The corollary of this, ofc is that sometimes you do things because of a fence that's there because somebody else had stupid bullshit systems you had to work around, but now they don't do that anymore. If you don't know why your fence is there, you don't know you could happily remove it today.

Nope, but it may be that there aren't (or weren't) any actual good solutions because of a lot of interacting systems where you can only rework *some* of them, and a lot of them are owned by other people. To know how to make a better solution, it really, *really* helps to understand the problem.

/3 Doing it when you don't know why the fence is there and not making at least an effort to learn why it was there is running fast and breaking things. Don't be a tech bro.

/2 doesn't mean that you can never get rid of shit if you can't figure out why it was there in the first place, but it does mean that putting in an honest effort to understand why it's there first, so you can figure out how to make the change you want without the bullshit reoccurring, is WORTH it.

As someone who works in the Byzantine Hellscape that is hospital infrastructure, "The fence is there for a reason that is no longer obvious to anyone, because it currently prevents a lot of bullshit people forgot" is not rare. Quite often, the annoying thing we want gone is there for good reasons.

Sometimes the penis is in the heart. The spiritual heart, that is, since skeletons also don't have the meat hearts.
Also, if animated skeletons are around, I know humanity well enough to know skelestraps are a thing.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of an exploding grandma."

I'm a Dane and I say "Havagoowahn" as a goodbye all the time when I'm speaking English, I don't think your shibboleth is shibbolething.

Honestly such a lovely little telling edit. They've always said "feminism", "Cultural marxism", "affirmative action" "safe spaces" when what they mean is "women", "Jews", "coloured people" and "queer people". Like the dog whistles have always been transparent it's just fun to see it actively happen

In Denmark we have that as a cheerful song, but it's not about a chemist, it's about santa clause. Don't ask me why.

Of course it's Ross Douthat

For the UK, yeah, the depths of UK colonisation and their crimes against Ireland were horrific. It's good that's not how the country is today and hasn't been for generations. The Troubles is a different matter entirely and again comes back to armed conflict.

For the US those are still crimes against a population that you are at war with. That's inherently different than a specific, non-violent journalist from your own country currently living abroad in a nation you are not in conflict with. It's different than how Iran oppresses their own.

Gee, what a surprise, people who wanna summon unholy power for quick personal gain will also make a covenant with fascists for quick personal gain.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, the only defensible reason for demonic summoning is that tentacles are hot and Tinder doesn't cover the aether.

I don't want to wish ill on people, but that man deserves anything that might come his way. Trump, the departure from norms, the lawlessness of the current US administration, the crimes of ICE, the baldfaced unconstitutionality of the Robber's Court, all of these can ultimately by laid at his feet.

Well, there's a bit of a difference between acts of war, heinous as they may be, and literally chopping up critics with an axe. Do you get the gulf there?

Have those countries literally chopped up critical reporters with axes?

Oh shit, did we get elven and mortal healthcare planning mixed up again? Now I can better understand why I got my appointment to the trance apnea clinic in just 6 months.