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[–] 177 points 1 year ago (43 children)

It’s a beautiful thing to see my state leading the charge against MAGA. I’m sure a few other western states will join us when we inevitably break off.

Of note, I was just telling my wife while we were out for a drive last weekend how much I’ve seen our state flag appearing on peoples homes now. Before Trump people in California rarely if ever displayed the Cali flag, but now I see it everywhere, especially in neighborhoods that typically didn’t have them before.

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  • [–] 54 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    It is inspiring.

    But I really wish we'd step up here on the East Coast. NY, MA, NJ, VT. All should be right out in front with you, but aren't.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They have that new North East or New England health pact thing! They’re working on stuff, but I think they’re rightfully taking stock of what areas they can afford to hit back on. California can basically take care of itself so we have a lot less to lose if the feds try to shut us down.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    There’s a lot of old money up there. And if I’ve learned anything through 2 of his terms, it’s that money is willing to vote against its seemingly better judgement for a few dollars more of a tax break.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Old money tends to take a longer view than new. At least I have seen it that way.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Guess we’ll see how that vision works out when investments and the consumer economy go kaput in a civil war and the aftermath. Never made sense to me to see capitalists support tearing down the system they thrive on. Do they think it won’t end? I guess these are the people that believe in infinite growth after all.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    I can't wait until y'all just balkanize already; I'm sure that when the dust settles, some parts of the former United States will be worth visiting. Until it happens and actual names are picked, I've been calling your chunk New New England

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It’s a beautiful thing to see my state leading the charge against MAGA. I’m sure a few other western states will join us when we inevitably break off.

    Damn straight. Proud Californian.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    We've got something like 6.4 million Conservatives in California. Something to consider, they won't just accept no longer being a part of the U.S. .

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (20 children)

    Millions will die in a war before the U.S. let's California go anywhere. If California split from the U.S., the U.S. would start to default on all of the loans without forcing large amounts of the debt somehow onto California. Not to mention the number of military bases and equipment that exists there, the entire western seaboard would be considered a security threat.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    Maybe, but freedom is worth fighting for.

    Also, remember that during the revolutionary war the French provided support. I’m sure there are lots of countries that, in a civil war, would join with California in providing defensive equipment and offensive weapons. We’re also 10% of the US population with a whole mountain range providing protection and desserts between us and the rest of the “mainland.” So logistically we’re covered very well if we really have to.

    They can consider us whatever they want as long as we’re winners I don’t care.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    A staggering amount of the military tools the american empire uses are designed and many made in California and Washington. Boeing Lockheed Raytheon, some Grumman, etc.

    The 'arsenal of democracy'? That's us. Less than we used to be–but fascists can't make shit.

    Basically all the surveillance tools are made here. The assets are here. The dog shit states can't fight us in open geographically aligned war and they know it.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I think too, and it’s something I’ve seen with my conservative family, is that here on the west coast we took stock of what was happening in Ukraine. I think for a lot of us here we’re learning how drones as tools of war can help make a small army mighty. I get the feeling that the middle America would want to fight with the weapons of WWII (think artillery and tanks) while we could be utilizing drone and electronic warfare. Either way, I don’t want it to come to that. I’d prefer the MAGA base come back to reality and start realizing they’re the ones that kept going further right and not the “Dems” going further left. It’s crazy how much my family has shifted in ideology over the last decade meanwhile I haven’t changed position, but somehow I’ve become the leftist.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    but somehow I've become the leftist

    offers an entire handful of pills papers and candies

    But real talk: yeah it would be great if they could be people again. I'm not sure most of them can. I'm not sure it's practical to save the ones we maybe can. I think death is genuinely the only out for them. I hate this. I hate what they've become, and more than that I hate what they did ti themselves to become it. I hate that there are things that look like people–even specific people we used to love–that just aren't anymore.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It feels like living through some real-life version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Pod people. Pod people everywhere...

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    My mother and I both worked in aerospace in California for extended periods (though never at the same firms). She went from being a moderate Republican (when there was such a thing) to being a strong socialist. I'm a social democrat, but have moved farther to the left than I was in my 20s.

