251 Comments
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Sep 19, 2023
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Were you moved by "You need to stay married to reduce overall social-welfare expenditures and keep taxes low"?

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Marriage makes you married!

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"Members of our class still overwhelmingly married and had children within wedlock…"

"children within wedlock" just sounds so...dystopian...

and "overwhelmingly married'...yeesh...Pull out yer shotguns, me boyos!

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"Overwhelmingly married" reminds me of the exchange in "Cheers" when Norm, asked about what happened to Vera, replied: "Married her. Married the hell out of her."

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David Brooks knows what of he speaks! He likes marriage so much he keeps doing it!

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And he likes religions so much he keeps trying out new ones!

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Well, I tried a buncha them too, just for the novelty and the questioning. Alla 'bout the same, except the gospel music ones, which were worth the price of admission...

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Try the cathedral of St. John the Divine in NY. This Jewish guy loves the renaissance music and pageantry.

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Grace Cathedral in SF has its moments...

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Come to that, if marriage is so great, why ain’t Rod Dreher doing it? Checkmate, lib—! I’ll come in again.

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Because Viktor Orban is already taken?

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Taken? or on the take?

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Rod is very taken with Victor. Take that!

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"Children within an arm-bar lock... or full nelson"

(no disrespect to our Nelson. It's not his fault that he's a wrestling move)

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Sep 19, 2023
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There are a few, one was a 6'2" 310 pound DT for NC State

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If yinz gimme anymore hasslin'

I'mo commence with the wrastlin!

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Conservatives just love the term "lock". Gives them itches in the britches.

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Because "Ehe Macht Reich" is kinda creepy.

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I guess if I'm part of The Solution I gotta go out and...

sharpen my pitchfork!

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If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

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Have we now sunk so low...?!

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I'll try harder to concentrate.

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“Two parents can earn two incomes, meaning less poverty.” So says Kristof. And sure, two parents can both work . . . if they can afford child daycare. But the usual case for anyone making less than $120,000 a year is that the cost of daycare completely devours the second income. So what you wind up with is the same poverty, but with both parents absent during the day.

And, of course, THAT is conservative anathema, too! Mommies should be home being mommies! The stay-at-home mom of the 1950s is to be revered. And scorned for being lazy and worthless. And celebrated for being dedicated. And driven into penury for not contributing to the economy. And held up as a role model. And derided for wasting her life.

I guess it all works out in some completely dissonant dystopia in conservatives' heads. But here in the real world? Not so much.

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What do I keep saying about responding to conservatives’ bullshit with facts and truths??

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Definitely. But Kristof is a "liberal" who insists on dumping on "fellow liberals" for fictional sins (using conservative sources)

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Sep 19, 2023
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Nichola Kristoff, The Importance of Being Earnest

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Possibly, but I think it’s (again) just that he’s genuinely stupid.

And just for that, my Kristof story:

A decade or two ago, I attended an informal he gave focusing on his time as the Times’ China reporter. The inference of the talk was that whatever his success in China, it was due to his wife. He himself would have been way less successful. Could a foreign correspondent hire a local for guidance? Of course. But especially in the PRC, one’s spouse is way better and more trustworthy than a hired hand. Any one of his columns and every aspect of running for governor in Oregon confirms it.

Again: dumb as a brick.

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Oh, we know, M – we're just joshin' ya!

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"So what you wind up with is the same poverty, but with both parents absent during the day."

but---job creation!

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Think how many jobs we could create if we'd all agree to do one another's laundry!

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Hey, circulating paper for imaginary profits works for Wall Street; why not try it with laundry?

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I don't do any laundry myself, I just bundle other people's laundry into laundry-backed securities.

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Do you see what I see?

Can it be...YES! A laundry-backed security!! In breeding plumage!!!

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Wash all the underwear

Profit????

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And now the kids can work as well!

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Those tiny hands are a perfect fit for cleaning between the blades of this meat slicer.

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Marriage makes you divorced and impoverished; I’m living proof. Although, perhaps impoverished part is a bit of an embellishment. That said, the divorced part is true.

Just ask Trump, Giuliani and Gingrich. They loved married so much, they each got divorced twice and married three times....:)

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Hey, if you can't have quality, at least you can have quantity!

