🇺🇸 patriot | self-respect and making sense beats popularity | longtime vegan | stoic eudaemonist | antinatalist | runner | skier | retired mountain climber
Colorado, USA
Joined December 2021
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For anyone who is curious, the way to understand how my views connect is to understand that I place a higher priority than most people on negative liberty rights, which for me are the basis of veganism, antinatalism, legalizing assisted suicide, and libertarian-leaning politics.
Veganism: leave animals alone as far as reasonably possible.
Antinatalism: don’t bring others into existence without their consent.
Legalizing assisted suicide: we don’t have a choice to be born; we should have a right to die reliably and peacefully.
Politics: too complicated to elaborate on, but very briefly, prioritize individuals’ rights to be left alone and do what they choose, as long as they are not harming others.
Mix pragmatism and prosperity with negative liberty rights, and you roughly get my politics.
(At least some of you will remember this post from the past. It was broken into three posts before due to the 280-character limit. I thought I’d repost it as one post now that I released myself from the 280-character cage.)
True.
This is why the right is functional and the left dysfunctional.
Individuals on the right intentionally prioritize what we can control over what we can’t control.
We have the most control over ourselves and our habits and character. Once we take care of ourselves, we can help our loved ones.
After ourselves and loved ones are taken care of, we can help our community. Once our community is taken care of, we can help our country.
After our country is taken care of, we can help the world.
To focus on what’s outside of our control before we’ve settled what’s in our control is foolish, leading to us being a burden on ourselves and others.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
Happy Election Day, Democrats! We are going to win!
My inside sources tell me some on the right are staying home because they refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils.
They'd rather see everything they oppose happen than compromise on anything. That's some serious dedication to principle!
And speaking as the greater evil, I just want to express my heartfelt appreciation.
We couldn't win without you. 💙🗳️
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
🚨 THOMAS SOWELL on IMMIGRATION & CULTURE (1996): Sowell is asked if America should open its southern border to "Mexicans".
Sowell explains that any immigration with a welfare state creates unhealthy dependencies and negative outcomes.
Why aren't there Federal laws preventing legal and illegal immigrants from receiving welfare?
Far out.
The size of our galaxy, the number of galaxies in the universe, and the number of stars in each galaxy are mind boggling facts. 😳
We’re so infinitesimal compared with the universe.
We were taught that Earth orbits the Sun in a closed circle. In reality, Earth has never returned to the same point in space once in 4.5 billion years.
Right now, the Sun is carrying Earth and every planet around the center of the Milky Way at 230 km/s (828,000 km/h), more than 18,000 kilometers every 80 seconds.
Because the Solar System is tilted 60.2° to the galactic plane and bobs up and down through the galactic disc roughly every 30 million years, the planets trace open 3D corkscrew helices across deep space rather than flat loops.
The last time the Sun stood where it stands today, one Galactic Year (230 million years) ago, the very first dinosaurs were only beginning to appear on Earth. Since forming 4.6 billion years ago, our Sun has completed only 20 laps.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
Here's a scan-by-scan breakdown of the thunderstorm cell that N722BD flew into. We've contoured the 30 dBZ surface, which signifies where moderate precipitation was present.
The thunderstorm cell grew to 48,300 feet by 12:56 p.m., meaning that, at 12:48 p.m. when the plane flew through, it was still rapidly growing vertically. 15,000 feet of growth in under 20 minutes is a VERY intense updraft.
Now what about icing? It's true that the ambient temperature OUTSIDE the storm was around minus-45 degrees Fahrenheit. That's generally too cold for icing, which requires supercooled water droplets – i.e. water droplets that remain a liquid at temperatures below freezing. Water sometimes is slow to freeze UNLESS it has something to freeze onto – like a cold surface (a plane). At minus-45, moisture would have already frozen into ice crystals, i.e. snowflakes, which aren't really dangerous to aviation.
HOWEVER, the rapid growth of this thunderstorm cell 1.) carried LOTS of heat upwards, bending temperature surfaces and probably making the core of the thunderstorm cell 15 to 20+ degrees warmer. That warmth was probably amplified by the latent heat release of water droplets freezing, as my colleague Roger Edwards adroitly pointed out, and 2.) the swift updraft probably transported large, tropical raindrops upwards so quickly that some liquid remained even at altitude.
A study in the journal "Nature" found that deep convective (thunderstorm) clouds regularly have supercooled water droplets down to minis-38 degrees, and it's probable that, at 35,000 feet, the temperatures inside this cloud were warmer.
Therefore, while this wouldn't ordinarily be an "obvious" icing case, the forensic meteorology suggests icing as a probable contributing factor or cause. The NTSB will continue to investigate.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
The weather data is compelling for involvement in the crash of a Learjet-60 near Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday.
We know:
• a rapidly-growing thunderstorm was present
• moderate icing and severe turbulence occurred
We don’t know:
• if possible structural damage was a cause, or byproduct, of the dive
• if icing was severe enough to affect the controllability of the aircraft
• how quickly icing may have occurred and to what extent it contributed
The NTSB has a long investigation ahead.
