301–310 of 316 posts
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It's currently historically accurate. It's aged 250 years so far. Civil war? Elections. WWII? Elections. Covid? Elections.
Fascist Italy also held "elections", like China and Russia do today. "Elections" is not a magic concept. Free elections, on the other hand...
> Why worry about how the midterms, if you can create a situation where elections cannot be held at all...
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> The Papal ban on children for priests is perhaps the only instance where a theocracy managed to prevent this slide. Pretty impressive effect, given that there is no such ban. There are a number of other rules which can combine to make it look approximately like there is, but there isn't.
Sorry, ban on priest marriage. Or rather, a celibacy obligation for bishop and priests. Which makes it a ban on children for Christians. I think it's in the 12th century that the rule was instaured, and was, let say, made effective by the council on Trent during the reformation.
Well, no, it doesn't, and its important to note what the actual bans are to understand why it doesn't. There is:
* a fairly hard ban (essentially absolute, except for an exception noted at the end of this list) on men who are already priests marrying in the Catholic Church,
* a softer ban on married men becoming priests in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church (this is the 12th Century rule you reference),
* no ban on married men becoming priests in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church,
* a fairly hard ban (essentially absolute, except for an exception noted at the end of this list) on currently-married men becoming bishops in the Catholic Church,
* no ban on men who are widowers (including men admitted to the priesthood while married) becoming bishops in the Catholic Church,
* no ban on a married Catholic man (possibly a layman, a Latin Rite deacon, one of the already exceptional Latin Rite priests, or an Eastern Rite priest) being ordained Bishop of Rome after being elected by the College of Cardinals (the rule for this specific allows any Catholic man to be elected) to the Papacy, though its never happened.
It is not impossible for a man to be both married and have children licitly while being a Catholic priest, and it is not impossible for a man to licitly have children through marriage as a widower while being a Catholic bishop (including the Pope), and its even technically possible for a married man with children to be Pope, though it is improbable that someone not already a bishop---and therefore not currently married, but possibly widowed and with children—and cardinal would be elected.)
As I said originally, there is no rule against a Catholic priest having children, though “there are a number of other rules which can combine to make it look approximately like there is.”
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> I suspect the escort ships would be fine though. They can defend themselves. From underwater drones? Does that technology exist?
I know nothing of the rise of the underwater drone but I highly suspect they are loud and slow and no match for ships designed to look for modern submarines.
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Started doing what? Distributing Maoist literature and rifles, or donating to Act Blue, or something in the middle?
Not recommending first point 3 letter agencies! but if we all did something, volunteer, protest, donate, boycott, we would win tomorrow. Boycotting seems particularly effective, would start there.
Volunteer doing what? Donate to what? Boycott what with what demands? What's the most successful boycott in your estimation? I can only really think of buses in Montgomery and the Swadeshi movement in India, but even that started in like the 1910s and they didn't get independence until 1947 and who knows how much it mattered. If there were a big crank somewhere and you could guarantee me that turning it gives better than 50% odds that the world gets better in the ways I consider better, I'd be turning the crank. We'd all be turning the crank! But what's the crank?
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Not recommending first point 3 letter agencies! but if we all did something, volunteer, protest, donate, boycott, we would win tomorrow. Boycotting seems particularly effective, would start there.
Win what tomorrow? An election? There's no election tomorrow. A coup? Intriguing! Probably take a while though. Volunteer doing what? Donate to what? Boycott what with what demands? What's the most successful boycott in your estimation? I can only really think of buses in Montgomery and the Swadeshi movement in India, but even that started in like the 1910s and they didn't get independence until 1947 and who knows ho…
As for a recent successful boycott, see Disney Plus cancellations in response to Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air.
here are some concrete things I can think of: - don't like that Sam Altman is aligned with the regime? boycott chatgpt, it fell from the top spot in the app store and Sam Altman felt forced to address the controversy to his employees, it wouldn't take much more to turn the tide and other companies take notice and be disinclined to do similar - don't like that your elected representative was mum on the Iran war? write them an email, call their office - think that a candidate is best chance at change? donate to their campaign - show up at the next No Kings protest, politicians take notice of the coverage and what people are mad about
If you are waiting for a guarantee your actions will affect change I can't help you, but I can guarantee doing nothing won't.
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Interesting you should say that, as not a single one of the Iranian emigrants that I know would agree with you.
Extrapolating the politics of people who stayed based on the politics of people who chose to leave is not going to get you very far.
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You're comparing apples, bananas, and pineapples while pretending they're all one thing. Switchblades are extremely effective (albeit expensive) anti-personnel (300 model) and anti-armor (600 model) drones. Shaheds are much larger, cheap, low on capabilities, but attritable used to attack fixed positions (e.g., buildings). These are all very different.
That's the point -- maybe the US should have bought apples instead of buying bananas.
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I don't understand your point. Switchblades are (roughly) more akin to FPV (300 model) and Vampire drones (600 model) with reapect to size and payloads. Shahed style drones are roughly like like low end cruise missles. Different form factors and different capabilities. All of them are needed, but they're all very different.
A cruise missile is 3,000,000$ and a shahed drone is 50,000$ so if it’s even remotely the same capability it is an immense technological improvement over an expensive and slow to manufacture cruise missile.
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That's the point -- maybe the US should have bought apples instead of buying bananas.
I don't understand your point. Switchblades are (roughly) more akin to FPV (300 model) and Vampire drones (600 model) with reapect to size and payloads. Shahed style drones are roughly like like low end cruise missles. Different form factors and different capabilities. All of them are needed, but they're all very different.
Lancets were miles better than Switchblades.
AFAIK Switchblades were used only in first months of the war then completely abandoned.
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Fascist Italy also held "elections", like China and Russia do today. "Elections" is not a magic concept. Free elections, on the other hand...
Sure, but we're discussing what you said: > Why worry about how the midterms, if you can create a situation where elections cannot be held at all...