blueingreen

We're getting into philosophical territory here, but let's stick with the Russian Pitbull metaphor for a moment. Why would a dog acting in accordance with its nature absolve it of responsibility? When a Pitbull bites someone (which inevitably happens to many people every year), do we excuse it and say "Oh, you should have expected that! It's a Pitbull!" or do we put the dog down after it bites someone? I've always viewed countries like people. After all, countries are large collections of people. And at the end of the day, people are animals. We have more self-control than a dog, but we're not always as perfectly rational as we think. Human nature and evolutionary biology are powerful stuff. Don't you think it's possible to criticize a dog, a person, or a country for acting in accordance with their nature and interests -- without absolving them of guilt?

There's not much left for me to say, I just respectfully disagree. I think a Moldova situation is completely acceptable to the Russians, and they've indicated as much. NATO troops in Ukraine is a red line for them. Putin said he would accept a return to Ukraine's 1991 borders if the country remains neutral (Article), just like Moldova. World leaders don't lie as often as one might think. Again, I'm not casting any judgement, I'm just trying to deal with the cards we've currently been dealt. As for Mearsheimer, his views are far more nuanced than simply saying "he blames the US". Blame isn't always a binary thing. America has not been an innocent bystander. We have involved ourselves in the domestic affairs of Ukraine for decades, for better or worse. It's possible to pursue foreign policies that can eventually lead to provocation. Denying this is, as I said before, putting our heads in the sand.

I think that's where the disconnect is. Some people are having a moral argument, others are talking about norms of international relations, and wires are getting crossed as a result. Russia is in the moral wrong here, but scholars like Mearsheimer would say they're acting "correctly", or in accordance with realist principles of international relations.

I mentioned it very briefly at the end of my other post, but maybe an ideal outcome for Ukraine would have been something akin to Moldova: A neutral country with cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries. Not a perfect manual for success, and complicated by things like Crimea, whose analogous territory in Moldova would be something like Transnistria, but it seems better than the current status quo. All this stuff is complex, I'm happy to concede that. I dated a Polish girl once who hated Ukraine as much as she hated Russia because of the Volhynia and Galicia massacres in WWII. History is closer than we think, and people carry these historical grudges for a long time. I wouldn't say America is at fault for this war, because at the end of the day every sovereign nation, Russia included, determines their own course of action. I just think America / NATO / the West pursued certain policies that, when viewed through a realist lens of international relations, increased the likelihood of conflict. Not everyone subscribes to the realist school of international relations, so they might disagree with me! And that's fine. Hopefully my opinion doesn't render me an anti-American or something, though.

People are really hung up on this. Nobody here who is arguing that the West should have seen this war coming is justifying Russia's actions. I can't speak for the others, but all I'm saying is that having foresight about a war this big should adjust the broader calculus of the West's international relations.

NATO expansion is very relevant to our current discussion of international relations and realism. You can't just ignore something as consequential as an expanding military alliance. I don't think we're dealing with a self-fulfilling prophecy here. Countries have been invaded before. Scholars like Mearsheimer have sought to understand the dynamics between nations for as long as the concept of a nation has existed. We're talking about ideas of human nature that stretch back to Locke, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and even further. Try to imagine if the roles were reversed: How would you expect the United States to act if Mexico or Canada was inching closer to joining a military alliance with Russia? Try not to insert your personal morals and biases into the equation, because realist theories of international relations don't do that. Wouldn't you agree that a military conflict of some kind might be within the realm of possibility? Burying our heads in the sand and pretending that the West's actions don't have consequences is strange. It's a natural part of international relations, as inevitable as the laws of physics. I'm not absolving Russia of blame, but we need to stop acting so surprised when a world power acts in ways that world powers have done for thousands of years. If the US expected this war and went ahead with its foreign policy plans anyway, fine. I just want to know that this was calculated. IT doesn't seem like it was, though. There might have been another way to go about this. Perhaps Ukraine could have gone the Moldova route. Who knows, though.

It's good to see someone mentioning Mearsheimer. It's amazing how many people essentially paraphrase his work without realizing it. I would argue that Mearsheimer is still following the internal logic of realist theory when he partially blames the West for the war in Ukraine. You're correct when you say that Great Powers seek regional hegemony. The key here is that Russia used to have far more regional hegemony and control over Ukraine and other states. Since the fall of the USSR, Russia has watched former satellite states become NATO allies, which is a serious threat to regional hegemony from the Russian perspective. People can argue that these former Soviet states have the right to self-determination and are free to seek to join whatever military alliance they please (which I agree with), but realism doesn't cast judgement or opine on those matters. It's just a descriptive + predictive framework. Mearsheimer is simply saying that the West should have expected Russia to act belligerently when NATO began expanding beyond their traditional sphere of influence, and that Ukraine would likely be the last straw. He was right about that and predicted it over a decade ago.

