In retrospect, I'd actually say Ashley was kind of a small preview for the insanity of today. There's quite a few people online who will ignore the entire character in an instant claiming "Ashley is racist, and thus is a terrible person!" and then write her off on Virmire without a second thought. However, not only is her position is both understandable given her history (if they bothered to look into it) and (as the series progresses) is also provably accurate for the Council. But, no, muh racism! so the whole character must be written off.
Knowing nothing about this guy other than you calling him a libtard, I would go with Antonio here mostly. I would give the guy one chance, by showing him some of the countless news stories of people being arrested for saying naughty things online in the UK, just in case he is entirely blind to what is going on. And if (or, I'm willing to bet, when) when he tries to justify those (which I'm willing to bet he will) then drop it like a hot potato.
If you look up the bio of the woman who did the radar scans that started all this, her bio says
Dr. Beaulieu’s research in modern conflict anthropology is diverse but what ties it all together is her interest in applying an anthropological lens to the contemporary past in an effort to bring to light the stories of, and give voice to, the disenfranchised groups that have been overlooked in the historical record.
Tells you all you need to know.
Those work. I was going to go with these though:
You mean, as opposed to today when it is:
Son: everyone keeps telling me I'm evil just because I was born a boy
Dad: I can't get through my day without a ton of pain meds
Mom: I have to keep smiling and acting like everything is OK, even though my life is miserable and unsatisfying
Daughter: Everyone keep telling me I'm a boy and need to get my boobs cut off
Granddad: This country is doomed, glad I'll be dying soon
Congress would have to charge her with insurrection for them to invoke the 14th. And you know they ain't gonna happen, it's all kabuki theater.
What do you mean, ain't gonna happen? They had hearings on it a month ago
If you're arguing that a conviction would never happen, maybe. But the swamp monsters seem to be getting fairly aggressive recently.
Honestly, brick the phone and hand it back saying "it just broke!". I could go on a multi-page rant, but smartphones are a huge contributor to the woke insanity, and even without that are a huge societal problem. The world would be a much better place if the 4 and 5g networks were to implode overnight.
They're still doing the thing Bloom Country called them out on 4 decades ago? Le sigh.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump vowed Thursday to sue “everybody” that was an accomplice to the Buffalo supermarket shooting,
I'm all for that, as that means we get to sue the glowies too, right? Oh, wait, no mention of them. Never mind!
The Shapiro quote is 100% accurate. Marriage is a religious institution, and the government has no business forcing churches to marry people, forcing people to participate in wedding ceremonies, etc.
What government DOES have a business in is how partner status impacts various legal aspects, like hospital visitations, tax burdens, etc. But, instead of doing the logical thing (ripping out the laws that have your marital or family status impact your taxes, putting systems in place so anyone can specify anyone else as allowed to visit in hospital, etc.) they decided to go the "no, gay people can marry too!"
Because I'm increasingly convinced it was never about "rights". It was more about being able to sue Christian bakers into oblivion for not participating in their degeneracy than it was about letting gay people get married. Just like it's more about forcing other people to perform abortions (especially if they don't want to) than it is about access to abortions.
No idea on Barnette, hadn't heard of her at all before someone posted about her here in the last week or so.
As for DeSantis:
Trump will almost certainly run in 2024. And IMO, anyone sane should vote for him over Harris or whichever nutjob gets put up on the D ticket. That said, Trump should not run. He really shouldn't. He's just too divisive and there are too many NPCs out there. The salt mines would be amazing, especially if he won again, but I'm very skeptical if he could. The well is just too poisoned.
DeSantis, though, has a lot of policy successes to stand on (especially with regard to Covid), is pretty solid platform-wise, and has actually taken actions to push back against the Woke crew rather than talking about it. And while the media will undoubtedly try to portray him as Trump 2.0 he doesn't have as much of an immediate negative reaction from normies. Will see what happens in the next 2 years but for now I really think he should be the R nominee in 2024.
Hey little Billy! You'll get extra credit if you tell your Mom you want to eat crickets for dinner and film it!