The thing I don’t get though, is that can’t you just lie and pretend your kids are sick? At least for a week. I suppose two weeks might be more difficult, I was never off school for that long as a kid so dunno if you have to provide some kinda proof if it’s that long.

Or do you have to provide some kind of doctor’s note for even a week now? I wasn’t even off for a full week to be fair so maybe I’m just unaware…

As an atheist, I would say that I can see the benefits of the community that churches provide. Basically having a close network of friends and supportive people is always going to be good.

But you don’t need religion for this. We definitely need closer communities. Like if we had some other place we could all go to and make some effort to actually go at least once a week for an hour or two or however long. This would definitely be a good thing as it helps with loneliness which is a big problem these days. It would also be a much healthier alternative to the default pub social setting.

However religion can be very harmful. So I’m definitely against religion. I’m not against religious people, apart from the people who say stuff about things being gods plan or that god made whatever bad thing happened to them for a reason. They’ll say it in a way that makes it sound like they’re being nice but it can actually be really harmful for people who have been through trauma. An example would be how people saying how god saved Trump. Which actually means god murdered those other (two?) people that died by pushing the bullets around Trump and into them lol.

Or if you come out as gay in a lot of religious communities that means instant rejection and you lose your whole support system overnight unless you repress your true self.

So yeah - religion bad - community good.

Incredible palm game.

Ah yes, I know it well.

Read that as “vid claiming migrants ARE cats” and I didn’t doubt it for a second.

Because he’s a shart fella.

Yeah I mean I dunno if it’s helpful to call them idiots. Cos ideally a really small number of these people might be capable of changing their opinions. I mean I don’t buy that anyone can be undecided at the moment, or for quite a long time really. I think the votes needed can either come from Trump supporters or from people who are lazy voting wise. Who would back Harris if they could vote from home, but just might not get their arse down to the polling station on the day.

Well I suppose there is maybe some republicans who just hate the Democrats and would never vote for them under normal scenarios, but are uncomfortable as fuck with Trump.

Meh. Maybe we can do without the Trumpers if we are lucky lol. I mean we might not have a choice in the matter. I suppose as much as we don’t want to alienate them by calling them idiots, they are in reality idiots if they’re literally believing stuff like the litter box examples and even if we don’t call them idiots, the reality is they’re probably too idiotic to be turned, so it likely won’t make a difference anyway.

Who knows…

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Hahah literally what is the point!? Well like I say. Probably is about name recognition otherwise why bother.

Either that or Jill is retired and bored/senile… isn’t Jill the same name as Biden’s wife actually? Hahah. Maybe it’s Biden in a wig. Who can say?

Ahh ok haha well that’s good at least. I can’t see any left leaning would-be democrat voters voting for the guy who dumped the carcass of a bear in… I wanna say… Central Park?

I love that they’re like “paper doesn’t grow on trees dude, we ain’t wasting anymore”.

I don’t really understand why these independents bother. Do they really think they’re gonna turn 3% (being generous) into 51%?? I don’t think so. I wonder if there’s some ulterior motive in play, like to just get their name out there and then with that name recognition, get elected into a much lower down position at state level.

Oh really? I don’t really get how your system works I guess lol. Cos I thought if he drops out he’s out. So he’s still running against Trump in some states basically? I would have thought he’d be taking votes from the right rather than the left though. But I probably just don’t understand your system properly tbf.

I thought Kennedy dropped out to support Trump? Maybe I’m wrong I’m not American, but thought I heard that.

But yeah I agree. It’s just splitting the vote, the same thing happens in the UK. For a long time until this most recent election we only had the Conservatives on the right, whereas on the left you had Labour, Lib Dem’s and Greens, yet the Conservatives kept getting back in because the left wing vote was split, they wouldn’t work together to step down in certain seats to let the party most likely to be beat the Conservatives stand.