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Don't forget the Pigman - Limbaugh managed to do the marriage I think four times before he joined the choir everlasting.

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The choir everlasting is in the good place. I doubt very much if Limbaugh is there.

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"allowing for a second that getting married is a ‘personal choice’ in a way that going to college isn’t"

Huh? Ya mean in marriage there's 2 deciders whereas in college entrance exams there's only one? Does that mean colleges can FORCE me into the classroom? Alternately, can I force college into accepting me?

It's just too damn early for this...

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Sorry, he was only allowing that for a second and you're time's up.

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I never aspired to be Man of the Hour, but I was kinda hopin' I could be a Minute Man or some such. Are you tellin' me I don't even qualify for Chump of the Second?

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It never ceases to amuse me that Gobry's Twixtter handle is "PEG."

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I've been married a long time. We raised 3 kids, put them through college.

I drive a 12 year old Honda subcompact and plan on working until I die. My kids are all doing well. When it's time, my wife and I will have our choice of nice yard barns to live in.

Did Brooks mention if a second, much younger wife pays the same kind of marriage dividends the first marriage does? Seems like it would cost more than it pays.

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You'd think he'da given that one a nod and a wink, but apparently he couldn't even be bothered to try...

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https://substack.com/@brawlatthepoetscafe/note/c-40320232?r=insr

I would have gotten my teeth fixed first.

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You don't have sufficient insight into the Conservative Brain: "Hey everyone, if I could get this girl with THESE teeth, I'm either VERY rich or I have an ENORMOUS schlong."

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I honestly cannot explicate why I heart this...

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you're either VERY rich or I have an ENORMOUS schlong

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Pics or it didn't...ah nevermind...

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I wish David Brooks would just shut the f^*% up.

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what? and cut off that sweet sweet wing nut money flow? then HE might be looking to get married again. win win! except for that third wifey.

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You can say that again.

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He could just sit on those PBS shows with his waxy countenance and smile beatifically.

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Sep 19, 2023
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County Waxenance reads like one of the long lost corners of Dear Old Ire-Land...

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Sep 19, 2023Edited
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Pretty early for tee many martoonis...

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That's where Wains Cotting is located.

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That's H.L. Waxy Countenance III, thank you!

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Love your work in the National Review, H.L.W.C. III!

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I for one cannot countenance his wax.

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H. L. "Minwax" Countenance IV was just convicted of criminal trespass from storming the Capitol on January 6th.

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Ok, ok...2 marks for Minwax!

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Waxy indeed.

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And yet, maybe the pro-marriage riff from the wing nuts is just more of their perversions like what they do to language. In this case, the case is made, as it were, by just making up shit while ignoring why the poors are disinterested in marriage. (Of course, the young poors’ futures are so shitty they don’t feel any great need to marry what with being some sort of debt serf for life, global warming worsening because the leaders are disinterested in doing anything much about it, the nation on the verge of becoming an authoritarian state and so on and so forth.) I guess I should add that were these people so pro-marriage, they’d implement the requirements of a living wage for full time workers and affordable, available healthcare.

As for Kristof (not his birth name), don’t get me started on him except to add to the usual rant from which I’m saving you is a special case in the Times cohort of columnists: he’s the only one we dislike for just being dumb as a brick. At best. Chaser: he was considered for becoming the Times’ editor although it was never likely.

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"for just being dumb as a brick" yeah that's why I don't usually read him. There's nothing there to even engage. It's embarrassing for the both of us!

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Ha!

As if we don't self-embarrass enough already...

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Brooks and Kristof love to play this game where they find reasons why liberals are always at fault (They get married! They eat fancy cold cuts!) for poverty/conservative BS, but never offer any solutions. Are we all supposed to divorce our spouses (Brooks approves) or nag single parents that they're doing it wrong? Maybe we should go back to the days where unwed mothers were shipped off upstate for a few months because of "illness"?

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"never offer any solutions"

Ah, you're just not appreciating the bind they're in. Any solutions, implemented at scale, would necessarily involve the evil government, so best to just stay away from solutions altogether. No, the best course is to lecture the public from your comfortable perch on the NY Times op-ed page, knowing that the people who most need to hear you don't read you.

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Blaming others for problems is solution enough for them.

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So...insolvent then?