What is America's goal in Ukraine? What does victory look like to you in this war? Ukraine has absolutely zero chance of winning, with or without the aid we've been providing. You made the comparison to Afghanistan, aptly describing the decades of conflict without progress (but plenty of bloodshed and resources expended). Do you want to go through that whole process again? I thought hindsight was 20/20. And calling Ukraine a "fledgling democracy" is laughable. They've quite literally suspended democratic elections, and some sources even have Zelensky polling lower than one of his dismissed generals, Zaluzhniy, in the event that elections were to resume. Europe needs to expand its defense capabilities. It's not healthy for EU - USA relations -- or international security -- that the entire continent of Europe has to rely on the United States for its defense in perpetuity. But if European countries want to continue to exist as quasi-American vassal states, they need to stop offending American sensibilities with Orwellian censorship and destructive immigration policies, among other things. VP Vance touched on this at the Munich Security Conference and nobody in Europe has provided an intelligent response yet. Right now they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

I'm not expecting a dissertation on this, but I would like to see somebody with your ideological inclinations attempt to answer / offer a perspective on this simple question: Why has our standard of living declined in so many tangible ways? You mention things like 90% tax rates for the ultra-rich during the WWII era, but the effective tax rate for the vast majority of people, the middle income earners, was no different than it is today. As I've mentioned before, confiscating the wealth of all our billionaires wouldn't even enable us to fund our government for a year. What's going on here?

This is something the entire Western world seems uncomfortable with (our enemies are probably salivating though). We need to reckon with the fact that we're on the verge of transitioning from a unipolar environment where the USA was the #1 undisputed global hegemon to a more multipolar environment.

I'm not some TradCon type looking through rose-tinted glasses who thinks 1940 was the cultural and economic peak of civilization. But yeah, it was great in a lot of ways. Can you provide a rational explanation for why a good house in a safe neighborhood was more affordable in 1927? Genuinely, what am I missing? We've made all this cultural and economic "progress" for what? As I said, I would be happy to pay more taxes if I knew it went to a good cause and I was able to see the return on my investment in the society around me. I just get the sense that the quality of our society has not improved in fundamental ways that should be commensurate with our increased rates of taxation. Taxing the rich at 90% sounds nice until you actually try implementing it and all the billionaires move to Switzerland or Dubai. Look what happened to Norway after they passed their billionaire tax in 2023. Could the rich give us more of their money? Probably. How far do we go before we risk driving them away, though? It's a legitimate question that deserves an answer. The combined wealth of all US billionaires is only $4.5 trillion, and if we confiscated it all, we could run the government for less than a year. How about the bottom 50% of earners. Could they do more? I think the answer to this question is the hardest. Is ability innate, environmental, or both? Maybe ability or "hard work" doesn't even correspond to outcomes as you suggest. If we assume that our society continues to increasingly rely on tech-savvy people in the age of AI, and we know that cognitive ability is normally distributed, then where does that leave the increasingly large class of people who will simply struggle to survive in the modern economy? What do we do with them? Should we restructure our immigration process to only screen for those on the right tail of the distribution? Lots of questions that we as a country need to answer.

Firstly, your framing is a little disingenuous. I don't "claim" this kind of affordability existed in the past... it simply did. I provided receipts on housing prices in my previous post which you can peruse at your discretion. What is the difference between the "owning class" and the "working class?" In my mind the "working class" is a class of people who are certainly not rich but are still net contributors, and are therefore part of the "owning" or "productive" class. If the net economic output of your work is less than zero, how can you even call that "work"? I'd also refer you to what @brabus mentioned earlier. The top 50% of earners pay over 97% of the taxes. It's absolutely insane that half the country essentially contributes nothing to our finances. My hope is that a person making $30K a year is on the first rung of a long and illustrious career ladder. If that person is incapable of earning more than $30K for their entire life, it is indeed likely that they are a net fiscal burden on our society. I would also wonder if there might be an element of cognitive and/or physical impairment at play.

