So, why are there so many Christian right wingers who think being a liberal is the worst thing in the world?
Please make it make sense.
There are few things in this world that I loathe more than ignorance, but ignorance accompanied by absolute confidence deserves its own miserable little circle of in Dante's interpretation of hell.
Student loan forgiveness has produced a spectacular exhibition of exactly this phenomenon. People who cannot explain the difference between principal and interest without furtively opening Google have suddenly appointed themselves guardians of the American financial system, positively trembling at the possibility that some enormous financial institution might receive slightly less money because an ordinary American has been released from decades of educational debt. They do not understand where the money goes afterwards. Even worse, they do not particularly care to try to try to fucking learn. They simply know somebody might receive something they did not receive, and somewhere between envy and economic illiteracy they have mistaken resentment for fiscal policy.
My education was paid for through a trust established by my grandmother. I was lucky beyond measure, and I have never confused that luck with personal responsibility. I did not work harder than the eighteen year old who signed a student loan agreement because her parents could not write a cheque. I did not possess some superior financial wisdom while filling out university applications. I had a grandmother who had the means and foresight to provide for my education. Pretending otherwise would require me to transform inherited advantage into personal virtue, which is an extraordinarily convenient fiction and one I have absolutely no interest in telling myself.
Perhaps that is why the stupidity surrounding student loan forgiveness irritates me so fucking much. Education should teach you to look beyond the first transaction. Money relieved from one obligation does not cease to fucking exist. If someone was spending $600 every month servicing student debt and that obligation disappears or declines, the money remains available to that household. Some of it gets spent. Some gets saved. Some goes towards other debt. Some helps finance a home, a car, childcare, medical expenses, retirement, a new business, or the countless ordinary purchases upon which everyone else's employment ultimately depends. There are perfectly legitimate arguments about the magnitude of those effects and about the best design of any forgiveness programme, but there is no legitimate economic argument in pretending that disposable income simply vanishes because it is no longer travelling towards an educational creditor.
What makes this equal parts fucking hilarious and infuriating is that the same people have spent decades being told that allowing wealthy individuals and corporations to retain more money will stimulate the economy because they will invest and spend it. Apparently the circulation of money is a miraculous economic principle that functions only above a certain tax bracket. Give a corporation another million dollars and someone will draw a complicated diagram explaining multipliers, investment, employment and growth. Allow several thousand ordinary households to keep another few hundred dollars each month and suddenly every village idiot with a Facebook account starts screaming about handouts.
There is an argument worth having about student debt. There are questions about fairness to people who already repaid their loans, fairness to people who never attended university, the distributional effects of forgiveness, its fiscal cost, and whether forgiveness without reforming tuition and lending merely resets the clock for another generation. Those questions deserve serious answers. What they do not deserve is to be buried beneath the intellectually vacant little slogan that "you borrowed it, so you pay it back", as though public policy has never altered financial obligations, subsidised industries, rescued businesses, modified taxes, guaranteed credit, or decided that enforcing every existing economic arrangement to its bitter conclusion might produce a worse society.
And then we arrive at interest rates, government assistance, and the magnificent flexibility of American outrage. Corporations routinely operate within a financial world ordinary borrowers barely recognise, benefiting from government programmes, tax preferences, guarantees, subsidies, favourable financing structures and access to capital on terms unavailable to the average person. Many of these policies have defensible economic purposes. That is precisely the fucking point. We already accept the principle that government may intervene financially when doing so produces a desirable economic or social outcome. Yet the moment the beneficiary is an indebted graduate rather than a corporation, millions of people suddenly discover a sacred moral covenant between borrower and lender that apparently descended from Mount Sinai somewhere between "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt protect JPMorgan's quarterly earnings."
I find the ignorance infuriating because ignorance in the twenty-first century is a choice. Nobody needs an economics degree to understand that household debt affects household behaviour. Nobody needs to have attended Oxford to grasp that people with more disposable income can spend, save, invest, form households and take financial risks they could not previously afford. You can disagree with broad student loan forgiveness after learning those things. Fine. Make the argument, bring evidence, discuss opportunity costs, distributional consequences, inflation, moral hazard, programme design and the underlying catastrophe of university costs. I will happily listen. What I will not respect is someone who refuses to learn any of that and then demands that everyone else treat their ignorance as an equally informed opinion.
This particular American habit has become fucking exhausting. We have confused democracy, in which everyone possesses an equal political voice, with the bizarre proposition that everyone's understanding of a subject must therefore be equally valuable. It just fucking is not. A person who has spent years studying economics knows more about economics than someone who has spent eleven minutes becoming furious beneath a Facebook meme. Or course, expertise does not make someone infallible, but ignorance does not become wisdom merely because it is shouted with an undeserved confidence.
