CriticalDuty
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User ID: 368
CriticalDuty
10d ago
I'm easily disgusted, and I became disgusted with myself. I was disgusted by the little bit of flab under my chin, I was disgusted by my skinnyfat paunch, I was disgusted by my weak forearms, I was disgusted by my diet of microwave dinners and Diet Coke. I resolved to have a body and life I could look at without feeling disgusted. I don't know if this is considered the "healthy" thought process or motivation for physical change, but I don't really care if it isn't. I like feeling the difference in strength when I move things around, I like being able to run and swim longer, and I like the difference in how women behave around me. But I've also been doing it for long enough now that it's become an integral part of my daily routine, so I just do it without thinking too much about it anymore.
CriticalDuty
23d ago
In my ideal world we would simply take a page out of the Islamic playbook and install a version of the kafala system in America. Immigrants work for fixed terms, with the privileges of the labor rights that don't exist in the Gulf states (employers can't withhold your wages or confiscate your passport etc.), and are rotated out at the end of their terms with no expectation of permanent residency or citizenship.
It's not complicated at all, and in practice we see Muslim states in the Gulf that are majority-helot and still structurally and culturally stable. I'm not advocating for anywhere near those proportions, but if the Kuwaitis and Qataris can understand that their supposed brethren in Pakistan and Indonesia will not be alchemically transformed into good Arabs by the magical power of ummah solidarity, we should stop pretending that our civic myths mean much to immigrants, who are by nature essentially just mercenaries.
CriticalDuty
24d ago
"What it would look like" in Europe would probably be the forced population swaps between Greece and Turkey after World War I, or the ethnic cleansing of Germans from Eastern Europe after World War II. There already exists a model for this in Europe, it's happened before. But nothing like this happens without state force and a willingness to resort to violence, which means nothing of the sort will happen as long as people continue to believe (as they do in Europe) that they just need to vote harder to solve the problem.
They won't charge you just for reading and replying to the email, though they will probably tell you that they won't discuss the particulars of your case until some payment is made.
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