I'm all for building new housing. I'm also a bit of an architecture nut, so I'd love to see a revival of classical architectural ideals instead of the utilitarian concrete and steel we see nowadays. There are some up and coming studios in places like Charleston, SC that are working wonders. I'd also like to see real estate become less of a speculative asset owned by mega-corps like BlackRock. The incentives are all wrong, people and companies alike shouldn't be holding on to their homes with the expectation that it's going to appreciate in value. Just let a house be a house. When it comes to renewable energy, I'm not willing to entertain any discussion that excludes nuclear. The backbone of renewable power grids in the future is going to have to be nuclear, and people need to get over their unfounded fears about it. The improvements in safety that have been made in the past 5 - 10 years alone are remarkable. We literally have meltdown-proof reactors and reusable nuclear waste. Apologies, that was my mistake. I thought that image was from the 1940 Sears catalog. It's actually from the 1924 catalog, which means the inflation-adjusted price of that home is... $36K. Even if it was $64K, that's still a fantastic price. As for the price of plumbing, heating, and electricity, take a look at this 1927 Sears Modern Homes catalog (Full Catalog Link) I don't disagree with anything you say here. People don't need such large houses. I think the appetite for smaller starter homes is there, but nobody builds them and I genuinely don't know why. I'm not a housing policy expert, but it seems like the regulations on housing have ballooned since the days of the Roebuck homes. I live in a kit home in the Northeast that was built in 1963 and it's largely unchanged / unrenovated since then. I have no complaints about heating, electricity, etc., but these kinds of homes are no longer built today for some reason. During the New Deal era, our country had a larger share of people who were economically productive. It was all hands on deck. Today we have people committing PPP loan fraud, starting companies called "Free Money Inc." and "Hellcat LLC". I know that's just one small example, but it's indicative of a completely different mindset. There is so much fraud and waste that has accompanied the general decline in our morals and standards. Spending is only complex in the sense that there are a near-infinite number of ways to allocate resources, which can cause a headache. In another sense, it's dead simple: There are givers and takers. Working people who pay more taxes than they take out in benefits are givers. Children, the elderly, and the poor are usually takers. Does that mean we should exile all children, elderly people, and poor people to the Mojave Desert or something? No. But we need strike a balance between respecting the contributions of the productive class and helping the needy. As the ratio of givers to takers approaches 1:1, or even less, we become increasingly screwed. Our current demographic trends are moving us closer to that 1:1 ratio. If I truly felt that giving up 40 - 50% of my income would guarantee fast, widespread, and safe public transit, walkable neighborhoods, beautiful and affordable homes, low crime, high social trust, etc. I would agree with you. I've been to Denmark, I've been to Japan, I've been to places that have these things. But the sense that I get and that many other honest and hard-working Americans get is that we're being shafted, which doesn't encourage me to give more of my money to the government. It's going to take time for the government to regain the trust of the American people.

This argument doesn't even make sense in 2025 when you consider the many ways in which our standard of living has declined while our tax burdens have increased. And don't give me some bullshit about cheap toys like consumer electronics and the like. I want affordable homes, reliable cars, and cheap energy, not a $100 LCD monitor or a $15 polyester sweater made in Bangladesh. What's the point of my taxes going up, of seeing the numbers on the GDP chart go up every year, if I can't even do something as simple as ordering a beautiful and affordable kit home from the Sears catalog anymore? This house would cost $45,000 today after adjusting for inflation. According to your logic, life in 2025 should be better than it was in 1995, 1985, or 1955 because we pay more taxes, but a man in 1940 could live better than me... The whole point of "hard power" and "soft power" is to enable us to live in peace and prosperity, either through the carrot or the stick. But instead of building onwards and upwards from the success of our predecessors, we chose to coast on their legacy. Now I have to regularly worry about something as ridiculous as being accosted by a drugged out schizophrenic when taking public transportation in most major cities, which would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience for my grandfather. It's just death by a thousand little cuts with this kind of stuff, and it fatigues the collective consciousness of our society... and empties our wallets... We need to seriously rethink our approach to these things. Higher taxation is not the answer. We need less spending, but it's almost impossible to achieve because people can't fathom the thought of losing enormous cash cows like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. "I paid into it, other people should too!!" And while we're figuring out this domestic spending crisis, we certainly shouldn't be spending any money on condoms for Gaza, transsexual theater troupes, DEI bullshit, and countless other misallocations of taxpayer money.

Couldn't agree more. The scalpel-based approach would have worked maybe 60 years ago, probably even longer. But the cancer has metastasized beyond belief and we're now at the point where the whole system is going to need to suffer to rid ourselves of the rot. It's easy for me to say as a young and healthy guy with little invested / little to lose thus far, but I would gladly forfeit social security, medicare, and medicaid entirely if it meant that future generations wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of our irresponsibility. We're headed into South Africa territory where a shrinking subset of the population is going to be called upon to shoulder an increasingly impossible financial burden.

