Progressive metal.

One of my favorite bands has a song where it sounds like everyone is playing a different time signature simultaneously, and it feels out of time and chaotic… And then snaps into focus perfectly, before breaking up again. (I can’t identify the time signatures, no. I can hear at least two, and I’m pretty sure three. I think the drummer is doing polyrhythms?) You can listen to the same song five times in a row, focusing on a difference part each time, and hear something new each time. Or take Opeth’s “River”; the same same song seems to effortless combine elements of country, blues, 70s rock, NWBHM into something that feels both classic and new. (“New” despite being originally released in 2014.) Or, shit, An Abstract Illusion’s “Woe”; it’s nominally split into 7 tracks, but the lack of breaks between songs means that the whole thing flows into a single piece. Or, or or!, “Castaway Angels” by Leprous; Leprous stretches and strains the definitions of what metal is, and is not. While some of what they do is clearly metal, are they still a metal band?

The only thing that’s a real constant in progressive metal is that the bands all have impeccable musicianship.

You’re simply wrong.

For voters that lean Democratic, the top issues are healthcare (76%), SCOTUS appointments (73%), abortion (67%), economy (68%), climate change (62%), gun policy (59%), racial and ethnic equality (56%), and finally foreign policy (54%). Foreign policy covers a lot of ground, and it’s number 8 overall on the list of most important things to Democratic voters. While it’s hard to find polling on the genocide in Palestine specifically, the number of people for whom that is the most important factor is very, very low

It may be true that, of the people who are normally back-the-blue-no-matter-who that aren’t this year, that it comes down to genocide in Palestine, it’s simply not true for voters as a whole. You can argue that it should be important, but–again–“soft on terrorism” is not a winning strategy in a national political race, and that’s exactly how Republicans spin any support for the tens of thousands of Palestinian non-combatants that have been genocided by Israel. Including the Palestinians in the West Bank that are being murdered by Jewish right-wing extremists.

I hope Harris wins, and I hope that she does more than Biden has been willing and able to do. But if Trump wins, then we’re pretty much guaranteed that Israel is going to eliminate all Palestinians in the region.

It’s my opinion that we should not stick with and try to iterate on a bad, unjust, and unfavorable system for the sake of keeping prices low with our current dietary preferences.

My issue is that you’re trying to legislate changes to diet, and you’re doing it by eliminating options. Or by making it unaffordable to anyone without significant disposable income. If you change ‘preferences’, then the issue goes away on it’s own; factory farms exist because there’s a demand.

If it wasn’t for the unavoidable fact that eliminating farm subsidies would increase food insecurity, I’d say do that. But there’s no good way to do that in a way that won’t also increase risks of farms going bankrupt and poor people not being able to afford food.

If you’re finding that people don’t want to change their diets with the messaging that you’re using, then you need to change your messaging.

Here’s another way to summarize this: Wealthy ‘liberal’ elites want to make groceries even more expensive when food prices have been rising faster than the CPI.

Factory farms, as distasteful as they may be to many, keep food prices lower through economies of scale. Once you start shutting that down, food gets sharply more expensive, especially for the people that can least afford it. Energy would be better directed, IMO, towards improving conditions in industrial farming, rather than trying to eliminate it.

CAFOs apply to dairy farms with >700 mature cows. So you’re saying that it’s not going to affect any dairies?

They said nothing about them being small family businesses; they said that they’d been a part of rural Sonoma for generations.

And I have noticed that there’s a strong trend of city people moving to rural areas, and then complaining about the things that have been there for decades before they moved in. It’s a little ridiculous. I moved out of a city because I wanted to be closer to farms and forests, live off a dirt road with spotty cell connection and power that goes out if Mother Nature sneezes, and have bears that go rooting through my composting. Bitching about people that have been there since long before I showed up seems… Shitty. And trying to run them out when it’s pretty damn likely that I’m personally benefitting from their business seems even worse.

I’m happy to explain, although it’s a like drinking from a high-pressure firehose. So much of this isn’t going to make sense to anyone that wasn’t raised Mormon. There’s so much cultural garbage going on in Mormonism that people outside of it simply don’t have a frame of reference for to make sense of it. If you really want to get an idea, I’d suggest the Mormon Stories podcast, by Dr. John Dehlin, which is currently clocking in at 1951 (!!!) episodes, averaging a little over two hours each.

I’m not going to deal with their Truth (capitalization intentional) claims in depth; those have already been adequately covered by Jeremy Runnels, among many, many others. It’s very, very clear, once you start digging, that all of the Mormon church cult Truth claims are complete hogwash, and rely on feelings rather than any factual basis at all.

