The conspiracy theory behind this is that Jews control everything, and that’s why anti-BDS laws exist. Jewish media overlords don’t like mean things being said about Israel, so they pull the strings on their puppet politicians, and make them dance.
The reality is a couple of things. First, Israel is an ally of the US, and politicians have burned a lot of political capital propping the country up for the last 60-odd years. There’s a bit of a sunk-cost fallacy there; we need to keep supporting Israel, rather than finding new and less-sucky friends in the middle east (like, I dunno, maybe apologizing to Iraq for fucking their whole country over with the shah?, not that they’re great, but we def. made that particular pile of shit). The other one is that evangelical Christians need to support Israel, because they believe that Jesus is going to return as the Messiah in Jerusalem, to the Jews. Anything that can potentially threaten the possibility of Israel controlling Jerusalem would undercut their religious beliefs, so they really want to dump money into Israel. (No, that’s not a bad joke, or conspiracy theory itself; I can probably find links to sermons of guys like Greg Locke saying as much; they don’t like Jews, since Jews are Christ-killers, but they need Jews to usher in the apocalypse. AFAIK, this is pretty mainstream evangelical stuff.) Evangelicals have a lot of power in this country, even if they’re not that large of a population any more. Republicans are largely controlled by them, which is part of the reason that you won’t see any republicans opposing aid to Israel.
Anyway, BDS would threaten the support for Israel; therefore, anti-BDS is generally favored by Dems, and completely supported by Republicans.
The fact that there are anti-BDS laws doesn’t make this not a conspiracy. Moreover, anti-BDS laws haven’t yet been tested in courts; given that groups like the ACLU oppose them as infringing on legitimate political speech, I think that there’s solid reason to say that they’re unconstitutional. Esp. since BDS is intended to target the country, and not the people.
…That is not something that you would ever do. Where are those bullets going when you’re not on-target? Even if you don’t hit an unintended target, that’s wasted ammunition, and you aren’t carrying an infinite amount. Trust me when I say that carrying 6 pistol magazines each loaded with 20 rounds, in addition to a chest carrier with 7 fully loaded M4 magazines starts getting heavy.
I’ve done a little IDPA–and will be doing more–and that kind of shit would get you tossed out of a match IMMEDIATELY. If you spend enough time practicing, you don’t need to do that anyways; part of the air marshal qualification course involves drawing a pistol from concealment, and firing a single shot on target-at 7y-in 1.15 seconds or less. High-level USPSA shooters can complete Bill drills from draw in under 2.
Not everything is relevant. Not everything that is truthful is kind. You seem to have this weird idea that you should prioritize your feelings in all things over your partners feelings, rather than understanding that something simply aren’t a big deal.
I don’t know too many–read: any–marriage and family therapists that would ever suggest you tell your SO every possible thing unless and until it became relevant. There are good reasons that people that practice radical honesty usually don’t have many friends.
have almost always been used by bad actors that ruin it for everyone else.
…So what? You’re suggesting that, because some people misuse a right in an illegal way, that the right should be taken from everyone. It’s the equivalent of saying that because some people use speech to incite violence, the right to free speech should be taken. I completely reject that view.
Pre-emptive caveat: I am fully in favor of electric cars, and will happily switch if I can ever afford to do so.
Yes, most of the parts that are going to wear out on IC cars are motor and transmission parts, and those are complicated and time consuming to fix. In many cases it’s not practical for the end-user to do so anymore. Electric cars OTOH are more likely to have electronics issues, and the batteries are ridiculously expensive to replace when the capacity is reduced below a useful level.So you’re still going to end up with similar maintenance costs over the lifetime of the vehicle, but they’re more likely to be concentrated at one or two irregular points in time rather than small bits of preventive maintenance done at regular intervals.
I’m very much a proponent of 2A rights. But carrying, by itself, is not going to eliminate fear, and may not even moderate it significantly. And someone that’s disabled may not be able to effectively use a firearm, and they certainly won’t be able to use one effectively with training.
As others have said, it’s not just men that perceive that negatively; women do also. I can’t recall who said it, but feminism has meant that there are many different ways to be a woman now, but there is still only one socially acceptable way to be a man. The social consequences to men for being emotionally vulnerable can mean the loss of all social connections; I know that I lost about 3/4 of the people I thought were friends when I failed to successfully complete suicide. That creates a very strong disincentive to being vulnerable in the future.