SecondJon @SecondJon@qoto.org

Reading my first Charles Williams. The Place of the Lion. Great read so far. I will look for more Williams.

@rbreich after seeing your posts on big bad billionaires, it's very strange to read from MSN today that more billionaires donated to Harris than to Trump.

Why are they rallying beyond her?

Be warned.

@rbreich with the national debt what it is, do they need to use something new to try to justify spending cuts? Can't the just use the national debt that all administrations have been making worse?

It's not like we're operating on surpluses here waiting for some republican to come and do something financially irresponsible. Both parties drive our national debt.

I'm not a scholar on the topic. But I'm glad we don't all vote for things just so they negatively affect People Who Aren't Me.

When question of whether something is a good or bad, right or wrong idea, it's good or bad regardless of whether I'm personally affected.

Even if it doesn't affect others to pull money out of the economy to pay a tax on profit never realized (which I don't think can be right, as two have to pull the money out of the economy somewhere), is it a good, moral, constitutional idea? Is it a reasonable economic idea? If the goal to raise revenue, or punish the rich?

I don't know the answers to all of these, but it seems strange to me to focus on who is affected by an idea rather than whether it's a good idea at all.

From the Daily News, August 16, 1905

Sir,—I must warmly protest against people mistaking the uneasiness of “A Heretic” for a sort of pessimism. If he were a pessimist he would be sitting in an armchair with a cigar. It is only we optimists who can be angry.

One thing, of course, must be said to clear the ground. Political or economic reform will not make us good and happy, but until this odd period nobody ever expected that they would. Now, I know there is a feeling that Government can do anything. But if Government could do anything, nothing would exist except Government. Men have found the need of other forces. Religion, for instance, existed in order to do what law cannot do—to track crime to its primary sin, and the man to his back bedroom. The Church endeavoured to institute a machinery of pardon; the State has only a machinery of punishment. The State can only free society from the criminal; the Church sought to free the criminal from the crime. Abolish religion if you like. Throw everything on secular government if you like. But do not be surprised if a machinery that was never meant to do anything but secure external decency and order fails to secure internal honesty and peace. If you have some philosophic objection to brooms and brushes, throw them away. But do not be surprised if the use of the County Council water-cart is an awkward way of dusting the drawing-room.

@Strandjunker certainly more calls to kill one's least preferred candidate is what America needs. Thank you for your service. 🤦

@Strandjunker yes it's very confusing that they're so supportive of those following the laws to enter the country that they marry them, but they are somehow not okay with people breaking the law to enter the country.

😖😖😖

What could it mean?

So confusing. Obviously means nothing except they're... evil, amiright?

No other possibility presents itself.

@Jagahati I know the feeling. We left fifteen years of diapers as we started twenty years of teenagers.

Phew, #qoto is back.

@redwhitebluedude store closings, eliminating jobs for automation, and layoffs are such an obviously predictable consequence of raising minimum wage, I don't believe anyone who claims these are "unintended consequences".

Can the legislators be so stupid to not see this? No, the layoffs and bankruptcies must be the intended consequences.

Trump is "literally worse than Hitler" per Chompsky and other democrats... and...you're glad he's okay?