…You can but only in a really shitty way.

Which likely largely applies to the guy flying these flags.

Blue Line flag: “Authority should tread on THEM” Gasden flag: “Authority should respect ME”

I think Lindsay Ellis has a video that catalogs a lot of video of drunk conservatives who have behaved badly and are getting arrested, and their shock and horror that they do not get a free pass for being from the right “team”.

There absolutely is a large segment of our society that implicitly believes that they deserve rights and that others are ‘too dangerous’ and deserve harsh oppression.

I think a lot of us further on the left forget that the concept of equal rights is fairly new to our species, and that humans will readily absorb ‘rules for thee but not for me’ - especially when it’s encouraged by 24/7 propaganda outlets that we can’t stand to watch.

What this tells people is “fuck off, you are on your own. Government doesn’t work for people like you.”

But that isn’t how Democracy is supposed to function. It is actually supposed to develop and implement policy to improve the quality of life for the general public - especially the broad swaths of people who work for a living.

It’s also insane that the advice is to “get a roommate” at the same time leaders are crying that people in their 20s and 30s aren’t having enough kids. Guess what? If you make people live like they are too young and broke to have kids for the first 25 years of adulthood, they will… Not have kids. Shocking.

I think you are forgetting that we are living in an era where “the internet trolls” are proving to be prevalent or at least highly influential in the real world. The US has elected a complete brat twice, the AFD are threatening a fourth reich, and terms like “looksmaxing” have entered the general lexicon.

No one who watched gamergate occur on in the mid 2010s, and then tried to explain it to normal people who said ‘oh that’s just niche internet drama’, and then watched the rise of the alt-right, is ever going to see dangerous bullshit online and believe it will just stay there ever again.

If you understand that Griffith is not someone anyone should want to emulate, I don’t think this meme is about you anyway.

This meme is about the insecure dudes who are hurt and angry and decide to channel that into some cringe edge-lord ‘I want to hurt everyone else and feel nothing but that it is my destiny to be on top’ phase.

I’m a woman with a STEM PhD, and several of the guys I’ve dated have decided to prove they are smart enough to date me by looking up my publications from grad school (20 years ago now), reading them, and then trying to impress me by trying to poke holes in them or otherwise making me defend them on the spot.

That tactic is now an instant method to get me to end contact. It betrays a deep insecurity with my having expertise greater than theirs on any topic, even ones I have decades of work in. No Jimmy, you can’t become my peer by reading a few papers. I don’t think you are dumb, but I’m not spending time with you to massage your ego about your insecurity. Byyyye

Nononono… New America is next to Arizona.

That is, of course, going to be New Trumperton

Grand juries exist to make sure the norms of law enforcement and prosecution don’t stray too far from the common populace.

It’s why the guy who threw the sandwich at the CPB guy about a year ago did not end up with a felony.

However, it cuts both ways. I don’t know if I believe TX is really about to flip purple because shit like this is common. Ask the protesters sentanced to life as terrorists for moving a box or leaving an ICE protest early.

A lot of people here treat the idea of being American like it’s a sports team.

Also, it isn’t classy. And it isn’t meant to be. It also serves to communicate that you are relatable to other non-classy people. That can mean that you are an 'easy going person who accepts people as they come" or it can mean the same “…if you are white” (and conservative).

There was a popular show here in the 70s called the Dukes of Hazard about outlaw redneck hooligans. They drove a car with a Confederate flag on it. That kind of crass display was part of the ‘fuck you, you can’t tell me what to do’ mentality, and it caught on for the aesthetics despite being racist. But I think it also opened the door here to people doing the same thing with the American flag.

What does ‘in the middle’ look like? Getting vaccines for some things and not others?