National Coming Out Day: Nonstandard Identity Edition

Warning: one-to-many heart-to-heart

You Can't Just Say that Vegetarianism is Unquestionably a Superior Moral Decision

For whatever reason, the face of an old dorm-mate suddenly came to my mind tonight, and I remembered that we were no longer friends on Facebook.  I remembered having an argument through Facebook messages that must have convinced him that I couldn't be reasoned with, because he unfriended me sometime after that last online discussion.  The argument came about when he, opting to deal with his personal concerns one-on-one, sent me a message in response to a post I made about factory farming.  He wanted me to know that it was belittling and dismissive to say things like "Vegetarianism is unquestionably a superior moral decision to eating meat," and very politely explained why he found this a Very Bad Way to Go About Things.  This was my response:

Why Openly Criticizing Hillary Helps Hillary

To all of those people complaining that Bernie supporters are being too harsh on Hillary, politely telling us to shut up about our analysis and policy concerns:

Distinguishing Between the Conceptions of Ownership in Capitalism and Socialism

Responding to yet another discussion about socialism on Facebook, I wanted to find out what comes up on a Youtube search for socialism.  One of the first names that came up sounded familiar:

Your Powerlessness, Quantified

While many would say that the degree of oligarchy in the US government is just one of many important issues, I claim that no debate about government policy matters unless the parties debating have the ability to affect government policy, whether through petitioning to representatives' good will or by using legal mechanisms (like voting or referenda).  I also propose that this is objectively applicable to the current political climate of the United States.

It was claimed that my argument was exaggerated, so I would like to substantiate this couple of claims with a purely mathematical argument.  Here are the numbers that prove we Americans have literally--quantitatively--provably--no power in our government:

Collusion: A Better Critique of Capitalism than Twilight

A capitalist friend asked on Facebook how we can rightfully accuse the wealthy of exploiting the system.  This is my answer, in the form of a narrative about the absurdity of a system that just so happens to be a capitalist republic:

with respect to People who Possess Child Porn

*TW Trigger warning for discussion of sexual abuse of children*