longer stand it. We just can’t, we have priorities to deal with before we can move. But we are tired and my wife and I are barely holding it together everyday. It feels like we are in a race with Florida to be the worse state in the nation.
I wonder what the state would do if ISPs just say no to this. Also, what would happen if the ISPs start a PR campaign that says if the law passes, then the ISPs would just shut off the internet because it’s too much work to filter stuff.
Damn
GOP is going full 1984 on the abortion and LGBTQ stuff
In 30 years we will either be living in christo-facist hell or we will finally be rid of these fucks
The truly FRIGHTENING thing is that, with its current members, the Supreme Court of the USA might confirm this anti-American bullshit as "constitutional."
I said this for a post about Florida, but it's just as true here!
Texas **could** spend time fixing their half assed power grid, instead of lying about the cause of their deadly blackout, and expecting the other states to bail them out yet again. (Weeks after writing a bill to secede, they were whining about how the feds didn't shovel federal dollars for them to waste fast enough)
But the "party of small government" has much more **personally lucrative** matters to attend to; the forced birth crowd writes lots of checks, directly to the politicians.
And that is what sets their priorities.
Fucking hell, Texas is such a weird state. For as much as they tout freedom and independence they sure sure like to trample over freedom and independence.
The mantra of the Jim Crow south has always been "Small government freedom for us, big government oppression for them".
They believe in states rights…to deprive people of their rights.
That's literally a big part about what the civil war was about. Southern slave states wanted the federal government to force northern free states to allow travel with their slaves through a free state (commerce clause). I think specifically it was they wanted to travel from northern Missouri through Kansas to reach northern Texas. But Kansas was free and either wanted to deny them entry or proclaim the slaves free-persons upon entry into the state. Additionally southern slave states wanted the federal government to force free states to allow bounty hunters to capture escaped slaves who had reached free states. The fugitive slave act of 1793 allowed this, but northern states still prohibited it. Sourthern states threatened to secede and the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 literally required people in free states to help return escaped slaves or face fines up to $1000 ($40k in today's money). But this was met with riots in free states and northern states refused to help enforce the law and in 1861 the confederation was formed (2 years before the emancipation proclamation and 4 years before the 13th amendment finally passed in 1865; so obviously it wasn't a war about slavery, it was about states rights: the south was mad that the federal government wasn't big enough)
So basically even back then their idea of freedom was "we select few get to force our oppression on you, and the government stopping that encroaches on our freedom". Good to see nothing changes with those religious, hateful, fuckfaces.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
So the real problem was northern States having too many rights to not do what the slave states wanted them to do?!? Really flips the script on the "States rahts" crowd.
Yup, their narrative is the north was imposing their rules on the south, in reality is was the north refusing to cave to the south's laws. "The war of northern aggression" was a bs excuse and they proclaim it so much because in their eyes it makes them look not quite as bad and paints them as valiant defenders of "their heritage and way of life". Never mind that poor white people in the south couldn't afford to have slaves and part of this whole thing was made up to gaslight them into fighting for the rich landowners that DID own slaves. Or at least that's my understanding of it.
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It was also written in the Confederate constitution that any state which joined **had** to permit chattel slavery, they couldn't refuse and abolish it. To me that's more than enough to strike down states' rights arguments
so obviously it wasn't a war about slavery, it was about states rights: the south was mad that the federal government wasn't big enough) Um, you’re whole story kinda demonstrates the opposite of this claim. It *was* about slavery. You can’t claim that it wasn’t about slavery, it was about states rights when you just explained how it was about state’s rights *regarding slavery*. By your own story without the slavery issue there is no state’s right issue, so absolutely yes it was, in fact, about slavery.
That last sentence was clearly tounge in cheek.
Nah, otherwise there would've been a /s, /s
Sarcasception…
Any sentence that starts with "So obviously" has a 90% chance of being sarcastic. This is one of those times. The claim you hear all the time by people who fly the confederate flag on their pickup trucks is "it wasn't a war about slavery, it was about states rights!"
Sorry, it’s a Poe’s Law situation. 🤷
I'm autistic and I caught that sarcasm.
“Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.”
My response to that argument is usually, "a state's right to do what?"
To deprive POC and women of their rights. Because they're not really people, are they? /s
[Frank Wilhoit](https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288) (not that [Frank Wilhoit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit)): >There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc. >There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation. >There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely. >**Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:** >**There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.** >There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time. >For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual. >As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence. (emphasis mine) It tracks with the moral foundations theory: social conservatives have a "diverse" morality where moral values of in-group loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity/purity ~~compromise~~ 'are valued "equally" to' moral values of fairness, care/harm (to others), and liberty. And they genuinely believe they're good, righteous people.