Okay, but, lots of religions make bullshit claims, right? That, by itself, shouldn’t necessarily make a religion awful, right?

Fair enough. So lets move on to the meat and potatoes of what really makes the Mormon church cult bad; they exert undue authoritarian control over their members. I’m going to use Steven Hassan’s BITE model here, and go through each salient point. Again, this is a lot, so buckle up, buttercup. Keep in mind that a lot of this isn’t doctrine, but it is dogmatic practice, and is supported and encouraged by leadership at the highest levels.

Preface all of this with the understanding that the Mormon church cult believes that attending Mormon temples is a requirement for salvation.

This is going to take me a few hours to get through, so I’m going to come back to it when I have time.

The problem you have here is that it’s simply not an important issue for most people that are likely to vote in this election. It’s not even in the top ten most important issues for the overwhelming majority of people. Harping on this issue does nothing to help, won’t change the core position, and is likely to end up harming the cause of stopping genocide.

“Soft on terrorism” is a good way to lose a fairly large chunk of voters (because the Oct. 7 attack was terrorism, no matter how you want to justify it). “Opposing genocide” only attracts a very, very small number of voters that wouldn’t have already been voting Democratic.

Is this shitty? Sure. Welcome to the worst nightmare of all: reality.

And you don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t believe in.

I can tell you, and everyone else, that you’re lying, because it’s clear that you are. What you say, and what you do, is consistent with people that are religious conservatives, not with people that are actually leftists, or Satanists. I can say that what you say you believe is not what you actually believe, because you haven’t yet acted in a way that’s consistent with your claims.

None of my communities are racist

Uh huh. And I’m sure that your posting about transracialism and apparent support of it has nothing to do with white people raised in white families trying to erase ethnic and cultural identities by claiming them as their own, right? And I’m sure that you don’t mean it as a very thinly veiled attempt to refute the existence of transgender and gender-queer people either, right?

Oh, and hey, you entirely failed to address your red-pill community.

And attacking someone’s religion, regardless of what it is, is wrong too.

Yeah, no. You choose whether or not you adhere to a religion. If you don’t want to be Mormon, you can send a notarized letter to the records department in SLC and have your name removed from their records. Or you can choose to publicly do things that will get you excommunicated, like advocating for protecting children from sexual predators (like, say Sam Young did). If you don’t want to be tarred with that brush, then stop being Mormon.

The entire Mormon religion is a rotten religion, and it was started by a con man. Anyone that knows this, or has the ability to learn it, and still follows the con deserves condemnation. The information is out there for anyone that truly has an open mind, which is why Mormon leaders keep telling members not to read any sources that aren’t approved by the Mormon church. How’s that quote from Dalin Oaks go? Something about how things that are true, but not faith-affirming, aren’t useful?

No, you don’t get to gaslight me by saying you believe one thing while acting in the opposite manner. Or, more correctly, you can try, but it’s transparent to everyone.

You started are the sole moderator and poster of both a red-pill community, and a “transracial” community which is pretty clearly racist. You push candidates that are known to support the election odds of far-right candidates, and you push deeply socially regressive education institutions. These all add up to a person that is misogynistic, racist, and believes in far-right ideology. Or, in simpler terms, a typical Mormon.

You know everyone can see what you’re posting, right? If you post, for instance, 20 things that are positive for Stein, 10 things critical of Harris, and 1 thing critical of Trump, what’s the trend? That’s a pretty strong pro-Trump trend, since Stein’s own campaign has said that they’re about blocking Harris, and they know they can’t win.

And this? What you’re doing right here? Sea lioning.

Nah, probably does it for free due to his (very poorly concealed) ideology.

And is almost certainly a cisgender, heterosexual male, and my bet is that they’re actually Mormon.

The election is going to be tight. Right now, Harris leads very, very slightly, by about three points. FiveThirtyEight placed the odds at about 53-47 as of yesterday (and they’re historically pretty good). Trump got his ass handed to him at the last debate, and he knows it. Unless he was able to git gud really fast, a 2nd debate would not improve his chances. Yes, he looks weak by not taking it on Fox of all places, but that’s better than taking it an doing just as badly a 2nd time. There’s almost no upside to him accepting an invitation to a debate.

But.

