Zoning density appreciator. More trains 🚈 and more lanes 🚙
Joined September 2012
- Tweets2.5K
- Following189
- Followers98
- Likes11.4K
Austin retweeted
I think if you are a married woman with kids who makes a modest salary and your husband is the clear breadwinner and you aren’t someone who is locked in to your career and would be cool staying at home and your husband doesn’t have the forethought to be like “daycare is gonna basically cost your entire salary anyway so just stay at home” he should be tarred and feathered
Austin retweeted
Many left wing Brazilians recently began tweeting about how they wanted to emulate China as a ‘successful left wing country’. IE they wanted to copy Chinese policies to ‘fix’ Brazil but left-ishly. Chinese users soon pointed out many Chinese policies are to the right of Bolsonaro
Worth pointing out how authoritarian Direct Action activities like blocking highways are
It’s saying if duly elected leaders don’t obey a minority of activists, they will use violence to overturn the democratic will
Should be understood as no different from January 6
The more I read other “democracies” are banning candidates and parties from office, supreme courts given autocratic power, dissidents being arrested for speech, the more I’m convinced that yes, the Constitution of the United States is indeed the best frame for a democratic nation
Austin retweeted
I think there's something of an implicit appeal being made by Weisenthal and other "Save the Bars" supporters which I agree with and am willing to state explicitly:
It's nice to have places which were built before the tyranny of neurotic safetyism, the ADA, and plastic.
Austin retweeted
Exactly. We live in southern Brazil, where most people still vote for Bolsonaro, but almost no one dares to speak out or protest anymore. Alexandre de Moraes has spent the last few years acting like a tyrant, locking up political opponents for simply expressing an opinion or attending a demonstration.
Last week at the supermarket a Venezuelan refugee who was serving us started crying when we talked about what’s happening here. She said it felt like the same nightmare she escaped years ago is now unfolding in Brazil. Seizing passports minutes after an election result is just the latest example.
Sure many don’t like change but letting NIMBYs prevent construction is a tragedy of the commons favoring older wealthier property owners above younger workers who are the most important group for family formation
Everyone needs to do their part to provide housing for the future
It shows unbridled hubris that Lula started trying to imprison his opposition within hours of the election when he could’ve simply not done that and continued governing in a way that implemented PT’s policy agenda
Now he’s turning Brazil’s reputation into that of a rogue state
Austin retweeted
"Why does nobody run for the school board?"
"Why are the Rotary clubs empty?"
"Why does every town meeting feel like it's run by the same motley assortment of terrible people?"
Because the men who ought be doing so--the successful local men of prominence, typically businessmen and lawyers--came to the conclusion in the mid-20th century that participation in and leadership of civic life was someone else's job.
This is the desire of the so-called conservative to simply "work" rather than do all the other things that keep entropy at bay and ensure things function. Their doing so left open the field to the worst among us: spiteful malcontents
It wasn't always like this.
The planters of the Virginia gentry served as vestryman, justice, militia officer and burgess, usually before he turned thirty and usually for no pay, other than perhaps having some travel expenses covered as a burgess.
It was expected of him, and he expected it of himself: as a man whose success made him privileged, he was duty-bound to be the one to show up and lead
That habit can come back. It ought come back. It starts with showing up to the boring meeting, and being the sort of man to whom others listen. The sort of man whose reputation for success and competence, and cultivated but not overdone and always aesthetically pleasing look makes others want to follow him
This is what the great men we look back to did, and is indeed what their whole soceity was geared toward producing: great men who were great leaders at every level of civic life, from the humblest station at the bottom to the greatest at the top
Re-engaging in that way will be critical if we are to retake our country.
Read more about what we can learn from the Virginia gentry here: theamericantribune.news/p/ho…
Important read on how Lula and Moraes transformed Brazil into an autocratic Putin style police state
One of the most serious instances of public corruption and democratic backsliding in the 21st century
CRUCIAL FACTS ON THE FLAVIO BOLSONARO MATTER:
It's not just Flavio Bolsonaro who fled Brazil to escape the tyrannical persecution of Alexandre de Moraes and the pro-Lula wing of the Supreme Court. There are dozens of Brazilian exiles who have done the same: dissident journalists, activists, bloggers, and politicians who all fled to avoid certain prison for political opposition.
In most of these cases, Moraes has demanded the extradition of those who fled and whom he wants to imprison back in Brazil. But Moraes' extradition requests have been repeatedly denied by multiple countries and institutions on the grounds that these prosecutions are politically motivated or otherwise corrupted. Among those concluing this: Spain, Italy, INTERPOL, and even the US under Biden.
Just today, Italy refused Brazil's demand to extradite a person named @edutagli, who was once a top aide to Moraes, but then fled to Italy after Moraes accused him of having been my source in a huge leak from Moraes' office that I obtained for reporting I did with @Folha in 2024. That massive leak enabled us to publish roughly 20 articles proving systemic abuses of power by Moraes against his political enemies: exactly the reason so many Brazilians, including Bolsonaro, know they can't get a fair trial in Brazil.
Italy today refused to extradite the person accused of being our source on the grounds that the proceedings would be a farce because Moraes — as he so often does — wants to act as the supposed victim, investigator, and judge, and thus his demand falls well outside of Italy's extradition standards. Again, multiple countries have concluded the same, showing what a farce Brazil's once-respected judicial system has become under the Lula/Moraes regime.
Moraes has overseen a system of political persecution masquerading as criminal justice that has been recognized as a sham by multiple countries that are not exactly Bolsonaro allies. Nobody in their right mind who is a political enemy of Moraes would remain in Brazil once if it is clear that he intends to imprison you, since he has proven that guilt is a foregone conclusion and he operates with no legal or constitutional limits of any kind.
That is why asylum under international law exists: to protect those who cannot obtain justice in their own country because the justice system has been corrupted and commandeered for political persecution. Many people, such as Julian Assange, have needed that protection (which Lula cheered). Now people need it from Moraes in Brazil. That is sadly one of the main legacies of both Lula and Moraes over the last six years.
I’m friends with a lot of Jewish people and this is something I think the Jewish community tends to do better than some churches
There’s a healthier human view of sex and dating along with plenty of low pressure mixers and matchmaking events with less animosity between genders
Another consequence of vetocracy, a gridlocked legislature and the executive being near powerless
Our elected officials need to be empowered to actually govern once they receive the mandate from the voters or else policymaking is reduced to clunky judicial workarounds
Yes people don’t realize this when talking about Bolsonaro, and it’s why Trump also had difficulty with some of his deportations too
The way to handle this is get Flavio out by US military extraction btw
It reminds the Brazilian judicial dictatorship that the War Department has far more force projection and state capacity depth than they anticipate
Simple and clean message, no need for prolonged engagement
