Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸

🇺🇸 patriot | secular conservative | longtime vegan and soy boy | stoic eudaemonist | antinatalist | runner | skier | retired mountain climber

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

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.)

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

Although it’s not as bad in Democrat-run Colorado, it’s going rapidly in that direction.

[Fox News @FoxNews]

“We don't have to live like this. We don't have to put up with this.”

Steve Hilton rips into the current Democratic leadership over rising costs for Californians, warning voters that crushing living costs and high taxes are a direct result of choices made by those in power.

“We don't have to have the highest housing costs in the country.”

“We don't have to have the highest gas prices in the country.”

“We don't have to have the highest taxes in the country for the worst results. These are all choices. These are choices made by the people in charge.”

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

You’re ignorant. All of the things you mentioned are byproducts of nonvegan activities. They’d be replaced by vegan fertilizers, etc.

Not including the several times more crops that need to be grown to cycle through animals, nonvegans kill about 80 billion land animals and 1 to 2.5 trillion water animals annually who wouldn’t be killed if everyone was vegan.

If you include unintentional crop deaths caused by crops consumed directly by vegans, nonvegans intentionally kill about 726 times more animals. There’s absolutely no comparison. Vegans aren’t perfect, but we’re extremely close to perfect compared with nonvegan depravity.

Now beat it, moron.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

This is a laughably ignorant and disingenuous meme.

First, it’s needlessly breeding, enslaving, or killing sentient beings or paying others to kill that’s the problem. The customer paid the restaurant, which paid others to kill the innocent sentient being. The ultimate customer is the ultimate source of demand for needless killing.

Second, fetuses aren’t sentient at 16 weeks old. I and most vegans oppose abortion after sentience, which occurs at 24 weeks at the earliest. A much better comparison to killing pigs, cows, chickens, goats, or sheep would be killing 3 or 4 year old children.

Third, while it’s certainly better to use birth control or get sterilized, I would much rather be aborted at 16 weeks than be born to a mother who didn’t want to have children. Pre-sentient abortions save millions of miserable lives from occurring.

Fourth, although somewhat trivial, the pink haired, leftist woman is a stereotype of vegans. Stereotypes usually do represent pluralities, but let’s acknowledge that veganism is the abolition of slavery in one’s personal life. It’s a completely different issue that should transcend politics, especially identity politics. That the left embraces veganism more than the right is a credit to the left and a blight on the right.

[N Ecc 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @Neccccy]

True !!!

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

A vegan world would be an incomprehensible improvement to the status quo.

[riⓋer Haoshoku Haki @Haoshoku]

The biggest cause for wildlife suffering is animal agriculture which at the same time is the biggest cause for animal abuse in general.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

I’m naturally attracted to Stoicism by temperament and upbringing. It’s an excellent philosophy of life.

But it’s particularly good for vegans living in a psychopathic speciesist dystopia.

Stoicism promotes self-respect and apatheia (Stoic peace of mind) earned by living with wisdom, courage, justice, and moderation.

This earned self-respect is where we get plenty of meaning and fulfillment. There’s no need to rely on external sources of meaning or happiness. The world can be and is hell; we’re only responsible to the extent that the world is under our control, including whatever control we have over expanding our control consistent with Stoic virtue.

This is one of the reasons that I’ll be vegan as long as I live as a minimum standard of living.

Other than the fact that I’m on autopilot as a vegan (it’s very easy), I would lose all self-respect if I wasn’t vegan.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

This was clearly a tl;dr post. I’ll have to be brief in the future. 🤦🏼‍♂️😂

I guess I could have left out The Gilded Age bit. 🤷🏼‍♂️😆

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

First, let’s unpack the “60% live paycheck to paycheck.” This statistic is according to self-reported surveys and is found across all income levels. That is, individuals and couples who are in very high income households often report "living paycheck to paycheck” and are included in the 60%. Some people just go into debt for mansions and spend money on luxury goods, world travel, etc, instead of saving.

