@pusher_robot's banner p

pusher_robot

PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS

0 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 04 23:45:12 UTC 

				
User ID: 278


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
pusher_robot


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 04 23:45:12 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 278


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					
					Month
					Year
					All
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Buy a boat and take it out boating.  It will easily suck up any spare time, money, ambition, and desire.  Bonus: you can wear a captain's hat.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
True, but the original streetcar suburbs have largely been absorbed into the major metro areas they once sat outside of. The outer ring suburbs came after the construction of the freeways and the days of rage


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Generally, if they're cooperative enough to unlock it for you, they would already have been cooperative enough to get out.


ETA: Much safer for the driver to smash the passenger side window.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For years and years, saying positive things about the US in certain fora was almost guaranteed to get a reply with this link:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wTjMqda19wk?si=IUMfHBNYz1GPtRdn


For better or worse, this is what a lot of people think of when asked to imagine how liberals feel about the country.


ETA:  This and Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The convention should be that any person should be able to assume that someone will not try to murder them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I look at the beggar and my immediate sentiment is, in a world that had its shit together this guy would be my neighbor. Not a close friend, necessarily, but a neighbor, someone on my street. What would I do for a neighbor who'd abruptly lost his home or all his savings or something?




Why, specifically, a neighbor?  Out of sheer statistical likelihood, this is extremely improbable.  He would almost certainly be one of the billions of people in the world you never met and never will.




And it's a small thing, but it's a small thing that they didn't dare hope for when they strapped in for another cold afternoon spent standing around on a street corner pleading silently for a pittance, and suddenly it's there in their hands. There's just no feeling like this, the feeling that just for a moment something fundamentally wrong with the world has been healed




I have a hard time believing any of this interaction you are describing actually happened, because this reads like fiction.  How do you know what they hoped for and what went through your minds?  You didn't, you're simply writing a morality play with yourself as the altruistic moral savior of humanity.


I certainly understand the impulse to want to make the world a marginally nicer place, but I do it by doing things for friends and family and actual neighbors.  I do it for people I know personally who are more blameless than not for their own misfortune.  Because I know in my bones that no matter how good the world is, yes, even in literal Star Trek Utopia, there will inevitably be some shitty people in it, utility monsters who intuitively victimize themselves of their own free will, and if I spend my time enabling their shittiness, all I've probably done is make the world a marginally worse place.  The beautiful thing is my vision of ethical behavior also universalizes, because if everyone tends to their own garden as well as that of the people they personally know, it's only the antisocial who are excluded from the benefits of society, which is just.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Then why are the police told not to do it?




Health and safety




What does it accomplish?




Reduces lost-time accidents and cuts down on paperwork.




If it was reasonable for him to think he was going to die the second the car started moving, how is that consistent with the idea that it wasn't reckless to stand there?




Undertaking a calculated risk is not inherently reckless.  If it were, police would never engage in any interactions.  The overwhelming majority of people do not in fact drive their vehicles at police.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You don't have to be under arrest for a police officer to be able to issue you a lawful order to exit a vehicle or move out of the way. If you decide you don't want to, then you are obstructing and that is legitimate cause for arrest.


Often, police don't like announcing someone is under arrest until they are in custody or at least a controlled situation, because it tends to increase the odds that someone will flee or start to fight.


So, in the first case, it's hard to say for sure but it's plausible that this woman has been given lawful orders to exit her vehicle and not done so. The next step is forcible removal, which necessitates breaking the window if it is rolled up.


In the second case, shoving someone out of the way who is deliberately obstructing them is perfectly reasonable, and a lesser use of force than arresting then. The proximity of the bus is less than ideal, but mistakes are inevitable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"As much as we can" logically implies "everything except what you need."  It's slavery.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is a volunteer at an animal rescue center a slave to injured puppies?




Is the taxpayer, whose earnings are confiscated to pay for it?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


People who make money through business are not "exploiting" society and greedily stealing from everyone else, but contributing to society through providing goods and services.




That is no longer true in the current world of extremely progressive taxation and extremely profligate social welfare spending.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Define "cosmopolitan liberals", because I have also heard this over the years. Based on that experience, I think you are probably overreacting to a couple of oikophobes* (or, if you're on the internet, Europeans), who are themselves overreacting to some chest-thumping chauvinists with a highly exclusionary conception of American culture.




