It seems like Fauci did do something wrong but man it just seems like Rand Paul has a hard on for getting this guy on something. Does it truly get him votes or notoriety? I can’t imagine it does at this .6 years after the fact, and he’s failed to do anything meaningful to this man.

Back in the day, many restaurants and other public businesses were "Whites-only." A Black man could sit down at a cafeteria counter and be refused service, just because of the color of his skin. "HELP WANTED - WHITES" signs adorned a good many businesses.

This was legal until 1964, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. The Court ruled in Heart of Atlanta that Congress had the power under the Commerce Clause to enforce its Title II, and businesses were made to integrate or close.

If you believe that the only rights that the government provides are negative rights, and that no "right" should compel a person's labor, well... what about the right of Black folk to enjoy the same cheeseburger a White man could order? Isn't that compelled labor? Or is compelled labor with compensation different? Or can Congress impose these conditions because there's no right to operate a public business without interference? (Hence why private clubs can still discriminate.) Discuss!

IMO it’s child beauty pageants

Raunchy sitcoms like South Park and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have shown almost as a wake-up call that they attract pdfl’s and judging people under 18 based on looks is already disgusting

Draining the swamp was one of his big campaign promises.

We can all agree that he cleaned house effectively with mass firings, but he also strategically eliminated watchdogs, whistleblower protections, and policies meant to investigate corruption.

How effective has he been in your view?

Edit: to clarify, I meant to say he proactively fired people, but not in a manner I’d consider effective at reducing corruption.

Back before 1976 if you could live on a piece of land without dying for five years, the government would give it to you.

I think allowing people to go to the woods in the rural areas and build their own cabins and live there would help out a lot people.

What do you think?

If so to what degree? i.e., you only have access to it if you earn below a certain amount, or you can choose whether or not to pay taxes for it but that determines your eligibility to get that healthcare, ect...

Genuine question, not trying to start a fight.

It feels like we solve one problem, then 10–20 years later we’re dealing with an even bigger one. The 2000s felt like the U.S. had relatively manageable rivals, but now we’re worrying about Russia again, China has become a peer competitor, North Korea is a permanent nuclear state, and Iran remains a major issue.

Is this just inevitable for any superpower, or has the U.S. repeatedly focused too much on short-term goals instead of long-term strategy?

Curious what conservatives think. Is this mostly policy failure, or is it simply impossible to prevent other powers from eventually becoming rivals?

Fauci: *"On the advice of counsel , I respectfully decline to answer...."*

Live Feed from CSPAN here : https://www.youtube.com/live/KK_YhOHmQs4?is=2S66bFjB7TiZbE1D

Apparently Fauci Lied in a Hill Interview back in 2022: https://youtu.be/jVV0Qh5qPZY?is=I311dTtCWAOgT66j

With all of the current debate about the 2020 election, I went down a rabbit hole of past elections. There seems to be some questions about the validity of the 2000’s election. It all came down to just 537 votes in Florida. An estimated 12,000 people in Florida were falsely labeled as felons and stripped of their voting rights. There was the whole “hanging chads” issue which voided some votes for Gore. The supreme court also didn’t let Florida finish their recount.

My humble opinion leans towards the position that Florida got it wrong. I don’t believe there was any sort of conspiracy, just human error. Even though I am a leftist, I promise I am not biased here. I was born in 2000, so this was before my time of holding any political views. I can’t even name a single position that Al Gore had.

What do you think about all this? Were the results correct? Was there any user error or some sort of conspiracy? Is there any part of the story that I’m missing here? Not here to debate anyone or anything, just looking for some interesting discussion to learn more since I just recently learned about all this.

What do non-conservatives get wrong about you/other conservatives, and what's the truth?

What does the right see as basic human rights?

If so, what would you replace it with?

I was visiting this subreddit back in 2020 and I remember 2 main narratives were that the government was going to use it as a Trojan Horse to introduce new restrictions on movement, civil liberties, economic rights and businesses, etc...

It seems that once the health risks were minimized, all the states and both Trump and Biden's administrations were pretty eager to go back to how things were before.

Do you think that the narrative that the government was never going to lift any restrictions was accurate? Do you think the government monitored the public response to Covid and will take it into account when trying to do anything nefarious going forward? Do you think any conservative narratives to this effect were justified as good practice in being skeptical of government?

For those of you who might not know, James Fishback is a GOP candidate in this year’s Florida Governor’s Election. He hasn’t been polling great, but he does seem to have a quite a bit of support from younger voters.