Objective estimates are that around 25% live paycheck to paycheck and many of them are young and haven’t reached near their highest income levels yet. They won't be living paycheck to paycheck 10 years from now according to this objective measure. A younger group will replace them.

Now let’s look at the 7 entrepreneurs. The 7 big tech billionaires CREATED that $1.15 trillion stock value with their employees, many of whom are stockholders who also have high net worths because they helped CREATE that wealth with the founders. They didn’t “take” it from anyone or “hoard” it. They created it because we have an economic system that supports them in their efforts for the good and wealth of society. The wealth creators and job creators are the combination of founders, managers, and employees. They all create wealth and jobs together.

Moreover, Americans in general are heavily invested in the stock of these publicly traded tech companies through employee retirement plans and pension funds.

These companies also pay income and payroll taxes and create jobs for hundreds of thousands of employees who in turn pay income and payroll taxes.

These companies got huge in value because they provide goods and services that people want and make our lives better.

Without the intelligence, dedication, hard work, and risk taking of these 7 entrepreneurs, we’d be poorer as a country and the government would have far less tax revenue. These 7 entrepreneurs deserve our gratitude and appreciation for creating this wealth for so many others, not scorn and envy.

The wealth created by these companies are owned by the founders, employees, and working Americans. Bernie Sanders wants the government to confiscate this wealth from the founders, employees, and working Americans. When Bernie and the left say "the people," they almost always mean the government, not us. "The People's Republic of China" is really "The Government's [or Party's] Republic of China," not the people's.

Americans already own much of the wealth of these tech companies. Don't let Bernie take it from you and give it to the government.

Bernie might be old enough to have lived through The Gilded Age (TGA) in the late 1800s and is still bitter from it. 😂 (Isn't he 150 years old or something? 😅)

But we are NOTHING like TGA. TGA had very long hours, low pay, and no investments in retirement plans. The alternative to working long hours at low pay during TGA was abject poverty. We have a social safety net paid for by the private sector (including the big tech companies), i.e. capitalism.

Finally, what has Bernie Sanders created? Nothing. He has harassed the wealth and job creators and stirred up envy, resentment, and scorn based on ignorance and false narratives. Ignore him.

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

Taxing 50% of AI companies' stock to ensure that AI benefits humanity isn't radical, but let me tell you what is:

Since Trump was elected, the 7 richest men in America, all Big Tech oligarchs, became $1.15 trillion richer while 60% live paycheck to paycheck.

That's radical.

[Daniel Priestley @DanielPriestley]

Under capitalism, socialists are free to build socialism.

Under socialism, capitalists aren’t free to build anything.

Nothing stops a group of socialists pooling their money, forming a company, and splitting every wage and every pound of profit perfectly equally.... Or to donate all profit to the government.

It’s legal. It’s easy. Owning the means of production is as simple as setting up a company.

Marx wrote his manifesto before the invention of limited liability companies. Back then “seize the factory” meant seizing it from the handful of families who could afford one.

That argument expired the day anyone could start a company with limited liability, raise investment and hire who they want.

Socialists are free to lead by example and demonstrate their system works. They can out-recruit, out-motivate, out-build and out innovate based on their ideas if they like. It would prove the philosophy works. Capitalism will happily host their experiment.

The fact that nobody does this tells you a lot.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

To be specific, the immediate cause of America entering the war was the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Nazis declaration of war against America a few days later. The underlying cause of America entering the war was the expansion of the Axis powers. In other words, it looked like the Axis was going to win without America’s involvement.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

This is an example of what happens when the left refuses to enforce laws, put severe addicts in mandatory treatment, and criminals in prison.

Innocents pay the price.

[I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 @ImMeme0]

Dog rescuer says that heartless predators are paying homeless people cash to throw their innocent dogs into savage, blood-soaked fighting rings for profit and entertainment.

This is pure evil. Defenseless dogs are being tortured and killed while current leadership looks the other way.

