I've always found the allocution part of plea deals to be the most insidious. A plea deal is a tactical decision, the government is worried it may lose, so it offers reduced charges or sentencing in exchange for a guaranteed win. The defendant is also afraid they may lose, so they are willing to take a guaranteed lower sentence than risk the potential higher penalty of losing at trial. The terms are based on each side's estimation of its chance of victory. At no point is the person's actual guilt or innocence a factor in either side's decision-making, and everyone knows this.
Yet, after the deal is hammered out, you have to admit in court to doing everything that you pled guilty to. You have to unequivocally state that you committed the crime, describe your guilt in detail, and state that you are in no way admitting to crimes you didn't commit to get a lighter sentence (which is what everyone in the room knows you are actually doing).
And just to make sure you stay on script, the deal isn't official unless it's accepted by the judge after he hears you grovel in front of everyone. He doesn't feel you are sincere enough the whole thing is canceled and you have to go to trial. It almost seems like some sort of ritual out of 1984 or a Kafka novel, calculated to extract the maximum humiliation from the defendant.
If I could change just one thing about the US legal system, it would be to outlaw plea bargains. If you think you have the evidence to convict someone of a crime, then you charge them and go all the way. Otherwise you shut the fuck up and let them go.
"Trans rights are human rights!" "Unless they cost us sales."
While I fundamentally disagree with all this "pride"and LGBTABCXYZ bullshit, if that's your thing, at least have the courage to accept the cost of your convictions.
Do they use AI to write this shit now?:
The rally, unfortunately, was cut short according to those who attended.
"We just saw them walking towards us, and they quickly grabbed the microphone from someone who was talking, and we had to get out," a student said.
Who is 'they"? Why was it cut short? I'm assuming it it was the school, but I shouldn't have to assume when reading a news article.
They also have this weird paramilitary branch called the "Sea Organization" where they sign enlistment contracts that last for thousands of years. I guess supposedly their soul is supposed to keep serving.
Apparently L Ron Hubbard was a mid-tier Navy officer in World War II, who performed poorly enough to get removed from command twice. I guess he always wanted that successful military career, so he formed his fake navy to be in charge.
Scientology literally screams "I am a cult and a scam" yet people still join them. It's a testament to the weakness and stupidity of human beings.
I have no idea what the hell Marvel was thinking turning Spider-Man into some weird multi-universe thing with a billion characters with the name. If I had to guess, I would think they were trying to do something along the lines with Batman where there have been a number of different versions over the years.
Peter Parker is the only Spider-Man, and when I was reading the comics he had only ever worn one costume except for a brief stint with the symbiote- which at least had a story and purpose behind it.
I absolutely refuse to touch any media that has Hoodie Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy Spider-Man, or black Spider-Man or any of the other millions of Spider-Men in it.
I had a friend with alopecia and he was completely hairless, right down to his eyelashes.
I never asked about his pubes, but I'm going to guess he didn't have those either.
"I'll take 'Games I Won't be Purchasing' for $100, Alex"
So, just like Best Buy? I guess I'm not surprised. After years of not owning a console, I picked up an Xbox about 4 years ago and I've watched the inventories at both those stores dwindle in real time. Target too.
They used to have 30+ current titles, and a decent selection of discount games. Now they're down to a handful of current titles and no discount games at all.
OMFG, the best part was that after she complained that he didn't take her to a nicer restaurant, he told her it was because she was late and showed her the proof that he had a reservation they missed.
At least he had the dignity to cancel the date because of her behavior.
"Make his pockets hurttt" with a shot of the bill at the end. Then a quick cut to her in a pose she obviously thinks makes her fat ass look cute.
The entitlement and narcissism is off the charts.
Wild-haired psycho, who looks 20 years post-wall, raging incoherently. Turned it off after the first minute.
And she's an "influencer", which just means she thinks she should make money for existing.
As I said, weighing costs and benefits and taking the most efficient course of action isn't sitting on your ass or giving up. It's accepting reality and optimizing your experience in life based on it.
I'll ask again: what is your proposed solution? Your answer so far seems to be simply "remake society to enforce traditional values on women". Believing that the Western world is going to just wake up and decide that they're doing it wrong is pure fantasy. And unless you've got the largest army the world has ever seen you're not going to be able to force it on them either.
I'm not sure where you're getting "giving up" from MGTOW. It's a very rational calculation of the costs and benefits of entering into a relationship or marriage or having children and deciding that the cost exceed the benefits.
If you cancel your cable subscription because they raise the price and you no longer feel you're getting an appropriate level of value in return, do you also consider that "giving up" on cable?
The freedom to not enter into a relationship is one of the few you've got left. Once you're dating or married there are plenty of laws that strip you of personal agency and help transfer your wealth to women. MGTOW maximizes your benefits by protecting you from that. If the situation changes to make it worthwhile to date again, then great, but MGTOW optimizes you for the reality today.
So yeah, my proposal for fixing this is hijack the societal brainwashing apparatus and recalibrate it to call whores bad people again and praise women who are loyal.
Oh gotcha, we'll just rewrite how society works. And how do we do that?
Well, we could change a bunch of laws. Oh shit, the government is 100% in favor of females and actively supports pro-female discrimination in the workplace and family court is pretty much designed to extract everything possible from men and give it to women. They're probably not going to jump on board with your big plan.