    I've seen former aerospace colleagues abandon rightwing politics too: not enough of them, but more than I would have expected. And we're the kind of people who know military strategy and how to design weapons systems.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    I’m sure there are lots of countries that, in a civil war, would join with California

    New England will. We’ve got them surrounded! I’ll bet we could hire the regressives to fight themselves. We’ll send waves and waves of Southerners against … the South

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  • [+] -12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    I’m sure there are lots of countries that, in a civil war, would join with California

    I bet Russia would jump on the opportunity

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I think Russia would take the other side, and Trump would be glad to accept their help. Newsom wouldn't want it anyway.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Don't give newsom too Mich credit. Hes just a piece of shit who hates another piece of shit.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    The same could be said of Churchill standing up to Hitler. The difference between those two pieces of shit was that, when Hitler was defeated, the voters of Britain could, and did, fire Churchill.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    i think they are pushing this much mainly because MADHAMI is freaking them out, they dont wanta potential zohran to be in the white house, anymore than they want one in NYC.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    The Trump Regime is basically Caesar's Legion, but dumber. NCR all the way!

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    wasnt the whole point of the NCR about showing this dinosaur of an organization failing to adapt to the new state of the world, trying in futility to carry on under the old rules that lead to the worlds annihilation in the first place, repeating the same mistakes over and over while things are were now even less sustainable/forgiving....

    meanwhile the ceasers legion was harsh but fair, ceasers territory didn't suffer bandit attacks any longer because ceasers legion when to great lengths to exterminate them and insure the conditions where they flourished didn't exist

    bethesda just fucked em on dev time so they had to cut all content on ceasers side of the river

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    That was definitely a theme of the NCR, but you are being grossly kind in your interpretation of Caeser's Legion. They were horrific monsters that burned people alive. Their sadistic brutality was admittedly affective, but I'd rather join the Children of the Atom than those sick bastards.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    no doubt about that, but the "these ruthless bastards are actually pretty good at imposing order upon the wasteland"-message gets kinda lost because all the CL-territory content got cut.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Order is not nnecessarilya good thing. Nazi Germany in 42 was certianly more orderly than the Weimar Republic it replaced, but you'd never chose to live there if you had to pick one of the two

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    I always thought the lack of content was intentional because CL was a very rigid society that gave people the option of crucifixion or conscription and essentially there was no freedom to do dumb bullshit in that society.

    The whole point of the game was that only house was taking the long view and orgs like NCR are the obvious response to CL which is just an even older model of society.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    idk, i recall reading somewhere that dataminers dug up a bunch of CL-side of river content sitting unused. which would likely be result of constricted timeline bethesda gave em

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I don't know about the CL stuff specifically, but there was definitely a lot of content that got cut. Obsidian got screwed over by Bethesda hard. It is ironic that they are now both owned by shitty Microsoft.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    Ceasers Legion is a myopic hellstate that reduces women to sex slaves, and culturally genocides every tribe it conquers. It's entirely dependent upon the leadership and personality cult of one guy with a brain tumor, and will fracture if not disintegrate upon his death. They refuse to use any of the old worlds technologies to such a point that they weaken themselves by shunning firearms and sicken themselves by rejecting stimpacks. The NCR is hardly perfect, but to call the Legion "fair" is absolutely ridiculous. "Tough but fair" applies way more to House than the Legion. To say nothing of the fact that you criticize the NCR for being too stuck in the old ways, but the Legion is just a rehash of even older society

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  • [–] 78 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    This attack on our universities from the radical right wing is especially worrisome.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago

    The funny thing is that this cycle of ego-fueled ignorance is precisely why they need so much immigration. It isn't a numbers game, it's about the people with the qualifications, and you have a lot less to choose from when you filter them by your own extreme nationalistic and regressive ideology.

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  • [–] 47 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    There are a lot of things I despise about Newsom, but at least he's standing up to the MAGA scum.

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  • [–] 36 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 34 points 1 year ago

    This is the way.

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  • [–] 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Wish Democrats in the House and Senate could also do something...

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They filibustered a bill that would've cut medicaid funding and shut down the government. The filibuster is literally all they have because voters gave Republicans a trifecta

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The Trump administration also wants schools to commit to reforms for a “vibrant marketplace of ideas”

    This will be done by dictating what they can think and teach.

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago (18 children)

    Why does California need the USA?

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    This is the wrong question. Instead of implying that California should secede and become independent one should flip the question and ask the same thing about Texas. If Texas seceded the U.S. would likely never have to cater to the Republicans again.

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  • [+] -81 points 1 year ago (14 children)
  • [–] 68 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Do nothing about it? They have nearly 30,000 firefighters, more than any other state in the union, more than most countries in the world.

