You are struggling as best you can, for the sake of all of us, yes?
— universeness

Hell, no! All of yous are on your own.

Are you not still a secular democratic socialist?
— universeness

Nope. Cynical, burnt-out iconoclast — Vera Mont

if we all ... — universeness

Mr. Trump is a criminal defendant. He is facing four felony charges. He is under the supervision of the criminal justice system. He does not have the right to say and do exactly as he pleases. … No other criminal defendant would be allowed to do so and I am not going to permit it in this case. — Tonya Chutkan, US District Judge, Wash. DC, 16Oct23

[T]here may be no ultimate reason for existence; it may be that reality is a brute fact. — Ø implies everything

↪180 Proof Wow, I gave a lot of time to my explanation and you have not kept your promise to address democracy. — Athena

Okay please list 10 characteristics of democracy and perhaps say something about how they relate to our ideas of right and wrong. — Athena

Democratize the economy as much as practically possible.

Political democracy in the absence of economic democracy (aka "economic autocracy" (becomes neoliberal corporatocracy)) has always been a failing project. [ ... ] Read A. Smith closely. & Read P. Kropotkin closely. Read D. Schweickart & T. Picketty closely. — 180 Proof

Eliminate Hamas — 180 Proof

Free Palestine
— 180 Proof

You mean free from Hamas and other terrorist organizations. — magritte

Evict Settlers.
— 180 Proof

Israel has actually evicted settlers. — ssu

Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone understands the importance of what I am saying. — Athena

Two women with
the same claim
came to the feet of
the wise king. Two women,
but only one baby.
The king knew
someone was lying.
What he said was
Let the child be
cut in half; that way
no one will go
empty-handed. He
drew his sword.
Then, of the two
women, one
renounced her share:
this was
the sign, the lesson.
Suppose
you saw your mother
torn between two daughters:
what could you do
to save her but be
willing to destroy
yourself—she would know
who was the rightful child,
the one who couldn't bear
to divide the mother. — A Fable, Louise Glück

He who sows injustice will reap violence, and the rod of his wrath will fail. — Proverbs 22:8

I was an idealist when I was young, but life turned me into a realist — Agree-to-Disagree

History teaches ad nauseam that we, as a species, are incapable of deliberative self-governance (i.e. liberty) above the municipal scale, as the contemporary state of "global affairs" savagely demonstrates. — 180 Proof

Seriously, I believe humans are capable of good reasoning based on truth, but I also think that requires an education that we are not getting.
— Athena

When and where in the last half millenium did most, or many, human beings get such an education? And why did such an education fall out of favor with educated leaders (i.e. movers & shakers) so much so that, apparently, "we are not getting" it any longer? — 180 Proof

We have been going through social breakdown or what some may call creative destruction at least since 1958 when the National Defense Education Act radically changed the purpose of education. — Athena

What apartheid is referring to in this case is not the situation within Israel, but the situation between Israel and the Palestinian territories. — Tzeentch

Slaves to stupidity with no master but greed. — Pantagruel

I interpret Kant's idea of in-itself as signifying that we know only what appears to us, which is not to say we know nothing of consciousness-independent real things, but that the reality of those things is not exhausted by how they appear to us and other cognitive beings. — Janus