Fair question. The Census Bureau's interactive data visualization site isn't my favorite. The tool itself doesn't work too well. Try selecting specific categories of welfare programs to do a more granular analysis and the tool starts spitting out "no data available" depending on the combination of programs you select. And like you pointed out, it puts Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites into the same category, which isn't helpful. I'm not entirely sure how they built this tool, but it seems like they're not accounting for the relative size and scale of each program. When presenting data without weighting important information like beneficiary counts or spending shares, you can easily create a misleading sense of equivalence between programs like Medicaid (85 million beneficiaries, 50% of welfare spending) and smaller programs like TANF or WIC (less than 2% of welfare spending). This lack of context is pretty obfuscating. The Census data itself isn't bad -- it's great and offers a tremendous sample size, but the Bureau does a poor job of communicating that data. There are other organizations that take the same valuable data and communicate it better. Let's look at some of the biggest public assistance programs to get an idea of what's going on: Medicaid Spending FY 2023: $880 Billion Utilization: White 39.5%, Black 18.5%, Hispanic 29.9%, Asian 4.7%, Native American 1.0%, Multiple Races 6.0% Source: Kroger Family Foundation (Utilization), Kroger Family Foundation (Spending) Medicare Spending FY 2023: $1 Trillion Utilization: White 72.3%, Black 10.1%, Hispanic 9.8%, Asian 4.6%, Native American 0.4%, Multiple Races 2.7% Source: Kroger Family Foundation (Utilization), CMS.gov (Spending) Social Security Spending FY 2024: $1.5 Trillion Utilization: I couldn't find a simple breakdown except for at the Census Bureau site. Their numbers are: White 81.1%, Black 12.1%, Asian 3.7%, Other 3.0%. We know that non-Hispanic Whites are probably a large majority of that 81.1%. Source: CBPP (Spending), Utilization (Census Bureau) SNAP (Food Stamps) Spending FY 2023: $113 Billion Utilization: White 35.3%, Black 26.0%, Hispanic 15.1%, Asian 3.7%, Native American 1.4%, Multiple Races 0.6%, Race Unknown 17.6% Source: USDA (Spending), USDA (Utilization, Table 3.6, Page 29) There's a pretty clear pattern emerging here: Universal public assistance programs designed for old people who have worked and paid taxes their whole lives are utilized the most by Whites, but not at exceedingly disproportionate rates when you account for the racial demographics of the elderly (75% of Americans age 65+ are non-Hispanic Whites). Other public assistance programs are disproportionately used by Blacks and Hispanics, often at rates that are 1.5 - 2.0x higher than you would expect for a population of their size; AKA higher per capita consumption.

I don't know exactly which assertions you're referring to, but here's a few numbers on Prop 13: A 2018 report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) found that about 55% of single-family homes in California were owned by long-term residents who benefit from Prop 13’s tax caps. A 2020 study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) estimated that 40–50% of homeowners pay property taxes based on pre-2000 assessed values, thanks to Prop 13. California has the 2nd lowest home ownership rate in the country at 55.3%, and it hasn't changed in almost 60 years. The median tenure of homeowners in desirable areas of California like LA, San Diego, the Bay Area, and the Central Coast is anywhere between 15 - 20 years, which is far above the national median tenure of 10 years. Between 2020 and 2024, the median home price in California rose from $580,000 to $869,000. This surge meant that many homeowners, particularly older residents who had purchased their homes 20 to 30 years ago, enjoyed record increases in home equity. Here's a chart on that: All this data points to one thing: It's very likely that there are many people who lucked out and bought a house in CA in the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's who have been holding on to it for dear life under the protection of Prop 13 ever since. These older homeowners, already past the peak of their economic productivity, can't compete with the Silicon Valley types or the huge influx of tech / finance people who moved into CA and started working from home during the COVID years. In a less regulated housing market, it's possible that a portion of those homeowners would move to other more affordable states (red states) and pay their taxes there.

