• Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Oh good, his number’s coming up. This wicked man is a big reason why the world has fallen to the state it’s in.

      • asclepias@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Term limits empower lobbyists and career staffers and encourage legislators to give less of a shit about their constituents. I know “career politician” is often considered a dirty word, but having competent, knowledgeable elected officials is a good thing.

        • AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          They are already openly corrupt. Term limits would result in younger candidates in touch with this century. Lobbyists would also have to bribe new people. It might also break up the ridiculous 100% party voting.

          Not to mention help with our Supreme Court problems. Randomly giving appointments that last decades to whoever is president in at the time is insane.

          I really don’t think we have that many competent elected officials anyway.

          Yes, eliminating gerrymandering and citizens united would be more effective, but I wouldn’t kick term limits out of bed.

          • torknorggren@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            We have term limits in Florida. They have done nothing to solve any problems, and arguably have made the quality of our officials worse, while giving much more power to lobbyists.

          • asclepias@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            None of that has happened in the states that have term limits. If you think Republicans, no matter how long they have been in office, are going to start putting anyone other than Federalist Society drones on the courts, I’m not sure I can have a good faith argument with you.

          • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            Term limits are as likely as ranked-choice voting, which would also solve a lot of problems but won’t be passed in a significant way in my lifetime

            • AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              They actually just passed ranked choice voting in my city.

              It does seem crazy to have a system where 49% of people preferred the other guy, but he lost so those people now get zero representation.

          • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            Term limits would result in younger candidates in touch with this century.

            Yes cuz that’s worked so well in places that already have them…

          • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Lobbyists would also have to bribe new people.

            No they’d hand pick them, run them on utter lies that they can’t be challenged, then throw them out when the public wises up. You seriously underestimate how far the power dynamic can swing.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          yeah, because the current batch of politicians are sooooo concerned with their constituents.

          On the other hand, lets ignore the fact that the vast majority of senators (and the president, and most presidential canidates,) are so “experienced” that the majority of their experience predates… the internet. Never mind social media or anything resembling the modern world we find our selves in.

            • Crismus@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Yep. Why is 65 not a forced retirement for politicians, when it is used in many less important industries?

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          On the other hand, the current system of “representatives spend one full year campaigning and one full year fundraising for their party, so any legislation they sponsor in their two-year term is already written by lobbyists” isn’t working out so hot either.

          Throw in a law restricting campaigning more than three months before an election and a law limiting campaigns to only spending equally-dispersed public funds, and you might start to see some improvement. Oh, and reverse Citizen’s United and ban Super PACs while you’re at it. And can we all get a free unicorn too?

  • Snekeyes@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Finally hells freezing over.

    Like. He’s hell and got real cold. Not that hells freezing over.

  • martyc3@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Imagine if this happened to Biden… How different the Maggots would have reacted.

    • elscallr@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      They were calling for McConnell’s resignation. They’d be right to do so if this happened to Biden as well.

  • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    NEW CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

    No person shall hold an elected or appointed position past the age of 10 years younger than average life expectancy, to be updated each census year. A special election is held to replace the person when this age is reached in the case of elected office. A new appointment required in 30 days for appointed positions.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      One of the few issues where you can legit say “both parties are as bad as each other”.

      Half these people should be retired.

      • teamevil@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Because it isn’t right vs left, it’s various flavors of have vs the have nots. Just half the have nots (probably more) are stupid as shit, according to the other half. Then we just bicker while they fucking fleece our dumbasses.

        • MelonTheMan@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Keep saying it. Everyone agrees and yet congress doesn’t enact it 🤔 I’m just glad the oligarchs understand the will of the people better than us rabble!

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      11 months ago

      I like this, but I’d drop the special election in favor of disqualifying candidates who would age out during their term.

      • Kerrigor@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Or just make it so the age is a limit for the start of their term, and if they age out, they simply can’t run again.

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Already you can be removed if you are unable to carry out your duties. It is the will to do it that is lacking. I don’t think tying terms to an average life expectancy is reasonable. You could have a pretty wide range across states for instance and people would constantly sue over how it should be calculated.

      I think a better angle would be to just set term limits. Set them longer for congressmen if people want.

    • krolden@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Good idea. Much better than hard age limits as it may actually convince the boomers in charge to improve overall quality of life.

    • Zyansheep@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Disaster happens, child mortality goes up a lot somehow, average life expectancy plummets below 25, no one is eligible for any Senate or House office 👀

    • InternetUser2012@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I generally don’t wish ill will on people. That being said, this asshole isn’t a human in my book. He’s just an evil hate filled pile of shit, and it will be a great day for democracy and America when he does die.

      • LeFantome@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        I am not going to openly condemn anyone. That said, Mitch opens himself up to some interesting ethical questions.

