Elon: i’m going to send a data center to space! Zelenskyy, packing a repurposed Cessna full of composition 4: me too

As we've been saying!! 🎉 (I'm in NC-07, know the guy running for NC-11, and sometimes we're in NC-09 depending on how redistricting went that year. ALL my favorite districts are tossups this year 💪💪💪)

And our farm policy is trapped in this kind of thinking. "Farm policy" is just a euphemism for "How do we want to throw free money at farmers this year?" It's all calls for understanding & support. Not accountability.

That's been the accepted wisdom on "why people behave badly" for decades. So when I talk about farmers behaving badly, I get a lot of "Awww we can't be mad at them! They're probably just poor lil fools who can't handle their job. They need our understanding & help"-type responses.

It's from that old canard "Never ascribe to malice, what can be explained by incompetence." The corollary built into it is "Don't be mad when someone does something awful. They're probably just inept. So don't punish them! Try & understand them & we can all fix the problem together & sing kumbaya."

Very much like the mythology “sure, fascists are cruel, but they get the trains running on time” when the reality is that the trains have stopped running entirely and fascists just lie about it.

Working-class conservatives know what manipulation is. And as far as they're concerned, *you're* the one who's being manipulated. Why else would the educated people prefer like immigrants, trans people, and feminism over good hard-working people like themselves?

The fact that so many "educated" people see working-class conservatives as stupid people, who don't know what's good for them, is incredibly condescending. And it feeds a lot of resentment towards "educated" people.

As someone who grew up in a right-wing family & church: Right-wing lies aren't THAT good. I could tell Fox News was manipulative bullshit. As a child. These folks aren't "being deceived." They just… actually like what the right wing is selling!

LOL Ah yes the "noble savage" view. The idea that working-class conservatives are idiots who can't understand what manipulation is. "There's no such thing as an honest difference of opinion. If someone disagrees with me, it's because they're being manipulated." A bold claim!

Tribe-run farms & renting farmland from tribal gov'ts are both perfectly fine ways to farm. Lots of people do that already.

Yeah a lot of people really want to go in a "Yeah small farmers! Ownership society! Get rid of landlords!" direction with this. And it makes me wonder if anybody actually paid attention to what "land back" means. Or if they just thought it was a fun slogan to RT in 2020.

Eek good luck, hope it's gone for you guys by now?

And the tornado warning is gone... thanks everyone for being here for the Posting Through It portion of today's schedule

"Need to get Just Because You Care About Class Consciousness Doesn't Mean Other People Do" printed out on a sign. I mean it's kinda wild how this bit of the left thinks "being leftist" means believing a lot of the people they're "advocating for" are too stupid to know what they want.

YES. So many folks just keep parroting "People want to maximize their profits!" Ok... isn't the whole point of money to buy goods & services? At some point we should look at what goods & services people want. And if they see shortcuts to get those things that don't require money.

The even bigger problem is startup capital. Managing land competently does take equipment & "paying people." Long before the farm makes any revenue. So I'm slowly working on building a co-op down here that can onboard both new land & new farmers. That's a whole 'nother process & convo though!

So here's the thing? A LOT of people own boatloads of land & have no interest in actually farming it. They're always looking for someone else to do it for them. I just started renting a new farm plot this last year, & the neighbors are already like "Heyyyy wanna do mine too?"

Yeah the point I was making was "inheriting property is the ONLY real requirement" part. Even if you want to take on the family dental practice... you still have to go to dental school, pass exams, & show bare minimum competence. Agriculture has no such requirements.