Texas doubles down in unprecedented border dispute with federal government

weirdbeardgame@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 367 points –
Texas doubles down in unprecedented border dispute with federal government
cbsnews.com
95

You are viewing a single comment

As someone who is trapped down here with these lunatics... please send help...

I'm trapped here, too! While I'm not happy about the situation, I'm incredibly excited to see all of my old history teachers get shit on when Texans find out that:

  • While we CAN split into 5 states, we CANNOT form our own country without repercussions. The concept of Texas returning to its own country is not in any constitution nor agreement. While there is an agreement that we can become multiple states, it's redundant when compared to Article IV, Section 3 of the US freaking Constitution.

  • We're not the only state that was once it's own country. Hell, Hawaii was not only its own sovereign nation, it was a fucking kingdom. Other than being the biggest, dumbest, and drunkest, no part of our previous classification before joining the Union is special considering that Vermont was its own country 40% longer than we were.

  • As long as we're dispelling ignorant Texas myths, no we're not the only state who can fly their flag at the same height as the US flag. Literally any state can. They're called flag codes and they're insanely easy to find and read. You'll find that most self-avowed "patriots" tend to breach the most flag codes.

There's no such thing as "Texas pride" anymore. It's all been replaced with ignorance and disrespect. The last time we got drunk and punched our landlord in the face, we spent 10 years boisterously bragging about how cool it is to be dirty and homeless while quietly crying to our northern neighbor and begging them to bring us in off the streets. And while we told everyone that one of things that made us so cool was how hard we shit our pants when we defeated Mexico got abandoned by Mexico like a parent too disappointed in their child to even argue anymore, we got so desperate for a new mommy or daddy that we considered going home with anyone who made the mistake of looking at us while walking by:

But even while coming to prize independence, Texas found itself weak and bankrupt, newly menaced by a Mexico that never recognized her right to exist. With historical repercussions that can only be guessed at today, the country’s leaders seriously considered taking Texas into the British Empire.

So, to our future Piss Baby in Chief, I dare you to try. My city alone has a shocking number of military bases and I'm sure any one of them can easily get foreign-leader-killing drones in the air within seconds of having a new enemy holding US troops hostage.

I’m excited for the wannabe domestic terrorists in West Texas to realize that sparsely vegetated and habituated scrubland is a drone operator’s ISR wet dream to thwack pickup convoys, and have a public come-to-Jesus moment before decrying this pointless dick measuring contest. Any kind armed rebellion without near total collapse of the federal government, is a fantasy

You don't even need drones. Insurgents aren't particularly technical, and tend to use unsecured communications that are easily pinpointed for a precision HIMARS or smart artillery strike. Ask the Russians how it went for them. They lost thousands in Ukraine because soldiers used cellphones to call home to Mama - calls processed through Ukrainian cellular towers.

You don't think if the government started sending drones after pickups that they wouldn't gain more popular support?

Briefly, sure.

The gov would gain some too. From me at least.

It’s starting to feel a bit like the biggest problems (climate, billionaires, guns, inequality) in the world will need such huge changes to the status quo, that something massive will have to happen to initiate it.

I hope I’m wrong though.

Words and anger? Definitely. Support/action? Very likely no.

It’s the same problem AQA & ISIS have: you are powerless against the drone without MADPADs, and you aren’t getting those - maybe not even with proxy state support. How does the ‘Trump Train’ achieve anything beyond banditry-level terrorism, against an air power with PGMs?

Leave.

Me when privilege

I'm sure if you tried, you could leave.

Tell that to the $43 I have to my name and the hundreds of dollars/many hours needed to go to obtain a diagnosis on my current health crisis. I don't know how I'm going to pay for all that, upcoming rent, and eat for the next few weeks.. I'm spending money I don't have, to get by, and I have no available credit to use because I can't build credit without getting a secured card, which I can't even save $200 for because I've been struggling to make up for over a decade of making around $20k/year while living in a large city. I can't even keep the one shitty car I own on the road doing all of the work on it myself. I get around in a car I'm borrowing from my parents, which they can't really afford to let me borrow because they're in crippling debt themselves. And no, I don't spend on frivolous things. I don't drink anything but water and one coffee a day, which I make at home. All my meals are cheap, mostly rice/frozen veggie stir-fry's. My only option for escape is to become a vagabond and hope my undiagnosed heart issues don't kill me, if my diagnosed issues don't first, without meds.

But, I'm wasting my words. You have enough privilege that you can't fathom a world in which things are just simply unfeasible. Good for you.

My bad, it's impossible for you to leave.

Just sit around and wait for others to solve your problems for you.

I'm sure that will be a good use of your time.

I'm not sitting around waiting on others. I'm diligently working to improve my situation with the limited resources I have. My limited resources don't afford me the luxury to pick my entire life up and move. That was the point of my post, in case you missed it, you willfully ignorant twat.