To be clear, I'm simply using the phrase "productive class" to describe Americans who pay more into the system than they take out of it. People don't have to be millionaires to consider themselves part of that class. For example, the top 20% of earners (household income of $170,000+) pay about 87% of US federal income taxes. With regard to blue states and red states, the most straightforward answer to your question is that red states, particularly those in the South, have the largest concentrations of people who are significantly more likely to be poor and rely on government benefits on a per-capita basis: Black and Hispanic people. This isn't to say that there aren't poor White or Asian people who rely on federal programs; In fact, Whites receive more benefits overall than anyone else in absolute terms, but their per-capita consumption rates are far lower (except for all the elderly people on Social Security, which is nothing more than a reflection of our country's historical demographics). When you take this into consideration, it's no surprise that blue states like Vermont, Maine, or Massachusetts receive less federal funding than Mississippi, Louisiana, or Georgia. So it's not really about the ideological consistency of the people who govern red and blue states, it's just a demographic reality. There are lots of ways to slice the pie when it comes to analyzing the data on this kind of stuff. But people tend to get uncomfortable when you start categorizing along the lines of race, sex, national origin, and other classifications — especially if it concerns any kind of negative outcome — because it forces us to ask difficult questions and grapple with complex issues that don't necessarily have straightforward or pleasant conclusions. But the truth is that these categories have utility, which is why they're used all the time by professional statisticians across the ideological spectrum. Unfortunately, any time you make a generalized statement about people based on population-level statistics, there are going to be sensitive reactionaries chomping at the bit to mention every exception to the rule and call you every "-ist" under the sun. Just as an example of how data can illuminate these types of discussions, let's look at education: The schooling system here in the US is often ridiculed by Americans and foreigners alike because we don't score as highly as you might expect on metrics like the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). This kind of criticism was epitomized in Jeff Daniels' ridiculous monologue from "The Newsroom" where he rants about why America actually isn't the best country in the world according to various metrics. The most recent data from the 2022 PISA puts the USA at 18th in the world, which is decent, but not great. However, the story changes when you split American students by race: US Asians are 2nd in the world, US Whites are 7th, US Hispanics are 39th, and US Blacks are 47th. So right away, we've dispelled the narrative that all American students are underachievers. For some reason, our Asian and White students are among the best in the world -- better than any European country. Yet for another reason, our Hispanic and Black students are lagging behind. Is it because they're poorer? Is it because of cultural differences in how ethnic groups value education in the US? Is it because of "institutional racism"? Your guess is as good as mine, but my belief is that a serious and just society would look at these kinds of disparities with genuine interest and curiosity borne out of a desire to help and improve; Instead, we're lowering standards, eschewing standardized testing, and removing AP classes from curriculums at predominantly Black and Hispanic schools, along with lots of other nonsensical stuff. Don't even get me started on the propaganda machines we call "universities".

It's funny how the Left frames the productive class—the ones funding everything—as the bad guys for not “sharing enough.” Never mind they’re already paying most of the taxes. Meanwhile, those who receive far more than they contribute in benefits are cast as victims. It’s a neat trick: blame the people keeping the lights on while ignoring the real problem—spending. But hey, why fix the system when you can just keep milking it? Mainstream politicians across the ideological spectrum are insulated from the negative consequences of their decisions. The rich stay rich, the poor are lavished with benefits with no incentive to achieve anything, and the middle class has to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

@SpeedOfHeat Nobody's endorsing roman salutes / sieg heil's here. We all said it was awkward and would get most people in trouble in a professional or even casual social environment, but there is literally no evidence beyond this one hand gesture that Elon is a nazi, and the evidence is circumstantial at best. A quick look at your post history reveals that you've got quite the axe to grind with Trump and his supporters. Calling people "MAGA fanatics" for showing up to an Inauguration Day speech is quite the stretch. Get serious.

I know you're being facetious to illustrate a point and I get where you're coming from because I naturally share the same egalitarian impulse, but my genuine and heartfelt ask to you is: How do we accomplish bipartisanship in an era where the parties are diametrically opposed on so many key issues? Where and how do we on the right compromise without sacrificing our core values (and how can the left do that too)? You might not like governing by EO but the truth is that it was very effective for Democrats because they were able to reward their friends and punish their perceived enemies. Biden granted pre-emptive blanket pardons to his own friends and family for God's sake. Trump's EOs in just the past two days have already shifted the Overton Window rightwards significantly, and they've jump-started legal discussions and proceedings that might ultimately benefit the country in the long run. It seems better than just letting Democrats fight us tooth and nail, filibustering on every single issue, no matter how big or small. And let's not forget about all the ways that leftist bureaucrats surreptitiously hindered the 2016 Trump administration by going behind his back, obfuscating, or even outright lying to the POTUS about the state of affairs and what was within his executive purview. I know it's an age-old quandary and there's probably no right or wrong answer, but this is a classic case of "do the ends justify the means". Some means are certainly beyond the pail, but I don't think we're there yet.

