Quite the powerful and convincing example you’ve cited there.

What evidence are you basing that assertion on?

Socialism is NOT whatever the hell this “sovereign citizen” stuff is.

Socialism is instead a democratization of the benefits of our collective labor.

Rather than permit the kings and nobles, billionaires, athletes, movie stars, politicians, and pop idols to take the lion’s share - we use it to invest in our society, our collective well being.

You work? I do too. And so do the clerks at the gas stations and grocery stores - the brick layers and the office workers - we’re all just working a job for a living.

For the ones that can’t or don’t want to work - Setting aside the murky definition of “work” - I’d rather they be fed, clothes, housed and warm, because it means safer lives for everyone.

I’m not saying they have any chance - just making the point that “legal” and “illegal” are arbitrary and determined by whoever is the dominant power. Texas seceding is “illegal” only so long as the US remains powerful. If by some unholy miracle, Texas were to win independence from the US, they would probably write their own laws to say rejoining the US is illegal.

Another pair of cases to make my point - the Holocaust was “legal” to the Nazis. After they were defeated, the UN made genocide “illegal.” But how many genocides have occurred around the world since 1949?

Laws are only as good as they are enforceable, which is exactly what you underscore by citing the strength of the US military. Is it “legal” to make drone strikes or drop a nuke on Texas? 🤷

This is a fantastic write-up.

I got voted elsewhere for saying this, but let me ask - if they just …went rogue and reeeeeeally started stirring shit up - like setting blockades on highways, rail stations, and ports, stopped exports - like really tried to cause the US economic trouble - attacking federal buildings etc.

What’s any legal precedent matter? Aside from justification for getting totally railed by the US military.

The thing about law though, is that it’s just a framework of written social contracts between rational parties agreeing to abide by the terms and consequences.

Reality is a bit different.

Texas could halt physical transport of goods/services. Refuse to buy US imports. Stop collecting tax revenue. Gun down federal employees that don’t swear Texan allegiance.

It doesn’t really matter what legal papers say, when it comes to actions.

Sure - there may be consequences for such “illegal” state actions, and the documented illegality would be articulated as official justification after administering such consequences.

But that also only matters if Texas is defeated … in the unlikely event they “win,” - they’d write their own narrative with legal justification.

Texas has made an issue over their independence and God-given right to be Texas, in defense of their the right to own chattel slavery since their first secession. From Mexico. In 1836.

Texas reconfirmed their desire to die on the hill of their divine right to own people, by seceding from the US in 1861.

After the civil war, Texas was a haven for the Confederates - and their ideology has been fomenting ever since

They’ve been talking of secession openly since at least the 1990s.

I think this is the first time since the civil war that other states have involved their national guards in support of a hotbed issue that could lead to a secession.

Edit: correction to grammatical error.

Oh - that’s quite a deliciously nuanced take, a subtext that I indeed did not catch.

I’m at times a simpleton; I chuckled at “billionaire jerky” and “pickled billionaire,” as the phrases reminded me of the Bubba Gump quote.

I hear your point now - compared to the hundreds of millions of cattle, pigs, and chicken processed annually, 2000 billionaires would be small potatoes. The end product would be so scarce, supply/demand would necessarily dictate an ironically immense price, only affordable to those that served as the raw material.

…by working 370,000 times slaves in his daddy’s emerald mine harder than the rest of us.

Fixed that for you.

Good thing Ocean’s Gate already started that process for us.

I’m sorry you’ve lost so many friends.

To quote Bubba Gump:

Anyway, like I was sayin’, [billionaire] is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s uh, [billionaire]-kabobs, [billionaire] creole, [billionaire] gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple [billionaire], lemon [billionaire], coconut [billionaire], pepper [billionaire], [billionaire] soup, [billionaire] stew, [billionaire] salad, [billionaire] and potatoes, [billionaire] burger, [billionaire] sandwich. That- that’s about it.

Maybe I’m a smooth brain - but I always thought private trackers were kept private/exclusive as a way of promoting seeding - the exclusivity of private trackers lowers risk/fear of seeding, so people seed, files are kept alive. - the ratios are a stick to enforce the rules and boot leechers. Centralizing seed logs with private trackers always gave me the creeps though.

Honestly, it sounds like there’s essentially no risk of seeding on I2P. Wouldn’t more people be willing to seed in general? And wouldn’t that in turn obviate the need for private trackers?

Alas, perhaps my smooth brain brings naivety along with it.

How is this defendable in any way?