        Is it ok to sacrifice one man to save 300 hundred million?

        How about to reduce the medium / long term risk to billions?

  • holiday@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Everyone saying he’s just old but I’ve reacted the same way as McConnell did multiple times when I realized the shrooms have kicked in.

  • DharmaCurious@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Mitch is gonna be fine, unfortunately. He just needs to consume the soul of another several hundred children to recharge the battery where his heart should be.

    • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Sometimes I worry this is where the Republicans get that adrenochrome conspiracy, is that a projection? There have been studies showing that a transfusion of a young person’s blood into an old person has benefits.

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Here’s a write-up I made 4-years-ago, just to give a refresher on what kind of piece of shit McConnell is:

    Recently, a Harvard Constitutional Law School professor denounced Mitch McConnell as a, “flagrant dickhead,” now, Trump supporters might contend that this Harvard Constitutional Law Professor is a deep-state liberal agent or without any evidence whatsoever (Edit: I’m not far off; observe this right-wing article calling him a, “crazed leftist”…). Nevertheless, the professor is in my view correct.

    ##Let’s review some of Mitch McConnell’s hypocrisy, double-standards, and blatant corruption:

    Mitch McConnell in 2010:

    The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president"

    Claims he wants bipartisanship, immediately slaps down any hope of working with Democrats.

    Refusal to Cooperate with Obama on Russian Cyber-attack findings

    In the run-up to the 2016 election, Mitch McConnell denied aiding and exposing to the public the fact that Russians were committing domestic cyber-attacks and attempting to covertly influence the outcome of the 2016 election for Trump:

    FROM PBS FRONTLINE DOCUMENTARY:

    NARRATOR: Top intelligence officials traveled to Capitol Hill to tell congressional leaders what they knew.

    JEH JOHNSON, Sec. of Homeland Security, 2013-17: They were all there— the speaker, leader Pelosi, leader McConnell, leader Reid, the Foreign Affairs Committees, the Intel Committees. They were all there. And we briefed them on what we knew.

    NARRATOR: Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell expressed skepticism about the intelligence and warned that he would not join an effort to publicly challenge Putin.

    RYAN LIZZA:They’re told by Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the Senate, that, “If you do that, we’re going to interpret that as you putting the thumb on the scales for Hillary Clinton.”

    NARRATOR: The meetings were top secret, held behind closed doors.

    JOHN BRENNAN: In those briefings of Congress, some of the individuals expressed concern that this was motivated by partisan interests on the part of the administration. And I took offense to that and told them that this is an intelligence assessment. This is an intelligence matter.

    GREG MILLER: It’s a moment when politics and partisan positioning appears to take precedence over national security. In other words, they’re so worried about each other, the Democrats and Republicans as adversaries, that they can’t get around the idea that there is a bigger adversary.

    NARRATOR: In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin denied being at the center of the hacking, but he seemed pleased to be the center of attention.

    McConnell’s blocking of Executive Appointments & the Supreme Court Nuclear Options:

    In 2013 The Republicans were blocking every routine (70+) appeals court appointment by Obama. Reid got pissed at the obstructionist games and bypassed the super-majority approval requirement to keep the executive branch moving:

    In 2013, Reid invoked the “nuclear option,” a historic move that changed a long-standing Senate rule, dropping the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster from 60 to a simple majority for executive appointments and most judicial nominations — a decision he justified because of trouble getting through court confirmations in the latter half of the Obama Administration

    … to which McConnell responded:

    At the time, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and many other Republicans warned Reid that he would regret implementing the nuclear option.

    “What goes around comes around. And someday they’re going to be in the minority,” Republican Sen. John Thune warned.

    The key part? Reid specifically excluded Supreme Court appointments from the nuclear option.

    Reality is that McConnell would’ve done that regardless and if he really cared about the Constitution he would’ve taken the high road and not lowered the bar. Reid was just a convenient nonsensical excuse. It falls entirely on McConnell, not only for lowering the Supreme Court nomination bar, but causing the unprecedented obstructionism in the first place. McConnell’s true colors and lack of standard is shown by his recent actions of having one standard for Dems in, “Not letting an outgoing President appoint a lifetime Supreme Court Justice,” to—suddenly—saying “we’d fill a Supreme Court vacancy during a Presidential election year.” Pure. Hypocrisy.

    By the way: The obstructionism was unprecedented in 2013 by Republicans. In 2005, Democrats were blocking only 10 of 214 judicial nominations. In 2013? Republicans were blocking 59 executive branch nominees and 17 judicial nominees. (And again, in 2005, excluding the Supreme Court wasn’t under discussion, either).

    Per Politifact:

    In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was much closer to being correct when he said, “In the history of the United States, 168 presidential nominees have been filibustered, 82 blocked under President Obama, 86 blocked under all the other presidents.” His figure included non-judicial nominees.