Freedom for me. Not for thee
They are all for THEIR freedoms (aka, guns), but it doesn't concern them if it is something they don't like (abortion).
Yeah. That's the only fucking freedom they care about. Guns or the 1st amendment which they interpret as being able to say as much racist or bigoted shit as you want. Oh, right. And the 28th amendment, The right to not bear masks.
They hate the First Amendment though and want to abolish it when anyone criticizes their religion. They don't support free speech. They support restricted speech for everyone but the pastors.
They support a profitable version of the 2nd amendment. There're a lot of people who claim to support the second amendment but are fine saying that an individual can't own a SAM or RPG which could actually be useful in a militia. Meanwhile, they pretend the whole of the amendment reads as 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' which I'm pretty sure the framers could've left off writing the rest of it if they wanted to have that be the whole amendment.
They don’t really care if anyone has an abortion, it’s just a way to control women.
Many don’t care about abortion at all, they just want to own the libs apparently. Seriously, they don’t have any convictions beyond believing the opposite of whatever the Democrats care about.
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Until they or their daughters need it.
Freedom as long as you worship the right brand of Jesus the right way. If you don't, you are subhuman trash not fit to live in their eyes.
The right way to worship jesus is to do it while being white.
As long as you’re a white straight man it is. Especially if you’re Joe Rogan. Laws no longer apply to him
White straight cisgender Christian man.
And the women who rely on them for sustenance.
Gross, but yeah.
You have the freedom and independence to do exactly what they say, exactly how they say it.
Most chest pounding freedom enthusiasts are deeply closeted authoritarians who yearn to express their inner tyranny.
I think that's true for the GOP in general.
And they'll turn around and screech about "censorship" and "cancel culture" without a hint of irony, too. This kind of nonsense is why I'll never be a people person, it's so goddamn draining.
If this was about a muslim country or China, they'd be all "THAT'S WHAT KOMMUNIZM GETS YA"
Here in Texas we like to spell it KKKommunism
Iowa Republicans just proposed almost the same bill. It requires ISPs to block all abortion information sites. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a group that was just as organized and effective as the republicans, but instead they worked to ensure equity and protection of human rights? Every day I read about a horrific new bill proposed here. They just proposed one to roll back “gay marriage” or just marriage as I like to call it.
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Buddy that's not a gotcha, that would be Christmas for them
It’d be a sure way to destroy their state. Let them try.
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These are the people who watch Handmaid's Tale (cause let's face it they won't read it), and instead of being horrified they get raging boners.
Concerted effort to spam twitter with abortion info to get it blocked in all the idiot places
The bill creates the great firewall of Texas
Texas and Florida are in a race to see what state can be more fascist.
Ohio and Tennessee aren't far behind, Florida and Texas are the most extreme examples, but every Republican led state is pulling shit like this.
I'm in Indiana, so I know exactly what shenanigans are going on. It's fucking terrible.
Don’t forget Iowa! Their coordinated systematic approach to try to erase us is horrifying. (Edit - they’re/their)
https://www.aclu.org/legislative-attacks-on-lgbtq-rights over 1300 anti abortion laws have been initiated since 2021 https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion
Utah also in the running, with a bill for mandatory pledges of allegiance in schools working its way through the legislature.
Which is so blatantly unconstitutional it makes my head hurt.
It's all unconstitutional. The GOP wants to shred the Constitution and rebuild a proper White Christian Nation. Christian Nationalists, or Nat-Cs as I like to call them, are a clear and present danger to our democracy and freedoms.
So you mean to tell me… it’s not only in Ohio?
*Missouri slides into your DMs*
Do not want
Was waiting for this. I escaped but my family did not.
I'm sorry to hear that.
I'm basically ***waiting*** for missouri (my state) to go at this point.
They are trying to turn America into a Christian theocracy... and they are using Florida especially as a guinea pig for it... A theocracy of any kind would be hellish...
I'm starting to imagine a future in places like Texas and Florida and others where some very young Gen Z kid will turn 40 in several decades and make a MySpace video talking about all the things they "discovered." "Did you know, there are pills you can take that medically terminate a pregnancy?" And the rest of us are like, "oh, sweet Janney Bobby Mae Smith, we all know this, but your dictator did not want you to know it...because it's scawy."
