One of them talked about a Marxist who will get rid of Israel within 2 years and wants to defund the police and give everyone healthcare and provide transgender operations to illegal immigrants, and the other talked about a person who hates the US military, admires China’s handling of COVID, and wants to defund the police and pull out of NATO, and I just wish I knew the names of either of those candidates because they’re both way better choices than what we’ve actually got.

I hate them.

I can’t speak for Hinduism, but this Wikipedia article goes into some of the history of Buddhism in regards to sexuality. Generally, sex of all kinds, whether heterosexual or homosexual or sex with celestial beings, was seen as another one of the 10,000 things that could distract one from the path - but otherwise there was nothing particularly immoral about it. Monks and nuns generally had to follow rules that prohibited both, in order to remove distractions, but those rules were never meant for the general public, aside from the precept against the “misuse” of sexuality, which is ambiguous but thought to refer more to things like SA.

When we’re talking about modern China, or the present day state of other historically Buddhist countries, it would be reductive to say that their current attitudes towards homosexuality are a product of religion, because it ignores more recent events and currents, and other historical factors. China was also historically influenced by Confucianism, which was more homophobic, but it was also influenced by a bunch of other philosophies, and today it’s not very religious at all. Japan was historically very gay, and the 11th century Tale of Genji has a bisexual protagonist fucking everybody.

However, every historical tradition had to adapt to contact with the West during the age of colonialism. China at first tried hard to cling to its traditions and stubbornly refuse to adapt to new, Western ideas, but the “century of humiliation” happened and they realized they had to adapt or die. Japan was not directly colonized, but they still had a massive revamping of their society with all these new ideas coming in. Every country in Asia has a story like that. And then you have another 100 years of stuff happening after that.

China’s modern day homophobia does not come from a place of “The Buddha said this was bad,” rather, it comes from seeing homosexuality as a Western invention, and a symptom of “bourgeois decadence.” Sadly, such brainworms are common in many socialist countries. There is a stereotype many people have that gay people all live in cities and spend all our time partying at nightclubs, because that makes for better TV than the reality does. Ironically, there are many countries in the world that once had their own more tolerant traditions that were replaced with Western values during colonialism, who now hold those values up as their own against more progressive, modern day Western values.

Fair, and people in swing states get inundated with ads as it is. Mostly I’d say it’s more useful for mobilization than persuasion, like if you get a text reminding you when voting day is maybe someone makes it when they wouldn’t have otherwise.

Ideally, volunteers could mean quality over quantity, less automated spam asking for money and instead actual humans responding to concerns and answering questions. Even more ideally, that could be paired with voters’ concerns being elevated and the party actually responding to them. The goal is to improve the quality of the campaign’s voter outreach, in whatever form that outreach takes.

I’m not a fan of Biden myself but I still think it’s worth discussing general electoral strategies.

The vast majority of Americans both already know how they feel about Trump and Biden and live in a solidly red or blue state. If you do want to focus on Biden, volunteer with phone banking or canvassing so that your efforts are directed to where they’ll actually matter and be organized in line with their messaging. Personally, I’d say you’re better off focusing on local races where you have more of an opportunity to come at it from a different angle and cut through people’s fortified positions. And as another user said, focus on mobilization, it’s easier to get someone who already agrees with you to register and make a plan than to convince someone to change their whole worldview.

There are also strategies outside of electoralism, such as protests and counter-protests. You can join an organization and form tactics and strategies to subvert the right’s actions, and engage with direct action to build trust and community that could be important in the future. Form strategies while being realistic about your goals and capabilities and coordinate with others.

MY rotting corpse just has some stiff joints, that’s all.

That doesn’t give people license to lie about him.

“Stuttered”

he’s only giving you things you say with your friends inside of your living room, the only difference is he’s got the balls to say it in front of you all and don’t have to sugar coat it at all.

Things like what, exactly? We must be hanging out in different living rooms.

I’m not talking about changes over time, talking about things I’ve seen recently on here regarding Russia’s current status, in response to news stories and comments discussing the danger of escalation going nuclear.

Shroedinger’s Russian nuclear arsenal. When there’s a story about risking escalation, libs tell me it’s fine because Russia doesn’t have the money to maintain its nukes, so it’d only be a “limited” nuclear exchange. When this story comes out, the libs tell me that Russia has a much larger and better maintained nuclear stockpile, so it’s only necessary for the US to spend more on it to catch up. It’s sort of the same way that Russia simultaneously is on the verge of defeat, yet also has the intention and capability to conquer all of Europe, like Hitler, if we don’t stop him here.

The enemy is both strong and weak, and you never know which one it’s gonna be.

YES

My understanding is that a tankie is defined as someone who seeks to promote global peace, understanding, and equality, with nuanced views that incorporate marginalized and international perspectives, grounded in historical evidence.

That’s how I see it used anyway.

China has official death estimates so I don’t believe that they deny that anything at all happened.

Now, it’s considered patriotic to protest poor government decisions.

Is it now? Would you say the student protests over Gaza are considered “patriotic” in mainstream American culture?

Comparing an incident where 11 million people were killed to one where hundreds of people were killed is a form of Holocaust denialism.

What’s the historical significance of Tiananmen Square? People sure seem to like talking about it, but personally I don’t really see why it warrants so much attention, in the grand scheme of things.

Was zero science conducted before the ~1600s then?

I mean, yes. The framework of studying things that we understand as science did not always exist.

Remember that time managers at a Tyson meat processing plant ran a betting pool on how many of their workers would get covid?

I do this bit where whenever somebody calls China capitalist in a negative way, I ask if they’re a Maoist, because that is the ultraleft, Maoist perspective, that China succumbed to right deviation and should’ve stayed the course with Mao’s policies. But I’ve never gotten an actual answer from anyone and now it’s started to evolve from being a bit to genuine curiosity. Like, if Deng’s reforms were too far right that you denounce them as capitalist, then does that mean your ideal economic system is somewhere in between the policies of Mao and Deng?

What is that ideology you’re all following to arrive at that conclusion?

Is it also delusional to say that Biden is intentionally alienating the people most likely to vote for him?

Of course not. The democrats fully expect anyone on the left to continue supporting them because “what are you gonna do, vote Trump?” The people Biden is most likely to alienate are the people most likely to vote for him, because he has no reason to cater to the demands of safe voters.

Not to mention the fact that he’s literally spent his entire career unwaveringly supporting Israel, and all his current actions are totally consistent with full support for Israel and everything it’s doing. You know, actual evidence.

You are right to say it’s stupid to claim he’s doing nothing at all. What he’s doing is much, much worse than nothing - he is unconditionally arming a genocide.

Completely delusional. Literally just making up a reality and choosing to live in it regardless of anything that happens.