In addition to Rock’s correction of Brad’s nonsense, the wealthy generally do pay their fair share. See the chart.
The exception is inheritance and gift income, which is tax-free at the federal level.
If Democrats want to criticize the wealthy, criticize tax-free inheritance and gift income, which should be taxed at ordinary tax rates.
About a third of billionaires inherited most of their wealth. This isn’t meritocratic.
Confiscatory tax rates on inheritance and gift income would be disincentivizing, but ordinary rates wouldn’t be any more disincentivizing than wage income tax.
(A big reason Democrats don’t talk about taxing inheritance and gift income at ordinary rates is that many of them inherited or will inherit a lot of wealth.)
The shamelessness of this deception is staggering.
According to the U.S. Treasury, federal spending in 2025 was approximately:
• Social Security: 23%
• Medicare: 14%
• Other health programs: 14%
• Income security: 10%
• National defense: 13%
• Interest on the debt: 14%
Social Security alone costs nearly twice as much as national defense. Add Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs, and you're approaching FOUR TIMES defense spending.
Washington spent $7 trillion while collecting only about $5.2 trillion.
Yet you want people to believe their taxes are high primarily because of wars and tax breaks for billionaires?
Tax breaks aren't even expenditures in these figures. They're reductions in what the government collects.
You can argue about which programs deserve funding, but you don't get to invent an imaginary federal budget to protect your political narrative.
The numbers are public. This level of misrepresentation is inexcusable.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
"Well, first of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed...?"
— Milton Friedman
James Talarico, like many Americans, is economically illiterate and doesn’t know how the world works.
In 2010, Tesla received a $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy which it paid back early with interest. Estimates of the government’s net gain from interest and related payments range from roughly $12 million to the mid-$20 millions, depending on the exact calculation. Taxpayers made a profit on the loan; Tesla was the first American automaker to fully repay an ATVM loan.
Tesla received tax credits and abatements from states as an incentive to build factories. States often make deals with companies to build factories since factories create jobs and generate state tax revenue. It’s generally a win for the states in the long run.
Tesla was the single most important private-sector force that moved EVs from niche to a central, competitive trajectory for the auto industry in the 2010s and early 2020s.
Tesla employed over 134,000 people at December 31, 2025. Tesla has paid lots of payroll, sales, and property taxes over the years. It will continue to pay a lot more in the future, in addition to federal income tax as Tesla becomes more profitable.
Bottom line: Taxpayers gained tremendously because Tesla was successful. Elon deserves several medals of appreciation, not scorn from ignorant, arrogant politicians like Talarico.
James Talarico on Elon Musk:
The thing that really upsets people, particularly about the Elon example, is that Tesla was successful because of taxpayer dollars.
Tesla got investment from the federal government, which is why it has been so successful.
If we're all going to invest in Tesla, if we're going to invest in Elon Musk, or pick your billionaire, most of our billionaires went to schools that we funded, they drove on highways that we funded.
We're not saying they can't be successful.
All we're saying is make sure you give something back to the country that made your success possible.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” - Milton Friedman
True. Socialism makes everyone poorer, except the party leaders. The poorest become abjectly poor, and sometimes starve to death.
Being poor is arguably the best reason to fear socialism.
The wealthy have savings, assets, connections, and options. The poor have far fewer means of escaping economic collapse, shortages, inflation, and government dependency.
When production collapses, the wealthy lose luxuries. The poor lose necessities.
And when the government controls the means of production, the poor become dependent on the very people responsible for their circumstances.
The less you have, the more you stand to lose when an ideology destroys your opportunities to improve your life.
Poverty doesn't make you immune to socialism's consequences. It makes you more vulnerable to them.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
The Republican party is more than Trump. The DSA is literally a threat to our Republic, and Democrats are helping them get political power.
If you care about America, the choice of which party to support is obvious. It's the Republicans.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
COlorado Democrat policies are driving the people who own homes out the door.
High fees and regulations have layered costs onto every new unit.
Sanctuary rules and soft-on-crime bills have raised insurance rates and made landlords wary of tenants they cannot easily remove.
“Squatter-friendly” protections and endless eviction hurdles turn rental property into a liability.
TABOR is under constant assault while the budget balloons and Cover All Coloradans alone has exploded far past its original projections.
So owners sell and leave for lower-tax states. Investors unload properties rather than risk the next tenant or the next fee.
The same party that created the shortage then demands more subsidies and more government to fix it.
As of this morning, 6.7% of all listed homes for sale have an asking price below what the owner originally paid for the unit.
However, in these major markets that rate can be up to 3x.