    They pay billions more in taxes than they receive in aid, and you're salty because they have the nerve to ask for help when wildfires threaten people's homes and safety?

    Get bent.

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  • [+] -25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Okay, but then with how much tax money they send away from their own state, they could actually fix all that. If they wanted to, anyway.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    Can't join your mentality that those w money shouldn't pay taxes, that elitism isn't ok for billionaires and it isn't ok for a state.

    They could fix it by upping their budget allocation from .5% of their budget to 2%. But they wont.

    It's like a bad landlord, who has a trashy property and won't clean it up and just complains why does trash end up on my property?

    If landlord won't care for their property, who is supposed to?

    Obviously the owner.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's not elitism. The Feds are now corrupt and hostile to California. The country is broken as the federal government is failing to follow its obligations. There isn't much hope this will change for the foreseeable future. The best route is separation.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    You took a little while, but you literally just agreed with my point. We should take care of ourselves amd not be exploited by others.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    And suggesting I leave my park system for another state is exactly what im advocating against.

    My park systems fires are limited to when one sets a trash can on fire. Because we work hard on it in my east coast state.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Sounds like you should apply for a job in the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, seeing as you've got it all figured out.

    In fact, you should try sending them a letter with all of your suggestions! I'm sure they would appreciate any amount of your in-depth knowledge of forest fire prevention that you could provide them

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago*

    This is a hard fallacy. Plenty of usa states under support their water systems, and im supposed to send them a letter telling them to spend their money better? Ha!

    There's hundreds of studies and research on this. Ca just wont make this a priority...and why should they? They get a free handout for fires.

    My state needs to focus on our own fires, homeless, children in school. Giving up our human resources for another just kicks our resources to another who isn't managing their house.

    One citation for you: https://www.netzerocalifornia.org/blog/how-can-california-pay-for-wildfire-prevention-at-scale

    If you wont take care of your states natural resources, a letter from an out of state citizen wont change the ledger.

    Either you care about the environment and want it fixed, or you dont want it fixed and support the finger in the da that leads to death and property destruction every year 40 years running.

    If your neighbors house is on fire, give them a hose, help and support

    But after the 40th time, your perspective should change to "the nEighbor is the problem."

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Lmao but you'll cry if you stop receiving their taxes, several times more than any low education red state lmao. Blue states keep red states alive, literally.

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  • [+] -13 points 1 year ago

    Nope, im blue state, I pay fuck ton of taxes.

    But 40 years of constant mismanagement of natural resources speaks for itself. I'm a park professional, this is basic stuff.

    But throw good money after bad, while people are homeless. Throw your money away if you want.

    I'll at least complain about it.

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    [–] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Can we fucking secede already?*

    *I'm not even sure how much of that statement is a joke anymore.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    No, let's just cut out the cancer. We keep the rest of the US together.

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  • [+] 20 points 1 year ago (13 children)
  • [–] 62 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    He’s a slimy, self-serving, two-faced neoliberal villain.

    But right now, he’s the villain we have to team up with to fight a much, much, much worse villain. Just don’t forget that he’s not our friend and would happily burn us all alive for some modest corporate kickbacks.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    He's only opposing fascists because his attempt to join them failed. He's trying to walk a thin line of not pissing them off too much and getting them to think he's worth recruiting. He'll join them if they offer.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    When did he "attempt to join them"? Not defending slimy Newsom, but what?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Hosting his brand new podcast with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, the some of the most evil propagandists of the 21st century, was more extreme than we'd ever seen of him. He basically capitulated to a bunch of their talking points and acted like their positions weren't previously too radical to platform amongst Democrats. It read to me as an attempt to not get targeted by upcoming violent purges and jail time, but after that failed he moved on to this cringe "own Trump on socials" strategy.

    On the other hand, he might not have failed to join them, instead acting explicitly as controlled opposition.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    The epitome of limousine liberal.

    Completely owned by Big tech and VC.

    Everything he's doing now is for his presidential run, but that doesn't mean there's no value to any of it.

    At this point, we'll take what I can get, and he knows that.

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  • [+] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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  • He's a bigoted hyper privileged piece of shit caricature of an 80s movie villain who got into politics because the city said 'no' to something about his wine bar where the chairs were arranged into the word 'sex'. Hes totally owned by silicon valley cryptofascist tech billionaires.

    He's basically genx 'what if trump wasnt developmentally disabled'.

    Which is better, but let's not cheer for him.

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