Trump has walked back his third term talk. Says he wont 'seek' a 3rd term and will be an 8yr president. I would assume it would be that his legal team have told him there is no way round the Constitution. Made his money flogging cheap 2028 merch and now has to admit he can't do it. Knowing he's only got 4 years destroys pretty much anything he wants to do, craps on his tariff policy, why would business move production to US when they know they just have to wait 4 years to see what happens next (and the tariffs are rolled back). It'd take longer than that for most to relocate production anyway. Any talk about Greenland is worthless as it would take 10-15 years before they're even allowed to enter any custody talks.
Remember the time he turned up in Thailand with a crap mini-sub and got told to do one, so in turn he labelled the guy trying to rescue some trapped kids a ****phile just because he lived in Thailand. That's the type of person Musk is
And used his wealth and influence to corrupt a judge and jury in the subsequent libel trial. He's a modern-day Citizen Cane - a ****ing rich, drug-addled megalomaniac.
That was the incident that made me really start noticing what an evil little man Musk was. Before that I just had him pegged as an eccentric, but that's when he really revealed how truly nasty a person he is for the first time.
I'll give Trump this - they're out in the open and fully enabled now. No one can ever pretend again just what a certain chunk of US white people think. My dread is that we know it's here too in this country, just waiting for the valve to be completely opened bit-by-bit, turn-by-turn, and then just lift the lid and it will splurge out like a deep-seated, uncompressed puss sore exploding.
And I will say .. whereas I find using hateful slurs to be pretty despicable. It bugs the crap out of me that that is illegal. I do agree with Trump/Vance on that, that that is not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech includes the ability to say horrible hateful things. If you're only allowed to say nice things, that isn't freedom of speech. (Not that Trump/Vance are really pro freedom of speech when they ban protests and deport people for protesting... They're only in favour of it when it behooves them)
Freedom of speech doesn't include the right to incite hatred though, you shouldn't be able to say anything you damn well like without a thought for the consequences. People hurling racial insults (in either direction) is going to cause public disorder and it's the responsibility of the authorities to try and prevent that. It's hopelessly idealistic to think people will all just "be nice" without there being consequences for not being so. As Morgan said (and this could be the first time I've ever agreed with him) you can say what you like, but there will likely be repercussions if what you say is insulting or provocative. Imo, it's better if those repercussions are meted out by society in general rather than individuals taking the law into their own hands. I do think that the law is in danger of going too far at times though - a certain amount of common sense has to be brought to bear.
I understand the intent behind the "Hate Speech" laws- but they are censorship of speech not Freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is being allowed to say bad things, stupid things, incorrect things, etc... And that is kind of my point... you should be allowed to say a slur- BUT- if your calling out slurs leads to illegal activity (such as people beating someone of a different race up) - you are guilty of provocation (just as you are today if your words do the same thing but you don't use a slur). There's also the common example of "You can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre." This isn't actually true- you absolutely can yell fire in a crowded theatre and not necessarily break the law... it's only if your yelling causes panic and "bad-things-happen" such as a stampede where people get hurt that there are legal consequences... as well there should be. If you make a bunch of hate-laden slurs and it causes a race riot or someone gets hurt... you should face legal consequences. People are already not nice with censored speech either. There were no hate speech laws in Britain when I was a kid, and there arn't where I am in America now- I can probably count on my hands the number of times in my life someone has said the "N" word in my presence for example. I doubt laws are preventing that many people using the word... common sense and common decency limits that... The slur I probably heard the most growing up was probably directed at me... in my 100% white primary school I would get called "Paki" occasionally because with my Eastern-European ancestry I did tend to tan more than anyone else in my school. I wouldn't have minded fewer kids calling me Paki, but not sure that's something for the courts. My main problem is, if you allow a political body to come up with a list of words and phrases that are allowed/not allowed- you could allow a future government a way to list opposition to certain of their policies as "hate speech"- not saying this is happening now, but it's a doorway to authoritarianism that I find uncomfortable.