Colorado Springs: 17.2%
Denver: 15.7%
Honolulu: 15%
San Francisco: 14.6%
Lakeland: 13.5%
Punta Gorda: 12.9%
Panama City: 12.6%
Cape Coral: 12.5%
Portland: 12.5%
Tampa: 11.9%
North Port: 11.7%
San Jose: 11.6%
Crestview: 11.4%
Naples: 11.2%
This list is dominated by Florida markets...
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
Hey @grok, did the founders of modern Zionism call for genocide against Palestinian Arabs?
Did the founders of the Palestinian movement call for genocide against Jews?
Happy #WorldVeganDay.
I repeat the following routinely because it’s at the core of veganism:
Speciesism is a prejudice just like racism, sexism, or any other prejudice that focuses on morally irrelevant differences and ignores morally relevant similarities to harmfully discriminate against others.
Our fellow animals are as sentient, innocent, and have just as much will to live as children.
There are no needed nutrients that cannot be adequately absorbed from nonanimal sources. All other uses of animals in the developed world in 2026 are unnecessary as well.
Nonhuman animals’ sentience, innocence, and will to live combined with the modern ability of humans to thrive without using animals makes being vegan a moral obligation, despite tradition, habits, culture, or anyone else’s disagreement.
(Comments are restricted because vegans rarely see intelligent replies to vegan advocacy, and indoctrination into speciesism is relentless and ubiquitous.)
There are at least two kinds of leftism: naive and power leftism.
Naive leftism relies heavily on blind faith in the inherent goodness of humans while ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Abolish prisons because we can make 330 million people into saints who will never steal, rape, or murder.
Replace private ownership of the means of production with collective ownership and the market with central planning because millions of people will be happy to work for just as diligently whether they are rewarded or not, and for the good of strangers instead of themselves and their families, despite wildly different motivations, interests, and abilities.
Naive leftism is a religion that seeks heaven on Earth and is immune to reason and evidence that counters its basic premises.
Power leftism uses the religion of naive leftism as a tool to acquire and maintain power. It’s often difficult to distinguish between naive and power leftists because they sound the same before the revolution. Power leftists appeal to fairness, democracy, positive “rights” to free goods and services, and equal outcomes, just like naive leftists do. The only way to distinguish them before the revolution is by their ambition for the power of elected office. After the revolution, they’ll be the ones ordering the executions and imprisonment of the counterrevolutionaries as communist party leaders.
Mark Guiducci: “Do you believe that someone who is convicted of murder with intent should be physically confined to protect the public?”
Darializa Avila Chevalier: “But that is what happens in the day-to-day.”
This is Fair Game, where no subject is off the table. Watch the full episode: vanityfair.visitlink.me/Wlue…
I agree. The right response to an apology is to accept it on the condition that future behavior aligns with it. Future behavior will determine the degree of its sincerity.
Isa Cayahuga has released an apology video. I think it’s safe to say those few minutes of attention-seeking weren’t worth it.
I understand the instinct to question her sincerity. Frankly, after what she did, it’s hard not to scoff at the apology.
But I also think we should be careful not to behave like the Left at its worst, where an apology is never enough and nobody is allowed to change.
She’s young. What she did was cruel, stupid, and disturbing. But she’s apologizing, and I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt.
That doesn’t mean blindly believing her. It means giving her the opportunity to prove she means it.
She claims to be a Christian. I hope she takes those values seriously. And I hope the next time she’s around people celebrating political violence, she has the courage to challenge them rather than join in.
Because that’s where we’ll see whether she’s actually learned anything.
I want to believe she’s sincere. I think Charlie Kirk would have given her that chance, too.
Time and behavior will tell us far more than an apology video ever could.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
My biggest concern is that if there is a clean sweep by Democrats of the House, Senate and Presidency in 2028, they will:
1. Make DC and Puerto Rico states to gain a strong majority in the Senate.
2. Open the borders and legalize everyone living in America illegally to cement a permanent majority.
3. Increase the size of the Supreme Court to gain an immediate majority.
This would result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
All that is needed to ensure this doesn’t happen is 51 Republican senators in 2029. That is why you should vote for Republican senators this election. Other reasons are irrelevant compared to this one.
Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 retweeted
In just these past two weeks we have seen:
1. Widespread civil unrest and riots in France.
2. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Albania.
3. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Italy.
4. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Spain.
5. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Portugal.
6. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Belgium.
7. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Serbia.
8. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Georgia.
9. Widespread civil unrest and an apparent judicial coup in Poland.
10. Widespread civil unrest and riots in Czechia (including an attempted takeover of the Parliament building).
11. Widespread student protests in Greece.
12. Targeted student protests in Indonesia.
13. Localized violent protests in India.
14. An apparently fraudulent election in Brazil where the presumed presidential election winner was forced to flee the country under threat of arrest by his opponent.
15. The uncovering of a Color Revolution plot in the USA led by embittered former USAID employees and ex-military members.
That’s a lot to be happening all at once, don’t you think?
And the USA is having midterm elections next week.
You know, if I was a conspiracy-minded type I might be connecting some dots here. 🧐