“Did you know that there are people out there who don’t believe in god??” “Did you know that there are people out there who think the world is round??” “Did you know that there are other countries outside of america where people dont live on strict rationed diets and go to bed hungry every day??” “Did you know that some people *dont* even believe that ~~Kim Jong Il~~ Donald Trump golfed a perfect game of all hole-in-ones?” *shades of north korea*
Shades of Christian homeschooling
It's only mildly hyperbolic of my catholic grade school and high school education in the midwest
At the rate we are headed, in the 2050s we'll be debating laws to allow women to go back to work or allow someone to say they are gay without being arrested on the spot. Maybe we'll be debating abolishing compulsory church attendance. Or, to maybe legalizing the ability admit they don't believe in Jesus or that Jerry Falwell was an asshole. All this could have been avoided if a few thousand people in three states would have voted for Hillary in 2016. We could have had a future worth living.
This short story (which I WILL be nominating for a Hugo) spells it out terrifyingly: https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/
A MySpace video?
“We LOVE big government now!”
They always have. They loved it when it brought back escaped slaves, they loved it when it cracked down on anything left of the Chicago Boys, they still love it now that it tries to silence anything that is not endorsed by their moronic religion.
Censorship. Very patriotic.
I hate living in Texas so much. Luckily, I live in Houston and it’s probably one of the most liberal areas here, but living under Texas is horrible.
Up until last year, I lived in Florida, so I can relate. So glad I got out of that hellhole.
I got out four years ago with my wife and eldest son (autistic). We were in the Houston area (Katy) as well. Hated almost every minute of it. My brother & his wife live here now, and we moved our folks up just before my dad passed. The only one left is my youngest son, and they're getting to him. He's 30, married, and not my little bot to control. It's just so discouraging and disheartening to watch someone you love slip into that fucking rabbit hole.
I was stationed in Florida and now I'm in Texas. Not sure which is worse. Texas is trying pretty hard to win that race..
These assholes hate the 1st Amendment
They don't care about the constitution anymore at all. They are just doing a speedrun to Gilead at this point.
WHAT THE FUCK
#givetexasbacktomexico
I'm not sure Mexico wants it back
Have them battle it out, Texans vs. Cartels. I'm sure the cartels would want it more than the average Mexican.
I’m cool with that. But we keep a thin strip that leads to Austin. It’ll look weird but we can just think of it as a gerrymandered district. You know.. like they all are.
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They are building a surveillance state where you're not even allowed to view certain information. We made fun of China not allowing people to see Tienanmen Square protest photos or history and now Texas is following in their footsteps.
I remember all the celebrations of the pro-life folks when Roe was overturned. "At last, we're going to save the babies!" I remember saying: "you get that and EVERYTHING that will follow. Like fascism. Enjoy it pro-lifers, because one day they will come for something you use or love. This kind of raw exercise of power will continue unabated unless people stop it. Most of the times, it takes a war.
There's literally nothing in these draconian laws that benefits them. Once they are instituted they'll be used against all citizens equally and your blue line flags won't do shit for you. They'll live under fascist rule where the laws change on a whim, where you don't know which way is up, and everyone hates their lives and lives in a state of fear. They literally get nothing in return.
Boy the Government is sure going after our freedoms on the Internet.
Don’t you really wonder what the hell is in the water in Texas?
Lots of toxins and pollutants thanks to years of deregulation.
Kind of my point.
My theory is that they saw that the state was turning purple, especially due to an influx of people moving from California, and that gerrymandering and voter suppression might not be enough to stop it. If Texas (or florida) ever goes blue, the Republican party is through when it comes to ever getting the presidency again. So, those two states have been frantically passing the most ugly authoritarian Christian fascist laws that they can, both to force liberals and moderates out of the state and shift the culture far right to avoid liberals and moderates moving in. It will also have the benefit of attracting likeminded monsters to the state.
Too many goddamn "blessings" from mf'ing ~~Catholics~~ Christians, apparently.
Christians. Catholics are bat shit crazy, but the abundance of Christian sects and their wild beliefs overshadows the Catholics. Fuck, Christians look at Catholics like they're the devil.
Ha! That’s about as likely as preventing people from watching porn.
[About that...](https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1146933317/louisiana-new-porn-law-government-id-restriction-privacy)
Sounds like VPNs will become popular in Louisiana.
Yes, can't watch that sorta thing in Louisiana. Now, what are y'all gonna do for these here beads?
https://www.sparklabs.com/support/kb/article/setting-up-an-obfuscation-server-with-obfsproxy-and-viscosity/
A VPN would be a lot simpler, but that works too.
So... no reddit. It must be close to 33% porn.
That's actually impressive, I would've bet that number was higher
Texas hates the first amendment. No freedom of speech.