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Conservatives don't cough up that child assistance money they like to yap about because it's HOLY TAXPAYER MONEY, which can only ever be allocated to the Pentagon or the police, therefore we need to rely on punitive solutions since that's where the money's going anyway, as we can see in Idaho which won't spend public funds on prenatal or postnatal care, but will certainly spend it on security forces to keep womenfolk from sneaking out of the state to have abortions.

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Well, they know their readers are the ones who should feel bad for condemning those poor unfortunates to marriageless misery so, mission accomplished!

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I presume then a husband cheating on dis wife is OK with Brooks.

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No solutions? Why Brooks has a whole foundation dedicated to Weaving America Back Together. It's like the John Doe club, but instead of listening to each other you have self-criticism sessions where you confess your failure to integrate yourself into the Community. And yes, if you read between the lines, which you have to with Brooks because he never writes a declarative sentence, those are exactly the days Brooks wants back. One of the core tenets of Conservatism is that individuals are solely responsible for their lives, and people at the bottom have chosen to be there. To show them mercy is to be taken for a sucker.

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There's always room at the bottom.

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Omigod, you're right, I googled it and it's about "weaving together our social fabric", funded in part by the Walton Family Foundation. Think on that for a second.

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You can't make this shit up. It's interesting. Brooks essentially built and executed the template for conservative pundit migration from bomb-thrower to misty watercolored Aspen/Davos/Times/Yale Buddah (driftglass has the receipts). Guys like Douthat and Richard whatshisname, Haimermier, something, a loud-n-proud white supremacist/misogynist in the process of refashioning himself for a spot at the Times or Atlantic or somewhere "legitimate", follow the script to the letter. It's as much a formula as any Kpop band.

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The weaving will be offshored to Vietnam?

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The brick just called and says it resents your comparison.

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Bricks are more... um... constructive.

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Solid, reliable citizens!

(Unless they're made with RAAC, as the UK is discovering.)

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The Royal Australian Armoured Corps would like a word.

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Does it dissolve in the rain too?

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Dunno. Does this have anything to do with tanned hides hangin' in the shed?

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On top of everything else, these nincompoops always leave out the part about how a lot of those 'low-education men' who make next to no money (if they're employable at all) ALSO demand that women treat them with all kinds of unearned respect and deference, because penis. Why would a poor working woman with two kids, say, want to add another mouth to feed to her family, who will ALSO demand to be kowtowed to, waited on and praised for his manly manliness, while contributing nothing of value to her family? Who might even turn violent and destructive if he feels he's not getting the respect that is his right as a Y-chromosome possessor?

THIS is why they're trying to undermine women's ability to get educations, good jobs and independent financial security -- first, by banning abortion, with birth control coming up next. They want to return to a world in which a woman's only hope for survival is to get hitched to a man, ANY man, no matter how dumb, lazy, violent or useless he might be. Of course, the resulting "families" will be just as poor and wretched as ever, only they'll all be PROPERLY MARRIED, and every resentful incel will have his very own wife to leech off of, abuse and vent his spite on -- Republican nirvana!

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Next on the agenda: church! And lots of it!

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I wonder if the way so many churches and church-goers beclowned themselves during the Trump years might be having some effect on the youngs and their interest in getting married?

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"We're gonna shove that cross down your throat!" ('Cause they never mention synagogues or mosques for example.)

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Can't help hearing "We're gonna shove that cross down your throat!"

to the tune of "I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair" which makes me fret for Mary Martin...

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That's odd, I went somewhere much darker, Mick singing "I'll stick my knife right down your throat."

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Just call me Sonny Dispozish!

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Geld aus Kinder, Kuchen und Kirche.

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I just realized my overlookitude.

This

"because penis"

deserves 2 marks, and wider distribution.

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I like to think that these kinds of conservative pronouncements -- which sound at first like the most transparent, shameless lies -- might actually be sincere and truthful reports from an Alternate Universe, which have somehow crossed the dimensional barrier into our reality! So, for example, the complaint that liberals are devious hypocrites because they get married themselves while undermining marriage in The Culture actually makes sense if it originates in a world in which Krugman and Graeber were just caught sending anthrax powder to wedding chapels across the nation.

