There is now a straight line connecting the White House to Nazis. I know: sounds like a conspiracy theory. However, the dots make a straight line. Just read the below. That's all I ask. Here are the dots:

• 47 issues Executive order 14188: "Additional measures to combat *Anti-Semitism". 47 has been co-opting "Anti-Semitism" to mean "Anti-Zionism" for a while now. "Anti-Semitism" means "Anti-Jewish". "Anti-Zionist" != "Anti-Jewish". "Anti-Zionism" is disagreeing with the conservative Israeli equivalent of America's "manifest destiny".
• 1488 is a Nazi dog whistle 1488 is often represented as 14/88.
• This EO doesn't make Jews safer. It makes them targets.. This clearly aligns well with the intent behind 14/88.
• The statistical probability of this as a coincidence , EO14188 being about "Anti-Semitism" and the existence of 14/88? Clearly absurdly low.
• Nazis in the White House.

EDIT: Thank you to the folks who amended the tags.

There is still resistance of a sort within the government, but dictatorships don't require 100% consolidation of all power into the Executive. And if that struggle is being ignored by the Executive, then what difference does it make?

Just had a thought that the 3 countries considered the biggest powers have leaders who are all 70+. So I looked into it and found that the average age of the leaders of the 10 most populous countries (and EU) is 72.

Has the age of major countries' leaders ever been higher?

Has it always been like this?

I understand it irt. authoritarian countries. Democracies trend way lower.

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I keep seeing this phrase, mostly with relation to USA-Canadian politics right now.

I was curious enough to look this up and it seems this phrase came from a famous hockey player, Gordie Howe.

Now, I want to say that my initial thought before researching this was, "oh, elbows up must be passive resistance, it's like someone folding their arms waiting for you to calm down, it's like putting your elbows up on a table refusing to eat/being rude on purpose to prove a point"

What I found, and the crux of the question, is it seems like a license to practice violence, when you deem it necessary. It seems very, "ends justify the means" -- because it is inherently a very violent rhetoric. I feel the current use of the term is, "don't take shit from anyone if they are bullying you". But this completely disregards its origins.

My further search into the hockey part of it sounds like the player didn't just use his "elbows" in retaliation, it sounds like he was really actively violent (on the ice)...so...I guess I just don't get it, I don't get why a society would glorify such a violent backed terminology, to combat...extremely violent behavior (threats of annexation).

Genuinely interested to hear anyone's opinions on this phrase.

Bonus, I saw one explanation of the player that I thought was funny, his "rational and expert application of violence"

I recently had a (mostly) civilized discussion with an older gentleman who mentioned reading a book about how newer generations have not learned how to suffer, and that is the root cause of many evils in the world today. He then expressed a sort of excitement at the thought of self-induced suffering through our supreme leader's terrible economic and geopolitical decisions. It would "make us stronger on the other side."

To which my question was, and is still: "You're a top 2% earner in the most powerful country in the world. You have everything you could ever want or dream of. Why do YOU want to suffer?"

My second question/point was: "What you're describing as people being too comfortable, I'd counter that it's just the advancement of technology and industry -- most of us don't HAVE to suffer by breaking our backs working the fields from sun up to sun down because we have equipment to do that for us. Instead, we can work our desk jobs and play games on our phones."

And my final question/point was: "Why would anyone ever wish suffering upon anyone else? That doesn't seem very biblical."

I'm really struggling to understand the line of thinking that I am hearing from the very top levels of the government all the way down to the working class. The thinking that "we deserve to suffer." In a sense, I feel that it's a sort of disguised retribution or malice, i.e. "I don't want to suffer, but there are a bunch of people I disagree with that do need to suffer."

Please help me understand so I can be better prepared to debate the next person who tries to make this point to me. I'm looking at you, Dad.