The most maddening objection remains the childish cry that someone else receiving relief is unfair because somebody else did not. Imagine applying that principle consistently throughout human history. We cured diseases previous generations endured, improved workplace protections previous workers lacked, created safety standards after people died without them, and expanded rights to people whose ancestors were denied them. Civilisation advances precisely because we occasionally decide that suffering does not acquire moral value merely because someone else suffered first. "I had to endure it, therefore you should too" is not a philosophy of fairness. It is the moral reasoning of a toddler guarding the broken toy everyone else must apparently play with because he had to.
I escaped student debt because somebody loved me, planned for me, and possessed the resources to give me an enormous advantage. That experience makes it impossible for me to look at somebody who did not receive the same gift and conclude that she deserves thirty years of interest payments as punishment for choosing education. Quite the opposite. It makes me wonder why the wealthiest society in human history remains so perversely talented at converting opportunities for collective prosperity into morality plays about who deserves to suffer.
You can oppose student loan forgiveness intelligently. There are serious economists and policy scholars who do, and their arguments deserve engagement. What deserves contempt is the refusal to understand the issue before forming an immovable opinion about it. I loathe that kind of ignorance because it poisons democratic debate. It replaces curiosity with certainty, evidence with resentment, and policy with the primitive satisfaction of knowing that somewhere, somebody you have never met is being denied something that might make their life better.
And somehow, after all that, the ignorant imagine themselves the responsible adults in the room.
The banks have lawyers. They have lobbyists. They have economists, accountants, political influence and more access to power than the average indebted graduate will possess in a lifetime. They will be fine without an army of economically illiterate strangers volunteering to protect them.
What this country desperately needs protecting from is the increasingly fashionable belief that refusing to understand something is no impediment whatsoever to having a very loud fucking opinion about it.
Not one of those executives actually delivers healthcare! They are focused on PROFITS! 32% of the folks working in healthcare do NOTHING to actually provide care!!! Collectively, the various sectors of the global and U.S. healthcare industries are projected to generate between **$400 billion and $450 billion in total corporate PROFITS (net income) in 2026**.
Trump is such a fucking embarrassing!
In 2014 a cattle rancher refused to pay for permits and they showed up armed to the teeth, pointed guns at the cops, and threatened to fucking kill them if they impounded his cattle. They were litterally willing to die for those cows.
Now, cops kick down peoples doors without warrants, stop their vehicles at check points, drag teenage girls out of their homes in their underwear, assault, harass, detain, jail perfectly innocent people for months, even years, all on mere *suspicion*?
And... nothing..? Where'd all that anti-government over reach energy go? Was it only for the cows?
As much as this administration repulses me, one of the things haunting me the most is the fact we appear to have moved on from Alex Pretti and Renee Good. I mean, at least we still talk about Epstein to an extent, and there is still *some* movement in the legal system regarding the Epstein files, so it doesn't feel entirely forgotten or dead at this point. But the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti seem to be forgotten... I haven't seen or heard of any movement about those in months. Have we just given up on getting them justice?? Is there an investigation going I haven't heard of or is there no hope here? It just absolutely makes my blood boil to see so many wicked people get away with wicked things while good people suffer as a result. I'm losing my mind.
I posted the comment “fuck Charlie Kirk, he can burn” in a relevant discussion about the morality of the views of his death. Apparently some bitch boy or ai slopbot at Reddit got their panties in a twist and bannned my main account. Apparently I violated rule 1 “no encouraging violence or physical harm”. This is obviously fucking stupid. I hate the censorship of the internet and right wing snowflakes pissing their pants over shit like this.
I am so glad this inconsiderate piece of human waste is being transferred to a housing facility for the high functioning mentally ill. But I swear to God, this transfer cant happen fast enough. You think a 16 year old girl in the middle of puberty is bad? Try living with a 16 year old girl in the middle of puberty who has a case of the BPD (Borderline personality disorder) as well as a case of the "My boyfriend (who is in prison and too old to be hanging out with 16 year olds like that) thinks Im mature for my age, so I will do drugs, sneak out at night, stay outside for days without a way you knowing where I am and only come back once my friend's parents have enough of housing me, steal your money, your cigars, your wine, then play music so loud it should get a noise complaint, and none of yall can stop me because if you try, Ill throw around chairs, pans and whatever is close, threaten yall even at knife point and hit you, I'll even call the police on you and claim y'all are abusive, because *I* am a minor and yall are behaving like literal demons!!" Mind you, my parents are trying their best to keep her from getting fired from her internship, like flushing her joint she was smoking the night before her first day at work, enduring her beatings and at least trying to contain her insanity. But 99% of the time it ends up with them giving in, since thats easier than negotiating with a psychological terrorist.
