Trumpite Americans, when will you finally acknowledge that you’re traitorous assholes?

Oh my god, sometimes kids play dressup! Film at 11.

Liberal? I’ve got more libertarian in my pinky finger than you seem to have in your whole self. The things I find separate me from most internet libertarians, present company included, are a) I refuse to ignore or twist facts for political points, b) I believe in prioritizing my battles, and c) I believe in the government, such as is necessary, being effective at those things, and in providing equality before the law, unnecessary as those laws might be. If the government is going to tilt the playing field, it damn well better tilt it flatly. I think that's a better recipe for liberty (and material flourishing) than piecemeal deregulating such interests as can buy politicians to deregulate them, or allowing other powerful interests to put some people outside the protection and equality of the law.

Frankly, just a. is enough to make me seem like a "liberal" these days. Just because a government program shouldn't exist, I won't reflexively argue that it can't or couldn't work. And as per b., most internet libertarians' bugbears aren't worth arguing about whether it shouldn't exist.

Take single-payer health care. You probably say (and might even believe) that it can't possibly work here, might lead to lower total costs, but would incur outrageous taxes, and would cause a general decline, if not collapse of the health care industry. The data from other countries show otherwise: the costs will probably be just as high or higher within a few years after the surplus from end of the insurance industry is absorbed by the additional costs incurred from treating people who can't access treatment now. The actual supply of health care workers is artificially too damn low for what's a largely fixed demand (oh it can grow, as risky health behavior becomes less financially consequential, but even that has limits), and will be rationed by official waiting lists instead of the existing rationing by price and bureaucracy (effectively a waiting list) with the current hybrid system. So I can say that if health insurance is going to be completely taken over by the government, it makes a lot of sense to get the baseline price down and the only way to do that without further rationing of care is by increasing supply. I can point to charts and graphs and comparative analyses. The sobering reality is: who pays for health care in the US will likely not make a meaningful difference in total cost or total supply, so on those counts, it doesn't really matter if we go for single-payer health care.

If you weren't paying attention, you'd read that as advocating single-payer health care. It's not. It's advocating cheap single-payer health care if we're to have it at all, and the prescriptions to get it cheaper are all far from Liberal. Notice that the core problem -- too low supply -- is a government-created problem: Certificates of Need, med school admissions caps, overbroad licensing regimes, excessive care standards, composition limitations on group insurance policies and other regulatory capture by the insurance industry, etc. If actual Liberals look at the data and follow my (highly libertarian!) policy prescriptions, they'd find that the urgency on adopting single-payer would fade as prices dropped, and if progressives went ahead and got it passed afterwards anyway, it results in lower taxes and more health care supply available than just fighting against it with bad data (at best; lies at worst) and wishful thinking. Because progressives are dumb as shit sometimes and will happily pay more than needed for less care, and scratch their heads as they wonder why it's not producing the Medicare utopia they thought it would and instead the Medicaid hellscape that exists for the poor now. And because they're progressives, supply-side interventions, even just undoing limitations imposed by the government itself, are anathema, so they won't do them.

Or housing. Do I want public housing? Not especially. Will public housing bring down the cost of housing by increasing supply when local governments are so captured by existing property owners that they basically won't allow any new building except public housing? Yes, (although not as much as if it was market-rate housing) because supply and demand still work, even if the "wrong" people are providing the supply. In a thoroughly stifled city like SF where people have basically forgotten that prices can ever fall, as people see prices drop (or at least rise slower) with more public housing, pressure rises for opposition to the captured legislators and either they change their tune or get booted (see Scott Weiner, who used housing so successfully he got himself elected to the state Senate). R-1 zoning becomes more and more unpopular, and eventually zoning reform happens, which should make any libertarian's heart soar. Now when something like getting zoning reform and lower housing costs is on the line, why would I waste time arguing against public housing or, say, public transit, which idiot internet libertarians seem to hate?

And then there's your culture war bullshit. You are somewhere between conservative and QAnon, and I mean both in the most pejorative sense of the terms. Voting for Gary Johnson does not make you a libertarian. I could write a whole essay about part c., and how little you seem to believe in it.

This is exactly why even on things where we would entirely disagree on the conclusion I always take the time to carefully read your posts and try to understand your logic.

dressing up kids in opposite genders?
do clothes have genders?
What makes clothes "boy clothes" and what makes clothes "girl clothes"?

Scotsman's kilts made them all gay, and their pee-pees shriveled up and fell off.
That's why they all died out, and Sean Connery never existed.

Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari, Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, Tyler Perry, all gay cuz they wore the wrong clothing.
Barney Frank? Wore the right clothing, so totally straight.

Not the colors...
Because:

https://www.rd.com/article/pink-for-boys/

Umm, clothing does not contain hormones or hormone blockers. I did not think that someone would think putting on a dress would block testosterone, or putting on pants would block female hormones, but I forgot FF is only a dimwitted child.

Dude, read a book that is not from BrOprah's reading list.

