re: Should we copy the Japanese school lunch program? (Yes, obviously we should)

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If you've ever watched videos on it, the amount of work and detail they put into it:

lol for the United States doing this in any city

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"Ain't nobody got time for that much work, that would take up 2 of my smoke breaks." Lunch Workers union response

Sure if you want to be autistic. Japan is one of the largest consumers in the entire world of seed oils.

They are a homogeneous society and culture is a big part of why they thrive

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I know, I know.

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I’m starting to feel slightly bad with how much effort you’re putting into rebutting my troll.

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They are a homogeneous society and culture is a big part of why they thrive

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Our culture must suck then

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I don't buy into your both sides equivalency

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How so?

Populism only has one foundational principle: Us vs Them.

This is why the Republican Party is now buying into businesses and enacting protectionist high tariffs and floating centrally planned economies in some industries—obvious socialism, in other words, and the latter straight out of the old U.S.S.R.

Because they've abandoned conservative principes in favor of populism. Conservative principes no longer influence policy decisions. Well, maybe that's too strong a statement...how about this—conservative principles are no longer prioritized. Populist whims are.

And the left has already been there, maybe forever. Marx was the ultimate Us vs Them populist, after all.

The only difference between the left and the right now is how each group defines the "US" and the "Them."

For the left, "Them" is white people, cis people, straight people, normies, corporations, Israel, Republicans, and anybody who doesn't worship at the alter of climate change.

For the right, "Them" is Democrats (especially really wealthy ones), black people, LGBTQ people, purple hairs, the "Deep State," (and all related names, such as "Globalists," "Illuminati," etc.), corporations, Israel, white women (and black women), feminists, etc.

Some of the left's conspiracy theories and doomsday predictions: Project 2025, climate change, just about anything anybody can think up regarding Donald Trump such as imprisoning gays or killing trans people, institutional racism (at least in 2025), the nonsense idea that anyone who speaks out against something is perpetuating 'violence,' the narrative that if Trump won he wouldn't leave office and would destroy "our democracy," The Epstein files, etc.

Some of the right's conspiracy theories and doomsday predictions: The Great Replacement, the narrative that every single person of note who gets shot at in America is being shot at by someone other than the officially recognized shooter, the narrative that the Joos run the whole world and tell Donald Trump and America what to do, the narrative that any foreign conflict has been orchestrated by "The Globalists," the Epstein files, etc.

Do you remember Katrina? I remember seeing news clips with NO residents being interviewed who were actually saying that George Bush created the hurricane in order to kill black people. Crazy, paranoid, conspiracy nuts right?

Well, during the Republican primary this last time there were people (plural...it wasn't just one) on this board posting that the "Deep State" had obviously controlled the weather and made it bad for the Iowa caucus so as to suppress turnout and hurt Trump's chances.

Yeah, that's right. There are people on both the left and now the right who believe that "they" control the weather. Now, I'm not claiming that a delusion that deep is a majority of either party, but it is a bellwether sign.

I'm not sure how you read this board day in and day out and don't see what I'm seeing, so I'm curious as to what your reasoning is.

Or maybe you meant that the right has devolved into populist hell but the left hasn't.

If that's the case, nah. They've always been there. It's just that the MSM legitimizes and endorses their conspiracy theories while ridiculing the right's. Which brings me to...

*Disclaimer—I'm not saying that there is no truth to any conspiracy theory. We've seen some play out and turn out to be true (or at least partially true) the past several years, and because the MSM does ridicule the right's conspiracy theories it ends up hitting harder when one is found to have some foundational truth, and it also drives populists on the right further away from being willing to trust more legitimate sources (MORE legitimate...notice I didn't say COMPLETELY legitimate).

But at this point polls indicate that 23% of Republicans polled said they believe in the existence of a Q-anaon Satanic pedophilic cult.

44% polled believed that Bill Gates wants to vaccinate people so that he can implant a microchip in them.

And that's just the people who will admit believing those things. Do a poll on them here and see what you get.

Only 40% of Republicans polled—less than half—trust the MSM.

So we're not talking about a tiny minority here. I'd say it's roughly equal on both sides of the aisle. And I'm interested to see why you don't.

Disclaimer #2—I'm not saying that the MSM is not biased. Of course they are. They have been my whole life and they've gotten worse and I don't think it's actually unreasonable to not trust them. But there's a difference in not trusting them by way of independent verification and simply rejecting every single thing they say on no evidence simply because they said it.

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Our culture must suck then

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Any "diverse" culture sucks (has problems).

That should be self-evident but we've been told for decades that "diversity is our strength!" when in actuality diversity is only a strength under certain conditions, one of which is that there is a foundational common denominator to which everyone adheres.

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I'm not sure how you read this board day in and day out and don't see what I'm seeing, so I'm curious as to what your reasoning is.

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My reasoning is not that there aren't "crazies" on both sides. There are.
My objection is quantitative with respect to equivalency.

In "mainstream" terms, the left believes things as a matter of rote acceptance i.e., Climate Change, Covid was a natural zoonosis, Hunter's laptop was Russian disinfo, Trump paid hookers to pee on Obama's bed, the GOP are Nazis, Racism is rampant, etc. They then lie about alternative positions and opponents. The right has been lied to so often, they tend to automatically disbelieve and counter (frankly with justification) anything emanating from the mainstream, factual or not. The boy has cried wolf once too often, but it doesn't mean there is not actually a wolf this time. If the wolf actually comes, the "both sides do it" crowd would say, "See? The boy was telling the truth."

IMO there are far fewer mainstreamed crazy views on the right than on the left. So if it's a 25% - 75% precept, saying both sides are at fault may be true, but it's misleading.

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For example in the NJ governor's race, Sherrill falsely accused Ciattarelli of profiting off of the opiate crisis. The NJ MSM went wall-to-wall amplifying her charge. But it turns out Mikie Sherrill, not Ciattarelli, was the one who took more than $25K from pharma giants accused of fueling the opioid crisis. So when the next accusation is floated, how do you think right-leaning folks will respond, even if the accusation is true?

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Any "diverse" culture sucks (has problems).

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I don't see it being much different if it were all white

I'm choosing white since it's the majority