One of the major reasons the Civil Rights Acts were passed is because moderates saw how heinous and violent southern police and governments were to black Americans living there. The thing that galvanized the country to finally end Jim Crow and start repairing the damage done from slavery and the failure of Reconstruction was to get cameras on it and show “normal” people how bad it really was.

If I had to estimate it might be about three-fifths of a democracy on a good day

Yes I fully agree, and thank you for the conversation. However I am deeply cynical American society will excise their fascist tumor since they have such a long history of refusing to punish criminals, enforce laws, and enact meaningful reform.

The war was inevitable by the time Buchanan took office. He could have forestalled it or prepared the Union for it more adequately, and deserves blame for basically doing neither of those things, but he isn’t a direct cause. In fact, many of his political options for corralling the South in the antebellum period could have caused the war to start earlier than it did. It’s just a personal belief of mine that he gets more hate than he really deserves, especially compared to people who could have easily been better like Johnson.

It certainly wouldn’t have gone perfectly but I think the best evidence that it would have eventually worked out for the better is how much political power former slaves had shortly after the Civil War ended while Reconstruction, in whatever diluted form, was actually being attempted. This is the period we get the first black senator, Hiram Revels from Mississippi. Further, In 1868 black Americans made up a majority of the South Carolina’s state legislature and opened the South’s first public school system. Former slaves started taking up tons of local political offices as well. They wielded true local political power and although there were still racists opposed to their inclusion in society, it was much harder to extract former slaves from that society and subjugate them again. Once federal troops withdrew from the South all of these reforms were taken away, violently and illegally, by the people who weren’t punished under Johnson, the violence and subjugation became much easier. This is how we get Jim Crow etc.

I mean, if this period had gone on for long enough for white Southerners to benefit from it, maybe a generation or so, we wouldn’t even have the modern Republican party since it only exists today as an extension of white Southern racism that was enabled by Johnson. Instead, we get generation after generation of white Southern children being indoctrinated into racist beliefs because the leaders of the Confederacy were allowed to spread their hateful ideals throughout their society after they lost the war. We’d live in a much more egalitarian society as a whole if that hadn’t happened. Again, not without its problems, but we would have solved the major problem. It’s most of my issue with people today jumping to Trump being the worst president, not only is it recency bias but he’s just the obvious result of decisions made by Johnson et. al. during Reconstruction.

If Reconstruction had proceeded properly, the United States would have hung all of the Confederate officers and government officials and at least pulled up the root of the problems in the South. Johnson allowed them to fester and re-emerge, and we have been living with those problems since.

Not punishing heinous crimes like chattel slavery and violent insurrection is how we get precedent for not punishing even more crimes. Like Ford pardoning Nixon so “the country can heal” and then Reagan using that precedent for Iran-Contra and then Bush using that precedent to steal the 2000 election and commit the US illegally in Iraq etc etc. And now Trump realizing that laws don’t matter at all and doing whatever he wants with impunity. Most of the Supreme Court justices are direct descendants of politics Johnson enabled. Roberts clerked for Rehnquist ffs, an avowed segregationist who wouldn’t have been politically viable if Reconstruction had succeeded.

Andrew Johnson was by far the worst of all time for sabotaging Reconstruction. Basically every problem we have now including Trump/fascism is a direct result of Johnson’s actions.

Above the line deductions reduce your taxable income, from there you take the standard deduction or itemize. You are conflating two separate events

No, deductions for business expenses happen “above the line” so they reduce your taxable income. The standard deduction happens “below the line” and is applied to your taxable income after business expenses etc

Yep, it’s also convenient that most gun owners are in the “leopards would never eat MY face” side of that spectrum too

Pro tip: if you are actually making side income like this and reporting it to the IRS then in many situations you can deduct the costs of the things you needed to buy in the course of generating that income.

This does not work on W2 income, though, as much as it would be nice to deduct the costs of driving to an office etc

Then it’s fake in a way that The Old Man and the Sea is fake in that it’s a story that reflects on what it’s like to be human

I had a corporate job where I never interacted with customers and I was salaried and my boss would still keep Teams up on his computer all the time and come and check in on my cubicle if I wasn’t showing available on Teams exactly at 7:30 in the morning. I got lectured once for showing up at 7:35. Not late to any meetings, not late on “deliverables”, etc. Just not “professional” enough for him. I have no doubt believing this post.

Saw a post on reddit a while back that gun owners wouldn’t stand up for liberal causes because liberals keep trying to take their guns. Pretty thin argument but they’re all cowards so whatever straw there is to grasp I guess they will firmly grasp

and so you never pick one up unless you intend to kill.

This is a bit overdramatic as many gun owners have only ever shot at targets on ranges

Works better when spoken but just say this in your head really fast

What’s the difference between a good joke and a bad joke timing.

New Hampshire is a joke. They’re the only state in New England without recreational cannabis and their license plates say “Live Free or Die”. They also have the second highest property taxes in the country. Their libertarian enclaves get overrun by bears because they’ve cut town budgets so much there’s no money for garbage collection. Nothing they do there is surprising.

I would think someone alive during Jim Crow would remember Kent State

It sounded like you wanted a concrete example within living memory

Kent State

1968 in general