(Side note, my sister is incredibly thin and weak physically, so she doesnt cause much physical damage when hitting us, except for a few scratches, but yk, you cant shove her away too hard or she goes flying)
Which is why they are moving her to a clinic with a housing program for the "mentally challenged teenagers". But since she has to go there by her own will, and she wont be able to pull off the shit she does here, she'd rather make everyone's life a living hell than move in there. And the police as well as our country's version of CPS cant do anything since "her behavior isnt bad enough to justify outside intervention" As if her racking up fines for riding the train cross country in the thousands, her stealing everyones cash to fund her Weed addiction or sending it to her "boyfriend" in prison, her abusing every single bit of love and trust my parents somehow still harbor for her, as if that wasnt enough.
I hate her. And having to be the understanding older sibling and "she has a personality disorder, give her some grace" is fucking idiotic. She stole 400 bucks from me while I was out of the country, wrote "my bad" once I found out, blasts german ghetto rap at full volume at 8 AM for a full hour, (tries to) kick in doors, screaming death threats when I hack her speaker and lower the volume enough times, yelling the n-word hard r at the end of every sentence as a white/latino European and overall cranking the performative ghetto girl act up to eleven.
I hate her. I dont love her, not as a sister, half-sister, a friend, anything. Were she a stranger, I wouldve already called the police on her multiple times and have her arrested for just a fraction of what I described before.
Her BPD as an excuse or explanation isnt enough to make me feel pity for her. I hate her. My parents wish she would get a grip. My grandparents wish she would get a grip. I wish for her to finally get the treatment she deserves in that housing facility. Its probably gonna be "please dont do that but if you do anyway, thats okay, we cant legally stop you" anyway. God I hate her.
MAGA ya dumb fucks, you're being manipulated by Putin and calling it winning.
I am so tired of Democrats being polite! They ALL need to get nasty!!
I’ve been re-reading the Gospels, and the irony is absolute brain-rot: modern American conservative Christianity has turned into the exact corporate, power-hungry, boundary-policing cult that got Jesus killed.
If Jesus showed up today, he wouldn’t be at their rallies. He’d be calling them out on live TV. They aren’t his disciples; they are the 21st-century Pharisees. Look at the evidence.
* The Bible says:
> "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices... But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness." (Matthew 23:23)
* The Reality: Conservative Christians will fight to the death over moral panics, performative prayer in schools, and policing who people love, while actively voting against feeding low-income school kids and healthcare for the poor.
* The Bible says:
> "Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)
> "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you." (James 5:1)
* The Reality: Today, the conservative church worships billionaires, excuses corrupt politicians, and turns its absolute cruelty toward refugees, LGBTQ+ youth, and the homeless.
Christian Nationalism hinges on "protecting our culture" and treating the migrant like an invasive enemy.
* The Bible says:
> "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt." (Leviticus 19:34)
> "I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me... Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." (Matthew 25:43-45)
* The Reality: They cheer for barbed wire on borders and mass deportations, completely ignoring that Jesus himself was a Middle Eastern refugee fleeing state violence (Matthew 2:13-15).
The Pharisees loved to be seen as the moral authority of society to maintain control.
* The Bible says:
> "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." (Matthew 6:5)
* The Reality: It’s all photo-ops, flag-waving, and political theater. Religion isn't a practice of quiet humility anymore; it’s a weapon to seize state power. Jesus wasn’t executed because he gave nice speeches. He was executed because he was a radical threat to the socio-religious establishment.
If a dark-skinned, anti-wealth, pro-immigrant preacher showed up today telling people to love their enemies and give away their money, the conservative church would be the first group screaming to deport him or label him a "woke Marxist."
They don't worship Jesus. They worship the power he warned them about.
Clearly we need a Justice Department, Inspector Generals and other oversight protection that have a firewall at least as strong as the Federal Reserve! Apparently relying on Congressional Oversight has been a complete failure with the current batch of dick-less Republicans
It literally took millennia for women to gain the most basic rights, from ability to vote, to financial independence, to protection from marital rape, to opening a bank account and having a choice during pregnancy. Men enjoyed coverture for centuries, falsely claiming women are lesser in physical and intellectual way.
And men today already talk about removing the 19th amendment. With impunity they suggest my body is theirs to control. Less abortion rights across the land. Tate generation of young men demand women to be submissive. If men are already so insecure about their lack of control over women after 100 years, what will happen in 200? Are they ever going to evolve? This pisses me off so much.
I’m too exhausted to even explain but I came here to say thank you so much dickheads who put him into power. Congratulations you jackass’s and selfish elitist, child fucking, savage, predators. You have officially destroyed this country and turned it into a fascist dictatorship where the elites and the rich get richer and the rest of us are fucked over in every way. I hope you MAGAs are fucking proud of yourselves. You’ve poisoned everything and have fucked over everyone. I’d be surprised if anyone wanted to befriend you in the future if they found out about your fascist attitudes. 🖕
Ps: I’m 18 years old. No 18 year old should have to feel this way. My life is just starting and it’s already being destroyed. I can barely afford to do shit. Fuck this.