To be clear, I agree with you in the sense that it would be awesome if we could have civil, nuanced, and principled debates in our legislature and other areas of government over the finer points of tax policy, environmental policy, military spending, etc. Ideally that's where we would be, or at least where we're going. But that's a far cry from where we're currently at, which is: Democrats and Republicans can't even agree on the definition of "man" or "woman." There's no way Democrats are going to support any kind of bipartisan bill that is hard on illegal immigration (we all saw that farce of a "bipartisan" immigration bill they tried to pass last year) or makes a real difference in other key policy areas that galvanizes people on the right. That's why I've adopted the more Machiavellian stance I outlined earlier. The courts and the Constitution will be there to keep things in check. The leader of the AfD is a lesbian woman with a wife from Sri Lanka... I don't think she's trying to usher in the Fourth Reich. She wouldn't be allowed there! The party is quite moderate apart from its hardline stance on immigration, which is understandable considering the difficulties Germany has had with integrating and assimilating millions of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. See today's stabbing spree by an Afghan refugee in Aschaffenburg, or the recent Christmas Market attack in Magdeburg which had 300+ casualties for example. If you look back far enough, most Germans are going to have some "problematic" family ties. Some questions to ponder on that front: Is it wrong for Germans to want to move past an unequivocally shameful chapter in their history? If so, how long should that shame be held over their heads? Do we treat the Japanese or Italians the same way? When's the last time we shamed Mongolia for raping and pillaging half the world? The way I see it, people can't control who they're related to. If we applied similar logic here in America, we would have to disavow any American with family ties to the Confederacy / Old South (I'm thinking of people like Jimmy Carter, Mark Twain, Shelby Foote, Johnny Cash, etc). My understanding was that brow-beating people over the sins of their ancestors is the kind of thing that was rejected at the ballot box in November. Let's move onwards and upwards and focus on doing our best to improve conditions for the American people!

Genuine question: Does it even matter how Democrat voters self-identify? Their votes were a tacit endorsement of a hyper-progressive regime, so what does that make them? They voted for state-sponsored illegal immigration, proliferation of radical gender & racial ideologies in taxpayer-funded institutions, kneecapping our energy production and manufacturing capacity, DEI foolishness, and countless other short-sighted and destructive policies. Watching "conservatives" (what does that even mean? what have they "conserved" in recent memory?) perpetually cede normative, ideological, and political ground to leftists while comforting themselves with the delusional platitude that they have the moral high ground has been pretty sad and frustrating to watch for my short 24 years of life (see attached pic). Maybe I'm too cynical, but "seeking common ground", "bipartisanship", and other similar phrases that evoke ideas of universal harmony just sound like buzzwords from a bygone era. Politics is first and foremost about winning; If you don't win, you can't implement the agenda that people voted for. So now that we've won, let's not get caught up in the obfuscatory pearl-clutching that leftists will be engaging in for the foreseeable future. I hope the incoming administration just focuses on getting shit done. Time will tell, though. Elon's hand gesture was awkward, but it didn't seem malevolent and it made at least a little bit of sense in the context of saying "my heart goes out to you". He's an autistic South African genius billionaire who wears his heart on his sleeve. I don't think that sleeve also has a swastika on it.

If flying with the ANG is what you want to do in life, then give it everything you've got! I'm just a civilian who's still in the application process for ANG fighter units, but I wouldn't recommend enlisting as it's going to be a huge time sink and there's no guarantee you'll be selected over another candidate. Given your age, I would start getting an application together as quickly as reasonably possible. I don't know how far along you are yet, but assuming you're starting from scratch: You're going to need to be coordinating multiple things at the same time such as studying for and scheduling an AFOQT / TBAS ASAP (I would schedule one a month out and use the time to prepare), studying for the PPL written exam, establishing a clear roadmap with your CFI on how and when you'll be completing the practical requirements for a PPL, working on a resume and cover letter that differentiates you (in a good way) from the rest of the crowd of applicants, and getting three letters of recommendation that speak to your character, skills, and how they make you a good USAF Officer Candidate and Pilot Candidate. You'll also need to find a good explanation for that HIMS; be honest about it but find a way to "spin" it in a positive way, show what you've learned and how you've improved, etc. Lastly, I would just get a 3rd class medical for now. You'll have to get an FC1 in the event that you're hired by an ANG unit anyway. Best of luck brother!

Awesome pictures!