(Of course, even in that wildly different universe, conservatives like Brooks are still showing their devotion to marriage by trading in their own wives for younger models, on the theory that if one marriage is good, multiple marriages are even better!)

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Oh, every time I read anything from conservatives, I get the feeling I'm getting transmissions from another reality.

(And the reference to "The Culture" makes me think of Ian M. Banks' The Culture, and how much I'd rather live there.)

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The last few years have introduced me to a new meaning for "The Culture", America as a Petri dish for the unchecked spread of viruses. "Hey, let's stick it in the incubator and see how big it gets!"

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Cull the Culture Cult!

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Have you ever noticed that the home-life of your average therapist and pastor tends to be more chaotic than the rest of us?

The same can be said for pundits! Marriage, like everything in life, can be a blessing or a curse. Sometimes both, depending on the day.

My advice: choose wisely. It works for many and doesn’t for others. However, If someone tells you marriage will result in wealth and riches; consider all the red state welfare queens; with three kids and an abusive and drug addled husband.

It truly worked out well for them...:)

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Last point: when someone can find a solution to marriage, riches or anything else, in a phrase, fortune cookie or bumber sticker; my advice, run! Fast and hard.

As HL Mencken once said, “complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers!....:)

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They never seem to consider the One Weird Trick that might eliminate a lot of marital conflict: separate toothpastes and separate peanut butter jars. I guarantee it will lower your blood pressure if nothing else.

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Sep 19, 2023
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Well you might THINK it's obvious, but beware the potential peanut butter/almond butter mixup. Doghouse too good fer ya, is all I'm sayin'...

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Sep 19, 2023
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Wisdom defined.

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Such a cheap concession by both parties. No more dissention over chunky vs not, or jelly left in PB.

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Had a classmate in college named Skippy. We all pondered whether he was chunky or creamy.

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Spoken like a true married person..:)

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Those are mere band-aids: separate bedrooms (and/or separate retreats, e.g., studies or studios, sewing rooms, workshops, etc.). Each person needs their own space.

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I like the cut of your jib. Why aim low? Let’s go for separate wings, separate estates, separate landscaped gardens (complete with architectural follies). Think big!

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Hearted for the follies.

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There are many accounts of happily married couples who live/d separately, options limited only by their imaginations and bank accounts.

Especially in marital arrangements, one size does not fit all.

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"separate landscaped gardens"

And separate manscaped gardeners, IYKWIMAITTYD.

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The sort of follies we can all get behind.

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John Hodgman recommends couples live in different villas separated by a reflecting pool, ideally on a cliff overlooking the Aegean sea.

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This all sounds like good advice, but I'm waiting to hear from a REAL expert: Lauren Boebert.

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Don't bother with her - she'll just jerk you around.

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I'll save Bern the trouble and award you an Oof myself.

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Thanks, man. Tough keepin' track some days.

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I'm impressed that she's already blaming Democrats for her behavior.

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Let me guess: If the darn libruls hadn't been promotin' all them drag shows, there wouldn't be a guy who makes his money off drag shows for her to give a handjob to.

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Not sure if it's thought out that far. The clickbait headline I read and didn't follow up on was that she's learned her lesson - don't date Democrats. (Which given that the Democrat Party (sic) is an organization of godless evil Communists according to her, is a lesson you'd think she wouldn't have had to learn.).

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Speaking of "talk one way, live another way," there are the conservatives like Bill Kristol who preach the necessity of religion as the glue that holds society together (and keeps Those People from jacking your car), while showing a certain... indifference to religious practice in their own lives.

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It's Different When It's Me is a foundational tenet of conservative thought.

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Special snowflakes, every one. 🤗

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But extremely qualified to make the rules for everyone else.

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Yep, the lumpenproletariat need a firm hand because, obviously the choices they have made put them where they are, showing the need for guidance and direction, to teach virtues of sacrifice and subservience to a greater good. Religion proved a valuable tool in this service for thousands of years before the hippies ruined everything with their sex and drugs and comic books and zip guns.

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My favorite example of this (which I've shared here before!) is Prohibition, when all the Upper Crust had a fully-stocked liquor cabinet for their guests, but agreed Prohibition was needed because the lower classes couldn't handle their liquor.

