Are you on the spectrum? I ask because your “but it isn’t 100% literally this thing” is the sort of overly pedantic and literalist thing I would do myself.

Would it make you feel better if you noted that the scrolling red banner at the top of the website does in fact have “this water ain’t woke” among other similar sayings? And there is a “This drink ain’t woke” Yeti cooler.

Does that help?

Meanwhile, the DOJ has done dick all to defend voting rights in purple or red states over the last four years.

Naturally, this is complete hogwash.

Nice. I can’t even see your goal posts any more. You went from “there has been NO progress” to “well there has only been progress that matters to you”. Despite the fact that I literally pointed out instances where things have gotten better for many groups of people.

Bye now.

Go on. Tell me about this incremental progress.

I can be out and not fear for my life. I can even marry. My partner now only rarely gets “gook” or “chink” yelled at them.

99.8% of the time when this stuff comes out of folks it’s because they are white and heterosexual and usually male.

For people secure in their white, hetero-normative privilege it’s understandable that they only care about things that affect them… and there isn’t all that much that affects them directly. But the truth is this is a VERY different world here in the US than when I was growing up. It’s now a world that despite the noise from the MAGA crowd I can exist comfortably and securely as opposed to having to hide in a closet.

Whenever I have this discussion with folks who aren’t gay or trans or BIPOC, it never occurs to them that there is a difference. Universally it turns out that since they aren’t affected by these huge cultural shifts, they also don’t look at the changes that make life easier for other groups. The simple fact that federal workers now have a $15 minimum wage means that a number of my peers now are not starving working for public lands agencies. That a number of labor laws have been enacted (including recently the non-compete thing) that makes discrimination against protected groups doesn’t affect people like you because you are not typically discriminated against. In some cases the pandemic relief for you folks was just a nice bonus to spend on luxuries, not groceries. The grants for schools didn’t matter because if you have kids they go to nice schools already.

I’m not going to argue with you - it’s impossible. But please understand that your incredibly narrow view of the world is not shared by those who have experienced this seismic shift over the last 2-3 decades.

That’s what the party did with the public option and increasing the minimum wage.

So because you didn’t get everything you want you are just gonna stamp your feet, take you ball and go home?

Where is all this “incremental progress” you centerists always talk about? Is it in the room with us now?

Undoubtedly you have the privilege not to notice it.

You are laughably misinformed.

With no aspirations toward better than “okay”.

When you take the first step on, say, a hike, do you have no aspirations to take another and another?

Or would you say… well, this first step is too hard… I’m just gonna lie down and take a nap?

Because although likely immensely satisfying, it will not actually accomplish that much on it’s own.

No. I won’t change shit.

I know. Because you are so insecure that you need to be lonely and unloved. You need to be the victim.

I will never love myself, does that means I earned my loneliness?

It means you deserve loneliness. Because you didn’t take responsibility for doing the one MOST BASIC thing, which is to love yourself and believe in yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect or 100% (in fact better not!) but you do have to be able to see the good in yourself such that you can have confidence others will see it too.

Instead you blame others for it and feel sorry for yourself. You don’t even seem to realize that it’s this fact and your lack of responsibility toward yourself that is the reason others may find it hard to love you.

You and only you are responsible for that. Fix that and you fill not be lonely. Nobody wants to be around someone like that.

This is your primary issue right here. You value yourself so little that the only value in life you see is in being in a relationship. Or to put it another way, you only see value in yourself when you think others value you. Which means, as others have alluded to and very much not coincidentally, that you will not be successful in a relationship. If you can’t accept and love yourself for who you are, others will inevitably have a hard time doing so as well.
Given your responses thus far you won’t take this well because you are convinced you know better. And that is your secondary issue.

To answer your question: It’s over-rated and not all it’s cracked up to be. It has benefits but so does being single.

But if you want to experience, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Grow up and learn to value you for who you are or nobody else will.

Leave?

I mean yeah… but I don’t know what that guy is doing there.

but everyone’s making up rules about what’s acceptable.

The hypocrisy for me is that folks want to dictate what is “morally acceptable” while objecting to other people’s wanting to dictate what is “morally acceptable”. In this case, and it all too common with Republicans generally, he did apparently groom her from a young age. But we can make a judgement based on that fact, not the fact of the age differential.

What if the woman was 45 and the man was 21?

Edit: to not be cryptic, my hope was that you’d answer similarly… obviously. To me the issue is not the age difference in and of itself but how or if the relationship came to be because of the age difference and the issues of power and control that might imply regardless of the gender identity of the older person. Obviously, older men do typically have disproportionate power but not always.

And it was pointed out here that this guy did meet here when she was still in high school, so most likely very much a case of grooming.

But just in general I really take exception to the assumption that just because there is an age differential it’s a given that there is a power differential. Even though I agree broadly with what you say, these types of assumptions smack of morality police to me.

Edit2: Of course, down vote. But why?

Perhaps even a sternly-worded admonishment!

Give me a fucking break. Hillary was not a shit candidate. She’s arguably the most qualified candidate in recent elections, probably more so than Obama. And I don’t say that as someone who agrees with most of her policies but as someone who respects her intelligence and experience. She would have made an excellent president.

Leaving aside our broken system, she lost because she is a woman and a lot of people can’t stand that.

Who’s having a tantrum?

It’s a stupid take. Objectively stupid.

Have a nice day!

In many ways, it’s as bad for lgbtq+ people as it was in the 90s,

NOT EVEN FUCKING CLOSE. Absolutely stupid take.