Thank god, in a weird way, for Reform UK, massively splitting the right wing vote this time around. Allowing Labour to win. If Labour don’t change the voting system to proportional representation now that they’ve finally got the chance after a 15 year wait, then they are truly mugs. They won’t though I’m sure. They are hopefully supposed to be letting 16 year olds vote which should help.

But yeah, that Hitler story gave me the shivers lol. Apparently we aren’t allowed to call Trump a fascist because it pisses off Republican voters and caused that assassination attempt (even though I swear the guy was a republican voter??)

But like; he is literally a fascist. For me personally, if someone said, “we can stop Trump from ever being elected, but the price is you have to cancel the election and just say that George Bush won and let him have another term”. I’d take that deal. I genuinely think Trump is so dangerous, it shouldn’t be a republican vs democrats thing, it should be an Americans for Democracy thing.

Yeah so basically you don’t give a shit because Mexico isn’t more powerful than the US.

You’re privileged (feel a little weird saying this about America) to live in the world’s most powerful country. But things change. Look how quickly China has changed. Just in my lifetime they’ve gone from the equivalent of the poorer parts of Africa to having a pretty decent standard of living.

You can’t just isolate yourself and say fuck you, you’re on your own Ukraine, when they get invaded by Russia. I mean you can. But as I say, it won’t stop there. It didn’t stop with Crimea. Appeasement failed.

Your balloons comment just indicates you actually have no credible argument. You know that I’m right. Just admit at least that you’re selfish and care only about yourself.

That Russia can invade the whole of Europe if they want to do, kill as many people as they want, just so long as they don’t attack the US.

That’s basically your argument isn’t it? At least be honest about it and we can just conclude that you’re not a very good person but at least you’re honest.

Also you aren’t saying it out loud in an obvious way. But you are clearly admiring Trump. Who the fuck would admire Trump!? You’re the sort of person who would look past all the rape allegations his other trials and convictions and still say something positive about him. You’re clearly a republican who doesn’t give a shit about others life’s. Just like with gun control and republicans - “it’s a fact of life that school shootings will happen” no it’s fucking not. They don’t happen anywhere else (or not on anything remotely close to the scale of the US) so of course we can solve that problem

Like let’s give you a scenario. Let’s say Mexico were more powerful than the US. Would you be fine with them invading you? No you clearly wouldn’t so why is it fine in Ukraines case?

lol dude I wasn’t critical after I was always critical. In the UK we had our biggest protest march ever when the Iraq war was about to start. Plenty of people were against it.

I’m just gonna simplify the Ukraine thing. They are a country. Who cares democratic or not although they are they might not be perfect but they are nothing like Russia. But the point is no country has the right to invade their neighbour.

I can’t keep up with too many of these different talking points so I’m just gonna push you on the fact that you don’t see a problem with a sovereign country being invaded.

And I brought up the appeasement because it’s what you’re advocating and it hasn’t worked before and it hasn’t worked now. If appeasement worked then Russia would have stopped after crimea - why didn’t they stop after Crimea

Ok my point about Palestine was to prove that I wasn’t on America’s side in most of its wars. Like I’m largely in agreement with you on US’s interventions in other countries.

Just not completely. Not if we are counting Ukraine. Ukraine were attacked by Russia, we are trying to help them defend themselves and in the process hopefully put Russia off pulling a stunt like this again. They’ve had a pretty sharp shock that it wasn’t the walkover they thought it would be.

Where America piss me off in regards to the Ukraine though, is this trickling of weapons. Basically America have given Ukraine everything they have asked for… just a year after they ask for it. Had they given them everything they have given them now at the start of the war, then Ukraine may well have won this war.

I have no idea what the fuck you are going on about saying Ukraine isn’t much different to Russia??? Dude they were fucking invaded they don’t want to be part of Russia. They are a democracy - Russia is NOT, they are not similar at all. The Ukrainian people aren’t fighting and dying for nothing dude??? If Russia wasn’t that different they would have immediately surrendered rather than lose all the lives they’ve lost over this.