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And don't forget the wide disparity between penalties for possession of powder cocaine and crack cocaine, as we called it back in the day, because you know who smoked crack. I'm always amazed at the supposedly savvy people who are shocked to discover there there is Justice for All in America, but you didn't say what kind of Justice.

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Sep 19, 2023
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I saw some cocaine once...well, mighta been cocaine...some white powder in a line on a glass table. I didn't get out much back then...

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because you know who smoked crack

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy?

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Can we ever REALLY know the Pillow Guy?

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Nah, he's just naturally that way.

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It's like they categorically Kant think of judging imperatives only if they apply equally to everyone.

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The recent revival of animus toward no-fault divorce laws is another symptom of this. Once you are married, you better damn well STAY married!

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Could the ability to lock your inconvenient wife in a nunnery be far behind? Because, make no mistake, making divorce difficult is for the ladies, not the gents.

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The nerve of some women, who initiate two-thirds of divorces —

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To be fair, men probably initiate 2.9999999/3rds of all marriage physical abuse

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Earlier in the 20th century, mental hospitals were often used for this.

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It's looking like conservatives may bring them back for trans folks (because they're "mentally ill and need help"), so that might be an option.

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This reminds me of a random chat last evening with my old pal the retired English Lit prof. He mentioned that his friend offered to get him into St Elizabeth's, the insane asylum in DC, to visit Ezra Pound. My friend was interested, but Pound demanded he first read a long list of books before they could have a meaningful conversation. My friend, who was an undergrad at the time, had more than enough reading to do already, and sadly passed on the chance...

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I think he did well. He might have gotten some fun anecdotes out of it but really, who wants to study up just to hang out with a crazy fascist?

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Well, my friend was a little creeped out by the whole thing, but his colleague was having a historically weird relationship with Pound as a kind of listening post and note-taker (one of many – Pound was the center of a literary schmoozefest while confined to the Bughouse). He likely would have been convicted of treason except the behind-the-scenery poets came up with the loony-bin option or something like that...and I bet the US attorneys were happy to be rid of him.

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A lot of "hysteria" going around amongst the wives of men who got sweet on a young lass newly of marrying age.

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Spend a year starin' at this yellow wallpaper, that'll fix ya.

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Unless you're the dude, and you want to trade in the original wifey for a younger, hotter one. They only hate no-fault divorce when women initiate it -- the idea is, marriage is supposed to trap a woman for life, but be relatively easy for a man to escape, at minimal cost, whenever he wants.

The ultimate Republican dream divorce law is like the old Muslim one: a woman can NEVER initiate divorce, for any reason; a man just has to say "I divorce you" three times, and he's off scot-free.

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If anything, popular culture is ridiculously, over-the-top pro-marriage. There are a zillion tv shows about weddings, and every reality show is supposed to culminate in one. Maybe the Poors are just waiting until they have $100k saved up to do it properly?

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America makes it almost impossible to "save" for anything these days. . .

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What, your parents couldn't come up with a down payment for your first house? Silly you, picking the wrong parents.

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I blame the children.

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What the hell, I've already blamed everybody else...

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Young people make very poor choices, not their fault, their brains just haven't developed enough. From now on, nobody gets to pick their parents til they're 25. I got this idea from Vivek Ramaswamy.

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Virtual Ramaswamy – now THERE's an authority.

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I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with the wages that have been essentially stagnant for decades. Or student loans. Or for-profit health insurance premiums. Or the skyrocketing rents from properties being purchased en masse by corporate interests. Or the obscene project to funnel as much wealth upward as possible.

Less avocado toast, people!

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Put yourself in a position where the opposition can paint you as anti-marriage and you'll get your ass handed to you, election after election. Conservatives, of all people, should know this by now.

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That was a good read. Of course, I don't think "marriage makes you rich." The "evidence" seems mostly anecdotal. So anything I say about it is anecdotal.

My ex-wife was very clever. She insisted that I bathe and put my daughter to bed every evening for the first few (until 6-7) years of her life. At the time, it often felt like a pain in the ass. Now, she's almost 21 and is the most important person in my life. That's what my marriage gave to me. Like I said, anecdotal

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Yeah but where's the money?

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Not in my pocket, I assure you. I'll be working till I die. But I saw "Barbie" with my kid. I fucking rock

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