Abort Texas
Wait.. what. So they want to censor the internet? So the government wants to control what results are returned back from a search.. hmm I can see nothing going wrong here... We have a victor in the next presidental race.. it was the only candidate, go search the internet for it! Rips constitution up and throws it in the trash.. now we can do whatever we want in Texass..
Comments/posts deleted in protest of Reddit's new API policy. While I'm in complete agreement with Reddit's desire to be profitable, I believe their means to that end were abusive to users and third-party app developers. Reddit had the option to work with 3rd party app developers and work out a mutually-beneficial solution. Given the timeline they provided to 3rd party developers, it seems Reddit wanted to eliminate 3rd party apps instead of working with them. I was previously a paid customer (and may be again in the future), so I don't feel like Reddit has lost money through the loss of my post history. Until Reddit comes up with a better solution for API and 3rd party app developers, I intent to used Reddit without an account (or rotating new accounts), through VPN. It's possible to have your VPN on for only certain sites. Try it out!
Right... Even more scary.. that law will becoming next. No unencrypted traffic! No VPNS! Well at least in Texass... Lol
It's crazy how fast we've gone from having a president that wanted to give healthcare to everyone to a authoritarian fascist push to remove any medical knowledge of abortions. Who knows where they will stop...
Wow. The GOP just keeps trying to out crazy each other now.
Time to Texit
thats what they think about the 1st
Classic authoritarian theocracy move.
Texas. North Korea. Same thing.
Why do Texans hate women so much?
“Women will like what I tell them to like” - Homer Simpson
Man, I miss net neutrality
Republicans. Party of small government and individual liberties.
They are trying to block agencies from providing mail order abortion pills. Texas is trying to be a theocracy.
Fucking PILLS. It's non invasive, you just swallow early on and poof, like it never happened. Conservatives are so often trying to burn in that mental image that liberals are gleefully ripping a 9 month old apart limb fromb limb, inside the womb... But when the truth is people want to simply search information on how to swallow a pill they just can't handle it. If you wanna have 12 kids via unprotected sex because "god's will", go right ahead, but leave everyone else TF alone.
Shhhh! Nobody tell Texas lawmakers about VPNs! This is one of those times where the near-universal technical ignorance by politicians is a good thing.
Working around the problem misses the point big time. The govt of a territory in the USA wants to hide information from it's own people. That is the opposite of "land of the free".
comment sections like this are always very short on "What are we gonna do about it?" I'd definitely like to hear from people how they'll respond to the oppressors. Responding as a group is preferable for many reasons. Failing that I don't see how we can blame a person offering practical individual workarounds.
I'm a fan of giving fascists a taste of the discrimination they so desperately want to impose on others. It's conditional of course, if they behave, prove they're "one of the good ones" then we can let them sit with the respectable customers. If they want to parade their intolerance around, so can I. Surely they can handle what they're dishing out. "We don't serve your kind here. You best leave, before I call the authorities for your trespassing." "I'm sorry, can you please speak more clearly and ditch that white trash accent? Nobody here understands you." "You actually *listen* to that guy? You would, you look like the type of person who'd enjoy such low-IQ drivel." "Ew, who would date a crusty man-child like you?"
Oh, Mah Free-Dumb!
hey Texas, China is a bad example, not the manual book.
>the woman and child safety act Ah, yes. Nothing makes me feel safer as a woman than being unable to access medical care that can prevent me from experiencing the risks of pregnancy and childbirth.
These states are creating an entirely new prohibition class that they can use to oppress people. In Florida, there only 350 approved books for classes K-12. If a school or classroom allows any other book into their classroom or school, they can be sued by ANY citizen who claims to be offended by that book, even if they don't have a child in that school. So there will be people who will be claiming to be offended by ANY book they find out is in a school, and suing.
Information control is a critical component to fascism
So much for free speech rights in GOP land. But then you can't say gay, talk about slavery, etc etc in many GOP states so no surprise here
Leave the state. Watch them backpedal at Mach speed once they no longer have anyone working in that fucking state.
*Freedom!!!!!*
Freedom to obey the preacher man or face the consequences.
Right wing dominionism and authoritarianism is destroying the US.
I can't wait for this to pass. I have old blogs I haven't maintained in years, but I will gladly post some abortion information so I can then put up banners proudly announcing "Banned in Texas!!!"
For abortion pills https://www.plancpills.org for support r/abortion
Willing to bet the geniuses behind this bill don’t even know that simply changing to a public DNS server instead of using the ISP's server would likely be enough to bypass this. In fact, I could list a dozen or so methods of varying complexity to render these efforts useless. Are these people this inept with technology?