LA, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

VOTE PRATT.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@electrohaiku You’re the one who needs to learn basic history. You probably never heard of leftist genocides. 🤦🏼‍♂️

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@electrohaiku Stalin, Mao, and today’s leftists would be equally impressed by “gunning down conservatives” today, just like they cheered Brian Thompson’s and Charlie Kirk’s assassinations.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

Hitler said he was inspired by the conquest of the land by the US government. Hitler would have been inspired by the vast majority of worldwide human history before the 1800s in which such conquests were routinely carried out.

The point is that it’s anachronistic to compare behavior in the 1700s to today.

Leftists still haven’t left the old standard of genocide and slavery.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

The commies were saving their own asses from the Nazis. They didn’t care about the Jews. The commies committed their own genocide under Stalin that killed more than the Nazis.

America didn’t have as many casualties, but it really wasn’t America’s war until it looked like the Nazis were going to win.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

No he didn’t. The Nazis used industrial processing logic for efficient mass murder, but didn’t copy anything from America.

Most native American deaths were caused by European viruses and bacteria that the natives hadn’t developed immunity from.

The Trail of Tears was an atrocity that killed many natives, but there was no systematic or intentional genocide. Relationships between European settlers and natives varied from friendly to hostile, typical of historical human tribal interactions of that time and all of previous history.

Slavery and genocide were ubiquitous throughout human history until countries like Britain under classical liberalism started outlawing slavery throughout the world. America fought the deadliest war in our history to end slavery.

America has been a huge force for good in the world in the 20th century.

You can contrast that with the 20th century genocides of the Soviet Union that killed several millions, Maoist China that killed tens of millions, and the Cambodian genocide that killed millions. These were all leftist, anti-liberal regimes.

Leftists and Nazis are both characteristically totalitarian and genocidal.

By contrast, America has been based on freedom and human rights.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@electrohaiku You don’t think there are any anarchists in California who vote occasionally?

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@electrohaiku 😂

That’s ironic since Americans who had more politically conservative views than today’s Americans were essential in defeating the Nazis.

It also makes the word “Nazi” utterly meaningless.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

California voters range from anarchists (which is among the reasons Skid Row looks like it does now) to far right conservatives and almost every possibility in between.

California has historically been dominated by the moderate left, but over the past decade, has become dominated by thirdworldists.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@electrohaiku It’s a Democrat-run city and state that has anarchist policies for Skid Row and other sections of the city. The Republican run federal government has nothing to do with it.

What is your definition of a Nazi?

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@hyenosaurus You’re right that I can’t change you from a stupid, psychopathic troll into an intelligent, morally decent human.

Being vegan is a moral choice with dietary implications, not “a diet.” But I wouldn’t expect someone like you to remember, or even understand that.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

As of today, my wife and I have been thriving as vegans for 23 years.

I found out about “standard industry practices” on the Web, did more research, and decided to become vegan the same day. My wife decided to join me. We thought it’d be very difficult. It turned out to be easy. We can’t imagine living any other way.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

@Samecali4lights Vegans are extremely consistent compared with nonvegans in the developed world today.

I can’t stop you from continuing to be a dumbass.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

You’re wrong about the diet of Neanderthals. They hunted large animals like mammoths. Not that it matters at all today, but they were far from being vegan.

Why are anti-vegans fine with our modern artificial life, supplements, modern medicine, advanced surgery, industrial CAFOs and slaughterhouses, refrigerators, smartphones, motor vehicles, jets, etc, but as soon as it’s time to give our fellow animals a break, they want to go back to the Stone Age?

Beat it, troll.

[Apatheia Ⓥ 🇺🇸 @DanKellyFreedom]

I’ve posted this many times on social media. You’re the first one to ever doubt it. So I suspect that you’re wildly wrong.

If any vegan is okay with post-sentient abortion, they’re inconsistent with the overwhelmingly common vegan assertion that sentience is the morally relevant criterion for personhood.

Of course, in a genuine dilemma, such as when the mother’s life is at risk, I and most vegans are okay with post-sentient abortion to save the mother. But dilemmas are unusual cases.