In regards to sanctions, we sanction countries that need sanctioning. We sanction North Korea because they openly say they want to destroy America given the chance, so we aren’t making it easy for them to fund their nuclear program.

I’m a socialist. But if you’re somehow saying that STALIN is someone we should have left alone because Russia was communist, like dude have you been on the crack or something cos you appear to have lost your mind.

You say you want peace in Ukraine and giving up territory blah blah. Holy shit. Crimea. 2014. Do you remember that? That was them giving up territory. That was the western world not responding to Russia, not interfering. That has led to their invasion of Ukraine. That literally proved that Russia will not be happy until they’ve restored USSR borders.

You’re literally promoting appeasement. Do you remember world war 2? The policy of appeasement worked wonderfully there didn’t it?

You mentioned China. Have you heard of Taiwan? Taiwan is China’s Ukraine.

The reason China haven’t been involved in any major conflicts is literally because of the current situation where we have NATO.

You’re advocating to get rid of all that. To isolate. If we did that, that’s when you’ll see a major military invasion from China and Russia and whoever fucking else has the means to bully their neighbour.

You clearly haven’t thought this through very well. I’m not really sure I’m going to be able to get through to you at this point.

The major thing that’s hit me with your response is the way you’re saying how big shit hasn’t happened with Russia and China trying to take over the world. Well for one, Russia have clearly already started with Crimea and then Ukraine. China are eyeing up Taiwan. But yes they aren’t going full on world war 3 yet as I say, LITERALLY BECAUSE OF NATO PREVENTING THEM FROM DOING SO. They wouldn’t dare invade a NATO country.

You take away NATO and the situation completely changes. So obviously things would be massively different.

Well countries may not want to trade with someone at least not on favourable terms if that country isolates itself in every other way.

My point about NATO was that it’s all about working together to defeat something, so okay, in that case communism if you say so (honestly don’t know that much about it).

The point is that Russia and China are dangerous. I suppose you’re okay with the Ukraine stuff because it’s all about America right? Okay with the Palestinian genocide?

Note that I’m clearly not supportive of all Americas wars. Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc.

But to just not form military alliances with other countries? That’s dangerous. Because Russia and China aren’t gonna stop with their alliance. If the US was to just ignore them two slowly taking over the world, then guess who will be the last country left, isolated as is your wish? The last country left to be taken over? Which will be much easier once they’ve conquered the rest of the world.

You can’t let the likes of Russia stomp around invading its neighbours. It’s a very selfish attitude that ironically won’t benefit itself. As in letting Russia do that will eventually lead to America’s own demise. We also won’t be able to trade with the countries who have been bombed into oblivion by Russia/China/North Korea and whoever else joins them rather than die.

You want America to be isolated? In a world where we have a Russia and a China? Are you for real dude?

When the US finally pulled it’s finger out of its arse and stopped just benefiting financially from world war 2 and decided (more like was forced but whatever) to join in and fight Hitler, they were able to end it.

That was a good thing. The UN and NATO originated off the back of that stuff.

You cannot be isolated in a 2024 globalised world. Absolutely bizarre take. I suppose you don’t want to trade with anyone else either right?

Dude, Trump would be a nightmare on foreign policy. All Putin would have to do is give him a compliment and he’ll start trading sensitive documents with him.

I suspect a big part of the war lust in America is because politicians are getting hand jobs and bribes from people who benefit in the defence industry. Trump is certainly not above being bribed.

The way he spoke to North Korea’s leader whose name has escaped me for now… king jung un? Or something. The way he spoke to him could have potentially caused a fucking nuclear war. He got lucky and came out of it looking good, there was no skill there just absolute stupid luck.

You want America to pull out of NATO? Wtf? Haha maybe you didn’t mean that? Hopefully not cos that would be crazy and yeah he could well pull the US out of NATO, so again - not good.

I’m not understanding you at all in thinking Trump would be good for foreign policy.