The reality is that the Democratic establishment, like the Republican establishment, are neoliberals. They may ultimately want a slightly less laissez-faire form of capitalism than Republicans, but it’s not much to differentiate the two, so that’s why our elections are usually about the “culture wars,” while the two…

Yeah, I discovered this after buying Cascade too--the dishes came out absolutely perfectly, whereas I pretty much had to “pre-wash” everything beforehand.

Honestly, as someone who has one foot in both generations and parents who don’t fit the traditional Boomer stereotype, the honest-to-god truth is that these “generations” are mostly bullshit. I grew up in the Rust Belt, so all I’ve ever really known is societal decay—it’s just that it’s now spread across the country.

In this election, Michigan also passed a referendum establishing independent redistricting and another expanding voting rights. The GOP has pretty much had solid control over Michigan’s state government for the last 2-3 decades despite being a state that mostly votes for Democratic senators and Democratic presidents…

To me, the version with a J looks more like an attempt to sound Norwegian, rather than actually being Norwegian.

That’s rich considering that conservatives spent three decades condemning liberals for being “moral relativists” post-1968, so it was only natural that liberalism would develop its own form of “moral absolutism”—and now conservatives have suddenly become such big fans of free speech and relativism. Or, just maybe,…

Queen Victoria had a similarly long reign (63 years), and when she died, her 59 year-old son, Edward VII, succeeded her only to die nine years later. Short reigns are bound to happen following a lengthy one, and it’s certainly not unusual historically.

The main issue is that, at the state level where legislative term limits have been enacted, the lack of experienced politicians or potential job security has meant that it has become a revolving door of corporate lobbyists, either from existing lobbyists doing their “four to eight years” before returning to their…

I think it’s rather obvious the game was in development hell. It was either getting a half-assed game—essentially, one extremely small and bland “continent” to explore with the rest on rails—or full cancellation. That being said, I appreciated the game for what it was, but lament that it never became even a fraction…

I just looked at my electronic absentee ballot (which I had to print and mail), and there are 20 races with four additional ballot initiatives.

American ballots can be multiple pages long (Michigan routinely has four), voting for federal, state and local races, judges, school boards and ballot initiatives. It’s definitely not as simple as, say, Canada and (I presume) the UK, where you have an election that is just one page for a single race, since the…

“Guy” was originally a French proper name and only took on its more generic definition as part of the legacy of Guy Fawkes:

American conservatism is little more than non-stop narcissistic projection.

Like a lot of classical states, the U.S. has its founding myth, and a lot of that is tied with the American Revolution. It’s ultimately interesting to look at the huge amounts of history that is left out from the Colonial era; we basically jump from “Mayflower” to “Salem Witch Trials” to “Revolution and Independence”…

This is all a big side note, but the Roman Republic is quite underrated in history, if you ask me. It had more of an oligarchic, hierarchical and bureaucratic nature than we’d be comfortable with today in a modern democracy, but it’s not as if Athenian democracy would be acceptable by modern standards either.

Incidentally, this is a lot of the appeal of constitutional monarchies. You have a figurehead Head of State with the accompanying Royal Family that goes to photo ops and ribbon cuttings, keeping the tabloids endlessly occupied with nonsense, while the Head of Government/Prime Minister maintains the “unsexy” position…

She was vocally anti-Trump during the election, so that’s something at least.

And the Constitution does not describe what a natural-born citizen is. It’s generally been left up to Congress.

At least in 2016, she apparently went all-out for Gary Johnson, specifically mentioning that “socially he’s liberal, but fiscally conservative,” and she’s described herself elsewhere as a “moderate conservative” that’s also pro-choice and pro-gun reform.

It seems that prohibition in Iceland was repealed in stages, while beer was the last holdout to appease those conservatives who saw beer as a “cheap gateway” to harder (and likely more expensive) alcohol consumption.