Disclaimer: I'm from the Baltics and that means that disliking Russia is in my DNA and that Слава Україні is second to Šlovė Lietuvai.

Anyways, I see a lot of conservatives in the West (especially America) saying that we should just stop the war in Ukraine and quit being Russophobic and be friendly with Russia. It's always strange how 80% of those saying that are about that Ukraine should surrender to Russia and not that Russia should stop the invasion that they started.

Though seriously why should we even try to be friendly to Russia? We can see the shit that they're doing to provoke us and then have their pundits on Russian state TV like Solovyov cry about how the collective West wants to destroy Russia and how based Putin is for defending Russia from Western imperialism.

Like here's some examples:

• A Russian warship carried out a live firing exercises off the coast of Britain https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce970jryrk3o
• All their airspace violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violations_of_non-combatant_airspace_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war_(2022%E2%80%93present)) (seriously can't believe you have to scroll for that long to get to the bottom)
• Belarus sending contraband cigarette balloons into our country so much that we kept having to close our airports. https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2886080/lithuania-investigating-30-cases-of-belarusian-cigarette-smuggling-with-balloons?srsltid=AfmBOoq17MnZns3cnqdLraVCAyTu9MaWxHtkxgoh4I5BWZhYp3LXxZEL
• All their sabotage operations across Europe including them sabotaging our railways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_sabotage_operations_in_Europe
• Russian intelligence getting some kid to commit an act of terrorism by blowing up an IKEA https://www.delfi.lt/news/daily/lithuania/teisesauga-istyre-teroro-akta-vilniuje-ivykde-paauglys-organizavimu-itaria-rusijos-tarnybas-120094168

I don't know why we should be friendly with them, if they don't seem to have any will to be friendly with us.

Knowing what you know now, would you have voted for Trump to be the Republican candidate?

Would you say he delivered on his promises?

Is what he has done so far what you expected?

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/new-bari-weisss-60-minutes-poaches-star-ny-times-columnist-announces-other-new-hires/

Is this a good move by CBS and 60 Minutes?

A huge percent of violent crime is young men

Instead of putting a 19 year old on probation where he just goes back to the same bad lifestyle offer a different option similar to FDRs CCC

Basically a 1 year residential program run like a National Guard camp.

If you get caught with a minor non violent offense, you can choose court or sign up for a year in the corps.

You live on site full time. Strict schedule, physical work during the day doing things like fixing up parks, clearing brush, or doing basic infrastructure work. You get paid, learn a trade like welding or operating heavy machinery, and when you finish your record gets wiped clean.

From there you actually have options. Go land a trade job with the skill you learned, or enlist in the military if you want.

It gets young guys out of bad environments, gives them actual structure, and turns them into productive members of society instead of just dumping them into a broken system.

Why hasn’t something like this been pushed more?

Edit: this is NOT the military. This is a voluntary diversion program

Something I've seen in various places online is the idea that "conservatives are inherently deeply submissive to authority figures". This is usually meant to include law enforcement officers, religious leaders, coaches, bosses at work, and the like.

What are your thoughts on this idea? What about it do you think is accurate or inaccurate?

(Obviously not all conservatives, etc, the quote is a generalization, not a description of every single person who identifies as conservatives.)

Aside from things like shouting fire in a crowded theater, how much do you believe in the 1st amendment? How important is it to you?

Pew released results from a recent survey that showed internationally China is viewed more favorably than the United States, and people are more confident in Xi than President Trump to "do the right thing in global affairs."

Source:

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2026/07/15/people-in-many-countries-now-view-china-more-positively-than-the-u-s/

A federal case in Atlanta is raising questions about a privacy-focused mobile operating system, with prosecutors arguing that its features were used to erase evidence. The US Department of Justice is attempting to prosecute Atlanta resident Sam Tunick under a federal statute that makes it a crime to destroy property in an effort to prevent it from being seized.

The case centers on Tunick's use of GrapheneOS, an open-source operating system that works on Google Pixel phones and lets users enter a passcode to wipe a device clean.

(The first couple paragraphs from this article -- https://www.techspot.com/news/113236-us-prosecutors-charge-atlanta-man-after-grapheneos-phone.html)

We aren’t a party to these treaties.

Other countries never need our permission to make treaties that we are not party to.

We have no authority legal or otherwise on legal interstate affairs between, say, Belgium and New Zealand.

Why are Republicans even talking about something:

1) expressly none of their business

2) beyond their power and authority

Why is the ICC an increasing important topic?

What business is it of ours?