People from the U.S. (and even parts of Europe) do not understand how corrupt, stupid, and unstable majority of the world is. It is genuinely unfathomable.

This does not excuse the fascism of the current admin, nor the war-crimes of the U.S. as a whole, but they are nowhere even remotely close to the likes of Moldova.

There is a reason I said this was consistent.

I checked on four different servers (feddit.nl, lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works) and all of them reproduced the automatic download for only this post. Of course, this can be due to an error with lemmy’s source itself - which is why I said it isn’t necessarily malware.

Secondly, I did a non-trivial check of my network for MITM when the error first occurred - and there was no evidence of MITM. I also highly doubt that the browser itself is compromised, as it is up-to-date and is focused on both privacy and security.

I posted it as a warning for those to check their machines if the browser (or other mechanisms) didn’t catch it. I am also not above reproach; it is okay to criticize my claims - but they were not made without reasonable cause.

P.S. The files were blocked from downloading (and I will not be downloading them) so I am unaware of their contents. If it is just PHP, then lemmy itself likely has a edge-case bug triggered by this post (which is bad). But I do doubt it is PHP, considering all other posts do not display this behavior.

[ OFF TOPIC - SECURITY WARNING ]

When opening this lemmy post, it attempts to download content to the user’s device. This is consistent behavior. This is not an accusation of malware, but is a tactic often used in drive-by attacks.

It is recommended to check your download folder for strange files, and perform a general security check.

Is America the only country on the planet?

You seem to forget that the EU and China are starting to mingle; and that China is heavily involved in Africa et al via the Belt&Road Initiative.

Obviously everyone gets hurt in it a trade war, that’s why it’s called a war. But the the long term outlook for China is significantly better than America’s - they will win a war of attrition.

China is also doing their due diligence. Tit-for-tat is the most effective negotiation strategy, you will not beat physics, and they understand this.

The craziest part is that both America and China were benefiting immensely off of the status quo, considering they were the #1 and #2 richest countries on the planet. But since the least qualified person on the planet to handle money (Trump) has unregulated power, it has all gone to shit.

This is the most effective form of protest, that every single American should be doing.

It also happens to be extremely efficient where it needs to be.

You assume that educated people are making the final decision, when that has not been the case in at least 60 years.

Economists can scream from the roof-tops that the wealth-gap is harmful (they have), that ignoring science is regressive (they have), and that tariffs are fucking stupid (they have). But if the people in power (i.e CEO, Lobbyists, President) simply ignore them and do stupid shit anyway, it’s all pointless.

Moral of the story, this is not on the economists. This is on the stupid being in positions of power and the ignorant masses not holding them accountable.

Agreed, the “well regulated militias” argument was always nonsense.

People can barely work together in office spaces, have zero appreciation for democracy, and have zero discipline. Yet we expect these same people to painstakingly learn combat, change their lifestyles, and agree who the enemy is.

For full transparency, I support 2A - but I support it because it is the best way to be uncooperative with violence. This is extremely important for not only having any chance against a corrupt government, but also your hysterical neighbors - who want to lynch you for being a witch.

P.S. Remote areas tend to be significantly more violent than populated areas. This is a phenomena observed through both anecdote and data. Protecting yourself from rabid neighbors in remote (often rural) areas is a genuine use case!

I think the rule of thumb is to never take a conservative at their word. They seem to only argue in bad-faith for their own personal gain (whether it be money or pleasure); and will go as far as changing the meaning of words and reality to be “correct”.

When a conservative makes a hypothetical, just assume it has no nuance, practicality, nor scientific process. If it did the militia argument would’ve been dead-on-arrival.

I challenge you to look at this from a different perspective.

The people with the (severely under-powered) guns come out, shoot some people, and then what?

The American populace has shown itself to be completely spineless and incapable of doing anything useful. At least 50% of the country will condemn your actions as “not the right way” - even as fascists are rounding them up and sending them to El Salvador.

So what did you just throw your life away for? Making no change, and potentially even setting back the cause. Guns will not fix the deep seated rot in America - no matter how many times you say it. Anyone with a brain looking to win (not the same as being correct!) will not show their hand now.

Can we stop talking about “we should, we should”? Who is actually doing?

The time for talk was over November 4th, but it is beyond over now - arm yourself, period.

Where are the community resources for community building and fighting against ICE tactics - this is what the internet is for? Who is running the underground railroad? Why are every single one of us not educated on TOR and VPNs? Who are we primarying? What are the plans for removing propaganda from our real life communities?

There are no accessible answers to these questions - this is unacceptable, and we get this in order now. No one is coming to save us, we must do it ourselves. We have a 2 month window between now and when the most in-person activity will happen (summer).

P.S. Everyone screams at the gun owners and politicians about why they won’t do anything. But why would they? They’ll basically throw their lives away for nothing - especially when the people they claim to fight for are so fucking spineless.

If this woman can have her First Amendment RIGHT stripped and arrested in the street by plain clothes, and every single person in this country isn’t rioting, guns and laws will not fix it.

P.S P.S If you are not from America and are in a relatively free country, one of the best things you can do is host the resources for fighting the Nazis. American companies, individuals, and organization are automatically compromised.

If are an American, create an onion service or host using an EU VPS and domain registar.

I can very easily buy a fake badge, flash it at you, and say I’m police.

This is why uniforms and agency-labeled vehicles (with id numbers!) exist. The fact that we still do not know the names of these officers should be enough evidence to prove that these could’ve not been officers at all.

I usually do not get rage-baited, but something about this response clicked something it my soul.

I am not a lefty. I will resort to much worse than insults if ever got my hands on you (or anyone like you).

I hate to co-opt the Canadians but. Elbows up.

The thing confusing me most is why Ukraine would trust any US’ “guarantee”, when they’ve been nothing but untrustworthy.

And people’s lives are not toys. I get the sentiment behind wanting less people to die. But Trump and Putin do think people’s lives are toys, so I can’t imagine the outcome of this being beneficial in any way to Ukraine.