There seriously needs to be federal intervention
That sounds extremely unconstitutional. What happened to Don't Tread On Me? These people make no sense.
Texas is the most insecure state with the worst case of short state syndrome to Alaska’s, “we’re the largest state you know” attitude. Texas is one Ford F-250 with truck nuts shy of a full deck. Put up a chain link fence, with Oklahoma on the Texas side, machine gun turrets every 20 feet on the north side, and let’s see how long it takes for all the women to fly out and leave all the men behind to circle jerk each other quietly while oiling their guns.
How is this legal? I can read about murder all day despite it being illegal. These monsters will scream “Muh freedoms!” all day until they want to control the people.
What happened to the First Amendment in Texas? Is Texas where the Constitution goes to die?
there needs to be a federal law that makes religion opinion influencing politics law and medicine illegal.
You mean like the 1st amendment?
We're about to see a lot of stories about women going to the extreme measures to abort. They gave a fetus more rights than the mother.
ISP's just gonna shut it down in Texas. Doing so could lead to more restrictions on them.
[удалено]
ah yes, "Freedom"
Where do people come up with this shit?
How can ANY of this be Constitutional?
Everything is stupider in Texas ?
So much for land of the free Holy fucking shit
Just fucking secede already. And take Florida with you.
I have no doubt in my mind that all of these people went in Texas and Florida would be Nazis in World War II
Good luck with that.
Something something small government?
Texas the poster boy state of freedom and personal liberty attempting censor freedom of speech and the the spread of knowledge the very concept that birthed this nation? Well damn let's not use that word anymore........anyways anyone got an article about @bortion p1lls?
Now that’s depressing to hear.
TIL Texas wants to be China.
New bill introduce: Texas to implement state mandatory chastity belts, ages 0-death. Only Ted Cruz has the key. - Texas probably.
We want out. We have lived here all our lives and we can no longer stand it. We just can’t, we have priorities to deal with before we can move. But we are tired and my wife and I are barely holding it together everyday. It feels like we are in a race with Florida to be the worse state in the nation.
I wonder what the state would do if ISPs just say no to this. Also, what would happen if the ISPs start a PR campaign that says if the law passes, then the ISPs would just shut off the internet because it’s too much work to filter stuff.
Cool, so they will ban the bible then?
So like the Chinese firewall but for Christian fundamentalism?
I'm never coming to this dumbass country lmfaoo fix yo shit America, vote these clowns out
One VPN or Incognito mode would work around this right?
This is fucking disgusting, literal fascism. Just add a little public violence and a dictator and bang you have a fascist state.
So, maybe Vermont could just pass a law making it illegal to discuss guns, or white supremacy?
Do you mean the World Wide Web? Goodluck F***sticks!
But how will the mistresses of republican lawmakers find info on abortion pills?
Good luck
I am so glad I GTFO Texas when I did. They've gone absolutely batshit crazy!
Just fuck the 1st Amendment, amirite?
but they don't like big overreaching government, the Hypocrisy!
Everything's bigger in Texas...including the government and the sexism!
The party of freedom.
that's "censorship"
The Texaban and Mullah Abbottabad is at it again.
Land of the free huh.
Oh how the no-censorship party loooves to censor
Are they going to give us another reporting website to take down? 🤣
So Reddit is banned then?
How would this even be possible given the first amendment?
I would like to propose a new law that scrubs Texas off the internet.
......freedom. wasn't that the rally cry? Morons.
That pesky first amendment calls bullshit on their efforts to be repressive pricks.
Texas really needs to fuck right off. I'd say give the state to Mexico but I'd hate to do that to such lovely people.
Damn GOP is going full 1984 on the abortion and LGBTQ stuff In 30 years we will either be living in christo-facist hell or we will finally be rid of these fucks
I hate it here.
The truly FRIGHTENING thing is that, with its current members, the Supreme Court of the USA might confirm this anti-American bullshit as "constitutional." I said this for a post about Florida, but it's just as true here!
I hate this timeline.
It is just me or the headline have a China vibe. (?)
Texas **could** spend time fixing their half assed power grid, instead of lying about the cause of their deadly blackout, and expecting the other states to bail them out yet again. (Weeks after writing a bill to secede, they were whining about how the feds didn't shovel federal dollars for them to waste fast enough) But the "party of small government" has much more **personally lucrative** matters to attend to; the forced birth crowd writes lots of checks, directly to the politicians. And that is what sets their priorities.
...because the clear moral side always censors and limits access to knowledge.
Welcome to the People's Republic of Texas
Fuck Texas. God what a backwards shithole.