Exactly.

Start building community or start building bombs. Bring people together or blow them apart.

Those are your choices now. Either that or crawl in a hole and die.

Doomerism will doom us all. Fatalism is fatal.

You want to give up and die? Fine. Rope is cheap. Go do it and spare us your sniveling.

“But I just cared about the economy (more than civil rights, democracy, the rule of law, or basic human decency.)”

Definitely that time the Secret Service showed up to my childhood home.

This happened when I had already moved out to go to college. I grew up in Iowa, home to the Iowa caucus. Part of living in Iowa is every four years you get bombarded by political messages, polls, people wanting you to donate and attend rallies, etc. I know this occurs to some degree everywhere, but it’s a different beast in Iowa.

The 2008 Iowa Caucus season was in full swing. Ads were everywhere. Phone calls were numerous. One day my 13 year old youngest brother, with poor impulse control and developing mental health issues, happened to pick up the phone.

It’s the Hillary Clinton campaign. They give the spiel, asking for a vote, maybe conducting a poll. He humors them and listens, frustrated though he is with politics. Finally, at the end, they say something like, “oh, and she’s having a rally tonight. Will you be able to attend?”

He replies, “yes, and I’ll bring my gun.” And then hangs up the phone.

And that is how my poor mother, the nicest woman you ever meet, mother of 6 children, with 4 still living at home, ended having to answer the door to two Secret Service agents standing on her stoop.

My youngest brother didn’t face any criminal consequences for that day. It probably helped that he had no criminal record then, was just a kid, and there were no firearms in the house. He got the sternest talking to of his life, and I’m sure there’s still a record of him somewhere in the Secret Service archives.

I suppose it was an early sign of things to come. His life didn’t get easier after that. He struggled through the rest of his schooling, never made a serious attempt at college. Was diagnosed with bipolar and used a lot of substances to self medicate. Stole a lot from friends and family, lived on the street for awhile. Served several years in prison for a completely pointless robbery of a liquor store. Drifted from job to job and never really got any traction in life. OD’d at 27, just another victim of the opioid crisis.

Miss you little brother, despite everything you did. Hope you’re in a better place. At least you never had to see the world as it is now.

Fuck ICE. At this point, any ICE agent with a soul would resign. I pray they each have a heart attack.

Release the data on the public internet in an encrypted form. With the data, include a message openly admitting you’re a time traveler. Include predictions of events that are relatively resistant to the butterfly effect and will have little effect on the time stream. For example, I would include a long list of future supernovae and other astrophysical phenomena. Such data would accelerate the field of astronomy a bit, but it wouldn’t really affect life on Earth much. And it would prove that you’re either a time traveler or someone with access to FTL travel technology. In your message, tell people the data is of vital importance to the future of humanity and that it will be needed in a crucial hour.

There will be enough people who preserve a copy of the data and pass it along to their children and grandchildren. Forget relying on technical solutions. This is one you can rely on people for. Unless there’s some complete collapse of technological society, the data will be preserved.

Sure, in a one-party system like China, the one ruling party is always responsible for everything that happens. The fatal flaw in the system though is - how do you actually hold that one party accountable? If the Chinese Communist Party fails, the only way to actually hold them accountable is to start building bombs and killing people. There’s no way to vote them out of office. The only way to hold them accountable is a total revolution.

Cat food isn’t even any more expensive than canned tuna and other similar canned meats. You’re not saving any money. You’re eating cat food for no reason!

Any coders want to instantly have one of the most popular extensions for firefox, chrome, etc? It seems this would be the type of thing that would be relatively easy for an extension/add-on to fix.

The point is people actually practicing Christianity as it was originally meant to be practiced will inevitably end up in socialist bent. Jesus was a poor person. He hung out with beggars and prostitutes.

There are no rich men in the Kingdom of Heaven. There are no billionaires in paradise. Billionaires do not go to Heaven. In the end, every last one of them burns.

That is what I believe. That is my version of Christianity. I take the “eye of the needle” passage very literally.

Yes. It’s called summarizing. Obviously it’s a bit more complicated. I’m not writing an essay on the history of Linux here.

It wouldn’t matter in this case. If someone violates courts enough, they can be actually indicted and charged with crimes for that. If someone was convicted on a charge of obstruction of justice, then the president could pardon them of that conviction.

But I’m not talking about charging people with obstruction of justice. Judges can’t even indict people on their own without the cooperation of the executive. What I’m talking about is the enforcement powers courts have outside of convictions, the powers of contempt of court.

For example, let’s say you come in for a traffic ticket in your local county courthouse. When your case comes up, you don’t even try to engage with the judge. You just start calling the judge every name and curse word in the book, and you threaten to kill him and his family. The judge at that point can simply throw you in the court’s jail cell. He doesn’t need to convict you of anything. He can just say, “you know what, I’m going to hold you until you respect this court and agree to engage with the process.” That kind of holding can’t be pardoned. You can’t be pardoned for that, because you haven’t been charged or convicted of anything. This kind of hold is constitutional because you hold the keys to your own cell. All you have to do to get out is to stop being a jackass to the judge. A judge holding you in contempt of court can’t be pardoned by the governor or president.