Trump is also incredibly egotistical. He wants to be on stage, and he thinks that he’s good at debating. He wants to be seen; he needs to be seen. Turning down free publicity to present himself first–and his policies a distant second–on a national television program witnessed by millions of people, that’s gotta hurt him.

I have been. I get contacted fairly regularly for polls.

Knowledge is something that can be prov

“We need to be clear about what our goals are,” Sawant said in a speech on Sunday in Dearborn, Michigan. “We are not in a position to win the White House.

“But we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan.”

So the goal is “fighting to defeat Harris, not just symbolically but in reality,” Sawant said. “This is ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her.”

If you admit Stein can’t win, and you claim Harris must be defeated, then you’re working to elect Donald Trump.

My dude.

Did you even read this before you posted it? You’ve just shown your hand. You consistently shill for Stein. Therefore, knowing that Stein can not win the election, you are working for Trump. Which, well, since the communities you’ve created and moderate are entirely in-line with far-right conservative Mormon politics, is pretty on-brand.

“Socialist Mormon Satanist”, aka UniversalMonk.

No, you’re not. You’re not any of the above.

I was raised Mormon, and I am an RM. I’m a Ricks College–now BYU-I–alumn. I had my records removed almost 20 years ago, was a born-again, evangelical atheist for a while, and I’ve been an active and open Satanist for the last 10.

Your online presence and words scream “active Mormon”, not Satanist, or socialist. The things you promote–racism, misogyny, far-right ideology (such as, for instance, all the Ricks College garbage)–are in-line with both historical Mormonism as well as contemporary practices.

Whoa whoa whoa, I thought Republicans were all in favor of zero censorship…?

Immediate Google results shows stun guns to be about 90% effective,

Google is 100% wrong. A Taser–not a stun gun–shoots barbed darts that are connected to the handset by thin wires. When you have good contact–that is, they aren’t stuck in clothing instead of piercing the skin, and they’re far enough apart–they’re going to create strong muscle spasms, like a whole-body TENS unit. (Which, BTW, isn’t that painful either, IMO, but you do lose a degree of voluntary movement. ) A stun gun works only when it’s on contact with bare skin, and only works through pain-compliance. E.g., it “hurts”, and the idea is that a person will want the pain to stop. Except that they don’t really hurt.

This is a Taser.

This is a stun gun.

Ask any person that actually does serious self-defense training for high-risk situations, and they’re going to say the same thing; you can not rely on a stun gun. A Taser will work, but you have exactly two shots, and getting both darts to make solid contact can be very iffy. Oh, and they only work as long as you keep your finger on the trigger; as soon as you let it go, the assailant is back in business. Tasers work in law enforcement because they usually work in teams and groups rather than singly.

First: Stun guns are ineffective. I’ve used one on myself; it tickles. The basic principle of a stun gun is pain compliance, and if the person you’re using it on has a high pain threshold, they’re utterly ineffective A taser has, at best, two shots. Thick clothing, bad contact, or simply missing means you’re SOL. It’s pretty easy to find video of cops trying to taze someone, and failing. Pepper spray works–depending on the brand–but it very dependent on things like wind speed and direction, and how old your canister is. …And you’re pretty likely to end up pepper spraying yourself if you don’t practice with inert canisters.

Guns just work. Period.

And no, it’s not a false equivalence. Cars have utility value, as do firearms. Cars can be used legally, and they can be used illegally, as can firearms. There are millions of cars that are used legally and safely every day, much like firearms. It’s not a precise parallel, but it’s sufficiently close for the purposes of this argument.

Of course the only correct number of gun deaths among civilians is 0, do you disagree with that?

I absolutely do disagree, yes. If my life or safety is being threatened by someone, then I absolutely have the right to use any level of force necessary to defend myself, up to and including lethal force.

BTW, the way that you state that question is a form of manipulation. It’s a common tactic used in high-pressure sales.

According to a quick Google search, 3 in 10 American adults say that they currently own a firearm; that’s around 82,000,000 gun owners in the US. Last time I checked, there were around 45,000 annual gun deaths in the US, of which just under 2/3 were suicide. That leaves somewhere around 18,000 deaths that are homicides of some form (which also includes legal self-defense). So it’s far, far less than 1/1000 gun owners that are going to shoot someone (other than intentionally shooting themselves, and IMO that’s a different issue entirely).

But, sure, if in your opinion that only correct number of gun deaths is 0, then yes, removing guns and collectively forgetting how to make them is the only solution. Just like if your opinion is that the only correct number of traffic deaths is zero, then the only reasonable solution is the completely elimination of all means of transportation other than feet.