How about the media? We could use them to change social norms. Too bad buddy, they're in lockstep with the government. They paint even moderate men's rights activists as wackos; they're absolutely not going to adopt your point of view. Slut shaming is probably the nicest thing they'll accuse you of.
So whadda you got left?
It's trivially easy to please a male. You just have to be moderately attractive and a nice person who cares about them. Yet the overwhelming majority of women fail to meet these simple prerequisites.
I have never met a man in my entire life that has judged a woman based on their height, education, job, or wealth. We do judge based on weight and looks, but that's just biology- you're not going to want to mate with someone if you don't find them physically attractive.
So then what's your proposed solution?
I see MGTOW as recognizing both the biological limitations of women, and the societal institutions set up to advance their interests at the expense of men. Nothing can change biology, but by saying "I'm out until you fix your shit" you can possibly incentivize society to change. And if it doesn't, so be it- at least you're not playing a losing game.
Men's rights groups have tried working within the system to change it and failed. Your remaining choices are to submit and become an ATM for some woman, or walk away.
Yes, renouncing citizenship in a foreign nation only works if that Nation recognizes the renunciation.
For example, I heard that Mexico considers you a citizen forever, and won't recognize any attempt to renounce your Mexican citizenship.
Israel has a "right of return" for any jew. If you're Jewish, you can go there and join the IDF. I don't know why you would want to, but the option is there.
The South Koreans make you relinquish your citizenship when you become an adult if you're an also an American citizen; otherwise they will scoop you up for mandatory military service.
For reference, many US citizens also served in the British or Canadian militaries in WWI and WWII prior to our entry into those wars.
I got the same story from a friend. I reminded him that they said the Germans were spearing babies with bayonets in World War I and I wasn't going to believe it without video proof. He said there was video, so where is it?
It's a shame that consumer demand for physical media has largely melted away, because streaming is not a true substitute for owning a DVD.
There's obviously issues with selection. I can't find Friday the 13th on any of the four streaming services I have access to during the month of October, for example. But more than that, the new trend of editing old content to make it comply with "modern values" or simply discontinuing publication of certain movies and books should have woken up the general populace to the value and actually owning your own copy, but it probably didn't.
Yes, in the TOS, but it directly contradicts the plain language verbiage regarding Amazon's offer to purchase the movie. The options presented on the product page are "rent" or "buy" not "rent" or "rent indefinitely".
Under US law, when the technical terms of a contract contradict the plain language of the purported offer, they are void. This was hashed out long before computers even existed, because you have always had swindlers that would do shit like advertise a car on a car lot and then when you sign the actual purchase contract they buried a line in there that says you're buying a Hot Wheels car for $30,000.
The court in this case erred by allowing Amazon to continue using the language "buy or purchase" on the product page as their licensing agreement never gave them the authority to sell the film in the first place. It's intentionally deceptive, as they know what they are offering you is in fact an indefinite rental.
There's nothing immoral or illegal about offering an indefinite rental, the problem is that they represented it as a purchase instead of what it really was
I feel like I need to point out from a technical perspective, you absolutely can own digital media, it's just that people are rightly noticing almost all major studios now are in favour of making you rent your game.
You're absolutely right that is technically possible to create a digital copy that you truly own. Unfortunately the courts don't treat you as owning digital content, even if it was purported to be a purchase rather than a rental.
In this CA case, the court ruled in favor of Amazon because buried in their terms of service it says you don't really own your purchase, even though the website clearly makes the distinction between buying and renting a movie and it doesn't say anywhere that anyone would actually read that "buy" means something other than its common usage: https://www.askthelawyers.com/read-article/lawsuit-confirms-that-customers-dont-own-movies-purchased-on-amazon-prime
This should have been bright letter law: courts have always ruled the clauses buried in contracts are void when they contradict The up front language that a customer should be able to take at face value. Meaning, if Amazon says you are "buying" a digital copy of a movie, the universally accepted understanding is that that means it becomes yours in perpetuity and you are also free to resell it. If their licensing agreements with the studios don't allow them to sell something in this manner, then legally they shouldn't be allowed to purport that you can "buy" the film from them. To allow otherwise is to allow Amazon to commit fraud.
I suspect the same holds true for every other digital purchase: buried in the terms somewhere is a statement that you "own" your purchase only so long as the seller wants to maintain your access.
Unfortunately, digital sales are better for game companies in every way: no money spent on manufacturing and distribution, a wealth of data on consumer behavior because they know what every single person has bought and installed on their machine, and no used game market to compete with new sales.
The problem is most of that doesn't benefit the consumer in any way. I refuse to buy digital games, because you never truly own them.
Of course modern physical discs usually just direct you to download 100 GB of updates anyway, making me wonder if there's even a game on there. But that's a different problem.
So, Amazon's showroom will no longer carry the only thing I buy there. I guess I'm not surprised, as I've seen their video game shelves dwindle down to almost nothing over the last 5 years.
Their sale prices on video games and blu-rays were often cheaper than online retailers, with the added advantage that you could take it home immediately and not have to worry about it being beat to shit in shipping.
I wouldn't dream of buying a TV, appliance, or computer from them, so I guess I'll just never shop there again.
I hate FDR. He originated the idea of packing the Supreme Court when it ruled against his New Deal policies.
He also had a philosophy that he would get unconstitutional legislation pushed through and then fight to defend it in court. That attitude of knowingly passing defective laws continues today in things like all the unconstitutional gun control the left passes and then drags out in court.