That is what I’m suggesting the courts do on a large scale. You don’t try and convict Musk and his goons of anything. If they continue to violate court orders, you just round them all up and lock them up on contempt of court until they agree to abide by court orders. And again, this is constitutional because they can get out at any time, as long as they follow the orders of the court.

You might need to hold a large number of people this way, but so be it. Be creative. I’m sure the judges can work something out. Maybe the governors of Maryland or Virginia would be willing to offer spaces in their state jails to hold prisoners being held by federal judges on contempt of court charges.

Exactly. That’s why my point is that there may be other mechanisms for courts to deputize or recruit people to serve as enforcers for the court.

Well, spread it or something like it to everyone you know using every platform you have. I am just one woman. No need to even quote me directly. Spread the message. We need to start spreading ideas in the public consciousness about how to actually fight back. Also start emailing these courts directly. They should be bombarded with emails telling them to take actions like this to directly enforce their orders.

Courts can deputize bailiffs. You ever see an Old West movie where a judge appoints a posse to round up a criminal? That’s something courts can do. I’m sure there are no shortage of currently out of work federal employees who would be more than willing to volunteer for the job. And I’m sure you would have no problem finding people willing to donate firearms to arm these bailiffs as necessary.

The only reason we haven’t seen violence already is that people are afraid of being arrested and thrown in prison themselves. The fed workers know full well that what Musk is doing is incredibly illegal. The only reason he hasn’t been lynched by a gang of angry fed employees is that no one wants to go to jail forever. But if they are simply enforcing court orders, and are legally empowered to use force to stop these people? Well now they have the full power of the law behind them, and they aren’t facing personal criminal liability. The courts need to deputize large numbers of bailiffs and haul Musk and his goons into court, at bayonet point if necessary.

The courts need to start deputizing large numbers of bailiffs to enforce their orders. Forget relying on funding from Congress for it; I’m sure they’ll have plenty of volunteers. Musk and his goons refuse to comply with court orders? Haul them into court at the point of a bayonet. I’m sure you’ll have no shortage of patriotic Americans also willing to donate weapons to arm these new bailiffs.

The courts need to seriously build out their capacity to enforce orders independent of the executive branch. They need muscle.

It’s actually a sandwich.

They need to start working with the judiciary on a plan to actually enforce judicial orders independent of the Executive branch. The courts need muscle. They need to deputize a large number of bailiffs and start enforcing court summons and orders directly. Don’t worry about finding funds to actually pay these deputized bailiffs; no appropriations are getting through Congress for this. But I’m sure you will have no problem finding a few thousand volunteers willing to act as temporary bailiffs. There are thousands of recently unemployed people in DC, who are very familiar with the layout of government buildings and the working of government offices. I’m sure you’ll get plenty of recruits among them. Need weapons? This is America; you’ll find plenty of patriotic people willing to donate firearms to arm this new squad of deputized bailiffs. We’re doing this Old West deputized posse style.

Once sufficient bailiffs have been deputized, the courts need to start physically hauling in Musk and his goons, at bayonet point if necessary. If they refuse to comply with lawful court orders, then lock them up as necessary. If enough space can’t be found for them, or if the justice department doesn’t cooperate, improvise here as well. Lock people up in spaces private citizens volunteer, private warehouses and apartments if need be.

Trump himself is likely off limits, but that matters little. He’ll quickly find that he has no one to give orders to, as all his appointed cronies willing to violate court orders are now rotting in jail. And while you can pardon people if they’ve received punishments for contempt of court, you can’t pardon people who are haven’t actually been charged or convicted of anything and are merely being held until they comply with court orders.

This is war. And they need to start acting like it.

Just how fucking dense do you have to be in order to be surprised that a man who created one of the most popular operating systems on Earth, and then gave it away for free, might be a leftist?

“But a billionaire is already rich, why would they need to steal from us?”

What so many people fail to realize is that you only become a billionaire if there is something broken in your soul. Sane people retire to live very comfortable private lives, to enjoy the remainder of their finite time on this Earth with their family, friends, and hobbies. Sane people stop earning money and retire long before they reach anywhere near even a single billion in wealth. The one exception to this are those who create a product while of modest means and see it explode in profitability; see someone like Notch. But even Notch sold Minecraft off and now spends his time pursuing passion projects, rather than tirelessly working to wring more dollars out of his golden goose.

Sane people work to live. You do not become a billionaire unless your greed is insatiable.

Most people say that Elon Musk is the richest person on Earth. But they are wrong. I don’t know who the richest person on Earth is. But I know for a fact that I am wealthier than Elon Musk. He is a pauper before me. I have something Elon Musk has never had, does not have, will never have, and is utterly incapable of ever having.

Enough.

I prefer Hundreds of Beavers, the greatest cinematic masterpiece of our age.