bennjamin

Those who want to disband the liberal project are the same who reject reason & realism. #IStandWithIsrael

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

Summary of "evil" conservativism. Encouraging a truth-seeking life over being entertained to death.

[Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11]

Get married, have kids, and stop partying into oblivion.

Leave a legacy, be courageous.

Happy Sunday

God Bless all the parents out there

🙏

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@jk_rowling Love your sense of humor. Helps us to survive the madness going on.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

I resist because "I identify as a Hyena". I want it on my passport too, because I really feel that's what I am.

At some point, we cross the line of madness. "Trans" has become an excuse for transforming society into a bunch of people who absolutely agree with whatever a "trans" person comes up with. It won't happen. Let everyone live the way they want - but they aren't getting a free pass for everything they want, where the other's don't.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@BriannaWu There are other views too: Iran has been severely weakened, and they usually don't follow up on promises, like, ever. So the job can still be finished, maybe when the US has its stock of most important missiles in this battle replenished - which takes some time.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@maigak12 @geertwilderspvv Comparing Mohammed (a warlord) with Jesus, or even other prophets (often killed by Roman or other warlords) feels indeed like an insult to many decent people. Comparing him with Solomon and his many wives would make more sense.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@_____Loni_____ @geertwilderspvv The collective ability of believers to take/ absorb insult against their beliefs tells a lot about the qualitive value of their belief system. So far, that does not bode very well for Islam.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@bonniekristian I'm sure they aren't mutually exclusive, but depending on our live experiences, and mental constitution, they may not be equally accessible - while they may still both instigate a longing for a fuller life. Hence the dilemma, or the tension. But thx.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@KemiBadenoch Lucy? That's a very old hominid.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@Musa_alGharbi @demetriastudy @grundrza I thought you were against woke. I was mistaken.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@ZaidJilani @Musa_alGharbi If muslims would have been massively speaking up against Hamas after Oct. 7th the situation might have been different.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal.

If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist.

If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian.

If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I challenge every single person who believes minors should be enabled and even encouraged to transition to read this first person testimony to the end.

1/3

via @IWF https://t.co/3276o4tg8J

[Constance @Constan63413921]

🧵 The U.S. and Iran are negotiating right now. Before anyone celebrates a potential deal, here's what most analysts are missing—-and why the regime's internal architecture makes this moment both more promising and more dangerous than it looks.

1/ For the first time in decades, Iran is at the table from genuine weakness.
Military strikes have degraded IRGC command capacity. Economic pressure has driven imports to near zero. The regime's ability to project strength —-internally and externally—- is more compromised than at any point since 1979.
That matters enormously. But it doesn't mean a deal is stable. It means the next 90 days could determine whether Iran takes a structural turn or whether the machine reconstitutes itself under new cover.

2/ To understand why, you need to understand something most Western negotiators have historically missed: Iran is not a unified government.
Real power flows through two competing internal networks — rival factions inside the same machine:
The Harasti current: Hardline, theocratic, rooted in Herasat — the regime's embedded ideological enforcement apparatus installed inside every university, ministry, bank, and workplace in the country. Deeply entangled with IRGC business empires, patronage networks, and smuggling operations. This faction doesn't want a deal. It survives on permanent siege mentality and economic control.
The Security/Intelligence current: More pragmatic and professionally oriented. Prioritizes state survival over ideological purity. This is the faction that can actually negotiate — and the one that, under enough pressure, wants a way out.
Every Iranian "agreement" in recent history has been shaped by which of these two currents had the upper hand at the moment of signing — and what the other one did afterward.

3/ This is the core problem with any deal signed today.
The pragmatists can come to the table. They can make commitments. They can genuinely mean them.
But Herasat—-the ideological enforcement network embedded in every institution —-does not answer to the negotiating team. It answers to the Supreme Leader and the Harasti faction. It can slow-walk implementation, route sanctions relief into hardline patronage networks, and quietly rebuild what was agreed to be dismantled.
The Soviets signed arms agreements and violated them through parallel structures. Iran has the same architecture, refined over 45 years. A signature is not a structural change.

4/ Here's what makes this moment genuinely different from past negotiation cycles—-and why the pressure has to be understood clearly before anyone relaxes it.
The IRGC is not just a military force. It is the economic engine that keeps Iran's parallel power structure running. It controls import monopolies, construction contracts, energy infrastructure, and the patronage networks that keep institutions and the merchant class financially dependent on the regime.
Military strikes and near-zero imports haven't just hurt ordinary Iranians — they have directly degraded the IRGC's capacity to fund and enforce that dependency. For the first time, the mechanism of control described above is under genuine structural stress.
That is leverage. The question is whether the negotiating framework is designed to use it —-or to relieve it prematurely.

5/ The historical parallel here is important.
The Soviet Union built an identical system: political commissars embedded in every institution, parallel military and intelligence structures, factional balancing at the top. The Communist Party played the Supreme Leader's role.
The Soviets lasted 74 years under that architecture. They didn't collapse from external pressure alone. They collapsed when internal economic failure made the patronage system impossible to sustain —-when the machine could no longer pay for its own loyalty networks.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@HillaryClinton How naive

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@roisinmurphy Yes, these people think the word "cancelling" is an exclusive activity of conservatives. When lefties do it, it's not cancelling but critical justice and justified purification.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@BriannaWu The only Christian country in the West might support the only Jewish country because of their shared heritage of faith in intrinsic equality (all created the same) and faith in (God-given) reason as a tool in the quest for truth.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@andrewjg2014 @BriannaWu You could say the same nonsense in reverse: all Republicans are flocking to Bill Maher. That's not true either - they just see an adversary capable of listening and having a true conversation.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@GadSaad Visit Europe. Another Canada but they express their suicidal empathy (and their antisemitism) in multiple languages.

[bennjamin @bennjmin]

@BarackObama Simplist.

[GB News @GBNEWS]

‘This is an excellent policy and this is what the British public is calling for!’

Historian and broadcaster Rafe Heydel-Mankoo praises Reform UK’s plan to block visa requests from countries demanding reparations for the slave trade.