The problem is that you're assuming I suggested it was easy.

You assume that any suggestion must be easy in order for it to be viable.

You might want to calm down with the personal insults.

I'm not assuming anything. I replied to what you said with a fairly detailed explanation of why it's impossible for me to move my life at this time. You seem to be having a hard time accepting that some people don't have the same privileges as you.

I called you a twat because you're talking to someone you know next to nothing about and assuming I'm sitting around waiting on other people to fix my problems for me. What an incredibly insulting thing to say to a stranger. I have lived a very difficult life so far and I've worked extremely hard for everything I have. I've spent many years working 60+ hour weeks in a physically and mentally demanding profession, with little material wealth to show for it. Not because I haven't been trying hard enough. My industry is highly unregulated and, despite my role being a very niche technical profession, most of us are heavily exploited until we've been in the game for 1 or 2 decades. This is true for many industries in the US.

You refuse to accept a reality that you're fortunate enough to have no experience with. That's willful ignorance. Insulting and talking down to people that have all too much experience with it makes you a twat.

No, you were definitely assuming I suggested it was easy.

That's why your entire argument is built around how you think it's too hard.

You resorted to personal insults because you know I have a point and can't argue against it without them.

I see it all the time when I call out people's greed and entitlement. Nobody wants to acknowledge their contribution to the problem or how they can take steps to improve their situation.

You'd rather wait for other people to solve your problems for you and attack anyone who suggests solving them yourself.

I'm not sure where you're getting that. Maybe you don't understand the point I've been trying to get across. I'm not saying it's hard for me, I'm saying it's impossible (and extremely impractical) due to current circumstances in my life. Allow me to spell it out for you further, since you still can't seem to find footing to step down from your high horse:

I am in the middle of working towards obtaining a diagnosis on a potentially life-threatening/life-altering condition. If I were to move to another state right now, I would have to find new insurance, which I cannot currently afford, then restart the whole diagnostic process with a new doctor, which would be more money I don't have and would waste all of the time and money I've already put in with the current doctor.

I'm poor because, even though I make a modest, yet relatively decent living these days, I'm still financially recovering from over a decade of making around $20k/year while living in a major city. This is an extremely difficult thing to do. Most of that time was spent working 60 - 80 hour weeks to the point that I had no social life or energy for anything outside of doing some basic hygiene, eating the one meal a day that I could afford, sleeping, and waking up the next day to do it all again. I didn't have parents that could subsidize the beginning phase of my life. I had to build it all myself and, since you don't seem to understand this, it is far more expensive to be poor in the US than it is to be middle/upper class.

All of this has molded me into a very resourceful and self-reliant person, which gives me the ability to get by on very little. Yet, I'm still struggling to reach something akin to financial stability because of the greed and entitlement of people who have wealth in this country, and the resulting defunct systems we live with. I am doing everything within my power, including taking online courses I may not be able to afford, to slog through it all and maybe improve my situation in the future. I'm very fortunate that I'm making some progress and don't have kids to finance. It could always be worse.

Further, I'm an independent contractor and I'm currently in contracts with two different companies that require me to live nearby. I could break these contracts, but that wouldn't serve me in terms of the longevity/health of my career. Nor would that reflect on the kind of man I try to be.

Even further, I just started a two year lease that I was very fortunate to get with my shitty/lack of credit. I'm not going to break that.

Should I keep going?

Here's another point for your dense mind to mull over: What does it cost you to try to understand any of this? Is your worldview so narrow, so fragile, that you can't accept a reality that a stranger is telling you they're living? Think on that. What ever conclusion you come to, what does that mean for your worldview? You're essentially telling me that I don't know how to live well with my circumstances, that you know better, despite your clear lack of understanding of many of the hardships people face. This tells me you haven't lived through many hardships in your life. You're pretending to be the arbiter of truth on a subject you're simply not qualified to have an opinion on. If truth matters to you at all, you need to be able to examine your understanding of things, in entirety, and find the gaps in your knowledge on the subject. That will never be possible as long as you are coming to conclusions without ever attempting to understand the subject matter along the way. That's willful ignorance. And your arrogance in conveying that ignorance is extremely off-putting to the people you try to talk down to, who have actually lived through the things you feel you understand better than them. Fuck off with all of that. Be better.

No way I'm reading all of that when everything you've said up to this point has been easily debunked by things I've said before.

It's clear to us all you will never acknowledge your entitlement or the concept of supply and demand.

You think you are above market forces, but your position in life does not reflect that. You will sit around waiting for people to solve your problems because you don't take the initiative to solve them yourself.

Goodbye.

You haven't debunked a single thing I've said, you've just repeatedly doubled down on the baseless claim that you know how I should live my life better than I do. You won't read it because you feel your position is threatened.. That's because your logic is as fragile as your child-like ego. I kinda feel sorry for you. Goodbye little willfully ignorant twat boy. Enjoy your undeserved privilege.