You can say that all you want, but it doesn't make it any more true. You don't know my personal beliefs and I haven't spent one second on QAnon websites or listening to their podcasts or anything of the sort. I haven't a clue what they believe or what they say. Just because I don't discuss zoning or licensing, or other libertarian issues in recent years, which I do believe I have in the past, doesn't mean I'm not familiar with them. I've spent my personal time fighting back against Trumpism among my family and friends. You and everyone don't see it because you laser focus on Trump. You conveniently ignore the times I've criticized him or spoken against Republicans because you lump everyone together. I've said on multiple occasions going as far back as November, 2016 that I didn't vote for Trump, yet assholes like @Ten Lubak still say that he doesn't believe me. You can think I'm a conservative, I know what's in my heart and in my mind and you're just plain wrong. I'm tired of arguing with you people over it though. You simply don't know as much as you think you know.

Your comments here paint a very clear picture. Self-awareness is not your strong suit.

What is it that you think I'm not self aware of?

You think I’m not aware that I lump people into categories and paint people with broad brushes like I just accused others of doing. I’m aware of that. I can only go by what they post so from my perspective, it looks like the majority of the board is left leaning. I’ve seen nothing to change my mind. Some might say the same things about me, that’s fair, but I have posted things that resembles a libertarian stance. Many of you just don’t see it or choose to ignore it because I have defended some of the things that Trump has said or supported because there are a few things that I generally support when it comes to Republican policies. You think that makes me a hypocrite, but honestly, I haven’t seen @Order2Chaos support many libertarian policies as of late. Granted, he doesn’t post as often as he did when I first joined and the past six years has been nothing but anti Trump rhetoric.

You’recnot aware, that you’re not aware that you’re not as smart as you think you are.

It’s hilarious that you think the Democrats are remotely anything close to the Jedi.

Gosh, I just love falling in the middle of something I have no awareness of.

At least you’re aware that you’re unaware

Trump literally tried to install himself as a dictator against the will of the electorate. Our anti-Trump rhetoric is because it was clear he was on this path, he even said he wouldn't commit to recognizing the election months before it happened. For that matter his own cabinet members stated repeatedly that he was problematic, a threat to the US Constitution, and unfit to serve. That's above and beyond all the other incredibly problematic issues with him, which even before that made him the worst President in US history.

So you say 'anti-Trump rhetoric', the rest of us say moral stance against the rise of fascism and the destruction of our democracy.

The source of a lot of the reason so many people are so hostile to you is right there.

Yeah, but BLM, and Antifa, and you hurt his fee-fees.

Not to mention Hunter's laptop!

and Hillary's emails.

I don't know why you guys argue with him. He is completely dishonest in his attempt to convince himself he's center, let alone trying to convince us. He doesn't care that trump tried to destroy our system of government. He only cares that liberals are not in power.

What of it? We used to have a lot of things that we don't have anymore. Like leaded gas, mercury-filled lights, only three channels on TV, and a host of other things. How does going back to an era where leaded gas was a thing an improvement over today?

Do we? Because I don't automatically assume that something is "girl stuff" or "guy stuff," and holy fucking shit, is there something sexy about being able to talk about things like automobiles with a woman who is as knowledgable on the subject (if not more so) than I am. You want to know what I do when a girlfriend of mine asks me to look at her car, change the oil, or do some kind of basic repair? I insist upon showing her how to do it. Why? So that she doesn't have to rely on someone else to do it if she doesn't want to. (Also comes in handy because mechanics are notorious for ripping women off with unnecessary repairs.)

Yeah, no. That's like saying every guy who likes to cook is either gay or trans. Clearly not true.

Biology is fucking messy, and human biology is even more so because we can go against what should be considered "biological programming" (to some extent). Humans are somewhat gender dimorphic, meaning that there can be visual clues to indicate a person's gender (though these don't always hold true). Human males are, on average, larger than human females. In most species where this is the case, the males are the most colorful examples, while the females are drab (since it makes it easier for them to hide). Were this as hardwired in humans as it is in other animals, then dudes would be wearing make-up and revealing clothing, while women would be in burquas. That's not how it works, though. Human societies have adopted a number of different standards for what constitutes proper attire and/or behavior for members of the various sexes. This should tell folks that a lot of things about human behavior aren't at all hard-wired in, but are the product of a particular culture.

I mean, I'm reasonably certain that you didn't have to suck dick to figure out that you were straight, or that you had to try on a bunch of dresses before you figured out that you were cis. So why should someone who is gay or trans have to engage in sex with someone of the opposite gender or dress in a certain style of clothing in order to know who they are?

This whole post was pretty funny, but this part actually made me laugh out loud.

Trump is beginning to drop clues that he knows his followers are idiots.

https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2022/07/trump-alaska-rally-vaccine-sarah-palin/

"We did so much in terms of therapeutics and a word that I'm not allowed to mention," he said, "But I'm still proud of that word, because we did that in nine months, and it was supposed to take five years to 12 years. Nobody else could have done it, but I'm not mentioning it in front of my people."

(And yes, he's still lying, but it's interesting that the weird dance he has to do on vaccination is getting both more transparent and exponentially more awkward.)

It’s kind of weird that they want to give him credit for the vaccine, at the same time it’s like Lord Voldemort, you can’t even mention it.

It's equally interesting that you share so many of the same opinions they do.

Trump supporter charged with faking politically motivated arson at own home

Early days of the internet, there was a guy who sold literally all of his possessions on Ebay, interviewed all the buyers, told their stories in a book, and made enough money off the book to buy replicas of his stuff, and then got to be on Conan O'Brien.

If the dude in your link invited the real Antifa to burn his house, and work a long con like that, he'd be way ahead of the game.
Now, he's just carved into history as an asshole