    The bottom-line is that McConnell and McConnell alone invoked the Nuclear Option for Supreme Court Appointments, a step Reid did not take and had restraint. Reid could’ve, but he didn’t. If he did, then yes, it would’ve been the Dems’ fault. If the best argument conservative apologists have truly is that “But the Dems did it,” then not only are they invoking a Whataboutism, Tu Quoque (aka, two-wrongs-make-a-right) fallacy, they’re also invoking a false-equivalence since they never touched Supreme Court appointments.

    What makes this all so amusing is that Merrick Garland once had bipartisan support for being appointed to the SCOTUS 6 years prior, but following Scalia’s death in 2016 and being an Obama nomination, McConnell was blocking it (sticking to his outright declared commitment to obstructing Obama from the very beginning of his Presidency when he, again, said):

    The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president

    Those aren’t the words of someone willing to compromise and work together. Let me be very clear: Republicans were to blame for the division, the gridlocking, the obstructionism. Let’s not forget that McConnell also fell in line when the government was twice shutdown by Republicans when they held peoples’ safety & paychecks hostage for political expediency.

    During Obama’s final term in office, McConnell denies appointing Merrick Garland to the SCOTUS (and who by the way had no sexual assault accusations), and who originally had bipartisan support—only because Obama nominated him:

    Senator Orrin Hatch, President pro tempore of the United States Senate and the most senior Republican Senator, predicted that President Obama would “name someone the liberal Democratic base wants” even though he “could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man.”[79][80] Five days later, on March 16, Obama formally nominated Garland to the then vacant post of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.[81][82]

    In an unprecedented move, Senate Republicans (under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) refused to consider Garland’s nomination, holding “no hearings, no votes, no action whatsoever” on the nomination.[

    That outright proves Republicans are the issue at coming to agreement on nominations, not Democrats.

    On enabling the potential obstruction of the Mueller investigation

    Later, after again spouting vacuous words about bipartisanship, denies passing simple “better safe than sorry” legislation to protect the integrity of Robert Mueller’s investigation from the likes of Sessions, Whitaker, and then Barr. (literally no reason not to unless you’re enabling or hoping for obstruction).

  • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Lmao

    The libs bending over backwards to lick his arse in the name of “civility” despite spending every single day of his life working to kill the poor and inflict maximum suffering on the working class in the name of extracting the largest amount of wealth into bougie pockets all deserve the same suffering. The man has killed thousands of people with a pen. Frankly this only happening to him now that he’s 81 is far less than he deserves.

      • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Paying him empathy is a slap in the face to all of his victims.

        You wouldn’t do this shit for anyone else that murders children. I 100% guarantee you that this man has killed hundreds of children in his lifetime.

        The issue you libs have is that you believe that the institutional murder that these fucks perform is magically different to murder that isn’t institutional. It allows you to look the other way when they perform horrors that are unspeakably more evil, and then to performatively pretend you’re on some moral high ground for being nice to someone far far far worse than any person that has directly murdered with their hands. You’re not on moral high ground for it, all it does is highlight the incredible lack of principles that liberals have, that institutions and performing in the ritual acts of the civic religion are more meaningful to you than the actual pain, suffering and death they’ve reaped upon people.

        It’s one of many reasons so many people continue to stop calling themselves liberals and start calling themselves socialists, anarchists, communists, or some other variant of real leftist.

        • Tyfud@lemmy.one
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          11 months ago

          💯 with you here. Fuck McConnell. Some people do deserve to die for all the horrible things they’ve done to their fellow man. He’s one of them. Limbaugh was another.

          Just wish it didn’t take 81 years to happen. He’s lived a long and full life, and that’s a terrible reward for all the hate and evil and death he’s brought into this world.

        • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Spot on man. I used to call myself a democrat and now i hate (yes actually hate) the party with more fiery passion than the Republicans.

          it could be the part they play in this farce, the browbeating to vote for them as if it’s my duty to vote for them as a citizen to fight the Rs regardless of the Ds platform. Then they do fuck all and tell me its not that they don’t want to, i just don’t understand politics to know that they cant.

          I prefer the naked hated of the R party. L, frankly. Its frightening, but less paternal, insulting, and demeaning.

          • MelonTheMan@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I hear you, but I think there is still value in voting D, if only to make the Overton window shift slower.

            If the election is close or contested, Dems can pretend their hands are tied and let Rs enact their facist bs. If Dems own the house, they’ll need to do something or come up with some other bullshit excuse not to enact more left leaning policies. In an ideal world there’d be real consequences to them if they meandered like they usually do.

            It’s not great though, happy to hear your perspective.

        • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Well liberal means you’re pro-liberty. Which is a virtue that is up there with freedom and justice, so I don’t see liberals going anywhere soon.

            • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Liberal’ shares a root with ‘liberty’ and can mean anything from “generous” to “loose” to “broad-minded.” Politically, it means ““a person who believes that government should be active in supporting social and political change.”

              Hmkay

              • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                When using liberal to refer to liberal parties that believe in liberal democracy then liberal means capital L - Liberalism. I understand that this is the first time you’ve actually spoken to people to the left of you but this is extremely basic political ideology 101. Socialists hate liberals, they are our political enemy, we use lib as if it is were slur, and we do not call ourselves liberals. Socialists do not support capitalism, liberals do.

                If you have other questions I suggest that rather than arguing with me about it you visit basically any socialist community to see that essentially everyone in any of them will agree with what I’ve just said.

                Yes “liberal” can mean “free” and “believes in egalitarianism and a live and let live set of living standards when it comes to peoples personal choices” when applied to cultural beliefs. This is not the political meaning. The two have been intentionally conflated by liberals(political) in order to confuse you politically and ensure that your political education and literacy is absolutely garbage.

                • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  A communist and being wrong, name a more iconic duo. Have fun forever fighting for a system that will be just as shit and corrupt as capitalism. Humans are shit, they will always corrupt and a system run by smarmy assholes is doomed.

                  Yeah tankies think liberal is a slur kinda like Republicans do. Weird how it’s just used as some kind of boogieman dogwhistle to rile up their supporters? Not really based in reality as most people who like having rights and freedom are going to be LIBERAL. Which means don’t FUCK with our LIBERTIES, BITCH.

          • Blursty@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That is not what liberal means. It’s an ideology from the enlightenment based on the emancipation of the individual as being key to the emancipation of society. It has completely failed.

            • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              You just described liberty?

              relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise

              It definately hasn’t failed. Not yet, as those things defined still exist.

              Not really unsympathetic to the tankies plight, as it is my own, but I think some of you guys are smoking a special kind of Kool aid.

              Communism isn’t a magical fix for all our problems. Sure more of those ideas should be implemented into our system, universal Healthcare, a more centralized means of production, wealth caps, term limits, etcetera. All great ideas. The only way they’ll happen is with a more unified country. Or war. A long and terrible one that will completely destroy us. Now I know the idea sounds romantic, but I promise you it’s not. You’re better off coming to the table with your head on straight.

              Edit: But fuck mconnel. I hope he gets Ebola and shits out his own insides

              • Blursty@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise

                Where do these things exist? They don’t exist much in the USA for example.

                Communism isn’t a magical fix for all our problems

                Its aim is to fix these problems, capitalism’s aim is to make money for a small group of people using liberalism to trick them into helping.

                The only way they’ll happen is with a more unified country. Or war. A long and terrible one that will completely destroy us.

                The political class are united, they have the country’s workers fighting over niche issues like gay rights etc while they kill millions around the globe and do whatever it takes to maintain the privilege of a few.

                Agreed about Mc Connell.

                • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  Where do these things exist? They don’t exist much in the USA for example

                  I’m sorry what? Freedom of speech? Civil rights act? Freedom of assembly? The right to bare arms? Etcetera?

                  Its aim is to fix these problems,

                  How? Through violent revolution with a benevolent authoritarian leader? Seize the means and then humans just stop being corruptible shitheads? Okay buddy

                  capitalism’s aim is to make money for a small group of people

                  Capitalism doesn’t have an aim. Like communism it will do what you direct it to do. If you’re going to try to revolutionize you might as well fix the system you already have instead of going to war.

                  using liberalism to trick them into helping

                  Yeah see this is that kool-aid bullshit you guys must have been smoking in the LateStageCapitalism ban chamber all those years. Liberals OPPOSE these same assholes they are not your enemy you dumb fuck

        • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I don’t have a choice of who I am empathetic to. It’s just a core part of my personality.

          I agree he is a terrible person. I agree he shouldn’t be legislating. I agree he has caused untold suffering. I can’t stand the man. He angers me, he infuriates me, and when I hear him I want to beat him senseless. I can even agree that he should probably be dead.

          I’ll still have empathy to him.

          • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            and when I hear him I want to beat him senseless

            Clearly not. Or you wouldn’t have this emotional reaction.

            You can let go of this, simply recognise that some people are real monsters and that sometimes those monsters do in fact thoroughly deserve it. The emotional reaction you’re having is, in fact, latent propaganda still living in your bones, put there by having heard it from liberals postering as the “good people” over and over again by doing this shit.

            Nobody has empathy for Mussolini swinging upside down until he died. The institutional propaganda implying you should have empathy for political opponents is just not pushed for him, and so the feeling doesn’t exist. That’s what this is, a feeling created by institutional propaganda that you absolutely don’t need to have for any monsters. You do not need to feel bad.