In my experience, it is most likely encountered as an argument against the claim that too much indiscriminate immigration alters our culture in undesirable ways.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 14, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Maybe the only thing I really can ask is what you can do to help someone who's clearly overloaded, but can't stand it when something isn't done the way they would do it, and doesn't know how to explain what they want?




My suggestion based on some limited experience is to help in ways they care less about but also take effort: if not household tasks like cooking and cleaning, maybe it's running errands and getting groceries, fixing things around the house, or maybe it's handling mail, bills, paperwork, and tax prep.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This seems delusional to me. They are dealing with people who are committed to using escalation as a tactic. There is almost no chance de-escalation techniques will do anything other than aid the obstruction.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I may have been one of the few people who thought that Buy'N'Large was one of the greatest human achievements ever depicted in film


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Well, compare that to the situation where the police handcuffed a knife to the suspect. I think that in that case they did throw away a lot of legitimate interest in not being knifed by the suspect, and they shouldn't claim "he was a threat because he had a knife". If they are actually knifed by the suspect, you can charge the suspect, but the standard for self-defense against being attacked by the suspect should be stricter than it usually is--strict enough that police only handcuff knives to suspects when it's actually necessary, not when the main effect is giving a reason to shoot the suspect.




Suppose instead, they are questioning someone in their own kitchen, and the officers clearly observe a knife block within arms reach.  They tell the person that they are under arrest, at which point the person grabs a knife out of the block and lunges at an officer, causing the suspect to be shot dead.  Does the fact that the police could have asked the person to move to a different location before attempting to arrest them negate the self-defense, in your view?  If yes, and the suspect knows that, then doesn't that give the suspect the ability to put the police in a no-win situation of either getting stabbed or getting charged with murder?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not persuaded that chain of logic holds together.  To whatever extent it was under control of the ICE Agent, it was more under the control of the driver of the vehicle.  ICE could have avoided it by potentially being sure to stay out of any possible trajectory of her vehicle.  They also could have even more reliably avoided it by simply sitting in their cars doing nothing.  While it is true that self-defense may not be used in cases where the person claiming it deliberately (and with intent) created the situation in which its use would be necessary, it does not follow that a person is required to take every possible means to avoid the outcome.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for January 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Suggestion: don't sleep on county parks.  I've found them to be very underutilized due to their lack of centralized (or any) reservation infrastructure, smaller size, and general emphasis on recreation rather than natural wonders. But while the quality is more uneven, some of the best places I've camped have been county parks.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If it's legally controversial, then sure.  But the vast majority of people don't know much about the law at all, so their intuition about what is legally controversial is irrelevant.  I don't consider show trials acceptable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's possible to do both, though almost nobody, including myself, is "cheering."  Declining to be emotionally devastated is not the same thing as cheering it, at all, and I feel this may be where the failure to model your interlocutors is occurring.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That kind of makes a mockery of your commitment to due process, if we're just making decisions based on public opinion.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Do you believe that the officer should be charged, or punished in some alternate way? I'm not asking what you think the result should be. I'm asking whether you think he should even be investigated and considered for punishment.




My personal opinion is that this agent is too trigger-happy, possibly due to his having been attacked with a vehicle in the past, and that it would be appropriate to reassign him to different duty while he conducted psychological examinations and additional use-of-force training.  But that's me holding him to a much higher standard due to him being a police officer.  I don't think he should be criminally prosecuted or personally liable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Time, place, and manner restrictions, applied in a viewpoint-neutral manner, have been repeatedly held to be fully compliant with the First Amendment. The First Amendment doesn't give you the right to scream directly in someone's face, if that would be disorderly conduct in any other circumstance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So you really think that cowering in your home, as the cited person on twitter was saying, is a valid thing we should accept as a society?




After the government and media messaging circa 2019-2021, I think that would be an unequivocal yes from the vast majority.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People are regularly charged and very infrequently prosecuted. I have completely lost confidence in the ability of the judicial system to appropriately punish violence by left-wing agitators.