A Neighborly Blog

Author: Alan Buddug

  • Grimes and Techno Fascism

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    Alan Buddug
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    Back in 2012, when Grimes’s first big hit Oblivion was released, people thought it was a subtle critique of two aspects of toxic masculinity; one being the way men make the world inherently dangerous for women, and the other being the way men will point this out as a method of controlling women. When she…

  • Stupid People Calling Stupid People Stupid

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    Alan Buddug
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    Congress, am I right? Here’s a video of a Republican repeatedly calling Democrats stupid because of the Biden administration’s decision to ban pistol braces because the ATF has determined that they are almost always being used to convert a pistol into a short-barreled rifle. Yes, a pistol brace could be used by someone to help…

  • Proportionality

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    Alan Buddug
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    Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance states that if a society tolerates intolerance, that allows intolerant people to destroy tolerance over time. Therefore, a tolerant society must not tolerate intolerance (or intolerant people). In practice, it isn’t really an ethical paradox because intolerant people have chosen to violate the social contract, and are therefore no longer protected…

  • “No Labels” and the False American Center

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    Alan Buddug
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    I sometimes feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but it is clear that Americans do not understand how right wing their politics are, and that “centrist” can be a very deceptive concept. Here it is again: The Republican Party is far-right (fascist). The Democratic Party is near-right (not great, but mostly not fascist). Neither…

  • Ralph Yarl: How does a person get up after being shot in the head?

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    Alan Buddug
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    We are all very happy about the news that Ralph Yarl, the young man in Kansas City who was shot by a homeowner for the “crime” of being on the wrong front porch while being Black, has been released from the hospital, quite possibly with no permanent damage to his body. You might be wondering…

  • Climate Change: How Governments Will Respond

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    Alan Buddug
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    The whole reason I’m writing essays on this website now is because in 2004, I stumbled upon the following article on the internet: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York (The Guardian) Once I’d read it, I realized that the Powers That Be…

  • Incitement to Genocide Against Trans People

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    Alan Buddug
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    When a Republican says something genocidal, I don’t think it affects leftists the same way it affects the specific group they’ve decided to genocide today. We’re simply too familiar with what’s been going on, and we’ve been targeted so many times that it just seems normal now (please imagine that James Franco meme here). There’s…

  • Anti-transness is a Grift

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    Alan Buddug
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  • Rational Choice and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

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    Alan Buddug
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    Before Russia invaded Ukraine, the voices of neoliberalism were strongly divided on the issue of whether it could happen. This division was despite the fact of the actual history of Russia’s behavior over the last decade (and, of course, much longer than that). Certainly, there were those who said they believed that Russia would invade…

  • NPR: 6 Scholars on Climate Solutions

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    Alan Buddug
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    NPR released this article recently: 6 scholars explain what a real climate solution is As you may suspect, it isn’t nearly as extreme as what I’ve said previously, and that is probably because none of those scholars are climatologists. The context is that as of now, it is probably too late to save human beings…